The Misunderstood Jew: the Church and the Scandal of the Jewish Jesus

"I think that’s right. She’s a very funny and entertaining speaker and she writes entertainingly too. She’s very much writing from a Jewish perspective. She’s part of a trend that Vermes started, of Jews who were really interested in the New Testament and rediscovering their own Judaism through it. They also realised that they could tell us Christians something about the Judaism out of which Christianity emerged and therefore are able to enlighten us about Judaism in a way that is liberating for Christians. She really writes the stories. The book is called the Misunderstood Jew: the church and the scandal of the Jewish Jesus . It is a scandal that very often Christians have tried to avoid the Jewishness of Jesus and have viewed Jews as in some way inferior. She has chapters on Jesus and Judaism and then ‘from Jewish sect to Gentile church’. By the end of the first century Christianity was, in effect, Gentile, but it didn’t start like that. Then you’ve got ‘the New Testament and anti-Judaism’ and a very interesting chapter on stereotyping Judaism, her point being that Judaism comes in a multitude of dimensions and you can’t really stereotype it at all. Support Five Books Five Books interviews are expensive to produce. If you're enjoying this interview, please support us by donating a small amount . The book has a lovely opening. She says “when I was a child it was my ambition to be Pope”. She has this cheerful openness, which is very attractive. That’s right and she doesn’t pull her punches, either. I think she is. I mean most educated Christians nowadays would accept her points about anti-Judaism in Christianity, but we’re not really sufficiently aware of how much persecution of Jews has gone on in our name. We still need to resist that. You often find people casually making anti-Jewish remarks who are Christians; and she’s committed to educating them and she can do that because she is Jewish and she loves the New Testament. And she can say, “you Christians must get this sorted out.” Yes. She says it’s there, for example, in John’s gospel. The Greek words the evangelist uses are Hoi Joudaioi , which can mean either ‘the Judeans’ or ‘the Jews’. I always translate it as ‘the Judeans’ meaning the inhabitants of Judea, which makes it sound less horrible. In John’s gospel there are one or two rather dark remarks about ‘the Jews’, or ‘the Judeans’ and it sounds much worse if you translate it as ‘the Jews’. It gives some kind of impetus to anti-Jewish persecution. No, that’s Matthew. It’s another good example, and that has been used by Christians, but he clearly doesn’t intend it to enjoin persecution of the Jews. Matthew is a good Jewish boy and if you were to say to Matthew, “look, we can use this to attack those horrible Jews” he would be astonished."