New theologians revisit Jesus, the Jew

Re-Judaizing Jesus is one of the most significant world-changing new trends, according to the latest Time magazine.

This is seismic. For centuries, the discipline of Christian "Hebraics" consisted primarily of Christians cherry-picking Jewish texts to support the traditionally assumed contradiction between the Jews — whose alleged dry legalism contributed to their fumbling their ancient tribal covenant with God — and Jesus, who personally embodied God's new covenant of love. But today seminaries across the Christian spectrum teach, as Vanderbilt University New Testament scholar Amy-Jill Levine says, that "if you get the [Jewish] context wrong, you will certainly get Jesus wrong."

The shift came in stages: first a brute acceptance that Jesus was born a Jew and did Jewish things; then admission that he and his interpreter Paul saw themselves as Jews even while founding what became another faith; and today, recognition of what the Rev. Bruce Chilton, author of Rabbi Jesus, calls Jesus' passionate dedication "to Jewish ideas of his day" on everything from ritual purity to the ideal of the kingdom of God — ideas he rewove but did not abandon.

What does this mean, practically? At times the resulting adjustment seems simple. For example, Bell thinks he knows the mysterious words Jesus wrote in the dust while defending the adulteress ("He that is without sin among you, let him cast the first stone," etc.). By Bell's calculation, that showdown occurred at the same time as religious Jews' yearly reading of the prophet Jeremiah's warning that "those who turn from [God] will be written in the dust because they have forsaken [him]." Thus Jesus wrote the crowd's names to warn that their lack of compassion alienated their (and his) God.

A trickier revision for readers involves Paul's Letter to the Romans, forever a key Christian text on sin and Christ's salvific grace. Yet this reading necessitates skipping over what seems like extraneous material in Chapters 9 through 11, which are about the Jews. Increasingly, says Jason Byassee, an editor at the Christian Century,, scholars now read Romans through those chapters, as a musing by a lifelong Jew on how God can fulfill his biblical covenant with Israel even if it does not accept His son. Byassee the theologian agrees. But as a Methodist pastor, he frets that Romans "is no longer really about Gentile Christians. How do you preach it?"

That's not a frivolous query. Ideally, the reassessment should increase both Jewish-Christian amity and gospel clarity, things that won't happen if regular Christians feel that in rediscovering Jesus the Jew, they have lost Christ. Yet Bell finds this particular genie so logically powerful that he has no wish to rebottle it. Once in, he says, "you're in deep. You're hooked. 'Cause you can't ever read it the same way again."

Judaizer is no longer seen as a pejorative by many neo-Christian scholars in America (most of whom, incidentally, were circumcised as newborns in US hospitals and not by mohels. Snipping the foreskin was what once was meant by Judaizing and embracing Abrahamic rituals.) Now Christians in mega-churches seem to be metaphorically embracing mental circumcision in large numbers. Mazel tov.

phony kasbahs, righteous gentiles, and oily ice cream

After a hiatus in America, Izzy Bee is back in Jerusalem. Such a buzz.

The nomination of the first Arab "righteous gentile", a Tunisian farmer named Khaled Abd al-Wahad who, according to a Jewish woman's testimony, saved Amy Boukris and 24 of her relatives from Nazi persecution, is huge news here. The Holocaust Museum, Yad Vashem, reportedly declined to rate the likelihood of its recognising this Arab hero nominated by the American scholar Robert Satloff, although 60 of the more than 21,000 named heroes who risked their lives to save threatened Jews from the Holocaust are indeed Muslims. Yet Khaled would be the first Arab ever to win such kudos, and some analysts predict that the high profile honor would help counteract the trend towards holocaust denial in some Arab countries.

Haaretz, the leftish newspaper which reported this item on its front page, also ran a weird recipe for a Holy Land ice cream containing whipped cream, honey and olive oil. Sprinkle on a bit of rosemary with the drizzled olive oil and you have a Biblical sweet treat. Milk and honey, I can see...but this takes some getting used to. Not a likely prospect for a Baskin-Robbins scoop of the month.

The Jerusalem Post devoted lots of space to the IDF's new American-built war gaming town, erected near Tze'elim in the southern Negev, where mock mosques, a marketplace, and an ersatz kasbah give a hyper-realistic setting for training exercises aimed at countering urban guerrilla warfare. William Arkin, a Vermont-based reporter, had leaked much of this last year, and the inaugural war games were opened up to the press. According to journalists who looked on, the young Israeli Defence Forces cadets were really ready to rock the kasbah. Canine and media handlers also will undergo training in the mock-up Muslim neighborhood, to prepare new tricks for the old dogs of war.