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The Jewish People & Jesus Christ THE JEWISH PEOPLE AND JESUS CHRIST A Study in the Controversy between Church and Synagogue by Jakób Jocz First published, 1949 Reprinted with some revisions, 1954 3rd Edition 1979 Digital Edition 2019 !1 of !312 About this digital edition This book has been reformatted for digital publishing. It differs from the original printed text in the following areas: - Page numbering (page references to Dr Jocz’s own works refer to the original published versions) - No index of names or subjects (but it is word searchable) - Positioning of notes after each chapter - Minor editing of the text (punctuation, etc.) - Document scanning may have introduced undiscovered errors !2 of !312 Author’s Note The writer desires to thank the present Dean of the the faculty of Edinburgh University, Prof. Hugh Watt, for encouragement; the former Dean, Principal W. A. Curtis, and Prof. Rankin for kind advice; the Rev. E. H. Kennedy for reading the script, Mr. Charles Johnson, M.A., and the Rev. W N Carter for reading the proofs, the latter also for compiling the Indices and last but not least his wife for her patient criticism and for typing the MS. The writer is also indebted to Dr. D. Daube his kindness in writing the Preface and to the Rev. F. N. Davey and his staff of the S.P.C.K. for their valuable help in the production of the book. Since the first edition of this book was published, Prof Schoeps' great work, Theologie und Geschichte des Judenchris, Tübingen, 1949, has appeared. Dr. Schoeps' construction of primitive Hebrew Christianity is founded upon a critical study of the pseudo-Clementine literature. Though the author of the present work finds the learned Professor's main premisses unacceptable, some suggestive remarks have been incorporated in this new edition. Dr. Schoeps' second volume, Aus frühchristlicher Zeit, Tübingen, 1950, has proved equally helpful. Otherwise this new edition is substantially unaltered. A glossary has been added. Author's Note to Third Edition This work first appeared in 1949. It was written in Great Britain during the difficult years of war when the Island was under constant threat of a German invasion. The rumours then circulating about the fate of European Jewry were so gruesome that one suspected them to be mere war propaganda. Alas, the facts turned out to be worse than were the rumours. A second, somewhat amended edition appeared in 1954. By this time I was acquainted with the work of Hans Joachim Schoeps: Die Theologie und Geschichte des Judenchristentums (1949) and Aus frühchristlicher Zeit (1950). My friend, H. L. Ellison, in his review of my book expressed regret that I had not had the opportunity to consult Schoeps' work on Hebrew Christianity. My views, he thought, would have been greatly modified had I read Schoeps. By 1954 I had read Schoeps carefully but he failed to change my position regarding primitive Hebrew Christianity. Subsequent discoveries have proved me right. The Dead Sea Scrolls have served to confirm my conviction that the messianic movement centring upon the person of Jesus represented a genuine but different form of Judaism from that of the Pharisees. Jacob Z. Lauterbach in his Rabbinic Essays (1951) still held to the monolithic concept of Judaism. For him Pharisaic Judaism, i.e. halakhic Judaism, is identical with the prophetic, i.e. biblical Judaism. This view still prevails among Jewish scholars. My own position I found later confirmed by David Daube's statement that during the three centuries preceding the destruction of the Second Temple "different classes, schools and individuals held different views even on important questions. But those warring parties never considered one another as outside Judaism" (David Daube, The New Testament and Rabbinic Judaism, 1956, p. 92). Before the destruction of the Temple in 70 A.D. Judaism was not of one piece. This is now supported by the discovery of the Qumran sect. There were, as there still are in our day, different modes of Judaism, all claiming authenticity. !3 of !312 It is of particular satisfaction to me that after the lapse of thirty years the results of my research are still standing up to scholarly testing. On the three main issues underlying my book no major changes are called for: (1) The reason for the conflict between Jesus and the Pharisees; (2) The impact of the prayer against heretics (birkat ha-minim); (3) The rapid spread of Hebrew Christianity among Jews following the fall of Jerusalem and the collapse of the Bar Cochba insurrection in 135 A.D. Additional discoveries of ancient documents have confirmed the prevalence of faith in Jesus as Messiah in certain Jewish circles. Hebrew Christians survived for many centuries not only as heretical sectarians but also as orthodox Christians in close relationship to the universal church (cf. Walter Bauer, Orthodoxy and Heresy in Earliest Christianity, 1971). J. L. Teicher has shown that a third century Hebrew document found in Duro-Europos is in fact a remnant of a Eucharistic prayer; and what was hitherto held to be a Gentile Church appears to be a Jewish Synagogue. A Eucharistic prayer, related in style to the Didache, found in an ancient Synagogue is a remarkable coincidence (cf. Jewish Quarterly Review, Oct., 1963). The extent of the success of Jewish Christians in the Synagogue is the only possible reason for the introduction of the malediction of heretics (Christians) in the Hebrew Prayer Book. After political disaster the gospel message offered new hope and vision to a defeated people. No less a luminary in Israel than Simeon Ben Zoma, the contemporary of Rab Akiba and the pupil of Joshua ben Hananiah, was, according to Samson H. Levey, a Jewish Christian (cf. Judaism, 1972, pp. 455 ff.). Levey describes his discovery as "the best kept secret of the rabbinic tradition." This was done, Levey explains, in order "to keep the matter as quiet as they could, so as not to lend strength to the aggressive evangelism of the early Church and its zealous missionaries who were working among the Jewish people." By pronouncing Ben Zoma of unsound mind the rabbis hoped to remove the scandal. The stratagem of misrepresentation or silence was a much practiced method used by the ancient rabbis. Lauterbach writes: "It is quite possible that these earlier teachers knew more about the origin of Christianity than they cared to report or had occasion to express even to their contemporaries and disciples" (Rabbinic Essays, p. 475). Since the publication of my book, Jesus and the Pharisees, the Law and Gospel, and related subjects have received continuous attention from Jewish and Christian writers. The literature is too extensive to be quoted here. More recently John Bowker has stressed the accuracy of the Marcan Gospel in regard to the Pharisees: Jesus's offence was the assumption of authority, which his opponents regarded as blasphemous (cf. Jesus and the Pharisees, 1971). Walther Schmidhal denies a rift between James and Paul on the question of the Law. He believes that the "Judaizers" were of a much later date (Paul and James, 1965). Paul was not against the Law; what he denied was that the Law was sufficient for justification before God. Similarly, the birkat ha-minim has been widely discussed, especially by Jewish scholars. Some still deny the connection between the malediction of the heretics and early Jewish Christianity. Arthur I. Waskow applies the malediction to Jewish informers who betrayed revolutionaries to the Roman government. He rests his view on the term malshinim (slanderers), ignoring the fact that the term does not belong to the original text (cf. Judaism, 1971, p. 404). Similarly, Peter Schafer holds that the malediction was intended against Rome and was not the !4 of !312 cause of separation between Christians and Jews (cf. Judaica, Heft 2, June, and Heft 3, Sept., 1975). But his argument is not convincing. Many and extraordinary events have taken place since this book was first published. Just to mention a few: the Holocaust of European Jewry; the changed attitude towards Jews on the part of the Church since Vatican II; the creation of the State of Israel; the emphasis upon dialogue instead of mission on the part of the churches in respect to Jews; the ever widening concept of ecumenicity; and, of course, the already mentioned discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls. It was materially impossible to incorporate the impact of these events in the present volume. I have therefore decided to publish a second volume under the title: The Jewish People and Jesus Christ After Auschwitz. This will bring the convoluted story of Jews and Christians up-to-date. The two volumes, though independent, complement each other. The first volume provides the historic background for what became burning issues for the Christian Church after World War II, namely the fate and destiny of historic Israel and Christian guilt in respect to the Jewish people. Writing as a Jewish Christian I stand between Church and Synagogue. In this unusual position I owe a debt to both. It has been my endeavour to treat a difficult subject in a scholarly manner, though I have not tried to hide my own convictions regarding Jesus Christ. The book was received with acclaim by most scholars and the reading public. To my knowledge the only negative review was by James Parkes, a fellow-clergyman and a member of my own Church. Writing for the Jewish Chronicle (London) he showed unreasonable prejudice against Jewish Christians. On the Jewish side, Chaim Lieberman of the New York Yiddish daily Forward (June 26, 1951) gave vent to as much malignment as he could muster. His avowed intention was to mislead the public by inventing his own version of the book.
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