Talk:Jews in the New Testament

Regarding this bit in the text:

Specifically, some of the books were written by Gentiles, or for a Gentile audience, some time after the events they describe.

Which books is this referring to? I don't think the synoptic gospels qualify. If you believe Acts was written by Paul, who is at least nominally a Jew, that doesn't qualify. Clarification? Graft

Acts is traditionally ascribed to Luke the Evangelist. I'm not sure which book or books that line might be referring to. Paul was certainly a Jew, a Pharisee who studied under Gamaliel[?]. Incidentally, if the only requirement to be a Jew is that one be born of a Jewish mother, wouldn't Paul or any Jew who adopted the Christian religion still be considered a Jew? Would it make any difference if someone born a Jew decided to become a Buddhist instead? Wesley

Yes, of course. See the entry on Jew for a discussion of this point. If Paul really was born a Jew, then he remained a Jew after he became a Christian. If a Jew today converts to Christianity, technically they still are Jewish. They are not, however, considered a Jew in good-standing in the Jewish community, nor are they considered a part of the Jewish community, nor are they considered to be practicing Judaism. They are viewed as people of Jewish ethnicity who have since chosen to leave the Jewish community and have joined another people. Such people are always welcome back into the Jewish community if they ever decide to re-adopt Judaism as their religion. RK

Here's a source for the interpretation of Ioudaioi as "Judaeans" rather than "Jews": http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/8061/66071. As you can see, it is an essay by an Orthodox Christian on the subject of Christian anti-semitism, but is not an official statement of the Orthodox Church or any church official. I first found the view either in this article (just found through a web search) or in one very much like it. It sounds to me like a plausible interpretation of some passages, but probably not all. Hope this helps. Wesley

This still seems to be an iconoclastic claim that only a handful modern day people are suggesting. As far as I have been able to tell, this is not the position of any Christian religious bodies or churches, nor is it a mainstream academic view. It seems to be a modern-day apologetic to ignore the plain meaning of the New Testament. RK

However, Ioudaioi=Judeans is the view of the Jesus Seminar, which is hardly a pro-Christian apologetic organization, and it is growing in popularity in academic circles, especially among Johannine scholars. Since the statement only claims that it is a growing position among Biblical scholars, its inclusion is NPOV. Stephen C. Carlson

What do you mean by "iconoclastic"?? Here's a much more scholarly treatment of anti-semitism in the Gospel of John; read the section with the subheading "the Jews" for different ways John uses the phrase. http://www.bc.edu/bc_org/research/cjl/CBA_Seminar/townsend.htm. Briefly, he points out that we might use the phrase "the French" to refer to all the French people ("the French appreciate good wine"), to just the French government ("The French are negotiating with the Russians"), the French judiciary ("The French just tried and convicted another criminal"), or even people outside of France but of French decent ("The French Canadians want to continue using the French language). Thus, "Jews" may have been used in different ways in different contexts, even by the same New Testament author. Wesley

On a somewhat related note, the article now reads that the classical Christian view is that these verses condemn the entire Jewish people as well as the religion of Judaism. Saying that Christianity has condemned the entire people makes it sound like a racial bias. Historically, Christianity has always or almost always welcomed Jewish converts, and the New Testament also speaks favorably of Jews who followed Jesus or became Christians. Wesley

Christianity has taught that the Jewish people are wrong not to accept Jesus as their messiah. This isn't a racial claim in any way. It is a theological claim. The New Testament doesn't say that the Jews are wrong because of their race or genetics; it says that they are wrong because they have the wrong beliefs. RK

Thanks for clearing up the position in the article :) Martin

We are touching on a complicated issue that we have touchec on before. The main problem is that most of the language we have to describe and analyze the past is anacronistic. During the Roman empire, people -- Jews and Christians included -- thought and talked about "relgion" and "race" in very different ways than we do today. I believe that it is anacronistic to claim that early Christians were racists. But I think it is also wrong (misleading, oversimplifying) to claim that because Christians welcome Jewish converts to Christianity, therefore Christians have nothing against "the Jewish People." This is because as soon as a Jew converts to Christianity, s/he ceases to be a Jew. Using today's terms, one could say that Christianity is not genecidal but is ethnocidal, in that it wishes people (pagans and Jews) to cease from those things that define them as a "People." Slrubenstein

Ethnocide[?]? I looked for definitions, and came up with this page, [1] (http://www.nplg.gov.ge/ic/library_e/gabeskiria/16.htm), which lists six different sub-meanings. Is that how you're using the word? onelook.com doesn't list it, iritatingly... :-/ Martin

The link looks reasonable. Norman Whitten in his 1976 book Sacha Runa says,

The concept of ethnocide is taken from genocide, and refers to the process of exterminating the total lifeway of a people or nation, but in the ethnocidal process many of the people themselves are allowed to continue living.

I think in fact the international law/UN definition of genocide actually includes what Whitten was talking about as a form of genocide. But international law aside, most people think of genocide as mass murder. And the point is that you can kill a "People" (meaning, some ethnic group with a clear identity) without killing any actual people. SOme people used to call this "acculturation" but most anthropologists, at least, abandoned that term long ago because it described an objective (a-political, value-free) process that implied more what Jews today call "assimilation" (which may even inovlve a degree of choice or volunteerism). So in this sense "acculturation" may be a useful word, but in most anthropology it was used to describe what was happening to recent immigrants and American Indians in the late 19th early 20th century when it was clear that the US government had an explicit policy of whiping out different identities -- so the process cannot be described in apolitical terms. Now, I admit that what is going on with Christianity is a little more complex, since Christians also have adapted some Jewish things (well, like the Bible). But my point is simply this: Christianity believes everyon should convert to Christianity. If that happens, there weill be no more Jews. Slrubenstein

So, what exactly is a Jew again? Our current wikipedia definition says that to be a Jew one must only be born of a Jewish mother; no particular beliefs are required, and some Jews expand the definition to include anyone with at least one Jewish parent. RK confirmed this definition not long ago on this discussion page, confirming that a Jew is still a Jew even after converting to Christianity or Buddhism, although no longer a member of the Jewish community. (If I recall his words correctly.) I've thought for a while that definition was too simplistic; does it need to be revisited in the Jew or Judaism article? Or perhaps some distinction needs to be made between being a Jew and being part of the Jewish community? Can a Jew become an atheist and remain part of the Jewish community? Wesley 20:50 Feb 26, 2003 (UTC)

Yes, a Jew can become an atheist and still be a Jew; a Jew can cease believing in God or can stop obeying Jewish law and still be a Jew. But every major Jewish group that I know of considers conversion to another religion to be, effectively, a renunciation of one's Jewishness. Maybe RK can correct me or add to this... Slrubenstein

I was going to try and refute that, but then I remembered that this is wikipedia! :)

Seriously, I think this is a fascinating point of view, and it's entirely proper to have it in the article. Who thinks this? Is it any particular branch? Orthodox Judaism? Reconstructionist Judiasm? Deconstructionist Judaism? The Quakers, the fakirs, or the candlestick makers? Names, please... :) Martin

Okay, I see I have not been clear and either I -- or you -- should rewrite what I recently put in the article. I have never heard any Jew call the Christian attitude "ethnocide." I do know that most Jews I know, once they fully understand the Christian attitude (there is only one truth, everyone should become Christina) are just apalled and do see it as an attack on the Jewish people and on themselves personally. The question is, how to articulate this sense of a "collective" attack? As RK noted it really is not genocide. But can we label it anything? I am proposing labeling it ethnocide; I certainly think it is a comparable to ethnocide. But I am not claiming that many Jews use this term, I am just trying to find a scholarly label to characterize their view... Slrubenstein

Well, if it's a response to christian views of religious pluralism, rather than specifically to the way Jews are portrayed in the New Testament, I'm not sure it should go here. Martin

hmmmm. Well, it isn't a response to christian views of religious pluralism. It is in part a response to the Christian claim that Christianity replaces Judaism (which is made in the NT), and in part a response to Christian prosyletizing activities, which is also in the NT. I do see you point, that this article is about how Jews are portrayed, and you may be right. I'd just ask you to think about this: isn't one of the points that Jews are portrayed as "wrong," meaning, wrong in their rejection of Jesus and wrong in their interpretation of the Bible? Jews interpret this portrayal not just as a rejection of Judaism by Christians (e.g. We Christians do not want to be Jewish, which would be fine), but rather as a rejection of the legitimacy of being Jewish -- no one should be Jewish. I guess this is how I got to ethnocide. The bottom line for me is that even though we all agree that none of these NT claims are "genocidal" they are nevertheless collective threats. What do you think?

Just looked up the "church tradition", and it says Luke was one of the seventy apostles that Christ sent out... which means he was probably a Jew as well. Unless there's other scholarship that says otherwise, of course. Wesley

I thought I'd read that John was considered by some a gentile in the ext. link Wesley gave, but I now can't find it, so I've removed the whole chunk. Martin

"these verses are a critique of some Jews, or specific individuals, or some aspects of Judaism at the time of Jesus, but not of all Jews, nor of the Jewish faith in general, nor of any Jews today" (from the article)

"True, the Jewish authorities and those who followed their lead pressed for the death of Christ;(13) still, what happened in His passion cannot be charged against all the Jews, without distinction, then alive, nor against the Jews of today" (nostra aetate)

I'm going to say that these positions are equivalent, because I think they're close enough, and that way it's clearer. Martin

Further, there are around a billion Catholics, and around two billion Christians, which I think makes "which is held by the majority of Christians" inaccurate. So I removed that. The next step is to find the current position of the Eastern Orthodox and Anglican Community, which are the next biggest branches. Martin

Since this article is now called "Jews in the New Testament", would it be appropriate to include a list of verses that speak favorably of Jews or the Jewish people? There are quite a few of those as well; the article I linked to earlier about the Gospel of John includes a sampling. Wesley

Martin started doing that in the introductory portion. Personally I think the verses critical of Jews are more interesting because of the link to Christian anti-Semitism, and this is what makes them worthy of an encyclopedia article, whereas I don't see a clear purpose in detailing verses that speak favorably of Jews any more than I would see a purpose in detailing verses that mention animals, or consumption of fish, or whatever. Graft

I think the extensive list of verses should be moved to meta, and linked to as just one of a number of external links we provide giving that sort of in-depth interpretation. I don't see a benefit in keeping it as part of the entry itself - nor would I see a benefit in a list of verses that show a positive light. Martin

The reason for showing a list of verses in a positive light would simply be to give the article some balance. if you have an article called "Jews in the New Testament" and every verse mentioned portrays them negatively, someone unfamiliar with the NT could easily come away with the impression that the NT has nothing but bad things to say about Jews. This is far from the case. On the other hand, I have no problem with just moving all the verses to meta. But I'd like to get input from RK and/or Slrubenstein before doing that. Wesley

I think the verses should go out too, however, I am collecting my notes on the subject. In general, the text should not be a catalogue of "nice verses" vs. "not-nice verses." It should reflect the historical context of when and why the verses were written--for example, no discussion of Matthew (a Jew) is complete without understanding why he, unlike Luke or Mark, kept stressing "their synagogues." Similarly, John 8:44 should also be put in context of why this was written and the history of Jewish-christian relations at the time. For a better example of this, seewhat I did with Christianity and anti-Semitism in the Talk pages. Meanwhile, this arguing back and forth over specific verses hardly contributes to an understanding of what was actually going on that caused the verses to be written. It ends up being just polemics. Sorry, I am at work now. Gimme till tonite. Danny

I want to mention why this entry was created in the first place. It was a supplement to the article on Christianity and anti-Semitism; it was made because many people did not believe that such a lengthy list of anti-Jewish polemics actually existed in the New Testament. Many Wikipedia contributors are, at best, vaguely familiar with the New Testament, and they only know what they are told: That it is a book of love, love, love. People either forget, or never learn, other aspects of the New Testament. Outside of Wikipedia (i.e. in the real world) I have mentioned these verses to people, and in return I was called a liar! Many people won't believe that this facet of the New Testament exists, nor do they understand why Jews today are so uncomfortable with the fact that these verses are still read today as the word of God. RK

That sounds like an excellent reason for a list of verses to be kept, but they could still be kept at meta and fulfill this function. Martin

That sounds reasonable to me. If we do move these to meta, could we include a link to this from somewhere in relevant articles? RK

Better to link to this article, and have an external link to the meta bit on here, I'd have thought? Martin