Jerome and the Jews

Innovative Supersessionism

Krewson

• Publisher: Wipf and Stock
• Year: 2017
• eBook ISBN: 9781498218238
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Jewish History

Jerome rocked the boat in which the early church had been comfortably settled for two hundred years. He upset Christian tradition by arguing for the priority of the Hebrew Old Testament over the supposedly inspired Greek Septuagint. He learned Hebrew from a Jewish teacher and translated the Old Testament directly from Hebrew into Latin. Not only did his new Latin translation create turmoil, but the inclusion of Jewish interpretations in his commentaries furthered the controversy. Unlike his contemporaries, Jerome viewed the Jews and their homeland as a source of information and inspiration.However, at the same time, Jerome freely admitted his hatred of the Jews and their religion. His caustic rhetoric reinforced the Christian church's displacement of the Jews, but it seems to oppose his move toward appreciating Jewish resources. This book illuminates Jerome's contradictory personality, proposes a solution, and explores avenues for current Christian and Jewish relations in light of Jerome's model.

Chapter 1

A Survey of Recent Scholarship

As a fourth-century Christian writer, Jerome’s attitude of hostility to the Jews comes as no surprise. Christian theology had bred a sense of superiority for several centuries before him, and Christian culture had begun to legislate its dominance since the time of Constantine. However, before a study can be made of Jerome’s statements about the Hebrew text, Jewish exegesis, and the ancient Hebrew homeland, the larger backdrop of the Christian culture of supersessionism must be considered as it has been studied in recent times. The context of Jerome’s Christianity and its interface with the Jewish people and their religion has been the subject of several centuries of scholarly thought. In order to understand Jerome’s statements about Jews, and to provide the proper context for appreciating his selective appropriation of their resources coupled with his active relation with living Jews, I will summarize the history of Christian and Jewish relations in the early centuries of the church.10

Review of the Scholarship of Christian Supersessionism

This review will examine four historical phases of scholarship and include the important literature in each period as well as an appraisal of the presuppositions behind each position. Without an awareness of the flow of thought by historians and theologians, one cannot appreciate the difference between late ancient Christians’ conception of themselves in relation to the Jews and those who afterward read the literature with attentiveness to subsequent history and theological strategies. With an appreciation of the progress of scholarship and its theological implications, there is a growing hope for meaningful conversation and understanding in the contemporary discussions between Christians and Jews.

The First Phase: Christian Supersessionism of Judaism

The critical study of early Christianity began in the nineteenth century with Adolf von Harnack, whose work set the stage for much of the scholarship of the twentieth century.11 His 1902 publication of Die Mission und Ausbreitung des Christentums in den Ersten Drei Jahrhunderten pioneered the way for much of the subsequent scholarship of ancient Christianity. His “uncritical reading of Judaism through the filter of Christian polemic” resulted in his own emulation of the supersessionism found in the early texts.12 Scholars now realize that his Christian supersessionism inspired him to draw conclusions about Judaism of the early centuries without any historical evidence. As an example of his prejudicial stance against Jews, Harnack writes:

As Christianity is the only true religion . . . it follows that it can have nothing in common with the Jewish nation and its contemporary cultus. The Jewish nation in which Jesus Christ appeared, has, for the time at least, no special relation to the God whom Jesus revealed. Whether it had such a relation at an earlier period is doubtful . . . but certain it is that God has now cast it off, and that all revelations of God, so far as they took place at all before Christ . . . must have aimed solely at the call of the ‘new people’, and in some way prepared for the revelation of God through his Son.13

Further, Harnack asserts several positions that successive scholarship accepted at face value, one of which is that the synagogue’s expansion throughout the Roman Empire prepared the way for Christianity’s arrival and acceptance, and in this way the Jews served to prepare the fertile ground in which Christianity grew. He also states that the synagogue had transformed itself from a temple-based cultus into a universal moral influence and laid the groundwork for the acceptance of the universal Christian message, thus demonstrating that in many ways the servant Israel worked for the good of the exalted Christian church. Harnack argues that Judaism sought converts with missionary zeal from the Gentile areas into which it penetrated. Finally, reflecting his position of Christian superiority and Jewish weakness, Harnack views ancient Christian polemics against Jews as purely fictitious rather than real since he reasons that the Jews would not have been able to mount such attacks in their deteriorating condition. Shaye Cohen reveals that the weak ground of Harnack’s argument was the underlying Christian supersessionism that dominated nineteenth-century Protestantism in Germany: Harnack’s “theological history was (at least here) more theology than history, and a theologian does not need footnotes.”14

The following narrative, reflective of Harnack’s influence, summarizes the dominant conversation in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries about early Christian history and the church’s relation to the Jews.15 Christianity arose within Judaism of the first century. Christians, both Jewish and Gentile, had ongoing contact with Jews in society and in the synagogue until a crucial turning point in history—the destruction of the Jewish temple in 70 c.e. This social disruption forced Christian Jews to separate from their fellow Jews, who were under Roman persecution, and to flee from such persecution in Jerusalem for safety in the Transjordian city of Pella. Their exit effectively negated Jewish influence in the new Christian church, signaled their demise, and elevated Gentiles to leadership in the emerging Christian church. The final Jewish Revolt in 135 c.e. served to cement the split between Jews and Christians, institutionalizing differences between rabbinic Judaism and proto-orthodox Christianity. The growing Gentile influence in the church established itself in the major cities west of the land of Palestine and included cultural and philosophical adaptations from the Greco-Roman world, whereas the Jews remained defeated and lived throughout Diaspora cities in their self-imposed isolation. From this point in history, Christian contact with Jews surfaced only in debate or to enhance Gentile understanding of the Old Testament. Additionally, this model portrays rabbinic Judaism as a parallel movement to orthodox Christianity, which had quickly institutionalized itself in resistance to mainstream Christianity in the first century. The Council of Jamnia (Yavneh) brought unanimity to the diverse Judaisms that existed prior to the destruction of the temple by affirming the dominant position of rabbinic Judaism. The “curse on the Minim [Christians]” finalized the split from the Jewish side by excluding Jewish and Gentile Christians from the synagogue. Jewish contact with Christians was rare as evidenced by vague references in the Talmud, and Christian contact with Jews was just as rare. Such supposed relations were merely rhetorical devices to serve Christian interests but had little historical verity.

It was with this narrative in mind that scholarship in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries read the early Christian texts. Such a reading simply reflects the tenor of the primary sources, as these scholars consider their writings to be essentially historical and theologically correct. Further, they encourage the rhetoric of triumphalism by naming the Jewish religion in the first century “Late Judaism,” revealing an assumption that first-century Judaism was near its demise. This account of Late Judaism begins its description of “Early Judaism” with the era of divine revelation and covenant kingship (1200–539 b.c.e.). However, Israel forfeited divine blessing after its exile (539 b.c.e.–70 c.e.) and thus began the slow dying process th...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Acknowledgments
• Abbreviations
• Introduction: Jerome’s Place in Christian Supersessionism
• Chapter 1: A Survey of Recent Scholarship
• Chapter 2: “Return to the Source”
• Chapter 3: “Back to the Hebrew Truth”
• Chapter 4: “Bethlehem . . . Now Ours”
• Chapter 5: “Ask the Jews!”
• Bibliography