Variations on the Messianic Theme: A Case Study of Interfaith Dialogue 9781618110633

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VARIATIONS ON THE MESSIANIC THEME

JUDAISM AND JEWISH LIFE

Editorial board Geoffrey Alderman (University of Buckingham, Great Britain) Hebert Basser (Queens University, Canada) Donatella Ester Di Cesare (Università “La Sapienza,” Italy) Roberta Rosenberg Farber (Yeshiva University, New York), Series Editor Associate Simcha Fishbane (Touro College, New York), Series Editor Meir Bar Ilan (Bar Ilan University, Israel) Andreas Nachama (Touro College, Berlin) Ira Robinson (Concordia University, Montreal) Nissan Rubin (Bar Ilan University, Israel) Susan Starr Sered (Suffolk University, Boston) Reeva Spector Simon (Yeshiva University, New York)

VARIATIONS ON THE MESSIANIC THEME: a case study of interfaith dialogue

By Marion Wyse

Boston 2009

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Wyse, Marion. Ben-Zion, Sigalit. Variations theme : a case studystudy of interfaith dialogue / by Marion Wyse. A roadmapon tothe the messianic heavens : an anthropological of hegemony p. cm. -- (Judaism andlaymen Jewish life) among priests, sages, and / Sigalit Ben-Zion. p. cm.—(Judaism and Jewish Includes bibliographical references and life) index. ISBN 978-1-934843-47-5 (hardback) ISBN 978-1-934843-14-7 1. Messiah. 2. Jesus Christ--Messiahship. 3. Christianity and other religions--Judaism. I. 1. Cohanim. 2. Tannaim. 3. Jews—History—70-638. 4. Jews—Palestine—History. I. Title. Title. BL475.W97 20092008 BM720.C65B46 261.2’6--dc22 305.50933—dc22 2009026733 2008019991

Copyright © 2009 Academic Studies Press All rights reserved 978-1-934843-47-5 ISBN 978-1-934843-14-7 Book design by Olga Yuri Alexandrov Grabovsky Published by Academic Studies Press in 2009 28 Montfern Avenue Brighton, MA 02135, USA [email protected] www.academicstudiespress.com

to my dear friend and dialogue partner for more than thirty years Rabbi Charles Catriel Blum

In this work, inclusive language will be used. Scriptural quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV). The phrases ‘Hebrew Scriptures’ and ‘Christian Scriptures’ will be used instead of ‘Old Testament’ and ‘New Testament’. This choice avoids implicit supersessionism, while still recognizing that the Hebrew Scriptures are included by Christians in the use of their generic terms ‘Scripture’ and/or ‘Bible’. Exceptions will only occur in the case of quotations.

TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION: CONFRONTING THE IMPASSE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 PART ONE: THE IMPASSE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .19 CHAPTER ONE: ENTERING THE JEWISH-CHRISTIAN DIALOGUE Introduction: Facing the Past: HaShoah as the Great Divide . . . . . . . 19 A. Present Repentance: Documents of the Church . . 1. Roman Catholic Documents . . . . . . . . 2. World Council of Churches Documents . . 3. Lutheran Documents . . . . . . . . . . . . 4. Other North American Documents . . . . . B. Dialogue as Meta-Framework . . . . . . . . . . . C. Initial Christian attempts to approach Jesus as Jew 1. 1965-1974 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2. 1974: Faith and Fratricide. . . . . . . . . .

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Conclusion: The Dialogue at an Impasse . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71

CHAPTER TWO: EXPLORING SOME CHRISTOLOGICAL PATHS Introduction: Urgency of the Question . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75 A. John Pawlikowski: Jesus in the Pharisaic Context . . . . . . . . . . . 82 B. Paul Van Buren: Christ in the Jewish Context . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99 C. Rosemary Ruether: Humanity as the Collective Messiah . . . . . . 116 Conclusion: Still at an Impasse . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133

PART TWO: A WAY FORWARD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136 CHAPTER THREE: EXAMINING THE RADICAL EMPIRICAL METHOD A. Choosing Context as Primary . . . . . . . . . . . 1. William James. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2. Alfred North Whitehead . . . . . . . . . . 3. Empirical Theology . . . . . . . . . . . . . B. Bernard Lee’s Appropriation of Empiricism . . . . C. Lee’s Retrieval of the Hebraic Context: A Critique.

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142 143 149 152 155 163

Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 182

CHAPTER FOUR: MAPPING SOME VARIATIONS ON THE MESSIANIC THEME Introduction: Contextualizing Concepts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 184 A. The Jewish Origin and Development of the Messianic Concept . . . 185 B. The Christian Shift and Development of the Messianic Concept . . . . 196 C. The Messianic Concept in Context of the Jewish-Christian Dialogue 216 1. Among Jews . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 218 2. Among Christians . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 226 Conclusion: A Way Forward? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 239

CONCLUSION: DISCERNING PATHS PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE . . . . . . . . 242 BIBLIOGRAPHY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 245

INTRODUCTION: CONFRONTING THE IMPASSE

oes dialogue between faiths work? In the case of Jews and Christians, can they learn to approach a divisive issue in a fruitful and positive fashion, thereby advancing mutual understanding? Can both sides learn to confront and discuss the issues which divide, instead of confronting each other convinced of who is right and who is wrong? Dialogue veteran Leonard Swidler answers a ‘resounding Yes!’ to these questions as he tells the fascinating story of how interreligious conferences in the fragmenting former Yugoslavia helped bridge the widening political and social gaps between ethnic groups – so much so that they are becoming a staple in the governments’ attempts to maintain peace. Closer to home, he tells of ‘living-room dialogues’ where Christian and Jewish couples meet monthly in turnabout homes to share and destroy stereotypes about the other as well as acting out the guidelines for such conversations, acting out a scene of what happens if a guideline is not followed – which can be as horrific as ammunition tossed across any warring border. Dialogue makes a difference. He knows!1 As do I, so I seek to answer these questions by examining the post-HaShoah situation among Jews and Christians, how dialogue has developed, and what four North American Christian dialogue theologians are doing to attempt to help this dialogue get past the impasse it always confronts – the most controversial debate between these two partners – the concept of the messiah. One suggested route will be used to attempt negotiation of this impasse: William James’ radical empirical method.

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1

Cf. Leonard Swidler, ‘Can interfaith dialogue make a difference?’ (Preface) Journal of Ecumenical Studies (hereafter JEC) 43:2 (2008)

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INTRODUCTION

Why are Christian theologians tackling this head-on now? In the years following World War II, a gradual awareness of Christendom’s role in what the Jewish community terms HaShoah has caused many of its churches to officially condemn anti-Judaism. Their documents emphasize the need to repent, the need to accept Judaism as a valid faith before God, and the need to engage in dialogue with Jews. This policy constitutes a fundamental shift: from traditional Christian supersessionism (where Christianity replaces Judaism) to partnership with Jews in God’s work. Such a shift cannot be – and is not being – accomplished quickly. The Church’s struggle with its past is discernible both in the documents, and in the work of those seeking to implement the shift. Through this recent re-connection with the people of Jesus, and in the awareness of their complicity in HaShoah, Christian dialogue partners have become strongly motivated to eradicate anti-Jewish elements. Jewish scholars willing to participate in this task have not been lacking; hence, work in the past four decades has drawn as much on Jewish as on Christian scholarship. Based on my research, the two major locales are Germany and North America. While surveying the Europeans, I will concentrate on the Americans. This selection should not skew my conclusions, since my research shows that issues arising in and from the Jewish-Christian dialogue tend to be the same around the globe – i.e. in the Middle East, England and Europe, Latin America, and all of North America. Also and more to the point, I’ve found that theological and christological responses differ more according to the individual theologian and/or the denominational community, rather than by country. The Jewish-Christian dialogue is not an easy or simple process. Both partners are learning to view Judaism from Christian perspectives, and Christianity from Jewish perspectives. Letting go of stereotypes is hard – whether in the living room or in the more formal spaces where official dialogues take place. Particularly difficult for Christians is the task of altering the traditional understanding of their mission, which focuses on conversion. As interaction with Jews has increased over the past fifty years, dialogue theologians have gradually moved from the periphery of 10

CONFRONTING THE IMPASSE

theology to its central tenets: from an initial pre-occupation with global and ecclesial anti-Jewishness, to scripture, revelation, covenant and election, and eventually the core — christology. There is a growing realization that christology must be included in the dialogue, or no true progress will be made in eliminating anti-Jewish elements from Christian thought and faith. It is important for dialogue partners to ascertain the relationship between the Jesus as presented in christological formulations, and Jesus the Jew who lived in the first century of the Common Era. This is the question which generated so much of the hostility between the two faith communities for so long: what about the ancient and original designation of Jesus of Nazareth as the awaited Jewish messiah? Is it possible to discuss him without performing the kind of annihilation of one or the other community – literally or linguistically – which historically has been the inevitable result of all former attempts? The problem under consideration arose out of the dynamics in the Jewish-Christian encounter itself. Each theologian affected by this encounter endeavours to balance Christian claims about Jesus with respect for Jewish counter-claims. Has a framework arisen within which these claims can be mediated and beneficially discussed? Is there a method by which the discussion can discern possible conclusion to which both partners can agree? Three noted Americans have struggled with the emergent dilemma: Rosemary Ruether, Paul Van Buren, and John Pawlikowski. I shall examine their work in relation to the messianic issue, discussing their creative insights, but also how each has not been able to provide a way through the impasse beneficial to both partners. Can I offer anything that is much better? I hope so, but it’s hard for any of us to see our blind spots, and nobody can juggle all of the relevant issues pertinent to a study such as I am attempting. Also, as time passes with any of the dialogues, each successive generation is more able to build on the previous work. For the Jewish-Christian dialogue, this means that work done in the first decades was spade work in unfamiliar territory – theological humility. That had normally been left to the mystics. Toppled 11

INTRODUCTION

off of our high horses, any whiff of supersessionism comes as tainted, and the reaction tends to be the other way – toward the relativism that the orthodox of all faiths wisely fear. That would not be a path through the impasse but rather an artificial dissolving of the issue. However, learning respect for one’s own position as well as for the other is part of dialogue. No one respects someone who bends over backwards to compensate for earlier mistakes. Standing in one’s present awareness while still allowing for ongoing learning is what the dialogue is about, and this interactive dynamic enables those I research, and my own work, to be held up to the light for perception of negative and positive elements by those who come afterwards. With such encouragement, I continued my search. So, what I decided to look for was a way to discuss all aspects of the issue without elevating one over the other. Bernard Lee, less well-known but an active voice in the dialogue, pointed me to William James’ radical empirical method. This assumes that the concrete, historical aspect of human experience is its most important element. Thus experience – not transcendental criteria – supplies the basic data; for this reason, no one philosophy or theology is regarded as more ‘truthful’ or ‘absolute’ than any other. From this starting point, Lee retrieved the historical context of Hebraic metaphors before the Christian shift to Hellenistic meanings. I shall go where Lee does not, and apply the method of radical empiricism to the concept of the messiah. The messianic concept apparently emerged in the Jewish world after the end of the Babylonian exile. The notion of an anointed one to be sent by God evolved in diverse ways. One variation occurred among the Jews whom we call early Christians. If the Jewish assertion is valid, that Jesus was not the messiah envisioned by most first century Jews, then a shift in perception must have taken place among those early Christians that other Jews did not share. If the proposed method of radical empiricism is employed, the original concept, the shift and the repudiation of the shift are regarded as valid developements of faith. Such an approach can lift dialogue partners out 12

CONFRONTING THE IMPASSE

of subjective and communal faith worlds into the meta-framework which dialogue provides, where painful issues are discussed with the hope of healing for both. After two thousand years of differing levels of hostility, what is the premise of such a hope? Experience and historical study have led me to the awareness that each faith community achieves – in its own way, on its interactive path, describing in its own language – some kind of comprehension of our cosmos, which for many of them includes an active agent. For the Jewish-Christian dialogue case study, I am going to assume that this active agent – for Christians the Spirit of God or third person of their divine Trinity, and for Jews the shechiah, the process by which incorporeal HaShem imprints in a corporeal world – is involved with each faith community, not one. Using this premise, I offer a new perspective on this vexing question of the messiah. I shall argue that the different developments of Jewish and Christian faith need not be seen as antithetical. By using the radical empirical method, partners can place a positive construction on the diverse paths which messianic believers took from their mutual origin in the first century CE, paths which ultimately led to the divisive ‘messiah/christ’ debate. To concentrate on the historical context of this split is to move a step beyond what was first labeled by Ruether as ‘the messianic impasse’.2 This is vital if we wish to prevent a future event patterned on HaShoah.

2

Rosemary Ruether, “Anti-Judaism as the Left Hand of Christology” New Catholic World, p. 13.

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PART ONE: THE IMPASSE

CHAPTER ONE: Entering the Jewish-Christian Dialogue

INTRODUCTION: FACING THE PAST: HASHOAH AS THE GREAT DIVIDE

ust west of centre, a topographical feature runs down North America which segregates our watershed. East of this Great Divide rivers flow toward the Atlantic, west to the Pacific. Shaped by underlying pressures since pre-Cambrian times, the shifting and resulting lay of the land determines the flow. Analogously, in Christian history, HaShoah is emerging as a Great Divide, a temporal and (for our purposes) theological line of demarcation. As a second-generation dialogue partner, I learned to use the term HaShoah when choosing to refer specifically to the Jewish Holocaust, rather than help perpetuate the co-opting of ‘Auschwitz’ by Jewish and Christian writers as the symbol for Jewish extermination – as if no others had been exterminated there, as if no other place had undergone the horror. 3 The original meaning of a holocaust is an animal offered by fire to a god, in an effort to placate any anger and ensure attention to the supplicant’s needs. In the ancient Hebrew religion, the high priest annually selected two goats, one for such a sacrifice and the other to be herded off a cliff, taking the sins of the community with it. This annual ritual survives as Yom Kippur, during which Jews worldwide survey the past year to offer both communal and individual repentance for any deeds left undone which could have led to good, and any deeds done that led to evil. By choosing this ancient label of HaShoah for

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3

On non-Jews see R. C. Lukas, The Forgotten Holocaust: the Poles under German Occupation 1939-1944, (Lexington: University Press, Kentucky, 1986).

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their recent trauma, Jews elevate it into a transcendent awareness of the good that could have been done to avert it, and the evil that it brought to the world, not just to the Jews who suffered. Is it legitimate to regard HaShoah as an unprecedented demonstration of evil, as many in my research tended to do? I incline to agree as long as it is not absolutized: any person facing another who is acting with evil intent may well find that event unprecedented. A little personal history will set my perspective in context. At ten, I took a new book out of my local library: The Janowska Road, by Leon Weliczker Wells,4 told of the years he spent in a World War II ‘labour’ camp, cleaning up the mess left by burning people. My innocence was shattered. I spoke to no-one of this book – full of real gray horror, of another order of awareness surpassing the comics and classics on my shelves. It carved out a deep well of pain inside because the reality of his life, the difference between it and the gentle one I was leading, was too great. I started looking at the Jews in my ‘Toronto the Good’ in a different way – not with the sight bestowed by the Baptist Church up the street from my library, where the only meaning of World War II was that members had died overseas to end Hitler’s evil reign. My journey since has been paralleled by many. Attempts to understand the origins of the Nazi extermination policy have been a major preoccupation of scholars since 1945. Since half of the victims were Jewish, religious as well as other reasons were explored. In the 1940s Roy and Alice Eckardt, United Methodists who spent most of their career at Pennsylvania’s Lehigh University, discovered that anti-Jewishness had been a common stance in western Christian history: intellectually, religiously and socially. HaShoah, they concluded, was the latest and most horrendous consequence of what has to be labelled as a perpetual Christian attitude. This link fuelled them for fifty years: ‘Our engagement has been an intricate part of our long struggle to resolve the contradiction of Christianity’s

4

20

New York: MacMillan, 1963, republished 1999 by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington DC.

ENTERING THE JEWISH-CHRISTIAN DIALOGUE

proclamation of divine love and salvation...and the church’s persisting adversus Judaeos tradition.’5 The Eckardts were among the first to elaborate the deep implications of HaShoah for their discipline of theology, and were soon joined by those Roy Eckardt termed ‘figures representative’ of the ‘twentieth century Christian return into the history of Israel’: in Germany, Johann Baptist Metz, Peter von der Osten-Sacken, Rolf Rendtorif, Luise Schottroff, and Leonore Siegele-Wenschkewitz; in the United States, Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, Franklin H. Littell, John T. Pawlikowski, David Tracy, and Paul Van Buren. All have either been involved in the post-war Jewish-Christian dialogue, or have framed their work to include insights developed out of the dialogue. For example, Schüssler Fiorenza and Tracy insist that HaShoah is forcing a paradigmatic shift in theology today, paralleling my use of the Great Divide metaphor. They claim that Christian theologians have often grappled with historical consciousness and historicity, but few have actually engaged history itself: ‘the real, concrete thing’ where events like HaShoah happen.6 ‘Central...is the sense of history as interruption, as rupture ...the retrieval of the social systematic expression of sin ...Given all this, there is yet more urgency for all theology to face the interruption of the Holocaust. For is it possible for any of us to insist upon the need for a Christian theological return to concrete history yet not face that? And if Christian theologians do face that historical caesura, can any of us any longer easily retrieve the “fulfillment” theme, always in danger of becoming a super-

5

Alice L. & A. Roy Eckardt, A Long Nigh ‘s Journey into Day: a Revised Retrospective on the Holocaust, (New York: Pergamon Press 1988) pp.15-16. On terminology (anti-Judaism etc.) see: Jules Isaac, The Teaching of Contempt: Christian Roots of Anti-Semitism, (New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1964); E.B. Flannery, ‘Anti-Judaism/ Anti-Semitism: A Necessary Distinction’, JEC 10 (1973); Mary C. Athanst’s article in Introduction to JewishChristian Relations, ed. Shermis/Zannoni, (New York: Paulist Press, 1991).

6

A. Roy Eckardt. ‘Salient Christian-Jewish Issues of Today: A Christian Exploration’ p.152, in James Charlesworth (ed.1) Jews & Christians: Exploring the Past, Present & Future, (New York: Crossroad, 1990).

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sessionist theme, the lack of theological anger at Matthew 23, or the use of “the Jews” in John’s gospel?’7 Elizabeth Schüssler Fiorenza and David Tracy put forward that it is imperative for the Church to recognize that its sacred writings, on which it has constructed its theology for two thousand years, are also containers of strong anti-Jewish elements. This is inconsistent with its overt message of love and reconciliation to God as an example of necessary transformation. Tracy struggles at the University of Chicago to eradicate anti-Jewish elements by re-framing theological foundations in light of religious pluralism. He accepts ambiguities in the theological enterprise, a lack of certainty absent from pre-HaShoah theologies which accepted and expected the potential disappearance of Judaism. He knows that those who have yet to traverse the Great Divide of HaShoah cannot accede to his position on its other side, but he argues that the crossing is necessary.8 ‘The theological fact is that Christian theology cannot fully return to history until it faces the Holocaust. It cannot face that interruption in history without facing as well the anti-Semitic effects of its own Christian history....without realizing that the return to history must now be the return through the radical negativity disclosed by the event....Every hermeneutics of retrieval for Christian theology must today include a radical hermeneutic of suspicion on the whole of Christian history.’9

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7

Elizabeth Schüssler Fiorenza & David Tracy, ‘The Holocaust as Interruption & the Christian Return to History’, p.85, in Elizabeth Schüssler Fiorenza & David Tracy, editors, The Holocaust as Interruption (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1984).

8

Cf. David Tracy, Blessed Rage for Order: The New Pluralism in Theology, (New York: Seabury Press,1975 ; The Analogical Imagination Christian Theology and the Culture of Pluralism. (New York Crossroad 1981); Plurality & Ambiguity: Hermeneutics, Religion & Hope (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1987). For further discussion on HaShoah’s effect on Christian theology, see John T. Pawlikowski ‘Redefining the Roles of Jews and Judaism in Christian Theological Education’ in James Charlesworth, ed., Overcoming Fear between Christians and Jews, (New York: Crossroad, 1992, p. 164f.)

9

Schüssler Fiorenza & Tracy, op. cit., p. 85.

ENTERING THE JEWISH-CHRISTIAN DIALOGUE

Facing HaShoah forces this shift in Christian theology which could change its basic framework. Is such a task conceivable? Gregory Baum, one pioneer in this search during his years teaching at the University of Toronto and then McGill, asked: ‘Is it possible to proclaim the Christian gospel in fidelity to Scripture in a manner that respects and honours Jewish religion?’ This must in some way involve re-thinking christology, the primary doctrine, but HaShoah will still ‘remain forever a principle of discontinuity for the Christian Church.’ The silence of most Christians during HaShoah condemns their successors to perpetual awareness of their part in the suffering of Jews. ‘Christians must forever examine the ideological distortion of their own religious tradition.’10 For the Eckardts, this involved Christians in a three-step transformation. ‘To undertake this kind of revolutionary about-face (metanoia) requires knowledge of what was wrong in the past, and a genuine experience of repentance (teshuvah). It also calls for courage to walk forward into the unknown and to try the untried.’ 11 Taking HaShoah thus seriously means, first of all, facing that which helped to bring it about – taking the event and its antecedents as a real, historical dynamic. Jewish struggles for survival during the preceding centuries were a direct result of a theology which sanctified Jewish suffering. The second step, after facing this past, is repentance, an honest acceptance of performance or non-performance which parallels Yom Kippur. The third step is finding a new path to replace the older ones in which ambiguous elements such as anti-Jewishness can lead to such evil consequences. ‘With HaShoah embedded in Christian memory, humility should accompany all future theological exploration.’12 Eckardt limited his list (above) to those dialogue theologians who are attempting to free Christianity of anti-Jewish elements. In our case study, the parameters are tightened to include only systematic theolo10 Gregory Baum, ‘The Holocaust and Political Theology’, p. 35, Schüssler Fiorenza & Tracy, Holocaust. 11 Eckardts, Long Night’s Journey, pp.14-15 12 Ibid, pp. 14-15.

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gians engaged in re-evaluating the basic building blocks of their faith: scripture and revelation, salvation and redemption, covenant and election, and mission. I will then concentrate on those focused on the main cornerstone: christology. But first, let us listen to a couple of questions asked me by some in the community who directly experienced HaShoah – is the dialogical approach many Christians recommend at all relevant to Jewish life today? Is it leading to a more positive impact on the Jewish place in global society than former – and let us be honest, still active – christologies did or could, especially where Christians are among the dominant power group? My research shows that there are some places, among them Toronto, where dialogue provides a place where both partners actively learn to allow the other to exist as self-identified. This is a huge step forward. Whether it will make a difference socially or politically in the long run is still an open question, since an emergent christology has to go through a couple of generations of active use before its impact can be assessed by social scientists. To contextualize the impetus for these emerging christologies and to understand how the concept of the messiah could become a point of discussion, we will first survey the documents of various Christian communities which faced HaShoah and then participated in setting up the process of the Jewish-Christian dialogue. Then we will watch as what I call the “meta-framework” of dialogue gradually grew into its present dual function: as an arena wherein conflicts between Christians and Jews are being constructively examined, and as an impetus for fresh theological thought. A. PRESENT REPENTANCE: DOCUMENTS OF THE CHURCHES

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ost of the time a theologian does not stand alone but within a faith community, sharing its values, limitations and direction. The communal and/or institutional responses of the

ENTERING THE JEWISH-CHRISTIAN DIALOGUE

Churches to the issues highlighted by HaShoah set the stage for dialogue theologians.13 1. Roman Catholic Documents The single most infIuential contemporar y Christian statement on the Jews came out of the Second Vatican Council in 1965. It did not emerge ex nihilo: ‘Catholic and Protestant clergy who found themselves together in Dachau….because of joint resistance to one or other Nazi anti-human action began to ask each other why they did what they did....These encounters and others like them fostered the Una Sancta Movement in Germany, which in turn was the force that moved the Catholic Church in the Second Vatican Council officially to embrace ecumenism and interreligious dialogue after many centuries of vigorous official rejection.’14 Nostra Aetate affirms first and foremost that the Church, the people of the ‘New Covenant’, is a mystery resting in God’s acts of salvation which are only known through revelation received by the people of the ‘Ancient Covenant’. Using Romans 9-11 as its scriptural and metaphorical source, Nostra Aetate then reminds the Church that it is a wild branch grafted onto God’s cultivated tree Israel. Jesus, his apostles and the early disciples were Jews, so the death and resurrection of Jesus belongs to the salvation history begun in the history of Israel. Although most Jews did not recognize him as sent from God, God is faithful and so did not repent of his gifts to the Jews. Nostra Aetate initiated Catholic ecumenical dialogue with other Christians, religions, and ideologies. For the first time the Church’s mission –

13 Unless otherwise stated, quotes in this section are footnoted in-text and from: Helga Croner, ed., Stepping Stones to Further Jewish-Christian Relations (New York: Stimulus Rooks, 1977, hereafter SS); & Helga Croner, ed., More Stepping Stones to Jewish-Christian Relations, an unabridged collection of Christian Documents, 1975-1983, (New York: Paulist Press, 1985, hereafter MSS). 14 John B. Cobb Jr., Paul Knitter, Monica Hellwig, Leonard Swindler, Death or Dialogue? From the Age of Monologue to the Age of Dialogue, (Philadelphia: Trinity Press Int. /London: SCM Press, 1990) p.62.

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to ‘go and make disciples of all nations’ (Matt 28:19) – was officially reinterpreted to include dialogue. In 1965 most Catholics were unfamiliar with Judaism, but many saw and shared Pope John XXIII’s burden of remorse for HaShoah (although this was not mentioned in the document). The Council assumed that it could answer one question: did the new covenant invalidate the ancient one? The answer was a strong (if equivocal) no. ‘Since the sacred patrimony common to Christians and Jews is thus so great, this Sacred Synod wants to foster and recommend that mutual understanding and respect which is the fruit.. .of biblical and theological studies as well as of fraternal dialogues’ (SS p.1). Nostra Aetate acknowledged that not all Jews participated in Jesus’ execution, thus disallowing the charge of deicide, but it maintained that ‘the burden of the Church’s preaching [is] to proclaim the cross of Christ.’ (SS p.2) In other words, God’s covenant with the people of Israel is valid, but the latter must hear (and hopefully respond positively to) the God-given message of the Church.15 The ambiguity of this halfway position became evident as dialogue began with those now designated as partners in God’s work, but to whom Christ as ultimate saviour still had to be preached. Nostra Aetate’s metaphor of the grafted branch tended to undermine the aspect of partnership, but this was not realized for a few years. The basic difficulty was learning to approach Judaism as a faith in and of itself, with a historical connection to Christianity. By shifting from traditional theological premises and opening the way for new insights, the Council had taken a greater risk than it realized at the time. But, as Gregory Baum claimed, this unexpected result was because Nostra Aetate’s premise rests on the ancient and long-ignored teaching of the universality of grace, brought from the periphery of theology into its centre through the Council’s decision to affirm Jews.16 15 For a discussion of the politics surrounding the section on the Jews in Nostra Aetate, see Markus Barth, ‘Salvation from the Jews?’ JEC 2:2 16 Cf. his ‘Catholic Dogma After Auschwitz’; in Alan Davies, Antisemitism and the Foundations of Christianity (New York: Paulist Press, 1979, pp. 143-146).

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The American National Conference of Catholic Bishops responded quickly to Nostra Aetate and published Guidelines for Catholic-Jewish Relations in 1967. As ‘a land that has welcomed immigrants and refugees from persecution’ and (after WWII) holds ‘the largest Jewish Community in the world’, this Church ‘has committed herself without reserve to the American ideal of equal opportunity and justice for all’ (SS p.17). The American bishops wanted to set up dialogue groups as soon as possible, requesting ‘those experienced in the structural, doctrinal, and inter-personal skills which the dialogue requires’ to be available for consultation. They recommended that programs be ‘advanced on all levels; clerical and lay, academic and popular, religious and social’ (SS p. 18). In November 1969, the Plenary Session of the Bishop Members of the Secretariat for Promoting Christian Unity (Rome) published its views on the impact of Nostra Aetate on Catholics and noted that, as yet, the negative attitudes towards Jews and Judaism (such as triumphalism) were not being discouraged by priests in the pulpit and teachers in the classroom, especially the ancient assumption that Christianity (perceived as the religion of love) has prevailed over Judaism (the religion of law) in God’s sight. The Bishops stated that biblical evidence shows that God honours the covenant with Israel. Also, the fact that the Church is based in Jewish scripture, as well as the ancient and living tradition of the Jewish people, is of deep significance. The most important contribution of this document is that for the first time, the Jewishness of Jesus is made the reason for the Bishops to place Judaism and Christianity within the same divine plan, and do away with the old theological model of Christians encircled by grace and Jews oppressed by law. However, Christianity is still primary for them in the fulfillment of salvation history, due to God’s mysterious workings through Jesus. As a consequence, the document’s stated intent to discourage triumphalism is seriously undermined. How does this happen? John Pawlikowski, a renowned Catholic professor, thought that the report reflects the current debate over the historical Jesus, and that the Bishops had come to the belated realization that the ‘universalism’ of Jesus is a theological issue, not a historical one. 27

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I disagree: my reading of the Bishops’ concern is that Christians enter dialogue with Jews to recover their theological roots in the particularism of Jesus as Jew; they are not concerned with the ‘historical Jesus’ debate. Pawlikowski’s reading may well stem from his christological transition vis-à-vis the Jews, discussed later. 17 In January 1975 the Vatican Commission published Guidelines & Suggestions for Implementing the Conciliar Declaration Nostra Aetate’. By remembering HaShoah at the beginning, the commission humbly acknowledged Jewish pain as well as Jewish integrity before God. The first two steps of repentance and turning away from the past advocated by the Eckardts were taken. Some members of the Commission were by now veterans of the dialogue, and well aware of the need for the third step onto a new path that could accommodate the evolving shift in mission from conversion to dialogue. To attain this, the Commission insisted that Christians must realize that their faith as too often stated is offensive to Jews, but also realize that the fault lies not in Christianity per se but in its ambiguous history in relation to Jews. Christians must ‘strive to understand the difficulties which arise for the Jewish soul – rightly imbued with an extremely high, pure notion of the divine transcendence – when faced with the mystery of the incarnate word’ (SS p.12). Pawlikowski targets that tension by claiming that it is created by the logical dissonance in any statement appealing to mystery rather than concrete particulars. The tension, for him, must be faced and then somehow surmounted without losing christology’s salvific meaning. But he agrees with the main thrust: Christians should learn to listen to Jews before attempting to explain their own faith. What does such listening accomplish? For one thing, humility – too often a neglected Christian virtue, Aquinas’ balancing act of the soul between hope and dread. Bishop Eugene Fisher explains the process in his 17 Cf. his ‘New Trends in Catholic Religious Thought’, in Eugene J. Fisher, A. James Rudin & Marc Tannenbaum, editors, Twenty Years of Jewish-Catholic Relations (New York: Paulist Press 1986, pp. 170ff).

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discussion of the Guidelines, ‘Even now, the church must search its language with extreme caution and ultimate humility before speaking of the Shoah. For it is the church’s task to listen first to the Jewish witness before attempting its own. The saving witness to the crucial events of this century, and their proper interpretation, belongs to the Jewish people.’ 18 Listening to Jews before explaining the Christian faith will lead to a better apprehension of the Church’s mission, not its abandonment, according to the Commission. Study of the Hebrew Bible on its own merits is advocated, not to support the messianic promise-fulfillment theme, i.e. that all promises to Israel are already fulfilled by Jesus’ messianic activities two thousand years ago. The Commission argued instead that some scriptural promises were ‘fulfilled with the first coming of Christ’, but ‘perfect fulfillment’ is still ahead, so the messianic promises are ‘not yet in their completed form’ (SS p. 13). ‘Not yet’ was becoming an accepted phrase in Christian dialogue circles of the 1970s when discussing unfulfilled messianic promises. However, the assumption was that the ‘yet’ meant ‘at Jesus’ return’, which negates the Jewish position on the messiah. The realization that this phrase initially came out of first century Christian eschatology had not yet developed. But, as a way to recognize and accept differences between Jewish and Christian perceptions on Jesus, it was a start. That same year (1975) the American Bishops issued a Statement on Catholic-Jewish Relations that analyzed the previous decade since answering Vatican II’s call. Advances were noted, but the Bishops cautioned against ‘becoming over-confident about an early end to remaining problems’ (SS p.31). They recognized the anti-Jewish element in traditional Christian theology, and, while rejoicing at Nostra Aetate’s rejection of the deicide charge, acknowledged that this was not enough. They accurately identified the two links between Jews and Christians that needed closer study in dialogue: ‘the Jewish origins of the Church and the thought of St.

18 Eugene Fisher, Leon Klenicki, eds., In Our Time: The Flowering of Jewish-Catholic Dialogue (New York: Stimulus Books, Paulist Press, 1990), pp.8-10.

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Paul’ (SS p.32). As the first Catholic document to admit that Pauline theology has negative as well as positive implications for Judaism, the Statement requests theologians to ‘explore and emphasize the positive elements of Paul’s thought that have received inadequate attention’ (SS p.33). For the first time, Christians are discouraged ‘from attempting to define the Jews in exclusively Christian terms’. The Guidelines had warned against this but nevertheless unwittingly had done it (SS p.33). The influence of dialogue veterans can again be discerned, but the tension noted as a result of the initial ambiguity in Nostra Aetate continued to mount. Ten years later, however, when the Vatican Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews issued its Notes on the Correct Way to Present the Jaws and Judaism in Preaching and Catechesis in the Roman Catholic Church, a sense of frustration found expression in Fisher’s preamble: ‘We are, even a quarter of a century into the historic dialogue with the Jewish people, far from knowing enough about Judaism and about our own faith tradition in relation to Judaism, to say at this stage any definitive or final word on the subject. We are still striving to articulate the proper questions, much less provide “the” answers to them.’19 Because the Bible as read by the Christian Church offers a single vision of salvation, i.e. the saving activity of God through certain recorded historical events (so that ‘Church and Judaism cannot then be seen as two parallel ways of salvation’), the Commission wanted to encourage Catholics to gain ‘an exact knowledge of the wholly unique bond which join us as a Church to the Jews and to Judaism’. Such knowledge should lead to love and negate anti-Jewishness, ‘notwithstanding their difficulty in recognizing in Him their Messiah.’ But the Commission’s basis for gratitude was a shaky one: it was not Judaism as the faith which nurtured Jesus, but rather the role played by Jews in preserving the Scriptures, which for them point to Christ. How are these Scriptures to be regarded? Fisher claimed that the use of the phrase ‘Old Testament’ in the Notes was not meant to perpetuate

19 Fisher et al, In Our Time, p. 12

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the traditional view of the Hebrew Scriptures as ‘out of date’, but rather as an earlier source of revelation. ‘A little over a year after the issuance of the Notes...Pope John Paul II himself used the terms ‘Hebrew scriptures’ and ‘Christian scriptures’, as he has done since then. What seemed to the Commission in 1985 as a statement whose time had not yet matured was, by 1986, already at least a valid option...’ 20 But was Fisher giving us an accurate Catholic reading, or his own frustrated hope? Pope Benedict, who was Pope John Paul II’s Guardian of the Faith, brought back pre-Vatican II wording in his 2008 Good Friday prayer: ‘Let us pray for the Jews. May the Lord our God enlighten their hearts so that they may acknowledge Jesus Christ, the savior of all men... Almighty and everlasting God, you who want all men to be saved and to reach the awareness of the truth, graciously grant that, with the fullness of peoples entering into your church, all Israel may be saved.’ 21 This doesn’t sound like respect for an ‘earlier source of revelation’. The Notes’ regression from the Guidelines (that the Hebrew Scriptures have merit outside of foreshadowing Christ) weakened the Catholic Church’s stated intent to overcome anti-Jewishness, since the traditional schema of messianic promise-fulfillment was utilized as its theological base. However – still desiring to somehow validate Jewish election – the Commission wisely chose to emphasize the unity of God as the One who spoke in both Testaments, allowing Christians and Jews to ‘witness to one same memory and one common hope’. Cooperation to achieve this hope is not just possible but almost a necessity, since both are ‘driven ...by the command to love our neighbour.’22 The 1985 Notes were the first official Catholic document to give priority to the teachings of Jesus based on and drawn from his Jewish heritage in order to balance the traditional emphasis on Christ’s divinity. He was ‘fully a man of his time and of his environment – the Jewish Palestinian 20 Ibid, p.12 21 The rupture which the papal prayer has caused between dialogue Jews and Christians and the Vatican can be read about at http://www.jpost.com March 31, 2008. 22 Ibid, p.41, 44

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one of the first century, the anxieties and hopes of which he shared.’23 The Church’s major error was thus ignorance of its own Jewish roots and postbiblical Judaism. 24 But since an example of this ‘error’ exists in the Notes themselves, this only demonstrates why the frustration in Fisher’s preamble existed. The Notes assume there is only one meaning (the Christian one) to such basic words as ‘messiah’, ‘redemption’, and ‘salvation’, making no allowance for Jewish interpretations which the Notes also claim originate with God. One element of contemporary Jewish life was carefully set aside: the State of Israel is not to be dealt with in a religious context but with ‘reference to the common principles of international law.’ 25 Fisher has called the Notes a ‘tremendous advance’ since this is ‘the first time the Holy See has urged Catholics to deal with the meaning of Judaism and the State of Israel within context of catecheses.’26 However, the whole picture is obviously not what he (and many who work alongside him) would yet like. Unlike their magisterium, those Catholics involved in the Jewish-Christian dialogue have learned to accept and build theologically on their new comprehension of Judaism; it is the path pointed out by Nostra Aetate that has led them in this direction. But if their faith community is not following, does it suffice? This is a question we will encounter again. 2. World Council of Churches Documents In a parallel development to the Catholic community but responding more quickly to HaShoah, the World Council of Church (WCC) published The Christian Approach to Jews in 1948, stating that ‘No people in His one world have suffered more bitterly from the disorder of man than the Jewish people’ (SS p. 69). The WCC agree on three points: Israel has a

23 Ibid, p.44 24 Ibid, p.49. 25 On terminology see A Dictionary of the Jewish-Christian Dialogue, L. Klenicki/ C. Wigoder. eds. (New York: Paulist Press, 1984). 26 New York Times, quoted in Clergy Report, Archdiocese of New York, Sept. 1985

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unique place in God’s design; it is the mission of Christians to humbly tell Jews that ‘The Messiah for Whom you wait has come’ (SS p.69); and Israel’s continuing existence without their messiah is a mystery. These three pieces do not come together in any existing theological framework, and the puzzle ‘finds its only sufficient explanation in the purpose of God’s unchanging faithfulness and mercy’ (SS p.70). Well aware of the statement’s limitations, further study was called for and implemented. The WCC’s most important statement on this issue is the 1960 Report by the Faith & Order Commission. Showing a new sensitivity to the complexity of the biblical statements, the Report sought a comprehensive definition of ‘Israel’, and a consistent positive attitude toward ‘Jews’, which it could recommend to its member churches. The question was raised of the theological significance of the continuing existence of Judaism for the Church, invalidating the traditional view, i.e. that Jewish troubles result from divine rejection because of their denial of Jesus as messiah. But having arrived at this – for them negative – conclusion about previous theology, how did the WCC perceive a path toward a positive theology? The Report recommended that Hebraic concepts such as election and covenant be studied in order to re-examine the relation between ‘old’ and ‘new’ covenant. This would constitute a return to the apostle Paul ‘s wrestling over the so-called disobedience of Jews. The WCC modified the traditional schema to view the two communities in one covenant: ‘In Jesus Christ God’s revelation in the Old Testament finds its fulfillment ....And together with Israel the Gentiles too were now called to the lot and service of God’ (SS pp.76-77). This did not solve the riddle of the Jewish refusal to recognize Jesus as messiah, unless it was taken as a reminder to Christians that the promises are ‘not yet’ fulfilled. The Report then explored the question of election, with no resolution, realizing that ‘in this question the entire self-understanding of the Church is at stake’ so in all due humility, they decided it wasn’t up to them at that time to set the parameters (SS pp.79-80). And, finally, the Report discussed dialogue versus traditional views of mission, which advocates that the beliefs of the other be respected. This is 33

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very difficult for Christians and Jews, despite their common roots ‘in the same divine history of salvation’ (SS p.80) because the ‘alienation and the terrible guilt of discrimination’ of the past works against rapport. Hence, witness to Jews today should ‘be not so much in explicit words but rather by service’ (SS p.81). Reaching no conclusions on any of the above Christian issues, the Report recommended that all aspects of Christian theology be re-thought, since dialogue with Jews ‘compels the churches to...ask themselves whether election is a constitutive element in God’s actions with all human communities’ (SS p.83). This bold call for a re-evaluation of Christian theology on the basis of an external critique, i.e. from Jews, is indicative of the changes which such dialogue was forcing on Christians – more than was noted by other theological statements of the decade. As a consequence of the 1960 Report, in 1961 the WCC issued a Resolution on Anti-Semitism, which addressed the deicide charge and disarmed it theologically and historically: ‘Jews were the first to accept Jesus and Jews are not the only ones who do not yet recognize Him’ (SS p.73). The WCC Faith and Order Commission and the Secretariat for Catholic-Jewish Relations published a Joint Protestant-Catholic Statement in 1973. This document is not official, but as a cooperative work showing the direction theology was taking, it cannot be ignored. The authors accepted responsibility on behalf of Christians for contributing to anti-Jewish attitudes in the world. They recognized that Judaism is a valid faith before God which was not superseded by the advent of Christ. Christians should be grateful for what God continues to give to the world through the Jews, and not continue ‘fratricidal strife’ based on an uncritical acceptance of negative teaching on the Pharisees. The social sciences provided the authors of the Statement with the awareness that ‘this sin has affected the normal Christian world as well.’ ‘Normal’ meant un-churched, that is, those who do not sit under teachers passing on negative theology on Jews, but instead get any bias from their secular environment. Many historians, psychologists and sociologists blame much of what is termed ‘secular’ anti-Jewishness on economic and 34

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tribal behavior – some of which is pre-Christian, and some originating in the Muslim world where the direct influence of Christian theology on its culture and society has not been known for over a thousand years.27 The Statement began by focusing upon that which both unites and divides Christians and Jews: Jesus. (Unfortunately, it did not go on to discuss christology.) Concerning the State of Israel, the authors wisely and humbly concluded that the political situation was not resolvable by theologians; however, Christians are encouraged to study the relationship between People and Land. The authors also concluded that anti-Jewishness was not as obvious in the post-WWII world as in former eras, but they were ‘fairly certain’ that Jews would again be targets, since people who ‘refuse to learn from history must relive the errors and evils of the past’ (SS p.154). Dialogue is able to change the mindset which fosters hate and so is a ‘favored instrument’ of exploration (SS p.155). The study of the sacred texts using biblical scholarship is of benefit to both partners, especially to combat the negative image of Pharisees, since .the diatribes [of Jesus] reflect serious family quarrels which took place between Jews and Jesus’ followers in the nascent church. The authors underlined God’s choice to reveal himself through a Jewish context; the texts do not indicate a total rejection of Jews or Pharisees. Jesus, in fact, agreed with Pharisaic perspectives on many points, as did Paul and other early Church Leaders (SS p.155). The Hebrew Scriptures are ‘central to the tradition which our Lord accepted as his own,’ and thus were not replaced by Christian writings. The Statement concluded that ‘Jews are pilgrims with us, recipients of God’s gracious love, sojourners on the way to salvation’ (SS p.156). If so, the need to reconcile the dialogical with the conversionist approach to the Church’s mission was critical.28

27 Cf. The Many Faces of Anti-Semitism, The American Jewish Committee. New York: 1967. 28 For an excellent survey of mission history and theory, see Eugene Fisher, ‘Historical Developments in the Theology of Christian Mission’, pp. 4-45, Helga Croner & Martin Cohen, eds., Christian Mission – Jewish Mission (New York: Paulist Press, 1982)

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In 1977, the WCC Conference Paper on Christian-Jewish Relations centred on what constitutes authentic Christian witness. Proselytism was labelled a violation of human rights and identified with ‘external coercion in religious matters’, which is contrary to God’s way that ‘draws free men to himself ’ (MSS p.165). Respect for the other and adherence to the right of religious liberty were urged because of the history of forced baptism, especially of Jews. Triumphalism, the negative ‘power dimension’ of historic Christendom, must be replaced by a sanctioning of the ‘pain and perception of the others ... and their right to define themselves’ (MSS p.166). There was internal disagreement as to whether the Jews should be excluded from the Christian evangel or whether they should be the first to whom Christians ‘witness to God’s Love for and claim upon the whole of humankind’ (MSS p.166). The former position was starting to prevail in the WCC as appreciation of Judaism grew through on-going conversations. The Conference Paper was hailed by theologians in the member denominations of the WCC as a real advance – at least with reference to the Jews. The phrase ‘free men’ shows that inclusive language had not yet reached official heights, nor apparently awareness of the two thousand year-old Christian debate over free will. However, for what the authors intended, Alan Brockway’s affirmation can be accepted: ‘It is little short of miraculous that the churches that produced the 1948 statements could state this by 1979.’ 29 In 1982 the WCC’s Ecumenical Cnsideration on Jewish-Christian Dialogue summarized what had been learned thus far. Christianity had previously ‘defined its identity over against Judaism... [and] in the process ...defined Judaism, and assigned to the Jew definite roles in its understanding of God’s acts of salvation. It should not be surprising that Jews resent those Christian theologies in which they as a people are assigned to play a negative role’ (MSS p.169). These prejudices were being replaced by a comprehension of Judaism in its true richness, as a complex tradition extending back to the ancient Pharisees in whose world ‘Jesus announced

29 Cf. his ‘Learning Christology through Dialogue with the Jews’, JEC 25:3 (1988)

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that the Kingdom of God was at hand, and in his resurrection his followers found the confirmation of his being both Lord and Messiah’ (MSS p.170). Studying the first century has taught Christians and Jews that the debates between Jesus and the Pharisees recorded in the Gospels have parallels in rabbinic literature, and statements in this record are not to be taken out of context and read as anti-Jewish polemics. There is ongoing debate on such passages among both exegetes and theologians, as the document acknowledges (MSS p.170). There is also the difficulty of taking a passage which the author of Matthew (for example) may well have intended as anti-Pharisaic, and its use by later Christians as blanket anti-Jewish. What constitutes revelation is thus an integral part of this debate for dialogue theologians. Moreover, Christians have learned to be careful when making christological claims, realizing that only the followers of Jesus find confirmation of his messiahship in the Hebrew Scriptures; it should not be claimed that others must do the same. ‘Covenant’ is another area where both partners have begun to respect the other’s view. For Jews (according to the WCC), it is their own story in historical continuity with the present. Christians have mostly been of ‘gentile’ (non-Jewish) background since early in the life of the Church, but believe themselves to be heirs of this same covenant story by grace in Jesus Christ (MSS p. 171). Another issue is the differing interpretations of salvation. The Trinitarian confession of early Church councils is ‘in a language foreign to Jewish worship and sensitivities, yet full of meaning to Christians’ (MSS p. 171). The WCC hoped that by teaching Jews the internal meaning of its confession, commonalities would be found. With this document, the WCC achieved a proximity to Swidler’s ‘Dialogue Decalogue’, (discussed below), but I wish to point out one detail here. The WCC deliberately chose the Jewish designation ‘gentile’ as a sign of respect to its source community, but also in continuity with the many generations of Christians who had made this term part of their self-identification. I would question the advisability of thus muddying the labeling issue: respect is one thing, continuation of a co-opting label another. The 37

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term comes from the generic Hebrew term for ‘people’ and in the sacred texts became a term for non-Jews – that is, other peoples or tribes – which were in the majority pejorative, a fact which the Christian partners in the dialogue are wary of broaching. Later, when taken over by the non-Jewish Christians who used Greek and Latin as their languages of communication, the transliteration ‘gentile’ became and often remains a label to show dominance over the Jews. Such a linguistic reversal of this term, and its consistent use by both faith communities to demonstrate superiority or inferiority, might incline today’s dialogue partners to come up with newer – or at least less tainted – terms for self- and other-identification. 3. Lutheran Documents Because the Lutheran Church was a strong social force in Germany before, during and after World War II, I would like to particularly examine post-HaShoah Lutheran [in Germany, Evangelical] documents separate from the World Council of Churches, of which it is a member. As the Vatican Council was struggling with Nostra Aetate, the Department of World Mission of the Lutheran World Federation met for a ‘Consultation on the Church and The Jewish People’. It came to the following conclusions, published in 1964. The Church ‘must recognize a grateful responsibility for the original heirs’, or ‘Israel’. Praying for and witnessing to Jews is ‘inherent in the commission received from Christ’, but this should ‘be pursued the normal activity of congregations’ and only then through ‘responsible conversations’ between Christians and Jews. Anti-Jewishness is the result of that ‘estrangement’ of human from human that denies the equality and dignity of the other. However, there is a special quality to antiJewishness which leads to ‘spiritual suicide’, since it amounts to ‘a denial of the image of God in the Jew’ as well as a ‘rejection of Jesus the Jew’ (SS p. 95). ‘No Christian can exempt himself from involvement in this guilt. As Lutherans, we confess our own peculiar guilt, and....lament with shame the responsibility which our Church and her people bear for this sin. We can only ask God’s pardon and that of the Jews’ (SS p.86). 38

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There is a unique tone to this document. The simplicity of its language and the clarity with which its authors face the past are unequalled in any of the other documents we are looking at here. ‘Misinterpretation’ of scripture and theological precedent are not used as scapegoats. Their main thrust is one of repentance for past hatred of Jews, together with the recognition that Christians destroy their own souls if they practice this sin. They call their fellow communicants to realize that it was a Jew who enabled his followers to find God’s grace in the only place where sin can be forgiven. In their unambiguous call to metanoia, the writers of this document represent official theology at its best. In the United States, the Executive Committee of the Lutheran Council promoted dialogue in 1971 ‘amid the pluralism of American society today and in the face of many practical problems facing Christians, Jews, and all men of goodwill’ (SS p.107). Agreeing that the Church’s mission ‘includes such conversations’, the statement requested Jews to join Christians to develop ‘authentic relationships’ based in their ‘common ground in humanity and roots in the Hebrew Scriptures’ (SS p.109). The authors of this document were the first to abandon the common usage of ‘Old Testament’. It also included a look at potentially explosive dialogue topics: the State of Israel and the antiJewish writings of Martin Luther. The difference between their approach, and the more politically careful one of the WCC and Catholic documents, indicates to me the reality of their repentant attitude. It enabled them to more greatly risk stepping off their theological foundations. 4. Other North American Documents Following are some examples of similar documents published by other Protestant North American denominations. These reveal a tendency to identify with the sufferings of the Jews, whether on a theological or social level. In 1964 the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA and the Bishops of the Episcopal Church called anti-Jewishness a poi39

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son with ‘causes of a political, national, psychological, social, and economic nature.’ It not only contradicts Christian doctrine, but obliterates the fact that Jesus was a Jew and that the Church is rooted in Israel, which means that spiritually Christians are ‘Semites’ (SS p.87) – a remarkable attempt to recover what is still and often a label of hate, through identification. Charging Jews with deicide distorts the ‘inner significance of the crucifixion’ since ‘in the dimension of faith all are guilty of death, since in some manner all denied him’. The identification becomes complete: no distinction separates Jew and Christian: the intent of God to save all through Jesus’ crucifixion abolishes such demarcation lines. The ambiguity of this all-in-the-same-boat position had yet to be understood. We find an interesting twist in the 1971 North Carolina State Baptist Convention Resolution on Anti-Semitism. Anti-Jewishness is unchristian and leads to the ‘brutal persecution of the Jews in numerous countries and societies’ (SS p. 109). HaShoah was the cruelest expression of ‘this spiritual malignancy’. Most Christians ‘have failed to take a sufficiently rigorous stand against anti-Semitism’. But, since ‘Baptists share with Jews a heritage of persecution and suffering for righteousness’ sake’, i. e. a history of religious oppression, they are obligated ‘to work positively ...for Jews who along with other men, are equally beloved of God’ (SS p.110). Again we have identification, only this time as victims. The ease of this solidarity is most likely based on the long historical tradition in which most New Englanders perceived the New World and their type of Christians as the new chosen land and people, the new Israel, freed at last from the Tyranny of moderate Tyrants to pursue their own form of intolerance – which included anti-Jewishness.30 At least here and now, in this document, Jews are not perceived as necessarily replaced or embracing Jesus, but as sharing in the love of the caring God of both communities.

30 Cf. the fascinating study by Garry Wills, Head and Heart: American Christianities (New York: The Penguin Press, 2007), especially his chapter on ‘The Puritan Psyche’.

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In 1972 the General Conference of the United Methodist Church published its Statement on Interreligious Dialogue between Jews & Christians. Since the Jewish faith perpetuates the hope and heritage which inspired Jesus, Jews and Christians are able to explore both commonalities and difference in the ‘relationship between the covenant of God with Israel and the covenant made in Jesus Christ’. The Methodists were quite pragmatic: ultimate solutions may never be achieved but mutual learning is always possible. ‘Dialogue which does not blink at differences of assumptions and interpretations of Scripture and faith, but which accentuates the fundamental agreement for the sake of service to society can be, in the Providence of God, a timely and fruitful...adventure’ (SS p.114-5). In 1982, the Texan Conference of Churches on Jewish-Christian Relations published Dialogue – a Contemporary Alternative to Proselytization. Attributing the new era of understanding to the movement of the Spirit, the Texans agreed that HaShoah summons them ‘to re-examine (and reform) their traditional understanding of Judaism and the Jewish people’. Jews are uniquely ‘called to faithfulness in fulfilling the command to witness to the world of the holiness of God’s Name.’ The Christian covenant extends this command to ‘Gentiles’, who should come humbly to Jews to learn of their ‘common calling as God’s covenanted people’, which means sharing ‘the experience of God’s redemptive presence in history’ (MSS p.186). Unique in the interfaith movement to that date, the Texans quite wisely – considering the complex path of the Christian faith – interpreted the contemporary turn to dialogue pneumatologically. They insisted that dialogue is the road not only to understanding the Jewish faith but also to the Spirit-led fulfillment of a common messianic hope for God’s reign. The Texan statement is one of the few to raise the messianic issue, albeit dealing with it in an eschatological rather than a christological context. In 1987, the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA) released a study which had been in preparation since 1981. Using the same imagery as Nostra Aetate, the document encourages Christians to return 41

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from supersessionism to Paul’s engraftment metaphor, as ‘Jews are already in a covenant relationship with God’.31 However, the Presbyterians do not overcome the tension between validating Judaism on the one hand and witnessing to Christ on the other: ‘We do not claim to fathom this mystery but we cannot ignore it.’32 As with the Catholic documents, ambiguity again was the result. The above documents accurately mirror the many fluctuating and conflicting currents in post-HaShoah theological circles. These include foundational, liturgical, educational and social issues, as well as varying attitudes toward the State of Israel. It is heartening that, clearly affected by personal encounters and the dialogue, each has abandoned the stereotypical anti-Christ Jew with whom Christians have dueled for two millennia. As Alice Eckardt pointed out with no trace of irony, the work being done since the Christian communities faced HaShoah is confirming the fact that the ‘so-called Jewish problem is in reality a Christian problem, and that it has always been so ....At stake is the church’s moral and spiritual integrity.’ 33 B. DIALOGUE AS META-FR AMEWORK: NEGOTIATING THE SHIFT FROM CONVERSION TO DIALOGUE he rise of dialogue as a formal ongoing activity on the part of the religions of the world has been relatively quick, considering the millennia of non-interference, active hostility or proselytization (forced or not) which preceded this century. How this occurred can be followed best with the dialogue between Jews and Christians as our case study.

T

31 A Theological Un derstanding of the Relationship between Christians and Jews, New York: Office of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA), 1987, p. 30. 32 Ibid, p. 9. 33 Alice Eckardt, ‘A Christian Problem: Review of the Protestant Documents’, in Croner, More Stepping Stones, p. 16.

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Traditionally, most Christians believe that they must proclaim Jesus Christ as God’s final word of salvation. As we saw above in many of the documents – especially in the early post-WWII years – the Great Commission has always been connected with the mission of Christians, individuals and communities. According to the author of Matthew, Jesus stood on a mountain just before his ascension and said: ‘Go…and make disciples of all nations’ (28:19). The last word was likely translated from the Aramaic one for ‘peoples’ or ‘tribes’ which became ‘gentiles’ – enough justification for its appropriation among non-Jews who heard the original Jewish call. The Great Commission has always been interpreted as inclusive – the first globalization of any kind, ironically starting from such an apparently powerless power-base. Only emperors or conquerors had historically been proud of holding the whole world in their hands. Now here is a Jew, from a power-lost people, about to be elevated to god-hood by his followers, who is recorded as looking beyond limiting horizons to a world-wide kingdom. When I go back in imagination to that first century when the author of this text included this messianic pericope, I marvel at the chutzpah. Did the author catch a glimpse of what was coming? Such juxtapositions of text with context is why – when we study church councils that, centuries later, decided certain texts were inspired – it pays to be careful when asking how they could be so sure. But as we saw in the documents, HaShoah has thrown such local or global missionizing, specifically of Jews, into doubt for many. As Alan Davies wrote (in the days before he became even more careful of his terms, as he explained to me): ‘Auschwitz... altered the criteria of theology forever’.34 The negative impact of Christian activities needed for the first time to be assessed, especially anything stemming from the interior logic of mission. ‘Something more profound is at stake than a...campaign designed to swallow the entire [earth’s popuation.... The quality

34 Alan Davies, Anti-Semitism and the Christian Mind: The Crisis of Conscience after Auschwitz (New York: Herder & Herder, 1969) p.190.

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of Christian discipleship is always a more authentic measure of the seriousness of the church’s faith.... How many converts did Jesus make...? The path of redemptive suffering which constituted the core of his messiahship was a matter with a different priority. Jesus was unconcerned with converting.....but deeply concerned with serving.... His ministry provides the church with its true pattern of mission.’35

Davies wrote this when discussing the nineteenth century’s ideal of winning the world (by then the Church knew how big it actually was) in one generation (which makes for even more chutzpah). That didn’t happen and isn’t likely to happen, given the current political and religious situation. But for the majority of Christians, even now, mission still means conversion. My research shows conclusively that non-participants in dialogue refuse the post-HaShoah shift; whether they see dialogue as threatening or useless remains to be learned from a more complete survey. Participants tend to allow some shift, and that amount tends to vary according to the community to which each participant belongs. 36 Yet dialogue theologians find their priorities changing, as their acceptance of specific Christian norms is challenged. As Gregory Baum mused: ‘Through dialogue with Israel we are forced to review our own understanding of the Church.’37 That Jews as a community have always refused to unite with Christians under the covenant given in Jesus’ name is becoming fully acknowledged in the Jewish-Christian dialogue – as well as the more painful realization that few Christians dared to stand with Jews during HaShoah. These two facts lead inevitably to a dilemma for Christian partners who believe

35 Ibid, p. 188. Cf. D. Howard, Declare His Glory among the Nations (Illinois: IVP, 1977); and R. M. Price, ‘An Evangelical Version of the ‘Double Covenant’: New Possibilities for Jewish-Fundamentalist Dialogue’, JEC 20:1 (1983) 36 R. Healey, ‘From Conversion to Dialogue: Protestant American Mission to the Jews in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries’, JEC 18:3 (1981). Cf. Jacob Jocz, The Jewish People and Jesus Christ after Auschwitz (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House 1981) 37 Gregory Baum, ‘Ecumenism and the Jews’, JEC 1:1 (1964).

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that acting out the Great Commission applies to all, including Jesus’ own people. But talking to Jews about Christ as messiah in the light of ages of Christian anti-Jewishness and the moral failures of the Nazi era is an obvious travesty not only to Jewish ears, but also for those who expect the Church to actually be the source of God’s love for all. These dilemmas have dominated the thought of Christian dialogue partners for the past four decades. Prolonged exposure to Jewish thought, both historical and contemporary, demands action. The result is a demand for continual re-evaluation of Jesus’ life and mission, as well as the Church’s history and mission.38 If on-going theological re-evaluation is – now more than ever – a necessity, on what basis are Christians theologically justifying dialogue instead of mission? For one thing, they are claiming that they deepen their understanding of God’s activity in the world: an important justification in itself. What if, however, the very essence of Christianity is challenged by a faith assumed to be antithetical to it? Dialogue then assumes existential dimensions. Obviously, it is not to be undertaken lightly or without due forethought of possible consequences. Moreover, to be successful, it must rest on pillars with Christian foundations. Even so, dialogue in general and the Jewish-Christian dialogue in particular is no small thing, but a dare without precedent in the history of the Church. In all interreligious dialogue, a primary pre-requisite is that those engaged in the process ‘believe in their own religion wholeheartedly’. Only someone who actively participates in what Christians would term the ‘mystery’ of a particular faith can explain it with any degree of depth to another person. In our specific case study of the Jewish-Christian

38 Cf. David Tracy, Dialogue with the Other: The Interreligious Dialogue (Grand Rapids: Peeters Press, 1990), for the effect on Christians of interaction with other faiths. On the re-evaluation of Jesus cf. James Charlesworth, ‘The Foreground of Christian Origins and the Commencement of Jesus Research’ and J.P. Meier ‘Reflections on Jesus-of-History Research Today’ in Charlesworth’s Jesus’ Jewishness: Exploring the Place of Jesus in Early Judaism (New York: Crossroad, 1991).

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dialogue, how does one prepare, what can one expect, how does one approach the other? Martin Buber, the well-respected Austrian-Israeli-Jewish religious philosopher, was advocating dialogue with Christians long before HaShoah. According to him the two faiths are different in kind: one focuses on the rebirth of individuals and the other on the rebirth of nations. Thus, having different intentions or missions, they can communicate with each other without annihilation of each other. Many after World War II have said that his detailed discussion of both faiths within these categories in Two Types of Faith39 is responsible for much of the success of dialogue in Europe and North America, because of the respect in which he is held by liberals of both faiths. In On Judaism40, he discusses the messianic concept as the most valuable contribution which Judaism has made to the world. He had hope that the time would come when each would turn and say something of help to the other.41 His I and Thou42 explores not only the way of dialogue with God, but also with each other. Dialogue of Buber’s type is separate from academic discussions in the study of religions. Unless the dialogue partners are committed to their personal faith perspectives (rather than or also of a particular academic position), the religious ‘truths’ which are claimed to be embodied in their traditions would not be communicated in a manner which does them justice, but would instead be mere topics for intellectual debate.43 With Buber offering a philosophical base for the two faiths to approach each other, it follows that Christians who engage in dialogue experience a 39 New York: Harper Torch Books, 1951 40 New York: Schocken Books, 1967 41 Cf. Lowell St reiker, ‘The Modern Jewish-Christian Dialogue’, JEC 2:2 (l965), pp. 179ff for a discussion of how the attitude to dialogue has evolved since Martin Buber, but how some dialogue is still seen as covert missionary effort. For a comprehensive review of interfaith dialogue to that date, see The Ecumenical Review #37 (1985). 42 New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1970 43 The question of truth will not be discussed. Quotes which contain assertions of truth are accepted as statements of faith from that particular view of reality. On dialogue as a method for the study of religion, see K. Klostermeier JEC 21:4 (1984) pp.755-9

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fundamental shift from the traditional approach of sharing their truth of Jesus in order to convert, to listening to the other’s truth. The Jew lets go of the assumption that the Christian is only there to convert, and becomes ready to share study of their mutual texts. One accepts the fact that the other person is entitled to choose differently and to maintain that choice in a life of faith. Both partners re-assess basic interpretations of God’s ongoing activity in the world.44 Proselytization and fear are abandoned as a new and different connection is established. For the Christian partners, the pillars of their faith must rest secure on their assumption of God’s faithfulness and the continual leading of the Spirit, since only such an assumption can enable the shift from conversion to dialogue for a Church accustomed to viewing its mission as conversion. The very act of agreeing to dialogue challenges both partners to search their traditions for alternate ways of viewing others.45 Christians who agree with the call for metanoia after HaShoah begin their dialogue with Jews on the basis of shared values, language and roots. Dialogue commences in a shared language and an agreement to use that language, or it is not dialogue. From such a beginning, the learning process itself enables Jews and Christians to justify the next steps as they become visible, as any mutually satisfying relationship is able to justify itself once the partners are engaged and committed. Nuances and disagreements can be dealt with in these later steps, not earlier ones – after trust is established.46 44 For detailed studies of the development of dialogue and its direct affect on theology see 1965-1995 articles in: SIDZ (Service Internationale de documenation judeo-christienne), Sisters of Sion, Rome; The Ecumenical Review, World Council of Churches Geneva; Christian Attitudes to Jews, Christian-Jewish Relations Institute of Jewish Affairs, London; Journal of Ecumenical Studies, Temple University Press, Philadelphia. 45 For a detailed, sensitive portrayal of the journey many Jews are making, see Alan Segal, ‘How to Respect Each Other: Lessons from Jewish-Christian Scholarship’ in James Charlesworth’s Overcoming Fear Between Jews and Christians (New York: Crossroad, 1992). 46 For a Jewish study of the process, see David Novak, Jewish-Christian Dialogue: A Jewish Justification, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989), specifically his Introduction which discusses the unique relation of each faith to truth through revelation.

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Based on my investigation, I have come to envision dialogue as a metaframework, an external structure distinct from, yet attached to, the various faith frameworks which it connects – in our case study, bridging the schism between the Jewish and Christian faith communities. Each community exists separately as an organic unit with its own internal consistencies and fallacies which have evolved, emerged and grown in time based on contextual origins and choices. The meta-framework provides the opportunity to build a bridge which allows the faiths to interact in such a fashion that they are not essentially changed, but can associate freely and voluntarily. Such a bridge, if well-used and used well, gradually becomes an organic unit itself. In some locales, where links have survived the tests of time and trust, an interactive interfaith network has evolved. But, while justification for dialogue based on a wider perspective of the activity of God in the world might become acceptable, this does not mean that partners are coming to regard dialogue as a necessity of the same importance as salvation or sacred text. The meta-framework is not sacrosanct. It is a contemporary measure adopted by representatives of various faiths to deal with the reality of a pluralistic globe, where nightmares such as HaShoah and Darfur47 are always potential consequences of that very technology which allows the communication between our parallel worlds. It is up to each faith community to decide how, or if, dialogue is truly necessary. The fact that some Jews and Christians do not yet agree to its necessity means that those involved must expect internal discussions to continue for decades before the issue is settled – if it ever is. While not speaking for all Jews (has any Jew ever had that much chutzpah?), Eugene Berkovits felt it appropriate to write, even in 1973: ‘For Jewry as a whole, an honest fraternal dialogue with Christianity is at this state emotionally impossible…..In the purely theological sense, nothing could be less fruitful and more pointless.’48

47 For information on the Darfur alliance of faith-based, humanitarian and human rights organizations, see www.savedarfur.org. 48 Faith After the Holocaust, (New York: Ktav, 1973). pp.44ff.

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To counter this painful pessimism, we have the activities of several Jewish organizations in the United States, Canada, France and Britain who have published dialogue guidelines. Secular as well as religious motivations have prompted such activities. For example, the dialogue in Montreal was started by the Canadian Jewish Congress (CJC) under the auspices of its Public Relations Committee, with the post-war intent to educate non-Jews about Jews. It was the initial connection of David Rome of the CJC with Father Stephane Valiquette, and their gentle negotiation efforts with ultra-suspicious colleagues, which brought that effort under the co-auspices of the Diocese of Montreal.49 In general, though, since 1965 Jewish-Christian dialogues have been organized mostly by Christian denominations, often working ecumenically, in North American and European cities with a sufficient population of Jews to foster rabbinic participation. It was these groups who discovered that the initial Guidelines based on Christian ecclesial documents were insufficient when faced with local conflicts. Trial and error, success and failure taught participants better ways in which to arrange their sessions. Soon pamphlets and books on the subject of dialogue in general, and the Jewish-Christian dialogue in particular, were in local circulation, which in turn affected later publications which are filled with these courageous examples of learning on the go.50

49 Cf. Canadian Jewish Congress National Archives (Montreal) Box 6. ZA 1.948/81; also Pour Se Participation au Dialogue Judeo-Chretien by Father Stephane Valiquette, S.J. (Montreal: Le Centre Canadien d’œcuménisme took over publication in 1990). 50 Cf. S.J. Sarnartha’s Courage for Dialogue (Geneva: World Council of Churches, 1981). In Canada, Pour Se Participation au Dialogue Judeo-Chretien by Stephane Valiquette, S.J. (Montreal: Le Centre Canadien d’œcuménisme took over publication in 1990). In the USA, Jewish-Christian Dialogues by Leonard Swidler and Marc Tanenbaum (New York: National Council of Catholic Men/Women, 1966) has been used extensively. For a study of dialogue growth in Catholicism see Robert Sheard, ‘Interreligious Dialogue in the Catholic Church since Vatican II’, Toronto Studies in Theology Vol.31 (Lewiston: Edwin Mellen Press, 1987). JEC 20:1 (1983). For dialogue in Israel (which often includes Moslems), see Guide to Interreligious Activities in Israel, published annually by Jerusalem’s Interreligious Coordinating Council and the World Alliance of Christian and Jewish Interfaith Organizations.

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Some impressive consequences were soon evident. The collaboration between Rosemary Ruether (Catholic) and Marc H. Ellis (Reform) in their work on the Palestinian/Israeli conflict showed what two partners could generate when neither partner’s communities were – officially at least – taking such an open and aggressive stance.51 However, both come from the moderate segment of their respective faith communities. Indeed, my research shows it is the liberals of all faiths who first seek to experience, then participate in, and finally encourage others into, the metaframework of dialogue. Jews who partner with Christians are Conservative or Reform, only rarely Orthodox, and never (as far as I know) B’nai Torah52. Christians have tended to come from what are now termed ‘Vatican II’ Catholic communities, Anglican/Episcopal, Lutheran, and other mainstream Protestant denominations. This stringently limits the variety of each faith’s influence on the other’s awareness, since though a Reform Jew might be willing tell Christians how a B’nai Torah would interpret a specific passage in Tanakh, it is not at all the same as if it came from a rabbi in that community – I know, since the faith path of one of my dialogue partners has gone from atheism as a youth, to a Reform stance when we first met, through Conservative, then Orthodox, and for two decades now as a B’nai Torah rabbi. In the same way, there is no way a Lutheran can be expected to fully (even if sympathetically) explain a Mormon position, or a Baptist – I know, since my own faith path started as Fellowship Baptist, went through Anglican, meditated in Rome and Jerusalem, and emerged from the Christian bounds in a parallel with Unitarian Universalism. The beneficial effect my dialogue partner and I still have on each other, though, points into to the reality of my presupposition – the activity of such dialogue cannot find a complete explanation without in some way allowing for the activity of the agent who moves us toward and into the loving core of what we cite as real living. 51 Beyond Occupation: American Jewish, Christian, and Palestinian Voices for Peace (Boston: Beacon Press, 1990) 52 The communal self-designation is ‘B’nai Torah’ not ‘Black Hat’ or ‘Ultra-Orthodox’.

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Despite this narrowness of exposure, by the early 1980s a sufficiently consistent pattern could be observed in the increasing networks of interreligious dialogues to prompt Leonard Swidler of Temple University into circulating his ‘The Dialogue Decalogue.’53 This was the first serious attempt (though yes, modeled on Sinai) to delineate a standard model for the evolving meta-framework. In summary, its basic points are as follows: 1) The primary purpose of any dialogue is to listen and learn. Each partner comes expecting to change and grow in one’s perception and understanding of reality. 2) Dialogue is two-sided, in community or between communities. 3) Each partner comes in as complete honesty and sincerity as possible, and assumes the others come in the same fashion. (This is very difficult, to say the least.) 4) Care must be taken not to compare ‘our ideals’ with ‘their practice’ since ‘they’ will never measure up (as would be the intent). Rather, ideals are compared with ideals, and practice with practice. 5) Each partner supplies his or her own faith self-definition. If an interpretation is given by another participant, the self-definition must co-relate with it. 6) No one comes with set assumptions on points of agreement or disagreement; such points evolve through open discussion. 7) Dialogue occurs between equals. 8) Dialogue takes place on the foundation of mutual trust, built on respect. 9) Partners must demonstrate self-critical abilities in relation to personal and traditional ideology or faith. (This is the hardest: each of us wants to be right!)

53 JEC 20:1 (1983)

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10) Each attempts to experience the partner’s perspective ‘from within’, as it were, by participating in communal rituals as a guest. By the 1970s those involved in the Jewish-Christian dialogue were attending religious celebrations in bath churches and synagogues, and by the 1990s such mutual involvement was common in the larger centres. Rabbis, priests and ministers often officiate jointly at marriage and burial services, work side by side in community charities, and teach classes together in each other’s synagogues and churches. Thus, at the practical level, our dialogue case study can be called successful. Many Christians now are more comfortable with Jews within their own and the other’s context of worship, and vice versa. One marvelous example of this kind of growing cooperation is recorded by Mary Boys and Sara Lee in their collaborative work Christians and Jews in Dialogue: Learning in the Presence of the Other. These two teachers share the results of decades of going to each other’s faith communities: ‘In teaching, we encounter “strangers” who may cause us disequilibrium. As uncomfortable as that can be, we have come to see that the encounter with the stranger is fundamental to the educational process.’ 54 Pragmatically, they are demonstrating that Swidler’s Decalogue and Buber’s I-Thou insights are grounded in the real converse of evolving awareness, both in groups and as individuals. However, at the theological level, success has been more elusive. Among Christians in particular, an element of confusion is often found concerning ‘self-definition’. Has the dialogue led to the kind of relativism feared by fundamentalist Christians? Specifically, has the Great Commission been gutted? If so, will the evangelical impetus which sustains Church growth peter out? Has evangelism as a facet of Christian identity been abolished? Such concerns have led to an exploration of the changing meaning of mission among concerned Christian dialogue theologians. This is where the process of re-evaluating theology based on the input from 54 Woodstock, Vermont: Skylight Paths Publishers, 2006, p. 93.

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one’s partners gets tough, because one is approaching one’s foundational assumptions. For example, the late David Stowe of United Church of Christ insisted that dialogue does not negate, but rather enlarges the original vision found in missionary history, in which he was a specialist.55 Stowe explained that in Paul’s speech in Acts 17:27, the apostle describes the God-given desire of the Athenians to search for God, and ‘perhaps grope for him and find him, although indeed he is not far from each one of us.’ Stowe regarded Paul’s insight as a precursor of today’s ecumenical movement, which focuses not on confessional adherence but on the ‘extension of Jesus’ teaching and spirit, of his vision of God and of God’s will for mankind.’ For Stowe, mission was not meant to attract new adherents into a mother community, but was directed toward global transformation: ‘the Church is not a colony of the saved but attempts to be a community of the saving.’ One purpose of dialogue for him was to allow non-Christians to see the changes which God effects through Christ. The other purpose of dialogue was to assist Christians to respect Judaism, the faith of which Christianity is the missionary version – a newer movement of the spirit of God toward world fellowship and the final Kingdom. Stowe, however, always assumed that the ‘end of history means the union of all in Christ.’ 56 Judaism was valued as the forerunner of Christianity but not as a separate faith valid in itself, which contradicts the principle in Swidler’s Decalogue that each dialogue partner treats the other as equal. This flaw was, I would contend, rooted in Stowe’s unwillingness to contextualize Paul’s and Jesus’ values as a specific Jewish understanding of their own origins and therefore separate from, even if not opposed to, transcendental universal values. Stowe did acknowledge that these values enabled them to resist more effectively the secularization of social systems in their day, and the evil which he assumed as an inevitable result of the 55 David M. Stowe, ‘A Contemporary Understanding of Mission from Protestant Orientation and Tradition’, p. 83, in Martin Cohen & Helga Croner, eds., Christian Mission Jewish Mission, (New York: Paulist Press, 1982). 56 Ibid, p.94.

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secularization process. So although Stowe departed somewhat from the traditional view of Judaism, his assumptions basically remained unaffected by Jewish self-identification. Another example of re-evaluation is supplied by Richard DeRidder of the Reformed Church, who argues from a modified Calvinist stance that God has always intended world salvation. To engage in dialogue is still to follow God’s providential purpose. The Jews were specially blessed by a covenant, and through Jesus that blessing came to non-Jews. In our time, dialogue replaces mission boards but not their deeper purpose. Christians should study Judaism in order to better understand how to accomplish this. DeRidder’s argument is carefully structured, cognizant of today’s situation and its distance from biblical times. He does enlarge the concept of mission so that Jews are allowed to remain as Jews, but Judaism as a faith has no independent validity and they someday will see that their messiah has already come. A supporter of Jews for Jesus, he insists Christians are still responsible to witness to Jews concerning Jesus and his coming kingdom. When Jews and Christians face the rest of the world together, they will share a special partnership; God affects the world through all faiths, but reaches out most clearly through the two ‘hands’ of Judaism and Christianity. The end which DeRidder anticipates is similar to Stowe’s: the ‘kingdom of love which we see manifested in Jesus Christ’ is coming. Christians must work with Jews and people of other faiths towards its realization. For such theologians, mission has evolved from a campaign to Christianize ‘the other’ into a partnership with Jews (and other faiths) to assist the world in healing and purifying itself both economically and politically by accepting the values inherent in both faiths. This will pave the way for that messianic kingdom which forms the core of their common eschatological hope, but which such Christians associate specifically with Christ’s return.57 57 Richard DeRidder, ‘A Reformed Evangelical Perspective Mission’, pp. 103-116, in Christian Mission-Jewish Mission; he argues from the works of Kenneth Cragg, A. Van Ruler, Johannes Verkuyl and Philip Segal.

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Is this change sufficient? Will dialogue work optimally if Christians assume they still possess the best comprehension of God’s plan? Most of the ecclesial documents in the last section, and the two theologians above, adopt this assumption. However, other theologians have proposed a more radical shift that involves re-thinking the initial concept of the universality of salvation through Christ on which the impetus for evangelization rests. Thus the third example of re-structuring we will example, and the most appropriate so far discussed for our purpose, comes from Michael McGarry, rector of Tantur Ecumenical Institute in Jerusalem, who writes: ‘One’s starting point is crucial to one’s missiology. If one starts from Christ’s mandate to preach miversally, one cannot arbitrarily make exceptions. But mission takes on a new cast when one begins with God’s will to save all. Mission becomes sharing the realization of what Christ has done for us. Salvation precedes mission, it does not follow it. Salvation is God’s work, not the missionary’s. One witnesses to the work of Christ, one does not cause it.’ 58

Using sacramental language and (with Vatican II) applying the ancient assumption of universal salvation based on the death and resurrection of Jesus, McGarry portrays the Jewish people as a divinely appointed channel who are reminding the Church of God’s faithfulness. Christians should not sabotage God’s intent by seeking the conversion of Jews. This stance should not be seen as ‘exception-making’, but rather as recognition of divine activity among non-Christians. McGarry prefers that the Church approach the question of Judaism from this perspective, instead of focusing on similarities between Christians and Jews such as desire for God’s kingdom, or on divisive differences such as the messianic issue. Since this is the one we will be looking at, it behooves us to humbly pay attention 58 Michael McGarry, CSP, ‘Contemporary Roman Cathalic Understanding of Mission’, p. 141, Christian Mission-Jewish Mission. Italics mine. He follows with a logical step: ‘The concept of God’s kingdom is common to Christians and Jews, but has less relevance in dialogue with others, i.e. Buddhists.’ Those interested in Tantur go to http://tantur.org.

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when such a scholar and engaged dialogue theologian as McGarry warns us about the potential dangers. However, with such an approach as McGarry advances, the metaframework of dialogue can function as Buber envisioned: dependant more on partner communities worshipping together than on a mutual theological consensus on the meaning of what they are doing. As we have just seen, then, much has been learned during the past five decades. The dialogue has acquired sufficient history to demonstrate both its positive and negative aspects. Relativization – the deepest fear of the conservative wing in any faith – is not inevitable. Dialogue not only involves listening, but also confrontation and disagreement in a dialectic which allows for modification of one’s position while not demanding it. Because of this, dialogue has become a discernibly preferred pattern in contemporary interreligious interaction. This pattern in turn is becoming a method for theology, as answers are sought to such difficult issues as mission or redemption.59 Intrigued by this developing method, four Christian dialogue theologians reflected on it together: John B. Cobb Jr., Paul Knitter, Leonard Swidler, and Monika Hellwig.60 The main highlights of their discussion below present the advantages and disadvantages of dialogue as experienced thus far in Christian communities. John Cobb describes the central axiom of Christian faith as belief in a truth entrusted by God, commitment to which exacts obedience: it must be proclaimed to all, including dialogue partners. He is very explicit about this dynamic: ‘We cannot have dialogue without confrontation, for others must understand that we have something to say to them. But sheer confrontation dedicated to their destruction, or to the destruction of the wisdom they embody, no longer seems faithful to Christ. We confront with the conviction that others have something to say to us – that we need to listen as well as to speak.’ 59 Cf. ‘Dialogue, the Way Toward Consensus’, JEC 17:1(1980, complete issue) 60 Death or Dialogue? From the Age of Monologue to the Age of Dialogue (Philadelphia: Trinity Press Int. / London: SCM Press, 1990)

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The possibility that such a proclamation could be destructive to the dialogue is high, but Cob is convinced that if proclaimed in a way that allows the other to discern primary concerns, it need not have an adverse effect. Dialogue implies acknowledging the value of each faith, axiomatic for a process theologian such as Cobb. Disagreement within dialogue should enrich both parties in the mutual search for a higher truth. ‘The inner impulse of dialogue is to proceed to that point at which the central intentions and convictions of both partners can be affirmed without contradiction.’ Since the Christian believes that ultimate truth resides in God, Cobb asserts that there can be no truth alien to God. Therefore, even though the wisdom of another faith seems at first exclusive, there will of necessity be a point of intersection between the wisdom of both faiths. The long internal history of criticism, schism, and re-unification in every faith encourages this belief, proffering hope that some cohesion can also be found between the faiths as the bridges of dialogue are crossed and re-crossed. ‘The goal in this case is to discover the identity of insight underlying diversity of expression.’ For Cobb, deciding to fight the world’s evil together supplies this commonality. Non-Christians do have different understandings of ultimate reality, but ‘[t]here can be little doubt that Christianity and Islam are focusing on the same aspect of reality as Judaism. They have learned from Judaism to attend to God.’ By now attending also to each other, they assist in the purification of each other’s vision, not its abandonment. All are enriched through such dialectical encounters. The trust with which each first approached the other is validated, and each matures in faith by learning through mutual witness. Cobb agrees that the surrender of the supersessionist idea when other faiths are acknowledged may seem a betrayal. But once it is understood that doxological statements (‘Jesus is Lord’, ‘no other Name’) are not absolute and salvific in themselves but symbols of how the first Christians responded to God, non-absolute statements become possible. Christians with high christologies should not be excluded: partners should hear all variations on each other’s themes. Otherwise, perception is biased in favour of one interpretation. 57

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It is his deep faith in a God truly acting in and through all faiths which allowed Cobb in a later work to accept the reality that dialogue may so transform a partner that conversion out of Christianity is possible: ‘Such displacement of Jesus is not to be rejected a priori in the name of Christian faith. On the contrary, faith expresses itself in action whose consequences we cannot anticipate. If faithfulness to Jesus leads to the displacement of Jesus from centrality, then such displacement is itself faithful.’61 Paul Knitter follows Cobb to offer the theocentric model for religious pluralism from his well-known book, No Other Name? 62 In this conversation, he builds on top of that a soterio-centric model, since some religions do not possess a theology as such (i.e. a God-centred faith), but each in some sense seeks the liberation of humanity. For Christians, liberation occurs in the ‘salvation’ (hence ‘soterio-centric’) offered through Jesus. Dialogue allows participants to share what salvific light each has for the sake of mutual illumination. Through this sharing (which might involve denouncing elements in others which are diagnosed as contributing to the world’s misery) the participants can work out practical methods of confronting global issues. Knitter identifies Cobb’s ‘primary concern’ as the need to work for the welfare of all, especially the oppressed and poor, as ‘this was Jesus’ attitude and should be ours.’ Knitter’s stress, then, is on the saving power mediated by the name of Jesus, not in the exclusivity of that name. If in dialogue one finds that this power of liberation is then experienced through other names, then the spirit of this phrase (‘no other name’, Acts 4:12) would call the listener to be open to them. ‘Whatever can genuinely heal a cripple mediates this power....If in our interreligious dialogue we can agree that our first concern is not the primacy of our names or the accuracy of our doctrines but, rather, the healing of cripples, we will grow in our ability to understand

61 John B. Cobb Jr., ‘Toward Transformation.’ in Leonard Swidler and Paul Mojzes, eds., The Uniqueness of Jesus: A Dialogue with Paul F. Knitter (Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 1997), p. 92. 62 Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 1985

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and to call on each others’ names. And in this process, our race and our earth will be healed.’ There is agony and confusion when Christians are called to surrender their age-old assumption of the superiority of Jesus’ name, Knitter knows. At the Catholic Theological Society of America 1996 session, he shared with me the distress his models were causing in his Catholic community. But, since his first had been the basis for much of the successful experimental work done in dialogue to that point, he was hopeful that this would occur again. His current writing project, from his position in Union Theological Seminary, is entitled Without Buddha I Could Not Be A Christian: A Personal Journey of Passing Over and Passing Back. So, at least for him, this model is working. It is based on the commitment which he assumes is central to each faith, which empowers its adherents to fight evils such as hunger and oppression. The necessity of Jesus’ unique mission, and thus of the Church, is clarified by centring on the ‘need to save’ instead of the ‘need for this saviour’. Leonard Swidler, reflecting on his Decalogue, takes his turn by musing that dialogue may seem to those outside only an academic exercise of heads, but it isn’t so. Those involved are also committed to using their hands and hearts. ‘Encounter with our partner must eventually include the depth of the spiritual dimension, or superficiality is inevitable. The goal is authentic change, the kind which opposes what threatens life and supports what brings harmony. Change is part of life; dialogue can help direct it into channels of cooperation, as participants give up misinformation about each other and learn to work together through this purification process.’ Monika Hellwig, the final conversant, described dialogue as a way to participate in the human quest for truth evident in all societies. But the unfortunate part of dialogue – and here she was right on target – is that it tends to isolate participants from their parent communities. There is little opportunity to channel what has been learned back to those supporting the dialogue, since that involves time. Most congregants don’t have the kind of time scheduling available to those ministering to them through 59

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pulpit or as professors. Because dialogue works – almost too well – as a means of growth for those who are participating, tensions arise with those who are not. To balance this, Hellwig proposed three dialogues instead of one: the interaction between partners of different faiths; the interaction between participating colleagues; and a third dialogue of participants and their communities. This three-way dialogue would offset a tendency for the dialogue ‘community’ to replace the community from which partners initially emerged. This would encourage theologians to remain within what she viewed as their proper religious context. Invitations into other faith communities broaden the vision of the theologian. The act of faith which creates dialogue in the first place softens normal partner tendencies to exclusivism and polemic. The resulting correction of partners’ distorted views enhances freedom for deeper interaction with those speaking another faith language. One becomes aware that human experience is the common starting point, while the common end is ‘the transcendent ultimate’. The published discussion between the four above allowed for a final response to each. As can be expected, Knitter was uneasy with Hellwig’s assumed ‘end’. Despite being in the same faith community, their theological journeys energized by dialogue did not parallel each other. Such awareness makes the whole process a fascinating and exciting one. You can’t anticipate where you’re going to ‘end’ up! Once a nun and then a mother of adopted children, an obedient follower of her God rather than of the Vatican which she stood against publicly if she disagreed, Hellwig died three years ago in harness, her ‘end’ one which Knitter could well accept: doing her best by the light which illuminated her. These four, and McGarry, demonstrate the courage it takes to venture out onto the new slender arches spanning the gulfs between the faiths of our globe. Their linking forms the extant meta-framework of dialogue. Trust is slow to grow, within and between partners, but the rewards have been beyond initial expectations. It is their work, and others like and with them, who are adapting Buber’s motto: ‘through the Thou a person becomes I’. They approach the ‘other’ supported only by the tentative theo60

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logical steps taken by their respective communities. This encourages each group of dialogue partners to build even stronger connections, while at the same time investigating their communal assumptions. C. INITIAL CHRISTIAN ATTEMPTS TO APPROACH JESUS AS JEW ow that we have learned that interreligious dialogue itself is working, we can ask: is it possible to discuss within the metaframework of dialogue the deep issues that separate partners as well as the ones that unite? Specifically, in our case study, many Christians and Jews are now ready to approach each other without the innate prejudices which led too many Christians to accept Jewish genocide in HaShoah, and too many Jews to ban any interaction with Christians except for necessary commerce. Now that the dialogical approach has been engaged, can the partners approach the central core of their division: the Jew called Jesus who became the Christ of the Church? To find out, we will now examine one partner in this case study and survey several Christian theologians who have allowed HaShoah and their experience of the Jewish-Christian dialogue to deeply affect their search for anti-Jewishness in scripture, covenant, mission – and, finally, christology. One lesson so far learned from the Jewish-Christian dialogue, as Hellwig warned, is that a more radical theological transformation is required than most Christian communities are ready to make. Some dialogue theologians are convinced that it is insufficient merely to allow space for Judaism in a schema primarily informed by existing christological assumptions. This produces too much tension when confronted with the realities of Jewish self-identification. Hence, as McGarry indicated, one abandons traditional doctrines of the universality of salvation only through Christ in order to witness to the work of Christ.63

N

63 McGarry, op. cit., p. 141.

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But to do so creates new tensions: to whom does one witness? And of whom, or of what, is one witnessing? Since the first ecclesial documents appeared in the 1960s, a few theologians in North America have attempted to respond to this difficult issue by embarking on a search for a new path of renewal, a path to which the documents point but onto which their authors are reluctant to step. These experimental theologians also seek to remain faithful to Christianity, but realize that faithfulness no longer means reiterating old truisms. As an example: Armida Viglio presents the results of dialogic interaction on mission and witness with the succinct conclusion: ‘Israel’s mission, then, is to lead other peoples to monotheism, not to lead them to become Jews…to be a witness to the covenant. God will bring all peoples into his kingdom at the end of time. The Christian approach values witness, but sees proclamation of Christ as essential.’64 In fact, the histories of Judaism and Christianity – and any faith that continues to serve its community – are full of continual re-interpretation. Each generation comes back to its sources in light of its pressing questions. In our day, a re-interpretation allowing Jews to see Christians and Christians to see Jews as they see themselves is the dominant need. The influence of one of this group of re-interpreters has been and continues to be the most far-reaching of those we will survey. ‘Rosemary Ruether’s writings, especially her volume Faith and Fratricide, have brought the issue to a head for me,’ reports John Pawlikowski.65 Ruether argues that Christian texts and especially the gospels themselves – not later theology – constitute the root of Christian anti-Judaism, creating what she terms a ‘left hand’ to christology. So strong is the impact of her 1974 book that every subsequent work in this field makes some reference to it – it is impassable.66 64 Armida Valgio, ‘The Sense of Mission in Judaism and Christianity’ in Stanley E. Porter & Brook W. R. Pearson, editors, Christian-Jewish Relations through the Centuries, Journal for the Study of the New Testament, Supplement Series 192: Rothampton Papers 6 (Shefield UK: Shefield Academic Press, 2000), pp. 466, 471. 65 John T. Pawlikowski, Christ in Light of the .Jewish-Christian Dialogue, New York: Paulist Press, 1982, p.3. 66 Most notably, Alan Davies presented articles responding to Ruether in Antisemitism and the Foundations of Christianity, (New York: Paulist Press, 1979)

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1. 1965-1974 Prior to Ruether’s book, theologians struggling with the implications of HaShoah tended to agree that anti-Jewish ideas in post-biblical Christian theology partially set the stage for it. With regard to Scripture itself, Bruce Vawter spoke for many when he argued that Passion narratives may contain polemical material but such polemics were characteristic of an era of conflict between Jews that ‘cannot be translated away’. They reflect inter-family quarrels in which Jesus was involved, and should not be read as indicative of a bias of the authors (and therefore God) against Jews.67 His view corresponded to that of the one Gregory Baum held pre-1974. Vawter credited Baum as the first to attempt to correct common ‘misunderstandings’ of the gospel attitude. Baum demonstrated respect for the sources by insisting that their proper reading and appropriate catechetical teaching would instill respect for Jews. 68 But one reviewer, Arthur Gilbert, found offensive Baum’s description of Jews eventually accompanying’ Christians within God’s plan.69 An attempt at ‘translating away’ offensive passages by Dagobert Runes70 substituted ‘the people’ for ‘the Jews’ in key passages; and several Passion sentences were dropped. For me, such work undercuts historical context – the core of the method I will be offering. The works which became Christianity’s sacred texts were written at a certain time in a certain situation: allow the authors their own words. An alternative to substitution could be to insert commentaries beside the text, as in the Seder. Hearing rabbis argue across the centuries over the passages gives Judaism much of its complexity and richness. Why not treat the Christian scriptures in such a transparent fashion? In this way exegetes (who like exact linguistic translation), feminists (who like ‘She’), fundamentalists (who like intra-

67 Bruce Vawter, ‘Are the Gospels Anti-Semitic?’ JEC 5:3 (1968), p 476. 68 Gregory Baum, Is the New Testament Anti-Semitic? (New York: Paulist Press, 1965) 69 JEC 3:3, 1966 70 The Gospel According to St. John (New York: Philosophical Library, 1967)

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textual consistency), and writers across the millennia could actively interact within the framework which the reader holds. Another example is Peter Chirico, who wanted to preserve the messianic fulfillment theme of the Christian texts while also acknowledging the biblical basis for fulfillment within Judaism. His point was that Jewish fulfillment is not as complete as Christian fulfillment, but antagonism to Jews based on a sense of superiority is evil, unsupported by the Bible, and must be ‘extirpated in practice and theology’.71 Chirico illustrates that untenable theological straddling of the gulf between Jew and Christian we met in the documents: anti-Jewishness is evil, but Christians have ‘more’ in God’s eyes because they know who the messiah is. His view basically taught that Jews aren’t evil, just stupid – well, to be polite, ignorant. AntiJewishness is supposedly invalidated, but so is Jewish hope. It is at this juncture that both partners consider the other – misguided. Who would listen to this? To tell the other that their community has been stumbling along the wrong path for over two millennia is quite a judgment for either partner to make – and in dialogue this judgment tends to sit quietly behind many a question or statement. One can see the need for forthright and humble dialogue. The theology of covenant was a major initial topic among dialogue theologians. Elwyn Smith argued that Christians should not seek conversion of Jews (among whom God may be doing something unseen by the Church) but rather their own reform, realizing that Christianity has moved dangerously far from its Jewish roots. They must acknowledge, as did Nostra Aetate, not only that God’s covenant with Jews is unconditional, but that Jews are not ‘Christ-killers’. Also, they must ‘affirm the Old Testament faith as one’s own’ so God can ‘heal the earliest and most dreadful schism in his covenant community.’ He called the Catholic Church brave to face its centuries of anti-Jewishness when at that point in time, his Protestant Church had done little. Looking back to those de-

71 Peter Chirico, ‘Christian and Jew Today from a Christian Theological Perspective’, JEC 7:4 (1970) p. 746.

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cades, we can marvel at Smith’s courage: ecumenical dialogue itself was barely beginning, and giving such a nod to the enemy was outside the scope of designated spiritual activity. However, his criticism helped get his own group going.72 Hellwig explored the deeper implications of two peoples claiming an exclusively valid covenant with God. She argued that the ‘ideological patterns in which Christian beliefs have been elaborated’ falsely rendered the earlier covenant obsolete. These patterns need to be re-thought and reshaped to acquire communal integrity and coherence. Early interpretations in story and ritual were taken too literally, leading to a ‘switch from the indicative to the imperative’. Basing her conclusion on the conviction that revelation is not finished but continuing, she drew attention to the fact that key concepts such as ‘Jesus is Lord’ were doxologies originating in the messianic expectations of the first Christians. The Jewish difficulty with Christian claims concerning the: divinity of Jesus as Christ should lead to a re-evaluation of the underlying Christian assumptions of God. Dialogue had taught her to listen to Jewish voices. A Catholic who wished to safeguard the mystery of what God has done and continues to do in Jesus as Christ, she nevertheless emphasized strongly the need to reinterpret communal comprehension.73 Hellwig went on to other concerns, but the impact of the JewishChristian dialogue is discernable in her small volume Jesus the Compassion of God: New Perspectives on the Tradition of Christianity.74 She used the Exodus theme of liberation to teach the meaning of Jesus for today: liberation from forces and priorities of the world to a radically new way of relating with others, a way rooted in the compassion of God. The University of Chicago’s J. Coert Rylaarsdam argued that the paradox of two covenants formed a necessary tension between the two faiths which dialogue could bridge. In other words, he liked the stretching 72 Elwyn Smith, ‘Jews and Christians’, JEC 1:2 (1964) pp.504-7. 73 Monika Hellwig, ‘Christian Theology and the Covenant of Israel’ JEC 7:1(197 0) pp.3851; also, ‘Why We Still Can’t Talk’, New Catholic World, Vol.217 #1297 (1974) pp.39-42. 74 Wilmington DE: Michael Glazier Inc. 1983

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forced upon individuals and communities who have chosen to engage across a gulf.75 Most scholarly work in this first decade concentrated on Christian anti-Jewishness itself, its history and its impact on Jews and Christians, rather than its theological roots. For example, Pawlikowski was beginning to explore the links between the historical Jesus and the Pharisaic movement, wanting to deal with the difficulties Jews still face.76 But Eckardt demanded forceful revisionary work. Dialogue must destroy the attitude that ‘Jewish people are to be comprehended primarily as raw material for conversion’. There is no silence allowed for individual or community on this issue. He argued that the Jewish refusal of Jesus as messiah was part of God’s plan of salvation: Jesus, a Jew, was always meant by God to be the basis of the Christian message of salvation. This is the ‘stern fact’ that unites and separates Jew and Christian. Does one let go of Torah, as Paul did? or of the unique necessity of Jesus?77 ‘A means of living with the church’s heart-rending problem is found in the providence of God who, so to say, prepared his people in disparate ways for his coming, to the end that the Messiah would not be a purely Jewish Messiah... but would be the “Savior of the world”. Had the Jewish people as a whole come to acknowledge Jesus as the Christ, how could the covenant have been opened to the nations?’78 Eckardt saw the unfolding of God’s will within history as including both Torah and gospel, but his effort to argue for this is flawed. If God ‘intended’ Jews to reject Jesus in order to bring in non-Jews, why did the 75 J. Coert Rylaarsdam, ‘Jewish-Christian Relationship: The Two Covenants and the Dilemmas of Christology’, JEC 9:2 (1972), pp. 249-65. Cf. Alex C. Michalos (UNBC), ‘The best teacher I ever had was...J. Coert Rylaarsdam’, Teaching Business Ethics, 1 (1997), pp.93-95, re-published in Rylaarsdam’s honour after his death in 1998. 76 Cf. John T. Pawlikowski, ‘The Church and Judaism: The Thought of James Parkes’ JEC 6:4 (1969), pp. 573-97; also his ‘The Bi-Polar Experience’, New Catholic World. Vol. 217 #I297 (1974), pp. 43-47. 77 A. Roy Eckardt, Elder and Younger Brother: The Encounter of Jews and Christians, (New York: Chas. Schribner & Sons, 1967), p. 14 78 Ibid, p. 143

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Spirit not ‘inform’ both communities, instead of ‘allowing’ a schism to develop? This kind of pre-determinist logic is meant to honour God’s faithfulness to ‘his people’ (both sets). But it neither allows for consistent activity of the Spirit claimed by both communities, nor freedom of choice at either the communal or individual level. He reads history only through the sacred texts of both communities, and only with hindsight, and declares that what happened was meant to happen. While Eckardt’s historicization strains credibility, his intent is laudable; to assist two long-separated peoples to come to terms with each other, by recognizing God’s activity as present within both communities. If and when this occurs, Christians will stop their disparaging of Torah, and Jews will stop denigrating the saving activity of God through Jesus. ‘All men are now granted the opportunity, so to speak, to become Jews, that is, to enter into the Covenant.’79 This phrase corresponds to the earlier ‘spiritual Semite’ used in the Catholic Church’s 1985 Notes. Since the familial and genetic aspect of Judaism is important, I would not recommend spiritualization of it in such phrases. Since Eckardt wants to honour the Jewish tradition, then the category of ‘righteous Gentile’ might correspond. However, it still emphasizes the distinction between Jew and non-Jew which Eckardt seems to wish to erase in his hope that both faiths will enlarge their scope to include the concept of divine election as it unfolds providentially for Jews through Israel’s Torah, and for non-Jews through the Christian church. Eckardt’s picture is of a Judaism chosen to face inward to its own people, and of a Church chosen to face outward to all other peoples. Again, he makes a theological necessity of Christianity’s development into a world religion after a very delayed parousia. He misses the fact that the inwardlooking tendency of Judaism rested as much on historical events as faith choice. Also, as we will see, his conclusions on the messianic positions of the first century are now very dated. However, Eckardt’s suspicion that merely acknowledging biblical antiJewish polemic was not enough to lead to healing between the dialogue

79 Ibid, p. 143.

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partner communities, turned out to be accurate. He adopted a radical critique of the gospels themselves, adamantly disagreeing with Baum and all others who at this time were calling anti-Jewishness a ‘mistaken’ interpretation of the biblical texts. He insisted that the texts themselves were ‘the major dogmatic and existential barrier to any victory over antisemitism.’.80 ‘Every instance of Christian antisemitism in post-biblical history is directly or indirectly traceable to the events or reputed events recorded in the New Testament ....The line from the New Testament through the centuries of Christian contempt for Jews to the gas ovens and crematoria is unbroken.’81 Eckardt demonstrated clearly that Christians have failed to reconcile three realms of reality: historical fact (with which as we saw he had trouble himself), theological claims, and moral action. What was called ‘truth’ too often eliminated ethics. The Bible was swallowed whole as reliable history instead of being appreciated as a collection of writings with many viewpoints and inherent contradictions. As a result, the paradox of Christian texts using the Hebrew Scriptures while condemning Jews ensured that Christ’s law of love was rarely if ever applied in the direction of his own people. Believing that he had discerned the force behind the collective shadow of Christianity, Eckardt concluded that this anti-Jewish war was a Satan-inspired psychological rejection of the Jew Jesus.82

80 A. Roy Eckardt, Your People, My People: The Meeting of Jews and Christians, (New York: Quadrangle, 1974), p.13. 81 Ibid, p.13. Later works associate Ruether with this link, but it was made first among Christian theologians by Eckardt. Since their books came out the same year, this link was likely self-evident in the field. Eckardt cites Jules Isaac as source for terminology, op. cit., but Berkovits should also be noted, op. cit. 82 Eckardt’s subsequent writings until his death in 1998 are on liberation theology: Blackwoman-Jew: Three Wars for Liberation (Bloomington: Indiana Press, 1989); Reclaiming the Jesus of History (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1992) in which he explored several liberating images of Jesus.

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2. 1974: Faith and Fratricide Rosemary Radford Ruether built upon the earlier foundational work of Alan Davies and Roy Eckardt.83 Her observations were not unique, but the original way in which she cast the problem caught attention and guaranteed responses – both negative and positive. The title of her book, Faith and Fratricide: The Theological Roots of Anti-Semitism,84 points straight at the paradox that she exposes at Christianity’s base: the gospel is both the source of deep faith (its ‘right hand’) and deep hatred of Jews (its ‘left hand’). This book has become synonymous with the watershed which HaShoah now represents for theology: few knew of her before, although she had published on this topic;85 no one has been able to ignore her since. As James Parkes put it so well: ‘It is possible for a rapid or careless reader to fail to see the terrific implications of her sixth point [courses for clerics to overcome anti-Jewish language] ...Is not [lack of] this the reason that Jews are treated differently? ....It is her insistence that we face this fact that justifies [the book’s] existence [but] as a book it is written too hastily and as a scholarly work, it is too slipshod. It is not surprising that enemies can have a lovely time, pointing out these failings. But the courageous challenge that she issues is unaffected by them. And the truth of her challenge they cannot deny. It is dishonest henceforth to refuse to face the fact that the basic root of modern antisemitism lies squarely in the Gospel and the rest of the New Testament.’ 86 Using her historical training, Ruether examined the negative image of Jews in Greek and Roman myth, the Christian scriptures, and the Church Fathers. She demonstrated how this negativity was incorporated into the

83 Cf. Alan Davies, Antisemitism & Foundation; Parkes’ introduction 84 New York: Crossroads / The Seabury Press, 1974 85 Cf. ‘An Invitation to Jewish-Christian Dialogue: In what sense can we say that Jesus was the Christ?’, The Ecumenist 10 (1972); ‘Anti-Judaism is the Left Rand of Christology’, New Catholic World, 217 (1974) 86 Davies, op. cit, pp. x-xi.

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social and legal structure of the Church. She argued that a triple schism runs through Christian thought to its foundations: first, a split between the acceptance of God’s promises and the rejection of the prophetic critique; second, a split between the acceptance of universal salvation and rejection of the particularities through which salvation is enacted; and third, a split between the acceptance of the Spirit, the Law-giver, as property of the Church, and the rejection of the ‘letter’ of the Law, which supposedly blinded the Jews to their messiah. Ruether sought to heal this triple schism with radical surgery by cutting to the theological bone – to the basic structure of the gospel, which she interpreted as radical messianism. She accused Paul and the Johannine school of caricaturing ‘Jews’ as demonic because they did not accept Jesus as God’s messiah. Following this, she alleged that Christianity, by using a Platonic incarnational non-historical theology, soon became a spiritualized eschatological schema of salvation in which the work of Jesus as Christ superseded Judaism. The cure which she advocated was a paradigmatic and proleptic ‘not yet’ approach to the messianic activity of Jesus: God’s salvation is partial, still unfulfilled. Baum, in his introduction to Ruether’s book, admitted that his previous efforts had not penetrated to the root cause of anti-Jewishness. He accepted her radical view that its texts are responsible for Christianity’s anti-Jewishness, and almost came to the point which the Eckardt’s had been advocating for a decade: of HaShoah as a revelatory event.87 He was the first, but far from the last, to be influenced by her critique of the assumptions on which the supposedly inviolable doctrine of christology rest. She had kicked out the comfortable supports from the bridges the dialogue and documents had so far built to span the gulf between Christian and Jew, charging that it required deeper basic digging – down and into the rock on which the Church had been built.

87 Ibid, pp.8-9.

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CONCLUSION: THE DIALOGUE AT AN IMPASSE

debate sometimes reaches an impasse in which the emergent gulf between the opposing sides seems unbridgeable, at least based on the work to that point. As Ruether pointed out in no uncertain terms, the ‘impasse’ for Jews and Christians has been historically reached with the question of Jesus’ messiahship.88 The Christian says yes the messiah came, since Jesus was resurrected. The Jew says no the messiah has yet to come, since the world is not yet redeemed. To enlarge on Ruether’s metaphor, I am calling this messianic impasse the high point of Christianity’s metaphorical Great Divide. As you recall, this Divide separates the post-HaShoah theologians from all those previously who had not realized the true implications of the anti-Jewish element within christology. As well, it separates present theologians who have not allowed HaShoah to affect their conclusions. For post-HaShoah dialogue theologians, to accept Judaism as valid includes accepting its interpretation of its own concepts. And as Pawlikowski notes, any reclamation of Jesus as Christ includes the recognition of his history as a Jew:

A

‘There certainly remains a profound gulf theologically between Christianity and Judaism because of Jesus the Christ. And this will likely be so for a long time, perhaps forever, at least in terms of human history. But our task now is to really begin to think of how we can put together our understanding of the Jew, Jesus, together with a positive affirmation of the role of the Jewish people as our co-partners in the process of human salvation, with a constructive Christological statement. This is our task;

88 Cf. “Anti-Judaism the Left Hand...”, New Catholic World, p. 13

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it is one for which there are as yet no new theological models that have won widespread acceptance.’89

Four dialogue theologians have stood at the top of the Divide and produced sensitive christologies in light of HaShoah. Pawlikowski, Ruether, Paul Van Buren and Bernard Lee will be examined. Have any of them managed to point out a way to traverse the messianic impasse that prevents Jews and Christians from traveling the distance, from standing with each other without sacrificing the integrity of either faith?

89 John Pawlikowski, ‘Christ in Light of the Jewish-Christian Dialogue’, p. 22, Proceedings of the Centre for Jewish-Christian Learning (St. Paul: College of St. Thomas, Vol. 2, Spring 1987).

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INTRODUCTION: URGENCY OF THE QUESTION

efore turning to the four North American theologians who have made it to the height of the Divide, let’s consider two prominent European pioneers into this area: the Belgian Dominican Edward Schillebeeckx and the German Protestant Jürgen Moltmann. It is fitting to acknowledge them, since once these two eminent and influential theologians allowed post-HaShoah insights to affect their own christologies, the problem of Christian antiJewishness received global attention. Moltmann and Schillebeeckx have struggled to cleanse theology of its anti-Jewish elements, and are among the first to use exegetical materials in their revisions. To some degree they have been successful, and to some degree they laid the groundwork for the American theologians. Schillebeeckx examined the ‘ready-to-hand Jewish models of latter-day salvific figures’ prevalent before Jesus’ time, and argued that they represented two strains of messianism. The first model was the apocalyptic political restoration of the Davidic Line; the second extended the first with a prophetic hope that the scion of this line would be a universal ruler who would bring the message of God’s wisdom to all peoples. The common denominator of these two models was use of the Davidic title ‘son of God’.90 Assuming that all messianic material in inter-testamental literature could be incorporated into these two models, Schillebeeckx concluded that

B

90 Edward Schillebeeckx, Jesus: An Experiment in Christology, translated by Hubert Hoskins (London: Collins, 1979), pp. 441-458.

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the phrase ‘son of God’ was used among most Jews at the time as an image of universal salvation. Although his christology rests on the ‘abba’ experience of Jesus, which he claimed differentiated him from other Jewish teachers, Schillebeeckx wanted to show that early Christian use of ‘messiah’ and ‘son of God’ titles was legitimate on the part of Jews who were interpreting their tradition in an appropriate way. His reading of these messianic titles renders them no more pertinent or necessary than any other title, and therefore not essential to a renewed christology designed to eradicate anti-Jewish elements. Although many of his conclusions are based on an insufficient comprehension of the varying faith positions in Judaism, as well as Jewish interaction with Hellenism, Schillebeeckx’s work has legitimated the Jewish context of Jesus for Christians, especially by linking Jesus’ ‘abba’ experience with the God of Israel.91 John Pawlikowski honours Schillebeeckx as one of the first major Catholic theologians to find a positive place for Judaism within Christian theology. Pawlikowski agrees that is always difficult to argue for a unique position for Jesus while at the same time advocating acceptance of Judaism. Schillebeeckx attempted to do this by retreating from the stance of traditional supersessionism, which regards Jesus as the complete and final fulfillment of messianic Jewish prophecy. Instead, he assigned Jesus a proleptic and anticipatory messianic role in relation to God’s final kingdom, and discussed the final days from that perspective.92 According to Schillebeeckx, supersessionism arose out of the shift from Jewish to Greek motifs in the young faith’s attempt both to survive after 70 CE, and its effort to prove itself superior to Judaism. Thus, the 91 For a discussion of Schillebeeckx vis-à-vis the dialogue, see Jacoba Kuikman, Christology in the Context of Jewish-Christian Relations: the Contribution of Edward Schillebeeckx (PhD thesis, University of St. Michael’s College, Toronto, 1994). Kuikman, claiming that too many dialogue theologians relativize Jesus’ uniqueness; argues that the Jesus presented by Schillebeeckx is unique as well as a Torah Jew, and the early Church was a new creation as well as a Jewish phenomenon. 92 Pawlikowski, ‘New Trends in Catholic Religious Thought’, p. 18, and p. 186, in Fisher, Twenty Years.

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growing division between church and synagogue was a necessary part of the process of self-identification. While he agrees that a sociological perspective for analyzing the necessary division of the faiths is welcome and insightful, Pawlikowski prefers to acknowledge the theological perspectives of both faiths: in particular (his own stance), the Pharisaic revolution. Quite impressed by the exegetical labour exhibited by Schillebeeckx (unusual for a theologian, and as I learned, a surprise to experts in both areas), Pawlikowski points out that it was his historical investigation which enabled Schillebeeckx to move from the traditional Jesus in fundamental opposition to Torah to a new picture that included the Jewishness of Jesus and his message, a significant advance over his past work – but only a beginning.93 Rosemary Ruether also finds Schillebeeckx’s exegesis impressive, since it prevented him from diminishing Judaism in favour of Christianity, and she herself comes from the historical perspective. She respects Schillebeeckx as one of the first major Catholic theologians to integrate Jesus’ Jewishness into the ‘portrait’ of Jesus he presented and, further, to allow his awareness of the anti-Jewish polemic in the textual sources to influence his christology. In her own work, she utilizes his hypothesis of an anticipatory and proleptic messianic role for Jesus. Doubting any theologian’s ability to detach from presuppositions (even herself) to present an unbiased portrait of Jesus, she finds this one too non-judgmental and apolitical.94 Paul Van Buren says little of Schillebeeckx’ massive effort to eradicate anti-Jewishness, save that he built too much on too little: speculation on Jesus’ ‘abba’-experience should not be the point, but the fact that Jesus introduced his disciples to ‘a trust in God as a Father who loved abundantly’.95 93 Pawlikowski, Christ in Light, pp. 50ff. 94 Rosemary Radford Ruether, To Change the World: Christology and Cultural Criticism (London: SMC Press, 1981), pp. 2ff. Küng is the other Catholic theologian she discusses. Albert Schweitzer is not cited, but her metaphor of ‘portrait’ parallels his famous review of nineteenth century theology. Besides Schillebeeckx’s non-judgmental Jesus, she takes him to task for his so-called neutralization of women’s witness to the early kerygma. 95 Cf. Paul Van Buren, A Theology of the Jewish-Christian Reality, Vol. III, Christ in Context (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1988)

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The second European theologian specifically important in our task is Jürgen Moltmann. A young soldier in the German Army who surrendered to the British in 1945, he learned from them of the horrors of the camps then being liberated. Those years as a POW brought him to remorse and Christ, and he has focused his life since in a strong effort to make sure such cruelty is not done to Jews again justified by Christian theology. Not only is the Jewish-Christian dialogue relevant to his christological analysis, but the messianic concept itself serves as his horizon: ‘Because I have ventured to call the whole of my theology “messianic theology”, the dimensions of this christology are messianic. Within these dimensions, I do not wish to talk solely about “the Christ of hope” ....But the future hope of Israel and Judaism is already messianic; and it was from this hope that the Christian faith proceeded. For, if we take the word “Christian” literally, the Christian faith is a messianic faith. The messianic hope binds Christianity and Judaism, and divides them.’96

Most scholars now tentatively conclude that many Jewish eschatologies of the first century did not include a messiah, as we shall see. But many Jews of the early Church were certainly messianic, so his point can be conditionally accepted. Moltmann’s Christ is a dynamic figure empowered by the Spirit which attended his baptism. This creative Spirit not only taught Jesus his messianic role, but has been teaching the Church since how to move toward the final messianic goal of history. The phrase we noted in chapter one, ‘on the way’, characterizes both his christology and his ecclesiology: he calls the Church ‘men and women... on the way in the conflicts of history... looking for bearings along the way’.97

96 Jürgen Moltmann, The Way of Jesus Christ: Christology in Messianic Dimensions (London: SCM Press, 1990) p. xiii. 97 Ibid, p. xiii.

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The earthly Jesus was ‘on the way’ to the revelation of his messiahship. This, Moltmann explains, is what people mean whenever they talk about Jesus’ ‘messianic secret’: ‘The risen Lord is on the way to his rule, which merely begins, here, and is by no means universal, and his purpose is at the end to hand over the completed rule to God....The earthly – the crucified – the raised – the present – the coming One – these are the stages of God’s eschatological history with Jesus.’98 By shifting the focus from a fulfilled static christology to an unfulfilled dynamic one, Moltmann hopes to refute the ‘chiliast christologies of empire and domination’ which he claims are the real source of Christianity’s anti-Jewish hatred. Since we are still within history, and the end has not arrived (as was confidently expected in the early days), Christians must ‘suffer, together with the Jews, for the sake of God’s righteousness and justice, over the unredeemed condition of the world. In Jesus, God revealed the complete manifestation of love. But the glory of God is still hidden and has not yet broken out into the world.’ It is this ‘not yet’ which enables Jews to say ‘no’ to the Christian claim that Jesus is the messiah. Moltmann honours this ‘no’ and differentiates it from the ‘no’ of unbelievers. Using Pauline logic, he explains that it was necessary for the hearts of most Jews to be hardened specifically against Jesus as messiah, so that the Christian Church would then be forced out into the Gentile world with its gospel, instead of remaining within Judaism as a ‘messianic revival movement’. By this means, non-Jews received the Spirit of God directly, without converting to Judaism. ‘Just because the gospel has come to the Gentiles as a result of the Jewish “no”, it will return – indeed it must return – to Israel. “The first shall be last.” Israel is “the last” toward which everything else is drawn…As Israel’s messiah he becomes the saviour of the Gentiles. In Jesus Israel herself encounters the Gentiles – Israel with her whole history, in a nutshell and in messianic form…On the other hand, Jesus encounters Israel as the saviour of the nations, believed and worshipped by the many from all peoples.

98 Ibid, p. 33.

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In this form – not directly but indirectly – he reveals himself to Israel as her messiah.’99 Here Moltmann displays his inability to critique the Pauline perspective on the Χρίστος: that Israel will, one day, recognize Jesus as her messiah was the hope of the Apostle Paul, and (two thousand years later) it is Moltmann’s hope. Despite his studies in the Jewish sources and some exegetical work, he has not yet escaped from the anti-Jewish element rooted in the subtle supersessionism which expects Jesus’ final triumph. Jesus = messiah. This must be perceived in the same anticipatory and proleptic manner that Schillebeeckx described, but Jesus will still be the only final messiah. Were it not for this conclusion, Moltmann’s work would be an excellent experiment in a christology inclusive of Jewish and Christian concepts. But as it is, his system stumbles against the same impasse as the dialogue itself, showing the same tension as many documents in chapter one. There is no room for a Jew in that future who does not recognize the messiah in the future Jesus. Moltmann is even more specific on Jesus’ role in the coming kingdom in his later book on christology. The premise is based in his conviction that ‘Christ’s messianic passion always puts us on the side of the victims of the violent’, and stems from his own war experience. Because of his solidarity with sufferers, Jesus is ‘the kingdom of God in person’. But the kingdom is not a literal other world, rather it is ‘the wide space where we unfold and develop’. It is not of this world in the sense that it does not originate with it, but is of this world as God’s cosmic incarnation. This is Jesus’ unique teaching, which Moltmann differentiates from his traditional Jewishness. 100 This cosmic messianic dimension, which he also discussed in an earlier work (The Crucified God) is (in his opinion) specifically Christian. He respects the ‘no’ of Jews based on the obviously unredeemed state of the world, but he reminds them that it is just as difficult for them to 99 Ibid, p. 32. 100 Jürgen Moltmann, Jesus Christ for Today’s World, (London: SMC Press, 1994), pp. 7, 12, 20-24, and chapter 7, ‘Jesus Between Jews and Christians’, p. 48.

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be real Jews in an unredeemed world as it is for Christians. But his presentation is, again, based on an uncritical acceptance not only of what he assumes are faith-wide Jewish eschatological categories, in which the present world is experienced as ‘unredeemed’, but also Christian eschatological categories. Pawlikowski notes that Moltmann has journeyed from his original more traditional position on Judaism, as presented in The Crucified God, to an apprehension of Jews as partners in the history of salvation alongside Christians. However, both Eckardt and Pawlikowski agree that Moltmann’s view of Christ as the final hope for both Christians and Jews means that the anti-Jewish stance of traditional theology has not yet been fully overcome. ‘Part of its weakness is due to Moltmann’s demonstrated lack of acquaintance with developments in the second Temple period of Judaism. ..[but he] contributes to a delineation of Christianity vis-à-vis Judaism, even though [he] admittedly makes little or no contribution to an adequate theological articulation of the uniqueness of Judaism vis-àvis Christianity.’101 While Moltmann did attempt to explore the ancient messianic concept, he did not take advantage of recent work by both Jewish and Christian scholars on that era. But, even if he had, I question if his perception that the Spirit of God chose Jesus to be messiah for non-Jews and then Jews, would alter. Though Pawlikowski’s criticism is valid, it does not point a way out of this subtle form of supersessionism – perhaps because, as we shall see, his own theology partakes of another form of supersessionism. It would appear that the impressive steps taken by these renowned Europeans still fall short: more distance must be traveled before christology is cleansed of its anti-Jewish bias, and the impasse in the dialogue over the concept of the messiah approaches a resolution acceptable to both partners. My Jewish ancestors were chased out of Germany 350 years ago. They probably found then – and would find now, as I do – the expectation incredible that their people would one day accept Christianity’s view

101 Pawlikowski, Christ in Light, pp. 46-47.

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of messianic things, after all the Jewish blood that has flowed through the gulf between the communities. In North America, the task of finding an approach to christology which gives equal respect to the dialogue partner is taken up at this point by Pawlikowski and Ruether, who are joined by Paul Van Buren. Let’s see if they get any closer to the core of the issue. A. JOHN PAWLIKOWSKI: JESUS IN THE PHARISAIC CONTEXT Servite Friar, John T. Pawlikowski has been teaching Social Ethics at the University of Chicago’s Catholic Theological Union since 1968 and is director of its Catholic-Jewish Studies Program. He was on the Advisory Committee of the Secretariat for Catholic Jewish Relations, served as chair for the National Council of Churches’ Faith and Order Study on Israel, and on the Standing Committee on Christian-Jewish Relations, and is currently president of the International Council of Christians and Jews, which has chosen as its headquarters the house in which Martin Buber lived until forced to flee Nazi Germany. A presidential appointee on the US Holocaust Memorial Council since its founding in 1980, Pawlikowski presently chairs its Subcommittee on Church Relations and serves on its Academic Committee, Committee on Conscience, and Executive Committee. Among his many honours from Polish, Catholic and Jewish communities worldwide are: the American Jewish Community Interfaith Award in 1973, and the title ‘Righteous among Nations’ in 1986. Christology for Pawlikowski is framed by his larger view of the spiritual aspect of human nature, which he interprets as an element of ‘divinity’ imparted in the act of creation. Clearly, his is a mystical theology which has been strongly influenced by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. ‘Through the ministry and person of Jesus, people came to see clearly for the first time that humanity is an integral part of God. This means that each person is divine, that he or she somehow shares in the constitutive nature of God.

A

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Christ is the theological symbol the Church has chosen to express this reality [that] God was always man.’102 According to Pawlikowski, the God who acted in creation and continues to act in history is not one who wishes to absorb us or command obedience. Humanity was once part of the Godhead but entered into a separate existence at creation, struggling ever since to realize its gift of hope, its kernel of the divine. This involves a search for self-identity that would balance the worth of each human qua human, while incorporating that kernel within. Salvation, or wholeness, finally will be achieved when each person becomes reconciled both with God and with the rest of humanity. In this struggle, Pawlikowski warns that humans are often sabotaged by the sin of pride, which leads to either self-divination or identification with a divinity, both of which are sources of evil. But our ‘Parent God’ continues to encourage us to realize our highest potential by drawing us onward, giving us the freedom to truly mature and to live forever as unique individuals. It is a vulnerable God who bestows this hope, a God who is self-limiting and who suffers with us through the Cross. It is only in this manner that God will finally and fully become God. Although since creation a deep gulf has existed between the Creator and the human creature (a very Jewish metaphor), each is still in a mysterious fashion a component of the other. The Christ event was the point at which the potential divine-human nexus emerged in a unique fashion.103 Pawlikowski hypothesizes that the Christ event occurred after, and was based upon, the most significant advance to that date in the revelatory process implicit in creation – and this advance becomes the primary focus of his subsequent christological reinterpretation. In preceding centuries, the Pharisees had developed a revolutionary approach to worship based on ‘a new perspective on the God-human personal relationship’ which pushed them to devise new titles for the Hebrew God, especially the dar102 John Pawlikowski, ‘The Historicizing of the Eschatological: The Spiritualizing of the Eschatological: Some Reflections’, p. 161, in Davies, Antisemitism and Foundations. 103 Cf. Pawlikowski, ‘The Holocaust and Contemporary Christology’ in Schüssler Fiorenza & Tracy, The Holocaust as Interruption

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ing appellation of ‘father’. 104 This enlarged perception is for him the most pertinent example of the ‘drifts in the history of human consciousness’ proposed by Teilhard de Chardin, since he links Teilhard’s concept of ‘drifts’ to his premise that ‘revelation is co-terminus with creation itself ’. This process is how humans manifest the truth they learn of the God, from whom they come and whom they seek in hope. Each religious community in some way reveals such a ‘drift’. In the Jewish community, the loss of Land and Temple precipitated the Pharisaic discovery of new, spiritual ‘location’ for Judaism through communal worship.105 Pawlikowski maintains that the Pharisaic discovery carried the intent of creation a step further, preparing the way for Jesus and the comprehension of the worth of the individual. The Pharisaic revolution involved an emphasis on table fellowship instead of the Temple, adding oral Torah to written Torah, and teaching in synagogues through an informal rabbinate system. A new spirituality arose, which perceived God as the Father of each person and not just of the ancient patriarchs. Each human is precious in God’s eyes and will participate in a final resurrection from the dead, since life is willed by God for all. Pawlikowski initially based his theologically positive view of the Pharisees on the work of two scholars: James Parkes, a Christian, and Ellis Rivkin, a Jew.106 Parkes, who believed in a ‘single destiny for mankind’ where God will ‘ultimately reject isolation’ of any individual or group,107 located Buber’s 104 Ibid, p. 44; Pawlikowski, Christ in Light, pp. 115-6, 133; John Pawlikowski, Jesus and the Theology of Israel, (Delaware: Michael Glazier Inc., 1989) p. 7; John Pawlikowski, What are they saying about Christian-Jewish Relations? (New York: Paulist Press, 1980) p. 96. 105 Christ in Light, pp. 29, 5. Cf. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin’ scientific and philosophic presentation in his brilliant classics The Phenomenon of Man and The Future of Man; Pawlikowski’s own footnotes are from a biography of Teilhard and a collection of his letters rather than the publications themselves. 106 John T. Pawlikowski, ‘The Church and Judaism: The Thought of James Parkes’, JEC 6:4 (1969); also his What are they saying.. . , p.105. Cf. Parkes, The Theological Foundation of Judaism and Christianity (Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1960). See also his Prelude to Dialogue: Jewish-Christian Relations (New York: Schocken Books, 1969) 107 Parkes’ response to Pawlikowski in JEC 7:4 (1970) pp.790-4.

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1-Thou relationship between God and humanity in two historic events: Sinai and Calvary. Judaism is based on the communal revelation at Sinai; Christianity is based on the revelation to the individual at Calvary. Sinai reveals the meaning of true community; Calvary reveals the meaning of true individuality. Both events instruct Jews and Christians to live responsibly as neighbours to each other, neither superseding the other on the basis of their faith. The inbuilt tension between one’s communal and individual life is meant to be dynamic, not destructive. Parkes insisted that Jesus lived dynamically in this tension, without attempting to find a resolution. Both the Sinai and the Calvary historical moments of revelation are crucial, and the communities which hallow them can stimulate each other towards the messianic age for which both yearn. Rivkin taught Pawlikowski to value the internalization process which characterized the Pharisaic revolution, with its innovative approach to communal worship and learning. It was this process which spiritualized, i.e. de-localized, the Judaic faith to such an extent that the Jews were able to survive the loss of Temple and Land not just once, but twice.108 Also, the close link which the Pharisees postulated between God and humanity sustained them and enabled them to continue living as an integrated faith community even in the Diaspora. 109 With both these sources, Pawlikowski argues that the Pharisees discerned this intimate divine-human link not only as revelatory, but with an implicit awareness of what Christians would come to call the incarnation of God in humanity – although he agrees that the Pharisees and the rabbinic tradition that came after always maintained the gulf between God 108 In his article in Davies’ book and elsewhere, Pawlikowski argues that Ruether in Faith & Fratricide missed the positive side of the Christian and Jewish ‘spiritualization of the eschaton’. Cf. Ellis Rivkin, A Hidden Revolution: The Pharisees’ Search for the Kingdom Within, (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1978), and his What Crucified Jesus? The Political Execution of a Charismatic, (Nashville Abingdon Press. 1984), criticized as too focused on the guilt of system rather than persons by Aaron Milavec, JEC 21:3 (1984). 109 Pawlikowski, pp. 159ff. in Davies, Antisemitism & Foundation, What are they saying...? p. 100; and Christ in Light, p. 29ff. Pawlikowski also credits Jacob Neusner with the recovery of the importance of table fellowship to the Pharisees.

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and humans which is so fundamental to Jewish thought. This awareness of the intimate divine-human link becomes the theological avenue through which he is able to connect Pharisaic Judaism with christology,110 and then attempts to move Christianity away from the absolutism and supersessionism which contributed to the anti-Jewish element in the faith. While, for him, the revelatory and fundamental insights of Johannine and Pauline theology recorded in the Christian canon do represent the Christ-event as unique and holding universal significance, they ‘do not constitute the full and complete understanding of what it means to be a religious person or a religious community.’111 Thus, a specific type of relativizing is necessary that respects the revelatory experiences of non-Christians, since the awareness that God is constantly active in history forces the theologian to contextualize any revelatory claims.112 Accepting the Pharisaic revolution as one revelatory ‘drift’ and the Christ event as another more foundational one that moved humanity even closer to its final hope, Pawlikowski can say positively that ‘each faith community has emphasized distinct but complementary aspects of the God-human relationship’.113 Such Teilhardian-style drifts tend to occur when an individual or a group is experiencing alienation from existing social structures, according to Pawlikowski – who here leaves Teilhard de Chardin far behind in order to make his specific case study of Pharisaism the model he wants it to be. ‘This alienation, if activated, leads to the creation of new social structures that bring about more equality. The key point to be made is that such a revolution does not lead solely to structural change but to a new awareness of basic human equality. This consciousness, in turn, alienates people from present structures that deny such equality ....[and] does not result in despair or anarchy but in the replacement of defective institutions with some that better embody the new consciousness’.114 110 Pawlikowski. p. 154, in Davies, Antisemitism & Foundation 111 Ibid, p. 154. 112 Pawlikowski, What are they saying.. .?, p. 48ff 113 Ibid, p. 105 114 Christ in Light...., p. 101.

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Using Pawlikowski’s approach, revelatory experiences – communal or individual – only occur after forcible detachment from previous structures. While his description fits in with much of current psychotherapeutic methods used on individuals (following Carl Jung or Erich Fromm), I question if it can empirically be extended to a community, or even that alienation is a necessary drift pre-requisite. Also, I’d hesitate to use only one example to denote one of Teilhard de Chardin’s monumental evolutionary ‘drifts’. However, since the time during which the Sages were experimenting in Babylon was concurrent with the lives of Socrates (unalienated), K’ung Fu Tzu (un-alienated), and Prince Gautama (who chose to leave), the Sages can well be included in what Karl Jaspers termed the Axial Age, from 800 BCE through 200 BCE; Isaiah (un-alienated as far as I can tell), Jeremiah (forced into exile) and Deutero-Isaiah were honoured members of his list.115 Despite questions about this assumption, I readily admit that Pawlikowski’s specific contribution to the anthropological factor in christology lies in his notion that human consciousness tends to expand through liturgical and worship experiences – what he terms the most constructive channel for human transformation – and it is nice to suppose that this is based in his personal experience. What he views as an ‘emergent spiritual consciousness’ culminated for the Pharisees in their new awareness of the closeness between God and humanity. For Jesus’ followers two centuries later, the Pharisees (far from being the enemy) laid the groundwork for the formation of a later, deeper, richer (for him this is incarnational) christology than the (messianic) one with which they began.116 By centering on these developments, Pawlikowski can reconcile interfaith dialogue with the deepest meaning of the Christ event – intimacy with God – since Christianity deepens what other religions affirm. Each ‘open[sl the door to salvation for its adherents’, whereas Christianity es-

115 Cf. Karl Jaspers, Vom Ursprung und Ziel der Geschichte (The Origin and Goal of History) (London: Rutledge & Keegan Paul, 1953) 116 Ibid, pp. 112-114.

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tablishes ‘the central importance of the unique opening to the divine presence made visible in the ministry and person of Jesus of Nazareth’.117 ‘We continue to recognize a definite uniqueness in the way humanity and divinity came together in the person of Jesus. Humankind could never have achieved the new awareness of the intimate link between itself and God on its own. The explicit revelation of the Christ Event was an absolute necessity.’118 Note his assumption: humans could not possibly have come to this awareness without a nudge. Thus, the specific drift toward incarnational awareness is evidence of a higher order of revelation for this instance only, the result of a more intentional impact on the part of the Creator than any other revelatory moments. Christ is still the peak, the pinnacle, and therefore supersedes all others. It is a beautiful vision Pawlikowski shares, but one wonders how dialogue partners feel when told they are not participating in the best moment in history. He is quite happy to show how humanity slowly evolves towards fulfillment through a series of revelatory moments. Christianity should only concern itself with its special vision of Jesus as Christ and its own role in the world. This ‘fundamentally developmental’ view of human participation in revelation enables him to view the history of his faith’s theology as a maturation process in which early comprehensions give way to later (and supposedly more adequate) reflections on the nature and meaning of the Christ event, especially the Johannine grasp of incarnation. For him, this progressive view has the best potential for solving the messianic controversy between Christians and Jews: it dislodges a real understanding of Christ from any need to remain attached indefinitely to the Jewish messianic concept, thus (he believes) freeing Christian thought from anti-Jewishness: ‘Unless Christians are prepared to accept a developmental notion of revelation, there is little basis for hope in overcoming the dominance 117 John T. Pawlikowski, ‘Toward a Theology for Religious Diversity: Perspectives from the Christian-Jewish Dialogue’, JEC 26: 1 (1989) pp. 149, 153. 118 Jesus & the Theology of Israel, p. 73-4.

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of the messianic fulfillment Christology in the churches, with the disastrous consequences it has had for our image of Judaism and the concrete relationship with the Jews.’119 In Pawlikowski’s opinion, it is the Christian attempt to force Jesus of Nazareth into a messianic mould which contains the biblical seeds of antiJewishness. Hence, this concept becomes for him a dark reservoir of supersessionism. Following the Roman Catholic theologian Franz Mussner’s view that there was a gradual movement in the early Church from messianic fulfillment christology towards a ‘son’ christology, Pawlikowski rests his argument on the historical reality that Christians had to face when the parousia failed to arrive, and its christological consequences. ‘This is not due merely because historically “Son” Christology seems far more the result of mature apostolic reflection than initial faith enthusiasm, but in the main because subsequent revelation through historical experience has convinced the Christian community of the weakness of any fulfillment claims relative to the Christ Event in view of the continual presence of evil and suffering.’120 There are three responses I would like to make to this part of Pawlikowski’s argument. First, the way in which he has linked this concept of developmental revelation to the drifts in an evolving human consciousness implies that later revelations are of necessity more insightful than earlier ones. It does take the messianic interpretation out of the running. But as I read it, far from freeing theology from supersessionism, this view perpetuates it, since the Christian revelation in Calvary was later in time than the Jewish revelation at Sinai. Also, though he accurately follows the historical shift from Hebrew modes of thought to Greek as the Church grew and other explanations were sought, again I disagree that this necessarily reflects an upwardly ‘developmental’ revelation. He may not intend this reading, but is caught in the ‘accidental’ (for a historian) fact that the Christ event was

119 Ibid, p. 51; see also pp. 44-47 for preceding argument. 120 Ibid, p. 45.

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later than Sinai. It is a psychological truth that earlier insights do yield to deeper insights, but the assumption that this is necessarily so for the development of faith leaves one open to a subsequent supersessionism of a faith or theology. ‘Later’ being ‘better’ is similar to the nineteenth century linking ‘process’ with ‘progress’, also implicit in Teilhard de Chardin. This comforting bias is a direct consequence of the very old tradition, based on biblical texts, that the Spirit leads into ‘all truth’ – interpreted by Pawlikowski’s Church as meaning that each new truth accepted by the community is built on and thus better than each preceding truth. Progressive assumptions were shattered by twentieth century realities, and are no longer valid when doing theology grounded in historical events – the stated goal of most post-HaShoah theologians. If he returned to his mentor Parkes’ concept of progress – as an individual and communal choice for moral activities towards one’s neighbours in one’s own time – than this bias could be eliminated. Second, Pawlikowski fails to note that even though the parousia was ‘delayed’, most Church Fathers followed their sacred texts and maintained in various ways that Jesus was the messiah (i.e. ‘Christ’) and thus retained the concept, albeit filtered by Greek ideas. As we shall see, Ruether argues that the anti-Jewish bias is quite strong in the Fathers and directly related to the non-acceptance of Jesus as messiah by Jews. Third, there is a logical dissonance in his argument from history: ‘son’ christology replaced messianic christology AND messianic ‘dominance’ is the reason for anti-Jewishness. He can’t have it both ways. In reality, his Church only recognized the weakness of its messianic claim for Jesus when it recently (not two millennia ago) confronted ‘the continued presence of evil’ in itself rather than in Jews – flushed out by HaShoah. It is not its own internal process of ‘subsequent revelation’ based on ‘mature reflection’121 which enabled his Church to re-examine christology, but HaShoah – not to mention the fact of the ongoing belief of some Jews in their own forms of messianism.

121 Ibid, p.71.

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Pawlikowski’s method rests on the selection of liturgical worship as the best source for revelatory moments. This is a valuable insight, and again one can see the influence of Teilhard de Chardin here. However, as we proceed, I want us to maintain in background awareness the fact that not only was Teilhard de Chardin forbidden by his Church to teach or publish during his lifetime (and has not been re-instated since), he came to many of his insights alone in China’s Ordos Desert, where his mystical and scientific dimensions united in praise recorded for his own soul’s sake.122 It was only after his death in 1955, when his works circulated more freely, that some of his cosmic evolutionary views helped lead the participants in Vatican II to the awareness of the need for dialogue with scientific as well as political and other religious stances. For Vatican II-style Catholics, all worshipping communities were accorded high priority (although initial enthusiasm has since been modified). This emphasis parallels a dynamic view of the sacraments as vehicles for the Spirit, which in turn opens the way for continual spiritual growth in each faith community. Participation not only maintains what the Church claims is the necessary nexus between theology and communal life, but it allows Pawlikowski to place ‘Pharisaic insights’ as directly and necessarily prior to the divine-human relationship to early Church insights, into the nature and work of Jesus – thus satisfactorily – for him – bridging the gap between Jew and Christian. Pawlikowski postulates that a ‘second attempt at Christological formulation’ emerged from Christian worship after initial messianic explanations were ‘sabotaged’ by time. Christians began to interpret ‘the revelation of the Christ Event as the unfolding of a linkage between God and humanity far deeper than anyone ever thought possible... [through] a more formalized expression of the experience of Jesus, who had now become the Christ living on in the Christian community’s midst the presence of his Spirit. Thus was Christology reborn.’ 123

122 Cf. diaries and letters published as Le Milieu Divine and Hymn of the Universe. 123 Ibid, p. 71

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This is a very plausible description of what may have occurred in many of the early communities. But what about others who, through communal worship, learned another interpretation, recorded in texts not later considered sacred by the council? Or what of those who stayed with messianic comprehensions, as many (unforced) converts from Judaism have over the millennia? This historicization collapses all development into a necessary movement to ‘son’ christology following the necessary insight of the Pharisaic sages. Any other variant is obviously not as much Spiritled, thus reinforcing theological neglect of alternative explanations sought then, and since, by worshipping believers. So again, we have a logical dissonance: all worshipping communities have priority AND those who arrived at ‘son’ christology were the only ones really ‘getting it’. He does not practice what he preaches, which is too bad since his message is quite innovative and accepting – if used. It gets tricky, claiming guidance by the Spirit for others when, as a friend of mine put it, you’ve already lucked out by being born into the one community with the greatest insight. If used, such awareness could tie guidance by the Spirit to responsibility for practicing the gifts of the Spirit – such as, love towards one’s enemy as well as one’s neighbour. This is a non-relativistic approach based in the sacred texts of both of the faith communities in our case study, as well as alluding to the texts of other faith communities of former and present times. But Pawlikowski does not do this. Having decided that the Johannine ‘son’ christology was the peak of the revelatory drift in the early Christian communities, Pawlikowski wants to make sure his base is strong. Impressed by the way Schillebeeckx used exegetical studies, he goes this route. In his opinion, based on the work of exegetes he surveyed, the historical Jesus was a ‘political activist ...who directly challenged the political power of the Temple priesthood.’ Jesus had much in common with the Pharisees, and his halakhic life appears to have been in accord with their beliefs – but he went further. By placing himself in the centre of the drift of emerging consciousness in his era, Jesus challenged the established (and therefore) alienating structures in his society. 92

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Taking Schillebeeckx’s stress on Jesus’ ‘abba’ experience a step further, Pawlikowski stresses appropriately that the verb ‘appear’ must be used due to the scant resources available for other than tentative conclusions. That being said: Jesus ‘appears’ to have deepened the Pharisaic vision of the parenthood of God by dropping the ‘notion of separation’ between God and humankind because of his profound intimacy with the One he called ‘Abba’. Then, Jesus’ stance ‘appears’ to be based on awareness of the ‘actual presence of the kingdom of God in his activities and his person’, whereas the Pharisees were looking for a future kingdom. As well, Jesus championed the poor, who were ‘treated by the Pharisees seemingly with disdain.’ And finally, Jesus’ claim to forgive sins – a power that he shared with his disciples – ‘appears’ to imply a divine sanction of his activities and person far beyond anything even potentially incarnational in Pharisaic thought.124 This being in place, the resurrection is no surprise for Pawlikowski. ‘Jesus had to rise: no one with that degree of intimacy with the Creator could be bound by death. Not only was this intimacy, it was also unity: Jesus was God, made human. This is the central insight which Christianity provides into the nature of God and humanity, and its justification for being called a major world religion. In the Christ event the Church took the Pharisaic insight beyond the pale of Judaism and [did] this correctly as a result of studied reflection on the basic meaning of Jesus’ ministry culminating in the Easter events.’125 The Christ event is the most significant moment in a process still unconsummated since ‘the Christ event once for all put this process on the right track.’126 Once this is understood as incarnational rather than messianic, the Church can share its basic wisdom with the Jewish descendants of the Pharisees, instead of contending over whether or not Jesus was the messiah – so Pawlikowski argues.

124 Christ in Light, pp. 100-107. Cf. p.103. 125 Jesus and the Theology of Israel, p. 83ff. 126 Christ in Light, p. 115

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There are five points I’d like to make. First, Pawlikowski uses an expression which originated with Catherine II’s 1791 law keeping Jews ‘within the Pale of Settlement’, an area 4% of imperial Russia, where they had to pay double tax, could not lease land or enter higher education; the phrase means Jews were forbidden to live in the (Christian) area ‘beyond the Pale’. Not being his therapist I am not going to speculate on the psychological reasons beneath this gaffe, but I think it’s legitimate to assume that if anything were going to put a Jewish listener off his argument, this would be it. Second, by shifting the Jewish-Christian debate away from messianism, Pawlikowski has changed both the concept’s terms and history. He collapses early Christian messianic concept into pre-incarnationalism, changing the basis for hope from an eschatological kingdom to a mystical sense within humans of their own divine kernel. Yet his own picture of the evolution of christology shows the earliest Christians interpreting the Christ event in the light of that messianic hope. They then apparently achieved a new and proper definition of that hope and of Jesus by adopting the core of the messianic concept (eschatological hope), shaving off its Davidic shell, and re-covering it in incarnational terminology. If this picture is historically valid, would the early appellation of Jesus as messiah have survived when the synoptic gospels (especially Mark with his ‘messianic secret’) were written? Would not the gospel writers have made it clear that this initial interpretation was not ‘correct’? Historical and exegetical evidence extracted from the early texts are different and contradictory, making his picture difficult to substantiate, but also – to be fair – difficult to discard. Third, Pawlikowski has not established as fact that the Pharisees had a prototypical incarnational concept. The word-made-flesh ‘son’ christology of later Christian writings is not as easily linked to a Pharisaic internalization of the spiritual closeness of God to each human as he asserts. He does acknowledge that the Pharisees, in common with Jews since, posited an unbridgeable gulf between Creator and created. Does this not place Judaism, then and now, in fundamental opposition to incarnationalism? So, were the Pharisees really progenitors of incarnationalism? Pawlikowski’s 94

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portrait of them as a worshipping community partaking in the same spiritual drift in consciousness as the early Church marks a definite advance in the acceptance of the activity of God in other faiths. But as noted above, he doesn’t allow for the possibility of drifts in different directions. Fourth, Pawlikowski celebrates the Christ event as the most significant contribution of his faith community to the world. However, there is no similar emphasis in his work to date on an equivalent Jewish contribution. If with this event Christianity has extended itself beyond Judaism, where has Judaism extended itself beyond Christianity? If the subtle supersessionism that seems to linger in Pawlikowski is to be overcome, a more balanced approach is required, as far as the major contributions of both faiths as doing the work of God are concerned. There is certainly the potential for this balance in his view of Judaism. In Jesus and the Theology of Israel, he devotes a significant part of his final chapter to the unique aspects of Judaism, but only as corrective to Christianity. He discusses Eckardt’s accusation that his approach portrays God in ‘divine whimsy …..getting a jump on his/her Pharisee friends’ by raising Jesus. Eckardt rejected Jesus’ past resurrection in favour of a future one for everyone, so for him calling Jesus the messiah was simply wrong. At that time convinced that a double covenant theory solved any lingering supersessionism (which as we see it does not), Pawlikowski did accept that Eckardt’s charge motivated him to begin formulating a theology of Jewish uniqueness. 127 Fifth and finally, Pawlikowski elevates the incarnational concept as the ‘correct’ interpretation of the Christ event, or the person and work of Jesus of Nazareth. In his argument, not only was the messianic concept less satisfactory but it was superseded historically by later, more mature reflection. The process of internalization was initiated by the Pharisees, but the Christ event was the crest of the wave of this evolution in human consciousness, and therefore ‘the real meaning of christology is intertwined with this process.’128 The earlier strata of the gospels must be

127 In Jesus and the Theology of Israel, pp. 78ff; cf. Eckardt, Jews and Christians, p. 86. 128 Pawlikowski, p. 161, in Davies, Antisemitism & Foundation

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understood as immature and incomplete in their attempts to understand Jesus, and the later strata recognized as more profound. But as Erich Fromm taught us129, adjectives such as ‘real’ or ‘correct’, used to guard a position, lift a concept out of its context as one element of a complex holistic system, where it is utterly unique because of its time and place in communal history. Such abstraction weakens the concept’s psychological and linguistic integrity. It creates the kind of absolutization which leads to the rejection of any other concept (or even faith) as wrong, because the accepted concept is ‘correct’. The accepted concept becomes totally identified with what it seeks to explain: it loses its metaphoric ‘likeness’ to become an idea and eventually an ideology. There is no room for deviation or for another concept or metaphor to take its place, since any other would necessarily be ‘less’ than correct, i.e. ‘less’ than what was revealed as ‘real’. Jesus is therefore ‘correctly’ identified in the fourth gospel as the incarnate Son of God, and (logically) ‘incorrectly’ identified by early or contemporary believers as the messiah. This fifth point is the most serious flaw in Pawlikowski’s argument. It fails to honour his own belief that the only way to take other faith communities seriously is to contextualize their paradigmatic experiences of God. If one is to take all of history seriously as the stage upon which the drama between God and humanity is acted out, then each moment of historical time must be granted its own validity, value and importance. But, contradicting his own stance, Pawlikowski maintains that the various interpretations of the Christ event in the early Christian writings are not to be accorded equal value, and only one (incarnational) greatest value.130 How can Pawlikowski claim to accept revelatory experiences of different faith communities if he cannot accept earlier ones in his own? Presumably he would not rank those experiences in order of importance, but would grant equal consideration and status as a paradigmatic moment. If he is to be consistent, each interpretation of the Christ event should 129 Cf. You Shall Be As Gods: a Radical Interpretation of the Old Testament and its Tradition (New York: Holt Rinehart and Winston, 1966), ch.1, ‘The Concept of God’. 130 Christ in Light, pp. 5ff

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not be ranked in a supposed order of importance, but rather respected as the best possible attempt at comprehension for that particular time and place. His own observation that ‘no adequate solution will be attained solely within the framework of the Bible’131 gives the theologian room to search for alternate concepts with which to comprehend the Church’s ongoing faith experience. But that same observation should warn him that no one concept can claim to possess the final word about the activity of God – with reference to the Christ event or any other event. The concept of the incarnation, as the concept of the messiah, rose organically in a specific time and place and community out of its theological and philosophical language, making it definitive for many believers of the first century and subsequently. But the dominance of the incarnational concept in the fourth gospel and in conciliar teaching ever since by no means entitles it to metaphysical status as the ‘correct’ interpretation. The absolutization of any concept leads to rigidity when faced with other conceptual interpretations of the same event. Pawlikowski is well aware that the Christian appropriation of the messianic concept was employed against its Jewish originators, which is why he wants to drop it post facto. By acknowledging it as an incorrect interpretation, he hopes to overcome the impasse in the dialogue and also to provide a better way for the Church to explain the Christ event to Jews. His goal is laudable but his method is not, since it leads us to assume that there must be one and only one correct way to interpret revelatory event or develop a religious concept. This correct way would have to be designated by a judge detached from the struggles of history – and no doubt Pawlikowski assumes that the Spirit of God can be trusted to lead the Church into all truth and act as that judge, and has already made this clear in the Johannine texts and subsequent success of the incarnational concept as central to christology. But as mentioned above, what of those individuals and communities whose worship and prayers lead them in different directions? Is he about to take the same stance as other theologians and council have taken and

131 Ibid, p. 6

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declare them incorrect? Heretical? His position becomes ambivalent when he concludes that ‘son’ christology is the correct interpretation of the Christ event, and that Christians are therefore more aware of a certain aspect of the God-human relationship than Jews. How is this different in kind from the gospel writers who portrayed the Jews as blind because they did not recognize their messiah? If Pawlikowski’s Teilhardian argument for creation is accepted – that God as God is involved in the process of becoming and that human activity and reflections participate in that becoming and in fact inform God – then there is no completed God who corresponds to any ‘correct’ description of divine activity. There is no finished archetype to hold up as a comparison – such would be an oxymoron. There is also no method whereby a judge could become separate from the process itself in order to mediate theological correctness. Part of the excitement of such a Teilhardian journey lies for me in the very process of discovery, in the evolution of ideas which if worked with in love, can lead to greater wholeness. It follows, then, that in Pawlikowski’s framework no concept – incarnational or messianic or otherwise – should be allowed to claim expression of the final summation of that process before its end (Teilhard de Chardin’s Omega Point) is reached. Pawlikowski does agree that ‘the fundamental insights contained in the developed christologies of the mature Pauline and Johannine traditions, in spite of their uniqueness and universal significance, do not constitute the full and complete understanding of what it means to be a religious person or a religious community.’132 However, for all practical purposes he is convinced it is complete for the Christian. This is precisely where the ambiguity in his theology becomes most evident. When we set Pawlikowski’s conclusions beside the post-HaShoah exegetical and theological progress in Christian circles regarding the Jewishness of Jesus, they are untenable. On the one hand, following Rivkin, he has been the main force behind the recovery of second Temple Judaism

132 Pawlikowski, p. 154, in Davies, Antisemitism & Foundation

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and Pharisaism for Christian theology. Jesus of Nazareth is placed side by side with his contemporaries in order to bring into relief their contemporary commonalities and differences. In his historical analysis and biblical exegesis, Pawlikowski appeals to the most serious research available from scholars in those fields. On the other hand, when he turns to theology, he jettisons the Jewish, i.e. messianic materials, as less mature and less ‘correct’ than later Hellenistic materials. This is not to claim a sharp division between the Jewish and Hellenistic world views, something against which Pawlikowski would argue. These views did overlap in some areas, a point we will raise again later. But the messianic concept itself was distinctly Jewish, one with which Jesus and his followers were certainly familiar. The incarnational language used later by Hellenistic Christians was alien to the Jews of Jesus’ day, or any day. I am not arguing that the messianic concept is thus a ‘better’ interpretation of the Christ event, or refuting the profundity of the doctrine of the incarnation. Rather, I am pointing out that, despite his knowledge of Second Temple Judaism and his life-long commitment to Jewish-Christian relations, Pawlikowski has chosen a Hellenistic matrix for christology – partially due to his own preference, and partly to avoid the inherent difficulty in earlier messianic views, but mostly because, for him, incarnational thought is the theological path along which the Church has been deliberately guided by the Spirit. This is the base of his subtle supersessionism. He requires a Hellenistic concept to ‘correctly’ interpret the person and work of the Jew Jesus, and to ‘correctly’ understand what he accepts as the most direct involvement of God in human activities. B. PAUL VAN BUREN: CHRIST IN THE JEWISH CONTEXT

A

n Episcopal priest as well as a professor, Paul Van Buren did not served on ecclesial or academic committees concerned with Jews. However, he lectured often around the world at Jewish99

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Christian conferences and seminars until his death in 1998, and his writing consistently brought the Jewishness of Jesus front and centre. A philosophical linguist, he asserted that it is not possible to speak meaningfully of transcendence, so one must turn to ethical behavior in order to properly discuss the life and message of Jesus and the Church. This pragmatic approach brings him closer to the method we will be using. Christology for Van Buren begins with Israel’s story. This meant that for him, Hebraic concepts and metaphors take priority over all other concepts and metaphors, owing to the fact that the Church accepts a Jew as its Lord. This presupposition as to the priority of Israel has vital implications for the way in which he developed his theology in a three-volume work linked by the metaphor of ‘the Way’. First, one must discover the meaning of the way; second, one must see Israel’s Way; and third, one must learn to understand better the Way of the Church in which Christ finds his context.133 Van Buren’s doctrine of God begins with the Spirit instead of, as in the traditional pattern, with the Father – again, bringing him closer to my approach. ‘I choose the doctrine of the Holy Spirit as the proper way to open.... because the facts require it....: the existence of Israel, the reality of the Jewish people, the preservation of God’s own people of his love. In the face of that reality, the Church can only acknowledge the strange fact of its own existence as the Gentiles who worship the God of the Jews…....God the Spirit...proceeds from the Father concretely to gather us Gentiles to His Son so that we may be His sons and daughters, for he or she who is with the Son of God is with God.’134

133 Paul Van Buren, Theology of the Jewish-Christian Reality: Volume One: Discerning the Way (New York: Seabury Press, l980); Volume Two: A Christian Theology of the People of Israel (New York: Seabury Press 1983); Volume Three: Christ in Context (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1988). He planned a fourth volume exploring other Ways, but confessed it was too difficult – probably because, since his theology rested in Jewish perspectives, even Islam and Christianity could not be studied without reinterpretation. 134 Volume One, pp. 72-77. He says this while discussing the filioque clause, which for him has little to do with how the Spirit works.

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Van Buren’ s training in Barthian neo-orthodoxy made him quite comfortable reinterpreting the tradition in order to bring it back into line with (what he assumed to be) God’s original plan. In fact, he claimed even his mentor Barth misunderstood God’s intent in his ‘tortured attempt to relate the church and the synagogue as the two forms of the one community of Jesus Christ, [where] the synagogue represents the community as hearing, [and] the church represents it as believing. But, in fact, the church and the Jewish people are two communities of the one God.’ He posited a dynamic process in which the Spirit of God draws Gentiles away from paganism and secularism into the Way of the Church, where one is taught about Jesus the Son – a Jew who made no claims for himself and had no cause other than that of God the Father with whom his people the Jews were covenanted. The Scriptures of the Jews become of paramount importance, since there the story of Israel is told in the concrete historical particularity through which the Father showed Israel its Way.135 A Gentile is thereby enabled to speak with others in the Church about this Way, and pass on the knowledge gained. The manner in which Van Buren eventually developed his christology, based on Jesus’ active and dynamic spiritual presence in our present time, was intended to both clarify the past and point to the future of the Gentile Way. God, at least for the Gentiles within the Church, cannot be known outside of Israel’s story – past, present and future – which he regarded as the proper method for constructing a correct understanding of the doctrine of revelation. ‘Israel experienced God in a specific way in its own covenant, and the Church must accept this foundation and build on it in order to be faithful to the Jew who stands at its centre. Creation (and God’s becoming Creator) is conceived in an act of love which posits an other and confers freedom. Creation is grace – ex nihilo, or as I would prefer to say, ex more. The result – creation – is free to develop and grow. It is good, but it is only a beginning. In time creation came to include be135 Paul Van Buren, ‘Acts 2:1-13: The Truth of an Unlikely Tale’, p. 306, in Peter Ochs, The Return to Scripture in Judaism & Christianity: Essays in Post-critical Scriptural Interpretation (New York: Paulist Press, 1993).

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ings who could respond to the love that confers freedom. The story of that response is the story of the Way.’ 136 Creation is dynamic for Van Buren as well as Pawlikowski, but focused on Israel as the main channel through which God is constantly revealed. Hence, Israel’s story and its historical particularities must be considered as primary material revealing how God works in history. Since both Israel and the Church walk their separate Ways within history, this makes for ‘embodied, social and historical conversationalists...fallible and subject to change’; change itself, once perceived as a ‘sign of death’, is now recognized as a ‘sign of life’. 137 Israel’s Way came first; ‘the Church is out of Israel, but not of Israel, for a purpose larger than both Israel and the Church together: the redemption of this world.’ 138 In adoring Israel’s Lord, the Church acknowledges its debt to the People of God and learns how to truly become the Church of God. This does not, however, mean that both Israel and the Church share the same Way: in their diversity, they know God differently, since their experiences have been different. The Church has experienced God as triune and, in its elaboration of this experience, has often forgotten that its God is also Israel’s God. This distorted the Christian perception of Israel, its God, and Israel’s most faithful son Jesus. However, the events of the twentieth century require the Church to set aside this anti-Jewishness in favour of a covenantal Christology based upon the covenant of Israel.139 ‘If “God” were to be thought of apart from Israel, or apart from the covenant, then it would be misleading to call his context “God” or to concern oneself with the relationship between Jesus and such a “God”.’140 Van Buren’s argument for reinterpreting christology is based on his view of both Israel and the Church as fallible and human partners on ‘the 136 Ibid, p. 8 137 Ibid, pp. 22-23. 138 Ibid, p. 34. 139 This argument is in all three of Van Buren’s volumes. 140 Volume Three, p.6.

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Way’. Therefore – and here he brilliantly combined gentle humility with aggressive insight – any perspective developed by either will contain negative factors (‘warps’) which must be faced and eradicated once a better comprehension is achieved on their mutual faith journeys. As with Pawlikowski, such growing comprehension is inspired by the Spirit, who is as active in the present as in the past. With this presupposition, Van Buren was convinced that he was abandoning the supersessionist tendencies which make one way a preferred channel for God’s work. But he did not. Instead, he reversed Pawlikowski. As a theologian in the Gentile Church called into existence by Israel’s God through the life of the Jew Jesus, Van Buren felt necessarily constrained to use Jewish concepts, preferring them to those developed by the Church during its centuries of indifference to the Hebraic heritage of Christianity. This has led him to focus on Jesus’ life as a Torah Jew. However, as one follows his logic, it becomes obvious that while he accepted both Israel and Church as two Ways, he did not therefore value them equally. Israel was primary. This was not consistent with his own pneumatology, wherein the Spirit was deemed to work through Christianity as well as Judaism. His ‘warp’ shows, for example, when he advanced a Jewish-centered reinterpretation of the theological conclusions of the councils of Nicea and Chalcedon. Moreover, his bias (strangely enough) is most evident in the manner in which he jettisoned the Christian extension of the Jewish concept of the messiah – exactly where one might assume he would most have welcomed its usefulness. Van Buren’ s view of revelation involved charting various theological developments in both of the religious communities, and acknowledging their positive aspects and negative aspects (the ‘warping’ embedded in all theological descriptions). He was commendably careful when drawing upon the gospels or redaction criticism for support, and correctly warned that any theology written today also will be affected inevitably by today’s concerns. As he once commented wryly: ‘Biblical scholars have taught me

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to be cautious of their tentative conclusions’. 141 Not surprisingly, then, his own theology was affected. Because Van Buren primarily conceived of revelation as the contextualized interpretation of God’s original acts in creation and history as recorded in the Hebrew Scriptures, one expects a recognition of textual openness to constant reinterpretation, Hebrew or otherwise, especially in light of his desire to eliminate Christianity’s anti-Jewish bias – after all, he was a trained linguist. But instead he proceeded at the cost of the integrity of the varied and complex Christian traditions which, in his eyes, were insufficiently rooted in the Hebrew Scriptures. The deepest flaw in his system comes precisely from this half-recognized but unresolved paradox: on the one hand, the acceptance of the post-HaShoah insight that revelatory events are understood and shaped by communal experience and therefore must be open to criticism and revision; on the other hand, his belief that Israel’s Way of perceiving God must take priority over the perceptions of the Gentile Church, since God was not recognized as Israel’s God during most of the Gentile era. The Spirit truly worked and continues to work within both communities, but seems to have worked earlier and better within Israel – especially the Israel of Jesus’ day, when the God of Israel ‘chose as the context for the shaping of his incarnate word the developing Judaism of the Tannaim ...being shaped by the Pharisees.’142 This may explain his uneasy paradox: his perception of God the Father as the active intentional Lord of history necessarily subordinated recognition of the historical context of human activity as an analytical tool for theology. Van Buren maintained that ‘the Giver of the Way loves us in our diversity, in our concrete historical particularity’.143 He claimed to work in the post-critical school which assimilates the pragmatism of William James, the process philosophy of Whitehead, and the linguistic philoso-

141 Ibid, p. 15. Cf. his ‘Historical Thinking and Dogmatics’, p. 95, JEC 17:3 (1980). 142 Volume Two, pp. 242-3. 143 Volume Three, p. 291.

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phy of Wittgenstein, where context is of primary importance. This claim contrasted with his actual stance. For him the very act of discerning the Way meant that Jesus’ Jewishness (as part of Israel’s story) was the absolute and unchanging norm in any post-HaShoah Christian theology. But selecting any such absolute norm to be interpretive will supersede context, as James himself warned. Van Buren’s christology rested on his understanding – itself problematic, due to lack of sufficient evidence – of Jesus as a first century Torahtrue Jew who challenged his people Israel to respond to the God of the covenant made with Abraham and Moses. Jesus’ Jewish historical particularity demanded that the Church which calls him Lord must accept him as a Jew – first and foremost – and allow this fact to define its theology of Israel, its christology, and also its ecclesiology. To this end, Van Buren’s second volume was devoted to a theology of Israel’s story which, while it will never coincide exactly with Jewish self-identification, he hoped would enable the Church to realize that it is not ‘the People of God’. Israel alone is and always has been God’s chosen People, but the Church does have a distinctive purpose as the church of Israel’s God.144 He seemed unaware of the fact that ‘chosenness’ is an element common to many religions, so telling Christians not to have such a faith element is a denial of a vital part of their (especially initial) development of individual and communal faith. This second volume is a careful, well-researched and thorough presentation, based on the Hebrew Scriptures and rabbinical interpretations. Van Buren’s position was that work on Israel must necessarily precede christology and ecclesiology, since Israel’s God chose the Judaism of the Pharisees as the context out of which the Church would emerge.145 But once he turned from Israel’s story to the Church’s story, he continued to use Pharisaic Judaism as his norm through the Jewish person of Jesus – with the awkward consequence of re-shaping Christianity after its 144 This is further discussed in ‘Judaism in Christian Thought’, JEC 18:1 (1981) and developed in his unpublished paper ‘Covenantal Identity: The Church and the Jewish People”, given at a Christian-Jewish Dialogue of Toronto seminar in 1993. 145 Cf. Volume Two, pp. 240-243

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split from rabbinical Judaism in order to fit it back into ancient Jewish categories. Even his consistent use of the term ‘Gentile’ for the Church, once it moved into the second century, supported his norm. But as discussed before, this term is always and only a Jewish designation for nonJews, and was not strong in the Church’s self-identification after the first century. His purpose is laudable: he wanted to make the point that the Church cannot divorce itself again from Jewish perspectives. But he took Pauline theology seriously only where it supported him, i.e. only where it was most pro-Jewish. He did not use such passages as the claim in Galatians 3:28 that in Christ ‘there is no longer Jew or Greek’. Aware of the difficulties attending his choice of only part of Paul’s theology, he saw this as inevitable in light of the ‘paradigm shift’ going on in the contemporary research on Paul and his school.146 It is essential to point out that Van Buren’s ‘Israel’ was seen through the eyes of Franz Rosenzweig’s presentation of B’nai Torah traditions, especially in his Star of Redemption.147 The Jewish concepts preferred were developed in Second Temple Judaism and in the centuries since in the rabbinical tradition. Van Buren did not look to the mystical part of the Jewish tradition which universalizes God’s work, nor to Reform, Reconstruction or Conservative Judaism for more recent developments – some of which are very transcendental. We shall see the difference this makes in his theology compared to that of Rosemary Ruether, who learned with modern liberal Jews. Van Buren’s christology not only begins with Israel’s story, but also ‘from above’ as the free act of the God of Israel. Once again we see a conflict emerging: this time between his presentation of Jesus as a human (not a divine person) freely responding and choosing the Way of his people, the Church’s Way as historically shaped by those who respond freely to the Spirit’s call, AND the God of Israel in transcendent control of all events and history. But Van Buren can’t have it both ways – such a controlling

146 Cf. Volume Three, p. 196. 147 Boston: Beacon Press, 1974.

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God logically as well as pragmatically would limit the freedom claimed for Jesus. The tension which Van Buren acknowledged – between Israel’s Way based on historical particularity and God’s action in history, and the Church’s later Way which produced a more transcendental and philosophical theology – appeared in his own theology. The freedom of the God of Israel, to choose his people and control their actions, apparently has a greater ability to achieve its divine end than the freedom of the individual has to achieve its human end. His reason for choosing Pharisaic Judaism as the necessary norm for understanding the historical Jesus and, therefore, the base for Christian self-identification, is clear enough. The very language of Christian theology – covenant, sin, redemption, grace, messiah, kingdom – came from Israel; furthermore, ‘what the Church taught concerning the Jewish people was foundational to its whole understanding of reality’. 148 The historical Church became a multi-linguistic community, which meant reinterpretation was a natural part of the process – but anti-Jewishness became part of the mix. He hoped that the stronger contemporary Christian awareness became of the Jewish roots of these concepts, the less anti-Jewish Christians would likely be, in fidelity to Jesus the Jew. But his norm stood: if it transpired that the Church had misunderstood a Jewish concept (the example he used was ‘messiah’), the Pharisaic comprehension was to be accepted since after all, ‘whose term is it?’149 But as we shall see for ourselves, this not only doesn’t work pragmatically, but it assumes that concepts ‘belong’ to the originators. If that were so, we would all have to stop talking – as his mentor Wittgenstein posited, though for a different reason. Van Buren’s third volume presents his christology, which by extension was also his ecclesiology: for him, the Church is the proper context for Christ, as Israel was and is the proper context for Jesus. He asserted that only by retrieving Jesus’ past as a Jew can we do justice to Jesus in the present and Israel in the present. Once cognizant of Israel, the Church

148 ‘Covenantal Identity’, p.2; cf. his ‘Judaism in Christian Theology’. 149 Volume Three, p. 10.

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can move forward with more confidence into a future that is unfinished for Jews and Christians, both of whom hope for God’s kingdom as the culmination of creation. There are two fundamental principles for christology which Van Buren employed, arising from his insistence on Jewish concept as fundamental norms for Christian thought. The first principle was: ‘Every proper Christological statement, however slight, will make clear that it gives the glory to God the Father.’ He based this principle on James Sanders’ observation that each verb in the Torah-Christ story has God as subject, not Jesus the Son. The second was: ‘Every proper Christological statement will make clear that it is an affirmation of the covenant between God and Israel.’ This would serve as witness to the solidarity between Jesus and his people.150 In his first two volumes, Van Buren implied that he did not accept the normal (to him inaccurate) reading of Jesus as second person of the divine Trinity, which came out of the councils of Nicea and Chalcedon. In his third volume, he made this explicit. The Church’s entire age-old tradition must be considered anew from the Jewish perspective, which in our generation necessarily includes HaShoah and the emergent State of Israel. To look aside at this for a moment from another one of our theologian’s perspective, Rosemary Ruether had some pungent comments to make on what she labeled Van Buren’s ‘Christian Zionism’: She asserted that his Christian monism transfers salvation from Jesus back to Sinai in a way that ‘seems to exhibit a peculiar flip side of Christian relationship to Judaism, in the form of a self-abnegating philo-Semitism ....expressed in an over-compensatory identification with Jews that, finally, is unable to allow Jews to be ordinary human beings.’ His conviction that the Church must support Israel brought the wry comment from her that ‘he seems to have checked his critical faculties at the port of entry to the State of Israel.’ 151

150 Ibid, p. xviii. 151 Rosemary Ruether, The Wrath of Jonah: The Crisis of Religious Nationalism in the IsraeliPalestinian Conflict (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1989). Cf. pp. 211-15.

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Van Buren’s own assertion was that any valid theological interpretation of HaShoah and the new State of Israel must of necessity accept the fact that God has always been and is still faithful to his people. Who Jesus was in the context of Israel, and who Christ is in the context of the Church, must be considered in their light. ‘The trinitarian confession takes into account the Jewish-Christian reality....It may therefore be said that the Church belongs to Jesus Christ, and that in no way contradicts its belonging to God. The Church is at once the Church of Jesus Christ and the Church of God. It is God’s Church by being Christ’s Church, or it can be called Christ’s because Christ is God’s (cf.1 Cor. 3:23). In making cl ear the logic of this confession in its christology, the Church makes clear its own identity before God....The name of Jesus is therefore, at the least, formally central for the Church....His name is Jesus of Nazareth. He was also known, probably in his lifetime, as “the Anointed”, ho christos in our Greek accounts of his story. However “the Anointed” was understood at first, from an early time it became a part of his name.’152 Note that while in his first volume Van Buren approached the trinity through the Spirit, here in his christological volume there is no mention of the Spirit until the penultimate chapter, where he discussed the Spirit as the God of Israel present and acting. He seemed to differentiate between the Spirit and Israel’s God (who formed the Church worshipping the God of Israel through Christ), and the Spirit of God sent through Christ by God. Thus, Van Buren’s Jesus was a Jew who actualized the intimacy available to any Jew with the covenantal God. Jesus ‘stubbornly willed’ the will of God and his only cause was God’s cause.153 Van Buren might as well have put an equal sign between this sentence and the next: ‘In short, he was a Jew.’ As I read it, if these two sentences are allowed to define each other in a formal sense, then not only must every Jew be stubborn, but there is no other definition of a Jew then one who chooses to live in the same way as Jesus did. As Ruether pointed out, his was an uncritical and

152 Volume Three, pp. 6-8. 153 Ibid, pp. 74-75.

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monolithic view of Jews. He eliminated any Jewish activity not totally focused on the cause of God, which he defined as the telos of creation – in other words, the kingdom. This ignored the many Jewish traditions which were not, and are not, eschatological. To comprehend Van Buren’s position completely it must be understood that there was no omnipresent divinity for him: the Jewish concept of the presence of God allows for the possibility of absence. Thus any relationship with Jesus, whether in ancient Palestine or since his lifetime through the Church, would be salvific only in the sense that Jesus brings that person into intimate and personal contact with the God of Israel, who is also Lord and Saviour of the world. He posited nothing salvific about the person and nature of Jesus on his own, but only insofar as he led and still leads his disciples to the God whom he called ‘Abba’. This Jesus refused all glory and all titles. His crucifixion revealed the perennial conflict between the cause of God and the interests of human power. ‘The ambiguous event of the resurrection to which the early witnesses point is evidence of God’s refusal to abandon his cause.’ Jesus as risen Lord became the one to be adopted by the Gentiles as their path to the God of Israel. As the Church became more Gentile, Christian theology grew more and more estranged from the Jewish context of Jesus. It lost sight of the cause of God in favour of a (separate) cause of the Church, which only became triumphal when set against other faiths. Jesus, the Torah-true Jew, must again be made central, in order to bring about ‘the triumph of humble love, the end of all domination in all creation.’ 154 This perception of the Church and Jesus was consistent with Van Buren’s elevation of Pharisaic Judaism to normative status, and with his stated principles of christology. For him, it was very clear that Jesus is Lord and Saviour only of the Church, and he is Lord only because he is the Way for Gentiles to enter into the covenantal love between Israel and God. ‘Lord’ in this context was not a divine designation, but a term that

154 Ibid, pp. 74-107.

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respected the role God had chosen Jesus to play for Gentiles. God alone is properly Lord and Saviour of Israel and of the world. This definition of Jesus’ work as radically new, yet set firmly within the parameters of the covenant with Israel, is meant to accomplish the same end as Pawlikowski. For both, non-messianism most adequately eliminates the Church’s anti-Jewish tendencies and supersessionism. A ‘double covenant’ theologian, Pawlikowski thinks Van Buren had ‘not done adequate justice to the uniqueness of the revelation in the Christ Event’, though he was ‘the most comprehensive of the single covenant theologians’.155 However, if, as Van Buren argued, Jewish perspectives and concepts were the foundation of the Church’s language and identity, why did he choose to reject the most Jewish concept that has remained in Christian vocabulary: the concept of the messiah? This refusal was part of his task of separating Israel from the Church’s Christ. But is it sufficient reason for a theologian who claimed to be pragmatically committed to historical facticity? 156 He believed with Pawlikowski that, by avoiding the term ‘messiah’, today’s impasse in the dialogue between Jews and Christians could be overcome. Both were only willing to interpret ‘messiah’ in a fashion that restricted it to Judaism – and for Van Buren, with a radically different content for the title ‘Christ’. He was quite aware that ‘Christ’ originated as a translation of ‘messiah’ from Hebrew into Greek. He agreed that Jesus was ‘God’s anointed’ chosen to bind all nations of the world to Israel – but Jesus was not Israel’s messiah, and therefore ought not to be called ‘messiah’ at all. But then how could the English phrase ‘God’s anointed’, which as he knew was both linguistically and historically the direct translation of the Hebrew ‘messiah’, please him theologically in a way which the Hebrew term cannot? 155 Cf. Pawlikowski, Jesus and the Theology of Israel, pp. 84-5. 156 Another and contrasting perspective on such use of Pauline theology comes from George MacRae, who observed that ‘the Pauline letters are distinctive in the NT as a major body of writings in which the Messiahship of Jesus is simply not an issue.. .[but] there is no doubt that in Paul’s understanding Christ fulfills this function.’ Cf. ‘Messiah and Gospel’, pp. 170-2, in Jacob Neusner et al, Judaisms and their Messiahs at the turn of the Christian Era (Cambridge University Press, 1987).

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‘I have said “as God’s anointed”, in place of [the Rhineland Synod of the German Evangelical Church’s phrase, 10 Jan 1980) “as the Messiah of Israel”. I make this change in order to avoid the implication that Jesus fulfilled what the Jewish people have taken to be an essential expectation of their Messiah: the rescue of the Jewish people from oppression by the Gentiles. The Church has surely proven over the years that it has the least right of any institution to dare to make such a claim.’157 Most Jews would say Van Buren was correct. However, to get there, he re-wrote a church document in much the same way that he rewrote the doctrines of Nicea and Chalcedon: through a Jewish conceptual prism. Few would claim that the statements of Chalcedon, Nicea and the Rhineland Synod are free of error, but any reinterpretation should respect the positions of their authors at least as much a Jewish position, if (as Van Buren argued in his first volume) the Spirit has been and is still active in both communities. As David Lasker mused: ‘There is a sense of unease in watching a Christian attempting to rewrite his religion in such a manner. If classical Christianity is antisemitic and, therefore, ipso facto both immoral and false, why the great effort to reform it? Would not abandonment be a wiser and more consistent choice?’158 Van Buren did not wish to abandon anything but anti-Jewishness, because he did not see it as part of the Christian faith but as a ‘warp’. For him, Jesus could not have been Israel’s expected messiah because of that very anti-Jewish behaviour of the Church: ‘To make that claim is either an attempt to rob the Jewish people of one of their central symbols of hope, or it is to say to them that their hope and this symbol are of no value and need to be replaced by different ones, namely those of the Church.’159 Again, Van Buren was correct from an orthodox Jewish perspective. He based his position on the fact that there was no consensus of opinion on the function or role of a messiah in Second Temple Judaisms.160 But 157 Volume Three, p. 137 158 JEC 26:2, (1989) p. 362. 159 Op. cit., p. 10. 160 Jacob Neusner is his main source here.

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then he proceeded to ignore more than a century of recent exegesis, theological interaction, and linguistic analysis in order to claim: ‘None of the possible uses of the term “messiah” is sufficient to catch even a modest part of what the Church wants to say of the things concerning Jesus of Nazareth. The term “messiah” says far too little. The Church would therefore do well to continue its traditional use of “Christ” as a proper name and to recall that Christology has been its teaching and critical reflection on the importance of this person, not a doctrine concerning the Jewish concept of the Messiah.’161 Based on his Christian Way of knowing God, there is no need to retain a concept which is part of the Jewish Way of knowing God. In parallel with Pawlikowski, initial insights by early Christians are superseded – but because the Church left the Jewish Way, not because it found a better interpretation. While Jesus was crucified under this title, and while his earliest followers assumed his resurrection meant that he was the expected figure of the end times and therefore Israel’s messiah, the role was soon set aside for a more accurate comprehension of Jesus through the use of other Jewish concepts such as ‘son of man’, ‘son of God’, etc. ‘To the first Christians, the man Jesus embodied the divine ‘word’ of Israel’s God. The messianic hope was not, however, fulfilled either in or by his Life. The kingdom did not come. But the intimacy with the God of Israel, which Jesus personified, became the means by which Gentiles were brought into the realm of God’s covenantal love, and this should be the primary focus of christology.’162 For Van Buren, it was enough to learn from Jews that the messiah of their ancient hope was never intended to play the role his faith community had for millennia claimed. ‘The confusion of the [Rhineland] synodal assertion can be overcome by leaving out the ambiguous term “messiah”,

161 Ibid, p. 10. 162 Volume One, p. 77-80.

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focusing instead on the solidarity of Jesus with his people as reflected in his concern for the lost sheep of Israel.’163 Why Van Buren could accept the Hellenistic development of other concepts and not the messianic concept he never made clear – probably because the ancient Greeks are not still around claiming a different understanding of the concepts, in which case as the people of origin they would have prior claim. But even with those he wasn’t satisfied: for a linguist he was woefully unsophisticated in thinking English gives a better edge to a term’s use. For example, he preferred ‘embodied’ to ‘incarnate’ because of the association of incarnation with divinity, forgetting it was the Christians who made that link. And, as with ‘messiah’, all he did was translate a Greek or Hebrew term (that had become core to a complex of theological positions) into English, and assumed that makes the problem go away. Van Buren was consistent in that he never used the concept of the messiah either in his examination of Jesus within the context of Israel, or of Christ in the context of the Church. Yet it is obvious that when he spoke of the hope of the church, he was speaking of the original messianic hope without the messianic label. It is also obvious that by ignoring the linguistic roots of the title and the ‘proper name’ Χρίστος, he perpetuated the same ancient Christian habit of divorcing Jewish concepts from Christian ones – only this time in reverse. To summarize, he advocated abandoning the messianic concept for the following reasons: the Jewish concept does not express what ‘Christ’ came to mean for the Church; it was ‘improperly’ used by the early followers after Easter when the end times associated with the messiah did not come (something that, he admitted, the first Christians could not have foreseen), and it was ‘stolen’ from the Jews to become a later support for Christian superiority over Judaism. Thus once again, as with Pawlikowski, at least fifty years of initial Christian theological struggle with the meaning of Jesus for both Jews

163 Volume Two, pp. 248-263. Again, it is not clear why this concept is any more or less ambiguous than the others from that period ‘taken over’ by Christians to explain Jesus.

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and ‘Gentiles’ is reduced to a mistake – or at best a misapprehension – by a twentieth century theologian. While this might satisfy some Jewish dialogue partners, it is bewildering and confusing to those Christians who look to the gospels not only for support in their apprehension of the faith, but for serious alternatives to their faith’s anti-Jewishness. How is this type of ahistorical judgment any different from an opposite Christian reductionism which labels Judaism as a dead, or at best a blind, religion – especially in light of Van Buren’s stress on the importance of historical context for Jesus’ Jewishness, and in the face of his own belief in the presence of the Spirit in the life of the Church? Was the first generation of Christians utterly misguided? He wanted the answer to be both yes and no to both questions. Like Pawlikowski, Van Buren located the Christian use of the messianic concept under the rubric of human error, as a sincere misunderstanding of the nature of what God was doing in Jesus. It appears to have been easier for him to dispose of the Christian concept of the messiah than to wrestle with a fuller comprehension of the activity of the Spirit, of that same God whom both Van Buren and Pawlikowski credit with having created this cosmos in all its diversity and freedom. After all those decades of hard and innovative work, it is good to see that Paul Van Buren’s ‘Way’ was not skewed on his own ‘warp’. He greatly influenced another dialogue theologian, Clark Williamson, whose book A Guest in the House of Israel: Post-Holocaust Church Theology164, focused on Jesus as Christ the gift of God. Unlike Van Buren, his work is not dependent on the primacy of first-century Jewish views but rather original Christian perspectives; the gospels are the norm for the Church, not Jesus the Jew or Judaism. Williamson claims that the gospels point to the unlimited grace of God, which for the Church is located in, but not limited to, Christ. Williamson is (regrettably) not included in this work since the messianic concept is not part of his agenda.

164 Westminster: John Knox Press, Louisville, 1993

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C. ROSEMARY RUETHER: HUMANITY AS THE COLLECTIVE MESSIAH osemary Radford Ruether is the only dialogue theologian so far to take the messianic issue seriously as a real division between Christianity and Judaism which can be healed, not jettisoned. As noted in the beginning, it was she who pinpointed messianism as the ‘impasse’ in the dialogue, lodged there by the way the deep split developed between the two faiths – a perception acquired while researching her BA thesis on Jewish apocalyptic writings between the second century BCE and the end of the first century CE.

R

‘I [saw] Christian assumptions in a radically different light. A large gap opened up between the Jewish idea of the Messiah and the Catholic idea of the Christ. Inbetween the two stood the picture of the historical Jesus, remote from the idea of the Messiah, but equally remote from the Christian idea of the Christ.’165

Messianic hope became the basis of Ruether’s works, some of which focus on theological issues, others on political and ethical issues. She has been accused by various critics of following ‘theological fads’, but this is a shallow analysis: careful study of her agenda shows an underlying consistency, and her critique of classical christology remains as challenging as when first made in 1974. In Sexism and God-Talk, she performed what one reviewer called a ‘deconstruction and reconstruction’ of the classical doctrines of God, creation, redemption, and christology.166 Her redefinition of christology in feminist terms, discussed below, develops her understanding of messianic hope. While not taking part in any ecclesial committees on Christian relations with Jews, Ruether has always been active

165 Rosemary Radford Ruether, Disputed Questions: On Being a Christian (Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 1992), p.47. 166 Cf. Mary Jo Weaver’s enthusiastic review of Sexism and God-talk in CrossCurrents 17:33 (Winter 83/84). Others reviewers were as positive, but had difficulty with some of Ruether’s views, for example, Gaile Polihaus in JEC 21:2 (1984), pp. 331-2.

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in social issues and taught theology at several (non-Catholic) universities. Also, she served on the Interfaith Metropolitan Education committee just after Faith and Fratricide was published, investigating the principles and practices of Christianity in general and of Catholicism in particular. Ruether chose as her normative principle what she terms the Jewish ‘prophetic dialectic’ from which messianic hope emerged, postulating that this was central to biblical faith.167 This norm appears strongly in her evaluation of Jesus. Rather than accept the classical view of his person, i.e. as messiah/christ, she bases her christology on his messianic preaching of the kingdom. Jesus did not initiate this ‘gospel of revolution’ but received it from his Jewish prophetic tradition. Since Judaism has always been a community-based faith, with the Exodus as its recalled originating paradigmatic experience, Ruether assumes that the messianic hope was a community-based hope for redemption from oppression. The history of the Jews is one of cyclical oppression and liberation, described in their texts as the direct result of communal obedience or disobedience to the God of their Abrahamic covenant. Repeatedly exiled, repeatedly suffering foreign domination, they gradually developed a linear view of history which culminated in the hope that eventually oppression would end and they would achieve liberation under God. Ruether sees this messianic hope as the decisive catalyst which she assumes affected not only the formation of early Judaism and subsequently rabbinical Judaism, as well as Christianity, but the whole vast movement which we call Western civilization. With this as her baseline, she goes on to study revolutionary movements which characterize the secular West and traces them back to Jewish and Christian messianic expectations.168 Careful exegetical study of passages used or examining the differences between the Abrahamic and Mosaic covenants, are not Ruether’s concern. She instead takes ‘the covenant’ as experienced by and formative of, the Judaism of Jesus’ time. Her focus is not causal – i.e. how did this event 167 Disputed Questions, p. 34. 168 Cf. her The Radical Kingdom: The Western Experience of Messianic Hope (New York: Harper & Row, 1970)

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occur historically, but effectual – i.e. how has this ‘paradigmatic event’ affected Jews since, and how through them has it become part of global thinking. Indeed, covenant as formative of community is the base of Gaia and God: an Eco-feminist Theology of Earth Healing.169 Ruether chooses to see God through Jesus: that is, the god whom Jesus disclosed is a god who fits the criterion that she regards of prime importance: a god concerned with justice. Agreeing with her Jewish dialogue partners that Jesus was obviously not the messiah expected by tradition, she nevertheless argues that his message was indeed messianic in what she calls the truest Jewish sense: he focused on active liberation from oppressive social attitudes and conditions. ‘When we model our God after emperors and despots who reduce others to despondency, then we have a problem of theodicy. But the Cross of Jesus reveals a deeper mystery. The God revealed in Jesus has identified with the victims of history and has abandoned the thrones of the mighty. In Jesus’ Cross, God abandons God’s power into the human condition utterly and completely so that we might not abandon each other. God has become a part of the struggle of life against death.’170 Unlike Pawlikowski, she does not follow the Jewish tradition to make a sharp distinction between God and creation. The ‘history’ of God has always been part of the history of creation and humanity, as both undergo redemption. God-as-experienced provides the impetus for humanity’s hope for individual and world healing. God-as-experienced, however, is never the classical God-as-powerful but the God-who-empowers. The God revealed in the Cross is a God who allows responsibility for change to rest with the human agent, as Jesus demonstrated. ‘The liberating encounter with God/ess is always an encounter with our authentic selves resurrected from underneath the alienated self. It is

169 San Francisco: Harper 1992 170 Disputed Questions, p. 105.

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not experienced against, but in and through relationships, healing broken relationships with our bodies, with other people, with nature.’ 171 The method by which Ruether reaches this conclusion is feminist hermeneutics. One starts with the experience of women who wish to affirm themselves as autonomous persons in all relationships (legal, political and sexual). Then one can critique oppressive structures for women and others who traditionally had no voice.172 For Ruether, the stories of the prophets in the Hebrew Scriptures and the story of Jesus in the Christian Scriptures bear witness to the ongoing conflict between an authenticating experience of God and the inauthentic experience of oppressive religious and/or secular institutions found in any and every society. ‘Even when the prophets are killed, the struggle goes on. Indeed their very death becomes a rallying point ....In their name people now organize themselves to renew the work of liberation. The memory of their lives becomes stronger than the powers of death and gives people hope that the powers of death can be broken. This is the real meaning of redemptive suffering of Jesus and of Christians – not passive or masochistic self-sacrifice.’173

With this as her experiential baseline, Ruether argues that prophetic critique can be aimed in two directions: to the specific group to which the prophet belongs in order to identify abuses, and towards society at large. In her case, the first category holds her own Roman Catholic Church when it violates the picture of God as the God-who-empowers portrayed in Jesus. She condemns the Church as anti-Jewish, anti-women and antipoor. Into the second category fall her many social critiques.174 She is 171 Rosemary Radford Ruether, Sexism and God-talk: Towards a Feminist Theology (Boston: Beacon Press, 1993), p. 71. 172 Cf. her “Feminist Hermeneutics. Scriptural Authority and Religious Experience: The Case of Imago Dei and Gender Equality’ in Radical Pluralism and Truth, David Tracy and the Hermeneutics of Religion, edited by W. Jeanrond & J. Rike (New York: Crossroad, 1991) 173 Disputed Questions, p. 104. 174 The Radical Kingdom is a socio-political work; Sexism and God-talk discusses the conflict between feminism and both secular and religious patriarchal orders; The Wrath of Jonah

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allied with liberation and feminist theologians across faith and denominational boundaries. In dialogue with them – which as we saw, can and does include disagreement – she has sharpened her initial critique over the past three decades. Her perspective and judgment on the Church’s strengths and weaknesses in relation to justice within society and justice for groups within the Church’s jurisdiction has not changed over the years. Her early description of the Church as humans-in-relationship-witheach-other and humans-in-relationship-with-God means that she has always viewed the Church as a potent but too often misused instrument for change within society. She has struggled to both sharpen that instrument with internal criticism, and confirm its use as a tool for constructive external criticism. The hope in which she labours is identical with that hope which she says grew from the ancient Jewish prophetic critique of Israelites and the world: it is messianic. There is a basic difference between Ruether’s version of messianic hope and Moltmann’s, and it is this difference which shapes their messianic christologies. For Moltmann, Jesus was the messiah in a proleptic and anticipatory way, and the Spirit which empowered him now empowers the Church to work toward the true final goal in history, when the whole world shall know Jesus as messiah. For Ruether, Jesus lived and died two thousand years ago in the same messianic hope which has since empowered the Church’s radical gospel, but he was not ‘the’ messiah. The messianic hope can be read into Jesus in a proleptic and anticipatory way, but should not be identified with him. Rather, after his death and resurrection, Jesus passed on the hope in which he lived within his Jewish world to his followers, some of whom bore that hope into the non-Jewish world where Jesus became Christ. Moltmann identified the hope with Jesus; Ruether sees the hope as essential to the Jewish faith which generated it, and the Jewish and Christian faiths which perpetuate it.

takes the modern State of Israel to task for using Zionist policies to justify oppression of the Palestinians; and Gaia and God offers a feminist approach to ecology.

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Ruether capably detaches the role of messiah from the historical Jesus by analyzing three basic patterns of redemption that decree three different understandings of the world and therefore, three different imperatives. Only the first pattern includes a messianic figure; it is an apocalyptic future-oriented hope which evolved in the second century BCE out of the prophetic world view based in the covenant and its promises. This expectation does not anticipate the development of good within history, but looks to its end and to the messianic intervention of God’s agent. The second pattern involves the classical spiritual approach as personified by Francis of Assisi, which includes service to the poor but postulates no need to effect change in the present, since its self-conception includes the Pauline image of first fruits. The third pattern is the perception of a master plan in which salvation evolves as part of the evolutionary process, and which she calls the base of the classical doctrine of redemption. All three patterns are present in the Church and all the societies it has influenced. The first pattern precipitates struggle and self-discipline, and here she places the expectation of Jews in the first century. This struggle bonds those involved in such a way that they truly experience the brotherhood of humanity. 175 ‘The time of revolutionary expectation is the time when men come closest to experiencing the spirit dwelling in the community of man....The messianic brotherhood is then the roots of the true church, and in its life one finds the present “foretaste of the Kingdom of God” and the “first fruits” of the resurrection. It is in this form that man experiences the concrete present of salvation, recollected in memory as the lost paradise and in hope as the ever-reborn revolutionary vision. One lays hold of this vision as the deepest moral certitude of one’s life, though practical possibility remains shrouded in the deepest uncertainty.’176

Ruether here expresses her own impetus, the ‘deepest moral certitude’ which empowers her critique of classical christology and her re-presen175 The Radical Kingdom, pp. 4ff presents her argument fully. 176 Ibid, p. 288. Ruether went to inclusive language shortly after this was published.

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tation of Jesus. Her roots are in Catholicism, Marxism, and feminism, so it is no surprise that she uses the language of those roots. Marxism is evident when she views humanity as a collective; feminism, in her claim that history as recorded by the victor must be open to critique and the present open to change by those critiques; Catholicism teaches her that Jesus’ message frames him as a paradigm for hope, but Marxism demands that she focus on the revolutionary aspects of that hope. It is from within this prophetic framework that she attacks the antiJewish elements in Christianity in Faith and Fratricide, laying bare the root problem: the gospels present Jesus as the Jewish messiah supposedly foretold in the Hebrew Scriptures, therefore any Jews who turned against him must have been turning against God. This dialectic soon became the double-faced christology of classical Christianity, placing Christians in God’s true Israel while Jews are the ones ‘on probation who fail the tests and are finally cast off by God.’ The Church claimed the promise and victory implicit in its naming of Jesus as the messiah, taking a ‘dogmatic stance which denied the possibility that the Jewish people would ever be restored to their national homeland.’177 ‘The most fundamental affirmation of the Christian faith is the belief that Jesus is the Christ....the Messiah whom the prophets “foretold” and Jews “awaited”. On this affirmation everything else in Christian theology is built. To ask about this affirmation is to ask about the keystone of Christian faith.’178

Ruether works her way through two thousand years of theology in Faith and Fratricide. While her overview is un-nuanced, and is an account of popular teaching more than the careful theological work of the centuries, she succeeds in presenting the impact of a triumphal christology as anti-Jewish. Her decision to select the messianic teaching of the Church as the key to the problem as well as its solution – rather than the incarnational teaching preferred by Van Buren and Pawlikowski – reflects her 177 Faith and Fratricide, p. 14. 178 Ibid, p. 246.

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conviction that by no means is the world within the messianic age. Her decision also accepts the Jewish messianic concept as the ‘correct’ one, but without the same assumptions as Van Buren, i.e. that only the Jewish concept is God-given. However her reasoning, like his, is sociological and psychological: since the messianic concept evolved within the Jewish faith, it thus ‘belongs’ there. Christians ‘stole’ the concept by assuming Jesus fulfilled the role, thus distorting its original meaning. ‘The attribution of an absolute finality to the heightened expectations surrounding the life and death of Jesus must be regarded as a flawed way of appropriating the real meaning of eschatological encounter…Both Christian antisemitism and the patterns of totalitarianism and imperialism that have appeared in Christendom (and its secular revolutionary step-children) find their root in this error.’179 Ruether finds her solution by slicing personified messianic hope from her portrait of Jesus. To replace it, she starts to re-build christology by linking this hope instead to the struggle to bring about the future which Jesus desired. ‘The final happening of the messianic Advent must still be referred to that final goal in history when evil is conquered and God’s will is done on this earth. It is in the light of this final horizon that we can recognize the redemptive moments when they happen to us here and now, beginning with our experience of Jesus. I believe that this paradigmatic and proleptic view of the messianic work of Jesus is the only theologically and historically valid way of interpreting it consistent with biblical faith and historical realism. It is the only way we can re-connect Christianity with the context of this event in its original Jewish setting and.... rediscover the real historical Jesus.’180

While Ruether’s expectation in 1974 of finding ‘the real historical Jesus’ may have indicated a certain exegetical naïveté, her labelling of the cross

179 Ibid, p. 248. She also discussed this in The Radical Kingdom. 180 Ibid, p. 250.

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and resurrection of Jesus as paradigmatic for Christians only and not for the world (especially Jews) allows her to disassociate the early Christian re-definition of the ‘messiah’ from the way in which ‘christ’ was used in later ‘christ’-ology. Jesus ‘never regarded himself as the messiah, nor called his followers to regard the Law as superseded by a New Covenant’, but rather he understood himself as a ‘messianic prophet calling Israel to repentance’. What took place after his death when his disciples affirmed him as messiah was ‘a profound breaking and remaking of the messianic idea’, which explains ‘the paradox of the continuing messianic character of the Crucified.’ The re-cast concept was unacceptable to most Jews, but found its place in the non-Jewish community, which had many histories of saviour gods who died and rose again. ‘In their hands the concept “Christ” was transmuted into quite a different concept of “divine man”. But the hostility to the Synagogue was left, in the Christian tradition, essentially in the place fixed, not by these incoming gentiles, but by the Christians of Jewish background as they shook the dust of the homes of their fathers off their feet and departed to preach the gospel to more receptive ears.’181

Ruether regards the way in which eschatology was interpreted by the early Church as an error that allowed the sin of anti-Jewishness to marginalize a whole people. The original messianic concept in Judaism was tied to a belief in visible results of the action of God’s agent: i.e. the messianic age in which justice and mercy would be available to all humans. Christology, on the other hand, disregarded the obvious absence of such an age by collapsing the future into the past (their present): that is, into the unredeemed ‘not yet’, which if invisible, had already been redeemed through a process started by Jesus’ death and resurrection, and that will culminate in a future time chosen by God.

181 Rosemary Radford Ruether, ‘The Faith and Fratricide Discussion: Old Problems and New Dimensions’, pp. 235ff, Davies, Antisemitism & Foundations.

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This spiritualizing denial of history, Ruether charges, rests in an appropriation of Platonic soteriology and results in a split between promise and fulfillment, or to put it another way, between spiritual history and human history. And this is not only an ancient habit: she sees this tendency in Pawlikowski’s incarnational christology, and calls it a denial of ‘the defeats of history’, which are part of the struggle for messianic freedom. This split would be untenable in the original Jewish context of the messianic concept. 182 Returning to the Jewish roots of Christianity with the critical hermeneutic derived from Hebrew prophetic writings and validated by the Christian gospels, Ruether re-presents the challenge given by ‘God/ess’, her term to demonstrate the inclusiveness of the multi-dimensional divine, on which she bases her theology: ‘There is no sign to be given to this generation but the sign of Jonah, ...of the crucified messiah, the beggar at the gates of Rome, buried at Auschwitz, resurrected in a camp in the Gaza strip. Each of us must discover the secret to divine abandonment:... God has abandoned divine power into the human condition utterly and completely, so that we may not abandon each other.’183

The self-abandonment of God is available to the Jew in the Sinai covenant paradigm, to the Christian in the cross paradigm, and to both now in HaShoah. Facing these events, humans must take responsibility both individually and collectively to act out salvation without expecting an ‘end time’ intervention; if they did – as some Jewish rabbis claimed centuries ago – that ‘end time’ would arrive. To achieve this responsible attitude, ‘middle of the road’ theologians like Hans Küng and Schillebeeckx must stop portraying Jesus as a non-political liberal in their ‘ideology of neutrality’ and accept the true messianic meaning of the gospel as rediscovered in our day by liberation theologians. The status quo which accepts the split between ‘haves and have-nots’ must be opposed, even if 182 Ibid, p. 246. 183 Ibid, p. 256.

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the ‘haves’ are respected theologians, whom she equates with the despised ‘scribes’ of the gospels. Using the metaphor of the portrait artist, Ruether accepts the adage that the theologian participates in the creation of Jesus’ portrait, but insists on a constant need to consult the insight supplied by biblical exegesis, historical analysis and one’s own psychological and social context. ‘One’s portrait of Jesus ultimately expresses one’s normative statement about the Christian message to the world today.’ 184 With reference to the liberation theologians with whom she allies herself, a charge by the normally gentle Clark Williamson is appropriate here: that liberation theologians are the most anti-Jewish today.185 We shall see the appropriateness of this as our investigation continues. As liberation theologians tend to do, she here follows the existential practice of situating the main active role in salvation within the decider, the human. Elsewhere, though, she assumes God/ess as active in relationship and creation but does not situate him/her within the contexts of history, theology and society – that is, solely within the province of humanity. The historical and prophetic critique which she employs so well and with devastating results against the Church’s anti-Jewishness – the same style which evidently served to promote the gospel anti-Jewish polemic in the first place186 – is unfortunately not applied to her own work, and this may have to do with the comment of Parkes we saw earlier: that she writes too quickly and without sufficient reflection. Once she aligns herself with what she perceives as the most authentic portrait of Jesus available, she performs the same alchemical bonding with ‘truth’ which she criticizes in biblical and classical theology. Nor does she couch her presentation of liberation christology as only necessary for now. She claims to take history seriously, but she does this in the same fashion as Van Buren did:

184 Cf. Ruether’s argument in ‘Is a New Consensus Possible?’ JEC 17:3 (1980), pp. 63-68. 185 Cf. Guest in the House.., To Change the World, p. 1. 186 See Ruether’s discussion on the development of the anti-Jewish element in the Christian texts in her Faith & Fratricide, ch.2, ‘The Growing Estrangement: The Rejection of the Jews in the New Testament’, pp. 64ff.

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within a theological framework which elevates Jewish interpretations at the expense of Christian ones. The essential difference between the two is that Ruether’s Jewish reference points were assimilated from a modernist liberal Reform model, whereas Van Buren came from a more Orthodox approach. The judgment of both is similar: Jewish concepts are ‘more correct’, that is, closer to the actual activity of God, than ‘corrupted’ Christian concepts which may have the same label but not the same content. While Ruether’s portrait of Jesus does away with the ahistorical triumphant saviour who has already defeated evil, it is replaced with another ahistorical figure: a paradigmatic Jewish prophet and liberator who everywhere and always chooses the poor and oppressed in their struggle for social freedom, and ‘continues to disclose for us the Christ, the messianic humanity’. There is nothing ‘wrong’ with her portrait, extracted as it is from the biblical record and fueled as it is by her personal and social struggle against oppressive systems. However, the way in which she critiques other portraits, historical or contemporary, weakens her presentation. She does not validate any portrait of Jesus that is not based in the iconoclastic prophet. For example, in discussing Hans Küng’s Jesus as necessarily in conflict with the Law: ‘There may be some danger in mixing up one’s polemic portrait of the Roman Curia with a portrait of the first century Pharisees!’187 In other words, don’t project one’s own life situation back onto Jesus. This is a worthwhile caution, but she doesn’t follow it. Her Jesus, if present, would be in the vanguard of the fight against those oppressed in the twentieth century and especially by the same Roman Curia: women. He would act now as he did then: ‘Messianic prophecy in first-century Palestine operated as the expression of political opposition both to Roman imperial domination, and to the oppression of their Palestinian poor by the local ruling class.’188

187 Ibid, p. 2. 188 Ibid, p. 7.

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Ruether regards Jesus’ message as coming from a holistic appropriation of the world which is specifically Jewish (and coincidently is also contemporary feminist). This message speaks of the reconciliation of opposites, of rich with poor, of secular with sacred. Reconciliation occurs when all relationships come into order instead of conflict: humanity with humanity, humanity with God, and humanity with nature. This messianic message is more easily appropriated by those with no stake in the status quo, Ruether postulates, since outcasts and despised who have no hope are here offered hope. Indeed, it is the betrayers of Jesus who are the first to receive the resurrected hope, since they are isolated by their loss of the dream of messianic power. It was Jesus who properly appropriated the messianic message by his refusal of social power, and his acceptance of the powerless. And it is this message which ever since is consistently betrayed by the later Christian followers of Jesus, with their insistence on a triumphal christology. Ruether’s christology emerges not only from a selective interpretation of the messianic concept but from selected portions of the gospels only. Her choice is based not on textual criticism – the careful work of current scholars in order to assess which pericopes are closer to the original Jesus stories – but rather upon her a priori conception of Jesus as primarily God’s prophet. She recalls the parables of Jesus which picture the kingdom of heaven as social and political; she does not recall those that focus on an inward response. She recalls the poor who accepted his message; she does not recall the poor who did not. She recalls the disciples who betrayed him; she does not recall the ones who all along appear to have comprehended Jesus’ spurning of power. She recalls the rich and powerful who oppressed; she does not recall those who assisted the poor, or Jesus’ quite non-revolutionary dictum to ‘render to Caesar’s what is Caesar’s’.189 Hence her portrait of Jesus is two-dimensional: Jewish and prophetic. Her hermeneutical technique separated the messianic message from the

189 Cf. The Gospel of Mark, references to: ‘the kingdom’, 4:21ff vs. 9: 33-41; ‘the poor’, 8:1ff vs. 6:1ff; ‘betrayal’, 14:32ff vs. 4:33-34; ‘the rich’, 2:15 vs. 12:13ff.

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messianic figure in a way that the first Jewish disciples apparently could not and would not have done. Also, the early Church apparently did not wish to make this separation – but she deems it necessary. Her contribution is rescued from arrogance by her awareness of the complex heritage which comprises historical Christianity. Her intent to ‘affirm the whole array of Christian traditions, East and West, Protestant and Catholic, magisterial and radical Reformations’, comes from her belief in and practice of the messianic healing of relationships.190 True dialogue for her begins not between faith and faith, but between those within the same basic religious community, even if historically divided from each other. Once one can accept the historical and theological diversity of Christian communities, one can enter into a ‘rich dialogue’ to share the various and conflicting perspectives of the ages. This is certainly her goal. But her normative principle of prophetic critique itself must be criticized, something she fails to do. She seems to share in the implicit assumption which many Jewish and Christian thinkers display: that a prophet is ‘right’ because of a special closeness to God. Because of that, if she targets a social evil and sends off her arrows, she expects the operative hope behind her action to result in healing, but not always of those who she views as the oppressors. For example, her signing of the 9/11 Truth Statement supports a specific group’s desire to expose what ‘really’ happened, the assumption being that none of what has so far been presented by government or NGO investigations is true. The prophetic critique is brought out at the first suspicion now of corruption or collusion in oppression. How is this healing? How is she so sure she is right? Despite the tale of Jonah and the anguish of Jeremiah – or even the doubts of Jesus as he faced Gethsemane – the image of the prophet as more righteous and closer to the reality of God endures, and this is the source of infallibility read into her liberation christology. This weakness appears to come from her failure to utilize more strongly one principle of feminist hermeneutics: that history is written by the victor (which, by the way, is not

190 Disputed Questions, p. 38

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as accurate a reading of the history of historical texts as the feminists would like). The history she uses as the base of her method includes the prophetic textual tradition from which she draws her method. Many of these latersacred texts condemned whole peoples to oblivion because of the way in which they treated God’s chosen, or because they ignored their God. And as she is no doubt aware, when Jesus is recorded in the gospels delivering an anti-Jewish tirade, the format is based on the style of these earlier texts. Ruether has often criticized Jewish and Christian Zionists for elevating the concept of ‘the chosen’ in a fashion that tends to exclude the ‘unchosen’, i.e. Palestinians.191 But she forgets to critique the tradition itself for that same blatant tendency to habitually select only ‘the chosen’ as recipients of God’s covenant. The prophetic tradition for her comes from a people struggling constantly for freedom from oppression, but the actual history is far more complex and includes the struggle for growth in comprehension and faith. The result is a very uneven prophetic critical tradition, with some texts that are polemics against the nations or against Israel, and others that attempt to see beyond the present to a time when God will reconcile all to him. These passages are written by those who emerge in the Jewish tradition as ‘victors’ in the battle between evil and good because they are covenanted with the God of Israel and later revered as heroes, but she does not take note of the ancient people who were as much victims of Jewish prophetic polemic as Jews have been victims of Christian polemic. Because she describes her normative principle in this fashion, it becomes as two-dimensional as her portrait of Jesus: pro-Jewish and pro-prophet. This unfortunate – considering her training – lack of grounding in the ambiguity and complexity of historical contexts is what in the end makes her appropriation of the messianic hope of dubious value in the contemporary dialogue of Christians and Jews. With one hand she places Jesus within the messianic context, but with the other hand she takes away what 191 Cf. The Wrath of God; also her articles in Beyond Occupation: American Jewish, Christian and Palestinian Voices for Peace, ed. Rosemary Ruether and Marc Ellis (Boston: Beacon Press, 1990); and Faith and the Intifada: Palestinian Christian Voices, ed. Naim Ateek, Marc Ellis and Rosemary Ruether (Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 1992).

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the Church has always perceived as the original and intentional uniqueness of his life. Her purpose is laudable and worthy of study and application: to teach Christians today to appropriate the messianic hope as an effective instrument for constructive change. The ‘bridge’ which she has advocated for decades between Christians and Jews is mutual acceptance of this messianic hope in anticipation of a future world of healed relationships, the first of which would be the ancient breach between Synagogue and Church caused by the impasse over the messiah. But she cannot promote this healing unless the flaw in her own appropriation of the past is reconsidered: her denial of the original and actual context of the Christian messianic hope. One can understand why she has been prevented from teaching in the theological milieu of her own Church. She takes away from Christians, both historically and theologically, the figure of their messiah – which she herself admits to be the central aspect of the messianic and eschatological hope on which the Church is based. For a portrait which evolved in Early Judaism of this active agent – human or divine, arriving or being sent at a specific point in history to fulfill God’s promises – she substitutes a portrait of the collective figure of humanity which evolved in nineteenth and twentieth-century Marxist philosophy. To be clear: Ruether does not identify her concept with the Church. The Church is only part of the collective; but the ‘messianic brotherhood’ as the ‘root of the true Church’ brings into reality the ‘collective social ecstasy’. There is some overlap between her concept and Paul’s Body of Christ, but his was constituted only of Christian believers.192 As far as we know, any concept of a collective as understood today, let alone the concept of a collective messianic humanity, had no place in the world of two thousand years ago. The closest one can come to it is the linguistic forms of ‘people’, and these were meant to be us-them categorizations. Therefore her suggestion is radically discontinuous from both the original Jewish messianic concept and the ‘transmuted’ Christian con-

192 Cf. The Radical Kingdom, pp 283-288.

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cept. Her messianic humanity is of necessity not situated within a particular historical setting: it is inclusive of all human history and therefore not grounded in concrete particularity. While this re-worked concept fits her overview of ‘western’ history and might be acceptable as a valid paradigm for liberation theology, it negates the core question facing Jews and Christians in dialogue: ‘Is Jesus the Messiah?’ Ruether answered this question by claiming it as irrelevant, with arguments rooted in her particular apprehension of the Jewish messianic hope. As for Judaism itself, she praises its ability to balance universalism and particularity as its most valuable contribution to the world; what she perceives as unbalanced is a Zionism which selects the land of Israel as of necessity belonging to the Jews. She has surveyed the interaction of divine and human in various cultures as part of her vision to contribute to a clearer apprehension of the collective messianic humanity. But it is difficult to perceive how her concept differs from that of last century’s Universal Man, or how its ahistorical aspect can be compatible with her own critique of Christianity’s spiritualization of the eschaton.193 Because of this, she offers nothing concrete for those Christians and Jews who have had and still have a messianic concept rooted in expectation of an historical person entering history. By loosening the ‘historical Jesus’ from the original meaning of the messianic concept, she undermines the historical particularity with which this concept has been appropriated by both faiths during the first century and since. It is this lack of concrete and historical particularity which contradicts her position that the highest form of faith is universal acceptance of the ongoing activity of ‘God/ess’ in all creation and religions. Ruether has yielded to an abstract ahistorical ideal.

193 Cf. her discussions in Faith and Fratricide, The Wrath of Jonah, and Gaia and God.

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CONCLUSION: STILL AT AN IMPASSE

he three alternate christologies presented above encourage the notion that Christian thought has taken a great leap forward in the past fifty years. Granted, contemporary biblical archaeology has provided a clearer picture of the past, allowing today’s theologians to ground their ideas in a more reliable reconstruction of ancient history than was formerly the case. Yet a dilemma remains. Is it legitimate for theologians of our time to comprehend the ‘true’ meaning of Jesus in a manner seriously inconsistent with the initial understandings of the disciples in his own time? On what basis can the hermeneutics of our century be absolutized? Relying so totally on our archaeology, historical consciousness, and psychological insights is surely insufficient. Why should the struggles of the ancient Church and the Church’s earliest eras be regarded as less Spirit-formed than those of our age? This bias is most obvious when assessing the three theologians above. They have been immensely important in exposing Christians to their anti-Jewish ‘warp’. Their learning has enabled them to perceive the inconsistencies between the theological portrait of Jews (ancient or contemporary) painted by Christians, and the actual ongoing life of Judaism and Jewish communities. Their theological activities have fostered a healthier appreciation of and response to Jews and Judaism within the wider Christian world as their influence extended beyond North America. But they have not succeeded in resolving the impasse in the current Jewish-Christian dialogue. The three very different directions which these three theologians have recommended cannot all be taken. One cannot accept Jesus as incarnate God, AND as human embodiment of the divine word in order to enable Gentiles to enter the Jewish covenant, AND as a messianic prophet who anticipated a messianic humanity. One must choose. But if one chooses any of these christological options, the impasse remains.

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‘Was Jesus the messiah?’ is not as easily resolved as Pawlikowski, Van Buren and Ruether assume. Their denials of Jesus’ messianic status do not deal satisfactorily with the early Church, because each invalidates apostolic Christianity in a fashion inconsistent with their claim that they take history more seriously than others have. For them, taking history seriously does not mean treating the perceptions and insights of the early Christians with the same seriousness with which the perceptions and insights of other first-century Jews (for example, the Pharisees) are taken. Nor does it include as deep an appreciation of all of the evolving christologies as I think is warranted, considering the struggle with issues of more importance at that time in history than the Jewishness of Jesus. Since the meta-framework of dialogue provides a safe place where traditions can be explored objectively and fairly, then I recommend that in our discussions we extend the same respect to ancient theologians as we have learned to extend to – and request of – dialogue partners in the present. The recent awareness of Christian anti-Jewishness has unnerved many theologians, with good cause. Christian teshuvah (as discussed by the Eckardts) highlights the specific corruption of theology which led to the demonization of Jews. However, a reverse bias is not free of hazards: Judaism has now become the standard by which to judge Christianity. A dialogical method that can balance the insights of both faith communities, and can retrieve the past without loss of its integrity, is needed to redress the imbalance. The original split between Christianity and Judaism was caused by a basic disagreement over whether or not Jesus was the messiah. This split happened in a specific context and for specific reasons, and it has been maintained in other contexts for other reasons. It is necessary to examine this split by employing a more empirical method in order to understand the complexities involved at the time. Such a method will enable us to attempt a retrieval of the ancient concept of the messiah and follow its historical evolution in two different directions, in two different faiths.

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hatever the portrait of Jesus that one draws, it makes sense that it in some way corresponds to the ones sketched by the original collectors of the events of his life. Whether one comes from a faith perspective or historical curiosity, the data available is more than adequate to at least give the orientation of the personage behind the multi-leveled interpretations. So since our case study impasse is about this person and how to deal with the role assigned him quite shortly after he walked the paths of Palestine, I want to start the methodological portion of our investigation with my personal choice of the pericopes to show how it motivated me to participate in this task. Jesus apparently had a gift for healing – however channeled, however construed. He also had a habit of being nice to the people he was supposed to chastise, and chastising the people he was supposed to treat with deference. So those used to such deference used to get back at him by watching what he did and reducing it to something evil – as many since have reduced what he did or even his existence to fantasy land or trickery. There came a day, the pericope in Mark’s gospel goes, when Jesus healed a possessed man and the muttering started again that he could cast out a devil because he was The Devil. Jesus was grieved – and he responded with the sarcastic metaphor that ‘a house divided against itself cannot stand’, then with one of my favourites, a warning of caution against those of us tempted to quick judgments about what others are doing: ‘Truly I tell you, people will be forgiven for their sins and whatever blasphemies they utter; but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit can never have forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin’ – for they had said, ‘he has an unclean spirit’ (3:28-30).

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My translation of the Greek, matched with the Aramaic and communal presuppositions of the time, informs me that Jesus would likely have seen himself as functioning within the parameters of Torah holiness – which the Rambam a millennium later divided into ten levels. He wasn’t forgiving sins – he was announcing their forgiveness, a very different task. He was showing his vision of the heart of their god. But Jesus’ critics saw the opposite, and in their jeering stepped onto the forbidden ground of assigning work done in the name of their god to his antithesis – not a smart move if, as many did at the time, you believe such blasphemy results in you being tossed down the cliff from the walls of Jerusalem onto the 24/7 burning garbage heap in the valley of Gahanna. So I took this to heart and decided to listen a lot and speak little, and learn. It was decades, though, before my exegetical and historical studies found a method that could combine with my theological studies, which were eliciting a growing awareness of the global and cultural results of that silent pulsating energizing ongoing agency – called in Mark’s text the Holy Spirit. I was learning to see this agency as active globally in all faiths that were and are moving toward the fruits listed by the apostle Paul in his letter to the Corinthians (13). My research showed that texts and contexts were so clearly filters for experience and explanations that choosing one over another seemed to participate in the same blasphemy as Jesus’ enemies. Not wanting to burn, my reticence to select one as primary (needless to say for you who have gone through this) made enemies of individuals and faith communities who perceived their path as the only one leading to the peak. I found many maps that somewhat corresponded to similar territories, so I also started digging into all aspects of cognitive science work from philosophical through psychological to neurological. Before long it became obvious that my quest for an inclusive method would be the only way to make some sense of all this data – in which I included interpretation. The opportunity afforded to any graduate student to spend years at such a beloved task has endeared me to such learning forever – or until I die, whichever comes first. And I found a way, a method – one I had already known implicitly and by which I had been functioning since my first teenage suspicions that all 137

was not kosher at the borders of the Baptist faith, because that was when I had discovered William James’ Varieties of Religious Experience and had for the first time breathed the air of a wider freedom offered through compassionate scholarship. The synchronous fact that decades later my quest spiraled back to him has been one of the abiding joys of doing this task you are reading now. His encouragement not only made me a better student but his example supplied me with a concrete archetype of the practitioner of open-ended enquiry-oriented teaching – which my students appreciate, since without that how can we make the necessary links for learning? Experimentation and experience of the past fifty years have shown that the meta-framework of dialogue provides a logical and safe place for discussion of contentious issues that exist between partners. In our case study, we are listening to Jews and Christians concerned about the Christian claim that Jesus was the Jewish messiah who, whether partially or completely, fulfilled the ancient promises of their God. The three prominent North Americans we have just examined, influenced by ecclesial documents and the dialogue, have done amazing work but not yet succeeded in resolving the messianic issue in a way satisfactory to both Jews and Christians. Pawlikowski’s christology contains a subtle supersessionism; Van Buren’s theology reduces Christianity to auxiliary status vis-à-vis Judaism; and Ruether’s christology imposes a liberator model on Jesus to the detriment of classical Christian affirmations. All three honour the Jewish ‘no’ to Jesus as Israel’s messiah, but this alone does not overcome the impasse. So we must continue looking for a dialogical method that is able to do justice to the deeper dimensions of the issue – a method respectful of context, of the historic evolutions of both Judaism and Christianity. My search for a method involved investigating everything I could get my hands on written about Jewish-Christian relations, as well as each faith’s singular concerns. That took a while. Then in ‘Studies in Judaism and Christianity’ I found the work of Bernard Lee, a process theologian who advocates religious empiricism and the radical empirical method; he insists that no other approach works for post-HaShoah christology. 138

Bernard Lee is not as well-known as the three in the previous chapter, nor has he had as significant an effect, but his efforts point out the way which I have decided to use to work through the messianic impasse. A Catholic formed intellectually and spiritually by Thomist philosophy, Lee was deeply impressed by his community’s post-war shift in perspective toward Jews via Nostra Aetate. This inspired him to study Judaism seriously with Jewish colleagues, first in Jerusalem and then in Los Angeles, after which he adopted the principle: ‘Since the Holocaust, the retrieval of Jesus’ Jewishness must belong at the heart of Christianity’s social reconstruction.’194 This is the basic motivation for his work, and influenced his decision to concentrate on christology as the most pertinent problem for the post-HaShoah Christian world. It also directed his choice of antecedents and method. In radical empiricism, historical context is given the highest significance in any attempt to understand the development of concepts. Joining Lee, I will argue that this has the potential to develop a satisfactory postHaShoah christology. Then, I hope to demonstrate the method’s viability as a means of negotiating the Jewish-Christian impasse caused by the clash of two mutually exclusive messianic visions.

194 Bernard J. Lee, The Galilean Jewishness of Jesus: Retrieving the Jewish Origins of Christianity; Conversation on the Road not Taken, Volume 1 (New York: Paulist Press, 1988), p. 10.

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A. CHOOSING CONTEXT AS PRIMARY hen Bernard Lee went looking for a method to help shift christology into the post-HaShoah era, he didn’t need to leave his own country. William James of Harvard was part of that broad school of thought known as empiricism. Alfred North Whitehead of Chicago was a metaphysician whose key ideas are closely related to evolutional thought and empirical science. Hence, the nature of empiricism is our starting point.195 Historically, empirical philosophy arose on the Continent during the Age of Reason in opposition to rational philosophy. Both ‘concern the relation of our knowledge, ideas, and thought in general, to experience on the one hand, and reason on the other, each school seeing more, or less, importance in the one or the other of these possible sources of knowledge and ideas.’196 The time frame of this controversy was the seventeenth to the early twentieth century; the two contrasting labels were applied by nineteenth-century historians of philosophy as a useful tool for systematization. According to these broad classifications, the empiricist uses experience as the ‘touchstone of truth and meaning’ and does not overly value speculation about what is beyond experience; the rationalist holds that one can think meaningfully about what transcends experience. Disagreement is thus over whether or not one can transcend experience to know truth through pure reason. These differing criteria of truth determine the methods by which truth is sought. It is not that one position doesn’t perceive merit in the other;

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195 My treatment of empiricism relies mostly on R.S. Woodhouse, The Empiricists: A History of Western Philosophy, Volume Five (New York: Oxford University Press), 1988 196 Ibid, p. 1.

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the issue is the proper and best method of epistemology. ‘When people disagree, their differences can usually be settled by appeal to some agreed test or criterion, a procedure or an authority. But when the disagreement concerns the tests or criteria themselves, matters are obviously less straightforward and less easily settled.’197 1. William James The danger which empirical philosophers feared in rationalism was that a system based totally on speculation could easily become divorced from the world, and thus have no consequential moral effect on it. Starting with a moral concern shapes all subsequent discussion. It is presupposed by Lee and other empirical theologians that their pragmatic conclusions will affect moral judgments and be formative for post-HaShoah concerns.198 It was the American psychologist William James who first criticized any approach which lacked this moral element. Working over the turn into the twentieth century, he gladly appropriated the method of the empiricists, best represented for him by the English philosophers John Locke and David Hume. Their empiricism was well grounded in the presupposition that ‘man’s thinking is organically connected with his conduct... [E]very difference must make a difference, every theoretical difference somehow must result in a practical difference, and … the best method of discussing points of theory is to begin by ascertaining what practical difference would result from one alternative or another being true.’ Locke and Hume formulated the critical empirical method which James regarded as best ‘fitted to make philosophy a study worthy of serious men.’199 The aspect of James’ thought most pertinent to our case study arose from his combination of English empiricism with American thinker 197 Ibid, p. 4. 198 See later discussion by Nancy Frankenberry. 199 William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature (Gifford Lectures 1901/2) (New York: New American Library, 1958), p. 338.

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Charles Pierce’s principle of pragmatism, which he defined as follows: ‘Thought in movement has for its conceivable motive the attainment of belief, or thought at rest. Only when our thought about a subject has found its rest in belief can our action on the subject firmly and safely begin. Beliefs, in short, are rules for action; and the whole function of thinking is but one step in the production of active habits. If there were any part of a thought that made no difference in the thought’s practical consequences, then that part would be no proper element of the thought’s significance.’ James then applied this principle to the so-called attributes of God as outlined by rational Christian theologians to discern their truth, and concluded that the God of the theorists is a monster with titles which in practice mean nothing. It is obvious that he would find the anti-Judaic element only one of several immoral elements among any who follow such a god. 200 It was reading his straightforward yet gentle critique as a young student which aimed me in the same direction as Lee: toward an apprehension of faith which practices the moral precepts on which it claims to be based. This is not easy. However, applying his perception of variations to this case study will hopefully help exorcise the ghost of the theorists’ god. James’ primary concern was that anyone engaged in philosophy formulate a system of thought which produces constructive action. To do this, one must already have decided what constructive action means – in James’ case, actions designed to enhance the highest moral standards in the social order. One begins pragmatically by discerning without prejudice all activities perceived and experienced within a social system, in order to assess what composes the actuality or reality of that system. One works back from that assessment to the ideas and concepts resident in the system which produced the actions. Lastly, the principle of judgment, implicit in the particular moral stance selected by the philosopher, is brought to bear to determine if the actions and/or thoughts are acceptable or unacceptable. This empirical approach is therefore not an argument from origin (i.e. a ‘final cause’,

200 Ibid, p. 339.

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which is how the rationalists tended to set up their systems and arguments) but ‘the way in which [a belief works on the whole...: By their fruits ye shall know them, not by their roots.’ 201 Here James’ method links with what is claimed as the basis of Christian theology. Although he is specifically referring to physiological roots of behaviour, one can accept that his own faith orientation led him to select this metaphor. He is validating the variety of behavioral ‘fruits’ from many tree ‘roots’. The constant criticism of James, that he wrote popularly even in his learned works, is one that (in my judgment) stems from jealousy among those who weren’t so interesting. Such criticism fits the critic, and thus allows us to see James’ method in action. He wanted results and aimed for them, which is why (as he admitted) he tailored speeches to his audience. Here he was probably using word rhythm to get his point home, so that restless students attending the Gifford Lectures would hear them afterwards and ponder them, to see if personal actions contradict or support claims made in words. James was persuaded that his approach would ground philosophical studies properly in scientific observation of what is actually occurring. ‘To understand a thing rightly we need to see it both out of its environment and in it, and to have acquaintance with the whole range of its variations.’202 Note the link between philosophy and psychology, which makes his work accessible to both and a solid bridge between. For either or both, though, empiricism as he had received it wasn’t enough: it had to go the distance and be ‘radical’, which ‘neither admits into its constructions any element that is not directly experienced, nor excludes from them any element that is directly experienced.’ Experience is for him the ‘primal stuff or material in the world’, only known and contextualized through relations between living beings, i.e. through and because of the social element in life. This outlook does not recognize the matter/spirit dualism which rationalism tended to assume. For such a philosophy, the relations that

201 Ibid, pp. 33-34. 202 Ibid, p. 35.

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connect experiences must themselves be experienced relations, and any kind of relations experienced must be accounted as ‘real’ as anything else in the system.203 Follow the steps. Each event in an experience is important. The experiencing of the event[s] is important. Thinking of the experience after the fact is the final step which gives it meaning, when each event of the experience is related in a unity which comprises the whole of the experience. James concluded that all experiences are extrapolations from an ongoing process of ‘experiencing’ that is accessible to anyone, extracted from the undifferentiated ‘raw stuff ’ of living. We, the experiencers, differentiate, interpret, and relate our experiences into coherence. It is the way in which we interpret these experiences as we form ideas and concepts which determines our subsequent behaviour. It is the difference in the ways in which different persons interpret even a similar experience which accounts for alterations in our behaviour, both as individuals and as social groups. Apprehension and interpretation are thus integral components of James’ pragmatism. Therefore, changing views of reality in a philosophical or religious system are reflected in the changing relations among those within the system, and their subsequent relations with the world. Changing views of reality are a consequence of what is apprehended and interpreted as ‘the immediate experience in its passing’, which ‘is always truth, practical truth, something to act on.’ Such reflections are a more accurate reading of the actual views of those within a system than their expressed views.204 James’ validation of the multiplicities, of the varieties of relationships between and interpretations by ‘experiencer’ and ‘experienced’, allows for both continuity and discontinuity. This philosophical acceptance of change in the cosmos nullifies the stultifying static philosophical approaches. It allows transition, the non-concrete ‘cement’ which binds one moment or event to another, to be the principle of stability in the universe. Finally, it explains the resistance that occurs when confronting the plu203 Peter Smith, William James. Essays in Radical Empiricism and a Pluralistic Universe (Glouster MA, 1967), pp. 3, 41. 204 Lee, op. cit., p. 25.

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ralities of other interpretations of experience, if outside of and especially if antithetical to one’s own. ‘Radical empiricism...is fair to both the unity and the disconnection. It finds no reason for treating either as illusory. It allots to each its definite sphere of description, and agrees that there appears to be actual forces at work which tend, as time goes on, to make the unity greater.’205

James’ scientific experiments first pointed to and then supported his developing belief that ‘we can at every moment continue to believe in an existing beyond’ to which we live in a ‘confident rush’.206 James’ perception and his attendant enthusiasm are both highly relevant to our case study. If the claim of messianic Christians confidently expecting Jesus’ rushing return is our starting point, then we work from that to ascertain what a messiah ‘is’ for them. That brings us to the exegetical study in our fourth chapter. Then, if these believers truly do act as if Jesus is messiah, i.e. by giving justice to all (including Jews) – as is claimed will happen in messianic times – it can be accepted that the original concept is indeed true for them. Believers who make the same claim but do not act according to it show that the way in which this concept was understood by early Christians is not true for them. Based on this, Jews who expect justice but don’t receive it are correct to disregard this claim. James did not attempt to describe systematically what the ‘forces at work’ might be, but he believed that such forces are active and present in the world. This was the motive behind his work, and that which he assumed lay behind all the experiences categorized as ‘religious’ world-wide. His pragmatism is thus not only open to the continuity and discontinuity of our pluralistic world, but also to the criteria of truth as represented by both rationalism and empiricism. Although very strongly opposed to speculative thought for its own sake, he reserved a place for rational thinking that postulates a transcendental ‘beyond’ outside the limits of human 205 Ibid, p. 47. 206 Ibid, p. 88.

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experience. He treated both of those antithetical and disparate traditions in the same way: demanding the simple but necessary requirement that when used, they produce moral results. James’ approach speaks directly to our case study, since pragmatism promotes three complementary attitudes in its adherents: first, a cultivation of the habit of attentiveness; second, the promotion of mutual understanding between groups or individuals who find themselves in opposing camps because of a clash of concepts; and third, an imaginative acceptance of pluralism. James’ philosophy is ‘primarily a mediating way of thinking’207 which rests on his belief in an underlying movement toward unity. It also sounds a lot like Swidler’s ‘Dialogue Decalogue’. This active holistic engagement of hermeneutical attentiveness to another’s way of speaking, way of thinking and way of experiencing the world is the result of James’ sharp sensitivity to context – the primary requirement in the search for understanding. The second and third attitudes derive from this primary attitude: the second could be called anthropological, since it focuses on humanity, and the third theological, since it focuses on the concept of God. Promotion of mutual understanding gives ‘maximum efficacy to man’s endeavours’, and an acceptance of pluralism allows ‘God [to be conceived in such a way as to respect man’s responsibilities in the creation of our world.’208 James’ contention that theoretical systems must be grounded in experience has two results. On the one hand, it eliminates philosophical incoherence. On the other and more important hand for our case study, philosophers and theologians are held accountable for the consequences (positive or negative) of their teachings. No one idea or concept can stand above the world as an absolute ‘truth’. If it does, it has no active relation to the world and therefore no truth to offer. Ideas and concepts that are true are those which interact with the world, and which have perceivable consequences. 207 Charlene Haddock Seigfried, William James’s Radical Reconstruction of Philosophy (New York: State University of New York Press), 1990, p. 193. 208 Robert Vanden Burgt, The Religious Philosophy of William James (Chicago: Nelson-Hall, 1981), p. 8.

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The philosopher must therefore be as careful and critical of what is presented as philosophy as any human is careful as to how s/he lives. The criterion of truth no longer rests in an ideal validation within a system of thought, but on whether it ‘works’ morally and ethically in relation to what it represents. There can thus be no separation between theory and practice. The one influences the other, and vice versa. As a philosophical or religious system evolves through time and space, more and more of the universe is experienced by the adherents. Their experiences need to be filtered through a reflective process reaching back to the original moral core. If the system continues to work morally and ethically, it will remain an active and true representation of, ‘true’ to, its originally stated (positive) ideal. If the system ceases to work morally and ethically, it retains no pragmatic value and therefore is no longer ‘true’. This open approach to life-as-experienced means that James’ criterion for the truth of any speculative theory rested on pragmatic acceptance of reality wherein all complexities and varieties of experiences and contexts are included. 2. Alfred North Whitehead The second philosopher who influenced Bernard Lee was Alfred North Whitehead. Whitehead is very different from James, whose main ideas can be handily synopsized. Developed in the 1920s and 1930s, Whitehead’s system rests on complex mathematical theoretical structures, and, in order to convey the ideas thus elaborated, he developed his own terminology. As a result, he is difficult to summarize – especially for someone like me who usually uses math for accounting. However, I shall attempt to describe those aspects of his thought and method which Lee utilizes, but beg your forgiveness for the distortions that will inevitable occur.209 209 I wish to acknowledge here my debt to Barbara Boraks of the Toronto Christian-Jewish Dialogue, who lent me her Cambridge doctoral thesis-in-progress: ‘The Invention of

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Whitehead introduced and expounded the philosophy of process thought in North America. He began: ‘That “all things flow” is the first vague generalization which the unsystematized, barely analyzed, intuition of men has produced. without doubt, if we are to go back to that ultimate, integral experience, unwarped by the sophistications of theory, the flux of things is one ultimate generalization around which we must weave our philosophical system.’210 Positing flux as one of the first principles in early Greek philosophy, he admitted that a ‘rival notion’ developed in Platonic philosophy which ‘dwells on permanences of things’, such as the spirit of humans, or God. Most philosophers since have moved back and forth between these two notions in order to find a balance. Static permanence and flux were given differing degrees of importance depending on the philosophers’ presuppositions.211 Like James, Whitehead liked the English empiricists. They discerned ‘two kinds of fluency’ in their effort to remove this oscillation: ‘One kind is the fluency inherent in the constitution of that particular existent. This kind I have called concrescence. The other kind is the fluency whereby the perishing of the process, on the completion of the particular existent, constitutes that existent as an original element in the constitution of other particular existents elicited by repetitions of process. This kind I have called transition. Concrescence moves towards its final cause, which is its subjective aim; transition is the vehicle of the efficient cause, which is the immortal past.’212 Thus, ‘transition’ is the recalling process which brings past events into the present as causal. ‘Concrescence’ is the observed process of the ongoing actualization of potential reality; it represents the future which in actualizing becomes the present. These two kinds of ‘fluency’ appear the Knowledge: Is a Philosophy of Religion Possible?’ in which Whitehead is a major figure. 210 Alfred North Whitehead, Process and Reality: An Essay in Cosmology (New York: The Free Press/MacMillan l928/1978), p. 317/208. The 2nd edition shows pagination of the first. 211 Ibid, p. 318/208. 212 Ibid, p. 320/210.

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same, but the observer’s viewing point is the line of division – an observation paralleling that of a scientist Whitehead admired greatly: Einstein. This actualization of reality is ‘effected by a process of feelings’ which has three sequences, each characterized by a unique activity. From a simple inception, ‘feelings’ become complex in the responsive first stage of an event; they come to an awareness of identity and contrast during the second stage of integration; the final goal – unity – is achieved in the third stage of ‘satisfaction’.213 Each event thus has a teleological purpose moving it forward into its future, desiring more conversion of its reality into actuality, or more ‘satisfaction’ than that achieved by its present actualization. Whitehead then combined the notion of ‘organism’ with that of ‘process’: ‘The community of actual things is an organism; but it is not a static organism. It is an incompletion in process of production. Thus the expansion of the universe in respect to actual things is the first meaning of “process”, and the universe in any stage of its expansion is the first meaning of “organism”.’214 ‘Process’ is the organizing principle sustaining the innate relatedness of all ‘things’ in the cosmos. Whitehead called the procedure by which an observer apprehends ‘things’, ‘a judgment of perception’, which is deemed to be ‘true’ if it corresponds to reality. Here he meets up with James’ criterion. Using such a method in the meta-framework of dialogue would avoid the feared trap of relativizating, by stipulating that all truth claims must correspond to reality. A judgment must be grounded in the relationships by which all, including the observer, engage in life’s process. Apprehending process is itself a process, consistent with the cosmos which it perceives. It cannot be purely speculative, since as both he and James argued, pure speculation does not correspond to observed on-going reality. The Whiteheadian insight pertinent to us is that perceptions, and the judgments which then result, are linguistic descriptive concepts – metaphors

213 Ibid, pp. 322-3/211-2. 214 Ibid, pp. 326-7/214-5.

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– and as such remain continually open to correction as more of what is becoming actual then becomes accessible to the observer. Since rationalist systems are built on metaphorical perceptions, they must remain open to correction. This sensibly tentative approach to reality regards linguistic and conceptual change as part of the observed process. And his core metaphor is a favourite of mine, which I recall each time I experience it theoretically or practically – as I move between the places where my focus is teaching and the places where my focus is learning: ‘The true method of discovery is like the flight of an airplane. It starts from the ground of particular observation; it makes a flight into the thin air of imaginative generalization; and it again lands for renewed observation rendered acute by rational interpretation.’215 Whitehead and James both used an empirical method, but included the rationalist position as part of their definition of reality. For them, rationalization was part of the ongoing process of discovery, in which observation of experience comes both before and after the speculative moment. The observer seeks to discern what is true – which is the quest, but does this by describing experience – which is the method.216 3. Empirical Theology American empirical theology and the radical empirical method which some of its adherents use is important to set the stage for the kind of dialogue theologian who would suit our case study, so I will present a quick summary of its short history. The evolution of empirical theology grew out of strong interaction between the School of Philosophy and the School of Divinity at the University of Chicago. After an initial Jamesian socio-historical development of empirical biblical studies by Shirley Jackson Case and Shailer Mathews,

215 Ibid, p. 5/13. 216 Whitehead is ‘the first realist who escapes from the egocentric predicament and shows how he does it’, according to Charles Hartshorne. Cf. his Whitehead’s Philosophy: Selected Essays, 1935-1970 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1972), p. 11.

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Henry Nelson Wieman and Alfred North Whitehead arrived in Chicago in 1926. Charles Hartshorne started applying Whiteheadian process thought to theological discourse. Bernard Loomer started the use of ‘web’ language and taught that Whitehead gave the ‘most adequate encompassing vision’ for the theologian to use, since his basic categories enable one to re-conceive the historical Christian doctrines within that perspective’.217 The growing theological use of the ‘American empirical and pragmatic tradition’218 produced a strong movement which presupposes a naturalistic and experiential basis for theology – and corresponds to the insights of quantum physics in which ‘concrete’ has acquired a microcosmic meaning. These theologians consider themselves consistent with the major insights of Christianity, but assume they are freed from the authoritative claim of revelation. Concrete experienced data – and the historical interplay of such data – provide the basis for the necessary reflection that is able to ‘lift the ambiguous flux of experience into a working vision of the whole’.219 A sub-group of empirical theology, process theologians, re-interpret classical and biblical concepts in the light of Whitehead. A theology congenial with this rests on scientific perceptions, the historical development of all events, and the paramount importance of each choice taken as an event evolves. It works with James’ view that all experiences show the reality of relations (i.e., what is true is what is actual) and Whitehead’s emphasis on the involvement of all things in cosmic flux, in the process of transition from the past through the present into the future, from actualities into reality. As more is discerned of the cosmos through the various disciplines, more data keeps falling into the grasp of these open-system empirical theologians. Socio-economic studies (which had a great influence on the Chicago School), the scientific realm and feminist criticism all have a

217 Tyron Inbody, ‘History of Empirical Theology’, in Randolph Crump Miller, Empirical Theology (Birmingham AL: Religious Education Press, 1992), p. 26. 218 Ibid. p. 29. 219 Ibid, p. 30.

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strong influence upon the way in which empirical theology perceives the interplay between its own discipline and the unfolding of the cosmos. As Nancy Frankenberry explains, science is humanity’s main source of knowledge of nature, and the study of religious experience is theology’s main source of knowledge of humanity’s aspiration toward fulfillment. Empirical theology considers itself a vehicle of creative advance, a way of thinking that embraces ambiguity while striving to encourage moral actions, as it seeks to direct the present towards the future. In this system, nature and reality are to be understood as co-extensive in all of their plurality and continuity. Grace is known through interaction with nature’s endless potential for structure and chaos. This is not pantheism, since there is no reduction of God to nature. When using the radical empirical method, then, all data related to an event is accepted as valid: in other words, anything and everything we historian types can get our hands on that is proven factual. To demonstrate this, James used experiences from anyone who met his criterion as initial experiencer as the basis for his conclusions on the religious dimension of our humanity – which can extend to the cosmos. As he quipped, ‘To the psychologist the religious propensities of man must be at least as interesting as any other of the facets pertaining to his mental constitution.’220 How such experiences are then described also provide data. This is a revolutionary notion for Christian theology because it means accepting even records of non-Christians as a primary source. Most empirical and process theologians – following James, and Whitehead in his later career – posit an intentional cosmos aiming at harmony.221 This activity is not limited only to a divinity. Each human may participate and direct the evolutionary process in nature towards the harmony implicit in nature. There is no eschatological ‘time’ in which these potentials will exhaust themselves. Rather, it is the responsibility of each human to create the best of all possible futures out the present. 220 Cf. James, Varieties, p. 22. 221 For a post-postmodern (!) rendering of this task, cf. Richard Tarnas, Cosmos and Psyche: Intimations of a New World View (New York: Penguin Group, 2006)

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Frankenberry concludes: ‘As far as the human structure of emergence can know, the source is unfathomable, the outcome, uncertain. It begins in mystery, and it ends in mystery.’ 222 B. BERNARD LEE’S APPROPRIATION OF THE EMPIRICISTS t was this concrete cosmic connectivity that brought Bernard Lee to process theology in his search for a christological re-structuring that would honour HaShoah: the historical conditioning of all experiences and events.223 Trained in the ‘classical rationalist’ mode, Lee decided that process thought enables an ‘appreciation for the experiential way that Hebrews had of naming God: God-names regularly contained allusions to the events in which God was experienced.’224 Since the Hebraic naming and recording of their ongoing experience of God was historically conditioned, it follows that later Christian records which interpret experiences of the impact of Jesus were also historically conditioned. With this premise, Lee decided to re-examine the first century world of Palestine – the world of Jesus – to provide the basis for a renewed christology. To begin, he studied the presuppositions of the Hebrews (as shown in their sacred texts), and detected a strong correspondence between the biblical God of the Hebrews and the cosmic activator of James and Whitehead.

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‘While we can...not equate the empirical tradition with an ancient Hebrew tradition, they are...profoundly congenial...in their respect for experience, their restive patience with becoming, their affection for the historical and their comfort with the ambiguous.’ 225 222 Cf. Nancy Frankenberry, ‘Major Themes of Empirical Theology’, in Miller, Empirical Theology, pp. 36-56. 223 Cf. Lee’s Introduction, Galilean Jewishness, pp. 10-15 224 Ibid, p. 13. 225 Ibid, p. 21.

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Lee doesn’t elaborate on these four ‘congenial’ links, but let’s pause here to do that since they supply the basis for his later use of the radical empirical method. With regard to the first link: James demonstrated a ‘respect for experience’ in his insistence on an attitude of listening to others, and Whitehead believed that all discoveries – scientific or otherwise – occur in a cycle of observation, speculation, and re-observation. The Hebrews, according to Lee, recorded their experiences even when they did not understand the meaning of these experiences. This indicates a deep respect for events as events, and is a strong link. Concerning Lee’s second link, the Hebraic ‘restive patience with becoming’ is clear in the naming of God in Exodus 3:14. The ‫ יהוה‬phrase contains the possibility that is haltingly translated into English by the NRSV as ‘I am who I am’, or ‘I will be what I will be’. This title can correspond to both the Whiteheadian concept of God as ‘the one in process of becoming’ and the Jamesian belief in an underlying cosmic move towards harmony. Whether conceived as the Creator in Hebraic faith, or the Whiteheadian intender who acts out the creative cosmic impulse, this principle of process toward harmony supplies a basis for all activity and momentum on every level. Lee asserts that this ‘restive patience’ can be seen in the Hebraic perception of God’s faithful interaction with Israel over the millennia. As it accepts the passage of time – even if a lot of it – this link is a good one. A real ‘affection for the historical’ which Lee observes in Hebraic, Whiteheadian and Jamesian thought is his third link. For the Hebrews, faith in a ‘God who acts’ – sometimes obviously in momentous historical events and sometimes not so obviously in everyday life – was also faith in a God who had a purpose and who was leading them to its realization or end. This teleology is linear, unique among the records of antiquity available to us, contrasting with the neighbouring societies who thought of cosmic time as cyclical. Events in a linear teleological framework tend to be given significance beyond the present into a specific future. The Hebrews related events to God’s purpose of redemption, and eventually produced an eschatology based on that hope. 156

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Lee supposes that James and Whitehead might have regarded the Hebraic consciousness as intuiting the underlying drive of the cosmos towards harmony. Because of the value imparted to moments in historical time, the Hebraic view is consistent with James’ and Whitehead’s belief that each event in the cosmos has a uniquely important place because of its context, and is therefore unrepeatable. Whether a single event or a flow of events, the historical dimension of all human experience is regarded with ‘affection’ because it represents the best way for our comprehension to enter into the dynamic ongoing creativity of the cosmos, and therefore (for the Hebrews at least) of God. But there is a difference to note here which somewhat weakens this link: James and Whitehead regarded each particular experience as important in its own right – whereas according to Lee, the ancient Hebrews thought of events in terms of the purpose of God, whether they comprehended it at that point or not. The difficult balance to maintain in any such approach lies between history as events, and the interpretation of events known as historicity, with a priori judgments on which are important. Both at times spoke as if they expected that some events more than others would contribute to the harmonization of the universe; however, neither was in the habit of getting specific on which ones did so, nor did they connect any dots to validate an ideology. Interpretation is also data for the radical empirical method, but it is not elevated above the events it seeks to grasp. Lee’s fourth link between the Hebrews and the empirical tradition is described as a ‘comfort with the ambiguous’. Both the assumption behind this phrase and the way in which it is expressed are questionable. While James and – especially – Whitehead did accept ambiguity as an inevitable consequence of the element of freedom of choice in the cosmic process, this is not necessarily ‘comfort’. The chaos which often results from incompatible choices might be real, and harmony would likely be a better consequence than any other choice. But where is it written that ambiguity of necessity only emerges in a teleological linear framework? What if it also can exist in a cyclical cosmos with no teleological end? That would make 157

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James, Whitehead and the Hebrews (not to mention Lee and anyone else working within a Torah-trained framework) very uncomfortable indeed. James concluded that ambiguity in life-as-experienced was a sign that the unity toward which the cosmos strives was not yet achieved. But for Whitehead harmony would never be completely achieved, only striven toward as part of a moment in the process of change. And with reference to the Hebraic pole of this link, ambiguity as a concept was not resident in its thought and language structure – which means that this link isn’t just weak, it doesn’t exist. My hunch is that here Lee is submitting a little to a fad of the 1980s and 1990s. While acceptance of (not ‘comfort with’) ambiguity had become a theological virtue in some circles, it is difficult to demonstrate that it played any part in the ancient Hebraic model of faith. Reading present ideas into past eras may work all right in Thomisttype circularity, but Whitehead at least would see that as going against the from-simple-to-complex process. If someone would like to argue for some awareness and acceptance of ambiguity within the Hebraic context, for example in the Book of Job, I would emphasize that such an acceptance was conditional on the part of the author, not at all comfortable, and not emerging from the Hebraic perspective on God – who scattered ambiguity to the winds once he showed up: if he wanted to do something that was it, that was all that mattered. During the set-up of his four basic links, Lee – surprisingly for a process theologian who relies heavily on data – cites almost no biblical passages and none that are extra-biblical or rabbinical. For purposes of the upcoming analysis I am accepting his links, though I’ve made my position clear on what I perceive are their strengths and weaknesses – and the weaknesses I tie to lack of data as base for his statements. With these four links laid out, Lee explains why he prefers an empirical framework for theology to the traditional rational one: because the starting point for empiricism is ‘experience of the world’ and the finishing point is ‘experience in the world’, which for him corresponds strongly to ‘the Hebrew report upon God….woven of the historical events in which 158

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God is experienced.’226 While neither James nor Whitehead described their methodological procedures in such a fashion (so crucially distinguishing between ‘of ’ and ‘in’ the world), one can easily interpret their emphasis on a continual return to experience in this light. For Lee, the way in which ‘experience’ is defined by James and Whitehead makes it an appropriate category for theology. Process theology embraces all experience in all of its aspects and complexities: initial primal experience, which is ‘the womb of our becoming’, and sense experience, which is the second-stage interpretation by the observer and includes our experience of God. This sense experience of the observer is what allocates to each primal event its historical nature: ‘We exist in the world in our bodies. We exist in the world in time. We can only know what is related to us in the world and is together with us in time. To claim to experience God is also, therefore, to claim that God is in the world with us, and that God, therefore, is truly historical.’227

The correspondence which Lee finds between Whitehead and James and the Hebraic understanding leads him to claim that as shown in the Hebrew Scriptures, God was part of the evolving history of the Jews, and conversely the Jews part of the evolving history of God. Again I want to make clear that this is an interpretation of Hebraic views based on Lee’s research in process thought, his learning from contemporary Jews, and likely his anthropological and psychological comprehension of interactive myth-making. However, viewing God or their own people as evolving could not have been part of the ancient thought pattern of the Hebrews, who would have had no perception of what we call evolution, with all that it entails. God could be argued with and corrected – as could the humans interacting with him – but this seems more a negotiation towards an agreed end. Also, such an umbilical joining of God to the Hebrews seems to eliminate one of the most ancient of rabbinic Jewish perspectives: the 226 Ibid, p. 24. 227 Ibid, p. 25.

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gulf between Creator and created – although enough work in anthropological depth psychology has been done to demonstrate the plausibility of such a connection being termed activity of the collective unconscious becoming the collective consciousness. That is another direction to take this material which is utterly fascinating…. but not at all related to the radical empirical method. For Lee, with this starting point, nothing can or should be said about God which is not derived from the concrete history of experience, as ‘the specific action of God in history is the datum for theology’. This brings him to the conclusion that the norm of theology and the content of revelation are one and the same: the interpreted experience of God. He hastens to say that no one interpretation exhausts an event or the perceived disclosure of God in that event; later theologians may have more historical data at their disposal, or a better comprehension of the original interpreter, or access to other experiences which help to elucidate the event further – with all of which I concur, as would any researcher alert to the past two centuries. As Lee gently points out, this open-ended characteristic makes radical empiricism more ‘modest’ than other theological methods: it makes ‘no claims beyond what the historical experience of God elicits,’ for it is ‘an empirical/historicist commitment to keep visible and articulate the connection between historical meaning and theological meaning’.228 Such an approach rests in Vatican II’s recovery of the ancient doctrine of the universality of grace, and could not have been published without it. So – come, follow the steps with us. An event occurs: someone experiences something. Interpretive connections grow as the initial event becomes distant in time. As James and Whitehead warned, primal experience is ‘messy and vague’ for a systematizer. To use the language of cognitive science: the observer ‘filters’ an experience through the contextually and socially available perceptual and linguistic constructs, in order to even think about what happened, much less explain it. The same social group may thus contain many contradic-

228 Ibid, pp. 29-30.

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tory assessments of one or several experience(s), and I’ve yet to come across a social group that doesn’t. But Lee (as James) believes that the God who acts in the cosmos is not contradictory or arbitrary, so there must be an underlying, overarching and connecting continuance (which explains his own comfort with ambiguity). Rather, it is the symbols through which we interpret the events in which we claim to experience God that must undergo constant self-correction. As an artificial construct built on the raw material of religious experience, theology must remain open to the renewal of its symbols, since its primary activity ‘like all systematic reflection, unlevels the experiential terrain by singling out some features as more notable and important than others, creating new kinds of importance.’229 To use our metaphor, it’s like the activity of tectonic plates shoving each other at the rims so that different features emerge: ridges and peaks, valleys and chasms…..great divides and passes through them. Theology done well is like all good speculative thought: it comes from experience and returns to experience for grounding and revitalization, as well as for the assimilation of new data. As an example of how this works in process theology, Lee reminds us that Jesus is often perceived as having been open to the creative transformation engendered by God. Thus, Jesus’ sense of Self was constitutive of the incarnation of Christ, which in actuality is incarnate in everyone but is not constitutive with the Self. Note the twentieth-century style of blending of theology with Jungian language: the process theologian can re-imagine and thus re-interpret even the experience of Jesus in order to come to a better comprehension of its meaning.230 It was this flexible nature of empirical theology’s reflection that recommended it to Lee, in which the relationship between all experiences is a ‘web’. All that is real is connected. This interconnectedness is the basis of all experience, including the experience of that which he calls God. The 229 Ibid, p. 31. 230 Cf. John B. Cobb Jr. & David Ray Griffin, Process Thought: an Introductory Exposition (Philadelphia: Fortress Press 1976)

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‘observer’ sees the self as connected to the reality which the self seeks to comprehend. Indeed, the self is involved in the process of becoming as fully as anything else in the cosmos. God is no longer a controlling power but a power lovingly involved in the cosmos, participating in this growth especially through the human social development of morals and of enjoyment – which are not antithetical but close, in creative tension. The creative tension in all experience is utilized – including the experience of tradition, which can tend to ‘hand experience over to self-evidence, and then to block our access to the primordial sources from which our ideas were drawn.’231 So while religious tradition is vital for passing on the ‘interpretation and valuations of the experience of others’, it is essential that it be balanced by experience and new insights: ‘Theology must be initiated by those who have got caught in the traffic between immediacy and ultimacy, and not just in the formulations of other people who were in the traffic.... Theology always moves from the world to God and never in the opposite direction.’232 What this excellent criterion means for the theologian is that ‘the worldly presences of God are the data of theology’.233 Any systematic reflection must draw on all concrete experiences which occur at the point where transcendence and immanence intersect, a place where the selfcommunication of God converges with the communicative relational web connecting all events in the cosmos.

231 Lee, Galilean Jewishness, p. 31. Lee here is passing on and reinforcing Heidegger’s warning in Being and Time (London: SCM Press, 1962) p. 43. 232 Ibid, p. 31. Lee is diametrically opposite Barth, and using Schoonenberg on the origin of theological reflections as a mosaic, not ‘the orderly whole of a seamless logic’. 233 Ibid, p. 35. Cf. John B. Cobb Jr., Christ in a Pluralistic Age (Philadelphia: Westminster Press 1975). Also a process theologian, Cobb does not use the radical empirical method, but rather Whitehead’s non-reductionist approach to historical situations as worlds of thought and experience with various christological descriptions of Christ. Retrieval of the historical element of Jesus or his Jewishness is not part of his agenda. Concepts of the early Church (such as the messiah) are accepted as part of the flow of interpretation, but no more or less relevant than others.

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Using Whitehead’s cycle of discovery as a model, Lee wants the theologian to then generalize systematically from these religious experiences, or records of ‘witnesses’ (to use the biblical term). The generalizations are reintegrated back into the concrete world of experience through a theological system, which in turn sets up a context for further experiences and reflection and correction. This very careful, attentive, and slow empirical building of an adaptable theological system is intended to move continually from the ‘parts’ – facts or data extrapolated from the various experiences of ‘witnesses’ – towards a ‘whole’ which is never quite attained but can be anticipated, the organic whole which Lee hopes all theologians can learn to envision as their motivation. C. LEE’S RETRIEVAL OF THE HEBR AIC CONTEXT: A CRITIQUE s I see it, Bernard Lee has adapted a method appropriate to the dialogue theologian’s massive task of reconstructing christology in a post-HaShoah world – a method that accepts both Jewish and Christian historical or experiential data from the past. His intent is admirable, and any flaws stem from his inability to prioritize, examine closely, and then critique exegetical sources. Any work like this must follow the guidance of biblical exegetes in the field now, since no theologian can keep up with their constant changes in the framing of historical data. If he had been able to do this or even been more tentative in his conclusions, his writings would not have received the almost universal negative reviews that they did.234 However, he is so far the only Christian theologian to use the radical empirical method as a way to navigate that exegetical minefield, and for that I

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234 The three most important are those by John Kloppenborg, in Religious Studies & Theology, v. 10 # 1 (l990), pp. 109-110; Jerome Murphy-O’Connor, Revue Biblique 98 (1991) pp. 309-314, ‘The Social Conditioning of Jesus’; and L. Aurtado, Catholic Biblical Quarterly V. 52 (1990), pp. 753-4. Cf. Boman, Hebrew Thought Compared with Greek, (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1960.

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honour him. His example shows the way and his mistakes clear the path for those coming after. So let’s take a look at what he does and doesn’t do. Bearing in mind James’ core observation that ‘every difference must make a difference,’ Lee begins by arguing that an historical assessment of the facts of the first century is the necessary first step to reassess christology. Since the world as observed is composed of a multiplicity of things – a plurality of facts – christology must acquire a pluralistic character in order to correspond to our reality. Thus, facts which are retrieved from the past must be allowed to influence present christological formulation – especially how the central figure, Jesus of Nazareth, is to be explained. As we know well by this point in our case study, one obvious fact long neglected by classical christology was the Jewishness of Jesus. But now ‘a Jewish world must be presupposed for whatever identity Jesus had’.235 The radical empirical method enables retrieval without prejudice – and this is the most important point Lee makes – of Jewish metaphors and concepts as facts about the ancient world. These facts contradict traditional Christian theology with its anti-Jewish element, and their use will reverse long-standing attitudes towards Jesus as Jew, towards Jews as the people of God, and towards Judaism itself. This kind of reversal would have been impossible in a purely classical theological framework, which rests less on historical data then on a rationalism inherited from its Greek philosophical ancestry. Lee has well supported this first step with his first link: that both Hebraic thought and empiricism are grounded in the possibility of experiencing God through, or in, any and every event. Wanting to enter this ancient world appropriately, Lee utilizes Thorlief Boman’s distinction between Hellenism and Hebraicism as the rationale for his contrast between Hellenistic and Hebraic root metaphors. This initial contrast allows Lee to explore the impact on early christology when Hebraic meanings for Hebrew words and phrases were replaced with Hellenistic meanings. He claims that after the first generation of (Jew-

235 Lee, Galilean Jewishness, p. 34.

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ish) believers, metaphors in Christian worship and texts were explained in a ‘Hellenistic linguistic thought pattern.’236 Reminding his readers of the linguistic reality that language speaks in voices ‘thick with history, both personal and cultural’, Lee advocates a return to the Jewish world of Jesus in order to hear ‘not so much the authentic words of Jesus as the authentic voice of Jesus.’ 237 The empirical imagination can do this by immersing itself in the languages of the place and time, studying the writings as much as possible in the original, and investigating what can be discerned of the social setting. With these three aspects in play, what Jacob Neusner likes to call an ‘assumption world’238 is built – in this case, corresponding as closely as possible to the actual world of Jesus himself. Lee exercises the empirical imagination primarily via his model of conversation, which follows the meta-framework of dialogue but is not as formal. He advocates learning the ‘grammar’ of a different culture, since ‘the grammar of a language has a lot to do with not just how we speak, but how we experience what we speak about’.239 Without such an exercise Christians today fail to hear Hebraic concepts and metaphors correctly, either in their original Jewish context (Hebrew or Aramaic) or as adopted innovatively by New Testament authors – since Christendom left behind the milieu in which these concepts and metaphors were formed. A provocative statement and probably in most cases a correct one. If their tradition of unbroken history is accepted, a couple of interesting exceptions could be Palestinian and Coptic Christianity, and I would love to see someone from those communities take up this challenge. Lee’s ‘historicist conversation’ model employs three methods: (1) ‘religious empiricism’, by which he means use of the radical empirical method; (2) metaphorical theology, using metaphorical thinking as Paul Ricoeur and Sally McFague do; and (3) hermeneutics, which analyzes the ways in 236 Ibid, p. 17. 237 Ibid, p. 53. 238 Ibid, p. 55. 239 Ibid, p. 19.

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which experience is interpreted. My analysis of Lee will be restricted to the first method; the other two fall outside our scope. The assumption with which Lee (and I) operate – that the radical empirical method rests on the premise that it is possible to recover a social world through the study of its language and culture – brings into relief religious concepts and metaphors when we are focused on the religious element of that world. But first it is imperative to acknowledge restrictions imposed by context, antecedents, and partial knowledge. Lee is wisely careful in this respect; his modest wish is to ‘introduce into the christological conversation a new participant, one which earlier history excluded….the Jewish voice of Jesus’.240 Once this has been accomplished, ‘we can better recognize some of the serious contrasts between ...Judaism and Hellenism....The cognitive structures, the formative emotions, and the religious intuitions that proceed organically from a root metaphor belong to a system, so that even where cultures have shared material, the interpretive systems that envelop the shared world are not identical.’ But here he runs afoul of historians and exegetes. The trouble with using any of those experts is that sometimes further archaeological exploration leaves any non-tentative conclusions dangling, and this is one of those times. In his critique of Lee, Kloppenborg points out that Boman’s distinction between Hebraic and Hellenistic modes is no longer valid. Recent archaeological evidence shows that Galilee appears to have been more Hellenized than Lee imagines. Also, Lee makes no distinction between ‘Greek’ and ‘Hellenistic’, and does not even nuance terms as Whitehead did when discussing Greek complexities in his 1929 Process and Reality. While describing Lee’s argument I follow his terminology; however, in my own work I use ‘Hellene’ for the first century, following Charlesworth’s discussion of the term as a chronological period.241 Kloppenborg is probably correct in saying that Lee does not allow for a deep 240 Ibid, p. 9. 241 Cf. Charlesworth, ‘The Foreground of Christian Origins & the Commencement of Jesus Research’, Jesus’ Jewishness: Exploring the Place of Jesus within Early Judaism (New York: Crossroads, 1994), pp. 65ff.

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enough Hellenization, but Lee also has a point when he asserts that political domination and urban interaction would not have enough of an impact upon the deeper culture of rural Galilee to affect Jewish root metaphors. At least two of Lee’s sources (S. Freyne & M. Kengel) would not agree – but let’s let him move on. He wants to get to his imagined world: it calls him to his main task of rescuing Jesus’ Jewish voice.242 Lee explores the continuity and discontinuity between the Jewish setting of the concepts and metaphors, their initial use by Jewish Christians, and finally later comprehension in a Hellenized Christian world. One example is the ‘Son of God’ title as used in the Hebrew Scriptures, the gospel of Mark (to describe Jesus’ vocation as God’s chosen), and the gospel of John (on which incarnational christology is based). Lee’s exploration does not negate the Hellenistic voice or later ecclesial voices, but rather brings into audio range what until now have been largely unheard interpretations in the Hebraic voice that belonged both to Jesus himself and his earliest friends and followers. To compare with what we surveyed in the last chapter: Lee differs from the dialogue trinity of Pawlikowski, Van Buren and Ruether at this point regarding the ‘correctness’ of an interpretation. He makes no judgment on the viability of interpretations: that’s not what this method is meant to accomplish. Pawlikowski judges ‘son’ christology as best, Van Buren judged Jewish metaphors as best, while Ruether largely abandoned the person of Jesus to concentrate on his messianic message. Lee, by emphasizing context and bringing the radical empirical method to the theological table, can be compared to the archaeologist extracting first century artifacts with brush and tweezers: one examines the strata in which the shard was lodged in order to discern how it once fitted into its world. There have, of course, been exceptions over the centuries to the habit of ignoring the Jewish context of Jesus typical of classical christology. Lee does not raise it here, but in his Eucharist he discusses how communal

242 Ibid, pp. 8-9.

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conversation with Scripture puts status quo at risk243. Such risk is what happens to so-called ‘heretical’ communities, familiar to any student of church history – led by devout Christians who often heard Jesus’ Hebraic voice very loudly.244 Lee is not exaggerating the formative effect of the fourth gospel on the development of christology over the centuries, nor how difficult it has been to hear other voices in the earliest texts. To make his point, he goes against the perennial and popular argument (advocated lately by Dunn) that only incarnational christology kept the Christian faith from becoming a messianic cult or mystery religion. 245 He is not the first to question this perspective: Adolf von Harnack presented a fascinating overview in ‘Presuppositions’ of the way in which Christianity developed, with a strong awareness of the anti-Judaic attitudes of later influences.246 PostHaShoah practitioners of the hermeneutics of suspicion would benefit from a closer look at his hundred year-old opus. Many have made and are still making attempts to retrieve those older voices, but searches for the Jesus of history and his own words end in futility instead of agreement. We are not capable of recapturing the verba ipsissima of Jesus.247 Something of the vox ipsissima, however, can be claimed as identifiable through the use of form and redaction critical techniques. These critical techniques as well as other contemporary methods become 243 Collegeville: The Liturgical Press, 1987 244 Cf. the discussion of the development of Unitarianism in John Buehrens and F. Forrester Church’s Our Chosen Faith (Boston: Beacon Press, 1989); also the sections on alternate movements in Latourette’s classic History of Christianity (Harper & Row, 1953). For a psychoanalytical and historical discussion on the development of concepts, see Erich Fromm, The Dogma of Christ (New York NY, Holt Rinehart & Winston 1955) and You Shall Be As Gods (New York, Holt Rinehart & Winston, 1966). 245 Cf. P.M. Casey, From Jewish Prophet to Gentile God: the Origin and Development of New Testament Christology (Cambridge: James Clarke & Co., 1991); James G.D. Dunn, Christology in the Making: New Testament Inquiry in the Origins of the Doctrine of the Incarnation (London: SCM Press, 1980). 246 Cf. Harnack’s History of Dogma Vol. 1, trans. Neil Buchanan (New York : Dover Publ., 1961/1897). 247 Lee, Galilean Jewishness. p. 53.

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aids to the empirical imagination in Lee’s hands: retrieval of the context allows at least some discernment of Jesus’ religion and culture. The need for this discernment arises from the psychological assumption that ‘all children of all ages are profoundly and permanently shaped by the sociocultural world in which mind and heart awaken to consciousness.’248 The means by which Lee conducts his investigation are delineated clearly. He visited the geographical locale: that is, he ‘walked where Jesus walked’ – always a good idea for any context questor. He sought ‘help from ancient texts and from critical interpretation of them, from archaeology, from both Jewish and Christian historical studies, and from the use of sociological paradigms to help interpret events and personalities’.249 Since the radical empirical method utilizes as much concrete evidence as possible, he intends to comply with this requirement in order to recapture the ‘bold-stroked picture of the critical part of the [Whiteheadian] relational web in whose womb the identity of Jesus was nurtured.’250 He decides that this can be detected best by answering the question: ‘How Hellenized was Galilee, and in what ways?’ – as we saw, a moving target if there ever was one. But, he does his best. First, he accepts as historical the gospel claim that Jesus was from Nazareth in Galilee, and that he spent his formative years there – following the majority scholarly opinion. He then investigates texts and archaeological findings to determine if, and to what extent, Galilee was influenced by Hellenistic culture. ‘There are excellent studies of the relation between Judaism and Hellenism by both Jewish and Christian scholars. All are agreed that by the first centuries BCE and CE no part of Judaism was untouched by Hellenism. But not all parts were touched in the same way or to the same extent.’251 He quickly traces the history of the era and area from Alexander’s conquests through the disintegration of his empire, the Maccabee revolt, and 248 Ibid, p. 56. 249 Ibid, p. 56. 250 Ibid, p. 58. 251 Ibid, p. 59. Saul Lieberman & Victor Tcherikover are Lee’s Jewish sources; Martin Bengel & E. P. Sanders are his Christian ones.

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the emergence of Roman dominance behind Herod the Great. His sketch argues for the limited Hellenization of that area of Galilee, strengthened by stressing the difference between the more fertile and wealthy Upper Galilee of the northern hills and the less fertile peasant-occupied Lower Galilee of the plains.252 He believes that geographical differences assisted in molding the particular form of Early Judaism that flourished in lower Galilee, Jesus’ home. Thus he portrays a Galilee where the inhabitants knew ‘some Greek for commercial purposes’ and lived in or near cities used by Greek and Roman conquerors for purposes of domination and commerce, but where Hebrew always remained a ‘live option’ alongside Aramaic.253 These clues, coupled with the lack of Hellenistic artifacts in contemporary archaeological digs at village sites, lead him to conclude that, although Galilee was Hellenized on the surface, the village setting in which Jesus grew up and later preached was thoroughly Jewish. What exactly ‘Jewish’ means, or if there were differences between urban and rural Jewishness, Lee does not make clear. He compares the situation with Mexican/US border towns, claiming Mexicans are not Americanized even if they do learn English for business; a plausible comparison, but with not enough data to prove his point. Due to the lack of available evidence, he admits to some guesswork; for example, he suggests that Jesus’ upbringing was responsible for his decision to address Israel only, omitting Hellenistic cities.254 Like the rest of us, he likes to connect the dots his way. Lee interprets Jesus’ interest in Jews only in a non-traditional and intriguing way: as representative of ‘the particularism/universalism struggle endemic to monotheistic faith’: a ‘marked tension’ true of both Judaism and Christianity, ancient and contemporary’ – a position Ruether also holds. He opposes the classical Christian division that defines Judaism as ‘particular’ and Christianity as ‘universal’. Jesus himself personified 252 Cf. ibid, p. 60. Lee cites Josephus here, but evidently his economical and agricultural picture of Galilee is ‘simply wrong’. Cf. letters between Kloppenborg and me in the Wyse papers, University of Toronto Archives, 1998 deposit. 253 Ibid, p. 63. 254 Ibid, p.66.

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this tension when he called only Jews to him, but on occasion ministered to non-Jews. Then and now ‘an inner urge’ exists in Christian and Jewish particularisms ‘toward the de-tribalization of deity.’ In this specific struggle toward wholeness in which Jesus participated, ‘the universal parenthood of God is not just another motif but the leif-motif for faith’s full orchestra.’ 255 The Galilee which Lee imagines most likely endowed Jesus with a deep respect for the Torah Judaism of his time, as well as contempt for outsiders and an awareness of the need for change along the lines of the promised Kingdom of God. Lee concludes that ‘even though there is clearly a notable impact of Greek ways upon Hebrew ways in Palestine in the time of Jesus, the impact does not get down to the level of bottom elephant metaphors. Jesus may well have known some Greek but when he says God, Word, Spirit, world, truth, etc., we must have recourse to a Hebrew world view to interpret their meaning and their consequences in his experience and in ours if we are to hear Jesus on his own ground.’256 With ‘bold strokes’, Lee portrays a Galilee with strong protective attitudes that set it against the oppressive non-Jew, an attitude exemplified particularly by the Zealots.257 He uses his exegetical sources to claim that Galilee was ‘significantly’ revolutionary, i.e. anti-Roman rule, a middle position between his two main sources for this part of his argument: Vermes (whom Lee says saw Galilee as ‘highly’ revolutionary) and Freyne (whom he cites as viewing Galilee as ‘moderately’ revolutionary). 258 His own conclusion is that Jesus himself was not a revolutionary or Zealot, 255 Lee, Galilean Jewishness, p. 68. Cf. Ruether: ‘Universalism is the gift of both faiths to humanity, particularism their downfall.’ 256 Ibid, p. 77. ‘Bottom elephant metaphors’, as linguists put it, are foundational. 257 Kloppenborg points out that according to Horsley and Hanson, the Zealots did not exist until 66 CE. Lee seems unaware of this scholarly debate. 258 For the complete development of Sean Freyne’s argument see his Galilee, Jesus and the Gospels: Literary Approaches and Historical Investigations (Dublin: Gill & MacMillan, 1988). Kloppenborg claims, and I concur, that Lee manipulate Freyne’s language: Freyne actually shows Galilee as ‘significantly less revolutionary than Judah’. (Kloppenborg , Wyse papers). However, this would not negate Lee’s conclusion here.

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but had other priorities. However, Jesus was ‘felt’ to be a political threat by the authorities,259 and the similarity between his final days and those of John the Baptist, should not be ignored.260 ‘If Jesus’ activity resembled John’s in a clearly volatile moment of history, his preoccupation with the Kingdom of God would also be easily misread by the Romans. For Jesus, Kingdom and Kingship are central symbols of God’s promise ....In such an atmosphere as we find in Palestinian Judaism at this time, it is my guess that Jesus must have felt the power of the symbol of the Kingdom within himself and for his hearers. It would be risky to capitalize on such a volatile symbol. Yet if the political passion that clothes it can be transferred to religious expectation, a response worthy of Ultimacy is in the making.’261 Now that I have presented Lee’s innovative use of the radical empirical method to retrieve the first century, I must critique the few lacks in his presentation so that the material he did not use or the factors he did not position well are in place for my own presentation. If one is going to use a method resting on historical data, one must pay attention to such finicky things since ‘every difference makes a difference’. Lee’s use of the term ‘symbol’, made familiar to scholars of comparative religion by Mircea Eliade, is where confusion seeps in and he gets inconsistent with empiricist assumptions: lack of differentiation between the religious and the secular as data is one of the cardinal tenets of empirical thought. Since most Jews of this time (so far as we know) also did not distinguish between religious and secular, or symbols and meaning, Jesus likely would not have differentiated between political and religious expectations, nor would his followers. If Jesus possessed ‘political passion’ it was inseparable from ‘religious expectation’. Also, there would be no ‘symbol’ in his environment pointing beyond but rather a complete involvement with that beyond. It’s hard to refrain from what one professor 259 Cf. ibid, pp. 71-6. Lee cites the work of Oscar Cullmann and Martin Hengel for further clarification of the point. 260 Cf. Ellis Rivkin, What Crucified Jesus? 261 Lee, Galilean Jewishness, pp. 75-76.

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of mine called cross-cultural extrapolation – that is, reading back into a previous era (or across into a parallel culture) the way we would apprehend what was going on – so I can’t fault Lee for falling into that trap. It’s his use of the phrase ‘for Jesus’ that snaps shut the jaws: he knows that Jesus had no such conception as we do of differing dimensions of social existence and differing layers of comprehension that are represented by symbol-archetype link, but he speaks as if it were so. Another lack: Lee feels he has placed Jesus ‘in his own time – not a solitary Jewish figure at all, but one of his own kind, as it were.’262 However, his portrait does not include evidence that would make his conclusions more tentative – and there is enough data to call into question a few of his conclusions. The radical empirical method requires that all of the evidence be assessed before a conclusion is proffered. As a sample: could not the creativity of Jesus be read as the result of his occasional solitude and isolation (pointed to in some gospel records) from the Torah community? Lee does allow this much later in a homily, but not presenting it in order as part of the framework for his portrait of Jesus demonstrates a lack of consistency in his use of the method. A definition difficulty: with no initial parameters for Hellenism (for example, the early Hellenism of Alexander, Egypt’s Hellenism of the Ptolemies, Herod the Great’s, the later Hellenism of the cities along Galilee’s coast, or the Hellenism of the Roman Empire) or of Judaism (for example, the early Judaism after the Babylonian exile, the Judaism of the Maccabees, the Temple cult, battles between the sects, etc.) Lee gives us no criteria against which to evaluate his conclusions on exactly how ‘Jewish’ Jesus actually was. Lee knit together some texts and contexts in order to counter the Church’s historical anti-Jewish bias but mixes his dual motives (academic and pastoral) by moving to homily from discussion and back again in a somewhat distracting and disjointed fashion. As a result his passages – rich with metaphors and excellent insight – are not supported well enough with exegetical research organized in a sequential fashion. He wanted to

262 Ibid, p. 77-79.

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make his work accessible to non-academics. This intent is not a flaw (isn’t that what motivates many of us?), but it hinders the development of his argument. However, I doubt he cares as long as his main point gets across; as he wrote to me: ‘religious empiricism, while not the eschaton, is more fruitful than mainstream theological reflection has opined.’ 263 In association with this, Lee tends to ignore exegetical problems resident in the texts which record Jesus’ life and activities. There appears to be a ‘naïve’ acceptance of some accounts which may or may not be authenticated by biblical exegetes. Since many of his conclusions are based on this uncritical reading, he leaves himself open to charges that he uses textual evidence ‘credulously’, that his utilization of Q is ‘whimsical’, and that he relies far too much ‘upon rabbinical materials to characterize pre70 CE Judaism’.264 Yet even with the foregoing flaws, Lee’s contribution has great value based in his perception of the dialogue possibilities for James’ method. My reasons are as follows: 1.) Although Lee does not employ all of the new exegetical evidence in the way required by his own empirical assumptions, let us allow Hans Frei’s injunction that the text be accepted and used by theologians as text, i.e., as ‘realistic narrative’. ‘The theologian is not an exegete: the tasks are different. Part of the theologian’s task is to look for the sense of the story, and a story is not necessarily the same as an accurate recounting of historical facts. Exegetical problems inherent in textual formation must be recognized, but the text in and of itself still deserves a hearing.’265 Lee doesn’t specify that this is his view, but his use of the text is reminiscent of Frei’s realistic narrative. How would this stand vis-à-vis our case study? On the one hand, Ruether’s argument in Faith and Fratri-

263 Cf. Lee’s letter, Wyse Collection, University of Toronto Archives, 1998 deposit. 264 Kloppenborg, RST, and Hurtado, CBT. 265 Hans Frei, The Identity of Jesus Christ: The Hermenentical Basis of Dogmatic Theology (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, I975), Preface.

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cide is that the sacred texts intended an anti-Jewish reading and were far from ‘naïve’. On the other, this same ‘naïve’ reading is used in all of the ecclesial documents we surveyed, on which the intent for dialogue with Jews is based. Since ‘naïve’ readings of the Christian texts are what some theologians still assume initially formed the anti-Jewish bias within the Church’s theology for the past two millennia, it would be ironic if a ‘naïve’ reading such as Lee’s helped to retrieve the Hebraic voice of Jesus for the Church to hear again today. Besides, what theologian today writing on biblical texts, with or without exegetical evidence, can avoid being caught in the crossfire between differing exegetical schools? Who would not prefer naiveté? However, a method is only as good as it is allowed to be within the parameters of its usefulness. Anyone who employs the radical empirical method must enlist the aid of the exegetical experts – with more care and attention to detail and argument than Lee has done – when dealing with specific passages as well as background material: they know where the mines are buried. An uninformed or naive reading of texts is not consonant with the radical empirical method since the very awareness of context mitigates against that. 2.) The tendency to mingle homily with argument is used by Lee and other academics to include non-academics in their audience. Conversation is his main metaphor; its fluidity and informality suits his homiletic style. Analyzing his work necessitates distinguishing his debates with the text, with academics, and with the Church. While this causes me difficulty in extrapolating the structure of his presentation, it doesn’t reduce its viability in the Jewish-Christian dialogue – only in academic discussion. To continue with his presentation: in his second section, Lee extends his initial historical assessment of the first century into a discussion of the shift in the meanings of metaphors during that century. While a fascinating topic and one which he handles well, it is beyond the scope of this work. 175

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In his third section, Lee returns to the radical empirical method in order to retrieve another historical facet of Jesus’ world: the ‘religious types’.266 Here his use of the radical empirical method is clearer and sets a good stage for his portrayal of ‘Jesus in his connectedness with other Jews’.267 Lee regards the Pharisees positively, contrary to the gospel image which he labels as an ‘unreliable’ product of a time of harsh ‘contention for the souls of Judaism’. The Pharisees were the ‘liberals’ in Early Judaism who recognized that God is constantly acting historically; this awareness allowed them the freedom to develop an oral tradition, soon to be as normative among their followers as Scripture.268 This for him eliminates the traditional association of Pharisees with blindness and legalism. Then he offers an intuitive and imaginative suggestion: ‘Inasmuch as Paul himself is a Pharisee, as are some of the early Christians, I think we should not rule out a feeling of genetic connection between the Jesus “way” and the Halakhah “Way”. It is certainly the case that Paul and these early communities do not think of their Christian commitment as being outside of Judaism, or alongside it. The intimation that Jesus might be a continuation of Oral Torah suggests a feeling of continuity rather than discontinuity. I am not suggesting that Jews could or should accept Jesus as a new development of Halakhah. But that might be a Christian way of interpreting Jesus, first of all acknowledging the beauty of Halakhah, and secondly remembering better Jesus’ Jewishness.’269

The metaphor of ‘the Way’ as an insight into the meaning of Jesus’ mission, i.e. as one who lived for and before the God of Torah, does not seem to have influenced christology after the incarnational readings 266 Lee’s sources are Jacob Neusner and Ellis Rivkin, early Jewish and Christian texts, and Josephus. His critics accurately point to a tendency to use sources as they fit his agenda. 267 Ibid, pp. 96-103. Lee mentions Pawlikowski, but prefers Rivkin and Neusner as sources. He seems unaware that they paint very different pictures of the Pharisees. 268 Lee, Galilean Jewishness, p. 104. 269 Ibid, p. 105.

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gained ascendancy. Lee’s suggested return to the Hebraic metaphors (the part of his discussion we didn’t follow) allows a legitimate by-pass of the supersessionism trap into which Van Buren and Pawlikowski fell (although in opposite directions): not ‘identifying Jesus with Halakhah, but rather of using Halakhah as a metaphor for interpreting the meaning of Jesus.’270 Lee lists three points to support this: (1) Jesus and the Pharisees lived in the same environment, even if the evidence does not show that Jesus was a Pharisee; (2) Jesus was identified as ‘the Way’ by early Christians though never connected by non-Jewish believers with halakhah; (3) both the Pharisees and Jesus were interpreters of tradition, and it is up to their religious descendants to treat tradition in the same respectful interpretive manner. ‘The Hebrew tradition is always open to redevelopment, through responsive interaction with new social situations and through new religious experience. It is clearly in the spirit of Jesus – in the Pharisaic spirit of Jesus, that is – to make the same claim for Christian existence.’271 Lee retrieves two other types from the first century in Palestine: the wandering charismatic and the prophet. The charismatic’s authority is usually attributed to the holy man’s (the hasid) relationship to God. While remaining within his particular tradition, the charismatic challenges its rigidity on the basis of personal experience – which makes the hasid of interest to empirical theologians, since religious experience is a prime resource. Such wanderers tend to surface during times of great social stress. Since the time of Jesus was such a time, Lee asserts that Jesus’ acts of healing and his itinerate travel were not unusual. Considering how well this type fits with empirical theology, I find it surprising that he spends so little time on it.

270 Ibid, p. 113. 271 Ibid, p. 129. Lee uses Geza Vermes, Jesus the Jew (Philadelphia Fortress Press, 1973); and Gerd Theissen, The Sociology of Early Palestinian Christianity (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1977).

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It is the prophetic type of Second Temple Judaism272, instead, who captures Lee’s attention more than the Pharisee and the charismatic. There is an inherent contradiction for a Jew here, of which Lee is aware. The rabbinic tradition states that ‘when the last prophets, Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi, died, the Holy Spirit departed from Israel.’273 Lee does not elaborate on this tradition, but I would like to pause here since it will enable our upcoming investigation into Jewish assumptions. My B’nai Torah dialogue partner taught me that in the first Talmud, the Babylonian Sages were highly concerned over the widespread idolatry in the world, and in keeping with their mandate to care for the world, prayed to HaShem to alleviate it. Attending to the heirs of the Mosaic board of elders set up for just such contingencies, HaShem agreed to take away the need of humans for idols – but to balance the world, the gift of prophecy through HaShem’s spirit was also taken away. (Jesus thus might then have been accepted by some rabbis as a ‘proclaimer’ of the kingdom, but never as a prophet.) The Rambam in his Guide to the Perplexed discussed the ten levels of the work of God’s spirit in Hebrew texts; the term ‘the spirit of prophecy’ is the eighth level. In the quote above, Lee uses the term ‘Holy Spirit’ – trinitarian language – I assume without awareness of how this would sound in the ears of rabbinical Jews. As Lee did learn from his dialogue partners, this decision of the Sages means that ‘during the Second Temple period, classical prophecy is basically no longer a phenomenon in Israel,’ leading to the conclusion that ‘Jesus as prophet...is a more surprising presence than Jesus as a teacher or as a wandering charismatic healer.’ Lee maintains that Jesus’ identification as a prophet by his followers likely arose from the prevalent eschatological hope for Israel’s restoration – a new cosmic beginning – and ‘a final

272 The term ‘Second Temple Judaism’ has spread in the scholarly literature due to the influence of Pawlikowski and Neusner. It is the final sub-period of ‘Early Judaism’. 273 Ibid, p. 131, quoting Ephraim Urbach, The Sages, Vol. I (Jerusalem: Minges, 1979), p. 564.

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prophet, an eschatological prophet, [who] will issue in the final age.’274 But was he so identified? The eschatological style of the prophet of the final days has been found in some Christian texts with reference to Jesus, but as Lee points out, this is no proof that Jesus utilized apocalyptic imagery himself. Lee now makes the distinction clear between Jesus’ actual life and words (mostly unknown) and the extant textual records – a welcome advance on his earlier more naive use. This portion of his work is longer, more structured, supported more strongly by citations from his sources, and more tentative with conclusions based on the extant evidence. His presentation of the prophetic type is a better demonstration of the radical empirical method for his christological task of placing Jesus in context.275 It is here that Lee assigns Jesus his place in the Jewish world while still maintaining the unique quality of the religious experience Jesus himself had, as reflected in his teachings. ‘The Gospels not only consistently portray Jesus as announcing the imminence of the Kingdom, but as knowing it directly through his own experience of God as his Father. This too seems unquestionably the historical experience of Jesus. And with this, we come to a divide between what Jesus knows because his sensibilities have been nurtured by the Pharisaic tradition, and what Jesus knows from his immediate experience of God.’276 Jesus as an eschatological prophet (expected and accepted) and Jesus as personally convinced of the imminence of the Kingdom (unexpected and often unaccepted) are the two aspects that Lee extracts from the different levels of empirical data, and this is the evidence on which he bases his own christology. The prophetic typology demonstrates a deep continuity with Jesus’ own Jewish world, but Jesus’ personal conviction underlines the unique experience of God which provided the impetus for 274 Ibid. pp. 133-132. 275 Lee supplements his primary sources with interpretations of rabbinical writings by Abraham Heschel, a brilliant student of early Judaism, but whose writings are suffused with modern psychological language, which tends to obscure historical context. 276 Ibid, p. 138.

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his mission. Lee’s ability to ‘marry’ these two aspects of Jesus depends on his use of the reconstruction of Q by Ivan Havener.277 According to Lee, Havener regards Q as a very early tradition, developed among the earliest followers of Jesus within Galilee. Since this tradition is less opaque than later traditions which redaction and form critics discern clearly in the four gospels, and since it is most likely Galilean, it serves Lee’s search for materials that come as close as possible to Jesus’ native formation. The differences between Q and the four extant gospels are few but seminal. Q presents a strong portrait of Jesus as an observant Jew of his time, an image very much at odds with all later christology. ‘In all four Gospels, Jesus has become the one proclaimed. But in Q Jesus is always and only the proclaimer. ...In Q there is no suggestion that Jesus is God....Q presents Jesus as God’s son. But we must remember that “son of God” is a literary expression in Jewish speech. Just as “son of a liar” means a terrible liar. .. so also “son of God” names one who is very close to God and plays an important role in God’s work.. .. When Jesus returns from the desert his behaviors are consistently those of a prophet. Q, however, never directly calls him a prophet. But like a prophet, Jesus is in combat with the powers of evil, and proclaims God’s message....What Q does, then, is make a connection between sonship and prophecy.’278 This reading of Q enables Lee to empathize with those ancient Jews who followed Jesus ‘radically and without ceasing to be fully practicing Jews.’ 279 The perception of Jesus as a son of God and as an eschatological prophet appears to have deepened their faith in the God of Torah as they participated in halakhah. Lee concludes from his investigations that, however slightly or strongly Jesus sensed his mission from God as eschatological and prophetical, he

277 Cf. Q, the Sayings of Jesus (Wilmington: Glazier Press, 1987) 278 Lee, op. cit., p. 141. 279 Ibid, p. 141. For an analysis of Q that is far more scientific and less ‘whimsical’ (as per Kloppenborg’s review, RST) see John Kloppenborg, The Shape of Q: Signal Essays on the Sayings Gospel (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1994, intended to ‘reflect a concern to situate the Sayings Gospel theologically, literally and socially’. (p.21)

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was in some way conscious of it in these terms. Therefore, this type ‘deserves to be developed more fully than it has as one of the many christological interpretations that belong properly to the Christian Scriptures.’280 This Hebraic model might not blend well initially with Hellenistic logos christology, but it has just as strong a basis in the texts, and is closer to the context of Jesus of Nazareth than later incarnational thought. With this, Lee lays the foundation for ‘a non-supersessionalist christological understanding of Jesus – which his utter Jewishness seems to require.’281

280 Ibid, p. 144. 281 Ibid, p. 147.

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CONCLUSION

ee’s willingness to critique and amend his own tradition allows him to reassess the Pharisaic courage in initiating oral Torah, and to introduce the halakhic metaphor as a way to interpret Jesus. Lee’s openness is based in empirical theology and its use of the radical empirical method. While he has not consistently used the method in a way most conducive to its potential, his work proves that application of the method to the context of Jesus yields fruitful insights. Most importantly for our case study, he confirms that such work is both possible and profitable. He establishes for the dialogue that comprehension of the historical Jewish context of Jesus has a necessary place in christological thought and can be discussed within its meta-framework. By allowing context to play a primary role in his own conclusions, he departs from tradition but without annihilating any of it. As noted earlier, Hans Frei separated the task of the exegete – who concentrates on the text, from the task of the theologian – who concentrates on the story. But every story requires a frame of reference. For a century, exegetes have been supplying new data for Jesus’ era. The radical empirical method validates all interpretations of events, accepting data generated by religious reflection on experience. Can we use of the radical empirical method to assist in overcoming the messianic impasse in the contemporary Jewish-Christian dialogue? It’s time to try.

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INTRODUCTION: CONTEXTUALIZING CONCEPTS

s we have just seen, historical context is the primary element in a study of the origins and development of a concept using the radical empirical method. The purpose of our present case study is to assess how this method can interact with the messianic concept now causing an impasse in the Jewish-Christian dialogue. First, we will survey the ways in which the concept developed in Jewish and then in Christian communal life. The work of scholars active in cultural, historical and exegetical fields – especially from both faith communities, since this is being done for their dialogue – will be evaluated.282 Since our method relies on historical material, we will ask them to approach all elements of context as allowable date, without forgetting that – as Hans Frei reminded us – their tasks are different from the theologians involved in the dialogue.283

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282 On textual criticism as a basis for theology, see Hebrew Bible or Old Testament? Studying the Bible in Judaism and Christianity eds. Robert Brooks & John Collins (Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press, 1990). Included: James Sanders’ ‘Hebrew Bible and Old Testament: Textual Criticism in Service of Biblical Studies’, Eugene Ulrich’s ‘Jewish, Christian and Empirical Perspectives of the Text of our Scriptures’. 283 An exhaustive study would necessitate deeper analysis in each era, such as the work done by Oonizete Scardelai in his MA thesis for the University of St. Michael’s College, Toronto School of Theology (1994), The Jewish Response to Jesus of Nazareth in Light of the Proclaimed Messiahs: From Jesus to Bar Kokhba (1-135 AD).

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To demonstrate that the methodology selected for our case study is relevant – and to state my end in my beginning – I would like to quote Michael Kogan, a graduate of the Jewish Theological Seminary (among other eminent institutions), and presently chair of the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies at Montclair State University: ‘When my New Testament students ask me this question [is Jesus Christ the Messiah?] I usually reply, “Yes and no, depending on how you define the term ‘Messiah’”’.284 Kogan bases his work on historical data, as we will, and operates from an even-handed premise: ‘Each author or sectarian group that had any concern with eschatology produced its own texts, combining, as seemed best to them, elements of earlier traditions. If we view the Nazarene sect – later Christianity – as one of the Judaisms of the first century (and how else can we view it?) we must conclude that this group of Jews had as much right as any other to develop its own unique conception of the Messiah. And unique it was – as were they all – but only in the sense that it combined in a distinct fashion elements of Jewish messianic speculation that had been in circulation for centuries.’285 A. THE JEWISH ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE MESSIANIC CONCEPT o let us begin our investigation with the centuries antecedent to the first, to see how the messianic idea started and was then perpetuated. Much scholarly research in past decades has attempted to unravel its origin in the extant Jewish sources – whether the books of the Tanakh or extra-sacral. As an example, Oxford’s Markus Bockmuehl succinctly describes the etymology and initial use of ‘messiah’ in the Hebrew

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284 Michael S. Kogan, Opening the Covenant: a Jewish Theology of Christianity, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), p. 37. 285 Ibid, p. 67.

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Scriptures, differentiating between the derivative term or title ‘messiah’ and the original activity of anointing: ‘The term “Messiah” itself derives from the Hebrew word mashiah, which literally means “rubbed with oil”. This term, in English usually rendered “anointed”, and in Greek christos (hence the name “Christ”) denotes a ritual action used to designate and appoint someone for a special task. The two most important applications are the office of Priest (e.g. Aaron, Exodus 28-41, etc.) and King (the most famous instances are Samuel’s anointing of Saul, 1 Samuel 10, and of David, 1 Samuel 16:1), but later also that of Prophet (Isaiah 61:1).’286 This claim is supported by my own research. The usual Hebrew term used by the Tanakh scribes for the role of ‘king’ was ‫ מלך‬and for the role of ‘priest’ ‫כהן‬. The use of ‫משיה‬, from the verb ‫משה‬, seems intended from the contexts in which it us embedded to recall the original and primary ritual initiation (anointing) which enabled a secondary (task-oriented) designator role. Scholars choose different ways to transliterate ‫משיה‬. I use ‘messiah’, since it has become common to all English-speaking Jewish and Christian scholars in non-technical passages. To assess current scholarship on the subject, we go back fifty years to the Scandinavian scholar, Sigmund Mowinckel. In his classical work on the origins and development of the messianic figure (especially what he surmised as Jesus’ own appropriation of the role), Mowinckel emphasized the distinction between the original ceremonial title for the reigning king (translated as ‘the Anointed One’) found in the Hebrew Scriptures, and the abbreviation ‘Yahweh’s Anointed’ used in reference to an eschatological messiah, found in textual passages from what is now labeled Early Judaism – c. 300 BCE to c. 200 CE. Mowinckel noted that eschatological writings (those to which he had access) did not necessarily include a messianic figure. Rather, the Jewish religious hope for the future seemed mostly focused on God’s direct rule of Israel (and the

286 Markus Bockmuehl, This Man Jesus: Martyr, Lord, Messiah (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1994), p.43.

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world). He concluded that where a messianic figure does appear, it is always and only with reference to a future age. This figure usually has the this-worldly political and national overtones resident in the image of a Davidic-style king. Occasionally the figure wears an other-worldly guise where the transcendental element is more suited to religious than political hopes. 287 Obviously, Mowinckel did his work before most of the translations were done on the Dead Sea Scrolls, but they have borne out and in fact exceed his estimate on the low percentage of extra-sacral textual references to a messianic figure. He differentiated between political and religious realms, as is common in Western thought, but indicated that the messiah is meant to straddle both. For our purposes, Mowinckel’s most lasting legacy is a warning against any systematic ordering of passages emanating from various texts which allude to a messiah. Such a core-less organizing would ‘provide us with a conception of the Messiah which never existed in that form in the thought of later Judaism, being simply a chimera produced by modern theological learning.’288 ‘Later Judaism’ – in his not-subtleat-all supersessionism – for him meant Jesus’ time. He was intuiting the need which has since arisen to clarify the confusion of that century. He concurred with most scholarship done since the late nineteenth century that the messianic image, along with most Hebraic terms and symbols, owed at least some of its content to a confluence of external sources – for example, most local ancient kings seem to have been considered sacred once anointed to their task before the god, and most likely the Chaldean/Iranian idea of the ‘Primordial Man’ evolved into the ‘Son of Man’ motif to influence the messianic concept. But he judged that the strong monotheistic faith and attendant hope for salvation in the postBabylon community changed any incoming influences so decisively that

287 Sigmund Mowinckel, He That Cometh: the Messianic Concept in the Old Testament and Later Judaism (1951) trans. G.W. Anderson (Oxford: Basil Blackwell 1959), p.7. 288 Ibid, p. 281.

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the messianic image became a uniquely Jewish concept as it developed in eschatological circles.289 Mowinckel’s exegesis of available biblical and non-biblical sources is initially careful. But, in the second half of this book, his exegetical conclusions are so informed by his pre-war theology that all Christian changes to the messianic concept depend upon Jesus’ supposed use. He accepted the gospels as rendered biographies in a way contemporary exegetical scholars cannot. And to our sensibilities he mis-stepped badly when claiming that Jesus’ repudiation of the messianic kingly image in favour of a messianic suffering-saviour-Son-of-Man ‘unit[es] in itself the loftiest elements in both the Jewish and the “Aryan” spirit’ 290 No one would dare claim such a union after the way the ‘Aryan spirit’ perpetuated HaShoah. Be that as he was – exegetes and historians working on the messianic concept since his time often cite Mowinckel’s insights and warning. In recent decades they have laboured to interpret recent archaeological discoveries as they shed more light both on linguistic developments – in Hebrew and other Mesopotamian languages – and on historical or mythical events described in the extant texts by means of certain key words. With this material, they are analyzing the complex origins of the messianic concept and the paths it took in the atmosphere of eschatological expectation flourishing before, during and after Jesus’ time. Their conclusions (open to more findings) were tabled at the First Princeton Symposium on Judaism and Christian Origins in 1987, as follows:

289 For recent work on messianic sources, see J.-G. Heintz, ‘Royal Traits and Messianic Figures: A Thematic and Iconographic Approach (Mesopotamian Elements)’, in James Charlesworth’s collection of the 1987 First Princeton Symposium papers, The Messiah: Developments in Earliest Judaism and Christianity (Minnesota: Fortress Press 1992). 290 He That Cometh, p. 449. Wm. Green comments that Mowinckel ‘claim[ed] the Israelite legacy and thus [for himself] demonstrated Christianity’s authenticity’, in ‘Messiah in Judaism: Rethinking the Question’, in Neusner, Green, Frerichs, Judaisms and their Messiahs at the Turn of the Christian Era (Cambridge University Press, l.987), p. 7.

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1.

The term ‘the Messiah’ is not in the Hebrew Scriptures.291

2.

The Hebrew Scriptures contain some very important passages that are properly understood as implicitly messianic.

3.

These passages were understood and used with exactly this messianic connotation for the two centuries before 70 CE.

4.

The term ‘the Messiah’ rarely appears in Jewish literature between 250 – 200 BCE. But in pre-rabbinic writing, it appears with urgency and frequency from the first century BCE through 135 CE. 292

The Symposium also agreed that extant Jewish writings that contain the term ‘messiah’ or with messianic allusions are not representative of all Jews of any period. There were many eschatological traditions in Early Judaism – some messianic and some non-messianic – but there is no way of telling in what proportion either existed. Even with the Dead Sea Scrolls, there are too few documents to do more than allow educated guesses. This limitation makes any conclusion on the development of the concept tentative. It has also forced a recent chance in terminology: from ‘Judaism’ to ‘Judaisms’, and from ‘the Messiah’ to ‘messiah’ or ‘messiah theme’. The scholar who first advocated this change was Jacob Neusner.293 In researching the origins of Judaism’s concepts and symbols, Neusner found 291 Emphasis mine. The focus of the Symposium’s statement is on the article. In ‘The Concepts of Masiah and Messianism in Early Judaism’, in Charlesworth’s The Messiah, Talmon ‘differentiate[s] between the epithet ‫ משיה‬preponderantly used in the Hebrew Bible in reference to an actual ruling king or his immediate successor, and the concept messianism which derives from that noun.’ (p.80) ‫משיה‬.was only translated once in the KJV as ‘messiah’ in Daniel 9: 25-26 (NRSV: ‘an anointed one’). In all other passages KJV and NRSV translate it as ‘the [Lord’s] anointed’. The passage in Daniel has no definite article; elsewhere in Tanakh, a definite article is only used to refer to a named person as ‘the [Lord’s] anointed’. 292 These four points are from James Charlesworth’s The Messiah, Preface, pp. 11-12. 293 Some of Neusner’s work on Early Judaism is controversial. However, Charlesworth leans heavily upon him in his work on messianology, as did others at the Symposium. As well, Neusner has edited many books which include the most highly regarded scholars in this field; they appear to agree with his approach to this specific issue.

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(as Mowinckel had) that ‘the concept or category, Judaism’s Messianic doctrine, as a systematic construct, yields only confusion. What we find, rather, is a theme, common to a number of systems, worked out in ways distinctive to each.’294 Yes, it is from Neusner that I got the idea for a thematic approach to this concept, as it is from James that I inherited the perception of how variety spices the researcher’s life. What Neusner is able to state with certainty is that the messianic concept apparently evolved during the same eras as the Talmuds – exilic and post-exilic – and came from the same motive: a deep concern for the holiness of the world. Motive is important to a user of the radical empirical method: it provides a connect-the-dot pattern for linguistic and archaeological data by letting us glimpse the likely interior world of the creators. In our case study, holiness as target for messianic writers makes sense, since there is much evidence that many Jews were struggling during and after the Babylonian exile to construct a holy world through observance of the Law in various political and social contexts. But how can we be sure that a particular assumption of motive is anywhere near accurate? It is, after all, two millennia back we are looking. We can start from the premise that concepts are embedded in, and therefore vary in importance and intent depending upon, the need of a particular group. ‘These points of reference to the Messiah form part of a larger world-view brought to expression in the composite theological literature of a given social group. That was the case for the Israelite religious commune of Essenes at Qumran. Everyone knows that it was the case for the Israelite religious communes organized in the name of Christ. What each group did with the

294 Jacob Neusner, Major Trends in Formative Judaism: Religious Historical and Literary Studies No. 46: Torah, Pharisees and Rabbis (Chico CA: Scholars Press, 1983), p. 173.

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messianic theme [shows] us...the larger distinctive perspective of the group rather than…. “the Messianic idea of Judaism”.’295

In a brilliant maneuver, Neusner turns the extant texts inside out. Traditionally the first century has been viewed by both dialogue partners in our case study as ‘the’ time and place where ‘the’ real meaning of the messiah was known. Instead, he recommends analyzing how the messianic concept was used within its variant contexts so that it can be utilized as a test term to reveal the specific focus of a particular group. Such a test would highlight the continuities and discontinuities of, for example, early Essenes with the other groups in their world. In this fashion, the inner reasons for using the concept can be more firmly determined. The fact that extant texts verify Mowinckel’s hypothesis that the term was not in common use even among the active eschatological groups – recalling that in general eschatological expectations were apparently not a prominent feature of Early Judaism – serves to underline the distinctive focus of those faith communities on a quest for holy (holistic) living who did centre their hopes upon a messianic figure, present or future. Careful exegetical work has demonstrated conclusively that not all Jews at any period were expecting a messiah – not even all eschatological groups. For example, less than 3% of the Dead Sea Scrolls – approximately 900 documents from c.150 BCE to 70 CE, and entirely eschatological – contain messianic references.296 Of those groups who evidently did expect a messiah, the many variations on the messianic theme in the extant literature give it a fluidity not previously recognized. A comparison of the ways in which the concept was used by such messianic circles exposes the incredible diversity of spiritual configurations and resident principles and concerns even in the evolution of a single group, and thus 295 Ibid, p. 174. For more studies see Messianism Through History, eds. Wm. Benken, Sean Freyne & Anton Weiler (London: SCM Press/ Maryknoll: Orbis Rooks, 1993). The ongoing debate about who wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls – Essenes and/or others – is not relevant to our discussion. Authors quoted have their specific preferences: I do not know enough to have one. 296 Charlesworth, The Messiah, p. 24.

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emphasizes their relatively atypical orientation when set beside the majority of groups in Early Judaism.297 James Charlesworth describes the sociological setting of that postexilic time with clarity, considering how confusing it probably was to live it: ‘What we observe is not chaotic thought. Instead, through literature we witness tangible indications of the creativity and liveliness of pre-70 Jewish thought, and the non-systematic phenomenological expressions of real and enslaved people struggling with the impossibility of describing the future. One should not dismiss these pages as ideological; they are: sociological deposits of time of crisis. The apparently chaotic thought is actually the necessarily unsystematic expressions of Jews subjugated to the experienced evilness of a conquering nation.’298 Based on this analysis, any expectations of a ‘normative’ messianic concept in use in any era – much less the first century of the Common Era – must be set aside. The careful investigation of all extant texts has allowed scholars to isolate and list the elements of the messianic theme which appear common to the various images of a messianic figure. This literature was, as far as we can tell, written mostly by anonymous authors in a time of crisis299 who included a male messiah in their hopes. As any historian would expect of a pre-postmodern Western society – no matter how splintered from the mainstream a group might be – the messianic figure is always male and all imagery around this figure is male. No Jewish group up to the Reform would expect or recognize a female deliverer. Some Hebrew texts do record instances of a woman who played the described role – and this would for me provide almost instant verification of the text’s core of historical data – but the archetype remains a single male, despite Ruether’s attempt to make it a non-generic collective.

297 The Qumran community has received that kind of study. See, for example, Robert Eisenman and Michael Wise’s The Dead Sea Scrolls Uncovered (London/New York, Element Books, 1992). Fifty documents are translated, exegeted, and discussed in an attempt to discern the community which produced them. 298 Charlesworth, op. cit., p. 24. 299 Ibid, p. 24.

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A first century messiah was expected to comply with some or all of the following: 1) He would fulfill the group’s hope of deliverance from oppression, whether expressed in political (kingly) or spiritual (priestly) terms, as culled from the history of Israel and its record of God as faithful. He would be the active herald of, and active bringer of, the end of history, and almost certainly the actual victor over the oppressor. 2) His activity within the halakhic lifestyle would be obvious to all, as one who followed Torah and lived within the strictures worked out in the Jewish community of the writer. 3) He would attain king-like status: the community would recognize that he had been anointed, or chosen, by the God of Israel (but not necessarily be king). 4) He would attain priest-like status: the community would recognize that he mediated the will of God through his actions (but not necessarily be a priest or of the priestly line). 5) His actions would lead him to prophet-like status as one who was the mouthpiece of God and whose words and action led into the future where God reigns supreme (but not a prophet in the manner of pre-exilic times). It is evident from our summary that the messianic figure of the second and first centuries before, and the first century of, the Common Era was pictured as an agent of God who would fulfill a certain role to which God would appoint him. But there would be one basic difference from the roles which prefigured this messiah: there had been many kings, priests and prophets in the history of the Jews, but there could only be one messiah – due to the expected consequences: the end of time and the beginning of God’s reign. 193

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After the catastrophe of 70 CE and the resultant scattering, the messianic figure settled into a rigid pattern of expectation among those who awaited him. Several who attempted insurrection were afterwards called ‘failed messiahs’, but others ‘false messiahs’ if they deliberately deluded the people. The rabbis have always drawn the conclusion that, since God does not yet reign on earth, the messiah cannot have come. Jesus was labeled either a failed or a false messiah in various post-70 CE writings, depending if the writer was sympathetic to his motives or not. In a later passage that became a staple in rabbinic discussion since the twelfth century, the Rambam warned: ‘He led people to believe that he was sent by HaShem to explain bewildering passages in the Torah, and that he was the Mashiach who was predicted by each and every prophet. He interpreted the Torah in a way that would invalidate it completely, do away with all its mitvos [blessings], and sanction all its prohibitions. The Sages guessed his purpose before his fame spread among the people, and condemned him to receive the punishment he deserved’. 300 But based on the first century evidence available, this traditional charge is false. Textual critics conclude that the sayings of Jesus agreed to be his actually narrowed and focused – and thus did not invalidate – Torah intent. The traditional Christian assumption, based on first century communal texts, is that all Jews of Jesus’ time were hunting for a messiah. This is now shown to also be false, and forces a radical revision of any theology based on this assumption. It also means a more critical study of the sacred texts themselves, as Ruether insists. Only clarity here will enable the current Christian community to accept and supersede textual anti-Judaism that emerged from that earliest conviction that Jesus was necessarily the Jewish messiah, and therefore any Jew not accepting this is ipso facto disobedient to the Jewish God.

300 Selected Letters of Maimonedes, trans. Abraham Yaacov Finkel (Scranton PP: Yeshivah Beth Moshe 1994), p.11. For a critical review of the Rambam on this, see David Novak, Jewish-Christian Dialogue, Ch. 3, ‘Maimonedes’ View of Christianity’, pp. 57-72.

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Does this mean that the early Christian communities who took this messianic path were ‘wrong’ in calling Jesus messiah? No, not if we can add the corollary ‘for them’ to the claim. This – a simple acceptance of the real limits of time and space – allows their hope its amazing fruits, which are recorded in some detail in the Book of Acts. In the same way, do we charge the Rambam with anti-Christian vitriol? No, since in the times he was writing it was necessary to clarify the basic principles by which the Jewish community followed halakhah, and it was too easy for his readers in such poverty scattered far from their origins to be deluded by tricksters or madmen. Jesus was ‘for him’ a well-attested fake since it was obvious ‘to him’ that Christian kings had in the millennia since not brought in any messianic age – especially for Jews. To conclude this section, the material surveyed shows that eschatological hopes were probably not held by the majority of Jews up to and including the first century. Among those groups who did rally round such hopes, the expectation of a messiah was central to at least some. Why did this first century CE eventually became an agreed pivot point in history? Charlesworth speculates that a psychological reason for personalizing the eschatological hope in messianic form could lie in the centuries-old lack of either a king or high priest, chosen and anointed with the ceremonial act of smearing oil on the head. His speculation has merit. The monarchy had effectively collapsed at the onset of the Babylonian Exile. The legendary warrior Maccabees were long dead. The high priest’s office had been under the patronage of Rome for decades. Prophecy had come to an end. There was no human figurehead to unite the fragmented community, no person acting out any of the accepted roles which had served as focal points for prior generations in the development of Hebraic and Jewish faith. ‘There was no anointed one among God’s people.’ 301

301 James Charlesworth, ‘From Jewish Messianology to Christian Christology: Some Caveats and Perspectives’, p. 229, in Neusner Green Frerichs, Judaisms. His italics.

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B. THE CHRISTIAN SHIFT AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE MESSIANIC CONCEPT o who were these Jews who experienced Jesus as the messiah? And who was this person who eventually became the archetypical messiah, accepted or rejected? The radical empirical method requires that all various uses of a term be assessed in context and validated as legitimate results of communal activity, even when those results are contradictory when taken out of their specific historical manifestation. To that end, the test which Neusner recommended above can assist in determining some of the unique features of religious groups using the messianic concept. As he points out, what ‘each group did with the messianic theme [shows] us....the larger distinctive perspective of the group rather than... ‘the Messianic idea of Judaism’.302 It exposes the continuities and discontinuities between early Christians who used messianic language, and other Jews who did or didn’t talk that way. As we just saw, analyzing how others used the terminology, but not in connection with Jesus, can clarify the relationship of group to group as well as to the larger Jewish faith context. We have listed some of the similarities among the eschatological groups to which we have access. Discontinuities emerge by investigating the novel elements of the messianic concept in its Christian setting. These will highlight which Christian presuppositions were atypical, even in the relatively atypical orientation of messianic groups within Early Judaism. First let me clarify that scholars cannot establish how widespread the use of the messianic title was in the early Christian communities. Exegetes agree that the collected pericopes of the gospels and epistles contain a variety of interpretations of the purpose and function of Jesus of Nazareth. These interpretations emerged organically both within and without the known parameters of Early Judaism. We have no way of knowing pre-

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302 Neusner, Major Trends (46), p. 174.

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cisely or even estimating how many Christians, or Christian communities, assigned the title ‘messiah’ to Jesus. The fact that some individuals and communities did take this step, and that its acceptance became the basis for the later translation of the title ‘anointed one’ into Χρίστος, was enough to include this title in their sacred writings. There is general agreement that, within a century of his death, the title Χρίστος for Jesus and the self-designation of ‘Christian’ was in use among all the communities. Indeed, it was the Greek form of the messianic title that designated the movement then and ever since. Based on the work done in the previous section, Christian theologians participating in the Jewish-Christian dialogue have been forced to acknowledge that the original Christian interpretation of the messianic concept did lie outside of the original Jewish parameters. But the way in which this acknowledgment is offered and accepted is of the utmost importance for any success in dealing with the dialogue impasse. IF Christians accept that the Jewish frame is the only legitimate one for a concept that originated within Judaism (as Paul Van Buren assumes) THEN the Christian history of the concept is negated. IF the Christians insist that the development of the concept within the early Church was the only correct interpretation of the concept, i.e. in association with Jesus of Nazareth (as has traditionally been, and is still most often the case), THEN the Jewish origins and later separate development is negated. IF the option is taken which Pawlikowski introduced – that both communities let go of the ancient designation of Jesus as messiah in their talks together and focus on other interpretations – THEN that very early Christian interpretation is negated in favour of later christological developments. It would appear that the impasse cannot be negotiated without eliminating what one community treasures as a former or present activity of the spirit of the God both have always claimed to love with all of their hearts, souls, minds, and strength. 197

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This is where the proposal of this present work can function to provide the dialogue partners with a viable alternative acceptable to both. The radical empirical method provides a path whereby each step on the variant paths of the development of the concept is accorded its place and honoured as a valid interpretation of religious experience. For both Jews and Christians, religious tradition and experience are respected while held in a constant historical tension with each present. Their texts show that this is how the two faiths have developed. With the radical empirical method, one views the process of religious development itself as valid and accepts even the contradictory interpretations as witnessing to the divine source of that faith to which both communities aspire. Therefore, while historically the Christian interpretation of the concept came later, it is still held in the same respect as the earlier Jewish interpretation. The work which the method requires is the same as in the previous section, i.e. an initial assessment of historical developments of the concept within the community. Only once that is done is use of the results for any christological evaluation appropriate. To recap the previous section: although messianism varied in different Jewish groups, there was a general expectation in such eschatological circles that the messiah would inaugurate the final era when God’s justice (and perhaps God) would rule the world. Hence, a Jew expecting a messiah in the first century would have been unlikely to accept a messianic candidate (crucified or not) if the world went on as usual after his life ended. However, it is reasonable to conclude that some continuity must have existed between messianic Christian Jews and messianic non-Christian Jews, if the former felt justified in adopting the designation for Jesus. Nils Dahl points out that there is one underlying factor which appears to unite all possible variations on the messianic theme at a level below any later classifications into national and universal, this-world or next-world, Jewish or Christian. This factor is much more than a point of connection: it is the basic feature which each eschatological group had in common with all other Jews of that era. 198

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‘An overarching unity was…provided by the common faith in the one God, the God of Israel and the entire world, who had given the Law and would keep His word and do what He had promised. The divergent or even conflicting “messianic” ideas and movements operated within this framework.’303

The diverse re-interpretations of the Hebrew Scriptures by messianic groups of which we possess some knowledge invariably elevate one of the six elements listed in the previous section (for example, military victory) at the expense of the others (for example, justice for the poor). Based on this fact, Charlesworth hypothesizes that there was an on-going lively debate concerning the title, functions and even necessity of a messiah which formed the background for any emerging developments of the concept. If his rendering is accurate, the reason for the persecution of Christians recorded in Acts – most of which is accorded some historical precision by scholars – remains a puzzle, since ‘debate’ seems to indicate activity more along the intellectual than the martial side of disagreement. Dahl’s reminder of the larger framework within which all Jewish groups operated makes such opposition more perplexing. Stoning Stephen strikes me as a little too lively. 304 In order to vindicate Christian use of the messianic concept, it must be continuous in some degree with Jewish messianic motifs. Certain correlations between Jesus and his activities, and prevailing expectations of a messiah, must have existed in order for some of Jesus’ followers to make a messianic claim, however contentious this claim may have been either within or without the early Church. Charlesworth suggests a gradual conflation of the ‘son of man’ and ‘suffering servant’ concepts into the messianic figure.

303 Nils A. Dahl. ‘Messianic Ideas and the Crucifixion of Jesus’, in Charlesworth, The Messiah, p. 389. 304 Charlesworth, op. cit., p. 30. For further study see Claudia Setzer’s excellent thesis, Jewish Responses to Early Christian History and Polemics 30-150 CE (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1994). Her conclusion: while Jews perceived Christians as Jews to c. 50 CE, albeit wrongly persuaded, quite early Christians saw themselves as the ‘true Israel’.

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‘Before C.E. 70, two groups in Early Judaism held messianic beliefs in which the Messiah was identified with the Servant and the one like a Son of Man. One group portrayed the Elect One with terms, functions, and attributes derived from the traditions associated with the Isaianic Suffering Servant, the Davidic Messiah, and the Danielic Son of Man figure; the other group depicted Jesus of Nazareth in the same manner… It is conceivable that these Jewish and Christian traditions [both] emanated from Galilee.’305

This reveals a degree of similarity between at least one other messianic adaptation and the Christian one, demonstrating another and very important continuity: the use of specific Hebraic sacred texts to delineate the role and purpose of the messiah. One clear and basic element of discontinuity existed between the available pre-Christian variations on the messianic theme and the Christian one: the Christian Jews had an actual historical person at the core of their teaching. This at the time was a unique element, and the Christian interpretation of the messianic concept soon became indissolubly linked with other concepts – Jewish or non-Jewish – emerging to explain Jesus of Nazareth. When Sigmund Mowinckel was working on the messianic concept fifty years ago, it was still accepted theological practice to make little or no distinction between statements of exegetical or historical fact, and statements of faith (although some, i.e. Bultmann, had begun to do this).306 Mowinkel could thus claim, and many Christians would still concur: ‘The 305 James Charlesworth, ‘From Jewish Messianology to Christian Christology: Some Caveats and Perspectives’, in Neusner, Green, Frerichs, Judaisms, p. 241. The first group wrote the Book on Enoch, agreed to be pre-70 CE. There is no way of knowing if this group was influenced by Christians, or vice versa. Each exegete discussed in this work deeply researched Hebrew Scriptures, Dead Sea Scrolls, Pseudopigrapha and Christian Scriptures for all messianic references to reach the conclusions presented. For in-depth discussions on the ‘son of man’ and other concepts and their possible association with messianism, see Douglas Bare, The Son of Man Tradition (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1990), or James Dunn, ‘Messianic Ideas and Their Influence on the Jesus of History’, in Charlesworth, op. cit. 306 He That Cometh, pp. 449-50.

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essential and decisive way in which Jesus transformed the idea of the Messiah was that He combined the thought of the suffering, dying and exalted Servant of the Lord with that of the Son of Man. ….The Jewish Messianic concept is thereby transformed and lifted up to a wholly other plane.’ In the light of research since, historical and exegetical scholars no longer presuppose that the Jesus portrayed in the gospels is a one-to-one correspondence portrayal of the historical Jesus. For some there is not even a close approximation. They are careful to weigh all the evidence as objectively as is humanly possible (considering how each of us is apparently loaded with conscious and unconscious agendas) in order to win assent for their conclusions from peers holding different (or even no) faith positions. Theologians using such proffered textual evidence are often more tentative if drawing christological implications. However, the radical empirical method, as used by Lee and this work, would use this evidence to ground theological discussions on Jesus and the early Church upon factual strength. Each historical event or experience gleaned from such investigations would be allowed to make a difference to subsequent christological or ecclesiological conclusions. It is therefore imperative to weigh this evidence carefully when relating Jesus to the messianic concept. At the 1987 Princeton Symposium, scholars from both faith communities involved in our case study agreed to publish the following conclusions as the most that can be drawn so far from the available material: 1. Jesus’ sayings reveal that his message was not about the coming of the messiah. His preaching focused on the coming of God’s kingdom, not the kingdom of the messiah. 2. Jesus never proclaimed himself to be the messiah. He apparently rejected Peter’s confession, that he (Jesus) was ‘the Christ’ (as we have it in the Greek text), as satanic, because he did not wish his mission and message to be judged according to the present prevailing concepts of the messiah. 201

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3. The disciples are never portrayed as asking Jesus for his views about the messiah. Before his crucifixion they were apparently not preoccupied with speculations about the coming of such a figure. It is far from clear what term they would have chosen before or just after his death to categorize him.307 Charlesworth argues that the rejection of messianic status for Jesus, preserved in only one gospel passage, quite plausibly originated with Jesus himself for specific reasons: ‘Since there were many [and contradictory] definitions of the title...then chaos could have resulted by accepting an ill-defined title, especially one that would have aroused strong emotions. The most persuasive reason – according to my own research – is that if Jesus thought he was the Messiah he would have falsified the very possibility of being the Messiah by any messianic claim, since only God himself may announce the Messiah’s identity, according to some early Jewish texts.’308

Evidence to support this conclusion – that the ascription of messianic status to Jesus was not developed during what is termed the initial stage of christological interpretation (i.e. during Jesus’ own lifetime) – comes from investigating the earlier strata of confessional statements and kerygma in the pericopes of the Christian Scriptures. In these confessions Jesus is called ΰίος (‘son’)or κύριος (‘lord’), but not Χρίστος. Charlesworth states: ‘The only true exception is Mark’s account of Peter’s confession. Even if Mark accurately records Peter’s words, we have no way of knowing what Peter meant by “Christ”. Even if we knew exactly what he meant, we still would not be able to perceive what Jesus was thinking, since scholars throughout the world have come to agree that according to Mark Jesus did not simply 307 Charlesworth, op. cit., p. 11. 308 Charlesworth, ‘From Jewish Messianology….’, in Neusner, Green, Frerichs, Judaisms, p. 252.

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accept Peter’s claim that he was the Messiah (contrary to Matthew’s version).’309

Presumably, such laudatory titles reflect the earliest struggling comprehensions of Jesus’ significance for his followers, who (we can assume) would have wanted to remain faithful to his teachings, reflecting in turn Jesus’ own perception of his role and mission – whatever those might have been. We will look into that a little later. To build on and nuance our earlier presentation on Lee’s point concerning the Hebraic and Hellenistic context in Galilee, it is necessary to remain alert to the fact that according to the extant records, Jews in Jesus’ social milieu most likely spoke Aramaic for daily interaction and Hebrew mainly for Torah worship and learning. In their locale, Greek was usual used only in the ports and marketplaces. While Jesus and his friends would have been somewhat familiar with it, it is improbable that they would have used this language for worship or Torah discussion – the main topics in most of the pericopes. This is one of the strongest reasons why the scholars represented in this case study hesitate to associate the votive terms ΰίος, κύριος, and Χρίστος directly with Jesus. To summarize their conclusions: whether the Hebrew equivalents to these Greek words were used either by Jesus or those around him remains unknown. κύριος ([‫ )אדונ]י‬has always been a title reserved by Jews for God when used in a religious context; it is very unlikely that Jesus as a halakhic Jew would have accepted its application to him, let alone sought to appropriate it. Passages where Jesus is recorded as accepting it and others where he rejected it point to the same exegetical confusion generated by Χρίστος. However, ΰίος (‫ )בן‬is a title that could have been used by Jesus with reference to his mission, or accepted by him if given by others. It could have been conferred on him in association with the prophetic ‘son of man’ or honorific ‘son of God’ – both in circulation for centuries to designate messengers from God. Neither of these titles, at

309 Charlesworth, The Messiah, p. 9.

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that time and in that context, would have challenged Jewish monotheism if assigned to a human agent of God. This brief synopsis of the scholarly debate on the titles used in the gospels for Jesus only illustrates the difficulty of deducing the process whereby Jesus became the Christian messiah. Our investigation into the shift from the original Jewish concept to what became a distinctly Christian concept must take into account as many of the contributing factors involved as can be identified. Charlesworth claims that four such factors appear to have influenced the early Christians: the various images of a messiah, the separate Pharisaic belief in the resurrection of the dead, the crucifixion of Jesus and the claim that he had been raised by God, and the coupling of his life and teachings which ‘helped re-mint traditional concepts and titles.’310 If one starts with the fourth factor – the impact of Jesus’ life and teachings on his followers – it is obvious from the records that they viewed his teachings as inspired, i.e. direct from God. The extant pericopes describe teachings of great insight and clarity coming from a knowledgeable speaker of passion and compassion – teachings based on and steeped in Torah but reworked to make them relevant to the listeners’ everyday existence. The records portray a man capable of deep friendship and loyalty, as well as anger at those who had no desire to hear his message. Most importantly, the picture emerges of a man who took the God of his faith so seriously that adherence to this God was more important to him than his own life. His disciples’ memory of his close relationship with God appears to have only enhanced their faith in his teachings after he was executed by the Roman procurator. Charlesworth’s third factor – the manner and shock of Jesus’ death – may have acted as the catalyst that forced his disciples to search out explanations for his life and death that made sense. This search of necessity took place within the disciples’ Jewish cognitive and linguistic framework,

310 Charlesworth, ‘From Jewish Messianology…..’ Neusner, Green, Frerichs, Judaisms, p. 254.

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since they knew no other and would not have used it if they had. Thus the claim some followers made of seeing him after his death and burial, as recorded in the texts, might reasonably be connected to the second factor as an allowable current interpretation of what they had experienced: Pharisaic teaching on the resurrection of the dead in the last days, which the few messianic groups in the locale were already associating with the first factor – the anticipated coming of God’s messiah. As the only association with resurrection in the Judaisms of that age was with the final days – when God would dispense justice and raise the righteous who had died – the logic would fit together as follows: if Jesus is alive again, the final days must have arrived. Some Jewish eschatological groups, as mentioned above, associated the end times with the coming of an ‘appointed’ (messianic) agent of God to proclaim that kingdom. Whether or not Jesus regarded himself as a messianic figure, this one factor above all others appears to have pushed some of his followers in an eschatological and even apocalyptic direction. Who first made the connection, and how many accepted it, is impossible to tell from the records. But it is evident that the connection was made. For the first time, Jews assigned the role of messiah to a known personage, and – to double the shift – to one no longer counted as alive in the wider community, but one whom they recalled clearly, and whom they expected to return any day as herald of God’s kingdom on earth – the core of Jesus’ message. To the best of our knowledge, there was no other designation available at that time and in that place to fuse together the variant elements of that event: reported sightings of Jesus, Pharisaic teaching on the raising of the dead in the end time, and Jesus’ teachings of the presence of God’s kingdom. There are, to be sure, alternate ways to connect these so-sparse dots, and I want to summarize the most intriguing. Jeremy Cott claims that this messianic connection was not made initially in the way in which it eventually shaped Christian tradition. Using careful exegesis, he argues that the original message of Jesus and his initial followers was radically, 205

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specifically and deliberately anti-messianic – indeed, quite opposed to the messianic expectations in the air. What Jesus did, according to Cott, was to take the messianic fervour of the times and turn it back onto its propagators by insisting that ‘the kingdom is within’: there was therefore no need for a messiah to bring it about. Jesus’ intent, Cott surmises, was to break down eschatological and apocalyptic yearnings which had given birth to messianism in the first place, in order to enable his listeners to learn to dispense justice and mercy now, amongst each other. Cott sees in this the fledgling democratic communal life of the early Church. The earliest Christians thus viewed Jesus’ death not as a meaningless tragedy for which they had to scrounge out an understanding, but as showing them the real meaning of messianism: life is a gift, the Spirit of God dwells with each of us at all times, and we are to live and die as Jesus lived and died. This for Cott is the first and most empowering Christian shift in meaning of the concept – a messiah who died without bringing the reign of God in an observable fashion, but who was then hailed as the messiah because he taught the kingdom’s immanence in his disciples. Cott asserts that the gospel record of a bodily resurrection is a later add-on interpretation of early ‘sightings’ which may have been legitimate religious experiences. The subsequent interpretation was a method invoked to come to terms with Jesus’ death, thus denied through a postPauline re-working of the Pharisaic meaning of resurrection. Cott claims Jesus had rejected the concept of a messiah, which focused on one person, to teach a messianic attitude. (Ruether would like that, as would some medieval rabbis.) But his later followers shifted the attitude back to him as a role. The probable sequence of the developing resurrection tradition as he reconstructs it is: from probably real ‘sightings’, to verbal reports of sightings which make no reference to an empty tomb (accurately pointing out that there is no empty tomb in Paul’s letters), then a concept of Jesus’ post-death material existence, to the developed portrayal in the gospel of ‘Peter’. Since then, the Church has rejected the fact and finality of Jesus’ death. Cott argues from a Freudian psychotherapeutic stance that no one can 206

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truly love who does not accept that death is inevitable. It is this second shift, a retreat from the first Christian messianic shift and a re-working of the ‘sighting’ stories, which he claims emerged in the later strata of the gospel and the later Johannine epistles: as the Christian presentation of the messiah who did not stay dead, but rose from the dead and is coming again….some day. While Cott makes an interesting case for two shifts in the meaning of messiah in relation specifically to Jesus – and much as I find his reconstruction to my liking – there is (and I say unfortunately!) no evidence from extant literature of that era that the ‘real’ meaning of messianism was to accept life ‘as a gift’, with no reference to a later state of existence. However, his argument that Jesus at least (if not the disciples) was deliberately anti-messianic is a strong one. And he is one of the few to argue christological perspectives from the activities of the earliest followers, which fits with our requirement that it is by their fruits that we will know if the path taken is based on a real religious experience in the Jamesian sense.311 Neusner has another theory for the shift of meaning of the concept of the messiah within the Christian community – based, like Cott’s, on hypothetical communal psychological needs as well as on the textual sources of the era. He also postulates that the Christian shift in meaning occurred in two stages, but his two stages are very different from Cott’s. Neusner thinks that the first stage was the association of the messianic concept with Jesus by some of his Jewish followers; its fluidity easily shaped to fit his life and was a fait accompli soon after his death. The second prolonged stage was a re-definition of the concept in the post-Acts Christian community. Neusner, with most exegetical scholars, believes messianism was a secondary rather than a primary way of defining Jesus’ role, but it did occur during later years of the first generation. This second longer stage into what became the distinctly Christian version of the messianic theme 311 Jeremy Cott, ‘The Problem of Christian Messianism’, JEC 16:1 (1979). Cott associates the resurrection development with gnostic elements among Christian Jews seeking release from tension caused by the messiah’s death. While this point can be disputed, his main argument goes a long way to proving Jesus’ anti-messianism.

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likely took place decades after the death of Jesus, in a development paralleling rabbinic attempts to tame the concept in the later Talmud (see below) – and perhaps for many of the same reasons. The concept was subsequently re-thought by the second generation of Christians and realigned to fit that context, since the first generation’s expectations of a quick return by Jesus could only be embraced for so long. Also, the later generations had progressively less contact with their faith’s Jewish root, so the term would losing its core value as a unifying concept unless it organically evolved with the faith community. ‘They inherited, but also reshaped the inheritance. Whatever happened in the beginning, Christ as Messiah continued to serve long after the moment that should have marked the end of time. Now as the ever-stable focus and pivot of Christian existence, the Messiah became something other and far more useful. So far as the apocalyptic expectations were not realized, indeed, could not have been realized, the Messiah had to become something else than what people originally expected. True, he will still be called Christ. But he will be what the Church needs him to be: anything but terminus of a world history that ...refused to come to an end.’312

In one of his intriguing twists on current tendencies, Neusner completes his discussion of the language of both faiths’ self-description by arguing that Christian attempts to appeal to Judaism for validation are quite unnecessary. ‘Christianity began on the first Easter. It is, therefore, absolute in its reading of it circumstance and context. It is not a kind of Judaism. It is wholly other.’313 From an entirely different perspective than our Jamesian one, he is showing respect for and thus validating another faith community’s experience. 312 Neusner, Major Trends (46), pp. 189-190. Cf. his article: ‘The Absoluteness of Christianity and the Uniqueness of Judaism: when salvation is not of the Jews’, in Origins of Judaism Vol. III Part 1, Judaism and Christianity in the First Century (New York: Garlan Publ. Inc., 1990). 313 Ibid, p.649. Paul Van Buren would not have agreed.

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Let’s take a close look at how Neusner assembles the experiential data. In his life-long study of religion as a factor of human existence, he has emphasized the role of what are now known as ‘symbols’ within a community – either as a manifestation of its psyche, or as an expression of what it comprehends as divine activity. He reviews the messianic term from within his discipline of comparative religions, as one of the four central symbols around which Judaism evolved. In our case study, the term ‘messiah’ is being investigated in its historical and linguistic evolution as a concept, i.e. an idea. At this point, though, I think it helpful to utilize his evidence on communal development of the term based in his interpretation of its career as a symbol, i.e. a numinous archetype. For example, Neusner tells us, apostolic Christianity had to disassociate the messianic figure of Jesus from the immediate apocalyptic expectations resident in the messianic concept in its current Jewish expressions. Jesus did not return to inaugurate the reign of God, but the term ‘messiah’ was linked too strongly to him by the end of the first generation to be dislodged. Moreover, it is unlikely that the second generation of believers (or most since, with the exception of the last century) wished to ignore the insights of the original believers; hence, the title was retained. Yet, since the Christian community was by then mostly non-Jewish, loosening of the bonds and continuities with Early Judaism continued organically. Since ‘messiah’ was being consistently translated as Χρίστος in kerygmatic and apostolic writings, it was probably not as difficult for later non-Jewish believers to defer the final messianic hope of the coming of God’s kingdom as it would have been for the first Jewish generation. But this second shift in meaning to a not-soon-returning messiah may have been one of the most important reasons for the emerging incompatibilities between the two faith orientations – the Torah-based and Χρίστος-based communities. Even in the early days, when the Church was still largely Jewish, the remembered Jesus and his message had become more central than Torah and halakhah. The shift in the messianic concept could have been interpreted by Torah-based Jews as the inevitable result of Paul’s willingness to allow non-Jewish believers leniency 209

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with regard to halakhah. The persecutions – not debates – recalled in Acts could have been based in both of these differences and the intense sibling tension (á la Eckardt) that would result. We can thus postulate that the term ‘messiah’ remained in the Christian Scriptures as a reminder of the role which the agent of God was expected to play by Jews, but its Jewish meaning was abandoned by the faith community before the end of the first century. In company with organically developing comprehension of Jesus as ‘messiah’ or Χρίστος, other modes of describing Jesus were sought – among Jewish and nonJewish titles and metaphors in the languages of Christians in communities scattered across the Roman Empire. These other, mainly non-Jewish, titles gradually constellated around what was becoming a proper name, ‘Jesus Christ’. After their consolidation when the gospels were collected as sacred texts, they came to mean that, for Christians, the messianic idea was not only completely fulfilled by Jesus of Nazareth, but was necessarily surrounded by this complex of titles and concepts – which then evolved into systematic ‘christ’ology. The most important element in Jewish messianism – the hope for God’s kingdom in this world – was retained in classical christology as the expectation that when God does end history, ‘Christ’ will come again. However, this ‘Christ’ will come not as agent but as ruler. Charlesworth, Cott and Neusner are examples of contemporary scholars attempting to ascertain what happened two thousand years ago by studying the historical evidence afresh and carefully, but filtering it through their own disciplines and biases – just as I am doing here. Each of us has limits: that’s why listening is the basic attitude in dialogue. Other scholars, such as Cott, have arrived at very different conclusions by taking the evidence in other directions, and though I find the directions unviable I learn a lot from following the argument, so let’s look at other connections of these dots before our eyes. Bockmuehl, for example, asserts that to ask ‘was Jesus the Messiah?’ of early Christians is too confining. ‘For them, Jesus was the Messiah as the suffering Righteous One, he is now present by the Spirit of the Messiah, 210

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in the gospel of deliverance proclaimed to Jews and Gentiles, and He will come as Judge and King to bring God’s new world to completion at his return.’314 Bockmuehl concludes from the exegetical evidence that it was very obvious to the early Christians that, since miracles had happened, the end of the reign of Satan was at hand. Jesus had risen from the dead; Satan’s complete defeat might not have been accomplished but eventually it would follow. He claims that Christian use of the term ‘messiah’ enlarged the original concept without changing it radically. In this fashion, he reduces the importance of the Jewish expectation of an observable change in the world by casting the emergent Christian one within a spiritualized mold. While he may well be correct with respect to some of the channels whereby the messianic concept moved from a Jewish to a Christian matrix, this does not satisfactorily deal with the eventual factious rupture between the two communities over the meaning of the concept as applied to Jesus – as reflected in the Acts of the Apostles. Duke University’s Harry Partin identified the early reinterpretation of the messianic concept as evidence that Jesus’ person and actions were ‘hierophantic’. This classification, based on Mircea Eliade’s definition of the sacred core in a community’s religious life, comes from the communal christological assertion that Jesus is God incarnate, which Partin assumed happened very early. He claimed that the experience which the early Christians had of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection so profoundly influenced them that they accepted the paradox of God and human (as defined from inside a Jewish framework) within the one person of Jesus. This particular development of the messianic concept would not and could not have occurred without the person of Jesus. Once it did occur, Christianity embarked on a separate path from Judaism, which has always identified its hierophany with the Exodus cluster of events. Partin’s careful analysis of the hierophantic importance of Jesus versus Torah correctly identified the core difference between Jew and Christian, as well as the importance of Jesus himself to the shift in meaning of the

314 Bockmuehl, This Man Jesus, p. 58.

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concept of the messiah.315 But, according to what has been examined above, such a shift necessarily would have been a second one, and most likely in the second generation. That reinterpretation of the messianic concept divided the two communities is clear, but that is a separate issue from incarnational christology. As with most scholars, Partin unfortunately did not differentiate between the early Christian messianic concept and later incarnational ideas which were attached to the meaning of Χρίστος. He didn’t identify the paradox of incarnation with a tension caused by overlap of the Hellenistic and Hebraic frameworks, as I would – but that’s another case study. However, Partin’s identification of Jesus as a hierophanic figure could well be utilized in order to explain the eventual basic difference between the two faiths. Early Judaism experienced the shift from the Hebraic faith centered in the Temple to the Jewish faith centred in Torah. Early Christianity experienced the shift from the Jewish concept of messiah to the Christian one – which was accompanied by the replacement of Torah with the person of Jesus as the core of faith. Since then, any concept or symbol retained by the Church from any context has been reshaped in light of the person and work of Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus lived as a Jew informed and formed by Torah, but he became to his followers the Word of God by whom all else was and is informed and formed. Whatever meaning the messianic concept had before Jesus, after Jesus it could only act as an adjectival consort to him for those who followed him. From being one of the highest titles that Jews could employ to confirm him as God’s agent, ‘messiah’/ Χρίστος had become his surname by the time Paul was writing. By filling in our data blanks with such a likely linking, we can perceive how the messianic label was not able to be relinquished by Christians – in spite of the failure of the ‘messiah’ to return. Jesus by the end of the first century was Χρίστος for more non-Jews than Jews, and these second and third generation Christians were apparently so sure that Jesus was the ful-

315 Cf. Barry Partin, ‘Jesus the Messiah: A Comparative Perspective’, in Frank Flinn, ed., Christology: The Center and the Periphery (New York: Paragon House, 1989).

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fillment of their hopes that nothing – not even the delay of the expected eschaton – could shake this conviction. An appropriate, but necessarily tentative, conclusion to these points is that the fluid messianic concept developed its Christian cast initially because of fervent belief in Jesus, then hardened into the Christian mold during the long struggle with other messianic Jews who found this Christian alteration offensive. Re-interpretation of Torah was no new thing, but it was new to re-interpret Torah in order to nominate as messiah a man resurrected by God after death. Since this also appears to have removed the focus of faith from Torah itself, the offense to halakhic Jews in general would be doubled. This transformation, together with the growing number of non-Jews in the Church unaware of halakhah, would constitute an important reason for the splitting of Christianity and Judaism into two separate faiths. The Christian redefinition of the concept of the messiah was one of a cluster of factors which eventually went into the making of the young faith centered in the person and work of Jesus. Two more tentative conclusions based on the historical data can now be added. First, the Jewish concept of the messiah, while fluid, would never have embraced the specific life and activity of Jesus of Nazareth. He founded no kingdom of justice; he did not restore Israel to independence; he was not acclaimed or anointed as king, priest or prophet by the majority of Jews in his time or later. Second, more evidence points to Jesus himself rejecting attempts to identify him with the messiah figure than to the contrary, i.e. acceptance of it as a definition of his activity with which he was comfortable. However, as we saw in the second chapter, the fact that Moltmann could argue strongly for Jesus’ messianic consciousness and base his theological work on an exegetically sensitive christology (development of the messianic horizon) shows how open this portion of our case study question still is – and likely will always remain.316

316 E.P. Sanders (another Duke U star) identifies Jesus’ act of cleansing the temple with the political element of the current messianic figure, but doesn’t make too much of it.

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I come closer to Cott than Moltmann when surmising Jesus’ intentions, though. The pericopes which most exegetes acknowledge as earliest portray Jesus resisting such attempts actively, by contradicting any effort to proclaim him as such. He also resisted passively by not responding to invitations to act as messiah in a manner recognized by the majority of his contemporaries. As with James, actions for me speak louder than interpretations. But if such was the case, why within a short time after Jesus’ death was the title ‘messiah’ bestowed on him by some of his followers? Wouldn’t they have respected his reticence? There are five mutually exclusive possibilities which could provide possible answers to this question, and they fall into two logical sets. Any of these five scenarios could describe the developing application of the concept to Jesus. For purposes of clarity (and I for one confuse easily), I’m going to use the syntax of software programming as the format for my presentation, so that the logical sequencing and the breaks in logic between the two sets and the five options will become readily apparent. IF [1]

Jesus rejected the title of messiah (actively or passively)

THEN

the later proclamation of his followers that he was (and is) messiah was unfaithful to his sense of himself and his mission. His followers broke free of his wishes

EITHER [1A] because they forgot or misunderstood them,

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OR [1B]

because they achieved a new sense of his life and work which he had not;

OR IF[2]

Jesus rejected the title at one time (as recorded in Mark) but accepted it at another (as recorded in the parallel event in Matthew, or perhaps at another

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point not preserved in the written traditions but which remained in the oral tradition) THEN [2A]

he made a break with an earlier position,

OR [2B]

he gained a deeper awareness of the nature of his ministry,

OR [2C]

the later Matthean pericope tradition is a more accurate recording of Jesus’ consistent sense of himself than the earlier Marcan one, in which case followers who later proclaimed him as messiah were being true to him even though, to the best of our knowledge, a crucified or killed messiah had not been foretold by any of the several speculative Jewish eschatologies current at that time or during the centuries previous.

From the evidence in our possession it is not possible to come conclusively closer to the actual sequence of the concept’s development within the early Christian communities. There is no evidence pointing to any one of the five options as more or less likely, as there is no external evidence supporting either the Marcan or the contradictory Matthean pericope as more or less factual. The Marcan tradition is thought to be earlier, and fits with at least one Jewish expectation: that the messiah will be proclaimed only by God, and will not know himself that he is messiah. The later Matthean tradition conforms to another and contradictory Jewish expectation: that the messiah will come in full awareness and authority. It is obvious that favouring any one of these positions over the others would bias a subsequent christology and ecclesiology. What is evident from this contextual study is the fact that Christian sacred texts emerged from and produced conflicting views of Jesus, some non-messianic and some messianic – not dissimilar to the tensions among messianic and non-messianic variations within Jewish texts and contexts. It is tempting to soar off into speculation and read this conflicting data in terms of an internal ecclesial struggle, or to project such a struggle over his own mes215

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sianic sense back onto Jesus, but there is not enough evidence to support either assumption, and this is not a novel (yet). The only firm conclusion possible concerning the five scenarios listed above is that the memory of Jesus influenced different Christians in different ways, some of which led to the use of the concept of the messiah as descriptive of his role in the faith community. This conclusion is readily accepted by a user of the radical empirical method, by whom descriptions of internal religious experiences – individual or communal – are considered data as much as descriptions of external historical events. When the various pericopes were being collected and narratives formed around Jesus’ person and work, different concepts prevalent in various communities of believers were united in the best descriptive fashion of the final authors and redactors of the gospels. These concepts – only one of which was that of ‘messiah’ – were developed as each writer felt most fitting in order to explain who Jesus was and what he had done. As one of those writings preserved in the Christian canon witnesses, words were inadequate to express or explain the religious experiences that had occurred and continued to occur in connection with this Jesus of Nazareth. Accepting all of these first century experiences as valid, and the contexts in which they occurred, and the descriptive explanations and interpretations – this is the mandate of the radical empirical method. Interpreting the implications is the mandate of a christology in which the findings of the radical empirical method would be assigned priority. C. THE MESSIANIC CONCEPT IN CONTEXT OF THE JEWISH-CHRISTIAN DIALOGUE he two faith communities split away from each other into separate developments, most of the time only interacting as forced in political or commercial contexts – a few positive, most negative. However, as Eugene Fisher warns dialogue participants, it is simplistic to assume that isolation became the norm:

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‘Though both sides hesitate to admit it, there was a lot more spiritual and communal interchange across the permeable borders of the Jewish quarters (and even later the ghettos) than is commonly perceived. The development of Jewish and Catholic scholasticism and mysticism in pre-expulsion Spain, and of later Christian Pietism and Chassidism in Eastern Europe, are obvious examples… Further, isn’t it coincidence that the modern rabbinate has taken on a ministerial role in addition to its classical role of Torah study?’317

Now that the attempt is being made in dialogue to bridge the two-millennial gulf between, each first listens to the other’s understanding of faith reality and origins, and I am recommending in part using the radical empirical method. Then the partners can continue to use the method to look at the historical records since that first century – which we will do now. After the first century of the Common Era, it would appear that the concept of the messiah developed in the two separate faith communities according to the way in which each viewed the activity of God – in both history and the expected end times. What follows is a brief survey of the use (or lack thereof) to which the two faith communities tended to put the concept of the messiah. This case study is not intended to be complete, nor should it be read as a thorough investigation into the writings or writers discussed. Rather, it is meant to demonstrate how the radical empirical method requires the dialogue partners to be aware of each historical context which at some point contributed to the development of this (or any) concept, and to allow this awareness to have a direct bearing upon consequent dialogical conclusions. As we have seen, historical data for this method comes in three basic categories: events as such, experiences as such, and interpretations of these experiences and events. The two former sections of this chapter dealt with the events and experiences of the second and first before, and then the first century of the Common Era – as described in the Jewish 317 Eugene Fisher, “A Word for Continuity: a response to Joann Spillman’, JEC 35:1 (1998), p. 70.

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and Christian texts, and debated by Jewish and Christian scholars. This section shall survey the interpretation of those experiences and events found since in the explorations of the separate faith communities. Study of these various interpretations will help the Jewish and Christian partners in dialogue to appreciate the rich variety of interpretations that have been, and can still be, resident in the messianic concept. It is my hope that, nuanced and contextualized by such a study, the absolute stance which tends to be taken by both partners with respect to the messianic concept can be lessened and the impasse crumble of its own dead weight. 1. Among Jews First we will look at developments in rabbinic Judaism where the messianic figure came to be an accepted, if initially minor, component within the faith. Neusner states that after the destruction of the Temple, some rabbinic inheritors of the Pharisees integrated what he terms ‘the messiah-myth’ into the structure of the later Talmud (100-700 CE). There the ‘messiah-myth’ began to act as an ahistorical force, able to lift the Jews outside of time, away from the political and military forces which surrounded and suppressed them. The only government worthy of attention for these rabbis was one that would bring the rule of God to Israel and the world through God’s anointed agent, the messiah. But, even in this later Talmud, there is neither a coherent messianic idea nor any systematic recognition of it as a fixed function, since various rabbis wrote from different contexts. ‘The figure of the Messiah serves diverse purposes, defined by the framers of the larger systems in which the Messiahmyth will find a place.... [T]he Messiah enters. But he does so only on the rabbis’ terms….incorporated into the rabbinical realm through a process of assimilation and (from the viewpoint I think dominant among the Mishnah philosophers) also neutralization.’318 318 Neusner, Formative Judaism, p.189; he stresses that the Mishnah authors deliberately ignored the messianic figure.

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Neusner sees this rabbinic action as the taming of a vital but difficult facet of the Jewish religious imagination – the apocalyptic expectation of the end times when the world will be governed by the justice of God. By pushing the messianic theme out of the everyday and incorporating it into a transcendental myth, the rabbis were able to sustain communal hope in the long run without avoiding trials in the short run. They no longer wanted Jews to anticipate a leader who any day might fulfill communal messianic expectation, to which the dangerous false messiahs of the past had aspired. Instead, the rabbis gradually evolved a transcendental messianism based in an eschatology which has lasted millennia, and which reinforces the basic Torah message of holiness within the world, rather than salvation from the world. Neusner does not discuss this, but it seems the postulated non-differentiation between the political (worldly) realm and the religious (spiritual) realm in Early Judaism which we touched on with reference to Lee’s usage is gone. Likely the evolving split between the transcendental and material worlds in western Christian theology had its counterpart in rabbinical Judaism. Neusner’s conclusions are supported by Gershom Scholem’s earlier work, where Scholem described the messianic figure in rabbinical literature as the midpoint between several different paradoxes.319 The messianic figure was repudiated as a possible political agent (as against an agent sent by God) by many who refused to say prayers that would usher in the end time, since the apocalypse is so often pictured as destructive. Such rabbis had no desire to bring suffering to the world in order to gain their own salvation – an attitude which I recommend highly to all current apocalyptic groups. But other rabbis used the messianic figure as an instigator who would actively attempt to usher in the apocalypse, since only after such a cataclysm could God’s kingdom ‘come’. Scholem classified this approach – rare though it was in this Talmud320 – as utopian, since God 319 Cf. Gershom Scholem, The Messianic Idea in Judaism and Other Essays on Jewish Spirituality (New York: Schocken Books, 1971). 320 S. Talmon, in Charlesworth’s The Messiah, p.113.

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was expected to thus inaugurate a new order through his messiah and then rule a perfect world. But it was also restorative, since it projected the communal memory of David’s ancient kingdom into the future. Scholem and Neusner agree that the ultimate paradox of the messianic figure – and the underlying reason for the rabbinical suspicions of messianic vitality – was based on the place of Torah. How would Jews keep the Law in this messianic kingdom? Would they have to practice halakhah? Scholem saw this issue as the crux of halakhic abandonment by Christian Jews, since they believed God’s kingdom to be imminent in Jesus’ return as messiah. Most post-70 CE rabbis decided to suppress this wild apocalyptic element in Judaism, not wanting to speculate about a time when their beloved halakhah might be abandoned. Neusner concludes: ‘The version of the Messiah-myth incorporated into the rabbinic system through the Talmuds simply restates the obvious: Israel’s sanctification is what governs.... The operative category is not salvation through what Israel does, but sanctification of what Israel is.’321

As Neusner taught us earlier, the messianic concept or category was not so much a fixed idea as a theme emerging at specific times. It gradually became somewhat more dominant in the rabbinical era as it underwent what he labels a ‘taming’ process. His interest in the concept, as pointed out, is in its use as one of four ancient symbols. He speculates that it is their repeated use which explains much of the hidden strength of Jewish resilience. The four – ‘Zion’, ‘Israel’, ‘Jerusalem’, and ‘messiah’ – were incorporated in such a way that the survival of the Jewish people and their traditional faith rested, and still rests, on these four cornerstones. It is interesting that the metaphor of ‘cornerstones’ became a foundational one in both Christian and Jewish traditions over the millennia, and that ‘messiah’ is one ‘corner’ in each. What the other three are is probably as open to debate in one community as in the other, since I doubt all Jews would agree with Neusner: where is Torah? 321 Neusner, Major Trends (46),pp. 191, 192.

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In any case, Neusner’s perception accurately reflects the core teaching of medieval Jewish faith. As the Rambam expressed it: ‘[I]t is one of the cornerstones of the Jewish faith that a Redeemer will arise who is descendant of Shlomoh. He will gather in our scattered ones, take away our humiliations, publicize the true religion and wipe out those who flout His commands. HaShem promises this in the Torah.’322 By his time it was customary to invoke the messianic figure in both a consoling and hopeful manner. Neusner admires the genius of this ability of faith to re-possess ancient wisdom: ‘The stability of symbols, the repeated reference over a long period of time to a severely limited repertoire, masks the creative and original use of those symbols in response to the requirements of an ever-changing world. What demands attention is the opposite, the failure of people to re-imagine a symbol that no longer corresponds to, or conveys, perceived reality ....The one thing that should change is the character of the symbols through which people portray in their minds what is going on in that world that their minds and imaginations propose to mediate and to interpret.’323

Talmon has produced a different but complementary study to Neusner’s depiction of evolving Jewish messianism. The messianic idea unfolded through three stages: historical realism, which was based in the active (if deficient) monarchies of Israel and Judea; conceptualization, which grew in the apocalyptic writings of the Second Temple Period; and idealization of the messianic figure post-70 CE, which was the culmination of the entire process. Once optional and peripheral to Jewish apocalyptic, gradually the messianic concept became core. Whether Jewish apocalyptic should be central to Jewish thought was another and more heated argument. 324 322 Rambam: Selected Letters of Maimonides (trans. Finke), p. 49. 323 Jacob Neusner, Major Trends in Formative Judaism: No. 60, Society and Symbol in Political Crisis (Chico CA: Scholars Press, 1984), p.7. Also see No.61, Texts, Contents, Contexts, 1984, pp. 77ff. 324 S. Talmon in Charlesworth, op. cit., p. 82.

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When Jews looked around one millennium after the Romans had destroyed their Temple in 70 CE, Rome was still the centre of power – but under the control of Christians who claimed to follow their messiah. Neusner asserts that for most Jews of that era and since, there was and is no discernible difference between the strong and triumphal Christians and other pagans who oppressed them and ignored their God. For the Rambam, this was because the empire-holders were living a lie: ‘The Christians falsely attribute great miracles to oso ha’ish – ‘that man’ (the founder of their religion), such as reviving the dead. Even if we concede this for the sake of argument, we could not accept their argument that Jeshu is the Mashiach. We could show them a thousand proofs in Tanakh that he is not, even from their point of view. Indeed, would anyone lay claim to this title unless he wanted to make himself a laughingstock?’325 Since in Jewish thought the messiah has become indissolubly linked to the last days and to the implementation of God’s justice in the world (especially Israel), and since it is obvious no such justice has come to the world (or Israel), it is easy to see why such an attitude prevails among Jews: that Christians are following a false messiah. Not aware that some shift in meaning may have taken place in the Christian appropriation of their symbol – and likely unwilling to concede the validity of such a shift if made aware – Jewish texts reveal no positive response to Christianity in the first thousand years during which the two faiths grew alongside each other in the Western world, and very few in the second thousand years. Neusner shows how rabbinical Judaism developed a ‘theory of the other’ into which every non-Jew fits – an attitude with both negative and positive attributes that has its counterpart in every faith or ideology. This particular version allowed Jews to maintain their faith in the shel-

325 From a contested translation of Rambam, Letter to Yemen, p. 57, where is he giving qualifications for the true messiah and refuting a current false one. For an excellent in-depth study of the historical development of Jewish attitudes to non-Jews see Jacob Katz, Exclusiveness & Tolerance: Jewish-Gentile Relations in Medieval and Modern Times (New York: Schocken Books, 1961). Ruether used Katz’s research on the Church’s teaching of ‘contempt’ as the basis for her sharp critique in Faith and Fratricide.

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ter of their communities, practicing a non-differentiation policy toward all outsiders while developing their integrated symbolic religious system internally. There is the possibility of the ‘righteous gentile’ in this theory, but since the criteria are from Torah and no other people except Christians use Torah, the chances of meeting up with such a person would be slim to none. But the theory gave Jewish faith communities the necessary fortitude to face the next thousand years – during which what Neusner targets as the war of Christians against Jews began and unfolded. He claims that only the strength of their self-definition as derived from the four symbols, buttressed by their ‘theory of the other’, gave Jews the ability to resist and survive, to keep following halakhah, and for some to keep hoping for a messiah.326 A few contemporary scholars disagree with Neusner, insisting that this analysis of symbols misses one essential component of the messianic hope. They locate the basic strength of the messianic concept neither in a futuristic apocalyptic hope nor in the memory of the Davidic kingdom, although both are obviously important components. Rather, the memory of the Exodus – that experience which brought Israel into being long before kings were anointed – is perceived as the true core of resilience during the two millennia of rabbinic Judaism. This ancient event is for them the basic paradigm of the Hebrew Scriptures and of the Jewish faith. ‘This act of deliverance is so paradigmatic that all other events are, for the most part, related to it. Integral to the act of deliverance is the role of the deliverer.... That the messiah of Yahweh was first and foremost a deliverer of the people speaks to this fundamental understanding of the Old Testament liberation. [Our study] deals primarily with the transformation of this liberation concept, as it relates to Israel and her spiritual oppressors, to a concept which deals with mankind and its spiritual oppressors.’327 326 Neusner, Society & Symbol, pp. 9 – 26. 327 Kapp Johnson/Garth Moeller, ‘Messianic Perspectives in the Bible’, in Flinn, Christology, pp. 4-10.

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This ‘deliverer’ tradition, ‘ultimately grounded in the belief that God would sooner or later pull Israel out of any holes she got into’,328 slowly accumulated momentum through the historical eras of the kings and prophets. Although not a dominant theme in Early or Later Judaism, the messianic figure found a place in the writings of those few rabbis who looked for both a return to old monarchy and its independent days of glory, and the coming of the justice-oriented kingdom of God brought about by a deliverer in the tradition of Moses. Leonard Gewirtz would support such a reading of the original messianic concept, arguing that it is the personality of Moses as recorded in Torah which supplies the image for the ideal redeemer in the Jewish tradition. It is the hope for another liberator and leader associated with the Law as Moses, rather than another king like David more associated with conquest and rule, which gives Jews the will to survive and has most fundamentally infused their philosophy with optimism.329 Such disagreements would appear to be a question of emphasis when deciphering the tradition, not a fundamental argument over the development of messianism in Early and Later Judaism. In summary, we can agree that of the few rabbis who wrote on the messiah, some looked for a Mosaic/prophetic deliverer, and others for a kingly deliverer. A recent example of the kind of internal writing which Neusner regards as sustaining the messianic concept as a relevant symbol in the Jewish community, is found in a discussion on the messiah by Jacob ImmanueI Schochet, a Toronto B’nai Torah rabbi and teacher. Schochet takes as his guide the Rambam’s twelfth principle of the faith, which states: ‘I believe with complete faith in the coming of Maschiah. Though he tarry, nonetheless I await him every day, that he will come.’330

328 Ibid, p.10. 329 Cf. Leonard Gewirtz, Jewish Spirituality: Hope and Redemption (Hoboken NJ: Ktav Publishing House, 1986). As a follower of the optimistic Rav Kook, Gewirtz focuses on the constructive side of messianism. But Scholem classified apocalyptic literature as pessimistic since it assumes that ‘history’ deserves to perish. 330 Jacob Immanual Schochet. Mashiach: The Principle of Mashiach and the Messianic Era in Jewish Law and Tradition (New York-Toronto SIE, 5752/1992).

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The various elements of the idea of the messiah as developed in biblical and rabbinical literature are then classified as follows: the messianic figure himself, the various signs of the messianic era such as the ingathering of the exiles of Israel, the times preceding the arrival of the messiah, the personality of the messiah, the date of the messiah’s coming, two ways to hasten his coming, and the obligation to await him. To attain his goal, Schochet does what Neusner and Mowinckel warned against: he brings together the disparate writings on the messiah into a thematic whole. But in this he follows not scholars but the Rambam and other rabbinical antecedents, and for the same purpose: to instill hope for the future in the Jewish people. He believes with the Rambam that messianic hope is linked with redemption and is therefore ‘a fundamental doctrine of the Divine Torah’.331 His work is undertaken for the ends of faith and so participates in that very evolution which radical empiricism acknowledges. Not unlike Schochet’s work, much contemporary Jewish use of the messianic concept over the past few decades is found in articles written for pastoral or counseling purposes, with the exception of an article by Arnold Wolf in which Eretz Israel is labelled as a ‘false messiah’ – a view of Zionists and their hundred year-old agenda held by many Jewish faith communities.332 Toronto’s famous Reform rabbi Gunther Plaut claimed that the messianic concept is still quite relevant for contemporary hope, even though Reform attitudes are usually assumed to be too liberal for such serious use of ancient symbols.333 Interestingly, the use of the concept as a pastoral tool for hope in the Jewish community has its counterpart in articles by Christian clergy, especially the more fundamentalist and eschatological-oriented groups such as the Mormons

331 Ibid, p. 68. 332 In Conservative Judaism, 40: pp. 55-58 (Spring 1988) 333 Reform Judaism, 37: pp. 77-79 (Fall 1990)

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and some Baptists.334 This suggests a parallel, if separate, development of the concept in both communities.335 2. Among Christians An historical investigation such as ours leads to the conclusion that usage of the messianic concept in the Christian community refers only to Jesus of Nazareth and is common only as a Hebrew rendition of the ‘Christ’ title (with all subsequent attendant interpretations). The most influential theologians of pre-HaShoah Christianity followed the habit of the gospel writers and referred back to certain Hebrew Scripture passages as sources of their christology. As a result, any Hebrew concepts retained received only christological interpretations, even though supported by the ‘Old Testament’. This tendency means we must use the hermeneutic of suspicion when analyzing the use of Hebrew texts by pre-HaShoah theologians, and many since. Though using texts of the Jews, we have learned that it cannot be assumed that the theologian has retained the Jewishness of the texts, since they are being interpreted from the stance of a theology which has developed apart from Judaism since about 100 CE. Some early Church Fathers claimed the three roles to which ancient Hebrews were ‘anointed’ – prophet, priest and king – for Christ, well aware of the title’s literal Greek meaning ‘anointed one’ but not using the Jewish word ‘messiah’. The presentation of Christ as ‘a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek’ (Hebrew, ‘righteous king’) in the Epistle to the Hebrews supplied them with a revered pattern of comprehension. However, most christological discussion after the second century focused on the

334 Although not relevant to this work, articles by Islamic clergy use the messianic concept in much the same pastoral way. 335 I really wish I could include Messianic Jews, but based on my research they as a group don’t participate in the Jewish-Christian dialogue – a statement in and of itself. However, for anyone interested, Francine K. Samuelson wrote an in-depth and fascinating article in JEC 37:2 (2000), 'Messianic Judaism: Church, Denomination, Sect, or Cult?’

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incarnational meaning of the Christ as pre-existent Word.336 My search of the most prominent theologians for the next thousand years produced no reference to ‘messiah’, not even in Thomas Aquinas’ volume on christology. All Jewish elements and concepts were interpreted solely from the viewpoints of post-Nicene pre-Reformation theology. During the Reformation, these three Hebraic roles originally associated with the concept of the messiah came into prominence again as the ‘three offices’ which Christ was perceived to have fulfilled. Andreas Osiander was the first to include these three offices in christology, and John Calvin placed them prominently in his ‘Geneva Confession’ and Institutio Christianae Religionis. The roles thus became integral to christology for both Catholics and Protestants, but not necessarily as derivatives of the messianic concept.337 Occasional use of the term ‘messiah’ and references to Christ’s messiahship are found between the Reformation and the nineteenth century, but always with the assumed assurance that ‘Christ’-ology remained within the bounds of the title’s original intent.338 A change of awareness occurred in the nineteenth century. The Jewish context of the title ‘messiah’ was re-discovered during what became known as the ‘quest for the historical Jesus’. This era produced some fruitful gains, insights and methods – including growing use of exegesis to resolve theological conflicts. Theologians were just beginning to be aware of the capabilities of form and redaction criticism, as well as the importance of new archaeological material. While lively and analytically penetrating, their discussions on the life of Jesus as messiah showed Christian biases – for example, by accepted the midrashic interpretive techniques utilized by gospel writers as factual when referring to the Hebrew Scriptures. They assumed that the portrait of the messiah presented in the gospels reflected

336 Cf. Wolfhart Pannenberg’s discussion in his Jesus: God and Man trans. L. Wilkins & D. Priebe (Philadelphia: Westminster Press 1977), pp. 212 ff. The Church Fathers he mentions are Hegesippus (after Eusebius), Lactantius, Gregory of Nyssa and John Chrysostom. 337 See discussion in Pannenberg, Jesus, pp. 212 ff. 338 Cf. discussion in Wolfhart Pannenberg’s Systematic Theology Volume 2 (Grand Rapids: Eerdman’s,1991), pp. 278 ff.

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contemporary Jewish expectations. From our perspective after more than a hundred years of such dedicated and detailed work, these pioneers were deficient in contextual awareness and produced inauthentic portraits of Jesus. But it is they who began the monumental and necessary task of retrieving Jesus’ Jewish context. As such, they paved the way for the contemporary shift in our present attempt at apprehension of the messianic concept – a necessary break with traditional and scholastic approaches which perceived ‘messiah’ only as a Hebrew translation for ‘Christ’. The search for the historical Jesus stimulated an intense discussion of messianic issues based on the new historical data available, which continued through the whole twentieth century into our own first decade of the third millennium.339 Much of it was an attempt to get ‘inside’ Jesus and determine his consciousness – messianic or otherwise. Doomed to fragmentation and failure due to lack of data and layers of interpretation obscuring the main character of the drama, it yet restored the ancient and initial situation in which the entire question is open rather than closed. Following the disappointment of the initial ‘quest’ for the historical Jesus (due to an inability to grasp the sacred texts as interpretive and theological, not descriptive), Rudolf Bultmann suggested using his brilliant but narrowly based method of demythologization to interpret the texts. He is one of the theologians (with Wilhelm Hermann and Karl Barth) credited with starting what has since been termed the ‘second quest’ – i.e. for the Christ of faith. Bultmann claimed that the proper use of form criticism for exegesis was within an existential framework. Although his procedure and conclusions were hotly debated and criticized, he contributed to the new prominence of the messianic concept by establishing its priority as an interpretation of Jesus by the early Church.’340 339 Cf. Franzmann’s ‘Quest for the Historical Jesus’ in Concordia Journal, 6:3 (May 1980), pp. 102-106. 340 Cf. Charlesworth on the second quest and Jesus research, ‘Images of Jesus Today’, Princeton Seminary Bulletin #7:3 (1986). See also William Baird, The Quest of the Christ of Faith: Reflections on the Bultman Era (Waco TX: Word Books, 1977).

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Since Karl Barth exercised considerable influence in the last century, any references he made to the concept of the messiah would, we might reasonably assume, matter a great deal for our survey. However, such references are rather hard to find in his mammoth volumes and when they are, I learned that he dealt with the concept quite dismissively – and only in response to Bultmann – since his choice of theological terms was always determined by the way in which he associated language with revelation. ‘The criterion of Christian language, in past and future as well as at the present time, is thus the essence of the Church, which is Jesus Christ, God in His gracious approach to man in revelation and reconciliation. Has Christian language its source in Him? Does it lead to Him? Does it conform to Him?’341

His was a position of faith first and data second. Barth’s discussion of God the Son began with the biblical witness and its theology. In the volumes, his arguments are presented in regular type above with exegetical and historical concerns in small type below – where he also placed interpretations and opinions of other scholars, modern and ancient, with whom he then agreed or disagreed. Quite a marvelous structure, really, and helpful. It is in this sub-text that any messianic allusions are found, and only in descriptions of ancient Ebionite christology. But Barth did not want to use ‘messiah’. The name ‘Jesus Christ’ held the highest significance for him as a name intended by God – not as a name formed from the juxtaposition of a Jew’s human name and a Hebrew title. Instances in Scripture where the title Χρίστος appears were not used in order to explore other aspects of the title ‘messiah’ (never alluded to as a Hebrew word) but rather to point to other ‘types’ (in Frye’s sense of the term342) of which ‘Jesus Christ’ was the ‘proper’ Christ.343 The Synoptic 341 Barth, Karl, The Doctrine of the word of God (Prolegomena to Church Dogmatics, Vol. 1, Part l), trans. G.T. Thomson (Edinburgh: T. & T . Clark, 1936), p. 3. 342 Cf. Northrop Frye, The Great Code: the Bible in Literature (New York: Harcourt, Brace & Co., 1983) for a discussion of the evolution of types through texts. 343 Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, Volume 1: The Doctrine of the Word of God, ed. G. W. Bromily & T. F. Torrance (Edinburgh: T. & T Clark, 1956), pp. 12ff, sub-text.

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Gospels are ‘Gospels about Christ’ that ‘inwardly and essentially...start from the fact that the man Jesus of Nazareth, “the carpenter’s son”, shows Himself in His resurrection from the dead to be the Messiah and the Son of God. In that light they look back and understand all His words and actions.’344 The Matthean confession of Peter gives ‘with special clearness the juxtaposition and contraposition of problem and solution’. Barth disagreed with current opinions that Jesus had associated his messiahship with the ‘son of man’ title: ‘Without being able to adduce proof of this, I would prefer to think of this designation in relation to the name Messiah as that of a pseudonym to the correct name, at least as an element of veiling and not of unveiling ....The content of this New Testament witness is the message of the resurrection and ascension which runs through the Gospels and Epistles and is the mainstay of everything. ..that is the solution to the problem of Jesus, to which even the miracles could only point as Messianic signs.’345 The term ‘messiah’ therefore participates in the veiling of Jesus’ mystery, revealed after the resurrection and therefore no longer as important. Even though Barth was aware of the first and second ‘quests’ which were forcing theologians to take historical context seriously, he accepted the messianic title in the same manner as he assumed the first Christians had: that it had always been meant by God to indicate all that Jesus has come since to mean to the Church. For Barth specifically, once the highest title of ‘Word of God’ was given to Jesus Christ, other titles must and should be subsumed in it. And he needed no proof other than the continuity of his faith community for such a stand. Barth’s position was not held by those who became aware of HaShoah and the way in which Christianity was implicated in its occurrence. Change in the way in which the title ‘messiah’ was perceived by systematic theologians after World War II came slowly, but has certainly arrived. Our earlier survey of ecclesial documents and dialogue theolo-

344 Ibid, p. 22, subtext. 345 Ibid, p. 23. subtext.

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gians makes Barth sound dated, especially in relation to the promisefulfillment theme. However, some continued to interpret the concept of the messiah in ways antithetical to the Jewish position but valid in the Christian context. For example, in 1966 John MacQuarrie interpreted the Christian faith’s most basic ‘symbols’ as existential points where humans find their intended depths of Being. Assuming that no one ‘wants to have his theology dependent on the notoriously changeable views of New Testament scholars’346 (unlike the way our radical empirical method accepts the risk of a theology dependent upon the ongoing perceptions of all research). he showed how christological symbols unite the historical fact about Jesus with the religious apprehension of Jesus by the community which knew him in person. Messianic predictions – among other ‘notions that belonged to the mentality of New Testament times’ – undergirded the ‘story as it stands’. Although ‘in our own day we might have to express this differently,’347 MacQuarrie defended a sympathetic and not a skeptical (Bultmannstyle) approach to the gospels as a basis for christological reflection. Pagan and Jewish sources were ‘christianized’ by the gospel writers in their search for symbols to express their experience of Jesus, however inadequately. In his subsequent description of the person of Jesus Christ, MacQuarrie saw Jesus’ baptism as the symbol for his vocation, but ‘the vexing question of whether in his lifetime Jesus thought of himself as Messiah...is one that can be left open without affecting our understanding of the baptism story.’ ‘Being a disciple of the Baptist, being a messianic prophet, being the Messiah himself, understanding the messianic office in terms of the suffering servant... some or all of these may have been successive elements in our Lord’s understanding of his vocation, or some of these points may have become explicit only in the subsequent reflection of the disciples. Yet 346 MacQuarrie, John, Principles of Christian Theology (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1966) p. 253. 347 Ibid, p. 257.

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they all belong in a unitary career and are implicit in it no matter when any particular item got unpacked.’348 MacQuarrie penetrated behind the evolved title of ‘Christ’ after it departed from its Jewish origin, but he seemed unaware of the evolution itself. His christological work reflected the dominant post-war perception of the messianic title, which showed some awareness of historical context but with no careful study of the implications of exegetical and archaeological discoveries. He wanted to step out of the traps evident in the two quests for Jesus, and he wanted theological consistency with classical formulations of christology – which assume that the revelation claimed in the texts and tradition makes them factual for the faith community. So while his approach did recognize the Jewish origin and setting of the concept of the messiah, it was inadequate for dialogue. In 1968, Wolfhart Pannenberg presented his discussion of Jesus – God and Man. In dealing with the doctrine of ‘The Office of Jesus’, he demonstrated how shaky were the exegetical grounds for reading the three Jewish roles of prophet, priest and king into ‘Christ’ as ‘the anointed One’ – popular since Calvin. He associated only two offices with anointing – the exception being the prophetic role, and he is likely correct from what we’ve been discovering from linguists and archaeologists of texts and contexts. From his studies, Pannenberg claimed that only the role of the king could properly be linked with the concept of the ‘messiah’: ‘[P]rophecy, kingship, and priesthood were understood and combined occasionally in the time of Jesus as the three highest honors that the Jewish people knew, regardless of whether they were only tradition and expectation or were also institutional actualities ....Of course, from such an occasional combination it is not to be concluded that Jesus claimed for himself these three honours....Thus the justification of the threefold character of Jesus’ offices from the Christ title is untenable. The title “Christ” designates in the first place only kingship, at best priesthood as well, but hardly the office of the prophet.’349 348 Ibid, pp. 261-2. 349 Pannenberg, Jesus, p.215. He would accept the second IF-THEN scenario listed above, of the early Church’s expanding awareness of Jesus as messiah after the resurrection.

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Having dismissed the literal definitions of the roles in association with the title ‘Christ’ or ‘messiah’, Pannenberg then discussed their functional value for christology. Since Jesus did not demonstrate a ‘prophetic reception of the word’ – i.e. with the precursor ‘thus says the Lord’ – he should not be considered a prophet in the ancient sense. Jesus used apocalyptic categories, but only because he was convinced the Kingdom was ‘breaking’ into the present through his own activities. This separated him from the prophetic tradition, which looked only to the future. As for the kingship of Jesus, it was not functional during his lifetime and can only be interpreted as a post-resurrection reality ‘in heaven’ – especially since Jesus explicitly rejected the messianic title. In his later work (1991) Pannenberg evidenced his close attention to evolving exegetical and historical research when he posited that christology most likely began with a ‘primitive Christian interpretation of the person and work of Jesus of Nazareth as God’s Messiah’, but he distinguished between the Jewish title of messiah which ‘implies the thought of divine sonship’ and the Christian view where ‘it early had the sense that in the man Jesus the pre-existent Son of God came to earth’350 – in contrast to Neusner’s clear statement that only a few eschatological Jewish groups associated the messiah with the Jewish title ‘son of God’ which did not imply divinity in any Greek or Christian sense. Pannenberg then widened his initial position to speculate that the messianic title had been in some way associated with Jesus during his lifetime: his enemies used it to execute him, and later his disciples used it to interpret his resurrection as evidence of his kingship. He described his method as ‘christology from below’: ‘Christ is the starting point and the measure of all christological statements about his person’ which are ‘themselves ... viewed as an interpretation of his historical reality.’351 Biblical statements on Jesus as messiah should shape christology and not the

350 Pannenberg, Systematic Theology, Volume 2, p. 277. Dunn hypothesizes that the concept of pre-existence was added later in the first century. 351 Ibid, pp. 279-280.

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reverse, as often occurred in classical theology with its tendency to read later interpretations back into biblical titles. Justifiably uneasy about the implications of such a position – because then earlier weighs in heavier than later interpretations – he claimed it was only a method, ‘presupposing, of course, that this procedure leads to the conclusion that the concept of incarnation is not a falsification but a pertinent development of the meaning implicit in the coming and history of Jesus’.352 With this presupposition, however, he disassociated from process theologians, who as we saw claim that the historical element resident in every event supplies the primary empirical facts necessary for interpretation. No one interpretation gains superiority from being earlier or later but represents the faith community at that point in time and in that context. It seems that he didn’t wish to allow what he learned from contextualization to re-shape his basic theological conclusions. He did allow the Jewish messianic concept to remain separate from the Christian, but he clearly believed that no other messiah need be sought by Jews or Christians: ‘Theologians began to relate to the person of Jesus as Messiah and Savior from the very first to the covenant of grace that he has set up’.353 Jesus’ message was for Jews: ‘It was only as the mission of Jesus met with rejection by his people, and he went to the cross and passion, that he became the Savior of the nations’.354 It was because of Jesus’ passion that his disciples were later able to take the title ‘messiah’, assigned him as a pretender, and interpret his mission as that of the suffering messiah. Pannenberg categorized Jews as people of the ‘old covenant’ whose special relationship with God Jesus came to renew and thus deepen. While Jews are still the people of God today, they do not recognize their true messiah, or see themselves in his suffering because of their expectation that the messiah will come to end suffering. This ‘blindness’ is not inherent, but tragically risen from the historic fact that Christians have long

352 Ibid, p. 289. 353 Ibid, p. 306. 354 Ibid, pp. 311-312.

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contributed to Jewish suffering, and thus ‘they have not made it easy for the Jewish people to see their Messiah in the crucified Jesus whom Christians worship’. ‘As the Messiah who does not exercise dominion through political power but through his vicarious suffering for human sins, Jesus not only changed the Jewish hope in the consciousness of his disciples but...opened it up with a view to the reconciliation of the Gentile world with Israel and its God.’355

It is not clear to me if Pannenberg recognized the variety of views among exegetes over the historical validity of his sacred texts, or the texts’ internal anti-Jewish polemic when describing Jesus’ contact with his people. Nor was he careful when relating the events of the passion to distinguish ‘Jews’ in the records as a small group within the people. He did follow the current trend to embed the messiahship of Jesus in its Jewish context, but he did so with the stated assumption that the Christian shift in comprehension is the ‘correct’ interpretation of what God intended to work through Jesus. As a result, his work tilted away from a dialogue with Jews to a dialogue about Jews, between Christians who must learn to treat Jews with the respect owing to God’s people of the ‘old covenant’. Much as I would like to include Karl Rahner in this survey, he didn’t discuss the messianic concept. However, his portrait of humans as beings who dare to radically hope is what he saw as the basis for all eschatological schemas. If such hope propels all of humanity’s seeking through its various faiths, the messianic concept then becomes one way by which Jews in particular sought to discern God’s intent. Rahner tied this radical hope completely to the person and work of Jesus of Nazareth, so he chose to follow the classical pattern of his Catholic tradition. But it is such reworking that gives an updated example of how the messianic concept is still being contextualized. As a counterpoint to Schochet’s study on messianism for today’s Jewish community, let us now examine a Christian investigation. 355 Ibid, pp. 314-315.

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Rosemary Ruether’s first book, The Radical Kingdom, (1970) was an overview of the many transmutations which the messianic hope has undergone in western civilization. She traced the developing apocalyptic hope from its inception among the Hebrew prophets through its development in a Christian matrix, then discussed utopian visions extant in and since the Reformation. The framework for this hope lies within ‘the two poles of the Abrahamic faith, the poles of covenant and promise.’356 Christians inherited a God expected to keep faith, which in turn means deliverance from the evils of the world and the conferring of blessings. Once secularism became a strong force in western society, this hope was realigned as a struggle for justice in this world by such movements as Marxism. Some theologians since have struggled to clarify how the Christian faith can still offer hope to a world with other options. Her survey culminated in a look at Americans of the Sixties, with Malcolm X and Eldridge Cleaver as today’s expression of that same messianic hope. With this overview, Ruether sought to provide a forum for dialogue between various Christian positions and non-religious positions such as Marxism or Black Power. Her effort was framed by that same hope – though well aware of the failures and successes encountered by each of the movements and theologies. She called for ‘each generation to take up anew the critical and utopian task upon the basis established by the past, without that past itself having been established with too much rigidity.’ Ruether does not envision a necessarily final Kingdom of God, since that would represent stasis and for her, living is ‘constituted in and through the struggle for new being.’357 By claiming the messianic hope as a way of living rather than as a hope in or for one person sent by God in the past or future, Ruether loosens messianism from its original Jewish and later Christian formations to do what Cott claims Jesus had intended all along: to make messianic hope and justice available for the entire human family.

356 Ruether, The Radical Kingdom. p. 5. 357 Ibid, p. 287.

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A caustic critic of convention, Ruether challenged Christians in 1974 with the question: ‘Is it possible to say “Jesus is Messiah” without ...saying at the same time, “and the Jews be damned”?’358 She had already answered in this earlier work, where she diffused the personalized messianic hope in favour of a universal (but not spiritual) attitude. As we already saw, she offered a blueprint for the future where the messianic hope can be actualized,359 rather than a way to enable Jews and Christians in dialogue to deal with their divisive views of messianism. But her contemporary interpretation demonstrates the inherent strength of that ancient concept for the dialogue partners today. Ruether’s alternative working of the concept of messianism is unacceptable to many post-HaShoah Christians, especially those influenced by the Eckardts and Van Buren. For them, the concept has too much baggage for any attempt at redemption. For example, William Nicholls claims that the ‘myth’ of Jesus as Messiah is the core of anti-Jewish hate in Christianity and must be abandoned, not re-worked. Utilizing some of today’s exegetical work (but not Neusner), he formulates an argument á la Cott that Jesus never meant to be the messiah, indeed knew that his imminent death would preclude any link with that concept. Nicholls discusses the concept’s shift in meaning from ‘traditional’ Judaism into later Christian comprehensions, but does so without contextualizing it in an era where it was undergoing not just one but many changes. As a result, his Jesus is completely discontinuous with Christianity (i.e. the ‘Christian myth’ that developed after Jesus’ death) and can only fit into first century Judaism. This suits him, since he claims that unless Christians ‘let go’ of their mythical Christ – their messiah – they will continue to hate Jews for rejecting him.360 Nicholls represents the end to which the arguments of Van Buren and Eckardt could be pushed: recommending that Christianity disappear be358 Ruether, Faith and Fratricide p. 246. 359 Cf. Ruether, Gaia and God. 360 William Nicholls. Christian Antisemitism: A History of Hate (Northvale, New Jersey: Jason Aronson, 1993). Nicholls does not refer to Judaism’s ‘myths’, messianic or otherwise.

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cause of its anti-Jewish bias. He is thus radically opposed to Ruether, who would prefer to see Christianity and Judaism in all their many complexities work together to accomplish the central aim of messianism. Nicholls is not a dialogue theologian – since dialogue does not predicate the annihilation of a partner – but he is still part of the ongoing struggle to deal with the implications of HaShoah with respect to Jesus as messiah.

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CONCLUSION: A WAY FORWARD?

The impasse discerned in chapter one over the messianic concept in relation to Jesus of Nazareth is important and real, but perhaps not as non-negotiable as feared – once a wider picture of the actual historical context is achieved. To help our case study partners achieve a way forward, the method of radical empiricism applied to the messianic question can enable them to come closer to the dialogue goal of mutual understanding. The concept of the messiah still exhibits its ancient fluidity, and can be appropriated as a thematic and linguistic tool for both communities. When in actual conversation about this possible solution to the impasse, it might be useful for Jews and Christians to add McCarry’s corollary ‘for us’ to faith claims. In this way, such claims are placed within a context that is both communal and historical. They are kept linked to communal experience, be it an activity that faces inward such as worship, or one that faces outward such as social justice. With this method of investigation and conversation, any concept – and the messianic concept in particular – is brought out of an absolute realm of transcendental truth and perceived instead as a workable, pragmatic interpretation of an important contextual religious experience. If Christians can face Jews in the dialogue and claim that ‘Jesus is messiah for us’ this loosens the necessity to claim Jesus as messiah for all, including Jews. It also allows for the Jewish claim that the messiah has ‘not yet’ come, if the Jews can also say ‘for us’. This practice can subsequently allow into the dialogue other faiths (or even christological interpretations) for whom a messiah is not at all necessary.

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hope that the above study demonstrates that the contextualization of concepts which the radical empirical method advocates helps to further the paths of faith. This approach assumes that our search for truth and comprehension is an ongoing journey, as evidenced by the various Jewish and Christian developments of the messianic concept. Although the method can only contextualize faith statements and not arbitrate between truth claims, this very process helps to alleviate our very human need to make one concept or interpretation the only correct one. An active concept is never ungrounded, transcendent, static – above history. The variations on the messianic theme that we saw during the first century in Jewish and Christian circles confirms this – nor has that evocative evolving stopped, for either faith. It cannot be claimed, then, that any one interpretation of such a concept is sacrosanct, or any one theological position. A concept participates in our own developmental process. In our present case study, we reconstructed the manner in which the Hebraic root and Hellenistic influences (among many others) coalesced to form the religion of Christianity. We can also perceive the manner in which Judaism evolved differently from the same Hebraic root. Radical empiricism validates both faiths in each step along their paths. Indeed, anyone who utilizes this method can acquire a comprehensive understanding of Judaism and Christianity as two paths along which the faithful God whom both Jews and Christians worship has always guided and will continue to guide today, an attitude which I hope becomes the dialogical path they share after they get past this messianic impasse. After doing this kind of work, the radical empirical method provides evidence to support the view that the Christian shift in meaning can be interpreted as a legitimate stretching of the messianic concept into a new

I

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direction. It is historically apparent that, because of that shift, the justice and love of the God of Israel became extensively known to those outside of Israel for the first time. Re-working the insight of Osiander, it can be claimed that Jesus, in becoming the Christ of the Church, has acted as king for many. By being named the active sacrifice for the sins of the world, he enacted the role of priest for those who viewed him as such. By showing how the love of God can transform individuals and communities, he enacted the role of prophet as understood in the Christian framework. It is indisputable that the title ‘messiah’ was an early christological designation for many in the apostolic Church, and therefore important to any later developments. It did not remain dominant – if it ever was – but it certainly flavoured christological thought. Can Jews acknowledge the legitimacy of the original and ongoing messianic element in the Christian faith? Can Christians accept that most Jews then, now, and in all probability the future, will not associate Jesus with their messianic hope? Now that two variations on the messianic theme are playing for each other after two millennia of alienation, can some form of mutual recognition be achieved without the sacrifice of what many consider as the essentials of either faith? These questions cannot be answered in our case study, but only by those willing to take this work and allow it to form and inform their present and future meetings – especially if each learns to use the corollary ‘for us’ when making faith statements. Much as I might want to exert influence, it’s not for any one questor to decide what the results of such considerations could be: I only present what past considerations have been. I’d like to see a renewed consideration of each emerge in each community, but this would be developed a posteriori. Different conclusions will be reached than where little or no priority is given to historical context. The significance of the messianic concept for Jews and Christians is very different: a position built on that awareness requires a radical departure not only from anti-Jewish assumptions, i.e. that the Jews refused their 243

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messiah, but also from any absolute conviction by either partner that Jesus is or isn’t ‘the’ messiah. Such a position would also respect a priori – in both faith communities and at each turn of the path – the leading active agent which each in sacred text and ritual regard as guide, whether termed the Holy Spirit or shechiah. If a member of either community builds upon the historical picture presented by use of our method, it can be fairly argued that the One known as the Spirit of the God of Israel by both communities has led them in their separate directions. For Jews the concept of the messiah is one thread in the tapestry of their hope. For Christians, it points to their religious centre. This method enables the user to appreciate the rich variety of the diverse interpretations arising from the ultimate hope shared by both faiths. But the method alone cannot guarantee such a positive result as I would like to envision; it’s up to the partners in the dialogue to carry through on the hope encapsulated in the messianic theme. Our final position is that there is no single ‘correct’ meaning for the concept of the messiah. Whenever it is used, its meaning is dependent upon the community that uses it. Such an understanding can allow Jews and Christians to accept the messiah less as a coming absolute agent of God than as one who contains the hope of two faiths. With this approach the user moves toward William James’ vision: ‘Each attitude being a syllable in human nature’s total message, it takes the whole of us to spell the meaning out completely.’361

361 William James, Varieties, p. 368.

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INDEX B Barth, Karl Baum, Gregory Bockmuehl, Markus Buber, Martin Bultmann, Rudolph

101, 162f, 228-3 23, 26, 44, 63, 68, 70 185, 210 46, 52, 56, 60, 82, 85 200, 228-9, 231

C Canadian Jewish Congress Charlesworth, James Chirico, Peter Church: Baptist Church: Episcopal Church: Lutheran Church: Presbyterian Church: Roman Catholic Church: United Methodist Churches of Christ Churches: World Council Cobb, John B. Jr. Cott, Jeremy

49 192-204, 210 64 20, 40, 50, 138, 226 39-40, 50, 100 38-9, 50 41-2 25-32, 50, 59, 64, 65, 67, 76, 77, 82, 91, 116, 119, 122, 129, 139, 217, 227, 235 20, 41 39 32-38 56-58, 162f 205-7

D Davies, Alan Dead Sea Scrolls DeRidder, Richard

43-4, 62, 69 187, 189, 191, 191f, 192f, 200f 54

E Eckardt, Roy and/or Alice Essenes

20-1, 23, 42, 66-8, 69, 70, 81, 95, 134, 210, 237, 238 190, 191, 191f

F Fisher, Eugene Frankenberry, Nancy Frei, Hans Fromm, Erich

260

28, 30-1, 32, 216 154-5 174, 175, 182, 184 87, 96, 168f

G Great Commission

43, 45, 52

H Harnack, Adolf von HaShoah/Holocaust

168 10, 19-24, 26, 28, 32, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 47, 61, 63,

Hellenism Hellwig, Monica

70, 71, 90, 108-9, 125, 155 76, 164, 166, 169-70, 173 56, 59-61, 65

J 9, 12, 105, 138, 142, 143-9, 151, 153, 154-61, 164, 174, 190, 207, 244 20 Janowska Road [The] 50, 50f, 106, 178, 224 Judaism: B’nai Torah 117, 131, 170, 173, 176, 178f, 179f, 186, 189, 191, Judaism: Early 196, 200, 209, 212, 219 Judaism: Pharisaic/2nd Temple 34, 35, 36, 37, 66, 77, 82-95, 99, 104, 106, 107, 110, 127, 134, 176-9, 182, 204-5, 218 37, 86, 105, 106, 117, 160, 174, 178, 179, 194, 208, Judaism: Rabbinic 218-225 50, 106, 127, 192, 225 Judaism: Reform James, William

K Kloppenborg, John Knitter, Paul Kogan, Michael

163f, 166, 167, 170f, 171f, 172f, 180f 56, 58-60 185

L Lee, Bernard

12, 138-9, 142, 149, 155-182, 201, 203, 219

M MacQuarrie, John Maimonedes/The Rambam McGarry, Michael Moltmann, Jürgen

231-2 137, 178, 194, 194f, 195, 221-2, 222f, 224, 225 55-6, 60, 61 75, 78-81, 120, 213

261

Mowinckel, Sigmund

186-8, 190, 191, 200, 225

N Neusner, Jacob Nicholls, William

85f, 113f, 168, 176f, 178f, 189-191, 196, 207-210, 218-223, 224, 225, 233, 237 237-8

P Pannenberg, Wolfhart Parkes, James Partin, Harry Pawlikowski, John Pragmatism Prophet/ic critique

227f, 232-5 69, 84-5, 90, 126 211-2 11, 21, 22f, 27-8, 62, 66, 71-2, 76-7, 81, 82-99, 102, 103, 125, 176f, 178f, 197 105, 144, 146-8 70, 75, 117, 119-130, 133, 177-181, 186, 193-4, 203, 213, 224, 226, 231-3, 236, 243

R Radical empirical method Revelation Rivkin, Ellis Rosenzweig, Franz Ruether, Rosemary Runes, Dagobert Rylaarsdam, J. Coert

9, 12, 13, 138, 141-181, 184, 190, 196, 198, 201, 216, 217, 231, 242 11, 24, 25, 31, 33, 37, 47f, 65, 79, 84, 85, 88-91, 101-2, 103-4, 111, 153, 160, 229, 232 84, 85, 99, 172f, 176f 106 11, 13, 50, 62, 68f, 69-72, 77, 85f, 90, 106, 108, 110, 116132, 134, 138, 167, 171, 175, 192, 194, 206, 222f, 235-6 63 65-6

S Sanders, James Schillebeeckx, Edward Scholem, Gershom Schüssler Fiorenza, Elisabeth Smith, Elwyn Stowe, David Swidler, Leonard

T 262

108, 170f, 184f 75-7, 80, 92, 93, 125 219-20, 224f 21, 22 64-5 53-4 9, 37, 49f, 51-3, 59-60, 148

Teilhard de Chardin, Pierre Theology: empirical Theology: incarnational Theology: liberation Theology: process Tracy, David

82, 84, 87, 90, 91, 98 152-5, 162, 178, 182 70, 87-8, 93-9, 123, 125, 167, 168, 177, 181, 212, 227 58, 65, 68f, 117-120, 126, 129, 132, 223 57, 71, 83-99, 101, 105, 121, 125, 138, 146, 149-54, 155-62, 198, 234 21, 22-3, 45f

V Van Buren, Paul Vawter, Bruce Viglio, Armida

11, 21, 72, 77, 82, 100-115, 123, 127, 134, 138, 167, 177, 197, 208f, 237, 238 63 62

W Wells, Leon Weliczker Whitehead, Alfred North

20 105, 142, 149-160, 162f, 163, 166, 169

263