E.P. Sanders asserts that some of his colleagues who have interpreted the Synoptic Gospels’ Jesus to be anti-Jewish are in reality only displaying their own anti-ancient characteristics. In effect, they live in and love ‘the now’ so much that they read their (somewhat scornful) opinions of ancient activities into their interpretations. Sanders writes, “what [the scholars] want is for Jesus to have been a modern man who spoke directly to modern concerns and who had sloughed off ancient superstitions and other mistaken views” (35). Sanders proves that Jesus was not an ageless mystic man who ignored common practices, but a practicing, ritual-following Jew. Many theologians have interpreted Jesus’ innovative ideas to be an abandonment of Mosaic Law and ancient Jewish customs. Sanders suggests otherwise. Jesus did follow purification routines and even purified his own followers, even though purification is not a modern practice. To the dismay of Christian theologians, Jesus did participate in exorcisms, associating him with ancient demonic superstitions. Jesus also went so far as to promise the return of the Messiah within the lifetime of his followers. This ancient view of the oncoming apocalypse is despised by anti-ancient Christian scholars. Sanders concludes, “It seems to me that if [Jesus] had wanted to do away with the Jewish religion as such, which included, as all religions did, these very nonmodern elements, he might have said something about it, and his followers would presumably have passed on that information. But we find no evidence that he did” (41). We ought not to ignore the fact that Jesus ‘lived in the then.’
While E.P. Sanders deals with misinterpretations of the Gospels, John Gager focuses on his colleagues’ false notions about Paul and his letters. He opens his contribution to the book by pointing out an anachronism made by none other than Pope John Paul II, who recently traveled to the location of Paul’s ‘conversion to Christianity’ (see Fredriksen 57). Gager, knowing that such a ‘conversion’ could not have been possible, bravely calls the Holy Father on his eisegesis. He writes, “Paul was often cited as the real founder of Christianity. It is difficult to imagine how he could have been converted to Christianity while at the same time serving as its founder!” (56). Paul lived and died before there was such a thing as “Christianity.” Gager continues:
“…using the term ‘Christianity’ to label the early phase of what I will call the Jesus movement leads us to anachronism. What I mean by this is that we will almost surely read back into Paul’s own time the opinions, debates and circumstances that emerged only later on, long after Paul’s period, when Christianity really did emerge as something distinct from and even opposed to Judaism… I want to avoid the serious mistake of reading later times and later views into earlier times and earlier views” (59, my emphasis).
It would be unfair to declare Paul the “father of Christian anti-Judaism and the creator of the rejection-replacement theology” when he had no concept of anything called Christianity (Fredriksen 67). Paul was concerned with the Jesus movement, a group that emerged from and (during Paul’s lifetime) remained a part of Judaism. Just like the Jesus of Sanders’ interpretation, Gager’s Paul was an ancient Jew with new ideas, not the modern Christian anti-Jew that many other scholars want him to be. We reach this conclusion by examining the actual time and surroundings of Paul’s life. When we live in the then, we have a better chance of getting to know these ancient religious visionaries.
Accusing Jesus or Paul of founding anti-Judaism is not a light theological matter, especially considering the horrendous contemporary applications of anti-Judaism and anti-Semitism. Therefore, everyone engaged in the pursuit for the origins of anti-Judaism should take every precaution to ensure the accuracy of their work. Among other safeguards, theologians should completely remove themselves and their modern setting from their Biblical interpretations. One can only fully understand the statements of Jesus and Paul by embracing the ancient world in which they lived. We may never know whether or not Sanders and Gager had “Wayne’s World’ on their minds when writing their essays. Either way, they appropriately ignored Garth’s advice, lived in the then and got it right.
Source:
Fredriksen, Paula, and Adele Reinhartz, eds. Jesus, Judaism and Christian Anti-Judaism; Reading the New Testament
after the Holocaust. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2002.
