Alhassanain(p) Network for Heritage and Islamic Thought

CHAPTER 2: Jesus Christ and the Jewish Religion

For Orientation to the Interfaith Investigations

The discussion of pluralistic Christian theologies of religions in the previous chapter was a fitting bridge to the current chapter, the last discussion in part I, which is focused on the relation of Christian confession of Christ to other religious traditions and their claims to truth and salvation. As explained briefly in the introductory chapter to this volume, the current constructive theological project utilizes resources and methods of both theology of religions and comparative theology. The former, when done from the Christian perspective, investigates the relation of Christian tradition to other faith traditions as well as the meaning of religion in the divine economy. That conversation rarely engages any particular interfaith encounters unless for the purposes of illustration of an example, nor does it usually focus on any specific topic shared between two (or more) religions. Comparative theology, on the other side, while at its best assuming results and insights from the theology of religions, seeks to investigate in some detail specific theological topics common to two or more religious traditions. Hence, the Christian and Hindu notions of incarnation would be a typical theme for a comparative theology approach.

The previous chapter, as mentioned, was an exercise in the Christian theology of religions, whereas the current one engages comparative theology. It will engage each of the four living faiths - Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism - with regard to some specific, focused topics of interest. Since religions are different, the topics arising in interfaith encounters are also different. Even with regard to a specific Christian doctrine such as Christology, Islam, whose tradition knows well the figure of Jesus Christ, and say, Judaism, whichshould know him but by and large just ignoresJesus, approach the encounter with Christian theology from a different vantage point. Similarly, the two leading Eastern religions, Hinduism and Buddhism, while sharing much more in common with each other, pose their own specific challenges and promises to that task.

Speaking of, say, Christian-Hindu encounter is a huge and in many ways both problematic and questionable concept, not only because (in this case), Hinduism, as is well known, is in itself a hybrid concept, a Western construction, but also because there are so many different Hindu traditions. True, it is much better and probably more useful when speaking of a theological exchange between two specific religions to try to focus on a limited topic than generalize about interfaith matters, just speaking of religions in general (which is the serious liability of the generic theology of religions). Yet, it still calls for much specification and limitation. Not all Hindus - any more than Christians for that matter, as the overly long discussion of key Christological themes in this volume indicates! - speak with one voice.

Hence, to make the discussion manageable and useful, the following interfaith discussion aims at severely limited, specific, and focused investigations. The topics have been selected with good reason to assume they derive from the inner logic of the dialogue partners and, as mentioned, are based on their relation, if any, to the traditions about Jesus Christ.

The investigation seeks to consult the definitive and representative sources of each tradition. From the Christian side, the constructive/systematic development of key Christological themes above serves as the basis. With regard to Jewish tradition, whose authoritative Scripture is Torah, shared by Christians, the main dialogue partners are leading modern thinkers beginning from the nineteenth century who started engaging the figure of Jesus Christ, consulting also the great Jewish Medieval resources. Merely attempting an exegesis of key texts of Torah hardly leads anywhere; the contemporary Christian-Jewish dialogue has to listen carefully to the leading historical and contemporary interpreters of the Jewish tradition. The dialogue with Muslim tradition builds heavily on a careful study of keyQuranic passages; that choice hardly calls for further justification. Furthermore, because of historical reasons, due to the emergence of Islam in the seventh century C.E., as a result of which a vigorous interfaith exchange took place for several hundred years, some of the key resources from that time and their interpretations will be consulted as well. Those debates happen to focus on Christology (and Trinity) and are thus extremely relevant to the purposes of this investigation. In the case of Hindu tradition, rather than attempting a systematic study of the philosophical Vedanta texts (of the Upanishads), which by and large are unknown to most Hindus, the “common Bible” of Bhagavad-Gita will be consulted along with some key historical and contemporary Hindu scholars of various traditions. With the Buddhist tradition, because of the lack of a definitive “canon” - the closest to which comes the huge collection, in the Theravada tradition, ofTipitaka , from which a couple of key writings such asAnguttara Nikaya will be consulted - some leading modern and contemporary Buddhist thinkers from various traditions will be engaged.

This chapter engages other living faiths with regard to topics relevant to and arising out of the previous discussion that also relate integrally to the dialogue partner. At the end of the discussion on reconciliation (the last chapter of part II), the question of the nature, role, and conditions of Christian salvation among religions will be carefully investigated. As mentioned, on top of that, throughout the volume short interfaith exchanges take place where relevant and useful. The results of those exchanges will not be repeated in these two chapters unless there is a specific reason to do so.

Because the affinity of Christian tradition with the mother-tradition, Judaism, is so obvious, that faith will be engaged first. Thereafter, it is natural to investigate the relationship between Muslim and Christian interpretations of Christ for the reason that, unlike other faiths except Judaism, the role of Jesus Christ is well known. Thereafter, the two Eastern traditions will be studied.

The Jewish Messiah - The Christian Messiah

The Jew - Between the Jews and Christians

When one asks the basic question of what separates Jews and Christians from each other, the unavoidable answer is: a Jew.”[94] This is the striking way the Jewish NT scholar, deeply engaged in dialogue with Christians,Pinchas Lapide begins his book on Christian-Jewish dialogue on Christology. He continues: “For almost two millennia, a pious, devoted Jew has stood between us, a Jew who wanted to bring the kingdom of heaven in harmony, concord, and peace - certainly not hatred, schism, let alone bloodshed.”[95] Yet, during the past two millennia, another Jewish theologian, SusannahHeschel , reminds us, “Jews rejected the claim that Jesus fulfilled the messianic prophecies of the Hebrew Bible, as well as the dogmatic claims about him made by the church fathers - that he was born of a virgin, the son of God, part of a divine Trinity, and was resurrected after his death.”[96]

It is one of the grand ironies of Christian history that for the first eighteen hundred years or more, Jewish theologians by and large ignored Christianity and particularly its claim to Jesus as the Messiah. The irony is even sharper when, as the Jewish scholarPinchas Lapide remarks, there is no denying the existence of a “Hebrew gospel” in all four of the Christian Gospels as seen in vocabulary, grammar, and semantic patterns. Yet, we had to wait “till the twentieth century for more Hebrew literature about Jesus, written in the same land of Israel, by the descendants of the same sons of Israel who made up the original audience of all the sermons of the Nazarene.”[97] At the same time, until that time, “Jews’ perceptions of Jesus were predominantly disparaging.”[98] The few writings by the Jews on Jesus before that were mostly ignored by Christians, even in medieval Europe where Jewish-Christian disputations took place here and there.The most important early Jewish source on Christ,Toldot Yeshu (fifth or sixth century?) [99] radically alters the Gospel narratives and in general advances a highly polemical and mocking presentation. For example, Jesus’ miracles are attributed to sorcery or other similar forbidden sources. More irenic is the fifteenth-century examination of the Gospels byProfiat Duran, but at the same time, it argues forcefully that Jesus only called for adherence to Torah and refused to claim divinity. The genius of the argumentation of the leading medieval Jewish theologian, the thirteenth-century Moses Maimonides - routinely compared to St. Thomas Aquinas in Christian tradition - is that not only Christianity but also Islam are part of the divine plan to prepare the world for the reception of message of the biblical God.Maimonides’ assessment of Jesus himself is less complimentary as he regards the Nazarene as a “wicked heretic.”[100]

In the rabbinical writings - highly formative for most brands of Jewish traditions - there is a definite and direct rebuttal of the claim to the divinesonship of Jesus, “a blasphemy against the Jewish understanding of God.” The Christian doctrines of the incarnation, atonement through the cross, and of course the Trinity, among others, “remained alien to normative Judaism and taboo to the rabbis.”[101] That said, it is significant that even with the harshening of tone in later levels of Talmud, the opposition was less targeted against the historical figure of Jesus of Nazareth and more against what was considered to be the Pauline Christology and the subsequent patristic and creedal tradition. That became the focal point of opposition, at times even anger among the formative Jewish writings.[102]

The Jewish appraisal of the NT claims to the miracles of Jesus is complex and complicated. They are routinely considered to be “magic.” The eleventh-century Rabbi Solomonben Isaac’s judgment of Jesus as “magician” and a “perverter of the people” is an illustrative example here. That judgment is backed up by the (Jewish) extracanonical tradition.[103] An interesting point here is that, on the other hand, the Talmud states (in the mouth of a rabbi) that for the Sanhedrin, men are chosen who are not only wise but also “are well versed in magic,”[104] and that on the other hand, Jewish tradition is suspicious about an effort to establish one’s credentials on the basis of miracles since, as Deuteronomy chapter 13 remind us, a (Messianic) pretender may excel in miraculous acts and yet lead astray the people of God.

Somewhat similarly to early Muslim polemicists, medieval Jewish writers such as the legendary RabbiSaadia Gaon (d. 942) in his famous “Book of Beliefs and Opinions” paid close attention to differentchristological traditions among different churches and came to the conclusion that it is impossible to arrive at a single, uniform picture of Jesus.[105] The subtext of this observation is of course not to highlight only the inconsistency of Christian theology of Messiah but also its self-contradictory nature.

In the aftermath of the Enlightenment, and with the newly opening opportunities for Jews to participate in the wider European societies, interest in Jesus emerged, partly to help justify Judaism as religion. Another famous Moses, namely Mendelssohn, hence painted a picture of Jesus as a thoroughly Jewish religious figure, so much so that, “closely examined, everything is in complete agreement not only with Scripture, but also with the [Jewish] tradition.”[106] Similarly influential nineteenth-century Jesus scholar Albert Geiger[107] and the famous liberal rabbi of Stockholm, Sweden, Gottlieb Klein, at the turn of the twentieth century stressed the thoroughly Jewish nature of Jesus and his self-understanding.[108] Encouraged by the Quest of the Historical Jesus and subsequent Classical Liberalism’s interest in the “real” Jesus, divorced from the layers of dogmatic and creedal traditions, the Jewish quest for Jesus as a Jew was energized. Differently from the “Jewish Jesus” paradigm, the first modern study on Jesus written in Hebrew by JosephKlausner ,Jesus of Nazareth: His Life, Times, and Teachings ,[109] presented him as a Pharisee who “departed the boundaries of Jewish nationhood, implying that Jews who reject Zionism, end up like Jesus, as Christians.”[110]

There were two agendas or at least effects of the modern Jewish reclamation of Jesus. First, there was the task of correcting themispresentation of earlier Jewish sources: “During late antiquity and the Middle Ages, Jews had commonly caricatured Jesus as a sorcerer who had attempted to beguile the Jewish people and lead them astray. The modern Jewish scholarly reassessment stripped away such earlier misconceptions, restored respectability to Jesus’ image, and then reclaimed him as Jew who merited a rightful place in Jewish literature alongside those of ancient Jewish sages.”[111] Second, although the emphasis on Jesus’Jewishness was in keeping with the Christian Quest, the Jewish search for the Jewish Jesus also wanted to develop “acounterhistory of the prevailing Christian theological version of Christianity’s origins and influence.”[112]

It is interesting to note that among the Christian students of Jesus Christ, the recent decades have brought about an unprecedented interest in theJewishness of Jesus, beginning with the first generation of the “New Perspective” in the 1970s. Conversely, it is remarkable that some contemporary Jewish scholars are now arguing that what happened with the rise of Christianity was not “the parting of ways” nor that Judaism is the “mother” religion out of which the younger religion emerged. Rather, both religions emerged simultaneously within the matrix of the Mediterranean world.[113]

Is Christology Inherently Anti-Semitic?

The track record of Christian anti-Semitism is a sad and long chapter in Christian tradition. It goes all the way from the church fathers (John Chrysostom, Jerome,Augustine ) to Reformers (Luther) to twentieth-century theologians (Karl Adam), and includes even the highest ranking leaders such as numerous popes. “What one learns from this record is that subtle, powerful, essentially murderous inner-connections exist between Christian self-witnessand theological derogation of Judaismand political oppression of Jews.”[114] Alone the destruction of Jerusalem by the Gentiles in A.D. 70, should have led Christians to reach out to their suffering Jewish brothers and sisters in sympathy and love - yet, it did not! In repentance and humility, coupled with sympathy and love for their Jewish brothers and sisters, the Christian church must take full responsibility for these violent acts and attitudes.

More than the acknowledgment of this sad history of violence against the Jews, there is a suspicion among many current Christian theologians that there is in Christian faith something that makes it inherently anti-Semitic. Particularly Christology has been named as the source of that attitude. These thinkers consider the New Testament and the way Christian theology has interpreted it inherently anti-Semitic. The most vocal among those critics is the Feminist Rosemary RadfordRuether’s Faith and Fratricide:The Theological Roots of Anti-Semitism .[115] “Theologically, anti-Judaism developed as the left hand ofchristology .”[116] Ruether wonders if it is possible to confess Jesus as Messiah without at the same timebe saying that “the Jews be damned”?[117] She opines that because anti-Judaism is intimately intertwined with thechristological hermeneutic of the early church, the only way to purge it is to radicallyreconceive Christology along two lines: first, faith in Jesus as the Christ must be understood asproleptic and anticipatory rather than final and fulfilled; and second, Christology must be understood paradigmatically rather thanexclusivistically : “The cross and the resurrection are contextual to a particular historical community.”[118] Hence, in this outlook, Jesus’ paradigmatic role should be abandoned in order to avoid asupersessionist Christology.

Ruether’s presuppositions and charges against the NT are sweeping andunnuanced . This includes ignorance of different types ofchristological trajectories and traditions and their complex and complicated development in the canon. A quick look at the conflicting and contradictory “results” of the tradition-historical criticism of the NT should make one hesitant in making sweeping claims about causes of development of ideas! The Jewish scholar Thomas A.Idinopulos and Christian Roy Bowen Ward have offereda careful investigations ofRuether’s claims and conclude that “the appearance of anti-Judaic thought in certain documents in the New Testament does not lead to the conclusion that anti-Judaism is necessarily the left hand of Christology.” In this investigation they are looking carefully at the parable of the vineyard in Mark 12, whichRuether considers a showcase for inherent anti-Jewishness and the beginning of anti-Semitism in the NT, and they come to contestRuether’s interpretation.[119] A critical investigation of the seemingly most anti-Jewish passage in Pauline corpus, 1 Thessalonians 2:14-16 (“the Jews, who killed both the Lord Jesus and the prophets”), another key passage forRuether , similarly does not support her reasoning. First of all, the interpretation of that passage is full of problems and unanswered questions of whichRuether seems to be ignorant. One of her omissions is that in the Thessalonians correspondence Paul is talking to a Gentile audience rather than to the Jews; in Romans, Paul clarifies in no uncertain terms his understanding of the continuing special status granted to the chosen people.Idinopulos and Ward conclude:

It is difficult to understand howRuether can conclude that “Judaism for Paul isnot onlynot an ongoing covenant of salvation where men continue to be related in true worship of God: it never was such a community of faith and grace.” It is only Gentiles, notJews, that Paul characterized as those who “knew not God.” Paul himself boasts of hisJewishness and can even say that “as to righteousness under the law [he was] blameless” (Phil 3:6). He never says that Judaism was a false worship of God; rather, he claims that a new righteousness has been revealed (Rom 1:17; 3:21; 10:3) which causes him to move into a new phase in the history of salvation. Nor does his acceptance of the gospel lead him to deny the holiness of the law (Rom 7:12) nor the election of the Jews (Rom 11:28). It is difficult to see how Paul is any more anti-Judaic than other Jewish sectarians such as those at Qumran, who like Paul, believed that God was doing a new thing in the history of salvation. Unlike the Qumran sectarians who expected the destruction of “Mainstream” Jews (whom the sectarians considered apostate), Paul hoped for/expected the salvation of all Israel (Rom 11:26).[120]

There is also an important difference between the time prior to and following the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70, which according to common theological wisdom has to do with the worsening relations between the Christian church and the Jews. Whereas in the earlier part of the NT (“earlier” in terms of the time of the writing) such as most of the Pauline correspondence, there is very little in terms of attributing the death of Jesus to Jews, in the Christian writings after the disaster, motivated by Christians’ desire to distance themselves from the Jews and so show evidence of alliance with Rome, the tone gets harsher. The apocryphalGospel of Peter tells the crucifixion in a way that basically removes the Romans from the scene and leaves it to the responsibility of the Jews.[121] Even if the nuances of this common interpretation may be debated, it cannot be ignored asRuether does. Yet another historical observation has to be taken into consideration before passing the blunt charge of the birth of anti-Semitism of the NT. It has to do with the well-known fact that anti-Jewish attitudes precede Christianity. The Jewish thinkerSalo Baron speaks for many as he states the commonplace fact that “almost every note in the cacophony of medieval and modern anti-Semitism was sounded by the chorus of ancient writers.”[122] This is of course not to absolve Christian of the guilt of anti-Semitism, far from that. But it is to put the question under consideration in a perspective.

My criticism of theunnuanced attribution of anti-Jewish attitudes to the NT, is not to deny the “hardening of attitudes”[123] toward the Jews in Matthew nor the quite negative presentation of the Jews in the Gospel of John (however the dating of these documents go). This criticism of Jewish people, usually their religious leaders must be put in a proper perspective. TheMatthean critique of the Jewish people especially in the 23 chapter of his Gospel isnot necessarily different from nor untypical of the harsh criticism of one Jewish group by another Jewish group at the time.[124] Even when the wholepeople is addressed, usually the target of the criticism is the religious and/or political leadership which is deviating from the will of God.

The NT scholar Raymond Brown reminds us that at first “there was nothingantiJewish in depicting the role of the Jewish authorities in his death: for Jesus and his disciples on one side and the Jerusalem Sanhedrin authorities on the other were all Jews.” Only later the passion narrative was “‘heard’ in anantiJewish way.” The change into the predominantly Gentile composition of the church of course was a main factor here.[125] Brown also remarks that a careful comparison of the Gospel narratives of crucifixion oscillates between making both Romans (Gentiles) and the Jewish authorities as responsible and executors of crucifixion.[126] Hence, it is an unfounded charge byRuether that that John’s Gospel makes the blame of the Jews “very close to what will become the charge of ‘deicide,’”[127] namely, that the Jews are “murderers” of God’s Son - even though that accusation became a commonplace throughout history in the mouths of Christians!

The American Lutheran theologian Carl E.Braaten warns that, as an overreaction to compensate for long history of anti-Semitism such as that found inRuether , Christian theology now “relativizes the gospel down to one of many ways of salvation, that surrenders the exclusive place of Christ in doing ‘theology after Auschwitz,’ and that lays the blame of hatred of the Jews on a so-called [Christian]theological anti-Semitism.”[128] InBraaten’s estimationRuether ends up “throwing out thechristological baby with the anti-Judaic bath in Christian tradition.”[129]

Has the Messiah Come?

Moltmann aptly sets the stage for contemporary consideration of the role and meaning of Messiah between these two religions: “The gospels understand his [Jesus Christ’s] whole coming and ministry in the contexts of Israel’s messianic hope. Yet it is the very same messianic hope which apparently makes it impossible for ‘all Israel’ to see Jesus as being already the messiah.”[130] Hence, every Christian theology of Christ should seek to consider and respond, if possible, to the Jewish “no” to the NT Messiah. The response of contemporary Jewish counterparts is understandable in light of the vastly differing views ofmessianism as discussed above in relation to Second Temple Judaism and the first Christians. Martin Buber formulated the Jewish objection in 1933 in dialogue with the NT scholar Karl-Ludwig Schmidt:

We know more deeply, more truly, that world history has not been turned upside down to its very foundations - that the world is not yet redeemed. Wesense itsunredeemedness . The church can, or indeed must, understand this sense of ours as the awareness thatwe are not redeemed. But we know that that is not it. The redemption of the world is for us indivisibly one with the perfecting of creation, with the establishment of the unity which nothing more prevents, the unity which is no longercontroverted , and which is realized in all the protean variety of the world. Redemption is one with the kingdom of God in its fulfillment. An anticipation of any single part of thecompleted redemption of theworld . . is something we cannot grasp, although even for us in our mortal hours redeeming and redemption are heralded. . We are aware of no centre in history - only its goal, the goal of the way taken by the God who does not linger on his way.[131]

Many other Jewish thinkers have expressed the same sentiment. In the words ofSchalom Ben-Chorin , the Jewish mind is “profoundly aware of the unredeemed character of the world,” which means that the “whole of redemption” has not yet taken place since the Messiah has not yet returned.[132] Behind the Jewish “no” to the Christian claim for the arrival of the Messiah is hence a different kind of concept of redemption. Rightly or wrongly, the Jewish theology considers the Christian version of redemption “happening in the spiritual sphere, and in what is invisible,”[133] whereas for the Jewish hopes, it is the transformation happening in the most visible and concrete ways, including the removal of all evil.

Without downplaying and certainly not dismissing this profound difference in understanding of what the coming of Messiah and the ensuing redemption means,Moltmann poses the question to the Jewish counterpart that needs to be asked here. This is the “Gentile” question to the Jews: “[E]ven before the world has been redeemed so as to become the direct and universal rule of God, can God already have a chosen people, chosen moreoverfor the purpose of this redemption? ” Furthermore: “Does Israel’s election not destroy Israel’s solidarity with the unredeemed humanity, even if the election is meant in a representative sense?” All this boils down, saysMoltmann , to the simple and profound query as to “can one already bea Jew in this Godless world?”[134] Another important counter-question - or to put it in a more irenic manner: an invitation to mutual dialogue - has to do with the one-sided, if notreductionistic , interpretation by Jewish theology of the Christian hope for redemption. As will be discussed in detail in the section on many dimensions of redemption and reconciliation, Christian theology is not bound to limit redemption only to the inner personal and invisible notion. Christian eschatological hope, focused on the crucified and risen Messiah who now rules with the Father and Spirit, includes the total transformation of the world, a foretaste of which has already come in this messianic age.[135] Yes, regarding the expectation and totality, a difference still continues: whereas the Jewish theology discerns the coming of Messiah as the fulfillment of all hopes for redemption, Christian tradition - slowly and painfully, as the NT eschatology shows - came to understand the coming of Messiah in two stages. That difference must be acknowledged and honored but doesn’t have to form a block to continuing dialogue.

Is the idea of God taking human form absolutely unknown to Jewish faith? While most Jews think so, there are some current theologians who are willing to look for parallels such as “God walking in the garden” (Gen. 3:8), or the Lord appearing to Abraham in the form of the angel sharing a meal (Gen. 18), Jacob’s wrestling match with a man of whom he says, “I have seen God face to face” (Gen. 32:24), or Israelite leaders under Moses claiming that they “saw God of Israel” on the mountain (Exod. 24:9-11). The Jewish Michael S.Kogan draws the conclusion from these kinds of texts: “For Jewish believers, then, the thought may come to mind that, if God can take human form in a series of accounts put forward in one’s own sacred texts, one would be unjustified in dismissing out of hand the possibility that the same God might act in a similar fashion in accounts put forward in another text revered as sacred by a closely related tradition.”[136] This is of course not to push the similarities toofar, the differences are obvious, particularly in light of Christian creedal traditions that speak of the permanent “personal” (hypostatic) union of the human and divine in one particular person, Jesus of Nazareth. But it is to point to the possibility for early Christians to make such claims while still not leaving behind the confession of faith in the unity of the God of Israel.

Over against the resurgence of interest in Jesus among Jewish scholars and the heightened Christian interest in theJewishness of Jesus looms large the shadow of the horrors and crimes of the Holocaust.[137] It is a continuing task for Christian theology to come to a fuller understanding of how it was ever possible for such a horrendous ethos to develop in “Christian” soil. What Christian theology in general and Christology in particular must resist is any notion of imperialism whether in terms of political hegemony and crimes against the Jewish people as under the Nazi regime or in terms of “realized eschatology” claiming the eschatological glory and rule already now. The Messiah confessed in Christian theology is the crucified one “who heals through his wounds and is victorious through hissufferings . . the Lamb of God, not yet the Lion of Judah.”[138] This kind of “theology of the cross” makes it possible for Christian theology to tolerate and appreciate the Jewish “no” rather than assuming, as has happened in Christian history, that God has abandoned the people of Israel because of their reluctance to acknowledge the Messiah.

The Christian “yes” to Jesus’messiahship , which is based on believed and experienced reconciliation, will therefore accept the Jewish “no,” which is based on the experienced and sufferedunredeemedness of the world; and the “yes” will in so far adopt the “no” as to talk about the total and universal redemption of the world only in the dimensions of a future hope, and a present contradiction of this unredeemed world. The Christian “yes” to Jesus Christ is therefore not in itself finished and complete. It is open for the messianic future of Jesus. . This means that it cannot be an excluding and excommunicating “yes,” not even when it is uttered with the certainty of faith.[139]

A systematic account of the redemption in Christ and its rejection by the people of the Messiah needs to be worked out in the context of the doctrine of reconciliation. Similarly, in the context of ecclesiology, the relation of the Christian church to Israel and the question of the continuing legitimacy of the rightly configured mission to Israelhas to be investigated in detail.

A fruitful dialogue about Messiah and other corollarychristological issues between Christians and Jews is meaningful only if there is mutual trust to allow both parties to represent their positions faithfully.[140] The challenge to the Jewish faith is to stop “constructing Jewish conceptions ofJesus . . and try to confront Christian claims about him as we [Jews] actually hear them from Christians.” That said, it is also important for Christian theologians to acknowledge that the “Jews . . cannot and should not see Jesus through the eyes of Christian faith, but . try to understand that faith in the light of” their own.[141] This does not mean that the Jews do not have the right to comment on Christian doctrines and views of Jesus; yes, they do. That is an opportunity also for Christians to learn more about their own faith. Nor does this mean that the Christians should refrain from presenting Jesus as the Messiah to all men and women, Gentiles as well as the Jews. Similarly, the Jewish counterpart should be granted the same right to defend their “no” to Christian interpretation.

Only such an encounter may also open up new ways of looking for thematic and material parallels in the midst of foundational differences. A patient, common search of both real differences and potential common themes does not necessarily promise “results” but is a process to which all believers, regardless of religion, are called. This is wonderfully represented in the following statement from the Jewish theologian Michael S.Kogan :

But Jews do not ask Christians in the dialogue to give up core doctrines. How would Jews respond if Christians who have problems with Zionism demanded that Jews give up the theological claim that God has given us the land of Israel? . [T]he divine bestowal of the Holy Land is a core doctrine of Israelite faith that cannot be given up for the sake of the dialogue or to suit anyone’s preferences. . Similarly, the incarnation and resurrection are essential experiences of Christian faith. In Christ the transcendent God comes down to earth as, in the gift of land to God’s people, the Holy One acts in the world and its history. These doctrines are parallel concretizations of the divine activity crucial to the respective faiths.[142]

The Messiah of Israel and the Savior of the Nations

With his announcement of the imminence of God’s righteous rule dawning in his own ministry, “Jesus came to move the covenant people to conversion to its God.”[143] This, however, poses an open question to the Jewish people. Jesus did not do away with the first commandment but rather radicalized it - to the point that he let his life be consumed in the service of his Father and asked his followers to put aside everything that would hinder total devotion to his Father (Matt. 6:33). “How radically does the faith of Judaism take the first commandment in relation to all other concerns, even its own religious tradition?”[144] Christian theologianPannenberg asks his Jewish counterparts. Even though the relation of Christ’s ministry, passion, and particularly cross to Jewish faith needs much careful consideration, as an expression of the capacity of God to bring good out of evil (Gen. 50:20), in the estimation of Christian theology one has to conclude that it was only after the rejection of his own people that Jesus’ death on the cross made him the “Savior of the nations.” [145] Ironically, the Messiah of the covenant people died for the people outside the covenant, in other words, the Gentiles. This is not to deny the validity of Jesus’ death for the people of Israel; it is rather aChristian theological statement about the universal efficacy of thesalvific work of Israel’s Messiah.

Hence, decisive for the church’s relation to the people of Israel is the delicate matter of putting the cross in a proper perspective: “If the church has developed an interpretation of the cross that sees it as the point of God’s rejection of Israel, of Israel’s rejection of Jesus, of the loss of Israel’s inheritance, and of transference to the church, then it must reckon with the fact that Jesus died for the Jewish nation before he died for the scattered children of God beyond Israel’s boundaries.”[146] Ironically, had not the messianic people rejected her Messiah, “Christianity would have remained an intra-Jewish affair.”[147] In other words: whatever universal effects there are to the cross of Christ has, those do not do away the fact that as a Jew he died for the salvation of the Jews, not only for the Gentiles. That said, Christian theology is convinced that “[w]hat began with Judaism must finally end with the nations, and Christian are the go-between,” [148] and that hope includes the consummation of the divine plan that “all Israel will be saved” (Rom. 11:26).

It is significant that the influential Jewish philosopher of religion FranzRosenzweig in his mature workThe Star of Redemption came to affirm the role of the Christian church in the preaching of the gospel to the Gentiles. [149] The contemporary Jewish ecumenistLapide continues that reasoning. [150] Where the Christian theological standpoint focused on the universal and uniquesalvific role of Jesus Christ has to challenge this Jewish reasoning involves the idea of Judaism and Christianity as two roads to the Father. “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but by me” (John 14:6). This is not to deny but rather confirm the biblical notion that “salvation is from the Jews” (John 4:26). Nor is it to introducesupersessionism .

The cross as a cultural-religious symbol is highly offensive to Judaism.[151] The only exception in the twentieth century has been the appropriation of the cross by the then Eastern European Jews as the symbol of Jewish “crucifixion” in the hands of oppressors. However, even that picture is more complicated. In Eastern Europe, Jesus has not only been a symbol of the victim but of the perpetrator as well![152]

What has contributed harmfully - and continues to do so - to the mutual relations is the “supersessionist ideologies of Christian identity” vis-à-vis the nation of Israel and the Jewish people. [153] The NT’s attitude to the Jewish people and particularly the implications of the telling of the narrative of Jesus in terms of the conflict with the Jewishpeople, is a highly complicated and complex issue. To its own detriment and to the detriment of common mission, rather than reaching out to the Jewish people in seeing the passion story of Jesus as the way of identification in solidarity with the suffering of the Messianic people, the Christian church has interpreted the passion stories of the Gospels in terms of hostility toward Israel. [154] In doing so, the church has missed the opportunity of seeing Jesus’ death as a means of “bearing in his own body the judgment he foresaw as coming upon Israel, sacrificing himself as theMaccabean martyrs had done before him, on behalf of the people.” [155]

The Atonement in Jewish Estimation

An important task here is the comparison between Jewish and Christian theologies of atonement, a topic that, surprisingly, has not loomed large in the agenda of mutual talks. Both sides have much to learn from each other. The idea of vicarious atonement after the Christian interpretation, with a view for the salvation of the world rather than for the benefit of the nation as in theMaccabean martyrs’ case, “seems strange and foreign to Jews who believe that the problem of sin had already been dealt with in the Torah.” [156] This is because, first of all, Jewish theology does not of course hold to the Christian tradition’s view of theFall (in any of its main forms of interpretation) which would necessitate the divine initiative such as the death on the cross. [157] Second, the transcendent goal of salvation in the afterlife is not as central either in the OT or later forms of Judaism as it is in Christian tradition, even though the idea of divine reward and punishment after death is not to be ignored in Rabbinic and most other Jewish traditions. Following the Torah and its commandments, as the chosen people, and thus testifying to God’s unity and holiness, is the way of “salvation” in Judaism.[158] That said, the Jewish Michael S.Kogan rightly remarks that it was on the basis of the Hebrew Scripture such as Isaiah 53:4-6 that Christian theology came to interpret the vicarious suffering of their Messiah. [159]

Hence, the search for continuities - in the midst of radical discontinuities - between the Christian and Jewish views of atonement is more than an attempt to find a pedagogical contact. It has to do with the material and systematic structures of both traditions. A complicating factor here is that even contemporary Jewish theology tends to operate with the Christian idea of atonement that is one-sided and limited, implying that it is mainly about “the shedding of blood” and sacrifice as well as focused (almost exclusively) on the salvation of individuals. In other words, the kind oftrinitarian , more comprehensive and multifaceted ramifications in Christian theology, developed in this work and widespread in various kinds of contemporary Christian writings, seems to be unknown even among the most acute and informed Jewish interpreters. [160] The Christian side has much to learn about the complex and rich matrix of the idea(s) of atonement in Jewish and OT traditions.

There is no denying that particularly the early Christian views and early rabbinic views evolved in close connection with the Old Testament atonement traditions. The concept of sacrifice is one of the important connecting links between the two religions. It is of utmost importance for a proper understanding of the roots of Christian theology and salvation and for Christian-Jewish dialogue to acknowledge the fact that, despite the reality that because of the popular myths of a god dying and rising to new life, “the gentiles may have understood Jesus’ death in such mythic terms . the sacrificial concept of Jesus’ death was not developed in response to gentile ideas but, rather, as a Jewish conception of the righteous one who reconciles us to God by his sacrifice of suffering and death.”[161] In both religions, sacrifice is an atoning act that also calls for human response.[162] The OT prophetic literature, which both traditions embrace, time after time targets worshippers who merely do the cultic acts without repentance, mercy, and works of justice.

How would Jewish tradition interpret such key NT statements as “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of theworld! ” (John 1:29). In other words: “How can Jews understand the Christian proposition that Jesus Christ’s crucifixion is an atonement for the original sin of Adam that brings salvation to Christians and restores a condition of harmony for the world?” [163] According to StevenKepnes , Jews may gain insight into its meaning through the lens of the biblical notions of purity and impurity, sacrificial offices and systems, including the rituals of the sanctuary, as well as the Temple. Reference to the Lamb who takes away sin, of course, is based on the slaughtering of lambs for theexpiation of sins. Christ’s self-sacrifice also connects with the Jewish liturgical days such as Yom Kippur. [164]

Differences, however, are noteworthy. Even though Jesus may be called metaphorically the High Priest,[165] in Jewish faith the High Priest conducts the sacrificial act whereas in Christian faith Jesus is the sacrifice, the sacrificial Lamb. This is not to say that Jewish faith doesn’t knowsubstitutionary suffering for others; of course it does, both in terms of the “Suffering Servant” of Second Isaiah and the righteous martyrs as during theMaccabean era. Still, the one-time finished self-sacrifice of Jesus after the Christian interpretation is markedly different from the continuing sacrificial cult administered by the priesthood in Judaism. Not onlythe finality of the sacrifice of Jesus but also its universality marks it as different from the understanding of the Jewish tradition. Jesus’ sacrifice, even as the work of the Triune God, is contingent on the relation to his person, a claim without parallel in Judaism and a stumbling block to its monotheism. The role of the Messiah in Judaism is to serve as the agent of reconciliation but not as the one who reconciles, only Yahweh can do that. Finally, a foundational difference has to do with the offer and object of the sacrifice. Whereas in Judaism people offer the sacrifice to Yahweh, in Christian theology (2 Cor. 5:17) it is God who reconciles to world to himself. [166] All this is to say that both differences and similarities should be acknowledged in hopes of better rediscovering the central meaning of atoning theologies of both religions as well as for continuing mutual dialogue and invitation.

One can see that Judaism and Christianity express the same basic ideas about atonement but in different ways. Their views about this idea do not create an incommensurable rift between the two religions, as it once may have seemed; rather, we find significant similarities that connect the two in spite of their differences. If the views of Judaism and Christianity are as close as they seem to be at this point, then there must be hope that a comparison of their respective views will lead to greater understanding, new recognition of commonalities, and a way to mutual appreciation.[167]

That said, one must be mindful of the dangers of bad apologetics. The profound differences between the two religious traditions in relation to understanding of atonement should not be artificially softened nor eliminated. Rather, in the spirit of mutual learning and love as well as integrity of confession and identity, a new exploration of the possibility of the common ground should be explored. The search for the common ground does not mean denying either religion the right to sharetheir own testimony or to try to persuade the other. This allowance may seem like an unfair admission to the Christian church in light of the fact that, unlike the Jewish faith, the Christian faith is missionary by nature. This, however, is the legacy of the message and mandate of the church founded by the Jewish Messiah. If God was in Christ and reconciled the world to himself, then the “ambassadors” are sent out to make the plea that all people, whether Jews or Gentiles “be reconciled to God” (2 Cor. 5:19-20).

This also means that, rightly configured, the church has the continuing mandate to share testimony to Christ also with the Jewish people. This is not to ignore the unique and special place given to Israel in the divine economy. On the other hand, neither is this to deny the foundational biblical conviction that “there is salvation in no one else” (Acts 4:12), and the gospel of Christ “is the power of God for salvation to everyone who has faith, to the Jew first and also to the Greek” (Rom. 1:17).[168] The Jewish theologian Michael S.Kogan puts succinctly the dynamic tension facing Christian theology with its belief in Christ as the Messiah: “to be faithful to the New Testament command to witness for Christ to all peoples and to convert all nations, while, at the same time, affirming the ongoing validity of the covenant between God and Israel via Abraham and Moses.” [169]

At the center of this tension lies the obvious but important fact that “historically Christianity has been theologically exclusive andhumanistically universal, while Judaism has been theologically universal andhumanistically exclusive.” Christian theologicalexclusivism , however, is qualified by the equally important conviction that Christ died for all and thattherefore, all people from all nations can be beneficiaries of thissalvific work. [170] In order to make progress in this foundational issue, there is a challenge to both parties.Kogan formulates it well: if the Jews desire for Christians to affirm the continuing validity of the covenant after the coming of Jesus Christ, then the Jews are confronted with this challenge: “Are Jews really ready and willing to affirm that God, the God of Israel and of all humanity, was involved in the life of Jesus, in the founding of the Christian faith, in its growth and spread across much of the world, and in its central place in the hearts of hundreds of millions of their fellow beings?”Kogan answers “yes” to this question, and he is of the opinion that those of his fellow Jews who do not are no more “enlightened than those Christians who still refuse to affirm the Jews’ ongoing spiritual validity as a religious people.” [171] The implications of this complicated issue have to be worked out in detail in the volume on ecclesiology.