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13 July 2014 Christianity and Antisemitism: Part Two In Part One, I presented excerpted material from a thread I started at The Education Forum in 2007, entitled "Christianity and Anti-Semitism." That subject will continue here, beginning with an updated revision of the Introduction that I originally posted at that forum on 29 April 2007. 1. I assume that most people can agree that the views expressed by Reverend Wesley A. Swift are extraordinarily appalling, and the problem with them does not seem too complicated. His entire body of work reveals extreme paranoia, fear-mongering, and incitement to hatred. So we could call this "crazy" and note a psychological fixation in which Jews represent the singular embodiment of Evil On Earth, helping to account for all other evils that threatened to overwhelm the White Christian: Communism, Socialism, Negroes, the United Nations, the National Council of Churches, the World Council of Churches, the Federal Reserve System, Eleanor Roosevelt, Adlai Stevenson, and whatever else was in the way. In essence, then, the embodiment of evil might have been any scapegoat, and Swift just happened to have a fixation on Jews. And yet our preacher was not entirely "misquoting the Bible" in his sermons. Assuming that there's a serious problem with that, how do Christians reconcile that problem and their faith? Or how does anyone deal with the issue, whether they are Christians or not, and whether they see themselves as people of faith or not? John Dominic Crossan's Preface for Who Killed Jesus? strikes me as being as reasonable as possible in addressing a difficult subject. One benefit of studying such works of biblical scholars of the last few decades is the recognition that sacred texts did not often come into being all at once. Instead, most developed over time and passed through any number of earlier versions before some completed version became canonized (by some official body) as an inviolable text. The Q Gospel source is referred to as a "sayings gospel" due to its similarity to other "sayings literature" found over the past century. A characteristic of this literature is the presentation of a list of the sayings of a revered teacher, written down with little to nothing in the way of narrative elaboration. For instance, Jesus said: Blessed are the destitute; they own the Kingdom of God. And so on. The main point here is that such a text would likely have been the earliest source to consider in evaluating what was said or taught by Jesus. That does not mean a later source like the Gospel of Mark (from the 70s A.D.) or even a much later narrative (like the Gospel of Luke from the 90s or later) could not contain very original, historically accurate information. But as a working hypothesis, the earlier text is presumed to be the more reliable as it is closer to actual events, with less chance of additional, non-original interests injected into the story. Wholly apart from addressing how Christian texts might have helped produce antisemitic ideas, one can gather from Crossan's Preface how controversial it is to discover and explain how a Christian Gospel is based on the "literary creativity" of early Christians -- who searched their (Jewish) scriptures in trying to make sense of the fate of Jesus, and so produced biographical accounts that unsurprisingly had striking parallels to those scriptures. Fortunately for me, it won't be necessary to go into much further depth on that subject in addressing what follows. My premise at the start is that the Gospel of Matthew's text is the result of various sources. I accept the validity of the two-source theory accepted by most scholars that the Gospels of Matthew and Luke were each (separately) created by using two primary sources: a version of the Gospel of Mark and a version of the Q-source (Q Gospel). Essentially, that means that somewhere along the line, two separate writers had before them some text of Mark and some text of Q and composed their Gospels by directly copying from them. But once critical analysis eliminates Mark and Q from the texts of Matthew and Luke, other information remains (for instance, the Nativity episodes and lists of Jesus' genealogical descent, or many parables spoken by Jesus, and so on). Some of this is attributable to other sources (beyond Mark or Q) that the composers of Luke and Matthew used, but others would also tend to reveal what the actual (main) author had to say about various issues. In the case of the Gospel of Matthew, for example, it's fairly easy to recognize that "the Matthew author proper" was very concerned about how the fate of Jesus fulfilled Old Testament prophecies in many ways. The question I will try to address here is whether that (primary) author is the same writer who injected a good deal of spite into the text. I believe it's possible to demonstrate that is not the case, and that what is surely a later hand ("voice") makes a distinct appearance which serves to transform the text of the Gospel of Matthew into something far removed from its origins as a work of Jewish-Christian followers of Jesus of Nazareth. I believe recognition of this can help us understand how a religion that is traditionally so identified with the idea of love also includes much that has inspired hatred toward Jews. 2. While writing They Will Not Follow a Stranger (2004), I found that addressing issues about the Synoptic Gospels (Mark, Matthew, Luke) and the Q Gospel source (buried within Matthew and Luke) necessitated identifying the various sources by using colored pencils in my copy of the Bible. So, for instance, whole long passages of Matthew and Luke that were identical to passages in Mark were shaded in blue pencil. That helped me identify areas of text in Matthew and Luke that were dependent on Mark. I then used different colors to identify the three layers of the Q source, as proposed by Burton Mack in The Lost Gospel. That helped me better understand his arguments and see more clearly the validity of the theory about Q as a whole. For example, in Matthew's Gospel, most of the earliest layer of Q (the sayings of Jesus) can be seen all in one place: the Sermon on the Mount. Once finished, it was easier to assess Luke and Matthew from what was left of their texts (and also easier to recognize possible other sources used by the authors The most obvious thing was a tendency to apply biblical (Old Testament) passages to Jesus, particularly those of the "Suffering Servant" in the Book of Isaiah, as a way of showing how his life fulfilled prophecies. I say this was obvious because of the separate-colored shadings I had applied to the text: an Old Testament passage would appear at the end of a blue-shaded Mark-parallel passage, with only a simple introduction like, "This was to fulfill (Old Testament prophecy)." Then Mark's (blue-shaded) story would resume. After a while, it was fairly easy to identify this writer due to the appearance of such themes and tendencies. My impression was of a devout, pious person who had made sincere connections between the life of Jesus and the scriptural heritage shared by all Jews. Moreover, on one occasion, I found an intriguing puzzle in assessing what was purportedly Q-source material in the Sermon on the Mount. Either the version of Q used in Matthew's Gospel contained some material that Luke's author didn't have access to (or chose not to use), or else Matthew's author was no mere copier of texts. Be careful not to make a show of your religion....... Cautionary criticisms of hypocrisy, insincerity, pomposity, and "show-religion" in general are far from the least meaningful and commendable ideas to be found, especially in religious literature. Apart from that, these passages assume that the place where people go to worship is in a synagogue. And while the criticism is firmly placed, the critic did not exactly convey a great desire to see people burning in everlasting fires of Hell: "they have their reward already." It was hard to know what to make of such material. It was being presented as words of Jesus, of course. But Burton Mack did not consider it to be part of the Q Gospel source (in his reconstruction of Q). So I had to give those (and any similar) passages an indeterminate value, with the most plausible explanation being that the Q-source material used in Matthew contained some good stuff that was absent from Q material used in creating Luke's Gospel. Another example could come as a bit of a shock. Matthew 7:7-11 is purportedly Q-source material from the earliest layer, beginning with, "Ask, and you will receive...." The presumed secondary layer then picks up at Matthew 7:13, starting with, "Enter by the narrow gate...." In between is something very familiar, though it is supposedly not in the Q-source: "Always treat others as you would like them to treat you: that is the Law and the prophets." (Matthew 7:12) Thankfully, that example doesn't require much addressing of thorny issues like whether it came from Jesus originally or from a later writer, or if it was part of the Q-source or not. That's because the phrase "the Law and the prophets" itself identifies the text's primary composer: apart from being consistent with the concerns of a mind informed by familiarity with the scriptures and heritage of Judaism, the simple phrase itself is distinctive for its recurrence in the Gospel of Matthew. Here, it looks like the Golden Rule original may have had the phrase appended to it, which would be similar to its other appearances in the text. (Unless the whole sentence was the author's creation. Either way, the example summarizes the ethics encouraged: the Golden Rule constitutes an ethical summary for Jesus' sayings in Matthew 7:7-11, and itself is summarized as the basis of Jewish ethics as such: "that is the Law and the prophets.") I didn't deliberately choose my examples here because I needed them to make a point, but then I also didn't choose them at random. Strictly speaking, I didn't choose them at all. They were just the first non-Mark/non-Q material that I came across as I looked at the Sermon on the Mount from its beginning, and happened to be very relevant to my wanting to find examples of what the author of Matthew was like. I'm thankful once again that addressing such possible synchronicity is no more necessary than addressing the "thorny issues" mentioned above in order to proceed with my main arguments. 3. As explained at the start, using colored pencils to mark off sources for the Gospels of Matthew and Luke helped me better understand the ideas and arguments found in works that I used in writing a study of John the Baptist. And as just mentioned briefly, once I had set off the two primary sources of Matthew's Gospel in this way, it was relatively easy to identify distinctive concerns and tendencies of the Gospel's composer. To further distinguish the text to get some understanding of other sources the author might have used, I began going through with a purple-colored pencil to mark sections that most likely represented that author's own writing. Some areas had to be left unmarked -- for instance, my examples above -- as it was unclear if they were from a source or had come from the author himself. Most others were less complicated. I tell you this: so long as heaven and earth endure, not a letter, not a stroke, will disappear from the Law before all that it stands for is achieved. (Matthew 5:18) Once again, the environment is Jewish (the Law explicitly mentioned, the altar implying the Temple), and the concerns are those of a pious Jew (who has a distinct, commendable attitude about being sincere). Nearing the end of this process of identification, I ran across a note that I had previously written in pencil in the margin next to a passage that had once evidently bothered me. The verse was at the end of a parable comparing the kingdom of Heaven to a king's behavior in settling financial accounts with his servants, in Matthew 18:23-33. And so angry was the master that he condemned the man to torture until he should pay the debt in full. And that is how my heavenly Father will deal with you, unless you each forgive your brother from your hearts. (Matthew 18:34-35) My comment in the margin had been: "Father's not so heavenly." Apparently, it has been easier to overlook the disturbing quality of those sentences due to their combination with the larger story of 18:23-33. It's not just that it introduces torture as a preferred outcome, or even that "my heavenly Father" is into that course of action Himself. It is that it is presented in all seriousness as the consequence of failing to "forgive your brother from your hearts"! It is frankly hard to imagine what kind of mind could even entertain those combinations. Thereafter, I naturally began to look around and assess what else was in the text that displayed a similar.........philosophical outlook. And here and there, what I found was the same spirit, full of hate and easily identifiable not only by the content of what he had to say but by his distinctive adding of a few lines at the end of passages written by others with less agitated minds. For the man who has will always be given more, till he has enough and to spare; and the man who has not will forfeit even what he has. (Matthew 25:29) Due to the recurring appearances of this angry fellow in passages embedded in the writings of the primary author, I eventually found it necessary to go back through what I had already marked off and divide the text further. I used an "I" to indicate the presumed main author (for "Isaiah"), and a "D" for the other -- "Distempered Isaiah." NOTES 1. See, for instance, Burton L. Mack's Who Wrote the New Testament? for further background. 2. Mack proposes his own reconstruction and translation of this earliest layer in The Lost Gospel: The Book of Q & Christian Origins (San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1993), pp. 73-80. Compare John Dominic Crossan's The Historical Jesus (San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1992), pp. xiii-xxvi; and his The Birth of Christianity (San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1999), pp. 587-91 (Appendix I). Around 30% of the material in the apocryphal Gospel of Thomas has parallels in the Q Gospel, an overlapping Crossan believes is critical for understanding both texts and a "common sayings tradition" that may lie behind them (Birth of Christianity, p. 587). 3. See Mack's Lost Gospel, pp. 3-4, 15-27 and passim for background; a good summary is at Mack's Who Wrote the New Testament? pp. 47-53. 4. Further consideration of which is mostly irrelevant to my main topic; see Crossan's works in particular on Gospel sources. Continue to Part Three Return to Table of Contents |