Homework help.Subject: World Religion East and West
Discussion Subject: Some have criticized Judaism’s concept of Jews being God’s chosen people. Why do you think some might criticize this idea? Do you think the criticisms are valid or not?
Journal Reflection, Base on the reading below.
image of Christian, Islamic, and Jewish symbols
Judaism, Christianity, and Islam share the belief in one God. The traditions of the faiths recorded in the Hebrew Scriptures form the foundation for all three of these world religions. Where did it all begin?
image of a farm
“Turn it and turn it again, for everything is in it. Pore over it, and wax gray and old over it. Stir not from it for you can have no better rule than it” (Chapters from the Fathers [Mishnah Pirkei Avot], 5.25).
image of a Torah
Why is the Torah (Law) so important for Jews? Do Jews believe that by keeping God’s Law they earn their way to heaven?
How do modern science and the scholarly study of the Bible affect Jewish beliefs and practices today?
image of a man and a woman worshipping
“Holy, Holy, Holy is the LORD of Hosts!” (Isaiah 6:3). What does it mean that God is “Holy”? What does it mean that God’s people are “holy”?
image of a Qabalistic Tree of Life
What is Qabalah? How is it related to Judaism?
"He will judge between the nations, and will settle disputes for many peoples. They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore" (Isaiah 2:4).
Why do Jews reject the Christian belief that Jesus is the Messiah?
Objectives
When you complete this module, you should be able to:
Relay the narrative of Israel’s history in the Hebrew Scriptures.
Explain the major sections of the Jewish Bible and their role in the life of ancient Israel.
Discuss Rabbinic Judaism and the Talmud.
Explain the issues with Jewish-Christian relations and dialogue, including the problem of the Holocaust.
Identify salient features of contemporary Judaism and Judaism in the modern world.
Summarize the three general responses of Jews (Orthodox, Conservative, and Reform) to modernity.
The Emergence of a Great Tradition
In the early Iron Age around 1000 BC in Canaan (Palestine), a group of tribal clans formed a confederation bound together by exclusive devotion to one deity alone (Yahweh) and mutual support. The narrative of their history involved remembrance of an escape from enslavement in Egypt centuries earlier. A sort of war palladium, the Ark of the Covenant between their clans, was a symbol of unity and spent several months out of each year at ancient shrines located in different tribal locations.
Because the confederation failed in its aims of mutual support (cf. Judges), eventually they instituted a primitive monarchy with a standing military, a capital, and permanent place of worship (Jerusalem Temple). Thus the nation of Israel was born.
The religion of ancient Israel and its later scriptures would become the foundation of the three great monotheistic religions of the world: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.
Ancient Near Eastern Religious Influences
A primitive form of monotheism existed in ancient Egypt (behind the many gods there was one ultimate reality). The Midianites, who lived between Egypt and Canaan, worshipped a deity named Yahweh. Moses’ father-in-law was said to be a priest from Midian (Exodus 18:1). The creation story recorded in Genesis chapter one has detailed parallels with an ancient Babylonian creation myth, the Enuma Elish, and the story of the flood in Genesis chapters six through nine has detailed parallels with an ancient Mesopotamian flood story in the olderEpic of Gilgamesh. Solomon’s Temple was structured like, and shared decorative features with, ancient non-Israelite temples to other gods in Canaan. All ancient Semitic peoples, not only the Israelites, practiced circumcision and did not eat pork.
Israel’s religious stories, cult, temple, priesthood, laws, and kingship have extensive detailed parallels with non-Israelite religions in Canaan, Egypt, and elsewhere in the ancient Near East. How much influence did these early religious traditions have on the formation of Judaism and later on Christianity and Islam? Consider this as you read and journal this week.
Polytheism, Henotheism and Monotheism
When permanent civilizations appeared in the ancient world (ca. 4000 BC), religion moved from the animism of tribal hunter-gatherer societies to polytheism. Many ancient city-states had a single patron deity to whom they were devoted (e.g., Marduk in Babylon, Baal in Ugarit in Canaan), without denying the existence of other gods.
There is evidence in the Hebrew Scriptures that ancient Israel admitted the existence of other deities, but championed their deity, Yahweh, as the most powerful. The Exodus from Egypt was a contest between Yahweh and the gods of Egypt (Exodus 12:12), whose existence was not denied. Some Psalms refer to Yahweh as greater than the other gods, again, whose existence is not denied: “For you, Lord, are the Most High over all the earth; you are exalted far above all gods” (Psalm 97:9). The Hebrew Scriptures explain how when threatened by defeat by the Israelites, Mesha, king of Moab, offered his son as a sacrifice to Chemosh to avoid defeat in battle—and Chemosh saved him (2 Kings 3:26–27).
Thus ancient Israel was henotheistic. This is the belief in multiple deities but exclusive devotion to one deity, of often of the tribe or nation. Only after the return from the exile in Babylon (500s BC) did ancient Israel develop a strict monotheism, which denied the existence of all other deities except their own.
The Appearance of Judaism
Scholars identify the appearance of Judaism as a religion only during and after the Babylonian Exile (500s BC). During this period Israel developed a radical monotheism and a polemic against the gods of other nations as non-existent idols. Older religious traditions were codified in the Hebrew Scriptures, including the final edition of the “Law of Moses.” Idealized histories of the “fathers” like Abraham, the central figure of Moses, and the Golden Age of David were written as paradigmatic for a people returning to their native land after exile. From that time on some Jews would also live outside of Palestine (e.g., Babylon and other places). Religious practices codified in the “Torah” (teaching) of Moses, such as circumcision, dietary restrictions, and Sabbath observance, served to preserve ethnic identity. Synagogues served as centers of worship since Jews of the Diaspora (“dispersement”) could not make the long trip to Jerusalem for participation in the Temple cult.
How are religious laws (code) and rituals (cult) operative in the religious tradition you are most familiar with? Do they, too, partly serve to draw boundaries and foster group identity? Reflect on this as you read and journal this week
Core Beliefs
Judaism affirms only one God, who is personal but also radically different from His creation. God is all-knowing, all-powerful, all-present, and good. In contrast to many of the Eastern traditions we’ve examined, Judaism affirms that the world is essentially good, having been created by God. All human beings are created in God’s image, and can choose to be just/righteous or unjust/unrighteous. God desires and loves justice and righteousness. Ancient Israelite religion did not have a belief in the afterlife, but over time this developed, especially during and after the Babylonian exile (500s BC). History also has meaning and is moving in a specific direction. God is intimately involved with both his people and individuals. God reveals himself in nature, history, but above all in words through prophets and in Scripture. A specific Jew and descendant of David will come, the Messiah (Mashiach, “Anointed One”), who will restore the kingdom of Israel, convert the non-Jewish (Gentile) nations to the one true God, and bring about an era of universal peace and justice in the “kingdom of God.” Since the Babylonian exile, suffering, especially of the Jews, has been viewed as part of God’s plan—suffering has value and is redemptive.
God’s Chosen People
Essential to Judaism is the belief that God freely elected the Jews as His own chosen people. This does not mean they are superior to other people, or that they are simply to bask in the benefits of being God’s chosen people. Rather, they have solemn responsibilities. God gave them the Torah (Law, teaching) of Moses in order to be “different” from the rest of the nations (Gentiles). This is the primary meaning of “holiness” (tzakika): difference, being set apart. Another aspect of God’s election of the Jews is that they are to bring knowledge, worship, and service of the one true God to the non-Jews (Gentiles). This, again, will happen during the Messianic Age.
The Torah (Law)
A grave misunderstanding of Jews historically, especially by Christians, is that they believe the Law of Moses is a hypothetical way for all people (Jews and non-Jews) to earn heaven, and that the Jews are trying to earn their way to heaven by keeping the Law. Rather, for Jews the Law is their response to God’s gracious election and their obligation in order to be holy or different. God does not require faultless obedience to the Law, which contains means for repentance, atonement for sins, and forgiveness from God. Also, the Torah is God’s covenant with the Jews and is for them alone, not for all peoples. The Torah became important for Jews once they lived outside of the land of Israel, and especially after the Second Temple was destroyed by the Romans in AD 70. Many have argued that Judaism is more about “doing” religious laws (Halakah) than “believing” certain ideas.
Some have criticized Judaism’s concept of Jews being God’s chosen people. Why do you think some might criticize this idea? Do you think the criticisms are valid or not? Reflect on these questions as you read and journal this week.
Zoroastrianism and Hellenism
Scholars believe that the ancient Persian religion of Zoroastrianism influenced Judaism during and after the exile. The Persians replaced the Babylonians as the power in the ancient Near East. This religion affirms a good God and an evil God, in cosmic conflict. Each has a host of spirits, angels, and demons, involved in the conflict. Humans can choose to be on the good or bad side of the struggle. History is moving toward a great apocalyptic battle, a resurrection of the dead, and a divine judgment day. These beliefs appear only in later Jewish Scriptures, written after the exile.
In the 300s through Alexander the Great, Greek culture and thought influenced the ancient Near Eastern and the Mediterranean peoples. This is called Hellenization. Many Jews, especially those living outside of Palestine, found points of contact between Greek philosophers who reasoned there is only one God, and incorporated Greek philosophical and religious beliefs into their religion and scriptures. They adopted Greek terms to ideas to understand, explain, and defend their beliefs to non-Jews. Both apocalypticism and Hellenism heavily influenced early Christianity and the New Testament.
Rabbinic Judaism
After the Second Temple was destroyed in AD 70 by the Romans, Judaism lost its centralized place of worship and cult. The sect of the Pharisees—the only surviving sect after the war with Rome—took over Jewish leadership and reorganized Judaism. They established the canon of the Hebrew Scriptures,
expelled Christian Jews and other “heretics” from Jewish communities, and started writing down their oral
traditions, which they believed were passed down from Moses as commentaries on the Law. They were the
forerunners of Rabbis, who would become Judaism’s religious leaders.
Why do you think most Jews did not believe Jesus of Nazareth was their Messiah? Write down your answers.
The Mishnah contains these oral traditions, and the Gemara is a commentary on the Mishnah. Together
they constitute the Talmud, which is the central sacred text of Jews in addition the Jewish Bible. Many religions, including Hinduism, Christianity, and Islam, have a primary set of scriptures and secondary body
of teachings (Smriti in Hinduism, “Sacred Tradition” in Christianity, and the Hadith in Islam).
The synagogue, Torah observance, Talmud study, and a strong sense of community while living among non-Jews have been the hallmarks of Judaism throughout most of Western history since the early centuries AD
Jewish Mysticism
In the Middle Ages Jews lived as a minority among a primarily Christian civilization. Jewish scholars and philosophers, like Maimonides (AD 1135–1204) engaged in debate with Christians and Muslims, and systematized Jewish doctrines (creed).
Jewish mysticism also developed, which deviated somewhat from mainstream Orthodox Judaism. These mystics emphasized personal religious experience, sought personal union with God through spiritual exercises, and were known to have supernatural powers. Qabalah developed as the doctrinal foundation for Jewish mysticism. Qabalah sees humans as divine sparks seeking return to God, and God revealing occult secrets in the Hebrew Alphabet and Scriptures. All of creation is part of God and reflects divine attributes as depicted by the ten branches (Sephirot) on the “Tree of Life” symbol.
Each of the major Western religions, including Christianity and Islam, has had a mystical tradition (like Sufism in Islam) that deviated from the mainstream religion and was often considered suspicious. The mystical traditions in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam bear remarkable similarities to the yogic traditions in the Eastern traditions we have studied
Judaism in the Modern World
In the last several centuries, advances in science and the scholarly study of religion and religious scriptures have posed both challenges and opportunities for the major world religions. Every major religious tradition has developed three basic approaches to the issues raised by science and scholarship: (1) denying or ignoring them; (2) embracing them and modifying their beliefs accordingly; (3) a middle way proceeding with caution in making changes.
How are the stories of the Hebrews understood by contemporary Jews? The content of the Hebrew Bible forms the foundation for three major Western religions—Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Stories of creation, the great flood, Abraham, Moses, and the prophets fill the pages along with prayers and poetry. So how do these texts remain relevant in the twenty-first century? In the Jewish tradition, how is scripture read and interpreted? How do rituals and worship reflect the creed and code of ethics of modern Jews?
Four Responses
Orthodox Jews contend that the Torah is the judge of the modern world, not the modern world the judge of the Torah. Very little of their creed, code, cult, and community has changed in response to modern science and scholarship. Orthodox Jews are the smallest Jewish “denomination” but also the fastest growing.
Reform Jews seek to reform traditional Jewish beliefs, practices, and ethics in the light of modern developments. They embrace the modern world but remain Jews by modifying and redefining traditional aspects of Judaism. They embrace modern values of religious and political freedom, secular governments, human rights and social justice. Reform Judaism is the largest Jewish denomination in the United States.
Four Responses 2
Conservative Judaism is a middle path between Orthodox and Reformed Judaism. Conservative Jews believe that Judaism should change slowly and retain much of traditional beliefs and practices, with some modification. For example, they worship in the vernacular language and grant women a larger role in religious life.
“Secular” Jews have largely abandoned their ancestral faith but still find meaning and direction in their ethnic identity as Jews. They invest their traditional Jewish values like study and justice in secular pursuits of science, politics, and law
REL223 – The Long Search – “Judaism: The Chosen People” - Audio Transcript Narrator: Blindfolded and asked to guess where you are at the moment you might say an auction or a Hebrew telephone exchange. As a matter of fact it’s Morning Prayer at a yeshiva, a seminary. This one is a transplant from New York and many of the students are American. Voice 1: Praying is not making ourselves audible, it’s rather making ourselves attentive, listening. Voice 2: Jews became a chosen people because they responded. Perhaps everyone heard God’s calling, but it was Abraham the first one that said here I am. Narrator: At a certain point in the service there’s a reading from the five books of Moses, the books of the law, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy. Collectively, the Torah, which is kept in a place they call the Ark. Voice 1: The Torah, the Rabbi says, is a letter written to every Jew by his father in heaven. This closest image that one gets to, to God is his word, is his letters, the letter that he sends us. Ah, we can’t see him, but we can see his Torah and that is why on many occasions ah the joy of dancing and kissing may seem to an outsider as a mad event but someone who feels that this is a letter from his father from whom he was exiled and cut off for many, many long months is very much in place. Narrator: Torah scrolls are always handwritten by a scribe. It can take one man a year or more to finish a single scroll. Narrator 1: All the time I was in Jerusalem, and long before I got there, I had a tussle with the idea of the covenant, this special agreement between God and the Jews. I gather that the Jews claim there is a contract made between them and God, called the Covenant. Is that fair? Dr. Steven Katz: That’s exactly right. Narrator 1: And it was made between them and God when? Dr. Steven Katz: Well initially with Abraham and then it was reconfirmed and expanded through the Exodus and at Sinai when the law was given. Narrator 1: The law, did God according to the biblical claim, speak in words, speak to somebody? Dr. Steven Katz: Well that’s a very great point. Nobody knows what he said. Some people think he spoke, and some people think that he just sort of inspired Moses, and some people said he gave a tablet in places speaking and Moses sort of took the rest down through inspiration, we don’t know. Narrator 1: But, out of whatever the mystery of the confrontation there being, there emerged some sort of law Dr. Steven Katz: That’s it, the Torah, which is better perhaps translated as teaching than as law. Narrator: My teacher on that occasion was Steven Katz. He is associate professor of religion at Dartmouth College New Hampshire. Dr. Steven Katz: We do feel that God knows what he’s doing, his ways are not our ways it says in the Bible and it’s hard for us to put a finger on exactly what it all means, but we believe that it does mean something. Voice 1: Judaism teaches us that the word of God is something which one has to search for. Nobody can tell you open this book or that book and you’ll find all the answers. By the comments and translation and the actual life of the word of God is not clear cut at all. Narrator: I could easily have left Israel without learning that the word Israel has a root meaning if someone hadn’t shown me a verse in the book of Genesis. It means something like “he who struggles with God and man and wins.” Not “he who lets God trample him underfoot,” or “he to whom God is a total stranger,” but “he who struggles with God and man and wins.” And here before me is the record of the struggle, the Talmud. Layers upon layers, and centuries upon centuries of argument, not about whether God spoke—that’s assumed, the books of Moses are safely under cover—but about what exactly God meant. To look at a page of Talmud is like a cross section of a tree, oldest at the core, ringed round by argument—some 2000 years old, some more recent—and there’s space outside for more growth. Narrator: Study in the yeshiva is done out loud and in pairs. Dr. Steven Katz: If a person studies by himself, he can fool himself sometimes. While studying Torah, studying Talmud, is a religious duty, a religious act, at the same time it’s an intellectual effort. Narrator: But isn’t the way of learning made clever as an end in itself? Dr. Steven Katz: The purpose of learning is not learning. The purpose of learning is living. Narrator: So it would be wrong, would it, to see the Talmud as an encyclopedia with ready answers? Dr. Steven Katz: It’s actually an encyclopedia, has encyclopedic knowledge, but not arranged according to gentile encyclopedias, in alphabetical order. It is like an ocean, with waves. You never know which wave is coming to you next. Like swimming, you don’t study, you swim. Narrator: Does the argument ever slip into pride, rather pleased with yourself for “scoring a point?” Man with beard: It does sometimes, but the truth is it’s not really supposed to. There’s a classical example that’s mentioned in the Talmud itself where two people were arguing a point. And when one got stuck, the other one says “okay, now, according to your opinion, this should be your answer,” and then after he gave the answer they went on. The idea is not “I gotcha” the idea is “let’s find out really what the truth is.” [Music] Narrator: Israel is the name given to Jacob when he struggled with God. Israel is the name of the people which has kept the struggle going. Since 1948, Israel has been the name of a secular state. One of the more taxing parts of this search has been working out when a Jew talks about “Israel” exactly what he means. Voice: The existence of Israel is the greatest chance that was given to Judaism in modern times. It opens up new messages not only to Jews but also a new message of Judaism to the world at large. Like the Bible came from Zion and from Jerusalem 3000 years ago, there may be a new Bible in the making in Israel, in the very life that Israel is creating there may be a new message of hope to the world, and it may also spell the end of the world. Sometimes we ask ourselves, is Judaism taking this trip to die in the Holy Land? We hope not. Narrator: Spoken or unspoken, behind any conversation with a Jew lies the holocaust, the fact that between 1939 and 1945, six million Jews were exterminated
REL 223 Module 6 AVP Script Jewish–Christian Relations Slide 1 Welcome to our presentation on Jewish–Christian Relations Slide 2 Slide title: Christianity as a Jewish Sect Slide content: No text Image: Jesus Narrator: Beginning as a movement with first-century Judaism, Christianity owes a great debt to Judaism. At the same time, the relations between Judaism and Christianity historically, have been riddled with ambiguities and animosities. In the mid-first century, Christianity was a sect within the broader Jewish religion. Judaism was itself diverse, but unified by core beliefs and practices. Jewish Christians believed that Jesus was the promised messiah. Their numbers were few, and they were tolerated as a sect within Judaism, similar to other Messianic movements at the time. The first Christians were Jews who kept the Law (Torah) of Moses. They practiced Jewish rituals and customs, lived in Jewish communities, and they participated in the synagogue life and worship. Slide 3 Slide title: Jewish Rejection of Christian Claims Slide content: No text Image: close-up image of Jesus on stained glass Narrator: Why did most Jews not accept the Christian claim that Jesus was the messiah? Although specific expectations concerning the messiah differed among Jews in the first century, none envisioned the messiah as dying at the hands of pagan Gentile Romans. Most Jews expected the messiah to defeat their enemies and re-establish the kingdom of Israel, like the glorious kingdom of David long ago. Capital punishment by shameful crucifixion was nowhere in the spectrum of Jewish views about the messiah. In fact, according to the Law of Moses, death on a tree signified God’s curse. Later Jewish traditions preserved in the Talmud probably reflect the mainstream Jewish belief that Jesus was a bad Jew who practiced sorcery and was in league with the devil. One such Talmudic passage says: “It is taught: On the eve of Passover they hung Yeshu and the crier went forth for forty days beforehand declaring that ‘[Yeshu] is going to be stoned for practicing witchcraft, for enticing and leading Israel astray. Anyone who knows something to clear him should come forth and exonerate him.’ But no one had anything exonerating for him and they hung him on the eve of Passover.” (Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin 43a) Jews at the time of Jesus and throughout history have also claimed that Jesus did not fulfill all of the Messianic promises in the Jewish Scriptures. They include universal peace and prosperity, worldwide, in the age of the messiah. Slide 4 Slide title: The Separation of Judaism and Christianity Slide content: No text Image: painting of a rabbi Narrator: Despite a small Jewish constituency, Christianity quickly became a Gentile (non-Jewish) movement. By the end of the first century, there were more non-Jewish Christians than Jewish Christians. During the reorganization of Judaism after the failed Jewish revolt against Rome and the destruction of the Temple in AD 70, the Pharisees assumed leadership. They expelled Jewish Christians from their synagogues and communities. The gospels, written after this time, forever enshrine the bitterness that this entailed. Slide 5 Slide title: Christian Dominance and Misunderstandings Slide content: No text Images: Roman ruins and St. Augustine Narrator: When Christianity became the official religion of the Empire in the late 300s AD, Jews were tolerated but viewed as miscreants who rejected the messiah, Jesus Christ. From then on and throughout the Middle Ages, Jews continued to live in tight-knit communities but were a persecuted, oppressed, and marginalized minority within Christian Europe. Christians blamed later Jews collectively, far removed from Jesus’ time, as responsible for Jesus’ death. This was misguided. It is wrong to blame people for the actions of their distant ancestors. Also, largely due to the theology of St. Augustine, the Church viewed Jews as trying to “earn their salvation” by keeping the Law of Moses, apart from God’s grace. This was based on a misunderstanding of the apostle Paul. Modern scholarship has demonstrated that Paul did not condemn the Law of Moses and Jews for “works righteousness” and trying to earn salvation through the Law. Rather, Paul’s contrast between “works of the Law” and “faith” addressed the issue of by what criteria one could join the Messianic community: circumcision and law observance, or merely faith. Slide 6 Slide title: The Middle Ages Slide content: No text Image: an Italian city built during the Middle Ages Narrator: Throughout the Middle Ages, Jews lived alongside Christians as a minority. Jewish separation on account of Halakah (keeping the Law of Moses) made Jews a tolerated but countercultural and looked-down-upon group. Anti-Semitism developed. In its worst forms it accused Jews of vile actions and religious atrocities, like defiling the Eucharist, or being in league with the devil. There were periodic attacks on Jewish communities. The Church’s Inquisition targeted, in part, Jewish Communities. “Ghetto” is an Italian word originally referring to a separate part of a city, sometimes by walls, to which Jews were confined and lived as second-class citizens. Slide 7 Slide title: Martin Luther on the Jews and Judaism Slide content: No text Image: bronze statue of Martin Luther, the Protestant reformer Narrator: In 1543, Martin Luther, the famous Protestant Reformer, was only echoing the sentiments of countless European Christians when he wrote his treatise, On the Jews and Their Lies. Luther said that Jews were a “base, whoring people, that is, no people of God, and their boast of lineage, circumcision, and law must be accounted as filth," are "full of the devil's feces ... which they wallow in like swine," and he claimed that Jewish synagogue was an "incorrigible whore and an evil slut."1 In his treatise,Luther urged violence against the Jews, including destroying their homes and synagogues. He argued that practicing Judaism should be outlawed, Jews should be denied legal rights and privileges, and that Jews should be reduced to slave labor. Besides these written attacks, Luther’s theology polarized “Law” and “Gospel,” denigrating the Law. This fueled centuries of misunderstanding Judaism as legalistic, trying to earn salvation apart from God’s grace. This is not what Judaism taught or teaches. Slide 8 Slide title: Modern Persecution of Jews Slide content: No text Image: Jews being attacked by an angry mob Narrator: In retrospect, Christians today have realized that this was a manifestation of the human tendency to oppress minorities and demonize those who are different. Equal rights for all people, acceptance of religious pluralism, tolerance of different belief systems, and freedom of conscience in religion have been hallmarks of the last several centuries of western history. Yet, persecution of Jews continued into the early 1900s. In the late 1800s Russia reinstituted violent attacks, or pograms, on Jewish communities. Slide 9 Slide title: The Holocaust Slide content: No text Image: Photo of Jews being treated like prisoners during the Holocaust 1 Robert Michael, Holy Hatred: Christianity, Antisemitism, and the Holocaust (New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006), 111–13. Narrator: The horrors of the Holocaust attest to the failure of modern values to attain the lofty goals they envisioned. During the Second World War, Hitler and the Nazis systematically exterminated six million European Jews, including one million children. Jews refer to this as the Shoah. Numerous scholars argue for a direct line from Luther’s anti-Semitism in sixteenth-century Germany to the Holocaust. In the wake of the Holocaust, many Christians have seriously reckoned with historical Christian antiSemitism. They have changed longstanding attitudes toward Jews. Some have even issued formal apologies. For centuries, the Good Friday liturgy in the Catholic Church included a prayer for the “perfidious” and “faithless” Jews. Since 1955, the Church has revised that prayer multiple times, focusing on what Christians and Jews have in common. Slide 10 Slide title: The Roman Catholic Church on Judaism Slide content: No text Image: The Vatican Narrator: At the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s, the Catholic Church highlighted numerous ways Christians are indebted to Judaism. It denied that Jesus’ death is attributable to all Jews alive at the time of Jesus. It rejected attributing Jesus’ death to later generations of Jews and it rejected the belief that Jews are cursed by God, and condemned anti-Semitism and violence against Jews.2 In 1998 Pope John Paul II issued a formal apology for Pope Pius XII’s and the Catholic Church’s failure to publically oppose the Nazis and the Holocaust during World War II. Slide 11 Slide title: Recent Protestant Statements on Judaism Slide content: No text Image: a rural Protestant Church Narrator: In 1981, the World Council of Churches, the world’s largest cooperative of Protestant denominations, published a statement rejecting the tradition Christian teaching of “supercessionism.” This claims that the Church replaced Israel as God’s chosen people. They also stated that they would no longer seek to convert Jews to Christianity. In 1991, the European Lutheran Commission on the Church and the Jewish People condemned Luther’s anti-Semitic writings, rejected historical Christian contempt toward Judaism, and urged Christians to reform their teaching and practices regarding Jews and Judaism. Slide 12 Slide title: Dabru Emet Slide content: Text: 2 Second Vatican Council, “Declaration on the Relation of the Church to Non-Christian Religions” (Nostra Aetate),(1965), paragraph 4. Jews and Christians worship the same God. Jews and Christians seek authority from the same. Christians can respect the claim of the Jewish people upon the land of Israel. Jews and Christians accept the moral principles of Torah. Nazism was not a Christian phenomenon. Differences not settled until God’s future Kingdom. New Jewish–Christian relationship will not weaken Jewish practice. Jews and Christians must work together for justice and peace. No image Narrator: Jewish responses to these Christian apologies and overtures have been mixed. In the year 2000, 220 Jewish scholars, leaders, and rabbis published in the New York Times, a statement called Dabru Emet, “Speak the Truth”, affirming the following eight theses: Jews and Christians worship the same God. Jews and Christians seek authority from the same book -- the Bible (what Jews call "Tanakh" and Christians call the "Old Testament"). Christians can respect the claim of the Jewish people upon the land of Israel. Jews and Christians accept the moral principles of Torah. Nazism was not a Christian phenomenon. The humanly irreconcilable difference between Jews and Christians will not be settled until God redeems the entire world as promised in Scripture. A new relationship between Jews and Christians will not weaken Jewish practice. Jews and Christians must work together for justice and peace. Slide 13 Slide title: Some Jewish Perceptions of Dabru Emet Slide content: Text: Jews and Christians do not share the same scriptures. Real and irreconcilable differences are being glossed over. Religious relativism is being promoted. Jews believe Christians commit idolatry. Christians do not accept and practice the moral principles of the Torah. Nazism and the Holocaust are Christian phenomena. Dabru Emet poses hazards to Jewish identity and practice. Narrator: Many Jews, however, are skeptical of such a positive view of past and present relations between Jews and Christians. There have been numerous Jewish criticisms of Dabru Emet. In 2001, Jon Levenson, an internationally renowned Jewish scholar at Harvard University, published a point-by-point refutation of Dabru Emet. Jewish criticisms of that article include: Jews and Christians do not share the same scriptures. This is because Jews and Christians read the Hebrew scriptures through different and incompatible lenses, and they have different books in their canons of scripture. In the name of a superficial and illusory agreement, Dabru Emet glosses over real differences, some irreconcilable and contradictory, between Jewish and Christian beliefs. Dabru Emet proposes religious relativism, wrongly claiming that neither Jews nor Christians can be certain that their beliefs are correct. Dabru Emet overlooks the Jewish claim that Christians commit idolatry by worshipping Jesus. Christians do not accept and practice the moral principles of the Torah. Nazism and the Holocaust are in fact Christian phenomena. Dabru Emet poses hazards to Jewish identity and practice. Slide 14 Slide title: The Road Ahead Slide content: No text Image: an open road Narrator: Thus, despite recent promises of improvement in Jewish–Christian relations, as in centuries past, the road ahead seems rocky and fraught with difficulties.
