Trudy Gold
My Historic Jesus: Questions and Debate
Trudy Gold and Dr. Helen Fry - My Historic Jesus: Questions and Debate
- Can I, before we open up, may I-
[Trudy] We have.
[Judi] Wendy we have opened up. We are live.
Okay. Alright.
[Trudy] You’re online.
Okay sorry. I didn’t realise that. My mother asked a question, why did Michelangelo paint Moses with horns?
Oh, you can answer that Helen, can’t you?
[Helen] Yes.
I don’t want to jump the queue. I don’t want to jump the queue so make her.
I need to write down the Hebrew word. It’s keron, isn’t it?
Karen, Karen, ray.
Karen, sorry?
Karen, ray. It’s a mistranslation of Hebrew.
[Helen] Just give me one second.
You see your mom gets special treatment. It’s not so she should. It’s a mistranslation of the Hebrew.
Alright, so it’s two minutes past the hour and if I don’t get a chance, just I want to say to everybody, thank you so much for participating in Lockdown University this past 2021 and I want to wish everybody a happy and healthy and fulfilling 2022. So over to you.
Thank you very much Wendy.
Thank you to Trudy and to Helen and to Judi. Thanks so much.
Thank you very much Wendy. Well good evening everyone. And you might have heard me say to Helen we have over 400 questions, which is quite extraordinary. But the first thing I want to say before we begin this dialogue is I really want to give a great thanks to my very close friend, Helen Fry. Because she has put her heart and her soul into the last four presentations. And I think she has been extraordinarily honest with us on what is obviously a very, very difficult subject. Now, as I said, we’ve had over 400 questions. Questions on minutiae of life, which is just basically factual. Helen’s providing a very good comprehensive book list. And we do hope that we will discuss this with Wendy, that we will have further talks in this vein. What we really decided to do to make it easy and more enjoyable for you is that we’re going to look at the big themes that many of you have asked questions on and given comments. And can I also say we’ve had some extraordinary comments from people. From Holocaust survivors who were hidden by righteous Christians. And I really want to say thank you as well. So let me start Helen, by posing one of the questions that kept on coming up. How do we really uncover the historical Jesus? And the second part of that question, when does Messiah to the Christians mean divinity?
Thank you Trudy, and can I echo that from our audience? Extraordinary questions. Very touching actually and honest. So thank you too to the audience for being honest in return. How do we know about the historical Jesus? Well in the gospels, this is part of the problem with the four gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. If we take John out of the equation for a moment because the gospel of John is later, it’s 80 possibly 90 CE. So scholars, when they’re looking at how can we uncover the historical words of Jesus, what was the essence of His message which convinced the vast majority of Christian scholars to reroute Jesus in His Jewishness. So they’ve taken the three gospels, which are closest to each other, Matthew, Mark and Luke. Mark is the earliest. Matthew and Luke, Luke is slightly earlier than Matthew. Scholars argue over whether Matthew was written around the time of the destruction of the temple in 70, possibly just after. But if you compare the three gospels and there is a book that you can get. I don’t know if it’s still in print, where they put the stories side by side.
And it’s interesting, this is what I did at university. So you take those three gospels, you look at them side by side and very quickly you can see that some stories appear in some, particularly the birth stories that don’t appear in others. And then you’ve got a layer of tradition where the sayings are either the same or very, very similar. And you can see where a later community has redacted a saying. Now there’s a whole body, and this is the final thing I want to say about this really. That’s the sort of methodology that scholars would use. But very quickly, if you do the comparisons and whether you highlight it in particular colour or like we did at university, there is what emerges as a basic tradition of sayings that are earlier than those three gospels. And it was known as Q, the Q tradition. Why Q, I don’t know why they named it Q, but Q is the tradition which is the earliest and believed to be the closest. So let’s not forget that what was told about Jesus after his death and resurrection was told by oral tradition. This was not written down until much, much later. So again, I don’t think I clarified that in my lectures. So we’re not talking about written texts at this point. So you’ve got the earliest of Q tradition, which Matthew, Mark and Luke all draw on. Mark has some stories which aren’t in the other two. So scholars discuss this in the books that I’ve put on my book list, particularly E.P. Sanders, his work will go into this in more detail. And you can look at some of the difficult sayings. Now in terms of your question on messiahship and divinity. I hope I’ve argued convincingly, but what do I think from a study of the texts and traditions in the development, certainly you don’t see any aspect of divinity. So believing that in very simplistic terms, Jesus being God. I mean that’s even simplistic for the church fathers. But in some sense, part of the divinity of Jesus doesn’t come until after the destruction of the temple. And that for me, that cataclysmic event is what catalyses or is the catalyst for religious thinking, predictive sacrificial system onto the person of Jesus that wasn’t there before. And then that very quickly defines inter divinity, by the time we get to the gospel of John, 1890 CE as I’ve said, by then we’ve got the Greek or Roman world coming in the Greek world. And you’ve got this whole idea of divinity coming in and the word, whatever the word is, dwelling in Jesus and the whole divinity. So just to finish your second question, I don’t believe Paul in any way saw Jesus as divine yeah-
It’s very Anti-Jewish, isn’t it? Because Messiah means anointed one. And there have been many failed Messiahs in Jewish history because the whole purpose of messiahship, which is recounted in the apocrypha and in the Hebrew Bible, was the coming of the person, a person who would save the Jews and bring the light to the world and hasten the coming of the days. So in many ways, the divinity notion comes far. It doesn’t come from Judaism at all. And I think that’s one of the problems. So going on from that point, of course the real problem, bearing in mind of course that the gospels are written under Roman rule. So under no circumstances are you going to make the Romans the bad guys.
Yeah.
When does it actually become dangerous with the notion that the Jews are responsible for the death of God? Because when Jesus becomes divine, we move into the world of the daicide. And as you so brilliantly discussed, super session, and I think these are the two categories that made Christianity so dangerous for the Jews. For one reason, and there were a lot of questions on this. When Rome takes on board Christianity as its state religion, Jews have no power. They’ve lost their country.
[Helen] Yeah.
And you talked about synagogue downcast, church triumphant. From now on, the Jews are going to be at the mercy of a world which is becoming more and more Christianized because even after Rome falls, Christianity goes on the march. So my question on this, why do you think Christianity spread like wildfire? What was it about Christianity that made it spread so much from pagan to pagan?
I think it’s that curiosity with monotheism. I think that, you know in the gentile world there was this curiosity with monotheism, with Judaism, and it’s something just to go back ever slightly earlier, I think the supersessionist theology came before the daicide.
[Trudy] Yeah.
So we see that gradually that Judaism has been superseded, overtaken by the church. And that is the beginning of something which is becoming quite dangerous. But it’s really historically two communities which were so close, faith and fratricide. You know sibling rivalry that becomes so intense. And it’s really the turning point, I think the dangerous point. I think before the destruction of the temple I do want to say this, I think Christianity would not have been a new religion, would’ve stayed Paul’s version of Christianity. Yes he’s appealed to the gentile world, it caused problems. But they had come to some kind of agreement with the Jerusalem church. And you know obviously there are people who might disagree with me on this, but I think really the turning points, the destruction of the temple, you have the continued existence of Judaism, which the church sees as a threat and continue to see as a threat for 2,000 years. I believe ‘cause it was successful and you know, wasn’t accepting the church’s message, the church developing an exclusivity. But for me personally, the dangerous point comes with Melito of Sardis with the charge of daicide. Because now the moment you start demonising the other, they are dispensable. You can kill them, ultimately you can kill them. So that for me is the dangerous point.
And also, I think it’s very important to point out, which also-
[Helen] I think you’ve frozen.
What?
[Helen] Yeah, sorry.
What adds to Anti-Judaism of course, is that gradually as Europe becomes Christianized, the Christian guilds take over and Jews are put into very, very small occupational patterns because they’re international, because they are literate, they really do become the merchants and traders and the association of the Jews with money. So ironically, I think it’s church law that makes that happen. So I think if you like the double-edged sword, so on one level you’re the Christ killers, and on the other level you are the people who lend us money. And that makes you very, very vulnerable.
[Helen] Yes.
So I think it’s these two strands that come together that certainly by the time you get to the period of the crusades, the Jews have almost been diabolized. And then of course it leads to accusations such as the blood libel. I mean there were quite a few questions on the blood libel. Do you want to comment on that at all, Helen?
Well there was questions about the Eucharist, about the bread and wine.
Yeah.
Of course scholars do disagree whether Jesus’ last supper was a Passover or whether it was something else. And again, the thinking has developed within the Christian churches. I mean, there’s no way that even in the day of Paul, so I see that demarcation of the temple being absolutely crucial even with this. Before then there is no concept and the wine becoming anything different. And of course the churches disagree. I think we might have frozen. The Catholic church believing in what’s called transubstantiation. Just wait to see if we can- Did you catch this Trudy? Or if it’s cut out.
Yes I’m hearing everything Helen. I can hear everything.
You’re hearing me. So for example, with all kinds of things get mixed up. The Roman Catholic church believing in transubstantiation that in some sense in-
You’re frozen Helen.
it in the mass that literally becomes the body and blood of Christ. I mean this is really difficult stuff. And so we have to understand that Christianity has significantly developed in its concepts way, way away from anything in the early just Jewish Christian communities. And that I think is why we have to ask questions. And you and I have discussed privately before, how far back can Christians legitimately go to reclaim early parts of the tradition? You can’t just wipe out 2,000 years of religious development, but then I think religious ideas should not be fixed.
You see I would say as a Jew, that much of Christianity owes far more to pagan tradition, Greek tradition, Roman tradition, even the tradition of Tassers than it does to Judaism. It shares the moral law, that’s for sure. But I think apart from that, and also don’t forget how Judaism developed after the destruction of the temple by the Romans. You move into the period of Rabbinic Talmudic Judaism. So you’ve got a real parting of the ways. And yet you know, if we were Freudians, we would say, “Look the whole notion of the killing of the Father” Judaism on one level is claimed by both Christianity and Islam to be a parent religion, but an aberrant parent as it were. So basically now we come on to I suppose the numb of it because the Jews are powerless in the diaspora. They really, how do they survive? They survive when they are useful to the sovereign rulers, loathed in the main by the church, but useful to secular princes because of their literacy, their international contacts, the fact that they are the money lenders. I mean the first blood libel ever applied to the Jews. I think it’s fascinating because the blood libel if you think about it, it comes from pagan ritual and Jews have such a taboo on blood. But it happens in the English Civil War, in the first English Civil War when a local prince was up to his neck in debt to the Jews. And it was Easter time, always a bad time for the Jews. And consequently a rumour went around that a Christian child had been crucified and the blood used for sacrifice and it spread like wildfire. And of course you mentioned also the idea of the wandering Jew with the mark of Cain. So you have all this diabolization. So I suppose we come to the big one and there were so many questions on this and you and I have discussed this quite often privately. We both agree that there is this very long tradition of Anti-Judaism. Did The Enlightenment in your view make many dents in the European enlightenment?
No, none whatsoever.
That’s the tragedy, isn’t it, Helen? That is the tragedy.
Yeah. Yeah because even with the development of the Protestant traditions and the Reformed traditions, the Antisemitism carry through.
And I think one of the tragedies of the Jew, particularly in the 19th century in Europe, and of course we’re going to be looking at the Hapsburgs in particular, they were so desperate to be part of European society, they fell in love with it. And they believed that if they were good citizens it would all be fine. And yet Anti-Judaism transmutes, because there were many questions on the difference between Antisemitism and Anti-Judaism. And I think the point is one leads to the other, but Antisemitism comes out of the 19th century race theories. It’s about race.
[Helen] Yeah.
And it doesn’t matter if you’re Karl Marks. You know, an atheist, or you’re actually baptised or whether you’re a Hasidic Rabbi, a Jew is a Jew by blood. So it transmutes into one, but I think its basis is church Anti-Judaism. That’s what sets the seed. And now we come to the other horror story, and this came up many, many, many questions. To what extent is Christianity culpable in the Showa? I’m going to put it very basically and bluntly.
Yeah absolutely. I mean I hope I showed through our discussion yesterday, through the lecture yesterday, that there is definitely a direct line between centuries of Christian Anti-Judaism that becomes secular Antisemitism. And that the churches have by and large recognised that tradition. The tragedy as I see it. So I think we can safely say and it comes out, doesn’t matter if it’s Nostra Aetate or the World Council of Churches, my understanding is pretty much to a church, all the different traditions have recognised, even the more Evangelical fundamentalist forms have recognised that link and have tried in their own ways to rectify it. I think for me the Evangelical perspective is far more problematic because it’s much more traditionally Christian. I don’t think it actually deals with it, but you have the Christian churches by and large making that link and recognising. But I don’t think they’ve gone far enough because you’ve got the recognition that the covenant with Judaism is still valid, to use sort of Christian language if you like. But what are the consequences of that if the covenant is still valid? I’m just giving you one example. If the covenant is still valid, should we have a mission to Jews?
I mean-
Should we be converting Jews? No, absolutely not. So I think the churches have gone so far in their statements and they’ve renounced the charge of daicide, but I don’t think they’ve gone far enough. They haven’t categorically said, “Okay I apologise, it’s Christian language that salvation is available outside the church.” I mean there are some theologians like Professor John Hick, brilliant guy who was a sort of pluralist who believed that salvation, redemption is in all religions. Okay you’ve got a moral code, but there’s still so much that’s invested in the churches that there is only really by and large one way to achieve salvation, afterlife, however you want to describe it. And I think that is problematic if the churches are going to properly correct its theology of Judaism. Does that make sense Trudy?
It makes total sense to me. I’ll lighten it a little. When we were working in China, I had to have meetings with Chinese officials and their great hatred was the missionary movement.
Yeah.
Because this notion- And I mean, if you think of the bravery of some of those missionaries, they were. But to actually say that there is only salvation through one path, and Judaism is much more eclectic on that. I mean Moses Mendleson, when he was challenged on this in The Enlightenment, and he actually said, “What I believe is there are many paths to the truth provided you live a moral life.”
Yeah.
And he actually said, “If a Confucian comes to me, am I meant to convert him?” It is a problem. And I think it’s still a big problem because Evangelicals still believe that they have to convert us. And ironically, in America, some of the best friends of the Jewish state are Evangelicals because-
What happens?
They’ve got their own purposes. So in a way it’s- And what you’re saying, Nostra Aetate went a certain level along but-
It didn’t go far enough.
Well I think also, if you remember Nostra Aetate, it happens because of the wonderful Pope John the 23rd who in the war Angelo Roncalli actually saved Jews. He’s a wonderful man. And because you had Kennedy, a Catholic president of America, and the American Cardinals were trying to push it. But there was a huge reaction in the Vatican against it because in a way it undercuts certain premises of Christianity and it hasn’t gone far enough. The other thing, I mean, I don’t know how far we want to go along about this, but the Archbishop of Canterbury has actually- And there was a letter in the Times, there was a letter in the Telegraph, actually complaining about the treatment of Christians in Israel. Now it’s fascinating they single out Israel because the Christian population, and I’m not saying there haven’t been issues, I’m not saying that. But when you look at the treatment of Christians in Arab countries
[Helen] Yeah.
And how the Christian population of Israel has increased so much, I think it’s really gone up tenfold. So what are we saying? Now when does that- Now you help me with my Jewish paranoia, is that Antisemitism? When you have that kind of statement from the head of the church actually saying, and the patriarchs, all the Christian leaders have been saying that Israel is behaving unbelievably badly. In fact, they use much stronger language than that. That’s another question for you. Post Showa-
Mhm.
And we come back to that. Are Jews expected to behave more morally than any other people?
No they shouldn’t be. I think, you know that we’ve lost this kind of balance and it all comes back I think, and it’s all kind of connected to the meeting and the dialogue. So we’ve had Nostra Aetate, we’ve had the World Council of churches, we’ve had the different church statements, we’ve got stuck. Where’s the progress in the dialogue? And I think one of the questions that was raised, or one of the comments was actually perhaps all this has now been superseded by the Antisemitism directly connected with the state of Israel, which wasn’t there before. And it’s really virulent and it’s quite violent, you know, hark back to my son’s experience with the Palestinian flag, utterly terrifying to see this on the streets of Britain. What’s going on? You know, is it too late for the churches really to have done anything? I just think these are urgent times. And in terms of the meeting, I worry that we are not bringing groups together. And let me give you an example Trudy. It’s one because I have children, you have children and grandchildren. So it’s relevant.
Please God buy you soon.
Well, you never know.
I have to use Jewish irony, go on.
I accept, that sounded like there’s a compliment. This whole area of education and it does bother me. And whether it’s adult education, whether it’s education of our children, this whole thing of single faith schools, and I’m sorry to bring it up now, but I think it’s part, not the only problem, but it does bother me as a non-Jew. That my sons grew up in a school which once upon a time was 60% Jewish. And while they were there, there was one Jewish lad, it was an all boys school, and obviously quite a lot of them are now Muslim students. And fine, they’re mixing. But the problem is the Anti-Israel sentiment that’s going around the school, not necessarily the school per se, but amongst those pupils. And they’ve never met a Jewish person, even though they’re in Northwest London. And I said to my sons, “What’s the problem? Why are they like this?” You know ‘cause the education at the school, they don’t tolerate any racism. They educate religiously, equality across their faith communities, in their religious education. And they said it’s being taught behind closed doors in homes. So how do we reach that? Because I don’t think we’re going to make any progress in Antisemitism until we look at where’s it coming from and where’s it being taught.
I think you’re asking some very deep and important questions. Look, in the Christian tradition, it’s 2,000 years old. It wasn’t the only cause of the Holocaust, but I think certainly many historians like Robert Wistrich would actually say it’s the plank that allowed all the other things to happen.
Yeah.
Look, of course there are- I mean the great Yehuda Bell, he lists nine factors that led, but he does say that Anti-Judaism, Antisemitism, it’s the one that made the soil rich, if you like.
Yeah.
It’s what made decent people turn away as well. Look, obviously Nazism was pagan and all the rest of it, but I’m not talking about that. The majority of the perpetrators were Christian. So you’ve got that 2,000 year old history. There’s a very interesting statement of the late Rabbi Jonathan Sachs, when he said, “First they hated our religion, then our race, now our people.” Look the state of Israel. Let’s apply a bit of psychology to this. The state of Israel came into being three years after the Showa.
Mhhm.
A quarter of the population of Israel in the first 10 years were Holocaust survivors. And in Israel amongst the Jewish tradition, there are two traditions, and . And can the world deal with Jews as anything but victims?
Mhhm.
So you’ve got that issue. I don’t know if you want to come on it. And then of course you’ve got the overlay of Muslim Anti-Judaism, Antisemitism. And it’s ironic, isn’t it that basically, and of course we could talk about this for hours and hours. In the main Islam historically was a better place for Jews to live in Christian Europe. I’m talking now of course, the gold native Spain, et cetera, et cetera.
Yeah.
There were periods of intolerance and horror. But basically when Islam felt itself to be secure, the Jews were secure. But that’s hugely different than actually the creation of a Jewish state in the Middle East when the Dhimmi people, the Christians, according to Muslims bring into being another Dhimmi people, the Jews, to create their own state. And I think one of the underlying problems, I mean when did Antisemitism enter the Muslim world? Well, unfortunately Helen, it’s a Christian import. It begins with the Damascus affair. So ironically it enters the Muslim world through Christianity and then after that particularly and then you have the Mufti of Jerusalem and that horror during the war and then post-war. It’s fascinating how it’s lit up the Arab world. It’s come from two sources. Ironically, it’s come out of Russia when Nasser becomes leader of Egypt and creates the UAR, Russia’s looking for allies. I mean for example, Abassa who is head of the Palestinian authorities, he did his PhD at the Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow on the link between Zionism and the Holocaust. It’s gone so far that they actually accuse the Zionist of being in league with the Nazis, this inversion. And it also came through the Nazis themselves. I mean one of them, Gebrus, best propagandist from Lee’s went to work in Egypt. So that’s how it begins.
Yes.
And also don’t forget Islam also sees Judaism as a parent religion. You know, Jews don’t have problems outside the world of monotheism. They don’t have problems in Hindu, India. They do not have problems in China. It’s the monotheistic tradition that is the problem. Now you said, what on earth can we do about it? Well, there are so many interfaith organisations. My question to you is do they actually achieve anything?
Well, this is my concern as well because you know, there was a lot of optimism in the 1990s when I was heavily involved in the interfaith dialogue, in particular with the Jewish Christian dialogue. We’ve got them but you know, you had the meeting of like-minded people. You had the sort of liberal Jews meeting the liberal Christians. And occasionally you would have some Evangelical Christians who believed that maybe ultimately they would be friendly with the Jews. But ultimately the Jews would hear them and sort of magically convert, supporting the state of Israel. But at the end of the day we have to be really careful because it was sort of nice tea parties with cups of tea and salmon sandwiches. And I’m not really sure- Where there was so much optimism but now everything’s been turned on its head. Who would believe there would be such a rise of extremism in many religions today that have caused a problem which make dialogue impossible?
Well I think we understand why extremism comes to the fore. Because basically if you look through history when there’s economic, social and political uncertainty, people like certainties. Now you have a flexible mind. You’re a woman of The Enlightenment. That’s different. To be a woman of The Enlightenment or a person of The Enlightenment is difficult because you have to answer questions all the time. I still think that dialogue is worth it, but not that kind of dialogue. We actually need-
No, no. We need education Trudy.
Yeah but only a certain kind of education.
Yeah.
Because to educate people, the Nazis should teach us that high level of education doesn’t mean anything. I think somehow we’ve got to teach people to coexist with each other. That we are allowed to be different. And that provided we all stick to a moral law and good citizens of the countries in which we live. I think this is very important. I think that’s terribly important. If you live in a country where there is a moral law, then you live by that moral law. And I think-
Yes absolutely.
When I say education Helen, I mean you’ve spent four hours teaching a very bright group of people, but they didn’t know much about what you were saying. You know that, we can tell that from the questions. Some of them of course have a huge amount of knowledge. But I’d say the majority, a lot of it was new to them.
Mhh.
So how big is the task? And we have many questions. Do you lecture much to non-Jewish groups? Is it taught to theology students?
Well I was lucky in that I had a secular theology degree.
Yes.
So in terms of the theological seminaries, it would be very, very different, although some of it’s taught. And I suppose it’s enabled us to think. You know, we’ve talked about this before, you and I over coffee. I think sadly just when we thought it was all kind of fixed and going really well in the 1990s, that education in every generation. And I do worry that what is bigger that we face now alongside this is a threat to our democracies and our freedom. What you sometimes call the decline of the West. We’re living in the decline of the west. I really hope we’re not. But you know, I think there were bigger issues that as society we’re just kind of walking blindly into, we’re ceasing to think for ourselves. So you’re quite right. It’s education on a particular level.
I mean people-
And I know it might seem that we’ve come a long way from where we started but ultimately, if we’re going to fight Antisemitism, if we’re going to address this 2,000 years of Anti-Judaism, Antisemitism, you know, I think we do have to teach history. We have to look to the past. We have to look for elements within the past that have been lost but are possibly redeemable, which can give us- You know, we do need those roots. And I think history is terribly, terribly important. And not only for that but also for our democracy. So I think it’s all tied up together because if we’re not careful we’re going to lose our democracy. Whether it’s, excuse me saying this, but the woke department or whether it’s Islamophobia or whether it’s Antisemitism. I mean we have to, as a humanity, start looking at what- At the end of my PhD, I concluded really what we should be looking at is not to use, again, Christian language mission, not a mission to Jews but a mission with Jews. We have got so much work as a humanity to do in terms of global warming, the planet, that we’ve got to move beyond this. But how do we do that? And I think single face schools doesn’t help at those grassroots, 'cause we are breeding another generation 20-30 years before we can start this properly. I mean that sounds tangled up, but if you can untangle Trudy-
No, I understand. I think the whole- What it needs actually is to rethink the syllabus. But then you said something else that really worries me. It’s also what goes on in the homes.
Yeah.
Prejudice. You know, we will never know. I mean I’ve had the privilege of having epigenesis in C classes over the years. And I often say to them, is it nurture or is it nature? Or do we have a prejudice gene in us somehow that has to be stamped out. We don’t have enough tools to- Look one of the things that I think I find most depressing, and you brought it up, we’ve had years of anti-bullying, anti-racist policy in our schools and-
No it’s not worked.
It hasn’t really worked.
No.
And I’m going to say Holocaust education, which I’ve been involved in for 40 years.
Hmm.
Look, that hasn’t worked either. We’ve ripped it out of its Jewish context now. And you see I think you can, oh you studied Jewish history and I think that’s one of the reasons you’re very simpatico. You know the story of the Jews, and I think Jewish history, you can’t understand the history of Antisemitism without understanding where the Jews come from. And also, you know, this whole notion today, I mean Antisemitism is through the roof. All Jews have money, all Jews control, Jews are behind COVID. If I get another one of those terrifying emails, I’m just going to break my machine once and for all. But where does it come from? It comes from unfortunately a long tradition of the demonization of the Jew. And I think tragically it’s now applied to the Jewish state. And I’m not whitewashing the state of Israel. That’s not what I’m talking about at all.
Yeah.
I’m talking about a double standard. And I would expect, and this is what I’m upset about, I would expect the church, certainly the Anglican church, it tries to be so simpatico, at least to stand up and say, “Hold on a minute.” But it’s like in the end everyone goes into that mantra and-
Yeah it’s interesting because the churches-
You’re frozen. Hello?
Wait, oh. Am I back?
Hello? Yeah you’re back.
The mainstream churches all agree, yes this history of Antisemitism, Anti-Judaism led to the Showa and they agreed with the foundation. Well apart from the Catholic churches, took them with sort of another nearly 50 years to officially recognise the state of Israel, which was thanks to John Paul II was it? Bless him. Amazing, amazing guy. Guy yes.
Yeah you’re allowed. He’s not divine. Oh, there were a lot of questions.
Well I did meet him twice.
There were questions on Papal infallibility by the way.
Oh I know. Well we’ll forget that. Papal infallibility quite late. It was about 1,000 years into Christianity. But so I think having met him twice I can’t call him guy but you know there was a recognition that there needed to be a Jewish state, state of Israel. This tiny area really in the Middle East in the Arab world. What does it matter? Do you know what I mean? But it does and I think it is a disappointment. The churches haven’t addressed that. On one level they accepted that its existence was necessary after the Holocaust. But now it’s like they’ve abandoned Israel again. They’ve abandoned, you know, Judaism again. What’s happening? That’s the thing.
And it leads to all sorts of reactions in the Jewish world. Jews going back into themselves or walking away all together. So it has an impact on Jews living in the diaspora.
Yes but we get to go back to single state schools.
Yes.
If you don’t meet the other, then how are you going to break down the stereotypes to know, “Oh Jews don’t have horns” kind of thing. You know, unless you actually meet. It’s relating on a human level. And it’s of course made far more difficult with the internet. And as you know Trudy, there’s no time to talk about it here, but I’m involved in a project in which our military wants to look at how you tell fake and fiction from fact. And I think we need to provide the next generation with ways of discovering that. Actually I will just look on my phone 'cause I copied it. You’ll love this. We talked about it just briefly after the lecture last night. And this is what we got to produce thinking generation haven’t we? One of my sons came out of his room and said, “Oh mom, I’ve just bought this book today. I love it. It’s called "Principles for Dealing with the Changing World Order” Subtitle, “Why Nations Succeed and Fail” I said to him, “Why have you ordered that?” And he said, “Well it’s important to read this and to know how to deal with the world.” And I love it because he might not agree with the book, but he’s thinking.
You’ve created thinking children. And I think that’s the point. How do we create a thinking generation against everything that we’re up against? So look what we’re saying, we’ve got to improve education, but we’ve got to be careful about that kind of education, we’ve got to work in schools on the syllabus. So we’ve got to get invigorated again, haven’t we? We’ve got to-
Yes.
Because I think to an extent, I’m only speaking personally now. I just kind of walked away from the fight. I just walked away and-
But if you don’t Trudy, who will?
Well I think a lot of people, a lot of my friends did feel that way. We’d had enough.
[Helen] Yeah.
And because we weren’t getting anywhere, and I think it’s a very complicated issue now-
But even if we go back to that partings of the ways between Judaism and Christianity, if we look at history, you know, that’s not being taught. I was lucky enough to look at that in real detail and to enjoy that study at university. But you know, the basic history that’s taught in schools, well Jesus was Jewish, right? That’s one sentence that’s dismissed. That’s done that bit. Well, you know, I think kids will be fascinated to learn about the backdrop and to understand and to realise the complexities they get to start to think for themselves. But the problem of course is quite often at A level, or actually even at GCSE level. No GCSE level perhaps rather than A level. They’re normally only able on their options to do either geography or history. So if you want to do both, you can’t. So there’s something wrong.
I think this is- I mean there are people listening I would imagine from many different countries mainly in the English speaking world. And I think we’ve got to accept the fact that the history syllabus, the school syllabus is failing to address the kind of human beings that we need to create.
Yeah that’s the crux of it.
We need to create thinking people. The fact that we can have dialogues like this, and the only way we’re going to do that is actually a huge refreshing of the syllabus. And also to take politics out of education and to make education a valued profession. Because I know most of my friends have retired, but those of them who are still teaching at university level mainly they run their hands in horror at the level of education and also what they’re allowed to teach. So there are so many issues but isn’t it interesting, we started talking about Antisemitism and what are we talking about now? We’re putting the problems of the world to write. But I think you’re right that look Antisemitism, if you had a brain in your head, you would’ve thought after the Showa, the powerlessness of the Jew, it should have disappeared but it didn’t. And the minute there’s fracture in society, it’s back with a vengeance. And if that doesn’t send alarm bells through people, I don’t know if anything will. And it should send alarm bells through the non-Jewish world as well.
Yes but it hasn’t.
And you know, it’s interesting, I’ve spoken to a lot of people, people I really respect and like, who will not raise their voices very high but they’re bewildered. It’s actually catching the silent majority for once. You know, I do not believe, for example, if you want to go back to the Showa, I do not believe the majority of Germans who voted for Hitler voted for the Showa by the way.
No.
And I think the majority of people aren’t relatively okay on a level. And it’s the fanatics on every group. And that’s true of the church fathers. They were fanatics. We have them in Judaism as well. Let’s be careful here. It’s just that Judaism didn’t have power for 2,000 years. You know, so we have fanatics. Personally, the thing I hate most is a closed system.
Yes.
When people say to me, “I know the path. I know the only path to the truth.” That really frightens me Helen. And I think that’s one of the main causes, that’s what leads to this irrational hatred. Anyway, are there any other important- Yes I think we ought to also mention, I did mention it at the beginning. That there were some incredibly righteous Christians as well. And we’ve got to be careful here because we can’t tar all Christians with the same brush. Yes I do believe that the Catholic church was wanting in the war. I do believe that many of the Protestant churches were wanting in the war. I mean in Germany Hitler had his own church with Vice Bishop Muller. Half a million Germans joined, he wore the swastika on his canonicals. Yes, but on the other hand there were an awful lot, there were hundreds of thousands of people who risked everything to save Jews and who were themselves Piers because I think we mustn’t forget Christianity is also a religion of the moral law. And I think that’s what we need to emphasise, the moral law. Now, if we can start having real dialogue, and as you said, not the cucumber sandwiches type dialogue, which I’ve been in these sort of dialogues with Muslims as well, mainly women. And in the end what they wanted to talk about was assimilation. Because ironically they wanted to know how we coped about children wanted to go into the outside world. But the minute I tried to push it into politics it all froze up again. And I think we’ve got to actually somehow think of a way of making people confront these issues. Shall we- Helen we’ve got a lot of questions. Shall I run through them and just see if there’s any that you want to look at? Yes there’s a lot talking about ray of light and lots of people are wishing us a happy Christmas. Could you comment on Jews for Jesus?
Yes I thought that might come up. It’s something I did cover in my PhD because of course one of the solutions to the whole Jewish Jesus scholarship has been taken on board by Jews for Jesus or Christian mission to the Jews of CMJ, the Jews for Jesus, probably a bit more aggressively missionary. But of course in effect they think they’ve solved the problem and have gone back to early Jewish Christianity. But they haven’t because they still believe in all the stuff of the church fathers, they have a Trinitarian belief system. So they believe in the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, however one wants to try. And somehow there’s a three persons in the Godhead, that’s I suppose the simplest way I can explain it. The church father spent over a 1,000 years arguing. So you know, they thought they’d solved it, the Jews for Jesus. And that in the end because they are reclaiming the Jewishness of Jesus but also Jewish traditions. So they will keep Kosher, they will keep Passover. But they’ve added Christian elements to it. And I find that equally problematic because ultimately they are a conversionary part of the Christian traditions. They ultimately want Jews to convert. It is really, isn’t it, a conversion to the lock, stock and barrel of Christian theology. So they are equally problematic because they are ultimately a missionary religion that is expecting Jews not to be Jews unless they are Christians or Jewish Christians or Jews with the Christian elements. So I do find it problematic. When I went to the church in Jerusalem, I can’t remember which one it is now, where you see a menorah and a cross next to each other. That mixing of symbolism ironically was something which the church fathers did their best to eradicate. You know, that mix.
And there’s an interesting point from John Winlow. There’s nothing within the New Testament that specifically advocates hatred of the Jews. Well that’s not quite true. There are a few verses which Helen’s going to- For example, there’s a verse in Matthew, but we decided not to answer textural questions.
[Helen] Yeah.
Because we wanted to do the Broad Street but Helen’s-
Something like that Trudy, it’s almost like you have to sit in our own like little yeshiva and analyse the text because in some cases the Christian interpretation is drawing on a mistranslation. Well like us in Karen anyway.
[Trudy] Yes, exactly.
In Michelangelo but you know there’s a difference in the translation without going into too much detail between the Hebrew version and the Greek translation of the Bible . So once you translate from one language to another you get some mistranslation.
The other thing that I’ve always found interesting is how Jesus, his mother and the disciples all have the Greek version of their names. Remember?
[Helen] Yes.
Look, Jesus was probably a wonder Rabbi.
Hmm.
I think you and I would both agree on that, wouldn’t we? How much further we would take it is something else. And the only one who has the Jewish name is the father, Joseph.
[Helen] Yes.
And they’ve ripped Jesus out of his Jewish tradition. Now this reminds me it was a shame that Helen was diverted away from discussion of the dynamics of the deification of Jesus. When is Jesus made God? Well you talked about the Council of Nicaea, didn’t you? After the fall of the second temple. I think you answered that, didn’t you?
Well we talked about Nicaea previously, but from 100 CE roughly from 89, you’ve got different groups, Jewish Christians, they ultimately sort of die out. But you’ve got different forms of Christianity, if I put it like that. Vying for survival with slightly different interpretations. And it could just be a difference over whether you allow gentiles to be circumcised or not or keep food laws. The differences were quite, we would say now quite minor. But you have this developing orthodoxy. And by the time we get to the church fathers, they are really concerned about heresy. So by the time you get to 325, they have the Council of Nicaea to come up with a Nicene Creed. What is the belief of the church? This is orthodoxy. So they had such terrible arguments. I will mention one actually, it is later in around 1,000. Do we know what ultimately caused the split between the Eastern Orthodox churches and the Roman Catholic Church?
One word, Greek word, filioque. You think, “Oh my gosh, what is she talking about?” And we’re trying to get our head around it as students at university. And it’s about the trinity, the Godhead. I mean this will be completely enough. I’m not sure how many of you will really get your head around this, I think it’s completely crazy. But within the Godhead of three persons, God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit and filioque was the argument over whether the spirit, the third one proceeds through from the Father through Jesus to us all, whether they’re separate. And it’s like, can’t get my head around this. Crazy, crazy arguments, really pedantic. But it was in the end something like that which fractured the churches. And this is what we’re still dealing with. How do we go back? Well we can’t go totally back. And I suppose what I’d like to think is that through discussions of course the churches need to come on board. They care where they went so far with those statements after the Holocaust, after the Showa, with Nostra Aetate, the World Council of Churches, the Ecumenical Councils. But we’ve got stuck. Can we look back now at the historical Jesus and we’re not saying, right all Christians now have to go totally back and become Jews. No of course not. But at what point can we reclaim? Well that’s an interesting one isn’t it? Can we reclaim parts of those traditions which enable us to see sensibly in a post enlightenment world? Because we haven’t-
I think that’s a very- I like that you said that.
[Helen] Yeah.
And I think also it’s important to remember then before the Council of Nicaea, before Christianity is taken on as the original Rome, there were some sets within the Christian tradition that didn’t believe Jesus was divine or He was semi divine. So when it’s co-defined, now there’s a-
[Helen] Yes can I add?
Go on.
Can I add to that point? Yes. Just to put it basically. 'Cause I think this is quite a good example. You’re absolutely right. The early church, certainly James brother of Jesus and those that followed him and apostle Paul did not believe in the divinity of Jesus. He absolutely did not. And so can we recover parts of that and reevaluate? I don’t see any problem in reevaluating.
[Trudy] Yeah.
Our understanding of mission. And I think that might help some way. We just need a radical overturn, another Copernican Revolution, don’t we?
I think so-
May I jump in and answer? Sorry. Earlier you said that you spoke about the resurrection.
Mhhm.
And that the resurrection was a turning point in terms of Christianity, in terms of Jesus being the Messiah rather than divinity. Divinity it was more about the resurrection and Him being seen, being raised from the dead, am I right? Did you say that?
So resurrection, what that does, it doesn’t take those early Christians, those followers out of Judaism. The only difference in the early, so actually Wendy you’re right. We had a few questions wanting me to sort of go over this again.
But may I ask you one thing Helen, can I jump in? What are the chances that Jesus was taken off the cross by his friends, taken into a cave or hidden, healed, then taken down to the Galilee and left to be an old man and people did see Him. Is that a possibility?
Well it’s an interesting one because of course those first disciples of which Mary Magdalene was the first witness resurrected. And it was always a view that resurrection will be a physical resurrection. Never really, see her tradition has been squashed. And we will do something on this I hope, because her tradition has actually been squashed. We don’t know, there are traditions in India, Jesus went to India and lived as to be an old man. Of course it’s perfectly possible. But whatever happened with the resurrection, ultimately it’s a belief, it’s faith. Whatever happened, whether it was physical or sort of a semi ghostlike experience, they had this experience of Jesus, which led them to think He’d been raised from the dead. And for them that endorsed the idea that he was the Messiah, the anointed one, no divinity, he’s anointed but they still go to the temple. They still study in prayer halls in this little synagogues. There’s nothing they keep . There’s nothing else. The only difference between them and the other Judaisms of the day effectively, or parts of Pharasaic Judaism is belief that Jesus was raised from the dead and most of the Pharisees didn’t believe that. But gradually it moves beyond, doesn’t it? Particularly when Paul is converted and he finds that Jews by and large are not believing in His resurrect. He sees something spiritual, he doesn’t see the physical Jesus. That’s quite clear to him on that Damascus road appearance. So what we’ve got is, I think that mission to the gentile world does change things, takes a while for the views about Jesus to change. But that incorporation of a majority of gentiles as opposed to Jews, does change everything. And things start to go pear shape when the churches believe that Jews are going to convert ultimately. They’re going to take, what happens when they don’t? And then it all gets really, really nasty. Does that make sense Wendy?
It does, but I want to ask you as well, were the Rabbi’s very jealous of Jesus? Were the very jealous of Jesus?
We don’t know. We don’t know. There’s nothing to- I mean my view from studying would say that they seemed to be sort of a part. Jesus was very critical of their corruption. He wasn’t critical of the temple per se. So we don’t know what they thought of Him. But the most fractious relationship which comes through the gospels, is between Jesus and the Pharisees. But if you look at the historical, the key material I talked about, Jesus is closest to them. So ironically, both Rabbinic Judaism and Christianity have emerged from Pharasaic Judaism as opposed to any other form of Judaism. And that for me, that realisation during my university studies was a revelation. I didn’t know that, they were so close.
And I think it’s important also to remember what Judea was like at that period. I mean it was boiling over with insurrection. You’ve got all these different groups and they think the end of days is coming because the Roman occupation is so hostile. The Jews-
It’s dreadful yeah.
Because of monotheism. You see they would try and put temples, they would try and put statues of Roman gods into the temples. In that kind of fraction we’ll never really know the historic Jesus. Well Haim McVie believes he was a zealot. He actually-
Yes he does.
Because remember He’s killed. If the Romans crucify Him, and that’s the Roman method of political execution.
Yes.
If you actually revolted against Rome, you were crucified.
But there’s no- Yes we studied this at university. Haim McVie’s view that Jesus was a zealot. I personally don’t think there’s any evidence for that quite radical, violent reaction to Roman occupation. I think Jesus was a political threat to Rome because at the times of the festivals, particularly in the come up of the Passover he had a great following from those. He ministered to the poor, the widows, He had a message for them. Don’t you know the end’s coming. And it has to be understood against the backdrop. The world’s about to end. The Kingdom of God is about to be ushered in.
But Helen don’t all the prophets have that? The prophets of the Hebrew Bible, they all have that message. If you actually look at every one of the prophets, they say that Israel is corrupt. We have to go back to believe in God in order to inherit God’s kingdom. So Jesus actually didn’t say anything new. That’s what I thought. If you take the first-
He was very charismatic.
[Helen] Yes.
He was very kind. And he was very charismatic and he managed to amass the masses. And I think what we’re hearing is that the power of leadership, so whoever’s in power and whoever’s charismatic and whatever the narrative that is what the masses take on. And it’s very critical and important to see what’s going on today. 'Cause this is what sways and brings the crowd and-
Can I mention, sorry Wendy. Can I mention, I did think this before our session began. I wondered if we could just mention and pay tribute to Archbishop Desmond Tutu. Amazing, you know inspiration. I know that you’re thinking why have I raised that, but you know I heard him as a student in Exeter and he had that love for humanity, didn’t he? And you know, can’t we take something from his message to-
Can I disagree?
[Helen] Yeah.
He was a great, great man and I’ve been- Wendy and I have been discussing this. And I believe Dennis is going to be giving a presentation. He did have a bit of a blind spot as far as Israel was concerned.
Okay, that I wasn’t aware of.
So I think Dennis is the one who’s going to put his head on the block for that.
I think somebody spoke about Jefferson being an amazing man and incredible leader. It’s Aria who spoke on on his-
Yeah. Can I also mention, you know, and I did mean to mention it earlier once, but we kind of moved on and that whole thing I think is relevant about this education and getting people to think this whole thing of bystanders. And if you look at, I’ve written as you know about that spy master Thomas Kendrick who saved Austria’s Jewish community and we’re really hoping he’s going to be recognised at the after show, the jury’s still out on that as they say. He was Roman Catholic and okay, he might not have gone to church every week, but he grew up with the official church teaching of daicide. So what is it? Again I think more exploration and understanding what is it in humanity? And I see this today amongst people, some who will be bystanders when they should be speaking up. What is it that makes the likes of Kendrick, Frank Foley, Small Bones, these spies and diplomats that in spite of 2,000 years of Christian Antisemitism are prepared to be rescuers.
Well that’s the question, isn’t it? What makes people- If we could study the rescuers, not just from the Showa, but there are rescuers in any situation. If we could get their DNA maybe we can go forward Helen. So I suppose that’s our finalist. There was a couple of other interesting questions. Barrenes Ditch wanted to know that- I think there were 300 important Holocaust museums and memorials throughout the world. Have they done anything except for persuade Christian guilt?
Oh.
[Trudy] Oh, oh, oh.
Well I think-
Or political or sometimes political guilt.
I don’t know, perhaps I’m not the one to answer that.
No I’m just saying. And it’s interesting because Howard Jacobson’s great quote that the world will not forgive us the Holocaust.
Mm.
The guilt and all that sort of thing I suppose. Is Wendy- Are there any other questions? Is Wendy gone? Yeah she’s offline at the moment.
I’m here. I’m here.
Are there any other questions Wendy? If you want to have the last word.
Well, you know, I found it absolutely fabulous. Very, very interesting. I’ve learned a lot from you Helen. I would like to really explore a little bit more about Mary Magdalene to understand the role that Mary plays in Catholicism. And when did Mary enter into the picture, the female.
Mhhm. That’s interesting.
That’s really interesting. And then also how we have the different factions, the big divide between what we know about the Anglican church. But it’s, yeah what can I say? I want to just thank you for an excellent, excellent presentation and I think everybody’s really benefited and learnt a lot from these four lectures. Certainly I have.
Thank you so much.
We enjoyed giving them. Okay sweetheart.
Thank you.
All right should we say goodnight then?
So on that note I just wanted to say Helen thank you very, very much and I want to just say to all as once again, I just want to reiterate very happy, healthy, fulfilling, peaceful and more knowledgeable 2022.
God bless. Take care.
[Helen] Thank you.
Bye.