Jewish rabbi and New Testament specialist Michael Cook offers an intriguing example of modern Jewish apologetics on the claims of Christianity:
"The New Testament has been the greatest single external determinant of Jewish history, and a deleterious one to say the least. It has caused Jews grievous problems and even innumerable deaths, not to mention generating antisemitism and anti-Jewish stereotyping. Today, it remains the cause of societal pressures during Christian holy day seasons and a source of confusion for Jews targeted by Christian missionaries and millennialists.
"Engaging the New Testament, therefore, can be both therapeutic and empowering for Jews. At the same time, a willingness by Jews to tackle Christian texts may help enlighten Christians about the role the New Testament has played in violating some of their own values. Jews who are able to articulate to Christians the Gospels’ evolution from a Jewish perspective may be in a better position to curb the reckless abandon with which New Testament texts are often so cavalierly cited, bandied about and misconstrued in modern society."
(Nod to Religion & Society for the link.)
I have posted this article not because I intend to interact with it on an apologetics level — that exercise would require far more space than the blogging medium allows
— but because I want to highlight a renaissance in modern Jewish apologetics, which I think can only be positive for Christian/Jewish interreligious dialogue. If such dialogue is to be more than self-affirming chitchat, then both partners in the discussion need to engage in apologetics, which is to say that they need to offer each other with mutual charity and respect the reasons for their hope (1 Pet. 3:15).
For another recent example of Jewish apologetics, see David Klinghoffer’s Why the Jews Rejected Jesus.
GET THE REVIEW. (Scroll to the second review.)
The only thing Michael Cook seems to know about the real true genuine historical™ Jesus is that he absolutely most positively cannot be the Jesus of the Gospels.
The Jews have been persecuted so long I get the impression they generally think they are incapable of religious intollerence or anything like that, or if they do it it is somehow justified because of history.
A Jewish Rabbi/Israeli diplomate recently told this story in a talk I attended. A Franciscan friar of his acquantance was on a bus in Israel and sat next to a teenaged Israeli boy. He asked the boy what he knew about Christianity, and the boy responded “three things: expulsion, inquisition, and Holocaust.”
I’m sure no Jews in this country are that ignorent, but it shows how bad it is in Israel. The Rabbi gave it as an example of the situation, which he thought was horrible, but at the same time he said most of his fellow Orthodox Rabbis disapproved of his favorable attitude towards Christianity, and Catholicicm in particular.
Another story, a couple years ago I was with a college group carrying a big cross around campus doing the stations of the Cross on Good Friday. A Jew (he was wearing a yarmulke) saw us and honestly looked petrified, but waved in a sort of shy uncertain way and smiled.
A final story, from an episode of The Journey Home on EWTN I saw a long time ago. I Jew converted to Christianity and became a minsiter of some sort. When he got up in front of a congregation for the first time, he had a sudden attack of fear that they were all going to rush up and lynch him for being a Jew. And he had been a Christian for years by this point!
These may all be extreme examples, but my point is that a long hard history, the nature of Judaism, attidudes past down by parents, and who knows what else has led to a very strange and unfortunate situation with Jews and their perception of Christians.
+J.M.J+
I think we saw an example of one Jewish perception of Christianity in the recent controversy over The Passion of the Christ.
Despite four decades of interreligious dialogue, despite the very philosemitic attitude of many Christians in the US (particularly among Evangelicals), a certain segment of Jews apparently still fears that we Christians are all seething anti-Semites hiding behind a veneer of politeness. That a film about Jesus’ Passion would rip off our mask and we’d all march straight from the movie theater to the nearest synagogue, lighting torches along the way. (Wonder what they thought when nothing even remotely like that happened…?)
It’s sad to see that such mistrust still exists, but I guess a few decades of dialogue can’t make up for centuries of bad memories.
In Jesu et Maria,
Can you blame them? Its not been all to long since the holocaust. Many of us younger Americans still talk of WWII like it was yesterday. There you had a bunch of anti-semites(and anti-Catholics), Christians to afraid to stand up for human rights, some people who claimed to be Christian who perpetrated horrendous crimes, and a nation that at least intially propagandized a Christian veneer. Look what they did? Here in the US its been nearly 80 years since blatant public persecution of Catholics but look how cautious we still are! Oh, I’m willing to bet they catch a lot more anti-semetic flack than we Catholics get anti-Catholic insults and jokes. If you’re a lukewarm Catholic who doesn’t care most people will move on, but if you’re even culturally jewish people will still mess with you.
I think it’s important that we not get caught up in some sort of blame game. There are past misdeeds of Christians, and there also past misdeeds of Jews. Current responses may be in part because of past history, but they are also because of the demagoguery of organizations like the Anti-Defamation League, who have a vested interest in keeping the specter of Christian anti-semitism around as long as possible. This when Christian anti-semitism is at an all-time low, and Islam is increasingly anti-semitic.
Many Jews I knew have had inclinations towards Catholicism. Should we find this surprising, since God is constantly showering graces on his chosen people to turn them towards the light of Christ? Yet many people are still blind. Certainly responsibility rests with sins of history, but modern Jews have just as much an obligation to the truth as Protestants or Catholics. And since there is one truth, one faith, and one baptism, we can’t lay the blame on Christianity alone.
+J.M.J+
>>>Can you blame them?
No, I don’t really blame them. Like I said, we are dealing with centuries of bad blood. Still, it is a bit painful to have people suspect and misjudge you based on the actions of others long before you were born. Just because Passion plays sparked riots during the Middle Ages doesn’t mean the same will happen today.
In Jesu et Maria.
Well, the article was very interesting but the folks the good professor should be “apologetisizing” about and to would be the Jewish people themselves and their own religion. I have a Jewish friend and we discuss Judaism/Jews often and I have gotten interested in it from reading about current and historical perspectives. I have learned that today the Jews are a very “diverse” group. They range from atheists to the most orthodox-obey-the-Levitical-law-group possible and everything in between. And it makes it even more crazy in that they are also a race/group besides a religion. In other words a Jew is a Jew even though he does not even believe in God at all. And a Jew is a Jew if he is an extremely orthodox Rabbi.
But in speaking with this friend, we have discussed what the Protestant denominations have done in fallling away from the Catholic Church and he has told me of the various groups of Jews and we both have come to the conclusion that the modern day Jews are no different in their variability of beliefs than the Protestants. He agrees with it totally. He also states that he is somewhat understanding of why Catholicism has withstood the test of time in that we have a structure, an organized Church. I tell him that some Protestants do also but that ours came out of Judaism and is the true Church and that God has his hand on Catholicism thru the Holy Spirit since His Son started it. Of course he just shakes his head in disbelief but he can’t argue with success.
One thing I noticed the professor was saying is that the Jews really don’t know what the NT even says and I will agree with him in that. But he seems to not understand that the reason they don’t is that the Rabbi’s don’t want their congregants to start reading it in case they will choose to convert. And that is a real fear he should have as from what my friend says, the modern Jews already believe in many Christian ideas including the concept of heaven and hell. And history has shown conversions to be a very real option especially when one considers the fact that it is estimated that when Christ died the Jewish population was approx. 4 million and after the Jewish dispersion and persecutions of both Christians and jews by the Romans, by the time the persecutions ended in the mid 300’s the estimated Jewish population was at only about 1 million and the Christian population had mushroomed tremendously to as I recall, about 6 million. I hope I have recalled thos figures correctly. I saw them just the other day but don’t remember where so can’t give you a cite for them but you get the idea.
In talking to my friend it’s funny that he has the idea that Christian missionaries are a cheap way to gain souls for the faith. I look at him and ask why and he states that the Jews would never think of trying to get people to convert to their faith. That that is not what their religion is about. I tried to explain to him that one of Christ’s commands was to go out and preach to the world and bring them to Christ. I asked him what the Jews feel happens to non Jews when they die and whether he feels it is his responsiblity to bring them to know God for salvation. He just comes back and says that’s not what Jews believe and so it doesn’t make any difference whether they are Jews or not.
I agree with both Jimmy and the professor that it would be a good idea for the Jews to learn the NT and try to understand it but I feel that in reality what might end up happening is that Christianity would gain a whole bunch of new converts, not end up necessarily being the bridge to peace between the two religions the professor seems to be looking for.
But I could be wrong on that last statement but I feel that many of the Jews of today are ripe for the Church.
The Jews are a very interesting group and I enjoy talking to my friend. I onece called up Fr. Mitch Pacwa on his Wed. EWTN radio sow and asked him what he knwo of Jeswish salvation teaching. He smiled and said that a rabbi once told him you could get 3 Jews together to discuss a belief and come out with 4 or more different ideas. They are interesting but don’t ever try to get your arms around them as a whole. I’ve found it ain’t possible.
Before Jewish people read the N.T., they really need to read the O.T. They only hear selected passages at synagogue, and since most of them are once or twice a year attendees, that amounts to very little.
I once worked with one Jewish woman who asked me if I knew why Moses couldn’t enter the promised land.
Most Jewish people I know, only go to Synagogue during the High Holy Days. Their only exposure to Scripture is what is read on Rosh Hoshanah, and Yom Kippur.
Whit,
It doesn’t look to me like Cook it trying to promote mutual understanding and harmony through Jews reading the New Testiment. He sounds like he is talking about Jews learning the New Testiment and Jewish propaganda (I can’t think of a nicer word or else I would use it) about it to discredit it before Christians, thus helping eliminate a text they believe to be the cause of much anti-Semitism. Very sad. Like I said, it seems like many Jews believe themselves incapable of religious intollerance or that it is ok for them to engage in it because of history.
Or am I misinterpreting the Rabbi? Some of his statements, like the last sentence, could be interpreted in different ways.
Or am I misinterpreting the Rabbi? Some of his statements, like the last sentence, could be interpreted in different ways. Michelle definitely seems to think it is something positive.