Answering Jewish Objections to Jesus: Volume 1: General and Historical Objections by Michael L. Brown

Author:Michael L. Brown [Brown, Michael L.]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Christian Books & Bibles, History, Ministry & Evangelism, Evangelism, Theology, Apologetics, Religion & Spirituality, Judaism, Religious Studies, Comparative Religion, Christianity, Religion
ISBN: 9781585580873
Google: 56YsnwEACAAJ
Amazon: B007KO2UUM
Barnesnoble: B007KO2UUM
Goodreads: 17920956
Publisher: Baker Books
Published: 2000-02-01T22:00:00+00:00

2.8. The origins of anti-Semitism can be traced to the pages of the New Testament. From the negative depiction of the Pharisees to the charge of deicide, anti-Semitism is a Christian plague.

It is commonly recognized among scholars today that anti-Semitism existed in various forms in the ancient world long before a single page of the New Testament was written. Further, the New Testament documents primarily reflect friction between Jewish groups—differences between Messianic Jews and non-Messianic Jews (including Pharisees, Sadducees, etc.)—just like the Dead Sea Scrolls reflect legal and religious arguments between different Jewish groups. It is a mistake to read the later history of “Christian” anti-Semitism back into the New Testament. As for passages in the New Testament that have helped fuel anti-Semitism in the church, you need to remember that passages from our own Hebrew Bible have often been used against us Jews by anti-Semites, while alleged anti-Semitic texts in the New Testament, when properly translated and understood, are really not anti-Semitic at all. In fact, Israel’s greatest support today comes from those who read the New Testament as the literal Word of God. For them, it is the source of philo-Semitism not anti-Semitism.

The first thing you need to realize is that anti-Semitism is not a Christian phenomenon. Even if you are convinced that the New Testament itself is terribly anti-Semitic, a subject we’ll come to in a moment, there is no denying the fact that anti-Semitism was known long before Jesus came into the world, and it exists today in countries that are anti-Christian. There is more to anti-Semitism than you may realize.

The earliest recorded example of anti-Semitism is found in our very own Scriptures, in the Book of Esther, where Haman’s hatred for one Jew, Mordechai, quickly grew into a hatred for an entire people. So fierce was this hatred that Haman succeeded in persuading the Persian king, Xerxes, to pass an edict calling on all peoples in the kingdom to “destroy, kill and annihilate all the Jews—young and old, women and little children—on a single day, the thirteenth day of the twelfth month, the month of Adar, and to plunder their goods” (Esther 3:13).

What was Haman’s rationale? He informed the king that “there is a certain people dispersed and scattered among the peoples in all the provinces of your kingdom whose customs are different from those of all other people and who do not obey the king’s laws; it is not in the king’s best interest to tolerate them” (Esther 3:8). In other words, “The Jews are different! The Jews are troublemakers! It’s in your best interest to get rid of them.” Now that is anti-Semitism!

Similar accusations against our people are recorded elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible. For example, when the Jewish exiles returned from Babylon and began to rebuild Jerusalem, their opponents sent this letter to the Persian king Artaxerxes:

The king should know that the Jews who came up to us from you have gone to Jerusalem and are rebuilding that rebellious and wicked city. They are restoring the walls and repairing the foundations.

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