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2004.03.07 Current debate about miso-Judaism still swirls around Mel Gibson's controversial movie about the Christian Christ. Semi-informed media journalists navigate the controversial shoals skillfully, artfully defending traditional views that have never worked while deftly avoiding solutions they fear, occasionally drawing close to the solution then drifting away having never seen it. Two cases in point were published in the 2004.03.05 issue of The Jerusalem Post Magazine.
Saul Singer ("Interesting Times, The difference") demonstrated insight in declaring "It was idiocy enough not to work with Christians who are repelled by the violence of Gibson's vision and who support the tremendous progress the Vatican has made in repudiating the Gospels' charge of deicide against the Jews. It would be further idiocy not to approach this film as perhaps the most powerful mass religious experience in history, both for good and for evil."
Mr. Singer seems to be headed straight for the solution, writing further "Rather than fearing the attraction of Christian theology writ large, Jews should take this opportunity to showcase the differences between the two religions that are usually papered over… Recently, moreover, the more relevant threats to Jews have come not from the medieval Christianity Gibson seems to favor, but from Nazism, communism, and radical Islam, against which believing Christians are staunch Jewish allies."
One wonders, at this point, how Mr. Singer could possibly avoid discovering the solution. Yet, casting logic to the winds, he ignores the obvious clue in what he just wrote to avoid the logical path unfamiliar to him and reverts to the familiar – traditional assumptions about differences between Christianity and Judaism that have repeatedly proven feckless, ad nauseum, for millennia. The reason that Jewish commentators continue not to recognize religion as the cause of miso-Judaism is twofold: [a] fear of repercussions from our allies in the Christian world and [b] acknowledgment that religion is the raison d'être of Jews is, for 'secular Jews,' an anathema far worse than the Holocaust.
What do all four of the traditional sources of miso-Judaism – Nazism, communism, radical Islam and Christianity – have in common vis-à-vis Jews and Judaism? The answer is so-o-o obvious it's tedious to write: they all oppose Judaism and everything definitively and uniquely Judaic, including (unconverted) Jews and everything that (unconverted) Jews represent (much to the consternation of irreligious "secular Jews" who desperately assimilate, some even converting, in order to be accepted by the
Nazism, in fact, is a modern variant (or deviant) of Christian miso-Judaism (for which, see The Conflict of the Church and the Synagogue, A Study in the Origins of Anti-Semitism).
Communism opposed all religion and persecuted Christianity as much, if not more, than Jews (especially exempting irreligious and atheist "Jews" – the prime cause why so many irreligious and atheist "Jews" are so vitriolic against Judaism).
Islam's existential need to invalidate and destroy Judaism is no different than Christianity's existential need to invalidate and destroy Judaism. When all the spin is peeled away, if Judaism is true, then displacement theologies are invalidated. Both Christianity and Islam are displacement theologies, claiming to have displaced Judaism. Islam is merely a second order displacement theologies, claiming to have displaced both Judaism and Christianity – which is why Islam seeks to eradicate Christians along with Jews, seeing both as "infidels".
It should be noted, in this context, that Christianity is only a temporary ally with Judaism against its rival displacement theology, Islam, and only for as long as Islam threatens Christianity. Jews are going to be horrified, should the threat of Islam diminish, to find that Christian miso-Judaism will then resurface. The continued existence of Jews invalidates displacement theology doctrines, which are intrinsic to both: Christianity and Islam.
Unavoidably, miso-Judaism is a religious discussion. All attempt to cleanse religious issues from discussions about miso-Judaism is doomed to be irrelevant and feckless.
In the same issue of The Jerusalem Post Magazine, Yossi Klein Halevi ("Jews and Christians after ‘The Passion' ") fondles the important insight in understanding the cause of miso-Judaism without ever recognizing it. As in solving other problems, seeing the cause would have suggested the direction to its solution. Importantly, Mr. Halevi points out that "those Jewish leaders who have led the public campaign against The Passion have also behaved shabbily… Vatican II has uprooted the deicide charge from normative Catholic thinking, at least in [the U.S.]. And evangelical support for Israel is based largely on the verse in Genesis in which [the Almighty] promises to bless those who bless the progeny of Abraham and curse those who harm them." It never occurs to either Mr. Halevi or Mr. Singer that each has half of the answer but that both lack important pieces of historical information to put the puzzle together. The Vatican rejected generalization and stereotyping, both logical fallacies. Protestant evangelicals recognize the Biblical orientation. But both are missing the historical key that resolves the conundrum.
Because he really doesn't "get" Christianity, Mr. Halevi gazes right past the solution, seeing only an apparent dilemma. "And so the dilemma remains: How strongly do we challenge and invalidate a faith experience for Christians and impose a Jewish agenda on what should be an internal Christian debate over the meaning of their faith?"
This false dilemma is so fraught with errors it's difficult to decide where to begin.
First, the term "dilemma" is a red flag to any logician. There are few dilemmas and the term is widely abused. To answer one part of this multi-faceted question, "How strongly do we… impose a Jewish agenda?" the unequivocal answer can only be a thundering "Not at all!!!" That's a certain recipe to fuel and ignite miso-Judaism.
Neither science, nor archeology, nor history, nor historical documentation are Jewish agendas. Nor are they internal to either Christianity or Judaism.
Compounding the confusion, Mr. Halevi inadvertently begs the question that there are irresolvable Jewish and Christian agendas – despite both camps claiming the same "Bible" as the source of their authority. (The buried fact is, however, that Jews and Christians have different, incompatible, conflicting, contradictory and mutually exclusive "Bibles.") Clearly, there are differences between Christianity and Judaism that are intractably incompatible.
Note, however, that it isn't differences between Christians and
To illustrate the obvious, let C represent the set of all elements of Christianity. Let c represent those intrinsic element(s) of Christianity that are intractably incompatible with Judaism and E = C - c. Note that since c represents the element(s) intrinsic to Christianity that are incompatible with Judaism, E comprises those elements that Christianity shares with Judaism (e.g.,
A meticulous analysis of archeology and historical documentation demonstrates that there is no historical point in which element c was previously valid in
Commentators fail to recognize the monumental potential this implies. If c were somehow resolved into some -c, then this reduces to E — and no intractably incompatible differences exist between Judaism and E!!! Such a resolution is not only viable, it's so conspicuous I don't understand how anyone, let alone everyone, misses it: science, archeology, history, historical documentation and research resolves c!!!
Another aspect of Mr. Halevi's question signals failure to understand the dynamics of this problem: "How strongly do we challenge and invalidate a faith experience for Christians and impose a Jewish agenda…?" Not at all! Even the question is entirely wrongheaded. Why challenge or invalidate E??? Why would any intelligent person even think of antagonizing Christian allies in order to challenge or invalidate E? Instead, in place of resignedly assuming the c is irresolvable, resolve c! Together! Instead of a conundrum of agendas, be on the same side – the side of facts, documented history and logical truth; which is what both sincere Jews and Christians want. There are many historical aspects, many only recently discovered in our generation, that make this viable. This approach of pursuing historical and logical truth together, contrary to Mr. Halevi's assumptions, cannot validly be construed as a "Jewish agenda" nor imposed by Jews. It's simply historical, factual, logical truth. Routinely misstated, Einstein showed that perspective, not truth, is relative. Whoever insists on denying the facts of historical and logical truth to perpetuate his "faith" dooms himself to a life of denial of reality and eventual intellectual bankruptcy. Further, if he imposes beliefs contrary to the real world of the Creator on any followers, he thereby creates a system of idolatry. Knowledge will win out. Education will help accelerate the process.
Mr. Halevy concludes his question asserting that this "should be an internal Christian debate over the meaning of their faith." Really? Aside from a Jew patronizingly dictating to Christians what they need to do about their religion, does Mr. Halevy realize the implications of his remark? Does Mr. Halevy assert, contrary to the historical documentation, that
Mr. Halevy rightly laments "For Christians, especially Catholics, who feel under assault because of the Church's sex scandal, the Jewish attack on a positive artistic depiction of their faith intensifies their sense of cultural siege." Historically, there is no need for any Jewish attack at all.
I've translated the entire Διαθηκη Καινη (NT) from all of the earliest extant mss. up through the 4th century C.E. According to the earliest extant source documents recognized by the original Jewish followers of
Many commentators and reviewers have stated explicitly that the movie depicts the Pharisees as the evil and malicious Jews in Mr. Gibson's movie. Mr. Gibson generalized and stereotyped from Hellenized Sadducee "Wicked Temple priests" and aristocrats collaborating with their Hellenist Roman occupier-patrons, despised by the Pharisees, who were illegitimate and deplorable in the eyes of Pharisees, to blame "the Jews", wrongly generalizing to include the Pharisees who were the forebears of today's Orthodox Jews. Note that whether Christian movie-goers 'feel' miso-Judaic or not is irrelevant to the definition of miso-Judaism.
Finally, Mr. Halevy implores plaintively, "how is it that those of us who work for Christian-Jewish rapproachement [sic] can't manage better damage control when the demons of the past resurface?"
Because the real demon, ignorance – Jewish ignorance of Christianity, Christian ignorance of Judaism and the ignorance of both relative to science, archeology, history and historical documentation; i.e., logic – has yet to be recognized and defeated… by education.
What makes pursuit of a resolution of c most attractive is that Christians have been pursuing the resolution of c, unsuccessfully, already for two millennia now. Pursuing the resolution of c is the Christian's ultimate goal. Jews should be helping Christians dig out the historical documentation and the archeological and scientific facts!
Rather than iron-headedly opposing E, the resolution of c is a valid pursuit for Jews as well as Christians. Jews should join Christians in pursuit of the historical and logical resolution of c. Jews shouldn't fight or oppose Christians at all. Rather, Jews should be on the same side with Christians – pursuing ultimate Truth! No
This is not only possible, it has recently been done; the first time since 135 C.E. Obviously, it isn't easy or it wouldn't have escaped all of the worlds thinkers for the past 1,870 years. But the essential facts are available and accessible. The obstacle is unrestrained fear and ignorance: of myths and idols! All that is lacking is resolve, primarily Jewish resolve, to dig out these historical facts and enable Christians, through education, to fulfill their aspirations to follow the Apostle St. Paul" the Apostate and the fourth-century Hellenist Roman pagans who redacted the Christian Διαθηκη Καινη (NT)),
With c resolved (see www.netzarim.co.il) among Jews and the mixed multitude who look to
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