Eugene  J.  Fisher (editor)

INTERWOVEN  DESTINIES:
JEWS AND CHRISTIANS THROUGH THE AGES

(Stimulus Books) [Paperback]
Paperback: 176 pages
Publisher: Paulist Press (January 1, 1992)
ISBN-10: 0809133636
ISBN-13: 978-0809133635
Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 6.4 x 0.4 inches
Shipping Weight: 8.5 ounces

reviewed by Patrick Killough

(1) the life, death and teaching of Jesus the Galilean and his Jewish context;

(2) Resurrection of Jesus and First Century CE  writings before the 70 CE destruction of the Temple at Jerusalem (earliest writings of Paul;

(3) the "Parting of the Ways" of the two Abrahamic Faiths (70 - 350);

(4) From the Christian Roman Imperium till the Crusades;

(5) from the Middle Ages till 1600, nadir of Jewish-Christian relations;

(6) from the Enlightenment to Nazi Germany;

(7) from the 1944 Allied liberations of Nazi death camps to the present.

"There was a time not too long ago (with clear assumptions) ... There were Pharisees and Sadducees, something like Democrats and Republicans in America today. Off by the side were the so-called 'peoples of the land,' the shadowy Essenes, the elusive Zealots, and wild apocayptists" (p. 15).

-- (1) the life and teachings of Jesus of Galilee to roughly 30 - 33 CE;
 
-- (2) From Jesus's death to the early writings of Saint Paul (mid 60s);
 
-- (3) the "Parting of the Ways" of the two Abrahamic Faiths from 70 (destruction of the Jerusalem temple) to 350 (earliest Christian Creeds within a Christian Roman Empire);
 
-- (4) From the Christian Roman Imperium till the Crusades;
 
-- (5) from the Middle Ages till 1600 (nadir of Jewish-Christian relations);
 
-- (6) from the Enlightenment to Nazi Germany (1933 - 1945);
 
-- (7) from the 1944 Allied liberations of Nazi death camps to the present.

"the trauma is no greater than that which scholars, clergy, and tens of thousands of university students have passed through in their religious studies courses -- all of whom have survived..."

 "You are not far from the Kingdom of God."

 "His (Jesus's) teaching, where good, was not original, and where original was not Jewish or good."

Who can profit from reading INTERWOVEN DESTINIES?

-- Did Jesus remain a faithful Jew, obeying the law of Moses till his death or was he an anti-Semitic apostate to Judaism?

-- Were the Gospel writers (70 - 100 CE) influenced by Saint Paul, writing in the 60s before the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem in 70?

-- Evangelist Mark is less anti-Jewish than Matthew or Luke. Did the latter make Jesus say things relevant to emerging inter-confessional disputes of their day but not what Jesus actually said 40 or more years earlier? Did Mark himself present Jesus as saying harsh things about Jews that the great Galilean never said in the tradition that Mark received? Many Jewish scholars believe that as we unpeel or sift through the spin and interpretations laid on the historical Jesus by Paul and the evangelists, what emerges is an orthodox believing Jew from beginning to end.

-- Yet was Jesus a totally unoriginal Second Temple Jew? No. He was definitely original within the broad framework of many existing tendencies within Judaism both in Israel and the Diaspora. But were Jesus's novelties thereby wrong simply because not traditionally Jewish? Such was the position of C.G. Montefiore quoted above.

-- After destruction of the Temple in 70, did rabbinic, Pharisaic Judaism sweep the field, emerging victorious over all other competing ways of being Jewish? No, says Martha Himmelfarb in "The Parting of the Ways Reconsidered: Diversity in Judaism and Jewish-Christian Relations in the Roman Empire." She argues from the increasingly better known history of the great synagogue at Sardis (and the city's anti-Jewish bishop Melito) in Asia Minor, a colossal building which was used for worship until the 7th Century destruction of Sardis. Himmelfarb also cites various late writings, "Pseudepigrapha," which show strong evidence of interpenetration of Jewish and Christian points of view. Rabbinic, post-Temple Judaism tended strongly to be inward looking and to avoid contact with non-Jews. Not so at Sardis and elsewhere in the Diaspora.

-- Was Luther's Reformation essentially a rebellion against the enlightened, tolerant, free thinking of the Renaissance, a "back to medieval Christendom" movement?

-- What theological beliefs made Luther so passionately anti-Jewish, especially in his 1543 essay "Against the Jews and their Lies?" Therein the Reformer concluded with advice repeated three times: burn their synagogues, schools, and houses, and bury all traces of them -- and more. This prompted French Jewish scholar Jules Isaac to write during the misery of the Shoah (his wife and daughter were killed at Auschwitz in 1943):

"Patience, Luther. Hitler will come. Your wishes will be granted, and more ... let us place Luther in the place he deserves, in the first row of Christian precursors ... of Auschwitz."

This is embedded in an essay, "The Reformation and the Jews" by Alice L. Eckhardt.

--to Christian laypeople, for instance, who think Paul wrote later than the evangelists;

-- to Jews who think Jesus the Galilean was an apostate and father of anti-Semitism.

Pros:  Historical Overview of Ups, Downs -- and Whys -- in Interactions between Jews and Christians.

Cons:  Purported Jewish-Christian Scholarly Consensuses are often Based on Long, Debatable Chains of Inference.

The Bottom Line:  Eight brilliant papers, framed and unified by editor's Introduction and Epilogue: perhaps a general reader's best introduction to not always pleasant Jewish-Christian intermingling, and to current peace and tolerance.

"The Jews were now defined as a threatening disease ... 'enemies of the human race.'"

-- Did Jesus remain a faithful Jew, obeying the law of Moses till his death or was he an anti-Semitic apostate to Judaism? Some Jewish scholars believe that as scholars of all religions (or none) unwrap the spin and interpretations laid on the historical Jesus by Paul and the Evangelists, what emerges is Jesus the orthodox believing Jew from beginning to end.

-- Were the Gospel writers (70 - 100) influenced by the trans-Jewish Saint Paul, writing in the 60s before the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem in 70?

-- What was original in Jesus's teaching? How could Jewish Christians accept his radical new claims and expect not to be expelled from synagogues?

-- After destruction of the Temple in 70, did rabbinic, Pharisaic Judaism sweep the field, emerging victorious over all other competing ways of being Jewish -- as commonly believed? No, says Martha Himmelfarb in "The Parting of the Ways Reconsidered: Diversity in Judaism and Jewish-Christian Relations in the Roman Empire."  Non-Rabbinic Judaism flourished in the diaspora and was positively open to Jews rubbing shoulders with Christians and pagans in Roman civic society.

-- Was Luther's Reformation essentially a rebellion against the enlightened, tolerant, free thinking of the Renaissance, a "back to medieval Christendom" movement?

-- What theological beliefs made Luther so passionately anti-Jewish, especially in his 1543 essay "Against the Jews and their Lies?"

When he discovered that Luther pamphlet, French Jewish scholar Jules Isaac wrote during the misery of the Shoah (his wife and daughter were killed at Auschwitz in 1943):


This is embedded in an essay, "The Reformation and the Jews" by Alice L. Eckhardt.

-- One of the eight scholars, rabbi/professor Michael J. Cook says that the problem in contemporary Jewish-Christian relations in the USA is not that interconfessional experts have not achieved consensus. They have!

But, alas, far too many Christians, Jews and other laymen remain blissfully ignorant of what the scholars have achieved. The Christian layman is stuck in old, unhelpful attitudes so long as he routinely assumes (falsely) that Saint Paul wrote later than the Evangelists and was in full agreement with their views. And Jews in the pews often have no clue how many Jewish scholars now see Jesus as thoroughly, if offbeatlu, Jewish. Cook argues that the greatest need now to advance Jewish-Christian understanding is a campaign to popularize the emerging scholarly, research-driven consensuses.