Christians have always hated and persecuted the Jewish people
Christians have always hated and persecuted the Jewish people
It is true that many false followers of Jesus have hated and persecuted the Jewish people and that many true followers of Jesus have been stained with an ugly anti-Semitic spirit, thereby making a mockery of the very faith they profess. This is tragic and reprehensible. But there is far more to the story than you know.
Multitudes of true followers of Jesus—in our day and throughout history—have loved, helped, and defended the Jewish people, thereby demonstrating the reality of the faith they profess. Also, there is a history of Jewish hatred of Jesus and his followers, including some violent persecution too. Many of the problems that arose were political more than religious. Consequently, things are not as simple as you might imagine.
Rather than you rehearsing the horrible history of “Christian” anti-Semitism with me, how about if I rehearse it with you?
Shall I recount the harsh rhetoric of the Adversos Judaeos literature written by prominent church leaders in the second to sixth centuries? Rabbi Dan Cohn-Sherbok notes that “according to these writers, just as Jews were guilty in the past of indecency, so they have continued to be a lawless and dissolute people. For this reason all future promises apply solely to the Church.” 103 The Jews are cursed as a people, their wandering in exile serving as a sign of God’s displeasure with them for rejecting the Messiah, but the Christians are blessed.
But there’s more. Shall I recount the passionate words of the influential fourth-century leader John Chrysostom in his seven sermons against the Jews? 104 His ferocious accusations have thundered through the centuries. The Jews are “inveterate murderers, destroyers, men possessed by the devil” who “know only one thing, to satisfy their gullets, get drunk, kill and maim one another.” The synagogue is “a repair of wild beasts … the domicile of the devil, as is also the soul of the Jews,” and the Jewish religion is “a disease.”
Yes, the Jews are accursed because of their “odious assassination of Christ,” a crime for which there is “no expiation possible, no indulgence, no pardon.” Indeed, God hates the Jews and has always hated the Jews, a sentiment that Chrysostom also embraced with zeal: “I hate the synagogue precisely because it has the law and prophets” (yet rejects that biblical witness), and “I hate the Jews because they outrage the law.” 105 Hate is clearly the operative word here.
No wonder Rabbi Cohn-Sherbok could claim that “for Chrysostom and other writers of this period the Jews were not human beings—they were demons incarnate, an apostate and immoral nation who have been cast off by God into utter darkness.” 106
Yet there’s more still! Shall I recount the anti-Jewish legislation that became all too common in the ancient world after Christendom came to power? From the late fourth century on, it was common for Jews to be deprived of the rights to trade, work certain jobs, or travel freely, at times even having their property confiscated. It was also common for them to be forced to listen to church sermons preached in their synagogues, and the sermons were intended to convert the Jews to Christendom!
And yet there is more! Shall I recount the murderous Crusades, first launched in 1096 when Christian mobs in Europe decided to liberate the Holy Land from the “infidels,” meaning the Muslim Turks. Yet as the Crusaders marched through Europe they found even worse infidels right in their own backyard: the Jews, the Christ-killers! It was there, for the first time in history, that Jews were given the choice of baptism or death.
Many of them chose death. Then, in the summer of 1096, when the Crusaders took Jerusalem, Jews were herded into the great synagogue and burned alive while the Crusaders, with crosses emblazoned on their uniforms, marched around the building and sang, “Christ, we adore thee.” 107
And yet there is still more! Shall I recount the vicious, medieval blood libels in which Jews were accused of killing Christians and using their blood to make unleavened bread for Passover? These Jews were then made to pay with their own blood for crimes they never committed. Or shall I recount the ridiculous charge of “desecration of the host,” beginning in the thirteenth century when the Catholic Church decreed that the communion elements (i.e., the wafer and wine) actually became the body and blood of Jesus? According to this libel, Jews stole these communion elements (called “the host”) and tortured them (in other words, they tortured the wafer and wine) in order to get back at Jesus and attack him again. Yet as preposterous as this sounds, Jews were burned at the stake over such nonsense. 108
Yet there remains still more to tell! Shall I recount the utterly abhorrent baptismal formulas that Jews were required to recite in order to join the church in the late medieval period? They were forced to renounce all connection with the synagogue, forced to renounce any celebration of the biblical holy days, forced to renounce the rabbis, forced to believe in the supremacy of the Virgin Mary, and forced to embrace the eating of pork.
And still there is more! Shall I recount the horrors of the Inquisition (actually, Inquisitions, since several of these “witch-hunts” occurred over a period of almost four hundred years in various European countries), during which the church sought to uncover Jews who outwardly converted to Christianity while continuing to practice some Jewish customs and traditions? These Jewish Catholics were systematically hunted, mercilessly tortured, and then horribly mistreated or (more often than not) executed.
Yet there is still more! Shall I recount the forced, national expulsions of all Jews who refused to be baptized? Although most Americans think of 1492 as the year Christopher Columbus discovered America, most Jews think of 1492 in entirely different terms: It was the year that all non-baptized Jews were expelled from Spain—the very country from which Columbus sailed. And Spain was not the only country from which non-baptized Jews were exiled; other countries share the shame.
And yet there is more! Shall I recount the shocking words of Martin Luther, a man once called “John the Baptist of Adolf Hitler”? It was Luther who in 1543 wrote the tractate entitled Concerning the Jews and Their Lies, a treatise that remains popular to this very day in neo-Nazi circles. There Luther penned his infamous recommendations for solving the Jewish problem: Jewish synagogues should be set on fire; their homes should be broken down and destroyed; they should be deprived of their prayer books and Talmuds; their rabbis should be forbidden to teach under threat of death; passport and traveling privileges should be absolutely forbidden to all Jews; they should be stopped from charging interest on loans; the young and strong Jews and Jewesses should be given the flail, the ax, the spade, the distaff, the spindle, so that they will earn their bread by the sweat of their noses. “We ought to drive the rascally lazy bones out of our system.” So wrote the great Martin Luther. 109
And still there is more! Shall I recount the destructive pogroms launched against our people in Europe, often after inflammatory Easter sermons urged Christians to attack “the Christ-killers”? Jews were beaten and killed, homes were ransacked, properties were destroyed—and all too often this was carried out in the name of Christianity.
Yet again, there is still more! Shall I recount the views of “Christian” theologians during the Holocaust? The influential New Testament scholar Gerhard Kittel wrote an entire study devoted to dealing with the Jews. Extermination would not be moral or practical; repatriation to Palestine was out of the question, since there were too many Jews to fit there and the Arabs would not be happy with it. The only viable solution was for the Jews to become second-class citizens, deprived of many of their essential rights and relegated to the inferior status that they deserved. Other scholars such as Walter Grundmann sought to prove that Jesus was not actually Jewish. 110
And still there is more! Shall I recount the fact that after the Holocaust some Polish Jews who survived the concentration camps returned to their homes and villages, only to be killed by angry Catholic neighbors?
And yet there is still more to be told! Shall I recount the fact that some church leaders in our day have consistently sided with the PLO and against the Jewish people in virtually every land and security-related issue in the State of Israel?
Obviously, I know this history well, but I also know this is not the whole story, nor is it even a truly representative telling of the story. In fact, the real story that needs to be told reflects the opposite end of the spectrum. However, before presenting you with the rest of the story, let me give you an indication of just how far the church that persecuted the Jews had strayed from its biblical roots.
This church—or rather, this man-made, politically oriented, sometimes-corrupt religious institution—became so contaminated that when John Huss exposed the sins of his fellow clergymen, he was burned at the stake.
This church departed so far from its biblical roots that it completely lost sight of one of the fundamental doctrines of the New Testament, namely, that a person comes into right standing with God by faith and not by works, excommunicating and hunting like criminals those who began to teach this doctrine. This would be like Rabbinic Jews completely forgetting that they believed in an Oral Torah and then killing rabbis in later centuries who sought to recover that belief. That’s how far this church had strayed during much of the period just described, especially during medieval times.
This same church actually forbade the translation of the Bible into the language of the people, condemning John Wycliffe for translating it into English in the fourteenth century and killing William Tyndale for making a fresh English translation in the sixteenth century. (He was strangled and then burned at the stake—by the church!) 111
This same church completely repudiated Jesus’ commandments forbidding his followers from acts of violence and hatred against others (see above, 2.4), to the point that at times it sanctioned the torture of alleged heretics and dissenters.
This same church completely lost touch with its Jewish roots, even forbidding its Jewish members to have any contact with the synagogue or to observe the biblical feasts and holy days, as we mentioned above.
At times, this church probably killed as many true Christians for refusing to follow its traditions as it killed Jews for refusing to follow its traditions. It is not difficult to see, therefore, that this church was hardly the church—in other words, it was hardly the true congregation of genuine believers in the Messiah.
How did this happen? Paul sternly warned Gentile believers in Jesus not to think they had replaced the Jewish people as God’s special favorites, as if they were now “in” and the Jews were now “out.” Rather, using the analogy of an olive tree, he wrote, “They were broken off because of unbelief, and you stand by faith. Do not be arrogant, but be afraid. For if God did not spare the natural branches, he will not spare you either” (Rom. 11:20–21). Continuing with this line of reasoning, Paul not only gave these Gentile believers a warning, he also assured them that Jews would actually be especially likely to put their faith in the Messiah in days to come:
Consider therefore the kindness and sternness of God: sternness to those who fell, but kindness to you, provided that you continue in his kindness. Otherwise, you also will be cut off. And if they do not persist in unbelief, they will be grafted in, for God is able to graft them in again. After all, if you were cut out of an olive tree that is wild by nature, and contrary to nature were grafted into a cultivated olive tree, how much more readily will these, the natural branches, be grafted into their own olive tree!
Romans 11:22–24
Yes, the natural branches (the Jewish people) will all the more readily be grafted back into their own olive tree. But Paul has one more warning—and promise—to bring: “I do not want you to be ignorant of this mystery, brothers, so that you may not be conceited: Israel has experienced a hardening in part until the full number of the Gentiles has come in. And so all Israel will be saved” (Rom. 11:25–26). 112
Unfortunately, over the ensuing centuries, many Gentile Christians did not heed Paul’s warning, becoming conceited and arrogant, imagining that Israel’s hardening was both universal and permanent, and thinking that they, the church, were now the sole recipients of God’s covenant love. How wrong they were. In their arrogance, many of them cut themselves off from his mercy and favor, just as Paul warned: “If you don’t continue in God’s kindness, you also will be cut off!”
And what was this kindness to consist of? Showing mercy to the Jewish people, praying for them and loving them, even if they opposed the message of Jesus the Messiah. As Paul explained, “As far as the gospel is concerned, they are enemies on your account; but as far as election is concerned, they are loved on account of the patriarchs, for God’s gifts and his call are irrevocable” (Rom. 11:28–29). So says the apostle Paul, the writer of more than half the New Testament.
Therefore, he exhorts, “Just as you [Gentiles] who were at one time disobedient to God have now received mercy as a result of their [i.e., the Jewish people’s] disobedience, so they too have now become disobedient in order that they too may now receive mercy as a result of God’s mercy to you” (Rom. 11:30–31).
Based on this absolutely clear teaching—the lengthiest and the most direct of its kind anywhere in the New Testament—we can safely state that only a deviant church, a straying church, a church in name more than in reality could persecute, attack, malign, or kill Jews. True Christians would treat Jews with compassion.
“Then where were the true Christians? It looks like there never were any at all!”
I’ll respond to this in a moment, but I’m still not finished explaining something important to you about the history of “Christian” anti-Semitism: First, church persecution of Jews, especially violent persecution, was hardly the norm through the centuries; and second, there was hostility both ways, Jews against Christians and Christians against Jews. But where Christendom conquered politically, it could enforce its hostile feelings more easily. Let me expand on these two points before returning to your question about where the true Christians have been over the last two thousand years.
You see, I have actually been highly selective in recounting the deplorable history of so-called “Christian” anti-Semitism, summarizing in a few paragraphs some of the most atrocious examples of a bloody saga that is more than fifteen hundred years old. But this means you might have a false and exaggerated impression of this history, as if Jews have continually and universally suffered violent persecution at the hands of professing Christians. This is simply not true.
Consider the fact that it was 350 years—as we stated above (2.6), longer than the existence of the United States—before there were any recurring examples of church-sanctioned or church-approved acts of violence against Jewish people or Jewish synagogues, and from this we can deduce three things: (1) Christians (in name alone or in reality) were not dominated and driven by anti-Jewish sentiments (as many of them were at the time of the Crusades), otherwise there would have been at least some violent acts carried out; (2) while there were many polemical words written, typical of the rhetoric of the day, those words did not lead to hostile actions; and (3) Christians did not believe in forcing people to convert. 113
Things began to change when the Emperor Constantine converted to Christianity, leading to the Christianizing of the Roman Empire. 114 Obviously, something like this can spell doom for any religious faith, since power often corrupts. 115 It was at this time—and not before—that a church leader was recorded to have put forward the doctrine that the state might be justified in forcibly keeping people within the church. (The leader who argued for this was Augustine, one of the most influential thinkers in church history. He based his thinking on Jesus’ words in Luke 14:23: “And the lord said unto the servant, Go out into the highways and hedges, and compel them to come in, that my house may be filled.”
According to Phillip Schaff, one of the greatest church historians in modern times,
Starting with a forced interpretation of the words, “Compel them to come in,” in Luke 14:23, [Augustine] enunciates principles of coercion which, though in him they were subdued and rendered practically of little moment by the spirit of life which formed so large an element in his character, yet found their natural development in the despotic intolerance of the Papacy, and the horrors of the Inquisition. 116
Commenting on these writings of Augustine, Schaff continues:
These works are the chief patristic authority of the Roman Catholic doctrine of the Church and against the sects. They are thoroughly Romanizing in spirit and aim, and least satisfactory to Protestant readers. Augustin[e] defended in his later years even the principle of forcible coercion and persecution against heretical and schismatics by a false exegesis of the words in this parable “Compel them to come in” (Luke 14:23). 117
Yet once again, there are several important observations that we must make: (1) It was almost four hundred years before any Christian leader clearly put forward the idea of using force to keep people within the faith, and if not for the Christianizing of the Roman Empire, it is unlikely that such a view would ever have been espoused; (2) even with this false interpretation of Jesus’ words, Augustine did not advocate using force to bring people into the church but rather using force against church heretics and others who sought to leave or divide the Christian community; and (3) with regard to Jews who did not believe in Jesus, he was emphatic: Force is not to be used against them! 118
It was also Augustine who urged his fellow Christians not to “boast proudly against the broken branches” (meaning Jews who did not believe in Jesus the Messiah, thereby making room for Gentiles to be grafted into Israel’s olive tree). “Let us rather reflect by whose grace and by what great mercy, and to what root we are connected.” 119 This was also expressed by Augustine’s contemporary Jerome: “We are connected with the same root; we are the branches, and they are the root. We should not curse our roots, but pray for our roots.” 120 Yes, these sentiments also existed among prominent church leaders in the fourth and fifth centuries of this era.
Returning to the policy of not using force to convert Jewish people, we find a similar line of reasoning with Thomas Aquinas, the most prominent Catholic theologian of the Middle Ages, a man who lived during the very period of the Crusades and blood libels described above. According to John Hood,
Aquinas has nothing to do with anti-Jewish violence that accompanied the Crusades or with executions and lynchings based on paranoid fantasies … and he believed that conversion should “in no way” be coerced… . Only on the issue of usury did Aquinas’s ideas represent a direct threat to the security of European Jews. In every other facet of his social teaching on Jews, Thomas firmly supported the principle of Sicut Iudaeis [This was the protective and basically benevolent “Jewish Constitution” drafted by Pope Calixtus in the early twelfth century]: Just as Jews should not be granted new privileges, neither should those they possess be taken from them. 121
Now, Aquinas was hardly a hero of the Jewish people, but as Hood observes,
Thomas harbored no special malice towards Jews; he was not … obsessed with converting Jews or whipping up popular enthusiasm against them. Even his demands that usury be suppressed were based on a moral conviction that usury was wrong rather than on any hatred of Jews as such. On most other issues—tolerating Jews, allowing them freedom to worship and the right to raise their children as they saw fit, while also discriminating against them and maintaining hedges against their influence—he was representative of an older tradition, a tradition rooted in Sicut Iudaeis [see n. 121, immediately above, for details], Gregory the Great, Augustine, and ultimately Paul. 122
Thomas Aquinas, therefore, perhaps the greatest and most influential Catholic theologian in history, was not a promoter of anti-Semitism.
Lest the significance of all this escapes you, let me recap what I have been saying: Christian acts of violence and hate against the Jews were virtually nonexistent for more than three hundred years after Jesus’ death and resurrection. After that, they were quite sparse and sporadic for the next eight hundred years until the Crusades at the end of the eleventh century—and that murderous, destructive representation of Christianity bore no resemblance to the real Christian faith. We also need to remember that even though Christendom ruled in Europe, influential leaders from Augustine to Aquinas did not advocate violent persecution of Jews or forcible conversion of the Jews, in spite of the church’s political power. In fact, the church at times offered the Jewish people protection. As a result, the story of “Christian” anti-Semitism is not as simple as many assume. 123
To drill this point home, I’ll share something that will really surprise you. In fact, it has to do with Martin Luther. Until the twentieth century, it was his pro-Jewish writings that were influential, while his vicious anti-Jewish writings were either rejected (as happened in his own day), or neglected (as happened through the centuries), or refuted (as happened last century), or repudiated (as happened after the Holocaust). And it was colleagues of Luther, followed by Lutheran church leaders and scholars, who either rejected, neglected, refuted, or repudiated his anti-Jewish work.
Let me briefly review what transpired. In 1523, Luther wrote a small book entitled That Jesus Christ Was Born a Jew, hoping to win the Jewish people to faith in Jesus by repudiating the atrocious behavior of many church leaders as well as by pointing out that Jesus himself was Jewish. He also argued that guilt for the death of Jesus should be assigned to the sinful human race as a whole and not to the Jewish people. In fact, as noted by Professor Carter Lindberg, “Luther’s Roman Catholic opponents frequently considered Luther to be a friend of the Jews.” 124
In this book he wrote these amazing words:
If the apostles, who also were Jews, had dealt with us Gentiles as we Gentiles deal with the Jews, there would never have been a Christian among the Gentiles. Since they deal with us Gentiles in such brotherly fashion, we in our turn ought to treat the Jews in a brotherly manner in order that we might convert some of them… . When we are inclined to boast of our position we should remember that we are but Gentiles, while the Jews are the lineage of Christ. We are aliens and in-laws; they are blood relatives, cousins and brothers of our Lord… . God has also demonstrated this by his acts, for to no nation among the Gentiles has he granted so high an honor as he has to the Jews. 125
I ask you: Were you aware that such writings proceeded from the pen of Martin Luther?
Unfortunately, during the 1530s and 1540s, when there was no major influx of Jews into the faith, and when Luther was shown some exceptionally vulgar, anti-Christian writings disseminated by Jews, he reacted with anger, writing the infamous tractate Concerning the Jews and Their Lies, along with some other anti-Jewish works. 126 But these harsh writings were not well received by many of his colleagues.
As explained by Lindberg, “The rejection and condemnation of Luther’s anti-Jewish writings is not a modern phenomenon but began already among his evangelical contemporaries.” He further notes that “the history of Lutheran reception of Luther’s anti-Jewish texts is still not fully researched, but initial studies indicate that they were rejected and ineffective until rediscovered by the racial ideologues of the Third Reich.” 127
Luther’s closest colleague, Philipp Melanchthon, was very unhappy with these venomous writings, while another colleague, Andreas Osiander, wrote an anonymous apology for them, and Luther’s Latin translator, Justus Jonas, actually changed the text when he translated it. In each of the succeeding centuries—the sixteenth through the nineteenth—Luther’s hateful, anti-Jewish writings were repudiated, while his earlier, pro-Jewish writings proved to be the more influential. 128 This is an integral part of the story that is often untold.
The verdict of Lutheran theologian Friedrich Lezius, written in 1892, sums up the feelings of many Lutheran leaders during a period of more than 350 years of Lutheran practice and belief:
It is obvious that Luther does not argue in accordance with the spirit of the New Testament and the Reformation… . The Protestant Church has therefore rejected the errors of the aging reformer as not binding for the church and only regards Luther’s treatise “That Jesus Christ Was Born a Jew,” which was published in 1523, as the true expression of the spirit of the Reformation. 129
Do you grasp the significance of these words? According to Lezius, the spirit of the New Testament and the spirit of the Protestant Reformation—which was launched by Luther—is a philo-Semitic spirit. True Christianity and anti-Semitism are therefore utterly incompatible—and this sentiment expresses the views of countless church leaders over the last five hundred years. What happened to Luther’s anti-Jewish writings? They fell into virtual oblivion until they were utilized afresh by the Nazis. 130
Of course, there is absolutely no excuse for Luther’s hate-filled polemics, and I am not trying to make any excuse for them. Rather, I am simply pointing out that these writings did not reflect the sentiments of many of his contemporaries and colleagues who considered them to be aberrant and un-Christian from the start. Recent repudiations of these writings by Lutheran Church bodies simply follow in the footsteps of previous church leaders in the preceding centuries. 131
It may also be worth mentioning that both Hitler and most of his officers came from Austria—a country largely untouched by the Protestant Reformation—while Lutheran countries such as Norway and Denmark fought to save Jews during the Holocaust. 132
Reverend David Read, a Scottish Christian leader involved in gracious and respectful interfaith dialog with Jewish leaders, makes an observation that Jews need to hear: Growing up in Presbyterian Scotland, a country “which has no record of anti-Jewish legislation or forced expulsion of the Jews,” learning of the Jewish people through the Scriptures and through church-based classes, he was not exposed to anti-Semitism:
I recall hearing as many sermons based on the Old Testament as on the New; and in the public school system … every child was exposed to the Ten Commandments and the history of Israel with its stories of memorable characters as well as its songs and proverbs… .
In the Bible hour at school, from which the few Roman Catholics were excused, we were not only exposed to the teaching and stories of the Old Testament, but some attempt was made to explain Jewish devotion and ways of worship… . We were told that Jesus was a Jew, but never once did I hear the accusation that Jews were Christ-killers and therefore accursed. Those who have been led to believe that all Christians are indoctrinated with this accusation may be surprised to hear that I never heard it until I went to Europe during my student years. Neither at home nor at school was this crude accusation of deicide part of my upbringing as a WASP. 133
This was part of Pastor Read’s Scottish Christian heritage, a Protestant tradition dating back to John Knox in the sixteenth century. (By the way, Knox was fiercely persecuted by the church because of his opposition to its moral corruption and its departure from its biblical roots.)
All this clearly demonstrates that it is an overstatement to claim “Christians have always hated and persecuted the Jewish people.” Hardly! In fact, it would be far more accurate to say that throughout history some Christians have hated and persecuted Jews and some Jews have hated and persecuted Christians.
“Jews hating and persecuting Christians? What are you talking about?”
For the sake of fairness and balance, I’ll answer your question, but I don’t want to get too far away from your initial claim that Christians have always hated and persecuted the Jews. Therefore, I’ll give only the briefest of surveys of Jewish hostilities against followers of Jesus.
As we noted above (2.6), the New Testament records the martyrdom or persecution of Jewish believers at the hands of fellow Jews (see, e.g., Acts 7, 14, 17). This is the first recorded persecution suffered by Jews relative to Jesus, and it was not his followers who were doing the persecution. To the contrary, as we have emphasized, they were the persecuted.
“But why should I believe what the New Testament says?” you ask.
Well, not only have the New Testament authors been proven to be historically reliable, 134 but the Talmud itself recounts a similar event, describing how five of Yeshua’s (Jewish) disciples were brought before the judges and sentenced to death (b. Sanhedrin 43a). The first-century Jewish historian Josephus also describes the martyrdom of Jacob (James), Yeshua’s brother and a highly respected Jewish leader—even among the non-Messianic Jews. He was stoned by other, hostile Jews, apparently because of his outspoken allegiance to Jesus. 135
There are other negative references in the Talmud to Messianic Jews (cf., e.g., t. Hullin 2:22–23), and by the end of the first century of this era, some leading sages had instituted the use of the so-called Birkat HaMinnim, the malediction against the heretics, cursing sectarian believers in their midst—and that included (or specifically targeted) Messianic Jews. 136 Yes, there was anti-Jesus hostility among many first-century Jews.
The learned historian Marcel Simon summarizes for us the predicament faced by Jewish followers of Yeshua in the first centuries of this era:
They were driven from Jerusalem on the eve of the first war, harassed from time to time by the religious authorities, anathematized in the synagogue liturgy, and persecuted during the second war by Bar Cochba’s troops… . They were regarded as dissidents, sectarians, by both synagogue and Church. By professing Christianity, as the gentiles did, they had classed themselves as gentiles in the eyes of the synagogue. 137
In addition to this, in a number of accounts of martyrdom in the early church, Jews are depicted as actively siding against the Christians, even encouraging the authorities to put them to death, 138 and on other occasions, as a result of Christian mobs attacking synagogues, Jews subsequently retaliated against the Christians. 139
Edward Flannery, in his powerful exposé on anti-Semitism in the church, also notes some of the Jewish hostility against Christians:
Sufficient incidents of Jewish violence against Christians are recorded to show that that Jewish hatred was widespread and, while sporadic, often intense. In 117 C.E., under Trajan, Jews participated in the death of St. Simeon, bishop of Jerusalem. During his revolt (132–135 c.e.), Bar Kokba massacred [Jewish] Christians who refused to deny Christ. In 155 at Smyrna, when St. Polycarp was condemned to be burned, Jews gathered faggots for the pyre “as is usual with them.” In Smyrna, a century later, St. Pionius, burned under Decius, addressed the Jews that derided him before his death:
I say this to you Jews … that if we are enemies, we are also human beings. Have any of you been injured by us? Have we caused you to be tortured? When have we unjustly persecuted? When have we harmed in speech? When have we cruelly dragged to torture? …
It appears from this text that the Jews were not direct participants in the martyrdom but rather its active supporters. The same may be said of the martyrdom of St. Philip of Heraclea and Hermes the deacon, in 304. 140
Here then we see another side to the story that is often forgotten, and that is the side of Jewish persecution of the followers of Jesus, be they Jewish or Gentile.
And to the lasting shame of our Jewish people, a whole body of anti-Jesus literature arose during the first one thousand years of church history, vilifying Jesus as a bastard, a magician, an idol worshiper, and an arch deceiver, now suffering unspeakable torment in hell. Of course, some of this was written as a result of the despicable actions of so-called Christians, but some Christian hostility toward Jews came about as a result of this literature. And it can be argued that some of these slanderous charges against Yeshua pre-dated the earliest persecution of Jews by the church. In any case, it has been a vicious cycle, to say the least. 141
What is especially interesting is that for the last two millennia, outside the modern State of Israel, Jews have not been the ruling powers in a country occupied by Christians, and so there is no way to tell how power would have corrupted Judaism (as it corrupted some branches of Christianity)—until now, that is. You see, the ultra-Orthodox in Israel have waged a major intimidation campaign against Jewish followers of Jesus in the land, and at times it has been violent.
In 1998 alone, ultra-Orthodox Jews in Israel (called Haredim) sought to pass legislation that would make all attempts at proselytism punishable by imprisonment; vandalized and ransacked the apartment of three Christian women in the religious quarter of Jerusalem called Mea Shearim; and surrounded a Messianic Jewish meeting place in Beer Sheva, pelting it with rocks, threatening to burn it down, and refusing to comply even with police orders. As an e-mail news flash indicated, “A mob of several hundred Haredim (ultra-Orthodox Jews) attacked and besieged a Messianic Jewish congregation meeting in this southern Israeli town today, trapping some 30 worshippers inside for about four hours.” 142 According to Natan Adrian, a lecturer in history at Ben-Gurion University and a man not known as sympathetic to Messianic Jews, the scene was reminiscent of Eastern Europe, except that the tables were now turned. “I witnessed a pogrom, there can be no other word for it.” 143
In fact, such acts of violence are becoming more common in Israel. An e-mail alert sent out in the fall of 1998 contained this shocking account (I have changed the names to protect the safety of the victims):
This is an emergency email. Moshe X and his helper, Sasha, a young Russian believer, had their tent burned down by the Ultra-Orthodox a week or so ago at Samuel’s Tomb, which property he owns. Now again tonight, 3 November 1998, Moshe and Sasha were attacked and beaten by the Orthodox. Moshe’s arm was injured, but Sasha’s skull and eye were crushed and he is now entering into emergency surgery.
Please pray for his total restoration, especially for Sasha’s brain and eyesight and whatever the enemy meant for evil God would turn around for good for the salvation of those who attacked them. Also pray for protection, as the Orthodox said they were coming back again in two days and for God’s direction for wisdom regarding security for Moshe and those working for him. Also pray that God will send at least three Joshua’s and Caleb’s, fearless men, to come and hold up his arms immediately from whatever place God may call them.
What has been the official Haredi response to some of these recent acts of violence? “Don’t judge the whole community by the actions of a few!”
This is exactly what I have been saying to you about the subject of “Christian” anti-Semitism!
“Well, I see your point, but all you have done is show that over the last two thousand years, there have been Christians who have hated and persecuted Jews and Jews who have hated and persecuted Christians (or Messianic Jews). Even if my initial objection was overstated, we both agree that many Christians have been anti-Semites. Therefore, they were no better than the Jews who were anti-Christian. Where is your wonderful religion of love?”
I’m ready to tell you. This is the best part of the story! Not only is it true that many Christians and church leaders through the centuries have not been anti-Semites, it is true that many Christians and church leaders, in ever-increasing measure, are philo-Semites—real lovers of the Jewish people, ready to die for them rather than kill them.
Shall I recount the words of the Puritan leader Samuel Rutherford penned more than three hundred years ago? He was known as one of the most deeply spiritual men of his generation, a man who longed to see the return of his Master, Jesus the Messiah, but he also longed to see the day when Jesus and his Jewish people would be reconciled.
O to see the sight, next to Christ’s Coming in the clouds, the most joyful! Our elder brethren the Jews and Christ fall upon one another’s neck and kiss each other! They have long been asunder; they will be kind to one another when they meet. O day! O longed-for and lovely day-dawn! O sweet Jesus, let me see that sight which will be as life from the dead, Thee and Thy ancient people in mutual embraces… . I could stay out of heaven many years to see that victorious triumphing Lord act that prophesied part of His soul-conquering love, in taking into His kingdom the greater sister, that kirk [assembly] of the Jews. 144
Not surprisingly, John Owen, the greatest of the Puritan theologians, stated that “there is not any promise anywhere of raising up a kingdom unto the Lord Jesus Christ in this world but it is either expressed, or clearly intimated, that the beginning of it must be with the Jews.” 145
Or to quote one more Puritan witness, Robert Leighton,
Undoubtedly, that people of the Jews shall once more be commanded to arise and shine [referring to Isa. 60:1], and their return shall be the riches of the Gentiles (Romans 11:12), and then shall be a more glorious time than ever the Church of God did yet behold. 146
So much for the notion that Christians have always believed that the Jewish people were forever condemned because of their rejection of Jesus, never to be favored by God again. Rather, as these Puritans so beautifully articulate, God’s purposes cannot possibly be fulfilled without the Jewish people.
This assurance that the Jewish people would once again be recipients of the Lord’s grace was found in the early centuries of Christian history as well. Listen to the testimony of Ambrosiaster, writing in the late fourth century:
However seriously the Jews may have sinned by rejecting the gift of God … nevertheless, because they are the children of good people, whose privileges and many benefits from God they have received, they will be received with joy when they return to the faith, because God’s love for them is stirred up by the memory of their ancestors. 147
Or consider the words of Cyril of Alexandria, writing one century later:
Although it was rejected, Israel will also be saved eventually, a hope which Paul confirms [in Rom. 11:26] by quoting this text of Scripture [viz., Isa. 59:21]. For indeed, Israel will be saved in its own time and will be called at the end, after the calling of the Gentiles. 148
Or listen to the words of a nineteenth-century Christian leader, Bishop H. G. C. Moule:
The great event of Israel’s return to God in Christ, and His to Israel, will be the signal and the means of a vast rise of spiritual life in the universal church [meaning, among all believers], and of an unexampled ingathering of regenerate souls from the world. 149
All these witnesses join their voices to testify to one and the same fact: The Jewish people, because they have been specially chosen by God, will receive his favor in the end and will lead the way in faith in the Messiah, sparking a worldwide spiritual revival. Without their elder brothers, the Jews, Gentile Christians will not be complete.
As explained in the nineteenth century by the Scottish Presbyterian Andrew Bonar—and thus long before Israel’s regathering and statehood in the twentieth century,
Israel is the “everlasting nation” who are to be life from the dead to all nations. And the sure word of prophecy declares, “He that scattereth Israel shall gather them.” “I will give them one heart and one way, that they may fear Me for ever.” “Yea, I will rejoice over them, and will plant them in their own land, assuredly, with all My heart, and with all My soul.”
Crowned with her fairest hope, the Church
Shall triumph with her Lord,
And earth her jubilee shall keep,
When Israel is restored. 150
Attitudes such as these spawn love and respect for the Jewish people rather than persecution, hatred, or mistreatment. I tell you again: True Christians around the world are utterly shocked to learn that anyone in history who claimed to be a follower of Jesus the Messiah could ever hate or persecute the Jews.
Well do I remember eating a meal with a Christian family in Andhra Pradesh, India, in 1993. The wife had not slept all night because she was so excited about preparing a meal for visiting Jews (there were three Jews in our party, including my wife and a friend), but it was her husband’s greeting that still rings in my ears: “You are the second Jew to come to my house. The first was Jesus Christ!”
It was on that same trip that I met Indian Christians who had regularly fasted and prayed for God’s blessing on Israel and the Jewish people for more than ten years, considering it their sacred duty as Christians, although they had never before met a Jew in their lives. This was similar to my encounter with a young Kenyan Christian named Shadrach.
It was his large backpack that caught my attention when we met in the city of Mombasa in 1989. What was it he carried with him? Copies of cassette tapes from America teaching that Christians are called to bless and pray for the Jewish people worldwide. He had given his life to distributing these tapes at no charge to Kenyan Christians everywhere—even though I was the first Jew he had met.
This was similar to my experience in Seoul, Korea, in 1991, when a group of Korean Christians literally soaked my manuscript on anti-Semitism in the church, Our Hands Are Stained with Blood, with their own tears, agonizing over the suffering of the Jewish people, both past and present. Among this group was the young Malaysian Christian woman to whom I referred in the introduction. She sobbed for Israel as we prayed together before telling me afterward in her broken English, “My people [meaning her tribal Christian people] don’t know much about the Jews. We just know that we love them!” (Remember also that Malaysia is a predominantly Muslim nation.)
I think also of the Italian pastor I met in Sicily who told me, “There is not a service we hold in our church at which we do not pray for the Jewish people, and there is not a meal we have in my home at which we do not pray for the Jewish people, and there is not a time I get on my knees to pray when I do not pray for the Jewish people.”
This reminds me of yet another Gentile Christian leader I know whose heart beats for the Jewish people. This soft-spoken minister often addresses large crowds—sometimes over one hundred thousand people—in Africa and Asia. When he calls on them to put their faith in Jesus to save them from their sins, he also gives them a solemn charge, saying, “I want you to commit to say a prayer for the Jewish people with every meal and to fast one day a week for God’s blessing to be on his ancient covenant people.”
I kid you not! For these new Asian and African Christians to learn that there is such a thing as “Christian” anti-Semitism would be the shock of their lives. For them, loving Jesus and loving his Jewish people go hand in hand. 151 As an Iranian Christian said to me years ago in Maryland—he himself was baptized in Iran by a Jewish Christian—“If someone hates the Jews, he is not a Christian.” It was that simple!
In fact, I hold before me a letter dated June 10, 1998. It was forwarded to me by a Messianic newspaper for Russian readers after the paper printed an excerpt from Our Hands Are Stained with Blood. The writer of this letter was a Ukrainian Gentile, raised in an anti-Semitic home, although he states that Jews were always considered as human as all other peoples.
Therefore, it was with horror that the writer (identified by the initials M. K.) witnessed the events that transpired when the Nazis entered Galicia (Western Ukraine) and “thieves, drunkards, and bandits” helped the Nazi murderers purge all Jews from the area: The Jews were carted off to the woods, shot, and thrown into a huge pit.
While in the army, M. K. had a fine Jewish commander named Joseph, and watching Joseph suffer mistreatment at the hands of his fellow officers, M. K. began to look at the Jewish people “with respect and dignity.” Then the turning point came:
About seven years ago I met another Jew, my Lord Jesus Christ. His love for me influenced my love towards Israel and towards all Jewish people. The longsuffering nation, and the nation that has been vital in the scientific and technical development of the world, the nation that changes the destinies of other nations, makes history, carries and preserves the Word of the Living God. Let this letter of mine be my confession before the God of Israel, God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, my God: before you, my brothers in Christ, and before all the Jewish people.
My friend, I tell you the truth in the sight of God, this is the spirit of the true church, the spirit of philo-Semitism not anti-Semitism. Where a true expression of the New Testament faith has dominated the church, philo-Semitism—not anti-Semitism—has been the rule. In fact, it is no more possible to speak of Christian anti-Semitism than it is to speak of dry water or a godly murderer or a two-eyed Cyclops. The adjective Christian does not fit with anti-Semitism. And that’s why Bible-believing Christians—called evangelicals—are Israel’s staunchest and most loyal supporters today. 152
This Christian spirit of love of the Jewish people is not just sentimental, nor is it tied in only with some expected endtime conversion of the Jews. Rather, it is tangible, it is committed for the long haul, and it is often sacrificial.
It is this spirit that motivates Finnish Christians to offer their services to Jews in the former Soviet Union, doing whatever they can do to help displaced Jews get back to the land of Israel. One Finnish woman I met several years ago goes to Israel for up to nine months at a time, volunteering her services as a nurse in an Israeli hospital while her husband works in Finland. When I asked the husband why he and his wife were willing to make such a sacrifice, he replied matter of factly, “Well, we love the Jews.” That was it! Nothing more needed to be said. That said it all.
It is this same spirit that motivated a large church in Sweden to actually acquire and operate a ship—and I mean a ship, the size of some cruise vessels—with the sole purpose of transporting Jews from the former Soviet Union to Israel. This is the expression of their love for God’s ancient people.
This is the spirit that motivates the multiethnic workers of the International Christian Embassy, based in Jerusalem but active in many nations. Day and night they give themselves to humanitarian aid to Jews in need, and they do it with a proviso: None of their workers are allowed to try to convert Jews to Christianity.
Do these Christian embassy workers believe that Jewish people should believe in Jesus? Absolutely! Do they want the Jewish people they help to believe in Jesus? Without a doubt. But they refuse to allow a single Jew to ever think that they are showing Jews love in order to win them to the faith, and they want to demonstrate that they will not stop showing these Jewish people love regardless of whether they ever believe in Jesus. No, these workers are showing love because that’s what Christians do, and in light of Christendom’s horrible history of anti-Semitism, they feel that helping the Jewish people in a tangible way is the least they can do.
I will say it again: True Christianity shines with Jewish love—unconditional and sacrificial. This is the spirit that characterizes a black Christian congregation in the Washington, D.C., area, a congregation that holds its services in a Conservative Jewish synagogue. That’s right! An African American church rents space from a Jewish congregation, and in one joint meeting they held together, the pastor of the church—a personal friend of mine—stood up before the Jews in attendance and stated clearly, “The members of my church want you to know that if you are ever threatened in any way, we are committed to lay down our lives on your behalf.”
It was only fifty years earlier that Christians got to act on such sentiments, risking their own lives to save Jews from the Nazis. Why did they do such things? As one of these “righteous Gentiles” remarked, “By staying idle at a time when we are the last resort for innocent people condemned to die, we blaspheme against God’s commandment against killing.” 153That is Christianity! In fact, over and over, when questioned about why these Christian men and women did what they did, they responded with lines such as, “I did nothing special; anyone would have done it,” or, “You must understand that it was the most natural thing in the world to help these people.” 154
And so, in answer to your charge that Christians have always hated and persecuted the Jewish people, I reply, “No, no, and a thousand times no!” In fact, I would encourage you to get to know some real, sincere Christians and find out for yourself. You’ll be pleasantly surprised to see how gracious and respectful they are toward you when they find out that you, like their Savior, are a Jew. They may even thank you, since many Christians feel a special indebtedness to the Jewish people, recognizing that their Scriptures come from the Jews, their Messiah is a Jew, and without the faithful witness of Jewish people to Jesus the Messiah, there would be no Gentile Christians in the world today.
If they want to share their faith with you, it’s just an expression of love, their way of repaying their debt to you. How could they do anything less?
103 Dan Cohn-Sherbok, The Crucified Jew (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997), 25. For an interesting perspective on this literature, see Oskar Skarsaune, “The Neglected Story of Philo-Semitism in Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages,” Mishkan 21 (1994): 40–51.
104 This church saint was so articulate a preacher that, after his death, he was dubbed “Chrysostom,” meaning, “Golden Mouth.” For a good biography, see J. N. D. Kelly, Golden Mouth: The Story of John Chrysostom, Ascetic, Preacher, Bishop (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1998).
105 I have excerpted these writings from the useful summary in Edward H. Flannery, The Anguish of the Jews: Twenty-Three Centuries of Antisemitism (New York: Paulist, 1985), 50–52.
106 Cohn-Sherbok, Crucified Jew, 28.
107 See Brown, Our Hands Are Stained with Blood, 89–97, with references; for an overview of the Crusades, cf. Jonathan Riley-Smith, A Short History of the Crusades (New Haven: Yale, 1987), along with the works cited in Brown, 238. As horrifying as these mob actions were, some of them proved quite convenient, since many of the “Christians” were heavily in debt to Jewish moneylenders (one of the few professions open to the Jews at that time), and if these Jews could be killed, the debts could be eliminated. For church opposition to the murderous deeds of the Crusaders, cf. the words of Bernard of Clairvaux, cited in Rausch, Legacy of Hatred, 27. Bernard was an advocate of the Crusades but not of their violent persecution of the Jews.
108 See again Brown, Ibid., 59–63, with references on 195 and 235–36.
109 For references, cf. Brown, Ibid., 14–15; see further the works cited immediately below, n. 110, and cf. Heiko A. Oberman, The Roots of Antisemitism in the Age of Renaissance and Reformation, trans. James I. Packer (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1981).
110 See Charlotte Klein, Anti-Judaism in Christian Theology, trans. Edward Quinn (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1978), 11–13 (amazingly, Grundmann continued to write and teach without interruption after World War II, and his writings—both pre- and post-Holocaust—continued to be used by the scholarly community); see further Robert Kittel, Theologians under Hitler (New Haven: Yale, 1985); Alan Rosen, “ ‘Familiarly Known as Kittel’: The Moral Politics of the Theological Dictionary of the New Testament,” in Tainted Greatness: Antisemitism and Cultural Heroes, ed. Nancy A. Harrowitz (Philadelphia: Temple Univ. Press, 1994), 37–50; for Martin Buber’s response to Kittel’s proposal concerning the Jews—which Kittel actually sent to Buber!—see the important collection edited by Frank Ephraim Talmage, Disputation and Dialogue: Readings in the Jewish-Christian Encounter (New York: Ktav/Anti-Defamation League of B’Nai Brith, 1975), 49–54, “An Open Letter to Gerhard Kittel,” addressed throughout by Buber as “werter Herr Kollege” (worthy colleague). Talmage has introduced this selection with the painful title of “A Reply to a Christian Nazi” (49), words which should send chills down the backs of all truly Christian readers.
111 For an in-depth, appreciative study of Tyndale, see David Daniell, William Tyndale: A Biography (New Haven: Yale, 1994).
112 For discussion of this text, see below, 2.7. Interestingly, it was Pelagius, a “non-orthodox” Christian in the fifth century who commented here, “All that follows is designed to prevent the Gentiles from being filled with pride toward the Jews.” See Gerald Bray, ed., Romans, Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1998), 298.
113 In point of fact, throughout its history, Christendom never officially approved converting people by force, something that is, in fact, an accepted—and justified—practice in some expressions of Islam (and cf. above, n. 49). It is also important to remember just how intense written polemics can actually be, without any physical violence associated with those words. For an interesting, related perspective, see Miriam S. Taylor, Anti-Judaism and Early Christian Identity: A Critique of the Scholarly Consensus, Studia Post-Biblica 46 (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1995), who argues that it was primarily “symbolic Judaism” that was under attack in the early church literature.
114 Flannery, Anguish of the Jews, 46, is circumspect regarding the existence of anti-Semitism in the church in the pre-Constantinian era: “Did antisemitism exist in the Church during the first three centuries? Opinions differ. It is difficult, on our part, to categorize as antisemitic: hostile Christian writings or actions effectively provoked by Jews; theological or apologetical treatises or teachings which expounded an anti-Judaism more or less integral to the dogmas of the Church; or the indignation of pastors gravely worried about the dangers Judaism posed for their often superficially Christianized congregations… . The first three centuries served as a warning that theological or pastoral anti-Judaism could take either of two directions: one toward a benign, even benevolent, separation and disagreement … or wax to a level of negation and virulence that would erase that line which differentiates it from antisemitism pure and simple.” For a sampling of anti-Jewish rhetoric from the second and third centuries (that is, in the period before Constantine), see Rausch, Legacy of Hatred, 20–22.
115 For the interfacing of politics and religion in the Constantinian era, cf. Ramsay MacMullen, Christianizing the Roman Empire (a.d. 100–400) (New Haven: Yale, 1984).
116 Phillip Schaff, ed., The Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series, vol. 4 (Albany, Ore.: Sage Software, 1996), 766.
117 Phillip Schaff, ed., The Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series, vol. 1 (Albany, Ore.: Sage Software, 1996), 33.
118 See further Flannery, Anguish of the Jews, 53. Of course, for Augustine, in keeping with the views of other church leaders, the Jews were destined to wander the earth under divine judgment, a continuing proof of their rejection by God.
119 Cited in Simon, Verus Israel, 231 (with translation on 512).
120 Ibid.
121 John B. Y. Hood, Aquinas and the Jews (Philadelphia: Univ. of Pennsylvania Press, 1995), 107–8. Of course, usury (i.e., lending money with interest) was especially important for Jewish livelihood, since it was sometimes the only major profession allowed Jews in society. For a summary of the Sicut Judaeis, cf. ibid., 29–31.
122 Ibid., 111.
123 At the conclusion of a study that must be evaluated with caution, Elaine Pagels, The Origin of Satan (New York: Random House, 1995), 184, rightly points out that, “Many Christians … from the first century through Francis of Assisi in the fifteenth century and Martin Luther King, Jr., in the twentieth, have believed that they stood on God’s side without demonizing their opponents. Their religious vision inspired them to oppose policies and powers they regarded as evil, often risking their well-being and their lives, while praying for the reconciliation—not the damnation—of those who opposed them.”
124 Carter Lindberg, “Luther’s Attitudes toward Judaism,” in Harrowitz, Tainted Greatness, 22 (the entire article runs from 15–35).
125 I follow here the convenient and representative sampling cited by Lindberg, Ibid., 17–18.
126 For some of the historical background, as well as for some of Luther’s other anti-Jewish publications written at the same time, see Graham Keith, Hated without a Cause? A Survey of Anti-Semitism (Carlisle: Paternoster, 1997), 149–74; Oberman, Roots of Antisemitism. I should note, of course, that the situation of the Jews in much of Europe was hardly better than that outlined in Luther’s measures. Also, his coarse and base descriptions of the Jews as a people paralleled his descriptions of papal leaders (and really, all of his other opponents!), whom he also vilified in the crudest of terms. For an English translation of the basest of Luther’s anti-Jewish writings, Vom Schem Hamphoras, most of which is spent refuting perceived Jewish beliefs against Christianity, see Gerhard Falk, The Jew in Christian Theology (Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 1992). Note also that Luther, like some other Christian leaders in history, was concerned about Jewish influence on Christianity (in Luther’s case, the influence of Jewish interpretation of the Bible infiltrating the church, as if this would have been some grave danger), also explaining why he attacked and denigrated the Jewish faith in such harsh terms. It was to “protect” the Christians! For the argument that Luther’s last (and harshest) anti-Jewish writings were the product of old age and disease, see John Warwick Montgomery, “Luther, Anti-Semitism, and Zionism,” in Christianity Today (8 September 1978), 79–80.
127 Tainted Greatness.
128 Cf. Lindberg, “Luther’s Attitudes,” for further details.
129 Cited in Ibid., 25.
130 Because of this, it has been debated whether Luther’s works actually influenced Hitler at all. Rather, they may have simply provided him with another foil for his madness. Cf. again Ibid., 25, with references.
131 Cf. this statement made in 1984 by the World Lutheran Federation: “We cannot accept or condone the violent verbal attacks that the Reformer made against the Jews. The sins of Luther’s anti-Jewish remarks and the violence of his attacks on the Jews must be acknowledged with deep distress, and all occasion for similar sin in the present or the future must be removed from our churches… . Lutherans of today refuse to be bound by all of Luther’s utterances against the Jews.” See Our Hands Are Stained with Blood, 180–81, n. 20, for further details.
132 As mentioned above, however, some prominent German Lutheran theologians were Nazis, reflecting the fact that they followed Luther’s anti-Jewish writings in contrast with other Lutheran theologians in other countries.
133 David H. C. Read, “Reflections of an Imported Wasp,” in Removing Anti-Judaism from the Pulpit, ed. Howard Clark Kee and Irvin J. Borowsky (Philadelphia: American Interfaith Institute, 1996), 62–63 (the entire article runs from 60–66).
134 For a study of the historicity and accuracy of the Gospels, which, traditionally, have come under the greatest attack and scrutiny, cf. Craig L. Blomberg, The Historical Reliability of the Gospels (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1987).
135 The account of Josephus, confirmed by early church records as well, is accepted by most historians today. For references, see below, n. 276. Interestingly, James was so highly esteemed and his killing so outrageous to many Jews, that the early church leader Hegesippus claimed that the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 c.e. occurred not as a punishment for the crucifixion of Jesus—a view commonly held in the early church—but because of the killing of James! See Simon, Verus Israel, 67–68.
136 See above, 1.4, n. 9 According to William Horbury, Jews and Christians: In Contact and Controversy (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1998), 110, the birkat haminnim “was not decisive on its own in the separation of church and synagogue, but it gave solemn liturgical expression to a separation effected in the second half of the first century through the larger group of measures to which it belongs.” For a contemporary perspective on this malediction, cf. the comments of the Artscroll Siddur, cited by Weinberger, Jewish Outreach, 149, n. 2: “Chronologically this is the 19th blessing of Shmone Esrei; it was instituted in Yavneh during the tenure of R. Gamliel II as Nasi of Israel, some time after the destruction of the second Temple. The blessing was composed in response to the threats of such heretical Jewish sects as the Sadducees, Boethusians, Essenes, and the early Christians. They tried to lead Jews astray through example and persuasion and they used their political power to oppress observant Jews and to slander them to the anti-Semitic Roman government. In this atmosphere R. Gamliel felt the need for a prayer against the heretics and slanderers and to incorporate it into the Shmone Esrei to make the populace aware of the danger. Despite the disappearance from within Israel of the particular sects against whom it was directed it is always relevant because there are still non-believers and heretics who endanger the spiritual community of Israel.”
137 Simon, Verus Israel, 66–67. Of course, these first Jewish believers would hardly have seen themselves as “professing Christianity,” as if it were some novel, new religion. Rather, they saw themselves as simply embracing the Messianic faith long anticipated by their forefathers. In this regard, the observation of Scot McKnight, “A Loyal Critic: Matthew’s Polemic with Judaism in Theological Perspective,” in Anti-Semitism and Early Christianity, ed. Craig A. Evans and Donald A. Hagner (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1993), 55–79 (here 57, n. 5), is quite relevant: “The early Jewish Christians, it seems to me, thought of themselves as true Jews and saw nonmessianic Jews as false Jews. But these early Jewish Christians saw themselves, then, as for Judaism (defined messianically). Thus, they were ‘anti-nonmessianic Judaism’ or ‘anti-disobedient Judaism’ but not simply ‘anti-Judaism’ (which kind?),” with reference also to L. T. Johnson, “The New Testament’s Anti-Jewish Slander and the Conventions of Ancient Polemic,” Journal of Biblical Literature 108 (1989): 419–41 (specifically 423–30). I have added the emphasis in the quote from McKnight, which deserves serious scholarly consideration and stands in stark contrast to the inaccurate and emotionally charged statements in Moshe, Judaism’s Truth, 3: “Hand in hand with the determined destruction of Judaism, which is rooted in the New Testament, is found a hatred of Jews… . Paul shaped the Church in a manner which stripped away all links to Judaism and cursed it at the same time. The New Testament says Judaism is bad and abandoned by God, while Christianity is good and beloved.” Joseph Klausner gives us a more accurate picture here, noting that while Paul opposed a certain form of Judaism, “he considered his teaching as true Judaism, as the fulfillment of the promises and assurances of authentic Judaism” (From Jesus to Paul, trans. William F. Stinespring [New York: Macmillian, 1943], 591, cited in Evans and Hagner, ibid., 129, n. 2, along with other important references).
138 The evaluation of James Parkes in his important, ground-breaking study, The Conflict of the Church and the synagogue: A Study in the Origins of Antisemitism (New York: Atheneum, 1985), 121–50, virtually exculpating the Jews from any involvement in the martyrdom of Christians, has been judged by some scholars to be an example of overly pro-Jewish scholarship, hence biased in the other direction. The evaluation of Flannery, Anguish of the Jews, is more accurate. For an important study on Parkes and his work, see Robert Andrew Everett, Christianity without Antisemitism: James Parkes and the Jewish Christian Encounter, Studies in Antisemitism (New York: Oxford, 1993).
139 See further Claudia J. Setzer, Jewish Responses to Early Christians: History and Polemics, 30–150c.e. (Minneapolis: Augsburg-Fortress, 1994); and Stephen G. Wilson, Related Strangers: Jews and Christians 70–170c.e. (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1995), especially 169–94, for evaluation of the evidence. Note also, Horbury, Jews and Christians, with special attention to early Jewish-Christian literature.
140 Flannery, Anguish of the Jews, 36. For discussion of the atrocities apparently committed by Bar Kochba, cf. above, n. 67.
141 For the background to Toledot Yeshu, see above, 1.8, n. 22; for its use and abuse by anti-Semites, cf. the works cited above, n. 80. The earliest recorded charges of bastardom with regard to Jesus can be dated to the second century, on the lips of Celsus (as related in Origen’s Contra Celsum).
142 This notice was sent out by the staunchly Zionistic International Christian Embassy in Jerusalem, Saturday, 28 November 1998. The number of “demonstrators” reported varies between five hundred to one thousand ultra-Orthodox Jews, including the local chief rabbi, Yehuda Deri, who unashamedly called for the action on a Friday radio broadcast—the same day of the week, it has been observed, that Muslim radio preachers call for violent actions against Jews!—subsequently asking the police to help shut down the activities of the Messianic Jews. See “Maoz Israel,” January 1999 (this is the newsletter of Ari and Shira Sorko-Ram).
143 Cited in the Jerusalem Post, as reported by Bradley Antolovich, “News Report from Jerusalem” (e-mail), 2 December 1998. A further quote from Adrian carried by the Jerusalem Post (4 December 1998) read, “This wasn’t a demonstration; this was a mob.” They had gathered because a bogus rumor was spread that the Messianic Jews were bringing two busloads of Jewish children and infants to be baptized that day. Of course, there were no busloads, nor did the congregation practice the baptism of children or infants!
144 Brown, Our Hands Are Stained with Blood, 21.
145 Ibid., 20.
146 Ibid.
147 Cited in Bray, Romans, 299. In light of this understanding, Ambrosiaster, who may have had a strong influence on Augustine, wrote (with reference to Romans 11:31), “Paul recalls the unbelief of the Gentiles so that being ashamed of it they may not insult the Jews who have not believed but rejoice when they accept the promise of God.” Cited in ibid., 300.
148 Cited in ibid., 298–99.
149 Cited in Brown, Our Hands Are Stained with Blood, 25.
150 Ibid., 23
151 In truth, I could expand on this theme for hours, since my book Our Hands Are Stained with Blood has been translated into numerous languages, including Korean, Japanese, Finnish, Swedish, Norwegian, Dutch, Russian, Romanian, Hungarian, Italian, and German, as a result of which, we have received feedback from Christian readers around the world who were absolutely horrified to hear of something called “Christian” anti-Semitism. In all their years in the church, they had never met a Christian who hated or despised or mistreated a Jew! Rather, what we would normally hear from our readers is that as soon as they became “born-again” through faith in Jesus, they felt a special love for the Jewish people. Note also the reference to “nearly four thousand letters” received by David Rausch from a period from 1984, when the first edition of his Legacy of Hatred was published, until 1990, when the second edition was published (preface, ix).
152 For a brief, interesting survey, see Timothy P. Weber, “How Evangelicals Became Israel’s Best Friend,” Christianity Today (5 October 1998), 39–49, and cf. also Rausch, Zionism within Early American Fundamentalism (New York: Edwin Mellen Press, 1979).
153 These were the words of Pieter Miedema, quoted in André Stein, Quiet Heroes: True Stories of the Rescue of Jews by Christians in Nazi-Occupied Holland (New York: New York Univ. Press, 1988), 93.
154 See Rausch, Legacy of Hatred, 148, 153, for further details and bibliographic references. Henri de Lubac, Christian Resistance to Anti-Semitism: Memories from 1904–1944, trans. Elizabeth Englund (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1990), 15, makes reference to an outspoken, French Catholic leader, who, “heedless of the abuse that poured in on him,” continued to speak out on behalf of the Jews. His reason? In substance, it was this: “I defend Israel because Jesus was the descendant of David. I defend Israel because I am a Christian; as a Christian, I have the duty to come to its aid.”
Brown, M. L. (2000). Answering Jewish objections to Jesus, Volume 1: General and historical objections. (124). Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Books.
