Love Thy Stranger?
Two Recent Books Complicate the Story
by David Ourisman, Ph.D.
Last week, I attended Bart Ehrman’s book event here in Asheville. His new book, Love Thy Stranger, makes a compelling case that Jesus introduced a revolutionary ethical obligation – loving not just neighbors or friends, but even strangers and enemies – that fundamentally reshaped Western moral consciousness. It’s a fascinating thesis, tracing how this radical teaching struggled to take root in the Greco-Roman world, where generosity was reserved for one’s own circle.
During the Q&A, I asked about something I’d noticed in the gospels. The synoptic gospels, written in Jewish contexts, keep pushing the boundaries of love outward. Mark’s Jesus teaches “love your neighbor.” Luke’s Jesus redefines neighbor to include the ethnic other – the Good Samaritan. Matthew’s Jesus goes even further: “love your enemies.” But John’s gospel, written to a Hellenistic church, seems to pull back: “Love one another,” “Lay down your life for your friends.” Does that suggest Jesus’ radical ethic had a harder time taking root in the Greek world?
Bart appreciated the question, and we had a good conversation afterward. Turns out we both studied with Bruce Metzger at Princeton Seminary, five years apart. I gave him a copy of my book, One Life, Four Stories, and I’m curious what he’ll think.
But his book left me wrestling with a deeper question: one that gets even more interesting when you read Ehrman alongside Shai Held’s 2024 book, Judaism is About Love. Where did this ethic of loving strangers actually come from? Was Jesus the first to teach it, or was he building on something already present in Judaism?
The Jewish Roots Run Deep
Jesus was a first-century Jew, and he didn’t emerge in a theological vacuum. Hillel the Elder, one of the most influential rabbis of the generation before Jesus, famously summarized the entire Torah this way: “What is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor. That is the whole Torah; the rest is commentary.” When Jesus extends love outward to strangers and enemies, he’s working within – and radicalizing – an existing conversation.
But here’s where it gets really interesting. Shai Held’s book includes a chapter called “Loving the Stranger” that traces a remarkable progression right in the Hebrew Bible itself. Look at these three passages:
Exodus 23:9: “You shall not oppress a stranger, for you know the feelings of the stranger, having yourselves been strangers in the land of Egypt.”
Leviticus 19:33-34: “The stranger who resides with you shall be to you as one of your native-born; you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.”
Deuteronomy 10:17-19: “God… upholds the cause of the fatherless and the widow, and loves the stranger, providing him with food and clothing. You too must love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.”
As Held points out, “Exodus teaches us the baseline requirement: not to oppress the stranger. Leviticus magnifies the demand: not only must we not oppress the stranger, we must actively love him. And Deuteronomy raises the stakes even higher: loving the stranger is a crucial form of ‘walking in God’s ways’” (181-182).
This is Torah – the foundational text of Judaism – already pushing love outward beyond ethnic and tribal boundaries. The command is right there, explicit and escalating.
So Was Jesus Revolutionary or Not?
Here’s where it gets complicated, in a good way.
I accept Ehrman’s premise that Jesus was the vehicle through which “love the stranger” transformed Western civilization. The historical impact is undeniable. But three questions remain:
First, was Jesus the original source of this teaching? The Torah passages suggest the germ of the idea was already present in Judaism’s sacred texts.
Second, was Jesus building on an emphasis already present in first-century Judaism? We know rabbis like Hillel were pushing toward more inclusive interpretations. Was Jesus part of a broader movement, or uniquely radical?
Third, were there other voices in Jesus’ time saying similar things? We know so little about most first-century Jewish teachers. Jesus may have been the most effective, or the one whose movement survived, but was he alone?
The evidence suggests Jesus wasn’t inventing something from nothing. He was taking what was already in Torah and Jewish ethical thought and pushing it further. That’s revolutionary—not because the idea was new, but because Jesus insisted it wasn’t optional. This was a core feature of God’s kingdom breaking into the world.
And even within early Christianity, this ethic struggled. John’s gospel, written to a Greek-speaking church, pulls back toward “love one another”—bounded love, not love for strangers. The cultural gravity of the Greco-Roman world was strong enough to reshape even Jesus’ teaching.
Another Piece: Forgiveness Without Sacrifice
Ehrman also notes that Jesus moved away from temple sacrifice toward forgiveness based on repentance. Ironically, the church later circled back to atonement theology –Jesus’ own sacrificial death.
There’s a Jewish dimension here worth noting. In Mark’s story of the paralytic (2:1-12), religious leaders object when Jesus forgives sins: “Who can forgive sins but God alone?” But in rabbinic tradition, it’s the human’s prerogative to forgive sins committed against them. God forgives sins against God; humans forgive sins against humans.
Matthew’s Jesus makes this explicit (5:23-24): If you’re at the temple about to offer a sacrifice and remember someone has something against you, go be reconciled first. Then offer your sacrifice.
Reconciliation comes first. Jesus isn’t inventing new theology. He’s insisting on what Jewish tradition already taught.
What This Means
Love Thy Stranger is an important book, and Ehrman’s thesis is both compelling and urgent for our time. But the story is richer when we acknowledge the deep Jewish roots of what we call “Christian” ethics.
Jesus wasn’t a lone genius who invented universal love. He was a Jewish rabbi amplifying what was best in his tradition and pushing it toward its most radical expression. The revolution wasn’t that he had the idea – it was that he made it unavoidable, central, and urgent.
That’s the conversation these two books invite us into. Not whether Jesus was important, but how he was important. Not whether his teaching transformed the world, but where it came from and why it proved so hard to sustain.
Those are questions I hope One Life, Four Stories helps readers explore – particularly readers interested in progressive Christianity and accessible biblical scholarship. Reading each gospel through narrative criticism as a distinct response to crisis, shaped by context, wrestling with what it means to follow Jesus in a world that resists the radical demands of love.