History, Tradition and Text

Amy-Jill Levine of Vanderbilt offers a strong criticism of Christianity's general ignorance of Jesus' Judaism in the most recent issue of Christian Century (article not available online - yet, anyway).  She claims that Christians largely and simplistically assume that if Jesus was good, then ancient Judaism must have been bad; that if Jesus loved the poor, then Judaism must have favored the rich, resulting in antisemitic preaching and teaching.  She says that we must reexamine Jesus' jewishness in order to be more truthful to who he was and to renew how we preach and teach Jesus vis-a-vis his first century jewish world.  (Hat-tip to David over at Here I Stand for bringing this article to my attention).

I do not disagree that Christians can benefit from understanding the Jewish context of Jesus' life and ministry.  His parables, miracles, preaching and teaching make much more sense if his context is understood (as best as we can understand a 2000 year-old culture).  We can do better to understand Jesus, preach Jesus, teach Jesus if we understand who he was.  But as David says, not all Christians bash Jews or anient Judaism in their interpretation of Jesus.  She lumps all us Christians together, painting us with a wide, anti-semitic brush.  Where is Dr. Levine's nuanced analysis of Christianity?

Dr. Levine's central argument merits strong critique.  She laments the loss of the Jewish Jesus by Christians, yet she fails to significantly address the Gentile, non-Jewish character of Christianity's earliest traditions.  Paul offers the earliest written interpretation of Jesus (earlier than the Gospels themselves!), one that sends the Gospel message into a Gentile world.  Surely Paul knows and respects the Jewish heritage of Jesus and the tradition out of which Jesus spoke, but he unabashedly takes the message in a new direction.  Futhermore, the Gospels themselves were written in Greek (not Hebrew or Aramaic), and at least one of the Gospels (John) was intentionally written for a non-Jewish audience.  In its earliest of days, the Jesus tradition was shaped by an intentional effort to go outside of the Jewish community.  (Would Dr. Levine suggest that this movement of the Jesus-tradition to the Gentile world is inherently anti-semitic or insulting to Jews?).

And so does the Christian Jesus needs to be more Jewish, as Dr. Levine argues, and should Christians follow Jewish law because Jesus did (pg 21 - ". . .the New Testament mandates that respect for Jewish customs be maintained and that Jesus' own Jewish practices be honored, even by the gentile church, which does not follow those customs")?  Like the Jesus Seminar which tries to recover a "historical Jesus" by looking at texts apart from later Christian tradition, Levine tries to recover a Jewish Jesus through textual and cultural analysis without engaging later Christian traditions.  I don't think such a text-only analysis is possible or fair to the text.

I wonder if Dr. Levine is not doing what she accuses Christians of doing.  She claims that Christians have divorced Jesus from the Jewish tradition, thus robbing him of an essential element of his character.  But, by interpreting Jesus solely based on the Gospels, without taking account of Paul or the other New Testament writings, and without taking into account the traditions of the early church, the creeds and councils, and even the continuing traditions of the church over 2000 years, does she not divorce the Gospel text from the tradition that created them, sprung from them, and continues to embrace them?   

Texts are only one element of a tradition.  For better or worse, we Christians are more than just "people of the book" (as our Muslim sisters and brothers call us), though that book is central to who and what we are.  We are people of a tradition, a faithful inheritance that includes Biblical texts but also theology, practice, creeds, hermaneutics, ethics and much, much more.  Surely Dr. Levine would not advocate reading the Torah apart from its rich interpretive tradition.  So too, we should hesitate to read the New Testament apart from its interpretive tradition, but that's what Dr. Levine seems to do in this article.

This gets to the relationship of history and text to tradition.  Do we believe in the Jesus of history, or in the Jesus of tradition?  For better or worse, we believe not in a Jesus of historical account, but in a Jesus that we've learned about via a biased, faithfilled tradition.  I need to take seriously the faith of those who wrote the New Testament and those who assembled it nearly 300 years later.  I need to take seriously the Roman Catholic and Reformation traditions also, as they have been stewards of the faith and witnesses to me.  Faith is a living, breathing, morphing and evolving beast.  To reduce belief and practice to an analysis of a few ancient texts is to lose the riches and depth of the tradition, and deny the work of the Body of Christ and the Holy Spirit over nearly 2000 years. 

Comments

[Chris T.]

I wonder if the rather unsubtle argument here is a result of the constrained space offered by CC. I saw Dr. Levine speak at Duke on this subject a couple months back (and blogged about it here). In that talk, she really seemed to be focusing on the Jesus Seminar, liberation theologians, and other progressive Christians with simplistic understandings of Jesus and Judaism.

She also has a book out on the topic, which I'm interested in reading. I don't get the sense that she's against all of orthodox Christianity though, especially given that she teaches New Testament at a Christian div school and does a lot of work with Christian congregations. Hopefully the book's argument is a little better developed.

[Lutheran Zephyr]

Thanks for your comment, Chris. And perhaps I don't do her argument justice here . . .

I cut out a paragraph from my original post in which I wondered if her article wasn't really two articles - a critique of Christianity's poor understanding of the Jewish Jesus, and on the other hand a blast at Liberation Theology. I thought that her critique of Liberation Theology is strong but perhaps a little late? Most of the books she cited were anywhere from 10-30 years old! Anyway, much of liberation theology also takes a huge inspiration from the Exodous and Exile as told in the Old Testament, so I would say that the Liberation take on the Hebrew Scriptures and ancient judaism is at least confused or inconsistent . . .

But I would love to hear more of what she says about the Jewish Jesus and the relationship between Christianity and Judaism. There is part of me that reads her piece and wonders if she thinks that Christianity is itself antisemitic, an inherent insult to Judaism . . . And what is her take on Paul? Thanks for your comment . . . I'll take a look at your old post next.

[David]

I don't believe Dr. Levine thinks that Christianity is anti-semitic, at least not in the sense that Christians hold some sort of intentional contempt or prejudice toward Jews.

I have a professor at seminary who would make the arguement that much of Christian teaching and preaching is anti-semitic simply because of ignorance of first century Jewish customs. This professor goes on to explain that pastors need to be sensitive of the language used in the pulpit and classroom. What may not be viewed as derogatory by Christians, may solicit an adverse reaction by Jews.

To me, this is where Levine places the bulk of her arguement, that Christians are ignotant of Jewish heritage and history, and so divorce Jesus from his heritage and history. I am sure that this is the case for some Christian groups, but the arguement cannot be made for all of of Christianity, just as all of Christianity cannot say that all Jews view Christians as anti-semitic.

[Derek the Ænglican]

I started writing a comment in regard to this whole topic but it ballooned into something more essay-size. Instead of polluting your comment field, LZ, I'll post on it over at mine...

[Lutheran Zephyr]

I commend Derek's post in response to mine to anyone interested in the history of Judaism around the time of Jesus, how Christians might understand Jesus & Judaism, and some heresies surrounding the issue . . . Thanks, Derek!

[Lee]

For interested parties, the article is now online:

http://www.christiancentury.org/article.lasso?id=2761

[Lutheran Zephyr]

I love blogging with people smarter and more eloquent than me. Check out Lee's post Jesus the Jew and Christian Practice over at Verbum Ipsum.