#jewish readings of the new testament

[jessicalprice]

not every story is a fable

(reposted from Twitter)

So in reading Christian commentary on NT parables, and its wild and ugly claims about first-century Jews and Judaism, I often find myself wondering how they got there. And I think I've discerned the process. 

It goes a little something like this: 

Christians receive traditional interpretations of what the parables “mean." E.g. the prodigal son means you should forgive people, the good Samaritan means you should help people in need. These meanings are, generally, banal.

Rather than reading the parables as stories, Christians read them as fables with a moral. They read them through the lens of that moral instead of approaching them without a predetermined interpretation.

Christians also believe that the parables must contain revolutionary, radical truths.

So now, they somehow have to resolve the idea that the stories are radical with the fact that their received interpretations are obvious/banal/the same thing plenty of other people have said.

And that goes a little something like this: 

Since (what they believe are) the morals of these stories don't sound radical to contemporary Westerners, they project that radicalness backward onto the parable's original context and audience. That is, it must have been radical/shocking at the time, to the people who first heard it.

Now they have to resolve the dilemma of how something that sounds so banal and obvious to us could have been radical and shocking and scandalous(!) to the original listeners.

Most of them aren't going to say "Jesus's Jewish listeners were incredibly malicious and/or incredibly stupid," at least out loud. So they move to: Projecting that onto Jewish culture, Jewish law, "religious law," etc. 

So then they need to make up norms/customs/attitudes that would make the parable "shocking." If they can find a source that maybe seems to say something that hints in that direction, they'll claim it says a lot more than it does and that it was normative. (E.g. Ben Sira saying you can tell things about a man from how he walks ends up meaning "the villagers would have stoned the father for running to greet his long-lost son" and of course that running to greet your long-lost son would be S H O C K I N G to the listeners.)

It's why they love throwing "ritual purity" in there so much. 

The father in the Prodigal Son story wouldn't embrace his son because he was ritually impure! (If the father was out doing farm stuff and wasn't going to the Temple any time soon, most likely, so was he.)

The kohen and the Levite in the Good Samaritan story passed by the dying man on the side of the road because they were afraid he would make them ritually impure! (The story is very clear they were headed AWAY from Jerusalem, and thus the Temple, so no.)

The Pharisee in the Temple has contempt for the tax collector and doesn't want to stand next to him because he's ritually impure! (No, if the tax collector is in the Temple, he is in a state of ritual purity.)

An anthropologist friend of mine told me that when anthropologists/archaeologists are confronted with an object from an ancient culture and they don't know what it's for, the default category is "ritual object."

Did you dig up a weird-shaped ax that doesn't seem well-designed for either being a weapon OR chopping things? Ritual object. 

Find a statue with some odd characteristics? Ritual object.

"Ritual purity" appears to be to Christian understanding of Jewish customs what "ritual object" is to anthropologists. Anything that doesn't make sense to you, put down to "ritual purity."

So, anyway, the process goes like this: 

parables must be shocking > 

they're not shocking to me > 

they must have been shocking to Jews > 

make up supposed Jewish customs/laws/attitudes that would have made normal behavior "shocking"

It’s exhausting. 

(Photo credit: Andrea Piacquadio)

[vraska-theunseen]

the bible is so boring what's the ideal size of paper for rolling joints

[dirigibleplumbing]

two pet peeves I will never get over

when someone "credits" the lyrics to a song to the person who they first heard record it, without checking whether that song was, for example, a traditional folk song first written down in the 18th century, or, for another example, an African American spiritual

when someone talks about something they know nothing about by parroting phrases they've heard before without examining why these things are said. like, for example, when culturally Christian people who have never read the Torah, let alone a translation of it intended for Jews or historians, talk about the "vengeful Old Testament God [sic]" as if the Christian god is never vengeful or terrifying and the God described in the Torah is never loving and forgiving

[cruelsister-moved2]

i honestly want to read the quran like just out of interest + to be better informed but the reason i havent yet is its going to confuse everyone even more to see me reading it. sorry for having a curious mind

[vamptastic]

ach to be fair i may be Judaism Georg here. i tend to wildly overestimate how much the average christian or even secular jew would know because i am a massive fucking nerd about judaism. but still, i thought 'jews do not believe in jesus' was well known, at least. it's literally the only thing you learn about our theology in public education.

[heavenlywords7]

[unbidden-yidden]

In Judaism, one alternative way of referring to converts is "Jews by Choice."

If a parallel term exists in Xtianity I am not aware of it, but I would like to propose that it really should exist, albeit not just in reference to converts but to all Xtians. Every Xtian should get the opportunity to fully understand their faith in context and to make an informed decision to choose it for themselves. As it stands, many Xtians are deeply ignorant about Jewish history (before and after the formation of Xtianity), the original cultural context for the stories in the Old Testament, the cultural Jewish context that Jesus existed and taught in, the critical historical (scholarly) read of these texts, what they probably meant to the Israelites who produced them, and what they mean to Jews today and how we read these same texts differently in our religious context.

This creates a problem, where Xtians are taught only the narrow band of context that their church deems it important for them to know, and even that is frequently inaccurate or so limited in scope as to make it inaccurate by omission.

And this is because the reality is that the Tanakh (that is, the Hebrew and Aramaic scriptures that the Old Testament is based on) does not naturally or inevitably lead to the Jesus narrative. If you are starting from a Xtian perspective, and especially if you read the New Testament first and then and only then dive into the Old Testament, the Jesus narrative is obvious to you because you are looking for it, expect to see it there, and are coming at these texts with that reading lens in mind. And it's not that you or anyone else is nuts to see that narrative there - there are plenty of solid Xtian reads of these texts that make sense if you already believe in Jesus as presented by the New Testament.

But what the vast majority of Xtians aren't taught is how to approach the Tanakh from a Jesus-neutral perspective, which would yield very different results.

Now you might fairly ask, why would they *need* to approach the Tanakh with a Jesus-neutral perspective? They're Xtians! Xtians believe in Jesus, that's what makes them Xtians!

My answer is multi-pronged: First, I believe that G-d wants a relationship with all people, and speaks to us in the voice we are most likely to hear. That's inherently going to look different for everyone. And that's okay! G-d is infinite, and each of our relationships with G-d are going to only capture the tiniest glimpse into that infinite Divine. Therefore, second, when approaching religion, everyone sees what they want to see. If you nothing religion but find your spirituality in nature, you're going to come at these biblical texts with that lens and take away from them similar things that one might take away from other cultural mythologies. If you, like me, are coming at these texts with a Jewish mindset, you are going to come away with a portrait of Hashem and our covenantal relationship as Am Yisrael. And, of course, if you read with a Xtian lens, you're going to see the precursor narratives leading up to Jesus. That reading bias is not only understandable but good or at least deeply human. Everyone sees what they want to see in these texts. There is no objective or flawless way to read them, and to claim that there is, is to claim that not only is there only one answer, but only one kind of relationship that G-d wants to have with people, that you personally happen to know what that is, and that everyone else is wrong. I am sorry, but if you believe that - if you truly think that you in particular (and/or the people you happen to agree with) know the mind of G-d, then you do not worship G-d. You worship yourselves, because to know the entirety of G-d would require you to be G-d. There's a term for that. That doesn't mean there aren't wrong answers too. But it does mean that there is no singular unimpeachable reading of the texts. What you see in these texts then, says far more about you than it does about the texts themselves or G-d.

So the question then becomes: Why do you want to see this? (Whatever your "this" is.) If your read of these texts is something you choose, why do you choose to see what you see? And is it a meaningful choice if you are not taught other ways of knowing, other perspectives on these texts, and to think critically while exploring them?

Judaism inherently teaches a multiplicity of opinions on the texts, and maintains that they can be read to mean different things, even at the same time by the same person. Deep textual knowledge and methods for learning more, asking questions, challenging accepted answers as a way to discover new meaning, and respectful disagreement are baked into our culture and methods. Some Xtians of some denominations have analogous processes, although on the whole still emphasize correct unified belief over correct action with a multiplicity of belief. I am not suggesting here that Xtians stop approaching their own scriptures as Xtians or adopt Jewish methods instead. What I am suggesting is that Xtians should be taught a fuller picture of these texts and learn other perspectives so that they (1) understand their own beliefs and why they believe them (or after further inquiry if they believe them), and (2) understand and respect that this is what they are choosing to believe and that it is not the only thing one could reasonably believe. Because (3) if not, they are more susceptible to having their faith shattered at random by something unexpected, and will connect less to their faith as a relationship with G-d and more as an obligation based on an unchallenged world view.

And, frankly? (4) It will help them to be better neighbors, to love their neighbor as themselves, and to give to others the respect that they would like to receive.

Being taught the historical context, Jewish history before and after Jesus, the differences between the Old Testament and the Tanakh, the timeline of the development of Xtianity in relationship to rabbinic Judaism in the wake of the destruction of the Second Temple, the development of church doctrine and the various splits amongst the denominations, and Jewish readings of the Tanakh would give clarity and desperately needed context to Xtians about their religion. Is there some risk that some people, upon understanding these things would drop out of faith entirely or, like me, discover that they are actually meant to be Jews? Yes, definitely.

But let me let you in on a little secret: you don't want those people to begin with. You really don't. Because the reality is that if a person is not called to relate to G-d through Jesus, eventually that person will learn this about themselves one way or another. If they are given the information and tools to make a meaningful choice, they will part company on good terms. If not, they will likely become disillusioned and leave the church in pain, anger, and even trauma. They will bring that out into the world with them, and spread the bad news about the Good News making it even more likely that other people who were already on the fence will jump ship on bad terms. You cannot trick people into a meaningful relationship with G-d. You can only give them the tools they need in order to explore on their own and the rest is between them and G-d.

And the bottom line is that you don't need to and should not be afraid of knowledge. If your faith cannot stand up to scrutiny, then it deserves that scrutiny tenfold. The people you lose from the flock? You would have lost them anyway, because we aren't in the driver's seat here. G-d is. Hashem called me to be a Jew with just as much love and desire to connect as G-d calls Xtians to the church and to Jesus. A faith examined is a faith deepened or exposed in its weakness. And if it is the latter, don't you want people to know this sooner rather than later in order to fix it?

So my proposition and wish for Xtians is that they become Xtians by Choice. That they delve deeply into the origins and context of their faith so that they can be 100% certain that they understand their Xtian faith and why they choose to relate to G-d through that lens.

[whencyclopedia]

The Letters of Paul the Apostle to the Gentiles

Paul was a member of the Jewish Pharisees in the 1st century CE, who experienced a revelation of the resurrected Jesus Christ. In this vision, Jesus commissioned him to be the apostle (herald) to the Gentiles (non-Jews). After this experience, he traveled widely throughout the Roman Empire, spreading the "good news" that Jesus would soon return from heaven and usher in the kingdom of God on earth.

In the New Testament, we have 14 letters traditionally assigned to Paul, but the scholarly consensus now recognizes that of the 14, seven were written by Paul:

1 Thessalonians

Galatians

Philemon

Philippians

1 & 2 Corinthians

Romans

2 Thessalonians, Ephesians, and Colossians remain debatable among some scholars. The other major letters (1 &2 Timothy and Titus) were most likely written by disciples of Paul’s, using his name to carry authority. The letters that have survived range between 52 and 60 CE, and although we cannot pinpoint when Paul’s letters were collected, Clement, a bishop in Rome in the 90s CE, quoted from 1 Corinthians.

The Nature of the Letters

We understand these letters to be circumstantial. They were not written as systematic theology or as treatises on Christianity. The letters are responses to specific problems and circumstances as they arose in his communities. Paul spent time in cities establishing a group and then moved on. He received letters and sometimes reports with detailed questions or advice on how to settle conflicts. Unfortunately, when Paul’s letters were saved and circulated, the original letters from the communities were not preserved. The reconstruction of the original problems can only be determined by Paul’s responses.

Known as the most famous convert in history (from the Acts of the Apostles), Paul did not actually undergo conversion. Conversion assumes changing from one religious system to another, but at the time, there was no Christian system for him to convert to. Paul himself was ambiguous when it came to his self-identity:

To the Jews I became like a Jew... To those under the law I became like one under the law (though I myself am not under the law) ... To those not having the law I became like one not having the law (though I am not free from God’s law but am under Christ’s law) ... I have become all things to all people. (1 Corinthians 9:20-22)

In relation to what happened to Paul, it is better to follow what he says, in that he was 'called'. This is the tradition of the way in which the Prophets of Israel were called to their individual missions.

I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that the gospel I preached is not of human origin. I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it; rather, I received it by revelation from Jesus Christ. (Galatians 1:11-12).

Paul argued that this experience gave him as much authority as the original circle in Jerusalem (Peter, James, and John). Paul’s call to be the Apostle to the Gentiles was shocking because, as he freely admitted, he had previously "persecuted the church of God" (Galatians 1:13). He never really explained what he did, nor why he did it. It is in Paul’s letters that the name Jesus is combined with Christ, the Greek for the Hebrew messiah ("anointed one"). Understood as a title, "Jesus the Christ", it became common as a phrase that indicated his identity and function.

Continue reading...

[tanadrin]

The Gish Gallop was a term coined I think on the 2000s internet for a rhetorical maneuver where to buttress an argument you provide a ton of low-quality evidence; that the evidence is bad means it should be easy to refute, but the very large volume means it will take much longer to explain why it's all wrong than it did to copy-paste a bunch of links, and to a certain kind of very naive onlooker, it looks like the galloper is winning--after all, the one interlocutor has presented a ton of evidence! The second interlocutor has to spend so much time bending over backwards to refute it! Surely the first guy is more knowledgeable and authoritative. You aren't going to look at all that evidence yourself, of course--who has the time?

But listening to Dan McClellan talk about the Gospel of John this morning, it occurs to me that I don't think this is disingenuous. Not entirely. I think this is just the style of argumentation a lot of Christians (of a particular religious flavor) are used to. And I'm not just talking about in non- or para-religious matters like evolution. This is how Christianity understands the Bible.

This week's Data over Dogma is about the theology of John, and why it is non-trinitarian (because the Trinity is a much later doctrine developed as a kind of political compromise, maintained only because it had state backing) and does not actually identify Jesus with God (the theological developments are more complicated here; but suffice it to say it was not at all a given that "authorized bearer of the divine name" and "actually God" were the same being in 1st century Hellenistic Judaism, and indeed the distinction between the two had developed in Jewish thought precisely to avoid the awkwardness of anthropomorphic figures proclaiming themselves God in some of the older sections of the Hebrew Bible).

The funny thing is, there are a ton of passages in John that get trotted out as proof texts that Jesus is God. There are very good reasons in the case of each one to doubt that that is actually the correct reading; but of course, if you don't know anything about Greek, all you have are modern translations produced under the assumption of the dogma of the Trinity--mostly for devotional readers of the Bible who would be outraged if the Trinity wasn't in the New Testament--and you have been raised in a cultural and/or educational milieu where it is simply a default assumption about the way the world works that the Trinity is a timeless concept that has been in the Bible from the beginning, it sure looks like one side is spinning up tendentious arguments based on silly semantics that have nothing to do with the religion you learned as a kid.

But this exegetical approach (really, eisegetical) is common to many topics in traditional Christian theology. There are a ton of passages from the Septuagint that the Gospels warp to be about Jesus, even though, in their original context, this doesn't make any sense; sometimes even they're based on obvious mistranslations, like having Jesus ride into Jerusalem on the back of two animals simultaneously because you don't understand appositives. And you can poke holes in any individual bit of this exegesis, but psychologically having a ton of low-quality evidence for a thing is a pretty effective bulwark against thinking critically about that evidence; for every individual argument you knock down, the person you are arguing against is probably thinking, "yeah, but what about all that other stuff," even if they can't actually name all that other stuff in the moment.

And it's not mendacious! This is the stuff of true belief; this is how you get breathless Christian commentators saying the Bible couldn't possibly be written by human hands, because it so perfectly predicted Jesus even in the Old Testament--and the evidence they point to is, to anyone not steeped in traditional Christian exegesis, and especially to Jews who have their own exegetical traditions, absolutely barmy. Like really pants-on-head crazy stuff. But of course even now it is still being processed, in many parts of the world, through a two thousand year old tradition trying to reconcile it all and to normalize it all, and--to bring it back to discussions of evolution on the internet in the 2000s--I can't help but think of all those people who talk about the experience of thinking evolution was so obviously nonsense, because all they were exposed to was the fundamentalist strawman of it. When they finally sat down and began to read about it on their own, from unbiased sources--often with the intent of criticizing it--they realized how distorted their understanding was, and how limited their supposed outside view.

(If there are general lessons to be wrung from this situation, I think it's simply "beware of echo chambers." Social consensus in a bubble can make bad arguments feel much stronger than they really are, especially if you are not exposed to the actual opposing view. Be on guard against mistaking "quantity of evidence" for "quality of argument," especially if you're not gonna evaluate that evidence yourself. Also all religious traditions are fundamentally eisegetical, because in order to keep holy writ relevant to the community its meaning has to be constantly renegotiated. So, uh. If you want high-quality exegesis, ask an academic, not a theologian.)

[jessicalprice]

healers should get weekends too

(Reposted, with additions, from Twitter)

The story of the man with the withered hand (Mark 3:1-6; Luke 6:6-11) gets used a lot to make the Pharisees, the ancestors of contemporary Judaism, and by extension and implication, Jews and Judaism more broadly, look monstrous. 

If you’re not familiar with the story, it’s the one in which Jesus goes to the synagogue on Shabbat, and there’s a man with a “withered” hand there, and the Pharisees are watching him to see if he’ll heal on Shabbat. Jesus tells them off, and they decide to plot to kill him. 

This story is actually a prime example of how the gospels demonize--or get used to demonize--completely normal behavior from Jews in order to make Jesus (and Christians) look superior/enlightened/improved. 

The readings of this tend to be either: 

Oh, the Pharisees have a problem with Jesus healing on Shabbat? They value following a meaningless religious law over saving someone's life. Look how rigid they were, following the letter of the law instead of the spirit of the law, willing to let someone die rather than breaking a silly ritual prohibition.

Or, at least, they value following a meaningless religious law over alleviating suffering.

When Jews push back on these readings, we usually focus on pikuach nefesh, the principle that almost any Jewish law can be trumped by the need to save a life. You’re starving and all that’s available is pork? You eat pork. Someone gets a life-threatening injury on Shabbat? You do whatever you need to in order to save them. 

Of course, this has the effect of giving into the tendentious framing the gospels use--the man has a withered hand, not a life-threatening injury--but Jesus responds to the Pharisees by citing life-and-death situations.

It also throws the Pharisees under the bus: Judaism, practiced properly, would side with Jesus. 

But if the man had been dying, there wouldn’t be any disagreement between Jesus and the Pharisees. So I think we can all agree that the first reading of this story--that the Pharisees (and by extension, Jews in general) valued following religious law over saving a life--is nonsensical, and whether it's intended that way or not, antisemitic.

But what about the second reading? Did the Pharisees value following restrictions on activity during Shabbat over alleviating suffering?

There are two ways to look at it:

The Pharisees are just being used in the gospels as stock opponents for Jesus, so we shouldn’t assume it’s actually a historically accurate depiction of positions they held. (This is the easy one.)

The actual historical Pharisees did have an issue with people healing on Shabbat. (This is the more interesting one--why?)

The Christian (practicing or cultural) answer to this always seems to be an unexamined assertion of “religious law.” The Pharisees are either mindlessly following “religious law” and are too rigid to understand when it should be flexible, or they’re maliciously following “religious law” to punish??? people for being sick???

I think a lot of this trend in Christian thinking starts with Paul, and his near-constant assertion that Jewish law is burdensome, unpleasant, and ultimately impossible to follow or satisfy. If you believe that, then I guess it’s easy to imagine Jewish legal experts as superciliously holding people to impossible-to-meet standards that they knew they couldn’t meet themselves, making them both nitpickers and hypocrites.

But that’s not how Jews see Torah.

And I think you can sum up Jewish opposition to the idea of Jesus healing on Shabbat as:

Doctors should get weekends too. 

Let me back up. Again, reading the NT, you get the idea that Shabbat is a day of restriction, this time when we're not allowed to do stuff we want to do, but we have to hold off from doing it because otherwise God will be mad at us.

But in Jewish thought? Shabbat is a gift. 

 Every seven days, we get a holiday. It's an assertion of freedom: we're not slaves anymore. We get to have a day of rest, a day in which commerce is no longer a driving force, a day to not be workers.

So, if it’s a gift, why the harsh penalties in Torah for working on Shabbat? I mean, you can go with "because God said so," but the Torah's laying out rules for a society so usually there are societal reasons too.

And I think the obvious one here is economic competition. We can only all relax and enjoy Shabbat if we're not feeling like we should be working. If someone in our community, possibly a business competitor, is out there working 7 days a week, and we're only working 6, we're suddenly at an economic disadvantage. And the temptation, if one person is cheating, is for everyone else to cheat too, or at least to be worrying all day that they're losing out by not cheating. So what is supposed to be a day of rest and peace and not being ruled by the marketplace becomes a day of restriction and stress and worrying about the marketplace.

So yeah, if you're a first-century Jew, especially given that you're living in times of harsh economic oppression, you're going to disapprove of other Jews working on Shabbat. It's kind of a betrayal of everyone else who's trying to preserve that day of peace even under Rome.

The dude with the withered hand wasn't bleeding to death, and presumably has been living with it for a while. Why does he suddenly have to be healed today, on Shabbat? Again, if he had a life-threatening condition, Jewish law would be very clear: you do what’s necessary to save his life, even on Shabbat. But this isn’t a life-threatening condition. 

The implication is that healers should be available to work at all times, even on what’s supposed to be their day of rest. 

That’s actually really dangerous in a communitarian society, which emphasizes people’s duty to the community over their individual interests. Shabbat restrictions actually function as a check on people getting used up and exhausted by the needs of those around them. Healers have one day a week during which, barring a life-threatening emergency, they are free of demands that they work. 

The NT stacks the deck by having Jesus act like this is a matter of life and death, that if you’re not healing on Shabbat, you’re killing. It sure seems like he’s saying that healers shouldn’t get weekends. 

So yeah, I’m with the Pharisees on this one. If I need non-emergency surgery, I’d be an asshole to demand that the surgeon perform it on her weekend instead of waiting until Monday. 

If I’m trying to be charitable to Jesus, I guess I could assume that he believed the world as everyone around him knew it was about to end, and this was supposed to be a “let’s all pull together” moment. But it’s not sustainable in the long term.

Healers deserve weekends too. 

(Photo credit: Jonathan Borba) 

[germiyahu]

Similarly to the "Jesus was Palestinian!" crowd, I find this phrasing (and I've seen it in so many fandoms and other contexts about portraying Bibical characters I'm not just picking on the thing that it's popular to critique right now):

Kind of annoying? Like "Middle Eastern Jewish" is baffling to me. Is it because the average person thinks Jews are white Americans and they need to specify Middle Eastern = Brown which isn't even always the case, especially when we decenter American conceptualizations of race. But it also very cleanly lops of Middle Eastern-ness, and therefore this implicit Person of Color-ness from Jews as a class?

Some Jews can be Middle Eastern, and therefore brown/indigenous/poc/valid/worthy of protection, but it's not automatic and it's certainly not universal, so any time a Jew is granted this special status it must be verbalized so as not to confuse people. They might think the Jew you're talking about is a colonizer otherwise!

Or is it a way to imply (if not outright say) that there has never been a Jewish state in the region? Any Jews from Jesus' time were just denizens of the Middle East broadly? They had no country of their own, they just existed nebulously scattered throughout among other tribes and tongues and nations? Like if the Hasmonean Dynasty ruled over a polity called Israel I would see how the average Tumblerino would obviously want to avoid alluding to that when talking about New Testament characters/historical figures. But it was called Judea, well Iudaea in Latin. Some Israelis refer to the Hebron region as Judea now but this is not something that most anti-Israel people on Tumblr know about. So it has to be an aversion to admitting that there was a Jewish state in the Levant no matter what it's name was?

And less than 2 centuries later the land was renamed Palestine anyway. They don't even call Biblical characters "Palestinian Jews," at best some people used to call Jesus a Palestinian Jew, but I don't even see that anymore really. He's just "Palestinian" now. So you can be ahistorical when it's Jesus but not for anyone else in these books? Why? What's the point? What's the story what's the vision?

I'm definitely reading too much into this specific post, the worms in my brain sing so sweetly to me, but when these spaces are filled with so much casual disregard and disinterest in Jewish people, their culture, their history, their rights, their dignity, their lives... well maybe it's time to stop just slapping on "JOOISH!" to get sjw points while you're canceling the thing that is cringe.

[fdelopera]

Hey! Hope you’re doing well amidst everything going on. I saw one of your posts talking about Jewish history and something kind of clicked in my mind… because you’re right. I have never once been taught a single droplet of history about Jews besides the Holocaust. I want to turn that around, and learn more, because I find Judaism really cool and I want to learn more about it.

So, do you know where to begin when reading about Jewish history? I know it’s probably going to be extensive, but history is already extensive, and I wish I got taught more than just Christian ideology. This goes the same for any religion beyond Catholicism and Christianity. I really wish I was taught more about it.

Thank you!! Hope you have a good day :)

Thank you for your kind message. I really appreciate it. And thank you for wanting to learn more about Jewish history.

This past month especially has made me realize just how little most gentiles (non-Jews) know about Jewish history. It's been eye-opening, for sure.

It's also been horrifying to see the amount of white supremacist, antisemitic propaganda that people have been spreading online. Some people have been spreading this Nazi rhetoric intentionally, but many others have been spreading it because they don't have the context to understand that they are repeating Nazi dogwhistles. This month, I've seen more of Richard Spencer's Neo-Nazi talking points here on Tumblr than I ever have before. For context, Richard Spencer is this Nazi who got punched in the face.

In talking to gentiles, I often find that their knowledge of Jewish history extends to a few facts about the Holocaust. Some gentiles who have studied European history and political science may also have a general understanding of Hitler’s rise to power.

But that’s only the past several decades of Jewish history! And it's limited almost entirely to Europe!

Jews are a Levantine people from Judea (the area currently called Israel/Palestine), and our history goes back thousands of years to the Late Bronze Age.

For a good overview of Jewish history, from the Late Bronze Age to the present, I would recommend two YouTube channels. That’s a good place to start. There are many history books on the subject, but a lot of them are quite dense, and the videos from these two historians will give you a good general overview if you want to learn more.

Sam Aronow:

Sam Aronow covers the span of Jewish history, from the Late Bronze Age to modern times. It is an ongoing Jewish history project that he’s been producing for the past three years, and it is in chronological order. He is currently in the early 1900s, and he comes out with a new video every month or so (he's just released a new video this month).

Click here to go to Sam’s YouTube channel, and then you can scroll back to watch his videos from the beginning, or you can decide what time period of Jewish history you’re most interested in learning about first.

Useful Charts:

Matt Baker, PhD runs the YouTube channel "Useful Charts," and he often works with Sam Aronow's channel. He has a PhD in education and religion. Matt has a very interesting story. He converted to Judaism as an adult; when he was a young man, he escaped a Christian doomsday cult, which he was born into. This gives him a unique understanding of Jewish history, especially how the "Old Testament" is often weaponized by Evangelical Christians to advance specific right-wing agendas. (As I explain below, the Old Testament is NOT the Hebrew bible. It is a chopped up, reordered, edited, and mistranslated version of the Hebrew bible.) Matt's videos on the history of Judaism are well-researched, and he breaks down different aspects of Jewish history into easy-to-follow segments.

I) Jewish History series:

Which Bible Characters are Historical.

Kings of Israel & Judah Family Tree.

Maccabees & King Herod Family Tree. (by Sam Aronow)

Classical Rabbis Family Tree.

Judaism and Jewish Denominations Explained.

Jewish Streams (Denominations) Re-Explained. (by Sam Aronow)

II) Who Wrote the Tanakh and the New Testament series:

NOTE: The Tanakh (the Hebrew bible) is an acronym that stands for Torah (Instruction), Nevi'im (Prophets), Ketuvim (Writings). It is NOT the same as the "Old Testament" in the Christian bible. The Christian editors of the "Old Testament" cut up the Tanakh and reordered it in a way that doesn't make any sense for Jewish practice. Many Christian bibles (such as the King James Version) also intentionally mistranslate the Old Testament to advance specific religious, political, and social ideologies of their time.

Who Wrote the Torah.

Who Wrote the Prophets.

Who Wrote the Writings.

I am including links to Matt's series on who wrote the New Testament, because many people who were raised Christian were never given a historical context for the people who wrote the books of the New Testament.

Who Wrote the Apocrypha. (The Apocrypha are later-written Jewish books that are not included in the Tanakh, but do appear in some Christian bibles, like the Catholic bible)

Who Wrote the Epistles. (Paul's Epistles were written before the Gospels, which is why the Epistles are linked first.)

Who Wrote the Gospels and Acts. (The Gospels were all written long AFTER Jesus' lifetime, and AFTER the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 AD. They were NOT written by the people they are attributed to.)

Who Wrote Daniel, and Who Wrote Revelation. (Matt includes Daniel from the Nevi'im [Prophets] as well as Revelation from the New Testament in this video to discuss apocalypticism in Jewish and early Christian tradition.)

[cruelsister-moved2]

If you say shit like this im fucking stealing something out of your house!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[luimnigh]

How does an English translation of the Torah differ from the 'Old Testament'?

I'm not Jewish, but what I half-remember from Tumblr posts is that the Christian Bible's Old Testament is translated into the local language from the Latin original, which itself is based on a very bad translation into Ancient Greek from Hebrew.

And aside from the issues that arise from running the text through Google Translate multiple times I believe I've heard that several of the books have been placed in the wrong order; some books removed or added(?); and the whole thing edited to be more pro-Jesus, a figure who does not exist in the Torah.

So, basically try reading a book that's been run through Google Translate multiple times, had it's chapters rearranged/discarded/new ones added, and references to brand new character inserted; and then discuss it with someone who's read the original, and try and say it's the same book.

If any Jewish people would like to correct me/add more info, please do. I am nowhere near knowledgeable enough to be answering this question solo.

[hebrewbyinbal]

With International Women's Day fast approaching, let's take a moment to recognize the strength and resilience of women everywhere.

In Hebrew, we use the term אֵשֶׁת חַיִל /'e-shet 'kha-yeel/ to describe a woman of valor, someone who embodies strength, wisdom, and compassion. This term has been used for centuries to honor the powerful role of women in society, culture, and family.

This year, more than ever, it's crucial to lift up and support the women around us. All women! Recent events have brought to light the challenges and injustices women face, some more than others.

Sadly, in these trying times, too many organizations that should stand up for Israeli and Jewish women have remained silent, leaving those who have endured and still go through unimaginable experiences be left alone and unsupported.

Let's use our voices to highlight and celebrate the incredible Israeli women who inspire us, whether they are well-known public figures or unsung heroes in our own lives. These women could be your family members, friends, people you saw on the news, heard about, public figures, or national leaders — anyone who has made a significant impact on you or your community.

Please share in the comments below the names of the Israeli women who inspire you. Tell us their stories, their achievements, and how they've influenced you. By doing so, we're not only honoring them, but we're also reinforcing the network of support and recognition that all women deserve.

Let's come together this International Women's Day to celebrate every אֵשֶׁת חַיִל in every form, acknowledging the strength, courage, and resilience of women in Israel and around the world.

Your stories and voices matter, now more than ever.

Let's uplift each other and stand united in solidarity and respect.

I look forward to reading your tributes and stories in the comments below. Let's make this International Women's Day a powerful testament to the spirit and resilience of women everywhere!

[bringmemyrocks]

I noticed on your about the point saying "christianity isn't inherently antisemitic". I'm not challenging you on this, but I am asking - How can you believe this? I know for me, a lot of this has to do with religious trauma. But I struggle with the idea. One of the first things I learned when I left that faith was about supercessionism, about all the nasty antisemitic undertones and overtones in the New Testament, all that. The more I learned, the more everything I had once held dear just felt appropriative, or hypocritical, or paper-thin, or downright hateful... when you cut all that out of Christianity.. what even is left? That doesn't mean that individual practitioners can't be good people, but learning all this and its history just made me want to get away from it even more. It felt profane, I didn't want to touch it or even be associated with it at all. It made me bitter and a little hateful, if I'm being honest. I'll never go back, that wasn't why I left to begin with, but I'm trying to put that bitterness behind me. Especially seeing what Palestinian Christians are going through I think I at least owe them that. Normally when I see people talking about Christianity in a positive light it just makes me uncomfortable but since you feel so strongly about this that you put it on your about, I thought I should ask what your thoughts are

Hi anon, you are welcome to challenge me however you like. I'm glad my about page made you think, and I'm glad I put that particular note there ("Christianity/Islam/atheism are not inherently antisemitic.") I'm also glad you felt comfortable coming to me about this.

This is going to be a hard pill to swallow, but you’ll be much happier once you accept: 

You have been taught to see everything that threatens your interpretation of Judaism as a threat. This is wrong and makes you feel bad for no reason. 

You need to ask yourself “is XYZ really a threat to me, or have I just been conditioned to think that way by my community?” (Some) evangelical Christians see the world this way, "Starbucks is doing a war on Christmas" etc.–you have been conditioned to see threats to your religion everywhere just like they have. 

A good book on this is The Gift of Fear–it’s not about religion, but rather how to actually spot threats in a world that lies about where the danger really is. 

This “everything is against the Jews” conditioning is intrinsically tied to Zionism. Zionism benefits from Jews feeling that they are under threat. Zionism benefits from Jews thinking Judaism as a concept/a nazi-style race is under constant attack and needs to be protected. I had to come to this realization myself. I am not exaggerating. A comic from religious zionist institution Aish HaTorah that was rightfully mocked among Jews had a picture of a sad Jew with the text “If you are Jewish, somebody out there hates you!” (literally.) 

Ask yourself: who benefits from me thinking this way? Certainly not you; I can tell it’s causing you anguish. 

Some gems from Jumblr which demonstrate that this type of thinking is inextricably linked to Zionism: 

If you think that Christianity and Islam are “appropriations” of Judaism, boy howdy do I have something to tell you about Judaism’s relationship to ancient Canaanite religion…

This is going to get long, sorry. I’m going to use “Hebrew Bible,” “Old Testament,” and “Tanakh” interchangeably. 

General notes: 

The Bible is public domain. Anyone can read it, and they can interpret it however they want. Jews do not have a special claim to this text, and we have never tried to keep it secret from others. 

Interestingly, some of the mistranslations in Isaiah and the Book of Psalms/Tehillim that lend the Old Testament/Hebrew Bible/Tanakh to a more Christian reading are from the Septuagint, a Jewish translation of the original text into Greek. Oops. 

There is nothing inherently wrong with supersessionism in its basic definition. It just means that Christians and Muslims believe they no longer have to follow the covenant of Moses because their new covenants supersede the covenant of Moses. Muslims actually believe that everyone is born Muslim (thus the term “revert” rather than “convert”,) so Islam is technically more supersessionist than Christianity. Unlike Christianity, which takes both the Old Testament and New Testament as scripture, Islam believes that while the Bible contains some truth, it contains many errors, while the Quran does not. Nobody is harmed by this. 

Regardless, Christianity is not “about supersessionism” anymore than Judaism is "about Moses"; that is simply one aspect of the religion and how some people view it. 

If you’re going to split hairs over the literal text on the page instead of its interpretation, there’s a lot of condoned violence against non-Jews in the Tanakh. If you’re going to cherry pick lines from a text you don’t like, realize that the text you do like does not hold up under scrutiny, either. 

The harm comes in when people use violence to impose their beliefs on others. You see this throughout history. You are not harmed by a Christian thinking “smh doesn’t anon know it’s fine to eat pork” or even "doesn't anon know that Jesus can provide eternal life?"  

Groups driven practicing both Christianity and Islam have carried out large-scale violence against Jews throughout history. Christians moreso, but no tradition’s hands are clean here. There is no denying the historical connection between the institutional Christian church and antisemitism. Plenty of Christians, including Christians who are not themselves antisemitic still do not know this part of Christian history, and that is a problem.  

The particular strand of evangelical Protestant Christianity that believes that the modern state of Israel must exist to bring about the second coming of Jesus is called Premillennial Dispensationalism. This particular theology is actually the opposite of supersessionism because it believes the Jewish covenant is still relevant to Christians. Thus supersessionism is neither necessary nor sufficient for antisemitism. 

In my opinion, “supersessionism” is a buzzword that is used online to get Jews to refuse any engagement with Christianity. Same with “original sin”, a concept traditional Judaism actually believes in, but you won’t catch Jumblr admitting that…

Orthodox Jews refer to liberal Judaism as an “appropriation” and “twisting” of True Judaism ™ all the time. Your reaction to Christianity is just a version of that made palatable for liberal Jews. It’s just as chauvinistic. Anyone is allowed to read the Bible however they want to. They can add books in or they can take books out. You cannot control what people do in their religion, nor should you try. 

*Unless they’re advocating anti-gay/antisemitic/racist laws, which plenty of people of all faiths are currently doing worldwide. Then you should say something. But the problem is the prejudice and use of violence, not the religion itself. 

Assuming you were brought up in a form of Christianity that is actually antisemitic (not just one that you’re labeling as such by virtue of it believing in Jesus), I am truly sorry that that was your experience. You say: “when you cut all that out of Christianity.. what even is left?”

My heart sank when I heard that. What is left? What is left, anon? Thousands of years of history and tradition! Poetry and music and mysticism of every flavor! 

I am glad you are aware that you feel bitter and hateful towards other religions. I hope that your choice of words indicates that you want to change that. In recovery, there’s a saying of “first thought, second thought.” The first thought is what comes immediately–it can be “I would be happier if I was still using.” The second thought is “actually, let me think about this, I’m doing much better now than I was when I was using.” 

For you, the first thought might be “Christianity is evil and should be abolished,” but what might your second thought be? 

You mention Palestinian Christians. That’s a good start. I really don’t want to sound like Bartolome de las Casas here; I do not want to sound patronizing, but truly anon, Palestinians are the kindest people you will ever meet. Most Palestinian Christians are Catholic or Orthodox, both types of Christianity that are supersessionist (again, not needing to keep kosher, the new covenant of Jesus supersedes the covenant of Moses,) yet they are kind people. And not the fake nice you get from megachurch pastors who spend their congregation’s money on private jets. 

When I decided to become Jewish, I left behind one of my favorite hobbies of all time, singing from the Sacred Harp. It’s an early American folk hymn tradition that’s sung on shape notes. I thought “this is idolatry; I cannot engage with it” and I broke my own heart for no reason except my own stubbornness. 

If you’re familiar with the Sacred Harp tradition, you’ll recognize the little girl in my avatar is from the documentary “Awake My Soul,” and she’s leading a song from the Sacred Harp hymnal. I describe the Sacred Harp as being similar to opera: you either love it or you hate it. I promise you can have a normal healthy relationship with Christianity. (And there are a truly astounding number of Jews involved in Sacred Harp singing.) 

As a fellow convert, once upon a time I also fell for this nonsense. I now recognize that this stuff was taught to me and I can unlearn it. So can you! Block the chauvinists on Jumblr, stop listening to Tovia Singer podcasts, and appreciate the world in all its diversity. It’s what we are compelled to do as Jews. 

Anyone wrestling this is welcome to talk to me on anon or on DMs. Unlearning this type of thinking is so important. Asking questions is a good first step. The fact that you reached out to an antizionist Jew shows that you’re willing to listen to alternative voices. It’ll be easier for you to get rid of this type of thinking than it is for others who can’t let go of Zionism. 

I’ll leave you with my two favorite verses from the New Testament (yes, I can still have favorite verses in a holy text I don’t follow. Try reading it again and learn to appreciate it as an outsider. That can be key to dismantling your negative associations with it. Read the Jewish Annotated New Testament if you like extra commentaries and can’t stomach Christian commentaries on Christian texts yet–truly there’s a lot of fascinating stuff there.) 

Mark 8:36 For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?

Matthew 25 (linking because it’s too long on this already overly-long post): https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew%2025%3A34-46&version=ESV 

I love talking about theology. I came to Tumblr to talk about faith, not politics, but I am compelled to speak about genocide, so my posts have mostly been about Palestine of late. 

I know an absurd amount about Christianity because I studied it for so long. I will gladly expand on any of the points I mentioned here. (But you don’t have to become a theologian like me to dispense with anti-Christian prejudice.) 

Also, kudos to you for not spelling it “xtianity”--that always gave me a headache. 

Anon, do feel free to come back if you have more thoughts. I try to modulate tone, but I can come across as quite serious even if I don't intend to. Truly, thank you for asking me this question.

Good faith responders who have read the entire post are welcome to engage. Anyone who believes Jumblr's strawman version of Christianity is accurate will be blocked.