Category Archives: Anti-Semitism

When anti-anti-Semitism becomes toxic

Walking With Giants Posted on by

Dagobert Runes, ‘The War Against The Jew’.

This dictionary-style volume is a collection of entries – including many quotations – illustrating expressions of anti-Semitism over the centuries.

While not for a moment denying the many lamentable instances of anti-Semitism perpetrated by Christian church, I find that this book fails to make a positive contribution to the discussion.  There are several serious flaws.

First, it is a rant.  This is particularly so in the preface, which begins as follows:

‘There are many chronicles of war; of war lasting four days and of war lasting thirty years, even one hundred years, but then the war was over and peace followed.

…

Did the Gospels become increasingly anti-Semitic?

Walking With Giants Posted on by

Bart Ehrman (Jesus, Interrupted, p44) argues that the gospels become progressively anti-Jewish and pro-Roman from Mark through to John.  This, of course, assumes, with mainstream scholarship, that Mark was the first, and John the last, of the Gospels to be written.

Ehrman writes,

‘It is significant that in John’s Gospel, on three occasions Pilate expressly declares that Jesus is innocent, does not deserve to be punished, and ought to be released (Jn 18:38; 19:6; and by implication in Jn 19:12).

…

1 Thessalonians 2:14f – ‘The Jews, who killed Jesus’

Walking With Giants Posted on by

‘…the Jews, 2:15 who killed both the Lord Jesus and the prophets and persecuted us severely.’

Several years ago a fundamentalist church in the Denver metro area gained notoriety during Lent by quoting on their marquee a small fragment of the sentence that spans 1 Thessalonians 2:14-15: “the Jews, who killed the Lord Jesus.”  It was a frightening throwback to the days of the Nazis who labeled all Jews as Christkillers.  Only after significant publicity called attention to it, did the church take it down.…

Seven reasons to be pro-Semitic

Walking With Giants Posted on by

I’ve blogged quite a bit recently on the delicate but important subject of Israel.  Much of what I’ve written tends towards the conclusion that the ‘Christian Zionist’ position cannot be supported from Scripture.  That is to say, the Bible does not, in my view, teach that Jewish people have a God-given right to return to the land of their ancestors and re-establish the nation-state of Israel with Jerusalem as its capital.

It’s distressing to note how vitriolic the debate sometimes gets. …