Talk:Jews in the New Testament/Archive

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  • There was a lengthy discussion on religious pluralism and whether Christianity should change itself to be less anti-Semitic, and similar issues. Wikipedia is not a discussion forum, and the discussion distracted attention "from writing articles to writing about articles" (LMS). Two of the participants in the discussion agreed (RK, Wesley), and the talk was first archived, then deleted. We pick up the story with Wesley's "first constructive suggestion"...

...the article should state exactly what it means by anti-semitism. If it refers to the anti-semitism article, it should probably specify that theological anti-semitism is meant, as described in that article. But the definition is crucial enough that I'd rather repeat it here, rather than rely on the cross link. The reason is that if the main anti-semitism article ever gets edited, the change could have unintended ramifications for this article. There should also be a cross link to Christian anti-semitism if there isn't already. That's not all I would want covered, but let's start with just that. --Wesley

This entry does not limit itself to only theological anti-Semitism. It covers any form of anti-Semitism, whether economic, mystical, magical, racial or theological. The same is true of the other anti-Semitism related entries. RK
So in the opening paragraph: "These verses have historically been used to incite violence against Jewish people and are widely viewed by Jews, and by many historians, as anti-Semitic." This should be interpreted to mean that the the verses are viewed as anti-semitic in every sense of the word, including all five of the forms you just listed?? --Wesley
Oh, I see what you mean. I was mistakenly thinking of this entry as a sub-page of "Christian anti-Semitism". It is that specific entry which covered multiple forms of anti-Semitism. This particular sub-page only covers one form, theological anti-Semitism. RK

Although I am not Catholic nor Christian, however i do live in Poland, and i am wondering what RK meant by:

Actually, I don't think that the text of the New Testament would need to be changed at all to achieve this goal. Rather, one only needs to teach about the origin of the NT in its historical context, and to interpret the verses differently than they used to be interpreted. This is already done by the Catholic Church in some countries (but not by all Catholics, especially in Poland), and it is done by a few Protestant Christian denominations. SR discusses this in more detail below. RK

Emphasis is mine. Are you implying that Catholic Church in Poland teaches antisemitism now? Or i just misunderstand you? If so, please say what you mean and what basis you have for what you wrote. Is this just example of something which i saw so many times that i begin to call that Poles-are-milking-antisemitism-with-milk-of-theirs-mothers attitude? (i wish i would remember which Israeli prime minister said that) szopen

Yes, that is what I mean. Some Catholic priests in Poland still teach that Jews are evil, and must be considered as "dangers" to Poland. Some Polish Catholics believe that Jews should be forbidden from serving in the Polish government, and at least one Catholic priest has repeatedly publicly preached this. (Well, I know of one, and I haven't bveen looking for quotes. There probably are quite a few.) There was the incident where Catholic priests and nuns publicly accused American Jews of attempting to murder Christians, when in fact these pacifist Jews were peacefully protesting the use of Auschwitz as a Christian religious site. (The only violence, in fact, was when the same nuns incited Polish Catholic workers to beat up the peacefully protesting Jews. This disturbing event was reported in US newspapers, and I met one of the victims.) I have some specific material on this topic which I will be adding. Sadly, what many Americans consider beyond the pale, is considered acceptable by more than a few people in Poland today. RK
You do realise that "some Catholic priests teaches" (which BTW were condemned, as Jankowski, by bishops) is quite different from "Catholic church teaches" ? Official teaching of Catholic Church in Poland isn't antisemitic, and individual priests who say something do not constitute official opinion of Catholic Church (although bishops and archbishops by my opinion are far too tolerant for those priests who are antisemitic, since condemning them from time to time is not enough). About use of Auschwitz as religious site, i would like to point out that Jewish protests in Poland were totally non-understandable (i mean, i understand them, and i agree that Auschwitz shouldn't have religious marks, and many other Poles understand them too, but:), since praying for souls of dying people is good deed, one can say that it is one of duties of catholic to try to save souls of dead by praying for them, and putting crosses in places where people died (e.g. in car accidents, if you ever was in Poland and wonder why there are small crosses with candles near roads you know now) is also way of giving peace to souls of dead. Since also Catholics, and in great number, died in Auschwitz, including many nuns, monkms and priests, for many simple people (and i know such people) someone who is trying to forbide praying for them and putting cross for them is, hm, i don't know how to explain that, is behaving hostile not peacefuly. They just can't understand why anyone could be abused because of cross (which they consider symbol of love, forgiveness, presence of God, ethic), or because of prayer. They instead think that someone is trying (again, like communists before) to oppress Catholicism. This is cultural thing you know. You can't change it with protests, no matter how peacefull, only by education and explanations. Another thing is people living in places like Auschwitz are quite touchy, since they feel like everyone is trying to forbade them normal living, so they overreact everytime they see anyone protesting against anything related to Church or Auschwitz. I am also sure that percentage of antisemites in Poland and in US isn't so different (depends however how you define antisemitism - is common saying "let's love like brother, but let's count as Jews" antisemitic? Or saying "drinking Jewish way" (without glasses) - i guess no, since Polish Jokes in America and USA isn't called antipolonism, neither people who are laugh at that jokes are called Anti-Poles)
Again, I don't like phrase "especially in Poland", because it implies that somehow Poland is totally different from Ukraine, Czech, Slovakia, Germany, or USA.

szopen

Well, I've made the first tentative edit, trying to fairly incorporate some of our recent discussion. I'm not completely happy with the current form, but it doesn't pay to change too much at once. Concerning this sentence:

While their Jewish background makes it unlikely that they were racist in the modern sense of that word, their background does not make it any less likely that they may have displayed religious or theological prejudice against Jews who remained followers of Judaism rather than become Christians.

Is my use of the word "Judaism" anachronistic? As I understand it, Jews were just making the transition from Israelite monotheism to something that resembles modern Judaism, and I'm not sure how best to describe the religion in that context. Other correctives will be welcome too, of course. --Wesley

This sounds right. Historians speak of these people at these times as Jews practiving Judaism. The rabbinic/pharisaic Judaism that was canonized in the Mishnah (about 200 CE) is a compilation of teachings from about 200 years before the time of Jesus to about 150 years after. RK

I changed "A few Christians still hold the classical Christian understanding of these verses." back to "Many Christians still hold..." The "classical Christian understanding" of these verses is still maintained in Eastern Orthodoxy, and I would suspect in Roman Catholicism. In Protestantism, it's sure to be a mixed bag. Those first two groups comprise the two largest groups of Christians today, which surely is still sufficient to justify using the word "Many". I would be glad to hear any reasons to the contrary. Wesley

I changed this sentence:

It should also be noted that Jesus' disciples, Paul, and the first Christians were Jews and that the New Testament was written by Jews, although by the time that most of the Christian Bible was being written, they had turned away from the Jewish community and were looking to Gentiles as potential converts.

by deleting the phrase "...had turned away from the Jewish community and..." It would be my opinion, based on the New Testament and other early Christian writings, that the apostles did not turn away from the Jewish community as such, but rather found it prudent to hide from them. Rather than state both sides of the claim, it seemed simpler to just delete the phrase, as the sentence is smoother this way. I didn't intend to drastically changed the thrust of the sentence.

Hi Welsey, I think I wrote, ar at least at some point modified, the sentence in question. My intent was simply to communicate that there was a shift in their energies, from seeking to convert Jews to seeking to convert gentiles. I think the fact that they started expending less energy in attempts to speak to Jews is important. WHY this ocurred is as you say a separate issue -- one that certainly belongs in some article, but as you suggest perhaps not here. Do you think that you can come up with an acceptable way to phrase this in the article? Rather than revert, I would be content if you could come up with something that makes the point in a form congenial to you, Slrubenstein
I agree that in the context of this article, the focus should be on WHAT was happening rather than on WHY, since this paragraph is attempting to give an historical context for the passages that follow. I'm not sure how well I've succeeded at doing that. Certainly there was a time when attention shifted to gentiles, for a variety of reasons. It doesn't necessarily follow that Jews were entirely ignored. I think that most biblical scholars would agree that the Gospel of Matthew and the Epistle to the Hebrews were written primarily with a Jewish audience in mind, if not other New Testament books as well. Such a shift did not happen in a single year, nor was the New Testament was written in a single year. It's been a while since I looked at dating the books, but it seems there was enough variation in possible dates for many of them, that being certain of their exact sequence of authorship is unlikely.
RK and I have both edited the main page since I made the above change to this Talk page; I'm not sure the present form is best, even though I think I last edited it. It does strike me as significant that during close to the same time frame that Christians were growing more distinct from Judaism, Judaism itself was changing from Temple focused to synagogue focused and making related changes, so that by 150 C.E. or so, both had changed considerably from what Judaism was in 50 B.C. or so. I'm not sure whether I should have introduced that here, or whether it belongs elsewhere. Wesley
Well, I think that both of you have done a pretty good job; I really don't mean to be too picky. I think your point that Judaism too was changing during that period is an excellent point. Nevertheless, most of the versus critical of "Jews" in the NT are -- as some have pointed out, more precisely critical of "Pharisees." But the point, is, the major change to which you allude was the "Phariseization" of Judaism, that the Judaism that emerged in say 150 was primarily different from the Judaism of 50 in that the Pharisees, once one faction of Jews among several, emerged as the definers of normative Judaism.
As for changes among Christians, I still take issue with this sentence,
At this time Christians were looking to both gentiles and Jews as potential converts.

NOT because it is wrong, but because I think it is just a little to general. As far as I know, Christians have ALWAYS sought to convert Jews, even long after the completion of the NT. My point is not that they stoipped doing so, but: 1) that at a certain point they began exerting relatively more energy pursuing gentile converts, and 2) that this shift had an effect on the way Christianity was represented, including an effect on at least some of the NT.

I am not sure how to express this in a consise and proportionate way, and in a way that is consistent with the wurrent article; the last thing I want to do is screw up what you have already accomplished. So if what I just wrote makes sense and seems fair to you, I would be happy to leave it to you to make any appropriate changes. Slrubenstein

I appreciate your comments, Slrubenstein, and I've done my best to incorporate them. I hope they reflect your intent. I also added a 'historical context' heading to the paragraph to hopefully guide any future editors, at least as to the paragraph's topic.

Regarding the Pharisees, it appears to me that the Pharisees are more heavily targeted in the Gospel parables, but the Sadducees are also "criticised", especially around the time of Jesus' trial and in the Book of Acts. In addition to the Pharisees becoming the dominant sect, I don't think that's all that was happening. They also had to replace the emphasis on Temple sacrifices with regular prayer and righteous behaviour, and I think the Masorete's reform began... in the second century? I'm speaking here of the effort to consolidate the various Hebrew texts of the Tanach, add the vowel points and incorporate more discipline among the scribes to avoid copying mistakes. Could be wrong about that one though. Wesley


Forgot to explain why I deleted the Samaritan bit. Basically, the Good Samaritan story isn't primarily about the fact that the good guy was a Samaritan, but about loving your neighbor and defining even bitter enemies (a Jew and a Samaritan) to be neighbors. In John 4, Jesus tells the Samaritan woman that soon, it won't be important to worship on their mountain, which was at least one defining distinction of Samaritanism. I'm sure some could construe such a statement as being "anti-Samaritan", although the woman he was talking to did not appear to be offended. Wesley


I cut this phrase (following the mention of Christians seeking converts among gentiles)

, especially amongst pagans

for a few reasons. What does "pagan" mean? Today, it means something specific; there are people who self-identify as neo-pagans. But to project back in time a group that identified themselves a "pagans" is inachronistic. Before the rise of a group self-identifying as pagans, the word pagan was used derisively to refer to anyone not belonging to a particular religion. So I object in part because for many this is imply an insulting term. Moreover, I think it is redundant. From a Jewish point of view, the term pagan is meaningless; gentiles (goyim) have by definition a religion other than Judaism. So what? From a Christian point of view, I think one can make the same point -- obviously, before people are converted to Christianity, they are non-Christians. So what? I do not see what is gained by adding this phrase. Slrubenstein

Regarding this recently added statement:

The handful of Jews who had believed in Jesus' significance were wiped out during the Roman destruction of the Jewish state.

This seems highly unlikely, since Jewish converts to Christianity were also to be found in Alexandria, throughout Asia Minor, and perhaps even further West. Also, there continued to be a Patriarch of Jerusalem for some time, which church probably included Jewish converts. Any contrary evidence or reasoning?

Err... sorry, problems in phrasing. What I meant to say was that the community of Jews in Palestine that believed in Jesus was -scattered-, not eradicated, and ceased to exist as a community. This seems reasonable enough, no? Graft
Well, that at least sounds more plausible, although I don't know nearly enough about the history of the church in Jerusalem to say whether it's accurate. One or two of Paul's epistles talk about raising funds to help the Christians in Jerusalem; I'm sure it would be interesting to see if those are dated before or after the Temple's destruction, though I suspect there are suggested dates both before and after. Any suggested reading so I can better educate myself? Thanks, Wesley
Removed the statement, as it was plain wrong as stated, and doubtful that they left Jerusalem entirely as there continued to be a church there for some time. Wesley 07:55 Aug 21, 2002 (PDT)
In the later history of the Church, to ingratiate itself with the Roman empire undoubtedbly also played a role in reshaping the role of Jews in the New Testament.

Is this a suggestion that books of the New Testament were first written one way, and later rewritten to make Jews look worse? Any textual evidence? Seems unlikely; the Romans' chief complaint regarding the Christians was that they refused to sacrifice to the Roman gods (which is why the Romans called them "atheists"), and were rapidly gaining converts. Jews also refused such sacrifices, of course, but were not expanding the way Christians were. Wesley

Removed as unsupported. At best, this is a controversial claim. Wesley 07:55 Aug 21, 2002 (PDT)

Wesley, I agree it is a weak claim. But other historians have made a similar but more sophisticated claim and although it may be controversial (and would be rejected out of hand by fundamentalists) I think it needs to be in the article. The claim goes something like this: the later books of the Gospel were written in a way that cast an interpretation of Jesus' life (and a selective account) that would be less threatening to the Roman authorities, and more congenial to Gentiles.

Obviously the Gospels provide selective accounts of Jesus' life -- they are short books and surely Jesus did and said much that is not in the Gospels, and people around Jesus said and did much that is not in the Gospels. Also, some of the books were written by Gentiles and for, I believe, a Gentile audience, some time after the events they describe. I would not be surprised if some things Jesus said or did, or that Pharisees said or did, that were clear in meaning to Jewish contemporaries were not quite as clear -- so I find this claim quite plausible... Slrubenstein

My biggest objections to the sentence were the use of the words undoubtedly, and reshaping. The latter suggested that either the Gospel writers deliberately lied about history, or that the Gospels were first written in a way favorable to the Jews and unfavorable to the Romans, and then later massively rewritten to give the reverse effect. Making the claim in the more sophisticated version you gave, and describing it as just that, a claim or historical speculation, would be fine. I agree that the Gospel accounts are very selective. Near the end of John it explicitly says he (John) only recorded a fraction of the things Jesus said and did. It still seems implausible that they were trying to appease Roman authorities though; if they were, the attempt failed miserably. That's just my own opinion, but I'm sure the early Christians would say the Gospels were written to convey theology and history, not to avoid persecution, and can find support for that if you like. Wesley 12:23 Aug 21, 2002 (PDT)

I will put what I wrote in the article -- but I appreciate your sensitivies both about the language and scope of the claims, so I hope you will edit what I put in appropriately, Slrubenstein

SR -- well written. I just changed "books of the Gospel" to "Gospels", since each book is a separate Gospel, e.g., "the Gospel according to St. Matthew", "the Gospel according to St. Mark", etc.
On a separate note, I wonder whether it's true that most theological critiques of Christianity came from the Jews early on, as it says a paragraph below your changes. Irenaeus gave a considerable systematic listing and description of various heresies in Against Heresies; that would probably be as good a source as any to verify this, would it not? Wesley 13:40 Aug 21, 2002 (PDT)
I am glad you liked it; your change is obvious, I do not know what I was thinking. As for theological critiques of Christianity, I just do not know (I do not know enough of the literature). Personally, I am not sure if I would even characterize the Jewish response as a critique. I am sure that back in the years 40, 50, 80, 100, there were some great dinner-table arguments and some perhaps sophisticated critiques, but I do not think we have any record of them. Personally, I would characterize the collective and traditional Jewish response to be more in the line of "Huh?" or "No Way!" than anything more sophisticated -- at least, until the Enlightenment or even 20th century when it became both safe, and perhaps even necessary for some Jewish thinkers (maybe Franz Rosenzweig) to start talking about what they did/didn't like about Christianity. I am sure that there are Roman critiques of Christianity (did Tertulian write stuff on iintolerance? I am not sure, I am no scholar on Roman history but I have a vague memory of an historian telling me about this). Of course, these critiques are relatively late, I think only after Christianity had really spread around the empire. Slrubenstein

I have rewr-tten the end of the section in question (most theological critiques of Christianity came from the Jews) -- I think it was unclear and I THINK I figured it out -- but if my interpretation was right there were two things wrong with it. First, the point is not that Jews proposed ANY critique of Christianity. The point is that Jews, just be "being Jewish" (praying "Our God and God of our fathers" emphasis on OUR; reading the Scripture and, despite all the prohecies Christians see there, just goiing on to obey Rabbinic law while ignoring Jesus, is at least for some Christians inherantly a rejection, an attack, a critique. It isn't that Jews are articulating any critique; merely by not being Christian they are a living critique. Does this make sense? Second, the article had something about Jews being closest to Christianity which not only rubs me the wrong way since Jews were here first (no offense), I think it misses the point. It is not that Judaism is close to Christianity. It is that Christians bases the legitimacy of the New Testament largely on a reading of the Scriptures that are sacred to Jews.

I think I hear what you're saying. I certainly agree that the bit about Jews being closes to Christianity was a bit odd; no doubt that Jews were 'here first'. Christians certainly base their legitimacy on what they call the Old Testament, and early on made that claim even to Greeks and Romans. This was not because the Romans had any special respect for the OT, but in order to show that their faith had ancient foundations and was not a "modern" invention.
Jews did present a threat to Christianity just by continuing to be Jews, as you say. However, I think that Jews were also threatened by Christianity, if only because Jews were converting, especially in the early decades. And, I think they may have been threatened by the alternative interpretations of their own scriptures. I haven't researched this enough to write anything up formally, but some sources seem to suggest that prior to Christianity, the Septuagint's translation was widely regarded as inspired, as well as the original Hebrew prophets. Even Josephus reports the story of the 70 independent translations being found identical. But when Christians used it to prove that Jesus was the messiah, Jews abandoned it, and attempted three other translations from Hebrew to Greek before abandoning Greek in favor of Hebrew and Syrian translations. Debates concerning passages like Isaiah 7:14 ("virgin" vs. "young woman") have been going on since at least the second century, and don't appear to have changed much in all this time.
After skimming Against Heresies, I found that Jews were addressed only very briefly; Irenaeus spent the vast majority of that work addressing variations of gnosticism and mystery religions. When he did address Jews, he recounted the story of the Septuagint's inspired translation and relied on that for his authority. Justin Martyr wrote an entire book, Dialogue with Trypho, consisting of a friendly debate with Trypho, a Jew. In it, he addresses at length the question of whether Jesus is the Messiah, why gentiles are included, why Christians don't obey the Mosaic law, and similar subjects. It ends with Justin and Trypho parting on friendly terms, with neither having been persuaded to the other's viewpoint. At the very least, this does confirm that these were questions Justin found to be worth addressing, which supports what you said. Wesley 09:50 Aug 22, 2002 (PDT)

I think that here we somehow get to the crux of the issue, one that was discussed on these pages many months ago (or perhaps on another page) -- how Jews can consider Christians anti-semetic even when Christians do not intend to be or even think they are in any way.

Yep. Here we are again. Wesley

i hope other participants will read over the changes I made, as well as my explanation here, carefully, and help ensure that the article deals with these issues clearly while maintaining NPOV, thanks Slrubenstein

Well (to respond to Wesley's recent responses), I am sure that there were moments when Jews were seriously threatened by Christianity. The questions are, how did they perceive this threat, and for how long? Frankly, I suspect that it wasn't very long at all. Also,I suspect that Jews felt threatened by other things besides the competing interpretation. In the very early years, Jewish converts to Christianity may not have been thought of as "lost" to the Jewish community. The crux of the matter is, at what point did Christians start preaching more to Gentiles than to Jews? At this point (and I think it happened fairly soon), Jews would not be threatened by the competing interpretation of scriptures or the possibility of "losing" Jews. I do think that they felt politically threatened in front of the Roman authorities (by people prophesizing that a Jewish King would return and bring a new kingdom, i.e. risking more accusations of sedition by Roman authorities who did not fully understand the split between Jews and Christians or Christian theology). In any event, perhaps some of what I have written here belongs in the article, but I would rather let other people (e.g. Wesley) make that decision, Slrubenstein

Justin Martyr lived from 110 to 165, so at least as late as mid-second century, he and probably other Christians were still concerned with converting Jews or answering accusations from Jews, or both, however you want to interpret the motivations behind Dialogue with Trypho. The end of the threat to the Jews would come when they were no longer targeted for evangelization, not when others were targeted more. As for Romans confusing Christians and Jews, is there any real evidence of this? Weren't the Jews targeted because there were real Zealots among them who were really trying to break free of Roman rule? Or any records of Christians being accused of political sedition, aside from not sacrificing to Roman gods? I probably need to leave this subject for a while and come back when I can focus on actually improving the article, instead of debating these minutiae. Wesley
okay, but I honestly am not trying to debate anything. I still consider 110-165 relatively early; nevertheless, the question is not whether Christians stopped trying to convert Jews; the question is at what point did they begin to spend more time proselytizing among Gentiles, and meeting with more success. As for Romans confusing Jews and Christians, I am referring to that early period (even during the life of Paul) when Christians Jews may have preached in synagogues. Of course the Romans had their hands full with Jewish zealots. The question is, were early Christians also rebels? I think the answer is no -- but I also think that claims that Jesus was the messiah (king of the jews), would come back and bring about the kingdom could easily have been misunderstood as a new kind of zealotry. This would explain why the pharisees (like Saul/Paul) persecuted Christians. This is not my argument, it is Paula Fredriksen's. I am sorry you do not think any of this could help improve the article; that was my only intention Slrubenstein