Jesus Who?

...Christians in numerous churches—Roman Catholic, United Methodist, Presbyterian, Episcopalian, Lutheran, and others—have made formal statements praising the depth of Jewish traditions, theology, and cornrnitment to social justice...

...The former, which is associated primarily with the Roman Catholic Church, is the belief that indeed the bread and wine used in the Eucharist are actually converted into the body and blood of Christ...

...Although the theology underlying this practice is alien to Judaism, the origin of this meal is not...

...The Jewish philosopher Philo of Alexandria spoke of the manifestation of God on earth...

...This type of inquiry tells us not only how anti-Jewish attitudes developed within the church,* but also, informed historical discussion enables us both to appreciate the traditions of our Christian neighbors and to enhance our appreciation for the choices Judaism made...

...Our errors range also from the harmless (thinking that "Christ" is a last name) to the horrifying (thinking that all Christians are anti-Semites...

...These visionaries lived then with a missionary zeal and commitment to their tradition, a tradition that happened to be Judaism...

...Jesus himself, in the so-called "Lord's Prayer," speaks only of prayer to "our father, who is in heaven" (throughout my grade school years in the Massachusetts public school system, children recited the "Lord's Prayer" every morning...

...And newspaper stories on the recendy disclosed Nixon tapes have revealed that even Billy Graham believed Jews controlled the U.S...

...Granted, it is not incorrect to dunk of Christianity as having adopted numerous pagan practices, from setting the date for the birth of Jesus—Dec...

...Ask Christians if they believe they are eating the body and blood of Jesus when they take communion...

...The Pharisees promulgated the idea that during the Messianic Age, the dead would be raised...

...the few scriptural statements about the "world to come" do not indicate that gentiles must convert to Judaism...

...That someone would experience such a vision in these times is hardly surprising, especially in cases of extreme stress...

...hundreds of Jews went into the Judean desert by the caves of Qumran to await the final batde between the "sons of fight" and the "sons of darkness" (as we know from the Dead Sea Scrolls...

...When instructing his disciples, Jesus announces: "Whatever you wish that people would do to you, do so to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets...

...When this did not happen, a number of these Jews probably returned to wait for the Messiah...

...an increasing penetration of Greek thought within Jewish communities...

...Gentiles who followed these laws (prohibitions of murder, sexual sins, theft, idolatry, blasphemy, eating the limb from a living ariimal...

...If you want to understand Jesus, you must understand the Jewish world in which he lived...

...The point is not to debate which is the "better" formula: the "don't" of Hillel or the "do" of Jesus...

...In church and synagogue, our forms of worship, sacred Scripture, understanding of the divine, and views of salvation differ, but we do have shared moral principles...

...While the idea of consuming blood is considthroughout Jewish tradition—that Jesus might have spoken about bread and wine served at his last supper as being his body and blood is not completely odd, when seen in historical context...

...another, called "the Egyptian," proclaimed that the walls of Jerusalem would fall (although he escaped, Rome killed many of bis followers...

...Retelling their traditional stories in Hellenistic and Roman terms, many Jews began to think of their ancient heroes such as Moses and Abraham, as well as less well-known figures such as Enoch and Melchizedek, as divine men...

...The idea of the Spirit coupled with the concept of Wisdom, as found in books such as Proverbs, coalesced into the Christian Holy Spirit (the Greek term for "spirit," pneuma, can also mean "wind" or "breath...

...But ignorance cuts both ways...

...media and were a danger to U.S...

...Is the whole system nonsense...

...Yet, in fact, since the birth of the Christian church, we have been asking questions about this movement...

...The idea that the righteous have a special pipeline to God is not unknown in Judaism...

...Each of these positions, however, is based on partial evidence only, and that evidence has been sifted through centuries of Christian persecution of Jews...

...Thus, gentiles in the church were required to conform to basic moral precepts only...

...Learning about Christianity helps us appreciate the traditions of our Christian neighbors, but also helps us better understand our Judaism...

...It finds its origins both in the seder meal celebrated at Passover and in fellowship meals celebrated by first-century Jews...

...Among the eight assertions the signatories supported was that Nazism was not a Christian phenomenon...

...It is this brave and benevolent response that anticipates the vast improvements the past half-century has witnessed in Jewish- Christian relations...

...both teachings import the same guideline, that we treat our neighbors as ourselves...

...As for polytheism, the earliest Christian texts, which were written by Jews (such as Saul of Tarsus, a Pharisee who came to be known as St...

...Here are some of the issues I am most frequently confronted with: is- Jesus was a Jewish man who after his death was proclaimed to be divine...

...he was not needed to take away their sins...

...In the early second century C.E., Rabbi Akiba proclaimed the Jewish military leader, Bar Kochba, the Messiah (Rome killed them both...

...Enoch, transported into heaven, took on the role of future judge of the world...

...That decision itself, however, was quite kosher: Resident aliens in Israel were not bound by these laws...

...Of course...

...Similarly, I do not read the Exodus story as casting a negative shadow on Egyptians today...

...By the early first century C.E., more than just Greek language had fully impacted Jewish life and thought in Israel and the Western diaspora...

...Jews seek world domination) is common knowledge to us Jews...

...This period in Judaism witnessed speculation not only about the Messianic Age or the "world to come"—the time when the prophetic vision of universal peace would arrive—it also saw the rise of several claimants to be the inaugurator of that age...

...Accompanying this intensification of the miraculous and marvelous was an increasing attention to the afterlife...

...The Nazi focus was not Judaism as a belief or practice, it was Jews as a race...

...Statues and icons are like prayer tools: They are the means to the end, which is the worship of God...

...Today, with the rise in Christian missionary efforts to convert Jews, on the one hand, and with the current congeniality of interfaith dialogue on the other, it's time to revisit these questions...

...The latter belief, developed by Luther in opposition to Roman Catholic teaching, states that the wine and bread are not actually transformed, but exist together in union with the body and blood...

...A firstcentury Jew was asked, "Which commandment in the Law is the greatest...

...Thus, in what is clearly a hyperbolic, extreme statement, Jesus, knowing he was to die, may well have spoken of his body in sacrificial terms...

...candidate, named Theudas, announced that a new era had arrived (Rome executed him...

...As for the "Holy Spirit," this is the Jewish ruach, spirit—or "wind" or "breath" to give a literal translation to this Hebrew word—used in Genesis when God hovered over the face of the deep, according to Bereshit (Genesis 1...

...It is time for the synagogue to reciprocate...

...Actually, the underlying Hebrew is not "virgin," but "young woman...

...Christians believe they eat the real body and the real blood of Jesus when they "take communion" and are thus engaged in some sort of cannibalism...

...The citations are from Deuteronomy 6:5 and Leviticus 19:18...

...Thus, we find in the centuries leading up to the Maccabean revolt in the second century B.C.E...

...Further, during the Hellenistic period, Judaism developed the idea of the Noahide Laws— seven laws given to Noah and hence binding all humanity, not just Jews...

...the establishment of courts of justice) were considered "righteous" (as today we have the category of the "righteous gentile") and accordingly were worthy of eternal life...

...This is also the role of the Saints and the Virgin Mary in some church teachings (most notably, the Roman Catholic Church...

...Concurrently, when governmentsponsored disputations between Christians and Jews were popular (disputations in which the Jew was inevitably going to lose...

...They are also idolators because they worship statues and paintings...

...For the most part, among Jews, the mission in the name of the crucified and resurrected man from Nazareth was a flop...

...And you shall love your neighbor as yourself...

...What do Christians really believe...

...Although it has been argued that the disciples stole Jesus' body and invented the resurrection (the Gospel of Matthew states that "this story has been spread among the Jews to this day"), the followers of Jesus were neither hypocrites nor charlatans...

...What jews don't know about Christianity AMY- JILL LEVINE That many Christians have misperceptions about Judaism, views ranging from the slighdy humorous (all Jews are smart...

...all Jews can read Hebrew) to the blatantly obscene (Jews are children of the devil...

...For example, the Greek translation of Isaiah 7:14 mentions that a "virgin" would conceive a child who would be called "Immanuel" (the Hebrew means "God with us...

...This synthesis of earlier Jewish tradition and new ideas is called "Hellenism," and it is in the crucible of Hellenism, supported by the Roman Empire that gained control over Israel in 63 B.C.E., that Christianity was conceived...

...He responded "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength...

...A few years ago, the head of the Southern Baptist Convention proclaimed that "God does not hear the prayers of the Jews...

...Was that direction toward the gentile world one of pagan polytheism and idolatry...

...At the same time, Jewish wonder workers began to appear: Honi the Circle-drawer, who could make it rain...

...Since the so-called Protestant Reformation, started by Martin Luther in the 16th century, churches have disagreed on the question of the real presence in the Eucharist...

...Both Jews and gentiles believed in the power of blood to cleanse sin, to honor or appease heaven...

...Speaking of errors outsiders sometimes make, consider the matter of what Christians call either the "Eucharist" (Greek for "thanksgiving'') or "communion" or "the Lord's Supper...

...Finally, is Christianity necessarily anti- Jewish and, if so, does it lead inexorably, to Auschwitz...

...We can see the influence of Hellenism in the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible...

...Rather, one prayed "through" him to God (the Father...

...However, rather than insisting that all gentiles who joined the new movement convert to Judaism, the church after some debate concluded that this was unnecessary...

...The majority of Jews at that time and subsequendy did not find a need for Jesus in their lives: He filled no gap in their souls...

...Haninah ben Dosa, whose prayers could cure the sick...

...During the Middle Ages, Christian Europeans told stories of Jews stealing the sacred bread (called the "host") and sucking pins into it—at which point the bread would bleed real blood...

...he did not bring about the Messianic Age...

...There are numerous groups within what is broadly called the "church": Roman Catholic, Anglican, Eastern Orthodox, and Protestant...

...These figures are not "divine," but are viewed as having special intercessory powers...

...the scroll is not divine, but it is honored, and even "dressed" in such a way that an outsider might see it as an idol...

...Showing a shared good taste, Jews and Christians both have eggs for our spring festivals (respectively, Passover and Easter...

...This plank continues to be the subject of often-heated discussion...

...Did the various anti-Jewish attitudes inculcated through centuries of Christian preaching, art, and teaching facilitate National Socialism's program...

...To limit "Christianity" to the New Testament is no more appropriate than to limit Judaism to our earliest texts...

...In the first century, animal sacrifice was a major part of religious culture...

...some Presbyterians and United Methodists favor the ordination of gays and lesbians, but the official teaching of their denominations still forbids this...

...Moses and Melchizedek were attributed miraculous births...

...In Sunday schools and adult education programs, people in these groups and others are continuing to learn about and therefore appreciate Judaism...

...25, the day dedicated to the ancient sun god—to the adoption of yule logs, Christmas trees, and Easter bunnies...

...he called this the "Logos" (Greek for "word"), which is the same term some early Christians applied to Jesus (as in the opening words of the Gospel of John, "In the beginning was the word...

...But for much of history these anti-Jewish voices simply sought to convert Jews...

...Both traditions similarly promote both orthodoxy (literally, "right belief) and orthopraxy ("right action"), even as both debate internally what those positions should be...

...Christian scholars and teachers now emphasize that Jesus cannot be understood apart from Judaism...

...they believed in resurrection already...

...In terms of its relationship to Jewish practice, the earliest Christian movement had at first only one sacred Scripture, the Bible of the synagogue (Torah, Nevi'im, Ketuvim, or Torah, Prophets, and Writings...

...We may compare this to the kissing of a Torah scroll during a Jewish worship service...

...Otherwise put, some of the attributes accorded Jesus by his earliest followers make sense when seen in a Jewish, Greek-speaking context...

...When asked by a potential follower, "Teach me the Torah while standing on one foot," Hillel responded: "What is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow...

...That Jews in Israel might follow a visionary and a healer who spoke of the Kingdom of God should not be unexpected...

...It is certainly true that the various Christian movements and machers have more than had their anti-Jewish moments, as a flip through the recent best-seller Constantine's Sword powerfully demonstrates...

...The meal in memory of Jesus' death originally was a full meal, not just a piece of bread and a sip of wine (or in some of the newer traditions, grape juice...

...But adaptation of cultural practices is an important way that religions develop...

...What about the relationship of Christianity to Germany's Nazi beliefs...

...Thus, any comments that might be made about "what Christians think" are true only in a general sense...

...Learning more about Christianity helps us in at least two ways...

...Even today, many of us would never set foot in a church, refuse to read the New Testament, even ban copies of Bible Review from our homes because an article in it deals with Christian Scriptures as well as the Hebrew Bible...

...Although Christianity will typically emphasize that action comes from belief (as Martin Luther put it, "Good works don't make a good man, but a good man bears good fruit"), the Epistle of James—a text, by the way, that Luther did not like—insists that "faith without works is dead...

...we might think of Jewish non-scriptural traditions, from jelly donuts and latkes at Hanukkah, to Hamantashen at Purim, to whatever the latest bar mitzvah fad is...

...The reason many of the claims of the church appear so alien to Jews today is the passing of time...

...Finally, Christians are not idolaters...

...This is why many of Jesus' first followers believed that shortly after the crucifixion and his resurrection, there would be a general resurrection of the dead...

...Jewish messianic belief at the time, and even now, incorporated the idea that the Messianic Age is marked by the resurrection of the dead...

...Yet among gentiles the movement took hold: It offered the antiquity (in antiquity, "old" was "good"), morality, and community of Judaism, and it also offered what Jews already had: a covenantal relationship with heaven that would lead to eternal life...

...In other words, Christianity in terms of its diversity looks very much like Judaism...

...Christianity is primarily a pagan religion: Although they have the "Old Testament," they dumped all the laws...

...some churches are organized according to a particular system of leadership (popes or patriarchs, bishops, deacons, elders, etc...

...The baptized nun was just as "Jewish" and therefore just as expendable, as the Hasidic rebbe...

...Ironically, just as Christians from the Middle Ages until the early 20th century accused Jews of using the blood of Christian children to bake matzah (a charge made by the notorious Nazi anti-Semite Julius Stretcher and recently promulgated by some within the Islamic world), so in the early years of the church, Christians were accused by pagans of using blood in their worship services...

...nor should that visionary's execution by the Roman Empire...

...On the academic front, Christian scholarship for the most part no longer sees the synagogue as a foil for the church or regards Judaism as a depressing and repressing religion marked by numerous unbearable restrictions...

...The response begins with a word of warning: We can no more claim that "all Christians believe" some thing than we can claim that all Jews hold to a particular view...

...This verse is cited in the New Testament's Gospel acc^ording^ to MaFtthe w as (beyinge fullfiplleds b y tuhe bsir th Sof etter understand our Jesus...

...But was the church a cause of National Socialism...

...That the New Testament has anti-Jewish material I do not doubt, but it is equally true that not all Christians read the material as anti-Jewish...

...some are independent...

...Thus, gentile Christians were not bound by circumcision, kashrut, etc...

...In September of 2000, about 170 rabbis and Jewish academics signed a statement called "Dabru Emet" ("Speak Truth"), subtided, "A Jewish Statement on Christians and Christianity...

...We would like our Christian neighbors to appreciate Judaism as a tradition of spiritual depth, profound practice, rich culture, and moral emphasis, and we would also like them to know that we Jews do not have horns, do not worship a God of wrath and law as opposed to a God of love and compassion, and do not spend much time worrying about the state of our immortal soul...

...a Jewish prophet named John (the Baptist) began to immerse fellow Jews in the Jordan River as testimony to their having repented of their sins and in preparation for the coming Messianic Age (from the Greek term for immerse comes the term "baptize...

...One firstcentury C.E...

...No, it actually makes a great deal of sense when seen in its historical context...

...The Judaism that developed in the late fourth century B.C.E...

...hence, pneumonia...

...Not only is it anticipated in Second Maccabees, a similar system can be seen in Israel today, where the pious pray at the tombs of Jewish "saints...

...some think that all Jews are going to hell, and some do not...

...Paul), do not encourage one to pray "to" Jesus...

...And although Judaism will typically emphasize action, halacbah, that action is premised on the covenant between God and Israel...

...there's nothing in it a Jew could not say...

...Not so for the Nazis...

...The whole megillah— virgin birth, walking on water, resurrection from the dead, ascending to heaven—is nonsense that no intelligent person could possibly believe...

...All the rest is commentary, go and learn...

...Later on, when this Jewish movement intersected with Greek philosophical thought and as its adherents attempted to explain how God the Father, Jesus the Son, and the Holy Spirit were related, the doctrine of the "Trinity'' developed...

...As a professor of New Testament at a predominantly Christian divinity school, I do get a lot of questions from Jews interested in what their Christian neighbors are thinking...

...P- Christians are necessarily anti-Jewish, think all Jews are going to hell, and therefore the proclamations of the church lead direcdy to the ovens of Auschwitz...

...Abraham became known, along with prophets Elisha and Elijah, as a miracle worker...

...It is also not surprising—it is in fact quite "Jewish"— that those who followed Jesus saw him as a wonder- worker, recognized that his birth signaled something special, and even believed that after his death he was raised from the dead...

...instead of recognizing that God is "One" (as expressed, for example, in the statement "Hear O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is One"), they worship three gods, a Father, a Son, and a Holy Spirit (who used to be called the "Holy Ghost"), and some worship the Virgin Mary...

...Christians, of course, would say "no," as would most historians of the early church...

...And not all church members agree with the official teachings of their church: Some Roman Catholics favor birth control, but the church's official line condemns it...

...Gentiles were not to be obligated to perform any distinctly Jewish practice...

...No, and no...

...Indeed, if one were to make this claim, then the numerous righteous gentiles—Protestant, Catholic, and Orthodox—who because of their religious beliefs sheltered Jews at the risk of their own lives, become inexplicable...

...If he was the Messiah, surely he would be raised...

...numerous Baptists disagreed...

...Some ordain women, and some do not...

...they are quoted here from the Gospel of Matthew...

...when Jews appeared to have gained the audience's sympathy, cartloads of Talmuds were burned), the notion that the "real presence" of Jesus was in the bread and wine eaten during the Christian worship service was a target of Jewish polemic...

...That is a much more difficult claim to make...

...society...

...to understand how the church could begin within Judaism, we need to go back several generations before Jesus...

...The Christian proclamation was both developed and accepted by a number of Jews, so it must have made sense to them, and it clearly made sense to the greater number of pagans who joined the church...

...Christians did not use blood, but they did use the language of blood...

...some approve of birth control and abortion, and some do not...

...As one rabbi put it: If Jesus descended to earth to inhabit the bread each time it was consecrated and served, heaven would be full of holes, like cheese...

...I had no idea this was a "Christian" prayer...

...Most Jews know little about Christianity, and what we know—impressions often gleaned from benign mall decorations of elves and bunnies to the spoutings of nanOw-minded ministers convinced that they have a lock on heaven's doors—is likewise often mistaken...

...It's time for us to learn more about Christianity: not just its history of anti-Semitism, but also its theological depth and system of morality...

...in the wake of Alexander the Great incorporated Greek cultural views, just as Jews have always been influenced by the countries in which we live...

...This is where the concepts of "transubstantiation" and "consubstantiation" come in...