# Posted 8:34 PM by Ariel David Adesnik  

EDUCATING THE DEVIL'S ADVOCATE: As I had hoped, yesterday's post on the death of Christ has provoked thoughtful responses from those who know far more about Christianity than myself. MP of Scrutineer writes that

I am an agnostic, but I was raised a Catholic and have two brothers who are priests, and your interpretation of the Gospels squarely contradicts that of the Catholic Church.

The RCC does teach that God's covenant with Abraham is still in effect. The RCC does not teach that the Jews are collectively responsible for Jesus' death.

Indeed, while I have heard that some particularly backwards non-Catholic Christians misinterpret the Gospels the way you describe, I have never in my 38 years heard a Catholic profess these anti-Jewish beliefs.

See "The Catholic Church and the Jewish People" for more info.

Multiple readers have observed that according to Catholic and other Christian theologies, the covenant of Abraham is still in effect. Thus, I made a factual error by asserting that it wasn't. Nonetheless, I think it is important to ask how the Christian and Jewish definitions of "chosenness" compare and contrast. The traditional Jewish concept of chosenness (which I fully reject) entails the belief that Judaism is the only true faith and that God has a special and privileged relaitonship with the Jewish people that no other people can enjoy. Thus, if Christians assert that the covenant of Abraham is still in effect, they will find it necessary to redefine certain aspects of the covenant. On a related note, JT writes that

Yes, of course Christianity does claim (to various degrees, depending on denomination) that Judiasm is no longer relevant -- exactly as it claims of all other religions. (Unlike the others, however, it affirms Judaism as true.) Yes, Christianity claims that the only way that Jews can overcome the burden of their own sins is to become a follower of Christ-- exactly as it claim for all others, Jewish or not.

Your statement [about the inherently anti-Semitic nature of the Gospels] is, in my mind, as untrue and offensive as someone claiming that "by my reading, the dehumanization of non-Jewish peoples is an integral part of the theological agenda of the Jewish claim to being a 'Chosen People.'" Ignoring of course the various significance and the commentaries on the subject, because we can merely claim that in the years since the Torah was written, progressive rabbis have reinterpreted the Tanakh in order to mitigate its anti-Gentilism.

If you find such a claim outrageous, you should note that that is the position of Reconstructionist Judaism, which does believe that the entire concept of chosenness, in any way, is very morally suspect.

To be honest, while you start from some reasonable points (such as that Christianity does attempt to delegitimize Judaism and set itself up as a successor religion), you make some claims that are, I think, unwarranted.

Although it is not my intention to offend JT, I must suggest that by my reading, the dehumanization of non-Jewish people is an integral part of the theological agenda of the Jewish claim to being a 'Chosen People'. Consider the genocide of the Amalekites, described in the Book of Samuel. If memory serves, God condemns Saul for slaughtering the Amalekites -- women and children included -- but taking their animals for his own, rather than slaughtering them as well. Even in my relatively progressive school, our teachers endorsed God's condemnation of Saul and observed that if God had asked him to kill the animals as well, that is what he should have done. Not once did our teachers suggest that God's will was fundamentally perverse because it demanded of Saul the genocide of a people whose only sin was that hundreds of years earlier, their ancestors had launched a surprise attack on the Jews.

The irony of this moral logic is disturbing and painful. If one endorses the Jewish slaughter of the Amalekites for a centuries old greivance, how can the Jews of today insist that they bear no responsibility for the death of Christ simply because it happened so long ago? Moreover, what is our response to Hitler and Goebbels if we endorse those genocides that our ancestors supposedly committed?

As such, I am glad that progressive rabbis have chosen to subvert the meaning of the original text and redefine Chosenness in a less bloody-minded manner. Given that the rabbis have spent the last two thousand years subverting the original text in order to advance various agendas, I am glad that at least one of those agendas is the enlightened embrace of human rights. By the same token, I am quite glad that the Catholic Church has begun to insist very publicly that the Jews are not collectively responsible for the death of Christ.

It is important to remember, of course, that those of us who accuse the rabbis and the Church of dramatically reinterpreting sacred texts insult the faith of countless Jews and Catholics. The foundation of Orthodox Judaism is the belief that there is an unbroken chain of interpretation that began with Moses' own interpretation of the Torah and that has continued ever since. My primitive understanding of Catholicism (an attribute I share with Mel Gibson) is that the Church has preserved the true and original spirit of the Gospels.

As such, those of us who advocate greater religious tolerance must accept the paradoxical fact that such tolerance tends to emerge only when the guardians of the faith are able to persuade themselves that their innovations are in fact restorations of a tarnished original meaning. Surely this is what Plato might have referred to as a noble lie.

To be continued... (0) opinions -- Add your opinion