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Wednesday, 18 October 2006 12:04 |
By JIM GENARO
Though Christianity was born from a Jewish spiritual movement, several key events ensured that by the year 135 A.D. it was a non-Jewish religion, separate from ÇƒÓ and often antagonistic towards ÇƒÓ Judaism, according to religious scholar Walter Ziffer.
A standing-room-only turnout of several hundred people filled UNC Ashevilleës Reuter Center last Wednesday evening to hear Ziffer, an adjunct professor of philosophy and religion at Mars Hill College. He is the author of several books, including "The Teaching of Disdain: An Examination of Christology and New Testament Attitudes Toward Jews."
The
presentation, which was sponsored by UNCAës Center for Jewish Studies
and the North Carolina Center for Creative Retirement, was titled "The
Birth of Christianity from the Matrix of Judaism: From Myth to Fact"
and was based on the concepts outlined in Zifferës book of the same
name.
The
idea for the book arose from some crucial events in his life, he said.
One of these was his experiences during the Holocaust ÇƒÓ Ziffer spent
four years in a concentration camp, during which time, all but half a
dozen of the Jews in his village were exterminated.
"Iëve never
quite been able to get rid of some of these things that I saw during
those terrible years," he told the audience. "The event itself has
lodged in my mind and itës deeply embedded there."
One of the things that stands out in his memory, he said, is "the role that Christians and Christianity played in it."
This was
particularly troubling for him because he had always been "a great
admirer of the Jew, Jesus of Nazareth," Ziffer added.
The experience drove him to ask, "What is the origin ... of anti-Semitism?"
Another key
experience came when he visited the Vatican with a fellow scholar and
met the Vatican Secretariat for Judeo-Christian Relations. Over
champagne, the dignitary turned to Ziffer and said, "Remember what Iëm
about to tell you: Jewish-Christian dialogue is very important, but
nothing much will happen until Jews dig deep to the bedrock of their
faith and Christians dig deep to the bedrock of their faith and they
will find themselves standing on the same bedrock."
This set the foundation for Zifferës explorations of the commonalities between Judaism and Christianity.
To understand
how Christianity was born, he said, one must realize that it was not
premeditated.
"Things happen and people react to these things," he
said, giving as an example the recent war between Israel and militants
within Lebanon. Thousands of Lebanese and hundreds of Israelis were
killed, he noted, because of peopleës responses to the kidnapping of
two Israeli soldiers. Similarly, the birth of Christianity was not a
planned event, but a response to certain historical occurrences.
Ziffer listed
four events that shaped early Christianity: the crucifixion of Jesus,
the teachings of Paul, the creation of the 19th Benediction on the
Jewish liturgy and the two Jewish wars against Rome.
Ziffer first
addressed the crucifixion. Several conventional explanations are
typically given for why Jesus was crucified, all of which are less than
satisfactory, he argued.
The first is that the Jewish authorities in Jerusalem were jealous of Jesusë popularity.
"I will tell you right now, there is nothing to substantiate that view," Ziffer said.
The accounts of
Jesus being confronted by Jewish religious authorities were more likely
added by Christians much later, during the writing of the gospels, as a
way to distinguish Jesusë teachings from those of Judaism, he added.
Furthermore, it
was unlikely that his radicalism alone was sufficient grounds to
crucify him, Ziffer argued, because Galilee particularly had a large
number of charismatic rabbis that preached unconventional teachings.
Even if Jesus
had so infuriated the Jewish authorities that they decided to prosecute
him, capital punishment was prohibited in Jewish law at that time,
Ziffer ted.
Whatës more, the
most radical acts he committed ÇƒÓ the overturning of the money-changersë
tables and releasing sacrificial animals ÇƒÓ did not take place in the
temple proper, but in an outside area, where such actions would not
have been considered blasphemous, Ziffer said.
However, Ziffer
offered his own theory as to why Jesus was crucified. Jesus, he argued,
was killed by the Romans for political reasons.
To support this
idea, Ziffer noted that the crime that was listed above Jesusë cross
was "King of the Jews," likely indicating that he was killed because
the Roman authorities believed he was leading an insurrection against
their rule.
Furthermore,
while crucifixion was common during the period, the majority of those
killed in such a manner were political dissidents, he added.
The second formative event in the early history of Christianity was the ministry of Paul, Ziffer said.
This was a
turning point for the young religion, which previously had been an
offshoot of Judaism. Though Paul was a Jew, he was trained both in
Jewish and Greco-Roman law and philosophy and felt very comfortable
proselytizing to Gentiles, Ziffer said.
"Interestingly enough, his mission is not primarily to Jews," he elaborated. "Heës usually booted out of the synagogues."
Through his
teachings, Paul undermined the foundations of Judaism ÇƒÓ circumcision,
the sacred calendar and observance of purity laws ÇƒÓ by saying these
things were not necessary to achieve salvation, Ziffer told the
audience.
"He eliminates all that makes a Jew a Jew," he noted.
Paul based this
in part on the life of Abraham, who lived long before Moses received
the Ten Commandments, yet managed to have a spiritual communion with
God, Ziffer said.
"The only
condition for you to go to heaven is for you to believe that Jesus the
Christ died for you on the cross," he said of Paulës philosophy.
This belief, he
noted is the foundation of modern Christianity ÇƒÓ and a departure from
the practices and beliefs of the Jewish followers of Jesus prior to
that time.
Ziffer then
turned his attention to the 19th Benediction, a later addition to the
benedictions ÇƒÓ prayers of the Jewish liturgy that are spoken at the end
of services and are considered among the most sacred.
The benedictions
were typically recited in the synagogues, after which speakers were
invited to share their interpretations of the prayers.
However, early
Christians often used these reflection periods as an opportunity to
proselytize about their new faith, a practice that angered many rabbis.
A rabbi named
Samuel the Lesser devised a solution to this problem, by adding a 19th
benediction, "May the heretics and Nazarenes perish in a moment."
By ending the
benedictions with this obvious reference to the followers of Jesus, the
rabbis could ensure that the Christians could formulate no effective
response based on the text, Ziffer explained.
The practice "did accomplish what it was meant to accomplish ÇƒÓ it kept those that would preach about Christ out," he said.
However, it also furthered the divide between the synagogues and the new religion.
This division, he noted, was greatly exacerbated by the two Jewish wars against Rome.
The first of
these wars took place from 66 to 70 A.D. It began when a Gentile
sacrificed a bird in front of a Jerusalem synagogue ÇƒÓ an act that the
Jewish authorities considered a grave sacrilege, according to Ziffer.
When they brought their grievances to the Roman authorities and were
ignored, the Jews staged a protest that quickly turned violent.
The event
escalated into a war that "ended in a complete catastrophe for the
Jews," he said. More than a million of them were reportedly killed in
the fighting.
However, the
Christian Jews in the area did not participate, fleeing instead to the
nearby town of Pella to wait out the war. When they returned, the
Christians were largely scorned by the surviving Jews, he noted.
The second
Jewish war against Rome took place in 135 A.D. This conflict began when
Emperor Hadrian visited Jerusalem and, seeing the devastation of the
first war, proposed a reconstruction effort.
Though Hadrian
was initially sympathetic to the Jews, they quickly turned against him
when it was announced that the new city would be a sprawling pagan
metropolis and that in place of the Jewish temple, a new temple
dedicated to the Roman god Jupiter would be erected, Ziffer told the
audience.
Spurned by the
Jews, Hadrian retaliated by banning circumcision, observance of the
Sabbath, Torah study, conversion to Judaism, Jewish immigration into
Palestine, ordination of new rabbis and observance of the Jewish
dietary laws, Ziffer said.
Enraged, the Jews revolted, led by a general named Simon Bar Kokhba, who declared himself to be the prophesied messiah.
The war was a
disaster for both sides, Ziffer told the audience, with about 580,000
Jews killed and similarly devastating numbers of Romans killed and
wounded.
Again, the Christians fled the fighting ÇƒÓ this time because of Kokhbaës claim to be the messiah.
However, the
leaders of the Christians who returned to the region were no longer
Jews. The new church was "no longer a Jewish sectarian movement ÇƒÓ it no
longer observes the Jewish laws," Ziffer said.
This marked the turning point in Christianityës history, he noted.
"It is the birth of a new and distinct religion, without any ties to Judaism," he added.
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