Home
	About
	Programs
	Events
	Reports
	Articles
	Links

Annual Jewish-Christian Dialogue
in Calgary, Alberta, Canada

by Melanie Collison

When Jewish New Testament scholar Dr. Adele Reinhartz spoke in the annual Canadian Council of Christians and Jews dialogue series recently, everyone had the opportunity to learn something. Christians could see how their sacred texts are a root cause of anti-Semitism. Jews could see how it would enrich their appreciation of North American culture to understand the pervasive Christian symbols. Both groups could see the value of respecting each other's beliefs and practices.

Reinhartz teaches the New Testament in the department of religious studies at McMaster University and is associate dean of the school of graduate studies.

From the time Reinhartz was asked, 30 years ago, "What's a nice Jewish girl doing in New Testament studies?" she has spent an academic lifetime fending off critics who think for a Jew to study the New Testament is a kind of betrayal. 

On the contrary, her work counters anti-Semitism with education, allows Christians and Jews to appreciate each other's values, and offers a caution for today against using highly-charged polemical language. The child of Holocaust survivors, and sensitive to the powerful impact of anti-Semitism, Reinhartz did not set out to study the New Testament, but her experiences led her to it.

"My studies are in the service of the Jewish people. What better way to counter anti-Semitism than to expose Christian students to a different way of thinking. It was with a growing sense of vocation that I realized I had a chance to engage
them in their studies of early scriptures and cause them to rethink their concepts of Jews and Judaism."

Reinhartz provides her students with background and perspective they don't get in the New Testament. She believes a knowledge of Judaism is crucial to understanding early Christianity, and an understanding of Christianity is crucial to understanding first-century Judaism.

"The New Testament is one of the formative texts of Western civilization," Reinhartz told about 100 people at St. Andrews Presbyterian Church. 

The New Testament books of John and Matthew particularly contain numerous examples of anti-Semitic language. That language seeped into popular culture by medieval times, with Jews' being described and drawn as children of the devil. It is in evidence today in the diatribes of aides to U.S. black leader Louis Farrakhan.

In the Book of Matthew, for instance, a passage calls Pharisees hypocrites. Even today, while the Oxford Dictionary initially describes them as an ancient Jewish sect distinguished by strict observance of traditional and written law, the definition goes on to say "self-righteous person; hypocrite."

Rooted in the New Testament, negative images of Jews have penetrated deeply into our culture through the evolution of language, she says. At the same time, "Images of the New Testament are really very much a part of the ongoing cultural
representation."

Film clips provided a case in point. The protagonist in Shawshank Redemption is presented as a Christ figure, including a stance representing the resurrection of Christ, and in Dead Man Walking, an execution scene shadows the crucifixion.

The use of language of exclusion in the New Testament began when Jews who were followers of Jesus struggled for their own self-definition by differentiating themselves from Jews who were not followers of Jesus.

"As the political situation changed, the rhetoric took on a power it did not initially have," Reinhartz says. 

The situation is similar today as some Orthodox extremists in the U.S. recently claimed the Conservative and Reform movements are not Judaism and their rabbis are not rabbis. While many North American Orthodox distanced themselves from
such a proclamation, the son of the former chief rabbi in Israel picked up the rhetoric.

"It shows the dangers of using highly-charged polemical language" to define oneself, Reinhartz says. There is a need for a commitment to religious plurality and "a need for tolerance within the Jewish community and within the Christian community.

"To follow one path in belief and practice, whether in religion or lifestyle, does not require the invalidation of other paths or the denigration of those who choose them."