anti-judaism in christian theology

Vol. 4, No. 3 /July 1978 Religious Studies Review / 161

ANTI-JUDAISM IN CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY By Charlotte Klein Translated by Edward Quinn Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1978 Pp. xii + 176. $8.95

Reviewer: George W. E . Nickelsburg School of Religaon, The University of Iowa Iowa City, IA 52242

In its astounding propensity for getting stuck in ruts, the study of religion is not unlike other academic disciplines. Unhappily, our particular kind of ruts tends to become sanctified and take on the character of sacred pathways to truth. It is one such path, a pertinacious scholarly tradition, which Charlotte Klein has exposed in her relentless and unnerving study of anti-Judaism in the writings of Conti- nental theologians-mainly biblical scholars-of the present century. As we learn from the dust jacket, Klein’s orientation is that of a ‘Jewish convert to Roman Catholicism and member of the Order of Our Lady of Sion, a community of nuns dedicated to Jewish-Christian understanding.”

From a very different perspective-that of a Protestant and a student of the New Testament who has given equal time to a study of early post-biblical Judaism-I have found many things in this book to second, some to press further, and a few with which to take issue.

The immediate occasion for the writing of the book was a series of lectures on New Testament introduction given by Klein at a German university in 1970-71. After she had “tried to give the audience an objective view of Judaism between the Old and New Testaments,” she assigned a paper on the theme, “How do you explain the general lack of understanding of Jesus on the part of his contemporaries?” The results were so unexpectedly negative and derogatory in their portrayal of first-century Judaism (i.e., contradictory of her lectures) that she set out to examine the sources that her students had consulted (46 ) . Her findings, first published in German in 1975, appear here in a respect- able English translation by Edward Quinn with a foreword by Gregory Baum.

Klein sets her book in the context of George Foot Moore’s article ( 192 1) on “Christian Writers on Judaism” up to Schiirer and Bousset. Moore concluded that such treat- ments were markedly one-sided, apologetic, and polemical rather than historical (Klein, 1 , 3). In her survey of twentieth-century German and French biblical exegetes, historians, and, to some extent, systematicians, Klein finds that the tradition noted by Moore has continued-even after 1945.

According to Klein, with few exceptions, the phenomenon she describes and documents is not anti-Semitism, but rather a misconstruing of the shape of post-exilic Jewish religion, often based on an ignorance of the original sources and generally informed by Christian presuppositions. She outlines these as follows (7): 1 Judaism has been superseded and replaced by Christianity. 2 Consequently-this is rarely expressed so brutally today-

3 In any case its teaching and ethical values are inferior to those of Judaism has scarcely any right to continue to exist.

Christianity.

The Christian theologian continues to assume that he has the right to passjudgment on Judaism, its destiny, and its task in the world-or even to be permitted to dictate this task. Only some few real specialists in the departments of Jewish studies make a fresh examination of authentically Jewish sources. In most cases the material collected in certain works around the turn of the century [mainly Strack-Billerbeck] is taken over as a matter of course and quoted, without bothering about the Jewish interpretation of the sources or considering how the Jews see themselves. We often find that the same author when he expressly speaks of Judaism in an ecumenical context has a strikingly different approach from that which he adopts when he is dealing mainly with the Christian religion and mentions Judaism more or less inci- dentally.

Each of Klein’s four main chapters begins with the most recent writers and moves back t; the 012 classics, ending with Schurer. Her purpose is to show “how much the modern author remains dependent on his predecessors and how much he takes over their quotations from theJewish sources together with the conclusions drawn from these, usually without submitting them to a new and objective scrutiny” (15).

Klein’s book reads like a veritable Who’s Who of Conti- nental theology, but in reverse. The scholars whose views Klein subjects to searching, often scathing criticism are among the elite of (mainly Protestant) German and French biblical scholarship. Added to their number are a few theologians and the authors of best-selling and influential textbooks. Klein’s chapters are arranged topically, and there is sufficient coherence in the quotations she adduces to allow us to conflate and summarize them chapter by chapter, under Klein’s chapter headings.

“‘LATE JUDAISM AND ‘JEWISH RELIGIOUS COMMUNITY”’

Klein summarizes as follows the views of the authors she quotes in chapter two: The centuries between the Babylonian exile and the emergence of Christianity was [sic] a time of decadence, of internal and external decline for Judaism. It had no longer any history properly speaking, its faith was externalized and rigid, God had become a distant God and the prophetic message was forgotten. Late Jewish existence as “temple community” lasted at most to A.D. 70. Judaism misunderstood and failed in its real task and consequently destruc- tion came as a just punishment (38).

The major Christian presupposition behind the questions in this chapter is reflected in the term “Late Judaism,” the Sputjudmturn that is a technical term in German biblical scholarship (note, however, that the name of the series, Arbeiten zur Geschichte des Spatjudentums und Ur- christentums, has now been changed to . . . antiken Juden- turns.. .). Since the history of Israel is seen as reaching its culmination and telos with the advent of Jesus and the beginning of the church (26), theJudaism of the two centuries B.C. and A.D. (theologically loaded terms in themselves) is by definition lute Judaism. How then, Wein wonders, does one deal with the simple historical fact of the continued existence of Judaism down to the present day (26-27)?

More subtle is the mixture of historical fact and theological judgment evident in the claim that exile and diaspora

162 / Religious Studies Review Vol. 4, No. 3 /July 1978

are essential features of post-587 Judaism (20,30). Klein sees lurking here the spectre of anti-Zionism (20; cf. 18, 19,43). Correlative to the view that the Jews are to be in dispersion is the denial of their status as a nation or people. They are a “religious community” (2 1, 27, 33).

“LAW AND LEGALISTIC PIETY”

According to the authors cited in Klein’s third chapter, Judaism was a religion that centered in a calculated, externalized observance of the Law. “‘Man’s relationship to God is no longer characterized as submission in faith and trusting fellowship, but as a juridical bond”’ (42). Through the observance of the Law, one sought to secure one’s life (43) and “‘to place Yahweh under an obligation”’ (44). The converse side of this confidence was, vis-a-vis God’s judgment, a “‘gnawing anxiety that these achievements may neverthe- less not be adequate’” (45). According to these scholars, the Law is not Torah in the sense of instruction and revelation (39), but “‘an abundance of individual precepts and pro- hibitions. . . no longer understood as Gods living word”’ (53-54). The Law became formalized. “ ‘The great reckoning with God begins: reckoning and counter-reckoning, merit and debt; reward and punishment; the actions of men being bartered in transaction with God.. . . the law has become separated from God and has become man’s real au- thority”’ (56). Jewish piety is “‘heavily burdened . . , with externals, with the most trivial regulations and hairsplitting. . .”’ (60). It “‘became hardened and rigid.’ It attached the greatest importance to ‘forms and externals’ and made no distinction ‘between minor and major matters in the law”’ (62).

In response to these viewpoints, Klein charges that these authors have wrenched Torah from its covenantal context. Torah is the revelation of God’s will, to be obeyed in grateful response to God’s prevenient covenantal grace (39-40). She meets charges of externalism with quotations from the rabbis, who call for piety for the sake of the love of God and not for reward (42, 50). Against charges of self- righteousness, she cites the liturgy of the Day of Atonement. “Lex orandi-lex credendi“ (56). In one of her more strongly worded critiques, she asserts, There is no attempt at an objective portrayal, to enter into the true spirit of Judaism. . . . We are completely justified in speaking of an a priori anti-Judaist attitude which sees in Judaism a discarded, even corrupt religious phenomenon, as opposed to a sublimely spiritual Christianity which makes the former appear to be completely overshadowed and worthless (62).

76, 78, 79, 88). Totally unreasoned are charges of an ‘“un- disciplined cultivation of wild, sensual lust [that] was easily attached to pride”’ (85) and of a “‘luxurious life . . . nights of debauchery . . . [and] secret intrigues’” (88).

Klein’s major rebuttal to these portrayals (except the last two) is that they are drawn wholly from the gospels, the Sitz im Leben of which was in part a bitter struggle with the Jewish community and the Pharisaic leaders in particular (67-68,90). Polemics against the Pharisees are mainly crea- tions of the early church, and any conflict between the historical Jesus and the Pharisees was minimal (67-68, 75- 76). Fairness and historical honesty demand that one consult the Jewish literature (go), where one will find ample quotations to counter the caricature (83), though even these have been misused by Christian scholars (86f.).

“IEWISH GUILT IN T H E DEATH O F IESUS’

The bottom line in all anti-Judaism, Klein points out in chapter five, is the charge that “the Jews crucified Jesus.” In spite of the attempts of the Second Vatican Council to intro- duce less sweeping statements, and “despite doubts about the historical accuracy of the account of the trial before the Sanhedrin, most theologians continue to maintain their former view of an irreconcilable hostility between Jesus and the Jews.. . [which] is then seen as leading logically to his death” (92).

Again the scholars Klein cites mingle theological judgment with historical data. The curse (Matt. 27:25) took. Not only the disaster of the year 70 (1 16), but the long history of the persecution and maltreatment of the Jews is due to their persistent obstinacy and blindness, which culminated in their rejection of the Messiah (95, 96, 109, 118) and which will continue until they convert to Christianity (1 10, 116, 118).

“FROM GENERATION TO GENERATION”

Having completed her analysis of the literature, Klein returns in chapter six to her starting point and to her main thesis. The long tradition of anti-Judaism in the Christian literature she has quoted does not cease with that literature. It is assimilated and reproduced in the essays of her students, from which she now draws ample quotations (127- 42). Her agony is this: “Most of these theology students will by now be active as pastors or teachers of religion, and their inadequate and biased information an Jews and Judaism will thus reach large circles of people who are even less adequately informed” (5-6).

“PHARISEES AND SCRIBES’

T h e contents of the fourth chapter are predictable for any reader of the gospels. The Pharisees are the embodiment of Jewish legalism. Proud, arrogant, and self-assured, they mercilessly condemned sinners (69). “They are ‘at a special remove from God’, for ‘they do not take sin seriously”’ (68). “By artificial and exaggerated interpretation of the Mosaic law,” they created a tradition which they considered “to be more important than the written law,” a law marked by hairsplitting and “‘crabbed and casuistic pedantry”’ (72-73). Hypocrisy and ostentatious piety were their hallmark (70,

“THE ANGLO-AMERICAN SCENE”

In the last chapter, written for the English edition of the book, Klein surveys briefly Anglo-American authors and concludes that their writings are, by and large, free of the concepts and prejudices described in the previous chapters. Rather, one finds opposite conceptions and sentiments: a sense of the continuity between past and present Jewish history, and a recognition that “‘Christianity was cradled in Judaism’ ” ( 144); a sympathetic understanding of Torah and its place in the covenant; a recognition of the part that late

Vol. 4, No. 3 1 July 1978 Religious Studies Review 1 163

first-century events played in the composition of the gospels and in their accounts of the Pharisees and of the trial; the belief that the responsibility for the crucifixion rests on all humanity.

A FAIR AND BALANCED APPRAISAL?

In a way Klein’s book is difficult reading. The repetition is ponderous and sometimes tiresome. After a chapter or two, one may be inclined to charge her with overkill. However, burdensome repetition is precisely the point of the book. It is tedious to find the same ideas expressed again and again in almost the same way. (* * *) If the authors listed here were not outstanding scholars every one of whom has made his own con- tribution to the different branches of Bible study, we should be tempted to charge them with plagiarism, so closely do their opin- ions and even their forms of expression resemble one another when they come to speak about late Judaism (28, 29).

For a different purpose and with a different approach, E. P. Sanders has made the same point in his newly published Paul and Palestinian Judaism. Also taking George Foot Moore’s 1921 article as his point of departure, Sanders traces “the persistence of the view of Rabbinic religion as one of legalistic works-righteousness” ( 1977, 33-59). His carefully documented history of scholarship bears out the conclusions of Klein’s more loosely constructed survey of the literature, or at least its two middle chapters. Perhaps context may occasionally mitigate the force of some of her quotations. Where I have checked them, this has not been the case. My own research, prior to and independent of publication of Klein’s study, has led me to conclusions simi- lar to hers regarding this literature.

Thus, for this reviewer, the major thesis of Klein’s book is valid. There is a long tradition of anti-Judaism in German and French biblical scholarship and, to some extent, also in German and French theology; and it persists in recent literature.

This is an important book for all who are concerned about the problems of anti-Semitism and anti-Judaism. It will be a consciousness raiser for many biblical scholars and for the theologians who build on their work. Although Klein by and large exculpates Anglo-American scholarship from this kind of anti-Judaism, we and our students continue to use the Continental works that she cites, and thus her point needs to be heeded on this continent also. The English edition has a valid Sitz im Leben.

While Charlotte Klein has tracked her phenomenon well, there are, I believe, some counter-movements in the German theological scene and some indications that a new understanding and attitude may be developing. She notes that “Christian theology [in Germany and France] in the years 1945 to 1971 speaks of Judaism in the same way as it did before 1945 and even before 1937” (1 3). However, in his wide-ranging systematic work, On Being a Christian (re- viewed in RSR 4/2 [April 19781, 91-101), Hans Kung has

issued a vigorous and pointed appeal for a reappraisal of Christian attitudes toward Judaism and the Jews (Kung, 1976, 166-74). While this section occupies relatively little space in this large volume, and while it is true that Kung is Swiss in origin and anti-establishment in orientation, his appeal is significant, coming as it does from a theologian of his stature and influence.

Klein calls for a renewed study of the ancient Jewish sources (142). However, precisely this kind of study has been going on for the past two decades among the present younger generation of German, and to some extent, French biblical scholars. Their names are notably absent from Klein’s bibliography. This reflects the fact that these scholars have not been producing the kind of handbooks that are the subject of her inquiry. For Klein to have considered the mass of articles and monographs on Judaica produced by these scholars would have made her book unmanageable. At the same time, this omission skews the evidence, for it is an omission of precisely that literature which offers us the results of fresh study of the ancient sources. (In many cases, these sources are not the rabbinic texts and hence Klein tends to dismiss them; however, as I shall argue below, these sources are vital to the study of early Judaism.) From this quarter, among younger scholars less bound by old theological constructions and presuppositions, I believe we may look for the reappraisal for which Klein appeals.

THEOLOGY IN CHRISTIAN ANTI-JUDAISM

The title of Klein’s book is both deceptive and to the point. In point of fact, Klein’s bibliography includes only a handful of works by systematic theologians. For the most part she treats the writings of biblical exegetes and historians. Nonetheless, within these works, the primary dynamics of anti-Judaism appear to be theological.

The first and most basic theological source of anti- Judaism lies in the New Testament itself. The subject has been treated frequently and at length in recent years. In addition to the review article and bibliography by Douglas R. A. Hare (1976, 15-22), the reader may consult Samuel Sandmel’s newly published Anti-Semitism in the New Testa- ment (1978).

Klein turns to this subject from time to time, particu- larly in her discussion of the scribes and Pharisees and of Judaism as legalism (64,67-69,90) and also with reference tothequestionofguiltforthedeathofJesus(105, 112,113). The writers in question, she notes, slip into a kind of literalism or fundamentalism which naively takes as historical materials that clearly reflect the polemical interaction of church and synagogue (41, 65, 69, 79). The observation is not unfair. The causes of the phenomenon are, I believe, largely theological. The manner in which theological (and ideological) presuppositions lead otherwise highly sophisti- cated exegetes and historians to accept as historical fact data that fit these predispositions sometimes boggles the mind.

Anti-Judaistic attitudes are not based on occasional and isolated New Testament statements about the Jews and Judaism. They reflect a complex network of conceptions and statements that constitute the warp and weft of large segments of the New Testament and that are tied at the one end to the central theological assertions of primitive Chris-

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tianity and, at the other end, to the developing creeds and theology of the church up to the present time.

The modern belief that the Jews (or their leaders) were responsible for Jesus’ death and that in consequence they brought a curse upon themselves and their descendents is based on New Testament statements that reflect the first- century belief that the Jews had rejected Jesus as the Mes- siah. Belief in the uniqueness and centrality of Jesus is the continuing context within which these passages are accepted at face value. - .

In significant portions of the New Testament, the eschatological and soteriological significance of Jesus is re- lated to the fulfillment of prophecy and the history of salva- tion as these fit within the Israelite matrix of Christianity. The conception “late Judaism,” however historically blind and naive it is, is the modern manifestation of the New Testament idea found in these contexts.

Charges of legalism and much of the continued stereo- typing of the scribes and Pharisees rest on the theological assumption, found in varying guises in the New Testament, that the eschatological situation ushered in by Jesus brought an end to the binding force of Torah.

While Klein is surely aware of these facts, and occasionally alludes to them (e.g., 65), they need to be emphasized. Biblical exegesis is informed by theological presuppositions that are central to the Christian faith as it has commonly been known and proclaimed since the first century. The centrality of Jesus remains the issue, not only in discussions and rapprochements between Christians and Jews (Kung, 1976,172-74), but also at the very basic level of exegesis. It is to be hoped that Klein’s book will help to raise consciousness and to bring more honesty to Christian exegesis in these areas.

A second theological principle appears to lie at the root of anti-Judaism in Christian biblical scholarship. In a throw- away sentence to which she never returns, Klein observes, “Among the causes of the negative judgement on Judaism in Germany may well be for one thing Luther’s hostility to the ‘law’ and ‘works”’ (4). It is, I suspect, one of the dominating causes (see also Stendahl, 1975, 335, and Sanders, 1977, e.g., 57). The typologizing of the law or the Pharisees or the Jews comports well with the basic structure of classical Prot- estant theology in its Lutheran dress (my own tradition). Although Luther was well aware of some of the historical circumstances of the Galatian controversy, he readily trans- posed it and its principals into the key of the theological struggle in which he himself was engaged (Luther, 1963,

A sampling of quotations from modern scholars illus- trates this typological interpretation of the Jews, the Pharisees, and the law.

‘yewish thought, and also the natural man in general [italics mine], are both concerned with this problem. ‘Who then is my neighbor’ ” (G. Bornkamm, 1960, 112; 1975, 99). Bornkamm, to be sure, does not limit his example to the Jews. Nonetheless, he sees them as typical of, or parallel to, “natural man.” Klein notes this same typology in a statement by Heinrich Schlier: “‘The argument between Jesus and the

Jews or the world [italics mine] . . . which will not give itself up to God, is in general at an end”’ (Klein, 102; Schlier, 1968, 216). A quotation from Schurer draws a comparison be-

6- 10).

tween Jews and Jesuits (another stereotype): “The purity laws simply provided an occasion for ‘treating the field of sexual life in a manner which closely resembles the slippery casuistry of the Jesuits”’ (Klein, 64, quoting Schurer, 1907, 577). Goppelt draws a parallel between the rise of Judaism and of Roman Catholicism, asserting that neither rightly understood or faithfully followed the traditions they wanted to preserve (Klein, 30; Goppelt, 1964, 20). The theological formulation of law and gospel is explicit in a comment by Joachim Jeremias on the parable of the laborer in the vine- yard and rabbinic teaching parallel to it: “[Here] ‘lies the difference between two worlds: the world of merit, and the world of grace; the law contrasted with the gospel”’ (Klein, 52, quoting Jeremias, 1963, 139).

We need not belabor the point. It is a question worth pursuing, to what extent various theological axioms of Lutheran theology have governed the exegesis of New Tes- tament and Jewish texts and the historical reconstruction of early Judaism. Whether Roman Catholic scholarship has been affected by Reformation theology on this point might also bear investigation.

Broader than a specifically Lutheran-oriented exegesis is a kind of typologizing which the texts themselves elicit from a sensitive exegete or homiletician. The story of the Pharisee and the tax collector almost cries out for a typological interpretation. How does one treat it without reference to the fact that, after all, the text does speak about a Pharisee? Klein criticizes Karl Rahner because in one of his meditations he speaks disparagingly of the Jews in the Sanhedrin-although she notes that he draws a parallel to the Christian situation (101). There is a hermeneutical problem here. Is the preacher to do historical criticism in the pulpit? How does he or she deal with a text that speaks of the Jews or the Pharisees? There are several alternatives: explain that the text is making an unhistorical statement (historical criticism) and indicate that the point is universally applicable; totally ignore the reference to the Jews and speak to the audience and their situation (which hardly solves the problem); preach without reference to a scrip- tural text (difficult in traditions where preaching is based on canonical texts). The problem is not easily soluble in the context of proclamation. Yet it must be faced. However innocent some Christian typologizing may have been over the centuries (and some of it doubtless was), we have learned after Auschwitz how it has been put to demonic use, and that is ample reason to attempt a serious hermeneutical solution to the problem.

A FRESH APPROACH TO JUDAISM-AND-THE- NE W-TESTAMENT

Against the echo of the literature discussed in her main chapters and its reechoing in the essays of her students, Charlotte Klein calls for “a fresh, unbiased approach to Judaism” on the part of Old and New Testament scholars (142). T o this w e may call for a fresh approach also to the dependencies of New Testament thought on Jewish thought, to the historical question of the relationship of Jesus to his Jewish contemporaries, and to the relationship of the primitive church to the synagogue. The task is monumental, and no one I know is ready to speak the

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166 I Religious Studies Review Vol. 4, No. 3 I July 1978

definitive word on any of these matters. However, although the mass of new primary sources and the assortment of new methodologies is forbidding, it is also promising. The task will be facilitated by a healthy recognition of the limits of the methods used in the past as well as of the new methods we are learning from other disciplines. It is, moreover, a task requiring the cooperation of scholars of all persuasions. The work of Klein and Sanders makes clear-afresh-that Christian scholars ignore the insights of Jewish scholars to everyone’s detriment.

What did early Judaism look like? Klein has made some ad hoc suggestions to correct caricatures of Judaism as legalism (39, 46, 64, 83, 142). Almost as if in answer to Klein’s appeal for a new perspective, E. P. Sanders has provided us with 500 pages on the structure of Palestinian Jewish religion in this period and its relationship to its coun- terpart in Paul. In painstaking and systematic detail, he mounts a formidable attack on the notion that Judaism was legalism. Paul and Palestinian Judaism provides a fine starting point for those who look for a fresh approach toJudaism with some indications of its relevance for an understanding of the New Testament.

Study of early Judaism dare not be limited to the rabbinic sources. It is a strength of Sanders’ volume that he seeks to integrate his analysis of rabbinic literature with some of the documents of the Palestinian apocrypha and pseudepigrapha and with the Qumran corpus. On the other hand, Klein makes a serious mistake and miscalculation (though it is in no way central to her exposition) when she makes short shrift of the apocalyptic literature (27f., 60, 73-74). It is a mistake oft repeated by New Testament scholars, historians of Christianity, and theologians alike.

Several considerations require the historian of first- century Judaism to take these writings seriously. In the first place, it is anachronistic to use later, “normative” Judaism as a model for the shape of earlier Judaism. The existence of a large corpus of apocrypha and pseudepigrapha and the discovery of the Qumran scrolls and the Nag Hammadi codices are ample testimony to the wide diversity in early Judaism. We do not know that all the apocalyptic writings originated and circulated only on the fringes of Judaism. Their later rejection by the rabbis is no evidence that they were earlier held in wide disregard. There are interconnec- tions between Daniel, on the one hand, and the Testament oj- Moses and 1 Enoch, on the other. Moreover, the rabbis’ sup- posed hostility toward apocalyptic is more ambiguous than Klein will allow (74; see Davies, 1962): the book of Daniel was canonized! We must also explain how it is that apocalyptic traditions were channeled through a period of “normative” Judaism to later mystical traditions. In the second place, it is fallacious to judge the shape of earlier Judaism only on the basis of what later became canonical. That a work was not canonized need not imply any judgment on its theology. Judith and Tobit, to mention only two works, continued to be known and used in the Jewish community, as the Hebrew midrashim of the former and the Hebrew and Aramaic translations of the latter indicate.

The nonrabbinic writings of early Judaism are not only allowable and legitimate data for our study of this period, they are integral to acomplete and accurate picture of this period and its religion. Apocalyptic, for all its “extravagant flights of fancv and . . . endless attemDts to answer . . .‘How long?’”

(Bornkamm, 1960, 67; 1975, 59), is a widely varied phenomenon. The exhortations to “believe, be hopeful, and fear not” in 1 Enoch 92ff. are prima facie evidence that faith and trust in God were not lost virtues in Jewish religion (cf. Klein, 42). The author of Daniel calls his readers to responsibility in the face of the bitterest contingencies of history (Collins, 1977, 206-10). Taken together with 1 and 2 Maccabees, the early apocalypses are ample documenta- tion of the persistence of Jewish faith and faithfulness as they wrestled with the problems of theodicy in an existential context. There are glimpses of this in the rabbinic literature, but here are the contemporary sources. The Psalms of Sol- omon are an early reflection of Pharisaic-like piety. Psalm 3 in that collection suffices to put to rest the old canard that the use of the term “righteous” indicates an illusion of sinless- ness. The Testament of Abraham, however one explains the counterbalancing of good and evil deeds in the judgment, is a pointed protest against the self-righteous deprecation and condemnation of “sinners.” One could multiply examples to demonstrate that historians of early Judaism ignore these writings at their own peril.

Finally, the apocalyptic writings in particular are of great importance for an understanding of Christian origins. The New Testament’s saturation with apocalyptic terminol- ogy and conceptions, whatever their particular nuances, is sufficient to make this point. Whatever one’s Sachkritik of apocalyptic, the fact remains that it was an important com- ponent in the Jewish soil from which Christianity sprang.

A fresh approach to Judaism must deal with all the data empathically and in categories that are appropriate to them. Appraisals and interpretations of early Judaism and its writings have often been colored by the fact that they have been made in answer to Christian questions that are not always appropriate to the Jewish sources. The charge that the Jews were not sufficiently interested in messianic ideas (see Klein, 65) is a blatant example of this, but the phenomenon pene- trates much more deeply into the history of the study of early Judaism.

Complementing a fresh approach to Judaism should be a restudy of the Jewish contributions to the Christianity attested in the New Testament. We may cite only one rele- vant point, which has already received recent attention (Sanders, 1977, 515-18, and the literature cited in n. 1). Since the time of Luther, James has been castigated as the antithesis of Paul and his doctrine of justification by faith. But James is not alone. The concept that one’s eternal destiny will correspond to one’s deeds on earth is so prevalent in the New Testament as to be commonplace. It occurs in the Lukan materials about the rich (12: 13-21; 16:9; probably 16:19-31; 18:1&22 with parallels in Mark and Matthew; 19:l-10). It isexplicit in Matt. 25:31-46and John 5:25-29. It also occurs in the Pauline corpus itself, not only in 2 Cor. 5: 10, but also in Rom. 2:5-8 and Gal. 6: 7-8. Its occurrence in the Pauline letters should alert scholars in the Lutheran tradition (as well as in the Protestant tradition generally) to

Vol. 4, No. 3 /July 1978 Religious Studies Review / 167

the fact thatjustification by faith and judgment on the basis of works are not mutually exclusive alternatives for Paul. At the same time, it indicates that judgment on the basis of works cannot be used as evidence that Jeulish religion was legalistic. The categories inherited from the Reformation are in many cases simply inappropriate for an understanding of primitive Christianity and its Jewish context, as Kris- ter Stendahl has long argued (1976, 1-77 and 78-96 [a re- print of a 1963 article], 129-33) and as Sanders has now shown in detail (1977, passim).

Klein’s criticism of facile historical conclusions based on a naive reading of the gospels implies that we should at least attempt the very difficult historical task of trying to discern the relationship of Jesus and his Jewish contemporaries. Clearly the passion narratives have been influenced by later Christian apologetic, and the gospel material about the Pharisees reflects first-century controversy between Chris- tians and Pharisees. Above all, as Paul Winter has shown (1974,170-89), we must keep separate the question of Jesus’ relationships with the Pharisees and the problem of Jewish involvement in his death.

But what of Jesus’ relationship with the Pharisees? Klein tends to minimize any controversy or conflict; but the issue is not so clear. It would be useful to compare gospel statements about the Pharisees with stories in which they are depicted. In the latter, the issues are rarely those raised in the vituperative polemics of Matthew 23, to which Klein refers (67-68). The stories depict conflict over the proper observance of Torah with reference to the Sabbath, fasting, and table fellowship. As to the last of these, Jesus’ association with “sinners” is deeply embedded in the various strata of the gospel tradition. Implied therein is a reversal in emphasis vis-a-vis the commonplace of Jewish literature of this period: the righteous will be saved, the sinners destroyed. Some careful historical work is necessary at this point; for the issue is of obvious relevance in any consideration of the origins of the early church’s movement in the direction of a law-free religion.

As one raises the question of the relationship of Jesus to his Jewish contemporaries, the laudable desire to deal re-

cal inquiry through unsubstantiated minimizing of the pos- sible differences between Jesus and his contemporaries. In seeking the origins of this long-standing division between Christians and Jews, we must press the differences back as far as the evidence allows us to go.

It is interesting to survey on this point some recent Anglo-American and Jewish literature on Jesus. Paul Winter, who denies Pharisaic complicity in Jesus’ death and thinks that Jesus stood close to Pharisaism, allows for some dispute (1974, 188-89). C. K. Barrett, in Jesus and the Gospel Tradition (1975, 62-64), commends Winter’s book and agrees with his main hypotheses but sees more likelihood of a substantive conflict with the Pharisees. In John Bowker’s

Jesus and the Pharisees (1973, 38-52), where I perceive no anti-Judaism, the possibility of religious causes for Jesus’ death is allowed. Geza Vermes, a Jewish scholar, assumes in

Jesus the Jew (1976, 35-36) that there was a clash between Jesus and the Pharisees. In his popular work, A Gospel Por- trait: Jesus (1975, 44-45), Donald Senior speaks of such a conflict, although the book is sprinkled with warnings about an &Judaism.

SpIlSiMy With anti-JUd&Sm ShOUld ShQrt-Ch’CUh hiScOri-

Charlotte Klein has uncovered an ugly picture. It is not necessary to impugn motives; the facts tell the bitter story. Law-Gospel theology is not, it would seem, essentially or necessarily anti-Jewish, but has it spawned and informed an anti-Jewish reading of texts and reconstruction of ancient history? Typological interpretation has a long history and can be a useful homiletical and pedagogical device, but has it created and perpetuated stereotypes? Charlotte Klein has shown the need to raise these and other serious questions. There is another strain that runs through many of the quotations in Klein’s volume. Its dynamic has been pointed out by Krister Stendahl (1975, 336-37). Jesus’ critique of Judaism was spoken from within, in solidarity with his people, like that of the ancient Israelite prophets. When these traditions became the property of the Gentile church, they received a new setting. “They were not any longer operating within the framework of Jewish self-criticism. They hardened into accusations against ‘the Jew,’ the synagogue across the street, and against the people who claimed the same Scriptures, but denied its fulfillment in Jesus Christ” (1975, 336).

In the final analysis, anti-Judaism becomes a matter of person-to-person relationships (Klein, 13). Nonetheless, to the extent that bad theology affects both individual and communal attitudes and actions, Klein is correct in suggest- ing that a proper antidote can be found in the academic exercise of restudying the evidence and rethinking time- honored (and often time-bound) positions (142). Whether or not we North Americans are as free of anti-Judaism as Klein suggests is a moot question. The scholarly task is, however, international in scope and one that has existential dimensions and implications, as well as theoretical ones. Scholars on this continent will do well to consider the implications of Klein’s book.

~ ~~

REFERENCES

BARRE-IT, C. K. 1975 Jesus and the Gospel Tradition. London: SPCK. First published, 1967.

1960 ET Jesus of Nazareth. Harper. ‘O1975 Jesus von Nazareth. Stuttgart: Kohlhammer.

BOWKER, JOHN 1973 Jesus and th.e Pharisees. Cambridge: University Press.

COLLINS, JOHN J . 1977 The Apocalyptic Vision of the Book of Daniel. Harvard Semit- ic Monographs, 16. Scholars Press.

DAVIES, W. D. 1962 “Apocalyptic and Pharisaism.” In his Christian Originsand

Judaism. Westminster Press. Originally published in Expository Times 59 (1948), 233-37.

1964 ET Jesus, Paul and Judaism. Thomas Nelson.

1976 Review of works on antiljudaism and anti-Semitism. In Religious Studies Review 213, 15-22.

BURNKAMM, GGNTHER

COPPELT, LEONHARD

HARE, DOUGLAS R. A.

JEREMIAS, JOACHIM 1963 ET (rev.)

KISNG, HANS 1976 ET On Being a Christian. Doubleday.

LUTHER, MARTIN 1963 Luther’s Works. Vol. 26. Edited by Jaroslav Pelikan. Con- cordia Publishing House.

The Parables of Jesus. Scribner’s.

168 / Religious Studies Review Vol. 4, No. 3 I July 1978

MOORE, GEORGE FOOT 1921 “Christian Writers on Judaism.” Haruard Theological Re- vieu 14, 197-254.

SANDERS, E. P.

SANDMEL, SAMUEL

SCHLIER, HEINRICH

SCHORER, EMIL

SENIOR, DONALD

STENDAHL, KRISTER

1977 Paul and Palestinian Judaism. Fortress Press.

1978 Anti-Semitism in the New Testament? Fortress Press.

1968 E T

1907 Vol. 2. Reprinted, Hildesheim: George Olm, 1970.

1975 A Gospel Portrait: Jesus. F’fIaum Standard.

1975 ‘Judaism on Christianity: Christianity on Judaism.” In Frank E. Talmadge (ed.), Disputationand Dialogue: Readingsinthe

1976 Paul Among Jews and Gentiles. Fortress Press.

1976 Jesus the Jew. London: Fontana.

The Relevance of the New Testcment. Herder 8c Herder.

Geschichte des jiidzschen Volkes im Zeztalter Jesu Christi.

Jewish-Christian Encounter, 330-42. KTAV.

VERMES, GEZA

WINTER, PAUL 1974 On the Trial of Jesus. Revised and edited by T. A. Burkill

and Geza Vermes. Studia Judaica: Forschungen zur Wissen- schaft des Judentums, 1 . Berlin: De Gruyter.

DICTIONARY OF AMERICAN RELIGIOUS BIOGRAPHY By Henry Warner Bowden Westport, CT, and London: Greenwood Press, 1977 Pp. 572. $29.95

Reviewer: Stuart C . Henry Duke University Durham, NC 27706

Henry Bowden’s Dictionary of American Religious Biography, a collection of concise sketches of persons, known and little- known, who have played significant-though not always prominent-roles in the drama of American religion offers “infinite riches in a little room.” The list of those included runs an alphabetical gamut from nonsectarian Francis Ellingwood Abbot (early architect of an empirical theology oriented to Darwinian naturalism) through Nikolaus Lud- wig Zinzendorf (Moravian patron and preacher). In each case a succinct summary of career precedes the short essay to which is appended bibliographical information for both primary and secondary sources. The volume, well designed and intelligently edited, deserves the welcome place it will surely find on public reference shelves and in private li- braries. The 425 subject-entries qualify for the description in the Preface: “prominent individuals from many theological perspectives, geographical sections, vocational patterns, ethnic identities, and both sexes” collected with the assumption that the American religious experience has been “rich in complexity and variegation from the beginning” and “that pluralism has remained a constant factor on this continent from the earliest times to the present.” The statistical description, however, does not adequately indicate the significance of the work. The distinctive character of what Bowden has accomplished may well be overlooked.

There is a deceptive simplicity which informs the work. The author’s aim, modestly understated in the Preface, is “to incorporate vital statistics within sound interpretative judgments” and to do so “in a manner which stimulates further inquiry”; but it does not intrude upon the reader’s pleasure in examining and using the lucid and informative material. The measure of what Bowden has attempted is, of course, the challenge which every writer of biography must accept-namely, not simply to say what happened, but to say what it meant. Biography, and especially interpretative biography, has always had appeal for Americans. Puritans in Old and New England who read Bunyan’s spiritual auto- biography, Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners, were no more interested than the writer himself in the details of his marriage to a woman whose entire dowry consisted of but two pious tracts, or of his military service in the Parliamen- tary army. Or rather they were interested in the facts from a peculiar perspective. Narrowly such trivia concerned them only as they were able, for profitable instruction, to organize them under God, the origin and end of all human life. Their need for model and analogy was so satisfied with Bunyan’s proclamation of theology through his particular brand of biography that when, later, The Pilgrim’s Progress from This World to That Which Is to Come appeared, they immediately embraced it as an authentic statement of the gospel which they professed. Indeed, the Puritans read their copies so literally to pieces that a first edition of the volume is the most unlikely find anyone would ever discover in a second-hand bookstore. The circumstance alerts students of American religion-Puritan and otherwise-to the timeliness and point of the religious biographical essay as a type.

Although Bowden is in no way didactic, he presents facts with such sensitive selectivity, and with such interpretation, that the very telling of the life stories becomes an illumination of the essence of the subject of the essay. An example of the economy of expression and the instinctively wise choice of factual data is obvious in two brief sentences from the article on Reinhold Niebuhr:

Thirteen years as Evangelical and Reformed minister in Detroit developed a social conscience in Niebuhr which blended a realistic assessment of concrete situations with liberal expectations for im- proving them. He was strongly influenced by social gospel heritage as well as empirical, pragmatic strains in American religious thought, but he wrestled with them from the standpoint of Luther- an piety, emphasizing themes of human sin and justification.

In Biography as Theology James William McClendon, Jr., argues the case for teaching theology through just such effective telling of life stories. Referring to selected subjects of whom he writes he says that “their lives witness to their vision, even as they challenge the depth of our own,” and what is brought into question is not so much “the suitability of their vision to their own circumstances, but the justification of our present way of life when held against theirs” (McClendon, 1974, 110). If his assertions be true, then there is reason to believe that Bowden’s approach is defensi- ble both as a work of history (and Bowden is an historian) and also as a special presentation of theology as well. The essay on Washington Gladden is a gem of compact statement which projects Gladden’s profile against the screen of his times. As it happens, the story of his quarrel with Stan- dard Oil is not included, but the emphasis on the metamor-

anti-judaism in christian theology

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