Jewish Evangelism: “To the Jew First”
Nicodemus Visiting Jesus. Artist: Henry Ossawa Tanner. Photo: wikiart.org
"For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek" (holy apostle Paul, Romans 1:16).
I have just finished reading a wonderful book by the late scholar Louis Feldman (d. 2017) entitled Jew and Gentile in the Ancient World: Attitudes and Interactions from Alexander to Justinian.
In it, he mentions the patristic attempts to convince the Jews of the
truth of Christianity by citing examples of Old Testament prophecy
fulfilled in Jesus, and he remarks that Jews in those days could
hardly have found such Christian arguments convincing. In some ways I
take his point. Even to my Gentile Christian ears some of their
arguments sound forced, such as St. Justin Martyr’s suggestion that
the figure of the cross can be found in the physical physiognomy of
the human nose (Apology, ch. 55). But I still think that the
patristic arguments were not completely unsound, even if the Fathers
did over-stretch their arguments somewhat in their zeal to convert
their Jewish neighbours to the Christian Faith. Accordingly I would
like to revisit the whole project and suggest reasons why devout Jews
should become devout Christians.
I am not unaware of how unpopular such a project can be today. The
unpopularity of the attempt to convince Jews of the truth of
Christianity goes back a long way. In the prehistoric days of my
youth, the Anglican Book of Common Prayer contained a collect
or prayer for use on Good Friday for the conversion of the Jews which
read, “O merciful God, who hast made all men, and hatest nothing
that thou hast made, nor wouldest the death of a sinner, but rather
that he should be converted and live: Have mercy upon the Jews, thine
ancient people, and upon all who reject and deny thy Son; take from
them all ignorance, hardness of heart, and contempt of thy word, and
so fetch them home, blessed Lord to thy fold, that they may be made
one flock under one shepherd, Jesus Christ our Lord”. It hardly needs
stating that this prayer could not stand the scrutiny of later
political correctness, and so was omitted from later editions of the
Prayer Book. Our Jewish neighbours objected to the Christian
conviction that they should convert to Christianity, and so a later
generation of Christians obligingly expunged the collect from their
Good Friday liturgy.
I quite understand how our Jewish neighbours find offensive the suggestion that they should abandon Rabbinic Judaism
for Christianity. In the same way, I suppose, our Muslim neighbours
find offensive the suggestion that they should similarly abandon
Islam. But if Christians regard their religion as true, the notion
that all men should become Christians seems an inevitable corollary.
Every person thinks his own religion is true and therefore that
everyone else should embrace it. This does not make him a bigot or
triumphalistic, but simply consistent. If he did not regard his own
religion as true, no doubt he would find another religion.
For Christians the issue Jewish evangelism is complicated by the
long history of anti-Semitism, especially in Europe. One thinks of the
European ghettoes and of the Nazi Holocaust. We naturally view our
relationship with our Jewish neighbours through the lens of the past
European history in general and the Holocaust in particular, and read
patristic comments—and sometimes New Testament verses—in light of
this history of inequality and oppression. But this is a mistake.
In the New Testament, there was indeed an inequality between
Christians and Jews, but it was the Christians who were at the
distinct disadvantage. Leaving aside the crucifixion of Jesus,
Jewish-Christian relations began with the persecution of Christians by
the Jewish majority, culminating in the martyrdom of Stephen [icon].
In the decades and even centuries following, the Christians
continued to be the persecuted minority, and the Jews continued to
function in the role of either the persecutors or of collaborators
with the persecutors, such as in the case of the martyrdom of St.
Polycarp in the mid-second century. Throughout the early church and
even into the Constantinian period, the Jewish communities in the
Roman world were large, rich, powerful, and influential, while the
Christian communities during the same period were small and
comparatively powerless. The patristic denunciations of the Jews need
to be read against this political and cultural background. It was the
Christians who were in the ghettoes and under threat, not the Jews.
The shrillness of the Christian characterization of Judaism arises at
least in part from this inequality of power.
One also needs to recognize that the Christians were then reacting
to an extreme and (to their mind) blasphemous Jewish rejection of
Jesus. The Jews denounced Jesus as a deceiver and a blasphemer, and
even today the Talmud contains sections of extraordinary vituperation
in which Jesus is portrayed as sunk in hell and set ablaze in fiery
excrement. The Toldoth Yeshu or “Story of Jesus”, tells the
tale of Jesus from the Jewish perspective in lurid detail, and
includes the assertion that Jesus was the bastard son of Mary and a
Roman centurion named Pandira. It was not uncommon for Jews to add
the words “May his name perish!” upon hearing the name of Jesus
mentioned.
It is good that today we have largely left behind such polemics, but
we must remember that in the past Christian denunciation of Judaism
was matched by Jewish denunciation of Christianity. Our modern horror
and rejection of anti-Semitism—godly and necessary as this rejection
is—must not be allowed to distort our reading of history or make us
think that the patristic opposition to Judaism shared the same root as
modern anti-Semitism. One can and should reject such anti-Semitism as
hateful and demonic, and still recognize that patristic polemic
against Judaism was not necessarily anti-Semitic in our modern sense.
In fact the Fathers tried to convert the Jews to Christianity for the
same reason that the Jews tried to convert them to Judaism—because
both thought that their religion was true.
For many Jews today all Christian evangelism aimed specifically at
Jews is intrinsically and inescapably anti-Semitic. Certain Christian
Jews—such as the so-called “Messianic Jews” or those of the “Jews for Jesus” movement—portray
Jewish conversion to Christianity not so much an act of conversion
as completion, a movement in which Judaism is not renounced
but fulfilled. They often refer to themselves not as “converted
Jews”, but as “completed Jews”. It is fair to say that such
distinction and nuance are not well-received by their target
audience. For many in this target audience, Jewish identity is
paramount, and Christian beliefs such as the belief that Jesus is
the Messiah, threaten that identity and are therefore emphatically
rejected.
I suggest that such a rejection is incompatible with the Jewish
inheritance found in the Hebrew Scriptures. For the prophets, it was
following the will of God that was paramount, not ethnic identity.
This prophetic preference for truth over national identity was summed
up by John the Baptizer when he said to the Pharisees, “Do not
suppose that you can say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham for our
father’, for I say to you that God is able from these stones to raise
up children to Abraham” (Matthew 3:9). Israel’s national destiny was
to follow their God wherever He led, even if following Him meant the
sacrifice of national identity. To be a Jew was not merely an ethnic
reality, but a spiritual one (Romans 2:28-29). Accordingly, I will
offer an apologia for the Christian faith in the spirit of the
Fathers. St. Paul taught that the Gospel was the power of God for the
salvation of all men, to the Jew first, and also to the Greek (Romans
1:16). With the deepest respect for my Jewish neighbour, I will make
the Christian case for the Gospel and attempt to show how Judaism
finds its fulfillment in Jesus the Messiah.
Jewish Evangelism: The Religion of Israel as Preparatory, Not Final
In my last blog post
I looked at the patristic project of commending the Christian Faith
to one’s Jewish neighbour, and concluded that the project, though
fraught with potential for misunderstanding, was still worthwhile.
Here I would like to suggest that the religion of Israel was clearly
preparatory, and was never meant to be God’s final word to Israel or
to mankind.
In discussing Israel’s religion it is important to differentiate the
religion as practised from the time of Moses to the first century from
the Jewish religion after the catastrophe of 70 A.D. The Mosaic
religion was very different from post-70 A.D. Rabbinic Judaism, in
that Mosaic religion centered upon sacrifice, and after 70 A.D.
Jewish sacrifices were no longer possible.
This difference is difficult to exaggerate. The religion described
in the Hebrew Bible took it for granted that God’s presence,
forgiveness, and blessing were accessed through the offering of
sacrifice, at first on the altar which was part of the portable shrine
carried by the Levites, and then at the immovable Temple built in
Jerusalem. That Temple and altar were destroyed in 586 B.C. by the
Babylonians, and rebuilt after the exile, and then later still
enlarged by Herod the Great. Its presence was considered as absolutely
necessary to the religious life of the nation. The pain experienced
at its loss and the urgent necessity of its restoration were both
expressed in the prayer offered by Azariah when he and two of his
exilic companions were thrown into the fiery furnace by Nebuchadnezzar
in Babylon: “At this time there is no prince, no prophet or leader,
no burnt offering or sacrifice or oblation or incense, no place to
make an offering before You or to find mercy” (Daniel 3 LXX). Note
this last bit: “no place to find mercy”. The heart of Mosaic religion
was sacrifice; the written Law was given to support these sacrifices
and, along with the Prophets, to tell the people how the God to whom
they sacrificed wanted them to live. Their culture at that time was an
oral culture, not a written one as ours is today. The average
Israelite did not pore over the pages of a Book; he approached the
altar with joy and trembling to find the living God.
After the Temple was destroyed, Judaism had to be refashioned to
accommodate this loss. The contrite heart and humble spirit which were
once to accompany sacrifice now had to replace it. But there is no
suggestion in the Law that sacrifice was really replaceable. It is
true that of course God is not so unreasonable as to demand the
impossible. It is also true that Rabbinic Judaism, centered on the
study of literature, is radically different than the Judaism practiced
while the Temple was still standing. In the discussion that follows I
will be focussing upon the religion as revealed to Moses at Sinai
and contained in the Law, not upon Judaism as presently constituted.
All religions bear traces of the time of their origin—especially religions with Scriptures, such as Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.
Thus in the Old and New Testaments (and in the Quran) we find
slaves mentioned, since slaves existed when these Scriptures were
written. The mere fact that slaves feature in these Scriptures may or
may not constitute an endorsement of slavery. Whether or not slavery
is actually endorsed depends upon what the Scriptures say about
slavery, not the mere fact that slavery is mentioned.
In the same way, the fact that the Law of Moses contains such
details from the Bronze Age such as oxen goring people (Exodus 21:28)
or that it assumes that most of the population live in an agricultural
setting (Deuteronomy 26) is no argument against its timeless
universality. The commandment, for example, that you shall not muzzle
an ox while it is threshing, but allow it to eat while it works
(Deuteronomy 25:4) is capable of many different applications—as St.
Paul’s use of it testifies (1 Timothy 5:18). Timeless principles can
easily be culturally expressed and enshrined within a particular
culture at a particular time, and most of the provisions of the Law
are capable of such application in other cultures and times.
But certain things in the Law are not capable of such timeless
application, but presuppose a Bronze Age culture and population when
all of Israel dwelt within the Promised Land with a certain limited
population. Indeed, when Israel expanded beyond the borders of the
Land of Israel after the Bronze Age and dwelt far from the Land of
Israel, certain commandments of the Law were no longer capable of
being fulfilled. This argues for the temporary and time-bound nature
of the Mosaic Law, and that it was never intended to be God’s final
word to His people, but simply one stage of their continuing journey.
Take for example the commandment that all Israelite males must
resort three times a year to the central shrine to offer sacrifice—at
the Passover and the feast of the Unleavened Bread, at the feast of
harvest (i.e. the Feast of Weeks or Pentecost), and at the feast of
the ingathering in the autumn (i.e. the Feast of Booths). This
commandment is not like the commandment to not muzzle the threshing ox
(which did not apply if you did not own an ox), and obedience to it
was mandatory. In Exodus 23:14f, God says, “Three times a year you
shall keep a feast to Me…Three times in the year shall all your males
appear before the Lord Yahweh”. The commandment to assemble three
times a year at the central shrine to offer sacrifice is repeated
again in Exodus 34:18f, Leviticus 23:1, and Deuteronomy 16:1f.
There
is no suggestion that obedience to this command was optional or that
it depended upon one’s location or inclination. But after Israel
increased in population and expanded beyond its national borders so
that large chunks of Jewish population lived in the Diaspora, this
commandment became impossible to fulfill. In fact most Diaspora Jews
only rarely came to the Temple to sacrifice, because travel to the
Holy Land was so difficult. This commandment also assumes that the
Israelite population was such that all the males could assemble
together and the sacrificing priests would not be overwhelmed by the
number of sacrifices—that is, it assumes a population consistent with
its Bronze Age existence.
Take another example: the provision of a city of refuge for someone
guilty of manslaughter and fleeing from the “avenger of blood” (i.e. a
kinsman prosecuting a blood-feud). The Law appointed certain “cities
of refuge” to which the guilty party might flee and find safety. He
would have to remain within that city until the death of the incumbent
high priest; if he was found outside the city, the avenger of blood
could justly take his revenge and kill him. The provision for such
cities of refuge forms an important part of the national life
envisioned by the Mosaic Law—Moses himself established three cities of
refuge east of the Jordan before Israel crossed over and began to
conquer the land (Deuteronomy 4:41f), and the Mosaic legislation
repeatedly refers to other cities of refuge (Exodus 21:12f, Numbers
35:9f, Deuteronomy 19:1f). These cities were arranged to be within
easy reach of those requiring them and so they were scattered
throughout the Land of Israel. Note: scattered throughout the Land of
Israel. The Law presupposes that all Israelites were living within the
Land of Israel. Large Jewish expansion beyond Palestine and into
the Diaspora made obedience to this part of the Law impossible to
fulfill, and these provisions out-of-date.And that is the point.
These
precepts within the Mosaic Law suggest that the Law was given to
Israel for one stage of its ongoing journey throughout history, and
not as God’s final word. In fact after the loss of the Temple many if
not most of the Law’s provisions could no longer be fulfilled. God
allowed the Temple to be destroyed because the sacrifices mandated in
the Law were never intended to be offered indefinitely.
If one says that, on the contrary, the Mosaic Law delivered during
the Bronze Age at Mount Sinai was indeed God’s final and definitive
will for His people, then one must also assert that apart from animal
sacrifice God cannot be adequately worshipped. Pretty much all of the
ancients believed this, and so the pagans blamed the Christians for
repudiating animal sacrifice. The ancient Jews believed this too, as
we have seen from the citation from The Book of Daniel and from Jewish
anguish over the catastrophe of 70 A.D. Are we really prepared to
assert this today? Will we really say that the blood of bulls and
goats takes away sins (compare Hebrews 10:4), and that an altar
smoking daily with the burnt carcasses of animals represents the
zenith of liturgical spirituality? If we are not prepared to turn back
the clock like this and make these assertions, then we must admit
that the Mosaic Law was not God’s final word to Israel, but rather but
a step on the way to something truly final—a necessary step, but a
mere step nonetheless. Mosaic Judaism and its Law were never intended
as God’s final word to Israel. The Law was but a tutor to bring Israel
to a better place.
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