Rediscovering Christianity: Scholars Have Second Thoughts

For centuries an ingrained bias has influenced scholars' and theologians' views of both the Old and New Testaments. Some are now realizing and correcting that error. by David Hulme

The centuries-long theological bias toward the Hebrew Scriptures and the Jewish context of the New Testament may be in the process of being dismantled-by some who previously advocated such views. A significant number of scholars across the ecclesiastical spectrum admit that their churches for the best part of their history have been incorrect in what they have taught about the founder of Christianity, Jesus Christ, and His early followers. These scholars now say that the New Testament Church was in fact far more Jewish in theology and practice than has been traditionally claimed, and that Christianity for the most part, century after century, has fallen prey to an anti-Jewish sentiment. They are coming to admit that, because of such leanings, theologians have fabricated excuses to reject practices of the early Church that are considered to be Jewish (see "Teachings and Practices of the Early Church," p. 8). Why have the churches been so fundamentally in error? The subject of early Christianity's Jewishness had been avoided by most scholars because of a long-standing inclination in the theological world. At best an indifference had characterized views toward Old Testament theology. Now this change is causing a major rethinking of core teachings of traditional Christianity as compared with the Christianity recorded in the Bible. If understood, the implications are profound. Consider the following, by Robert J. Daly, professor of theology and a Jesuit priest: "Expressed bluntly from the Christian perspective, to be anti-Jewish is to be anti-Christian" (Removing Anti-Judaism From the Pulpit, edited by Howard Kee and Irvin Borowsky, Continuum Publishing, New York, 1996, p. 50, emphasis added throughout; subsequent quotations are from this work except as noted). He bases his view on several points, one being that "historical context demonstrates how thoroughly Jewish-one might even say how essentially Jewish- were Jesus and the first Christians" (p. 53). John T. Pawlikowski, a professor at Catholic Theological Union of Social Ethics, in Chicago, says about the Old Testament: "It is now becoming increasingly apparent to biblical scholars that the lack of a deep immersion into the spirit and content of the Hebrew Scriptures leaves the contemporary Christian with a truncated version of Jesus' message. In effect, what remains is an emasculated version of biblical spirituality" (p. 31). What was left out But surely, you say, biblical students learn about the entire Bible in depth, don't they? These scholars tell us otherwise. In fact, they reveal that many are not taught much about the largest portion of the Bible, the Old Testament. Admitting to the weaknesses of his professional education, Presbyterian minister David Read says, "I remember in my early days as a preacher being forced to reconsider the assumption that the New Testament gospel of God's grace had replaced the Law as the center of a living religion and therefore presumably rendered most of the Old Testament obsolete" (p. 66). He asks: "Have I been encouraging certain false assumptions and misrepresentations that have been part of the homiletical diet in a great many Protestant churches? There is, for instance, the simplistic picture of the Judaism of Jesus's contemporaries as a religion of harsh legalism dominated by a law whose regulations, ever expanding, were ruthlessly enforced by a kind of super-clergy known as Pharisees" (pp. 64-65). Sadly, many such misunderstandings abound. These statements and others like them grow out of a deepening recognition that bias toward the religion of the Jews in New Testament times has plagued traditional Christianity almost from inception, one early anti-Jewish teacher being Marcion. Marcion, prominent in influence in the second century, misinterpreted the God of the Old Testament as heartless and irreconcilable with the New Testament's God of mercy. In his misinformed zeal, he became convinced that the church was mistaken in aligning itself with the religion, literature and practices of the Jews. Although ecclesiastical leaders subsequently denounced Marcion's teachings and affirmed the authority of the Hebrew Scriptures, Marcion's extreme views spread, century after century, planting poisonous seeds: first of Judeophobia and later, as we have seen in our time, antiñSemitism. The seeds of today's change Today's trend to openness, which according to Pawlikowski originated about 30 years ago, has borne results such as the following: "The removal from mainline Christian educational texts of the charge that Jews collectively were responsible for the death of Jesus, that the Pharisees were the arch enemies of Jesus and spiritually soulless, that Jews had been displaced by Christians in the covenantal relationship with God as a result of refusal to accept Jesus as the Messiah, that the 'Old Testament' was totally inferior to the New and that Jewish faith was rooted in legalism while the Christian religion was based on grace. This phase is substantially complete as far as it goes for most of the mainline churches" (pp. 29-30). Pawlikowski also observes, "The claimed total opposition to Torah which theologians, especially in the Protestant churches, frequently made the basis for their theological contrast between Christianity and Judaism (freedom/grace vs. Law) now appears to rest on something less than solid ground" (p. 32). Primarily responsible for that supposedly solid ground of opposition to the Torah-a term meaning literally "teaching" or "instruction" and usually applied to the five books of Moses-was theologian Robert Bultmann. For much of this century his and his followers' ideas-among them removing Jesus from His Jewish background-held sway. Now, says Pawlikowsky, Bultmann and "the virtual stranglehold" that he "and his disciples held over New Testament interpretation for several decades" (p. 31) is being challenged. What are the consequences of all this for Christian belief, understanding and practice? What might these new perspectives lead to in terms of the day-to-day practice of Christians who really want to know how Christ and members of the early Church lived? The Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles reveal Jesus and a group of men and women set firmly within the practices of an ancient religious tradition. In presenting the case for practicing Christianity as the early Church did, it would seem reasonable, therefore, to begin with this straightforward premise: The earliest followers of Jesus did what He did (see "Jesus Christ Enhances the Law"). He was, after all, their divine Master and Leader. Their practice would not deviate from His own without direct revelation from Him. Frederick Holmgren, research professor of Old Testament at a Chicago seminary, writes: "Jesus embraced the Torah of Moses; he came not to end it but to fulfill it (Matt. 5:17)-to carry its teachings forward. Further, to those who came to him seeking eternal life, he held it up as the essential teaching to be observed (Luke 10:25-28). "Despite Jesus' conflict with some interpreters of his day, both Jewish and Christian scholars see him as one who honored and followed the Law. When Jesus proclaims the coming rule of God, he speaks nowhere in detail about the inner character of this rule. He does not need to because that has already been described in the Old Testament . . ." (p. 72). We should also look at the apostle Paul and whether his teaching and example were in competition with Christ's, as Bultmann and others have insisted. The law's spiritual intent When members of the early Church observed the law of God, they did so with deepened understanding. That was because they were intimately familiar with the teachings of both Jesus and Paul-that it is possible to fulfill the law in the Spirit, according to its spiritual intent. Their teaching was not that God's law was done away. For example, Paul says that "the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit" (Romans 8:3-4). The International Critical Commentary more clearly explains the relevance of Romans 8:4, as well as showing its connections with the Hebrew Scriptures: "God's purpose in 'condemning' sin was that His law's requirement might be fulfilled in us, that is, that his law might be established in the sense of at last being truly and sincerely obeyed-the fulfillment of the promises of Jer 31:33 and Ezek 36:26." The commentary has a footnote to Jeremiah 31:33 that clarifies an important misunderstanding many have about this passage. It first references the following: "Behold, the days are coming, says the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah-not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, though I was a husband to them, says the LORD. But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD: I will put My law in their minds, and write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. No more shall every man teach his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, 'Know the LORD,' for they all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, says the LORD. For I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more" (Jeremiah 31:31-34). The footnote then explains that this passage "is often misunderstood as a promise of a new law to take the place of the old or else as a promise of a religion without law at all. But the new thing promised in verse 33 is, in fact, neither a new law nor freedom from law, but a sincere inward desire and determination on the part of God's people to obey the law already given to them ('my law)'." Telling words Those scholars who are rectifying their misconceptions perpetuated by their churches should be applauded. As they sort through their misunderstandings of Judaism, Jewishness and the Old Testament religion, they are beginning to see the entire Bible in a new light. Through these scholars' efforts, some may arrive at a significant turning point in theological understanding: that the scriptures of the Old Testament and the apostolic writings of the New, rather than contradicting each other in reality complement the other. If the evidence of and reasons for anti-Jewish leanings are accepted, and the logical conclusions and practical lessons drawn, then popular Christianity's understanding of the Scriptures, both the Old and New Testaments, could be dramatically altered. Would it, however, become "the faith once delivered," for which Jude instructs us to "earnestly contend"?; Realistically, we still have a long way to go before a correct view of the essential Jewishness of Jesus and the early Church can be achieved. Some recent ecclesiastical writings still have the earlier misguided assumptions in place, and they reappear in certain denominations' texts. It seems that the scholars who have exhibited the courage to turn away from the theological faults of the past have not yet taken their thinking to its logical conclusion. For that reason their writings sometimes reveal a willingness to cling to aspects of their former teaching. Meanwhile, teachers who understand the truth and who are unhampered by bias and misconception need to speak that truth: the truth that Christ kept the law and that Paul taught Jew and gentile alike to imitate his actions and practices as he imitated those of Christ (1Corinthians 11:1). This is the Christianity that Jesus Christ and the early Church practiced, the Christianity plainly laid out in the Bible. This is the Christianity that has God's blessing! Over the centuries the Church of God has consistently held to an unerring belief in the efficacy of Christ's sacrifice solidly expressed in the true Christian's obedient way of life. You can know from the Bible itself what the faith once delivered is, regardless of the direction in which particular scholars and denominations go. Look at our free booklet The Gospel of the Kingdom and find out. GN Back to (All) the Bible The Roman Catholic examination of anti-Judaism has produced a wealth of commentary. The following details from official Vatican statements are significant with respect to some scholars' reevaluation of their view of Christ and the law. From Within Context: Guidelines for the Catechetical Presentation of Jew and Judaism in the New Testament (1986): "The dynamic reality that is Jewish Law should never be depicted as 'fossilized' or reduced to 'legalism' (p. 66)" (Removing Anti-Judaism From the Pulpit, p. 88, footnote). The same footnote, cited immediately above, quotes another source, Guidelines and Suggestions for Implementing the Conciliar Declaration Nostra Aetate (4), December 1, 1974: "The Old Testament and the Jewish tradition founded upon it must not be set against the New Testament in such a way that the former seems to constitute a religion of only justice, fear and legalism, with no appeal to the love of God and neighbor (cf. Dt 6:5; Lv 19:18; Mt 22:34-40)." In another stunning statement, the Jesuit scholar Robert Daly writes: "The doctrine that God's covenant with Israel has been abrogated and rendered worthless by the new covenant in Jesus Christ is no longer, at least not in the Roman Catholic and similar traditions, an acceptable Christian position" (Removing Anti-Judaism, p. 52). As some scholars come to such conclusions, what is the implication for other scholars and members of their churches? Will they now realize that some of the bedrock teachings of most churches are in jeopardy if they take their newfound views of God's law to their logical conclusion? -David Hulme

Scholars across the ecclesiastical spectrum now admit that their churches have been incorrect in what they have taught about the founder of Christianity and His early followers. Jesus Christ Enhances the Law How many people over the years have accepted the idea that Jesus came to do away with the law? Let's get a perspective from the Bible on what God the Father inspired to be said about how His Son would look at the law. In the Old Testament, Isaiah prophesied of the Messiah, Jesus Christ, that "He will exalt the law and make it honorable" (Isaiah 42:21), not abolish it. During Jesus' time on earth, we see Him taking that obligation seriously, as when He was asked by a calculating group of lawyers, "Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?" Surprisingly to some, instead of a legal or technical response, Christ held out the opportunity to raise the sights of all present-and all humanity since-by saying: "You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the first and great commandment." Raising the stakes so the lawyers would have to start making changes close to home if they were to agree with Him, He added, "And the second is like it: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.'" Then the Teacher of the law, and of love, in words the lawyers couldn't dispute, ended the issue with: "On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets" (Matthew 22:36-40). Other than the Ten Commandments, condensed by Christ into those two maxims in Matthew 22, where does His "new commandment" to "love one another" (John 13:34) fit in? Doesn't it in some way alter our obligation to keep the Ten Commandments? Isn't love all you need? In John 13 Christ is simply summarizing what we saw Him explain in Matthew 22: that to love to the degree expected of us, we should have the love He had. His way of life magnified the law, a law of love toward God and toward every human being. This was living the Father's will, to which Jesus, His Son, was totally committed. -David Hulme Scholars Take Up Paul's Cause A new willingness is evident among scholars to admit that the traditional characterization of Paul as a rebel against the law is deeply flawed. In his book Paul and the Jewish Law, Dutch Reformed scholar Peter Tomson identifies three common but erroneous ideas about the apostle to the gentiles. The first mistaken assumption he mentions is that the center of Paul's thought is an attack on the Jewish religious practices of his day. The second assumption is that the law revealed through Moses no longer had any practical meaning for Paul in his everyday life. The third assumption is that to understand Paul one need not consult Jewish literature, but only Greek works. Tomson explains that the first notion appears nowhere in literature before the Protestant Reformation. Thus for almost 1,500 years we find no evidence that Paul's writings were considered an attack on the law. Of 1 Corinthians, for example, Tomson says it "is not only remarkable among Paul's letters for its 'legal' and 'Jewish' character, but it appears very much to reflect Paul's own thinking and was recognized as such in the early church" (Paul and the Jewish Law, p. 69). Later Tomson says this epistle is "a letter replete with practical instruction . . . The Law is affirmed as an authoritative source of practical teaching . . ." (p. 73). David Wenham, an Oxford University professor, in his book about the relationship between Jesus and Paul (Paul: Follower of Jesus, or Founder of Christianity?), reveals a Paul at one with his Master. One of the book's reviewers says one of its most important contributions is in revealing that "the wedge often driven between Jesus and Paul is a figment of scholarly imagination." Wenham assesses Paul's view of himself: "Paul saw himself as the slave of Jesus Christ, not the founder of Christianity. He was right to see himself in that way. The importance of this conclusion, if it is broadly correct, is great. It has implications for our understanding of the Gospel traditions, for our understanding of early Christianity, and for our understanding of Paul. "If the primary text that Paul is expounding in his writings is the text of Jesus, then instead of reading Paul's letters in isolation from the Gospels, it will be important to read them in light of the Gospels-not falling into naive harmonization, but recognizing that Paul was above all motivated by a desire to follow Jesus" (p. 410). For evidence of that desire of Paul to follow Jesus-the One who said, "Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill" (Matthew 5:17)-we need only to read Romans 13:8-10: "Owe no one anything except to love one another, for he who loves another has fulfilled the law. For the commandments, 'You shall not commit adultery,' 'You shall not murder,' 'You shall not steal,' 'You shall not bear false witness,' 'You shall not covet,' and if there is any other commandment, all are summed up in this saying, namely, 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' Love does no harm to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfillment of the law." Nothing in Paul's writings-about himself, Jesus Christ or the Church-justifies calling Paul a rebel. -David Hulme (c) 1997 United Church of God, an International Association