The Misunderstood Jew: The Church and the Scandal of the Jewish Jesus

262 Pages·2007·1.27 MB·English

by  Amy-jill Levine

T H E
MISUNDERSTOOD
J E W
The Church
and the Scandal of
the Jewish Jesus
AMY-JILL LEVINE
For Jay, Sarah Elizabeth, and Alexander David
Contents
Introduction 1
o n e Jesus and Judaism 17
t w o From Jewish Sect to Gentile Church 53
t h r e e The New Testament and Anti-Judaism 87
f o u r Stereotyping Judaism 119
f i v e With Friends Like These . . . 167
s i x Distinct Canons, Distinct Practices 191
s e v e n Quo Vadis? 215
Epilogue 227
Acknowledgments 229
Notes 233
Subject Index 241
Scripture Index 247
About the Author
Praise
Credits
Cover
Copyright
About the Publisher
Introduction
When I was a child, my ambition was to be pope. I remember watching
the funeral of John XXIII and asking my mother, “Who was that man?” I
understood very little about him, but I did learn from the television cover-
age that he lived in Italy, had a very nice white suit and a great hat, and
everyone seemed to love him. My mother responded, “That’s Pope John
XXIII.” She, like most Jewish parents, was familiar with then cardinal
Roncalli’s efforts to save Jews during World War II as well as with his con-
vening of Vatican II, the gathering that finally condemned the teaching
that all Jews, everywhere, were responsible for the crucifixion of Jesus.
Thus she added, “He was good for the Jews.” I immediately decided I
would be pope: it meant lots of spaghetti, great accessories, and the job
was good for the Jews. “I want to be pope,” I announced to my mother.
“You can’t,” she replied. “You’re not Italian.” Clearly, for a variety of rea-
sons, I was in desperate need of instruction regarding the relationship
between church and synagogue.
My parents explained to me that the church (in my neighborhood,
there were no Protestants, so “the church” meant “the Catholic Church”)
used the same Bible that we did, but whereas we in the synagogue read our
texts in Hebrew and used scrolls, in the church Chris tians read their texts
in English and used books. Further, they told me that Chris tians thought
a Jewish man named Jesus was extremely important. I only later, and pain-
fully, learned that because of these distinctions, and others, the separation
between Jews and Chris tians was much more complicated.
I was raised in North Dartmouth, Massachusetts, a suburb of New
Bedford, in a neighborhood that was predominantly Roman Catholic and
Portuguese. Thus my introduction to the church was through ethnic
Catholicism, and it was marvelous: feast days and festivals, pageantry and
2 the misunderst o od jew
mystery, food and more food. I loved Christmas trees and Easter bunnies;
I sang Christmas carols in the school choir (although like a number of
Jews in similar settings I typically only mouthed words like “Christ” and
“Jesus,” and although hesitant to admit it, I found “Silent Night” a much
prettier song than “I Had a Little Dreidel”). My favorite movie was,
appropriately, The Miracle of Our Lady of Fatima, a 1952 production starring
Gilbert Roland and, as Lucia, the girl who had the vision of the Blessed
Virgin, Susan Whitney. I couldn’t decide which would be more exciting: to
have a vision and become a nun, like Sister Lucia, or to elope with Gilbert
Roland.
When I was seven, this early fascination with Chris tian ity came to a
head with two events. First, I became insistent upon making my First
Communion. All my friends were preparing for this special event, and I
didn’t want to be left out. My desire was not motivated by religious fervor
or even religious understanding; I lacked both. Rather, I wanted the dress
with the matching white patent-leather shoes. To provide me some conso-
lation, my mother bought me a wedding gown for my Barbie doll. I’d dress
Ken in his groom suit, with the jacket on backwards and with white con-
struction paper for the clerical collar. Then, practicing what I learned
from my friends, I’d have Barbie, in her bride dress, take Communion
from Ken every morning before school.
Second, that year a friend on the school bus said to me, “You killed
our Lord.” “I did not,” I responded with some indignation. Deicide would
be the sort of thing I would have recalled. “Yes, you did,” the girl insisted.
“Our priest said so.” Apparently, she had been taught that “the Jews” were
responsible for the death of Jesus. Since I was the only one she knew, I
must be guilty. But at the time I did not understand the reasons for the
charge or have the means to address it.
I was convinced that priests wore special collars to keep them from lying.
Since the priest wasn’t dead, the charge had to be true. When that horrible
trip from school was finally over—and thank heaven these were the 1960s,
when mommies met their kids at the bus stop—I was in hysterics. Calming
me down, my mother learned what had so traumatized me. She assured me
that my friend had misspoken. Calls were made, and—to the enormous
credit of the local diocese—this hateful teaching was stopped.
But I had become obsessed. I initially concluded that the priest had
misinterpreted his Bible. It must have been a translation error, I thought,
Introduction 3
since even in second grade I knew from Hebrew school that it was easy to
make a translation error. So I decided I’d learn to read the Chris tian Bible
(no one told me it was in Greek), find the problem, solve it, and then go
on to do other things, like learn how to knit or to establish world peace.
That was forty-three years ago; I’m still working. The following year, by
the way, was the publication of Nostra Aetate, the Vatican document stating
that all Jews are not directly responsible for Jesus’s death.
I also asked my parents if I might attend catechism with my friends. I
had Hebrew school two days a week after school; my friends had cate-
chism the other two days. So my parents agreed. “As long as you remem-
ber who you are,” they said, “go learn.” On occasion I’d go, and I loved it!
When I couldn’t go, I’d pump my friends for the stories they were learn-
ing, and I’d listen to Sunday morning Mass on television (whenever I
could skip Sunday school) to get more details. My general reaction to
Gospel stories was one of familiarity.
Jesus meets a woman at a well and concerns about marriage emerge,
just as with Abraham’s servant and Rebekah, Jacob and Rachel, Moses
and Zipporah. Jesus is a good shepherd, just like David. Jesus fusses at
priests, just like Amos. Jesus tells parables, just like the prophet Nathan
and a number of rabbis whose stories appear in postbiblical Jewish sources.
Jesus heals and raises the dead; so too Elijah and Elisha. Jesus survives
when children around him are slaughtered, just like Moses. I didn’t have
to read Matthew 2–7 to know that the rescued baby would take a trip to
Egypt, cross water in a life-changing experience, face temptation in the
wilderness, ascend a mountain, and deliver comments on the Law—the
pattern was already established in Shemot, the book of Exodus.1
Nor was the cross strange. The story resembled that of the deaths of
the Maccabean martyrs, the mother and her seven sons, whom we recall at
Hanukkah. Making the connection even closer, these Jewish martyrs also
anticipated vindication and resurrection. Second Maccabees states, “The
King of the universe will raise us up to an everlasting renewal of life,
because we have died for his Laws” (7:9). Written by Greek-speaking Jews,
the books of the Maccabees were preserved by the church; they are found
today in the collection known either as the Deuterocanonical Writings
(the Catholic designation) or the Old Testament Apocrypha (the Protes-
tant designation). Later Jewish texts would retell the stories of the Macca-
bees, and the synagogue would continue to celebrate the holiday of
4 the misunderst o od jew
Hanukkah; both church and synagogue recognize the exemplary mother
and her seven sons. The irony is we Jews celebrate the holiday of Hanuk-
kah, but the church preserved the earliest records of the events that form
the basis for the holiday.
The description of Jesus’s suffering recalled for me the accounts in the
Yom Kippur martyrology of the rabbis executed in the second revolt
against Rome (132–35 ce). They also faced the power of the empire and
did not falter in their faith. The death of the innocent was, moreover, part
of my understanding of the Shoah, the deaths of millions of Jews at the
hands of the Nazis. Jesus even complains about those who want the best
seats in the synagogue (Matt. 23:6)—I have been known to do the same.
I don’t recall hearing anything negative about Jews per se, save that I
didn’t like the fact that the Levite in the parable of the good Samaritan
was a bad guy. I am a Levite; I took that parable personally. But my initial
impression of the New Testament was that it was a collection of good
Jewish stories told by a good Jewish storyteller. And my initial impression
of Christ iani ty bolstered this positive impression. My parents had told
me that the church was like a cousin to the synagogue: we worshiped the
same God, we both believed in the Golden Rule. Chris tians and Jews also
shared many books of the Bible in common, although I believed at the
time that Christ ians had to work harder, because their Bible was longer
than ours. My friends had welcomed me into their homes, and they
answered as best they could the questions I asked. They took me to Mass
with them (usually on Saturday, after skating at the now-defunct Lincoln
Park roller rink, to the 5:00 pm service at St. Julie Billiart Church on Slo-
cum Road in North Dartmouth).
It was not until I was in high school that I actually read the New Testa-
ment. The Gospel of Matthew started off just fine: a genealogy with five
women, Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, Bathsheba, and Mary. Nothing wrong here.
Then came the virgin birth, the magi, the temptation, and the Sermon on
the Mount. But as I continued to read, I began to see all too clearly where
that priest had found his hateful teaching. Verses such as Matthew 27:25,
the cry of “the people as a whole” that Jesus should be crucified and that
“his blood be on us and on our children,” provided the rationale for
branding all Jews at all times “Christ killers” and therefore for killing
them. The Gospel of John, with its repeated use of the word “Jew,”
seemed a litany of hate. Peter’s sermons in Acts about the responsibility