The first two assumptions are perhaps not shared by the majority of New Testament scholars, but are neither considered to be fringe positions. Today, the common view is that Jesus and His milieu spoke Aramaic, however that Hebrew was spoken and even important is not unique to the Jerusalem School of Synoptic Research. Many more New Testament Scholars worldwide have increasingly affirmed the importance of Jewish culture for the understanding of Jesus. John P. Meier is exemplary of this significant trend when he poignantly criticizes scholarship in the twentieth century that has paid lip service to the 'Jewish Jesus' but has not really fleshed this out, stating that if we do not have a halachic Jesus, we don't have an historical Jesus.