“What accord
has Christ with Belial? Or what portion does a believer share with an
unbeliever?”
2 Corinthians
6:15
One of the most interesting aspects of public debate
is how often stuff is said with absolute certainty that is in fact complete
nonsense. To be fair we have all been guilty of this at some point, simply
because we can speak too quickly, with too little understanding or experience under
our belt. Depending on who you are and what philosophy of thought you are
coming from, this nonsense can vary. I find it hilarious whenever I hear some
evolutionary biologist talking about how they study chimpanzees or bonobos to
gain insight into human behaviour. That would be like studying children on the
playground to get insight into how a highly trained team of Navy seals
operates. Sure, there will be crossovers of behaviour, but they are more
coincidental than useful for understanding how one group achieves its tasks
compared to the other. But this concept is so ingrained in the minds of many
public intellectuals that it goes largely unquestioned. People just smile and
nod as complete nonsense is presented as wisdom. Many examples could be
proffered.
‘Judeo-Christianity’ is one of those statements you
hear, where if you know how ridiculous the concept is, you wince a little while
other people nod along like they are hearing the golden wisdom of the ages. But
this statement speaks to a historical fiction and it is definitely not connected
to the wisdom of ages past. The adoption of this term amongst many prominent
Christians is in fact very solid evidence that much of the wisdom of past ages
is being ignored or misread. So what exactly is the issue here?
This term, ‘Judeo-Christianity’, is used often by
conservative or Christian commentators, who want to refer to the long tradition
of the Bible’s influence on Western society. “Our society was built on
Judeo-Christian values.” “Or society is rejecting its Judeo-Christian values.”
“Our legal system is a product of “Judeo-Christian values.” These commentators
may point to things like the monuments of the 10 commandments’ on the front of
American schools and universities, or the reference to the creator in the
American declaration of independence, “we hold these truth to be self-evident,
that all men are created equal…”, or to the acknowledgement of God in the
preamble to the Australian constitution, or other clear evidences of Christian
influence on western society, as part of their case. And there is the rub,
these are written or physical monuments to the Christian influence on the West,
not “Judeo-Christianity”.
It is notable that traditionally the West was referred
to as Christendom, not Judeo-Christendom, or Islamo-Christendom. In the Kevin
Costner rendition of Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, the Moorish Muslim
character played by Morgan Freeman correctly nicknames Kevin Costner as ‘Christian’,
not Judeo-Christian. This is significant, because it is a historically accurate
way to refer to a Westerner in this era. The Golden Age of Christianity in the
West was considered by Westerners to be “the Kingdom of Christ” “Christ’s
Kingdom”, hence Christendom. We had “Christian names”, as our first names, and
Christian clergy, ruling Christian people, who were all listed in their local
Church parish’s rolls. And Kings ruled as representatives of Christ. This was
Christendom.
For much of this Western history the Jewish people were
a very tiny minority in the West. The bulk of their population was located in Mesopotamia
among the Persian Empire and what became the Islamic lands after the advent of
Islam[1]
and also in Eastern Europe in what the Russians would one-day rename the Pale
of Settlement, which overlapped with historical Islamic domains and
bordered with Prussia (Germany). While the West was developing its distinctive
Christian culture, the dominant population of the Jewish peoples was in the
East, well away from the centres of Western civilisation, but much closer to
the historical centres of Ancient Near Eastern civilisation.
Western society developed in the regions of Europe
which were part of what was once the Western Roman Empire and beyond, and
(post-second temple) Judaism developed in the lands that were once a part of
the historical Eastern Roman Empire and beyond into Persian and then Islamic
lands[2].
‘Western’ did not refer to an ideological frame of reference, but a
geographical area and the people within that area, namely the descendants of
the Roman, Western Greek, Germanic and Celtic peoples. To call Western civilisation
Judeo-Christian is to make many mistakes, historical, theological and social.
The term Judeo-Christian really is historical
rhetorical revisionism writ large. It obscures the relationship these two
divergent faiths, Christianity and Judaism, and divergent peoples, the Jews and
Europeans, have had in history. It also conceals the truth of the
distinctiveness of Western civilization, which is founded on the intersection
of Greek Philosophy, Roman Law, Christian Theology and their influence on the
peoples of the Western Roman Empire and the peoples of Northern Europe. These
four pillars make up the West.[3]
So, what I want to do in this piece is show you the various
reasons why the idea of Judeo-Christianity is philosophically ridiculous, biblically
ridiculous, culturally ridiculous and historically ridiculous. There is no such
thing as Judeo-Christian values for the same reason there are no Buddhist-Christian
values, or Hindo-Islamic values, or Satano-Christian values. Judaism and
Christianity are not co-religions or even similar religions. Judaism is not the
elder brother of Christianity. They have a very different perspective, and
believe it or not, a divergent origin and development. Many people have
forgotten this, but it is clearly taught in both the New Testament and in
Jewish history and writings like the Talmud.
Before we go much further, look at this google ngram
in figure 1.1, if you want to quickly evaluate the historical usage of the term
Judeo-Christian, or any other descriptive term, this tool is useful:
figure 1.1, source:
google ngram viewer.[4]
If Judeo-Christian was an accurate description of how
the West historically conceived of itself, and was an integral aspect of describing
how the West was forged, why is the concept barely a bump in the history of
Christendom? Indeed, if you look up these noted 17th century uses of
the word, they are often obscure quotes from sparce writings. So it was hardly
a foundational aspect of how the West thought of itself before the 1940’s.
In fact look at this ngram:
figure 1.2, source:
google ngram viewer.
Aside from the Roman Empire of antiquity, there was no
period in history when the West was more influential in the world than the 19th
century. The explosion of Christendom’s power across the world in the 19th
century gave us the empire of Napoleon, the English Empire on which the sun
never set, the growth of many other lesser European powers, and the spread of
Christianity and its literature across the world. But the idea of
Judeo-Christianity was barely a blip on the radar of this advancing Christian
culture. As figure 1.1 shows, except for a tiny blip in the 17th
century, the entire rise of the West as a global centre of power did not
correspond to people of the West conceiving of themselves as Judeo-Christian.
In fact, the converse is true. The usage of the word Judeo-Christian coincides
with the post-World War 2 decline of Christianity in the West. So, the usage of
the term is directly correlated with a weakening of the West’s traditional
Christian identity, not its historical dominance in the West.
That is not to say that the term did not exist before
the modern era, it did. It referred originally to a Jewish Christian.[5]
There have always been Jewish believers in Jesus, from the moment Jesus
addressed Andrew, but they were not always called Judeo-Christian. Peter
himself refers to Jewish and Gentile believers as just ‘Christian’ (1 Peter
4:16). It has also been used polemically by Protestants to refer to the Catholic
Church, which was viewed by some as having sanctified the Old Testament forms
and priesthood and dragged them into the New Covenant era, as well as other
elements of the Church.[6]
The online Encyclopedia explains about the history of
the word:
“The
Judeo-Christian tradition ( JCT) is a concept that has played a shifting role
in the construction of American religious identity since the eve of World War
II. Originally invented to designate connections between Judaism and
Christianity in antiquity, "Judeo-Christian" began to be used to
signify the common religious inheritance of the West by left-wing authors in
the 1930s—a time when "Christian" had become a political code word
for fascism and anti-Semitism (e.g., the Christian Front of Father James
Coughlin). Liberal Protestants and Catholics in particular stressed the
existence of the Judeo-Christian tradition to indicate their spiritual
solidarity with the threatened Jewish population of Europe.
During World
War II, "Judeo-Christian" was taken up by liberal intellectuals as an
umbrella term to designate the religious dimension of the Allied cause. But as
a shibboleth, the term fully came into its own in the early years of the Cold
War, when it was employed by pastors, politicians, and pundits to mobilize the
spiritual forces of America against the "godless Communist" foe. As
Daniel Poling, president of the Military Chaplains Association of the United
States, asserted at the association's 1951 convention, "We meet at a time
when the Judeo-Christian faith is challenged as never before in all the years
since Abraham left Ur of the Chaldees." The following year, in a speech
before the Freedoms Foundation, President-Elect Dwight D. Eisenhower declared,
"Our form of government has no sense unless it is founded in a deeply felt
religious faith, and I don't care what it is. With us, of course, it is the
Judeo-Christian concept but it must be a religion that all men are created
equal."[7]
This is ironic if you understand the strong Jewish influence
in the Bolshevik movement in Russia, and that Karl Marx was a German-Jewish
man. But, as you can see, claiming a Judeo-Christian heritage is a
re-interpretation of Christian history for political reasons. Originally used
predominantly in the West by liberal theologians. As the Atlantic’s James
Loeffler notes, “The “Judeo-Christian tradition” was one of 20th-century
America’s greatest political inventions.”[8]
It was never real. Western thinkers may have spoken “of Athens and Jerusalem,
but the latter was exclusively embodied in the Christian Church, not the
rabbinic tradition.”[9]
The Jerusalem of which they spoke was the heavenly city of Hebrews, to which
the Christians have come, not the earthly city of David.
So, why then today do so many public intellectuals,
really mostly of the conservative persuasion, use this term as if it was the
historical way the West conceived of itself, when this is easy to demonstrate
as false? If you went by modern usage of the term you would think
Judeo-Christianity was an ancient concept expounded by Jesus, applied by the
apostles, defended by Augustine, and reformed by Martin Luther. But it is not,
so why then do so many use it?
Well, I think the answer is very simple: there has
been a subtle deception about the actual nature of the West. Since World War 2,
the Christian nature of our history has been downplayed, mocked, abandoned, and
now redefined as something it never was, all towards the purpose of de-Christianizing
the once Christian West, to create a more “inclusive” multicultural self-perception.
This is not just my opinion, there was a deliberate attempt to redefine Western
values after World War 2, particularly in the United States, “In a world
divided by totalitarianism abroad and racial segregation at home, the notion of
a shared American religious heritage promised racial healing and
national unity” (emphasis added).[10]
The usage of the term Judeo-Christianity was one step in this process, but one
progressives have even begun to reject,
“As it did
duty on the conservative side of America's fin-de-siècle culture wars, the JCT
lost its capacity to stand for the country's common religious heritage. This
was not only the result of its appropriation by the Religious Right. Given
greater awareness of the presence of Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Sikhs, and
other religious communities within American society, the idea that the United
States was a "Judeo-Christian" country was felt to be as exclusionary
as "Christian" had seemed after World War II. The Western religious
tradition itself had to be characterized in a way that included Muslims; in
some ecumenical religious circles "Judeo-Christian" began to be
replaced by "Abrahamic"—a term expressing the common ancestry of
Judaism, Christianity, and Islam in the patriarch Abraham of the Hebrew Bible.”[11]
This term has been but one of the planks in the
progression of reframing the identity of Christendom into the multicultural
West. Ironically, even this concept is now seen as bigoted, but more on that
below.
It should already be clear, just from what we have
read now, that Judaism and Christianity are not co-pillars of the western
foundation, they are opposing elements in the history of our civilization, just
as Islam and Christianity were opposing elements. To accept this you will need
to see much more than my historical analysis so far, so I will show you from
several different sources. But before I do I want to address two natural
objections to this point.
First, some might say that Judeo-Christian is a
reasonable term to apply to the Christian values of Christendom, because the
Bible is based on the Old Testament, often called the Jewish Scriptures, and
the New Testament, which was written by Jews who believed in Jesus who was of
the tribe of Judah. Now obviously these two basic assertions are correct. Paul tells
us,
“4 They are
Israelites, and to them belong the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the
giving of the law, the worship, and the promises. 5 To them belong the
patriarchs, and from their race, according to the flesh, is the Christ, who is
God over all, blessed forever. Amen.” (Romans 9:4-5).
And again he writes,
“4 though I
myself have reason for confidence in the flesh also. If anyone else thinks he
has reason for confidence in the flesh, I have more: 5 circumcised on the
eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of
Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; 6 as to zeal, a persecutor of the church;
as to righteousness under the law, blameless.” (Philippians 3:4-6).
So the assertions are correct, yet the conclusion is
not.
The ‘Judeo’ in Judeo Christian is not a reference to
the ancient Judaic heritage of Christianity. It is a term which implies that
the West was based on both Jewish and Christian ideas. However, this idea is
ahistorical, because remember Jewish people made up only a tiny minority of the
populations of Christendom. The centre of the Jewish population was far from
the centres of western Christianity, which was based in Italy, France, the
Germanic states and then later in England.
But even more fundamentally, this idea fails to
account for this important fact; Judaism as we know it is a post ministry-of-Christ
faith that has defined itself in opposition to the Christian interpretation of
the Old Testament, and the ministry of Jesus. Many Christians think that Jews just
follow the Old Testament, and Christians follow the New and the Old interpreted
through the New. This is where some get the idea that Judaism is the elder
Brother of Christianity. But this is wrong. Jesus’ ministry caused a
cataclysmic event – in more ways than one – which created two very different
faiths.
Christians follow the Old Testament as interpreted by
Jesus and the Apostles through the lens of Jesus and his ministry and teachings.
This is what the New Testament is. It is not a new religion, but the fulfilment
of the Old Covenant, the culmination of its teaching and the hope of Israel
(cf. Acts 26:5-8). It is the faith of Abraham fully revealed, the fulfilment of
the law, and the law correctly interpreted. As Jesus tells us in Matthew;
“17 “Do not
think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to
abolish them but to fulfill them. 18 For truly, I say to you, until heaven and
earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is
accomplished. 19 Therefore whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments
and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of
heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the
kingdom of heaven. 20 For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of
the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew
5:17-20).
What Jesus is saying here is that he is not here to do
away with the law but bring it to its proper purpose and goal. To incorrectly
interpret the law was to destroy it or abolish it, but Jesus is not doing that.
He is showing the correct interpretation of the law, and he is showing to all the
law in its most perfect form, in himself. Therefore, he is interpreting it
properly. He both fulfils it in his righteous life, achieves its purpose in his
act of redemption and resurrection, and he correctly teaches it. So,
Christianity is not a rejection of Old Testament Judaism, Christianity is the
correct fulfilment of the trajectory of the Old Testament message and prophets.
Paul himself makes the same point in Galatians,
“7 Know then
that it is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham. 8 And the Scripture,
foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel
beforehand to Abraham, saying, “In you shall all the nations be blessed.” 9 So
then, those who are of faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith…
…23 Now
before faith came, we were held captive under the law, imprisoned until the
coming faith would be revealed. 24 So then, the law was our guardian until
Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith. 25 But now that
faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian, 26 for in Christ Jesus you
are all sons of God, through faith. 27 For as many of you as were baptized into
Christ have put on Christ. 28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither
slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ
Jesus. 29 And if you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs
according to promise” (Gal. 3:7-9, 23-29).
And Hebrews drives this message home as well,
“1 Therefore,
holy brothers, you who share in a heavenly calling, consider Jesus, the apostle
and high priest of our confession, 2 who was faithful to him who appointed him,
just as Moses also was faithful in all God's house. 3 For Jesus has been
counted worthy of more glory than Moses—as much more glory as the builder of a
house has more honor than the house itself. 4 (For every house is built by
someone, but the builder of all things is God.) 5 Now Moses was faithful in all
God's house as a servant, to testify to the things that were to be spoken
later, 6 but Christ is faithful over God's house as a son. And we are his
house, if indeed we hold fast our confidence and our boasting in our hope”
(Heb. 3:1-6).
Those who believe in Jesus, that is Christians, are
part of the same house as Moses, and Jesus is the builder of the house that house.
There is only one house, one people of God, and all who believe in the Lord Jesus
Christ are part of that house, from Moses to the Christians of today. Why?
Because Moses pointed to Jesus, and looked forward to him, and Christians look
back at him. So, Christianity is the correct interpretation of the law, as
fulfilled in Jesus.
Judaism, or more accurately Rabbinical Judaism, is a
faith that developed in direct opposition to the Christian interpretation of
the law. The Rabbis interpret the law through the lens of the oral tradition of
the elders, which they believed traced back to Moses, just as did the written
law. In their reckoning their faith is based on these two “Mosaic” streams. This
interpretation has its roots back before the time of Christ, though it became
the dominant form of Judaism after the destruction of the temple in AD70. Jesus
explicitly challenged this interpretation of the law in his ministry. For
example,
“7 Now when
the Pharisees gathered to him, with some of the scribes who had come from
Jerusalem, 2 they saw that some of his disciples ate with hands that were
defiled, that is, unwashed. 3 (For the Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat
unless they wash their hands properly, holding to the tradition of the elders,
4 and when they come from the marketplace, they do not eat unless they wash.
And there are many other traditions that they observe, such as the washing of
cups and pots and copper vessels and dining couches.) 5 And the Pharisees and
the scribes asked him, “Why do your disciples not walk according to the tradition
of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?” 6 And he said to them, “Well
did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written,
“‘This people honors me with their lips,
but their
heart is far from me;
7 in vain do they worship me,
teaching
as doctrines the commandments of men.’
8 You leave the commandment of God and hold to
the tradition of men.” 9 And he said to them, “You have a fine way of
rejecting the commandment of God in order to establish your tradition!”
(Mark 7:1-9). (Emphasis mine).
The Rabbinical Judaism of
Jesus’ day was not the faith of the Old Testament, it was a faith that
nullified the Old Testament in favour of man-made traditions. This is clear
position of Jesus and the position of the Church. But I understand if you do
not accept my accounting on this, even if I quote clear scriptures like Mark 7:1-13.
So how about a prominent Jewish scholar, Peter Schafer?
Schafer writes in his work, Jesus
in the Talmud,
“This book is about the perception of Jesus of
Nazareth, the founder of Christianity, in the Talmud, the foundation
document of rabbinc Judaism in Late Antiquity. What do these two – Jesus
and the Talmud - have in common? The obvious answer is not much. There is, on
the one hand, the collection of writings called the New Testament, undisputedly
our major source for Jesus’ life, teaching, and death, most of it written in
the second half of the first century C.E. And there is “the” Talmud, on the
other, the most influential literary product of rabbinic Judaism, developed
over centuries in its two versions in Palestine and in Babylon (the first, the
Palestinian or Jerusalem Talmud, was edited in fifth century Palestine, and the
second, the Babylonian Talmud, reached its final form in the early seventeenth
century in Babylonia). Both documents, the New Testament and the Talmud,
could not be more different in form and content: the one, written in Greek,
is concerned about the mission of this Jesus of Nazareth, who, regarded as the
Messiah and the Son of God, was rejected in this claim by most of his fellow
Jews, put to death by the Roman governor Pontius Pilate, and resurrected on the
third day after his crucifixion and taken up into heaven; the other, written
mostly in Aramaic, is a huge collection of mainly legal discussions that deal
with the intricacies of a daily life conducted according to the rabbinic
interpretation of Jewish law.”[12]
(emphasis mine).
Shafer argues very clearly here
that the Talmud, not the Mosaic law, but again let me emphasize the
Talmud is the “foundation document of rabbinic Judaism in Late
Antiquity.” It bears no similarities with the teachings of Jesus or the New
Testament. The Talmud consists “of mainly legal discussions that deal with the
intricacies of a daily life conducted according to the rabbinic interpretation
of Jewish law.” Schafer also notes that these two Talmuds, the Jerusalem and
the Babylonian versions, developed over centuries. We see Jesus reflecting on
an earlier stage of these teachings in Mark 7, and possible Matthew 5 as well.[13]
How well does Schafer’s
interpretation of the Talmud comport with how the gospel of Mark describes the
tradition of the elders; “a huge collection of mainly legal discussions that
deal with the intricacies of a daily life”? This is because the traditions of
the elders held sacred by the Pharisees, that Jesus was challenging in Mark
chapter 7, eventually developed into the Talmud. Rabbinical Judaism, therefore,
is simply the continuation of the development of the religion of the Pharisees.
This should be a key reason why we do not confuse Christianity with Judaism;
the Pharisees and Christianity were and are diametrically opposed.[14]
The Pharisees were one of
several influential streams of Jewish thought in the second temple period,
alongside the Sadducees and the Essenes.[15]
The Sadducees tended to come from the priestly class, and the Essenes were
generally reclusive ascetics. That Pharisees became more dominant in Judaism
after the destruction of the temple because the temple was the centre of the
Sadducees power, and the Essenes appear to have never been very influential.[16]
Christians make an erroneous assumption when they think the Pharisees disappeared
after the time of Jesus, or even after the destruction of the temple. No, they
still exist today in the religion of Rabbinical Judaism:
The Pharisees (/ˈfærəsiːz/; Hebrew: פְּרוּשִׁים
Pərūšīm) were a social movement and a school of thought in the Levant during
the time of Second Temple Judaism. After the destruction of the Second Temple
in 70 CE, Pharisaic beliefs became the foundational, liturgical, and
ritualistic basis for Rabbinic Judaism.[17]
Rabbinical Judaism is founded
on the teachings of those who opposed the teachings of Jesus the most.
The most significant hub of
Judaism after about the mid-second century was in Babylon, not even in
Jerusalem, and certainly not in the West. So, it is hardly credible to say that
it is a pillar of a civilization forged far away, even if Christianity itself
did originate in the Ancient Near East and migrate towards the West.
The term Judeo-Christian is at
best confusing because it obfuscates the history of the divergent origins of
Christianity and Judaism. Because of this it should really just be described as
deceptive. Like many other rhetorical concepts, often those who use it are not
intending to deceive, but have been misled themselves. They are generally well-meaning
Christians who are intending to defend the biblical basis of Western
Civilisation, and they are simply repeating what they have heard more
influential Christians say. And the word has a technical sounding ring to it,
for the uninformed. Judeo-Christian values sound like substantial and important principles that must be upheld. The
problem is that the term is just incorrect.
There is already a better term
for the values which influenced Christendom that were based on the Old and New
Testament: Christian. Because it was precisely the Christian interpretation of
these texts, with their infusion with Greek philosophy[18]
and Roman law, upon which our Western civilization was built. Indeed, one of
the purposes of the of the Talmud, as it developed after the ministry of Jesus
was to oppose the Christian message. Schafer[19]
reminds us, “Taken together, the texts in the Babylonian Talmud, although
fragmentary and scattered, become a daring and powerful counter Gospel to the
New Testament in general and to John in particular.”
This is important, Schafer is
noting that one of the purposes of the Talmud is to actively reject
Christianity and give the Pharisees’ descendants the rhetorical foundation for reinforcing
their rejection of Jesus as Messiah, and hence Christianity as truth. A noted
Jewish scholar is making this point. He is very clear in the divergence between
Christian and Jewish thought, and really we should not be surprised.
Christianity is different not just to Judaism, but to Islam, Buddhism,
Mithraism, Hinduism, and many other religions that existed contemporaneous to
its birth and afterwards. It is insulting to any of these two faiths to just
lump them together. The acknowledgement of the Lordship of Jesus Christ creates
a very different faith than any of these others. In fact, it actively
undermines their tenets.
Note above what is the more
influential Jewish scripture? The Babylonian Talmud. And where was Babylon? In ancient
Persia. Rabbinical Judaism developed far away from the centres of Christianity,
and the West and separate to it. There is no one today that considers modern
Persia (Iran) a significant part of the West is there? Schafer notes again,
“[The] Jewish Dispora community could argue – a
new and self-confident Diaspora community, far removed in time and place from
both the turmoil of the emerging Christianity in Asia Minor in the late first
and early second centuries C.E. and of the strengthening Christian power in the
Palestine of the fourth and fifth centuries. The Babylonian Jews in the
Sassanian Empire, living in a non-Christian…environment, could easily take up,
and continue, the discourse of their brethren in Asia Minor…”[20]
So, Judaism and Christianity
were largely separated in both philosophy and geography. Of course, they
interacted from very early on, there were many Jews in ancient Rome and there
were Christians in Babylon. But the center of their respective religions
developed very separately over the later stages of the Roman Empire, and it
shows in the nature of the two faiths. Christianity and Judaism are thus two truly
diametrically different systems of thought. One is Christocentric, the other is
anti-Jesus Christ (if you don’t believe me, read the New Testament or Schafer’s
Jesus in the Talmud). One is claiming to be the message of the Messiah,
the other asserts that this claim is false, that Jesus suffers in hell[21]
and the Messiah is still unrevealed. One is the heritage of Moses, David, and
Jesus, and the other claims and admits to being an oral tradition not found in
the Mosaic law, but claims to have existed alongside of it from some unknown
point.
Secondly, some might see this
term as fair and useful because it looks to what these two faiths have in
common. But note what Schafer said, “What do these two – Jesus and the Talmud -
have in common? The obvious answer is not much.” This is obvious to all who
look at what the respective faiths teach. I recommend you read Schafer’s book, Jesus
in the Talmud, because it is a short and succinct explanation of the clear
differences, and the Talmud itself is too large, and too complex for the lay
person[22]
to work through.
Unless of course you have the
time and inclination to read this?
Christianity and Judaism are not similar in any significant way. How can a religion that centers around Jesus and a religion that considers him anathema be in anyway similar? It does neither religion justice to confuse the one with the other. They make thoroughly diametric claims about their most central ideas: who God is, how he is known. Everything diverges from this point.
The Apostle John tells us, “6 Jesus said to him, “I am
the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through
me. 7 If you had known me, you would have known my Father also. From now on you
do know him and have seen him.” What you believe about this statement made by
Jesus is the crux of the matter: either Jesus is telling the truth, that he
perfectly reflects the Father, or he is blaspheming. There is no middle ground.
Christianity and Judaism diverge on this point.
So historically this term was not used to describe the
Christian heritage of the West. It also does not make sense to use it because
it is confusing and inaccurate and obscures the deep and important differences
between the Hebrew religion of the Old Testament and Moses, and the religion of
the Pharisees. And frankly the term makes no sense. What would a Judeo-Christian
religious philosophy actually consist of? Two diametrically opposed belief
systems would cancel each other out if you mixed them together.[23]
The Judeo in Judeo-Christian rejects the Christ in Judeo-Christian, and the
Christ in Judeo-Christian tells the Judeo to repent and believe in the Lord
Jesus of Nazareth.
This is why Augustine has a chapter in his city of
God, titled: “Of the Coming of Elias Before the Judgment, that the Jews May Be
Converted to Christ by His Preaching and Explanation of Scripture.”[24]
It has always been the Christian position that Jews, as well as any other
person on the earth, must believe in Jesus to be saved. This is why I think the
term Judeo-Christianity has increased in this time of great apostasy in the
Church. Much of the Church has forgotten its distinct nature, it has forgotten
just how unique its influence on a society is, and it is increasingly
forgetting its exclusive claims to salvation.
These are not minor points, and this is not just my
opinion. I have shown this from scripture, history and I have shown you that
Peter Schafer, an eminent Jewish philosopher, argues that Christianity and
Judaism have nothing in common. Now I want to turn to other Jewish voices.
This first piece is titled: The Myth of
‘Judeo-Christianity,’ Explained: Not only is the term “Judeo-Christian”
inaccurate, it’s also antisemetic and Islamaphobic.[25]
Notice, first the author, Burack’s, agreement with my
explanation of the rise of this term:
The idea of
Judeo-Christianity, and “Judeo-Christian values,” is a relatively new one,
borne out of World War II and the Cold War. It is a term that has been adapted
by many Christians and American political leaders in an attempt to talk about
the “shared values” between the Jewish and Christian religions — but in
reality, it erases Jewishness and excludes people of other faith backgrounds,
particularly Muslims.[26]
Remember also that we showed how the term originally
referred to Christian converts to Judaism? Well, here she quotes an early use
of the term from a Christian missionary to Jewish communities, “From all I can
see there is but one way to bring about the object of the Society, that is by
erecting a Judæo Christian community, a city of refuge, where all who wish to
be baptized could be supplied with the means of earning their bread.”[27]
To which she responds, “Baptizing Jews, oof,”[28]
because she finds the idea of Jews being Christianized as highly offensive.
It is interesting to observe that converting Jews to
Christianity today can still provoke the same response that Paul got when he
preached Jesus to first century Rabbinical Jews; outrage, or offense. Remember
Paul said, “23 but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and
folly to Gentiles…” (1 Cor. 1:23). The cross is a stumbling block, a scandal, and
an offense from the Jewish perspective. As I have consistently noted, these
faiths are inherently different and theologically opposed.
Indeed, Burack notes,
Soon,
Judeo-Christianity became a way of Christianity to absorb Judaism in a way,
erasing the very real differences that keep the two religions separate.
As Warren Zev
Harvey notes in “The Judeo-Christian Tradition’s Five Others,” “The liberal
ecumenical campaign on behalf of the term ‘Judeo-Christian tradition’ was
successful in the United States beyond all expectations. Indeed, for many Jews,
it was too successful. Far too successful! The differences between Judaism and
Christianity were being forgotten. Judaism was beginning to be seen as a
Christian sect that had one or two idiosyncrasies — like preferring the menorah
to the Christmas tree, or the matzah to the Easter egg.”
Say it with
us: Not Great. Soon, the very progressives who championed the use of the term a
decade earlier as a means for Jewish inclusion in mainstream American culture
began to campaign against it.[29]
So, Burack’s opinion is clear.
Here is another article, which as you will see, leads
off from the first one very well. This one is titled, There’s No Such Thing
as Judeo-Christian Values: The label “Judeo-Christian” tends to assume, at the
expense of Judaism, that Christians and Jews believe essentially the same
things.[30]
The author, Yanover, notes,
For me, this
joke illustrates the essence of Rabbinic Judaism. Hardly interested in
developing uniform answers or dogmas, Rabbinic Jews love dispute, which
enshrines all opinions. We actually celebrate the Talmud’s pluralism with the
declaration: These and these, too, are the words of a living God (Eruv.
13b, Gitin 6b, to name just two out of hundreds).
How can
Klinghoffer say that he represents a tradition of 3000 years of rabbinic
interpretation and in the same breath claim that there’s such a specific thing
as “Scripture’s vision?” (emphasis authors).[31]
If you want to read the joke, I recommend reading the
article, because it is informative. But note the clear demarcation here between
the Bible and the Talmud. The Bible is an internally coherent text, and the
Talmud is an inherently “pluralistic”, or contradictory text. This is because
it enshrines the debate of ancient Rabbis as a key aspect of Judaism. Whereas the
Bible claims to have objective answers, the Talmud has subjective and
contradicting answers, “These and these, too, are the words of a living God.”
In other words, in claiming to represent the rabbinical tradition, the author
that Yanover is critiquing is misunderstanding that rabbinical tradition.
So, as you can see, both Christians and Jews, who know
their faiths, know that Judeo-Christianity is a non-sequitur, a complete
non-starter, an oxymoron. Yes, Christianity owes a great deal of respect to the
Israelites of the ancient era, as Paul notes in Romans 9:1-5. But according to
the New Testament Christianity is the continuation of their faith, Judaism is
not. Christianity is the heritage of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
The title of Yanover’s article also hones in on the
most prominent problem with the term Judeo-Christian, it tends to incorrectly
assume that Christianity and Judaism are basically the same. This is why the
term must be utterly rejected, it creates a false sense of brotherhood faiths
that is not based in reality. Christianity is an exclusive religion that does
not submit its tenets to any other faith. It claims one Lord, one way of
Salvation through Jesus Christ, and one community of faith which includes those
who believe in him and only those who believe in him. Judaism rejects all of
these claims out of hand.
Christendom, for all its faults, was founded on the
principle that Jesus was Lord. It was not founded on opposing pillars of faiths
that diverge on this key principle of the historic West. Judeo-Christianity, as
a term and a concept, should be rejected by all; Jew, Greek, barbarian or
Scythian.
List of References
[1] “During
the central period of the Middle Ages (c. 800–c. 1100) the vast majority of
worldwide Jewry was found in the Islamic lands, which stretched from
Mesopotamia westward across the eastern, southern, and western shores of the
Mediterranean. The dominant Jewish community at the time was in Mesopotamia—it
had a large Jewish population, a flourishing Jewish economy, and a vigorous
Jewish intellectual life. The Jewish community in Palestine—once the center of
the Jewish world but by then considerably reduced—was also part of the realm of
Islam. But newer Jewish communities also sprang up across the southern and
western shores of the Mediterranean Sea.” Robert Chazan, 2016, The Arc of
Jewish Life in the Middle Ages, https://www.publicmedievalist.com/arc-of-jewish-life/#:~:text=During%20the%20central%20period%20of%20the%20Middle%20Ages,eastern%2C%20southern%2C%20and%20western%20shores%20of%20the%20Mediterranean.
[2]
Their most influential religious text is called the “Babylonian Talmud” for a
reason.
[3]
Christianity did not just spread into the West. Indeed, the centre of Christian
civilisation for about a Millennia was in the Eastern Roman Empire and beyond.
So, a study of the West is not the study of the history of Christianity.
Christianity originated in the Middle East, in Jerusalem where the Lord Jesus
was crucified, buried and rose again. The development of the West is not
synonymous with the development of Christianity. The development of the West,
as noted is the history of the development of Christianity in the regions of
and beyond the Western Roman Empire. So, if you are thinking: Christianity
itself is eastern in origin, this is absolutely accurate and correct. But the
way that Christianity interacted with the people of the West is very different
to how it interacted with the people of the East. This divergence grew over
time, until you have the splintering of the Western and Eastern churches. For
our purposes we are simply evaluating the validity of the usage of the term
“Judeo-Christian” to refer to the West
[4]
Note, sometimes google updates how you should put the terms in the search
field. This is an older image.
[5] “The
term "Judæo Christian" first appears in a letter by Alexander McCaul
which is dated October 17, 1821. The term in this case referred to Jewish
converts to Christianity.[3] The term was similarly used by Joseph Wolff in
1829, in reference to a type of church that would observe some Jewish
traditions in order to convert Jews.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judeo-Christian
[6] Brett
D. Hirsch, From Jew to Puritan: The Emblematic Owl in Early English
Culture, https://hcommons.org/deposits/objects/hc:10798/datastreams/CONTENT/content
[7] Judeo-Christian
Tradition https://www.encyclopedia.com/religion/legal-and-political-magazines/judeo-christian-tradition
[8] James
Loeffler, 2020, The Problem With the ‘Judeo-Christian Tradition’, The Atlantic,
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/08/the-judeo-christian-tradition-is-over/614812/
[9] Ibid.
[10]
Ibid.
[11] Judeo-Christian
Tradition, https://www.encyclopedia.com/religion/legal-and-political-magazines/judeo-christian-tradition
[12] Schafer, Peter, 2007, Jesus in the
Talmud, Princeton University Press, p1.
[13]
“You have heard it said” repeated by Jesus is likely a reference to the oral
traditions (cf. Matt 5).
[14]
See for example Acts 15 or Philippians 3, or the book of Galatians, which all
deal with the judaizing efforts of the party of the Pharisees and their
influence on the early Church. Acts 15 is particularly striking, because it
shows how diametrically opposed the Apostles and the Pharisees were on the
questions of the application of the law.
[15] Josephus, The Wars Of The Jews,
Kindle Edition, chapter 8.
[16]
Those who hold that John The Baptist was an Essene may dispute this, but this
cannot be established. The New Testament writers obviously did not consider
them a major concern as they do not even appear in the Scriptures, explicitly.
[17]
Pharisees, Wikipedia article https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pharisees#:~:text=The%20Pharisees%20%28%2F%20%CB%88f%C3%A6r%C9%99si%CB%90z%20%2F%3B%20Hebrew%3A%20%D7%A4%D6%B0%D6%BC%D7%A8%D7%95%D6%BC%D7%A9%D6%B4%D7%81%D7%99%D7%9D%20%E2%80%8E,foundational%2C%20liturgical%2C%20and%20ritualistic%20basis%20for%20Rabbinic%20Judaism.
[18]
For those who are concerned with me noting that Greek Philosophy has a
remarkable impact on the development of the Christian West, I would note a
couple of things. First, this is just what happened, it is the history, and it
was unavoidable, the Old Testament the Apostles largely used was written in
Greek, and the whole New Testament they wrote was written in Greek as well. It
was the milieu within which early Christianity was forged. Second, the long
running debate between so-called Calvinists and Arminians, can be traced back
through Augustine and the Church fathers into an even longer standing debate
between the Greek determinists and proponents of free-will. This is just one
example of this influence, and how the Western mind developed a different take
to the Scripture, than the Oriental mind and the Palestinian mind.
[19] Schafer, p129.
[20] Ibid.
[21] Ibid.
[22] I
include myself in this too.
[23]
Perhaps this is why the West is living up to its description as “clown-word”
more and more everyday? Because it is increasingly seeking to reframe itself on
contradictory beliefs and principles.
[24]
“It is a familiar theme in the conversation and heart of the faithful, that in
the last days before the judgment the Jews shall believe in the true Christ,
that is, our Christ, by means of this great and admirable prophet Elias who
shall expound the law to them.” St. Augustine of Hippo. St. Augustine of Hippo:
The City of God (p. 359). Veritatis Splendor Publications. Kindle Edition.
[25] Emily
Burak, 2020, The Myth of ‘Judeo-Christianity,’ Explained, Heyalma, https://www.heyalma.com/the-myth-of-judeo-christianity-explained/
[26] Ibid.
[27] Ibid.
[28] Ibid.
[29] Ibid.
[30]
Yori Yanover, 2012, There’s No Such Thing A Judeo-Christian Values, Jewish
Press, https://www.jewishpress.com/blogs/yoris-news-clips/theres-no-such-thing-as-judeo-christian-values/2013/12/26/
[31] Ibid.
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