I. INTRODUCTION

It has been said that Judaism and Christianity share a dirty little secret in common: Jesus was a Jew. Jesus was born a Jew, lived a Jew, and died a Jewish pilgrim to Jerusalem.¹Dieter Georgi. “Was the Early Church Jewish?” Bible Review, December 2001, 33-7, 51-2. Indeed it is a great irony that the Jewish founder of the Christian faith, who should have been “a bridge of reconciliation between Israel and the world of the nations,”² Pinchas Lapide and Jürgen Moltmann. Jewish Monotheism and Christian Trinitarian Doctrine. Translated by Leonard Swidler. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1981, p. 91. has instead been a point of division and bitter contention.

In the nearly two thousand years since Jesus’ earthly ministry, the church and synagogue have gone their separate ways, often belying the fact that the two share a common origin. How is it that a church founded upon the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth should have such a hostile relationship to the people out of whom Jesus came?

II. THE PROBLEM OF HISTORY

Christian polemic against the Jewish people begins in the developing Gospel narratives. From Mark to Matthew to Luke to John, there is an increasing focus on the Jewish culpability for the crucifixion of Jesus. This polemic continued in many of the writings of the church fathers, who espoused a supersessionist theology that claimed the church had superseded Israel as the beneficiary of God’s promises and God’s blessings.

As Christianity sought to claim primacy over the Jewish tradition, it began to develop theologies that made it very difficult for Jews to accept Christianity. The earliest Second Testament³In this paper, the terms “First Testament” and “Second Testament” will be used in place of the customary “Old Testament” and “New Testament”. writings—the Pauline Epistles—contain evidence that even in the very early church, Jesus was being worshipped, or at least venerated.⁴ Mary C Boys. Has God Only One Blessing?: Judaism As a Source of Christian Self-Understanding. New York and Mahwah: Paulist Press, 2000, p. 162. Although the cultic veneration of Jesus grew out of Jewish monotheism, some have argued that it represented a sudden and significant shift in character from Jewish devotion. As one scholar notes: “the devotional attention Jews characteristically reserved for God now included the risen Christ.”⁵ Boys, supra, at 163.

Much of this early theological development was still within the bounds of Jewish thought. For example, Paul’s writing referring to Jesus as “Lord” and attributing to him the role of Divine Wisdom stretched Jewish language and categories, but it still found its place within the Jewish understanding of God.⁶ Id., at 157. This “augmented monotheism” arose out of Jewish interest in, and reverence for, heavenly figures in the Second Temple period.⁷ Id., at 163. See, e.g., ‘Lady Wisdom’ of Proverbs 8:22-31; the Logos of Philo of Alexandria; and Moses and Enoch, as exalted “agents of God.” Nevertheless, it set the church on a trajectory, which would have profound theological consequences: 

(1) Those who followed Jesus experienced God in their lives; in encountering the human being Jesus, they also encountered the reality of the one true God, the God whom Jesus addressed as “Father;” (2) In reflecting on their experience, they concluded that through Jesus of Nazareth the one true God had been revealing Godself to them; (3) Thus, the human Jesus was God’s self-communication, self-revelation—God’s own Word; (4) If God truly is as God reveals God’s own self to be, then Jesus is identical with God’s eternal self-communication, with God’s Word. ⁸Id., at 167. (Citing William P. Loewe, The College Student’s Introduction to Christology (Collegeville, Minn.: Liturgical Press, 1996), pp. 193-4).

Although this development from Paul’s letters to later church doctrine followed a simple logic, the movement from the Road to Damascus to the Council at Nicea would ultimately prove disruptive for Jewish-Christian dialogue. Before the fourth century C.E., Christians and Jews could be said to agree on the identity and knowable characteristics of God but differed about Jesus’ Messiahship and the extent of his divinity. ⁹Richard Rubenstein. When Jesus Became God: The Epic Struggle Over Christ’s Divinity in the Last Days of Rome. 1st ed. New York: Harcourt Brace & Company, 1999, p 208.  After the Nicene Creed and the Cappadocian formulation, this was no longer the case, and it appeared that Christianity had made a decisive break with its parent faith.¹⁰Rubenstein, supra, at 210. It did not help the cause of Jewish-Christian relations that the champions of Nicea, Athanasius and Constantine, held Judaism in very low regard; Athanasius considered it “an offensive, anti-Christian faith,” and Constantine detested it.¹¹Id., at 74.

Theological innovation combined with outright hostility among church leaders toward Judaism contributed to the breakdown in communication between church and synagogue that has only been re-established in recent years.¹²The disputations that occurred in the Middle Ages cannot count toward dialogue in this regard. Over the two millennia that the church and synagogue have been separated, Christian understandings of Jesus Christ have contributed to the infliction of much pain in the Jewish community, and various formulations of Christology have led to the mistreatment and persecution of Jews.¹³Byron L. Sherwin “‘Who Do You Say That I Am?’ (Mark 8:29): A New Jewish View of Jesus.” Journal of Ecumenical Studies 31, no. 3-4 (1994): 255-67, p. 257.

The hostility over the Jewish-Christian divide was not limited to the Christian side. Most classical Jewish theological teachings express a negative view of Jesus, often referring to him as אותה האיש otoh ha-ish, a derogatory term for “that man.”¹⁴Sherwin, supra, at 255-6.  In effect, Jewish thinkers excommunicated Jesus from the Jewish faith as an apostate who subverted Judaism and as a false messiah.¹⁵Id., at 256. The presentation of Jesus in the Talmud is far from flattering and were it to be read by unsuspecting Christians, it would cause great consternation.¹⁶See, Jacob Z. Lauterbach, “Jesus in the Talmud,” in Jewish Expressions on Jesus: An Anthology, Trude Weiss-Rosmarin, Ed. New York: Ktav Publishing House, Inc., 1977, pp. 1-98. In fact, it became customary in some later Jewish writings to spell Jesus’ name not יֵשׁוּעַ  Yeshua, but יֵשׁוּ Yeshu, which resembles the Rabbinic abbreviation יש׳׳ו short for ימח שמו וזכרו Y’makh sh’mo v’zichro: “May his name and memory be blotted out.”

Additionally, we can glimpse a Jewish response to Christian theology in other theological and liturgical developments. At the conclusion of the Orthodox Jewish daily morning service is a recitation of Maimonides’ Thirteen Principles of Faith, among which are the following affirmations: “I believe with perfect faith that the Creator, blessed be his name, is a Unity, and that there is no unity in any manner like unto his, and that he alone is our God, who was, is, and will be,” “I believe with perfect faith that to the Creator, blessed be his name, and to him alone, it is right to pray, and that it is not right to pray to any being besides him,” and “I believe with perfect faith that this Law will not be changed, and that there will never be any other law from the Creator, blessed be his name.”¹⁷Siddur Sephath Emeth: Order of Prayers for the Whole Year, Hebrew and English. New York: Hebrew Publishing Company, n.d., p. 90-1. These affirmations appear to be a response to Christian doctrines of the Trinity, the practice of praying to Christ, and Christian antinomian rejection of the Jewish law.

Is this theological impasse permanent?  Has the trajectory Christian theology has taken brought us too far from the Jewish faith to make any meaningful dialogue possible?  Is there any way to stay faithful to Christian tradition and teaching and get beyond the sins of supersessionism and anti-Judaism? Many have concluded that to get beyond supersessionism, the church must retreat from its classic Christological teaching.¹⁸Robert W. Jenson “Toward a Christian Theology of Israel.” Pro Ecclesia 9, no. 1 (1999): 43-56, p. 47. Jenson, himself, rejects the proposition that the church must abandon its traditional Christology to conquer supersessionism. Others have steadfastly maintained that the Christological claims essential for Christian identity can be maintained while conquering supersessionism and triumphalism.¹⁹See, generally, R. Kendall Soulen. The God of Israel and Christian Theology. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1996.

The remainder of this paper will explore the various issues of Christology with an eye toward dialogue between the Church and Synagogue, examining possibilities for new, shared understandings between both communities to overcome the historic sins of Christian anti-Semitism and inter-religious intolerance. Given the long history of Christian anti-Semitism, the hostility with which the church has treated the synagogue, and the responses those elicited in the Jewish community, we—Jew and Christian alike—are required to ask along with Dietrich Bonheoffer, “Who is Jesus Christ for us today?” Can we come to understandings that heal rather than divide?

III. MESSIAH

When Christians utter the words “Jesus Christ,” they speak more than the name of the founder of their faith. They are making a confession of faith. For Christ, (Greek Χριστος Christos) means “the anointed one” and is a translation of the Hebrew משׁיח Mashiach, which we know as “messiah.” Thus, the name Jesus Christ is a confession in Jesus as the Messiah. But what does it mean to confess Jesus as Messiah?  The title is not without context.

The Jewish history that produced messianic expectations did so out of concrete experiences of suffering and exile. In Judaism to this day, the fundamental element of the messianic vision has remained in a concrete redemption and was never spiritualized away.²⁰R.J. Zwi Werblowsky, “Messianism” in. Contemporary Jewish Religious Thought: Original essays on critical concepts, movements, and beliefs. Arthur A. Cohen and Paul Mendes-Flohr, eds. New York: The Free Press, 1987, pp 598-99.  The salvation of the Messiah is in the here and now, in the fulfillment of the vision of Isaiah 2:4: “nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore.” Until peace, justice, and compassion reign, the Kingdom of God is, in the Jewish view, a future reality yet to come.²¹Sherwin, supra, at 263. This messianic expectation is the basis for the Jewish ‘no’ to the Messiahship of Jesus. As theologian Jürgen Moltmann points out, the Jewish ‘no’ is not the result of unwillingness or hard-hearted defiance; instead, it is because Jews, in Martin Buber’s words, “are not able to believe this.”²²Jürgen Moltmann, The Way of Jesus Christ: Christology in Messianic Dimensions [Weg Jesus Christi]. Translated by Margaret Kohl. London: SCM Press Ltd., 1990; reprint, Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1993, at 28. (Hereinafter, “TWOJC”) Buber, who had a profound respect for Jesus, made the point clearly: “We know more deeply, more truly, that world history has not been turned upside down to its very foundations—that the world is not yet redeemed. We sense its unredeemedness.”²³Id.  Because of this, Jews cannot accept Jesus as the long-awaited Messiah as Christians proclaim.²⁴Sherwin, in his article “A New Jewish View of Jesus” proposes that Jews consider Jesus a Jewish messiah, a Messiah Son of Joseph, a preparatory figure, rather than the final Messiah Son of David. The relegation of Jesus to John the Baptist status would probably not be satisfactory for most Christians however much a Messiah Son of Joseph is necessary to redemption. But that is not the point of Sherwin’s article—Jewish theology is.

Indeed, honesty requires admitting that the Christian proclamation of Jesus as Messiah rests not only on what Jesus has done—reconciliation between God and humanity through the resurrection—but also on what Jesus will do: establish the Kingdom of God on earth. The Christian ‘yes’ to Jesus Christ is not a finished or complete ‘yes’—it is open for the messianic future, an eschatologically anticipatory and provisional ‘yes.’²⁵Moltmann, TWOJC, supra, at 32-33. Despite the Christian ‘yes’ to the messiahship of Jesus, Christians and Jews find themselves “partners in waiting” for the coming Kingdom of God,²⁶Michael S. Kogan “Toward a Jewish Theology of Christianity.” Journal of Ecumenical Studies 32, no. 1 (1995): 89-106, at 98 (citing “God’s Covenant with the Jewish People,” Resolution XII, passed by the 114^th Convention of the Episcopal Diocese of Newark, New Jersey, in 1988). a fact evidenced by the continuing Christian hope voiced in the ancient prayer: Maranatha “Come, Lord.”

III.  SON OF MAN

The Son of Man is an end-times figure belonging to Jewish apocalyptic and may or may not have originated with the hopes for a Davidic Messiah.²⁷Moltmann, TWOJC, at 13. The Son of Man is seen most clearly in the Book of Daniel and the Apocryphal Book of I Enoch.²⁸The Other Bible. Willis Barnstone, Ed. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1984 In later tradition, hopes for the Messiah and the Son of Man fused into a single expectation.²⁹Moltmann, TWOJC, at 13.

Concepts of the Messiah and the Son of Man were certainly linked in Christian understandings of Jesus from the very beginning. The term “Son of Man” occurs 85 times in the Second Testament, 82 of which are in the Gospels. It is Jesus’ most used self-identification, and the Gospels link it to the concept of Messiah:

But he was silent and did not answer. Again the high priest asked him, “Are you the Messiah, the Son of the Blessed One?” Jesus said, “I am; and ‘you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of the Power,’ and ‘coming with the clouds of heaven.’” (Mark 14:61-2)

Here, the Son of Man figure of Jesus’ self-confession is very much like the apocalyptic figure from Daniel and I Enoch. 

Jürgen Moltmann maintains that the Christological figures of Messiah and Son of Man are united—along with the figures of priest and prophet—in the coming of the Word in Jesus.³⁰Id., at 8ff.  By linking these two figures, Moltmann connects Christology with eschatology. He links Israel’s particular hope for restoration brought by the Messiah with the restoration of the entire cosmos at the coming of the Son of Man. Moltmann argues that combining these two eschatological hopes “corresponds to the link between the creation of mankind and Israel’s particular history of the promise.”³¹Id., at 16.

There is a necessary balance in linking the particular hope of Israel with the universal hope of the whole world. Focusing on the Son of Man apocalyptic would be a universalizing and “disastrous dissolution” of Israel, while transforming the universal expectation of the Son of Man into Israel’s messianic expectation would put an “excessive and destructive strain” on Israel.³²Id., at 17. Both are required to satisfy Israel’s and the Nations’ hope and bring about the “coming of God himself.”³³Id., at 17. Thus in one figure is united the particular and the universal.

Is Jesus this figure? It is still a matter of faith for Christians since it would be a settled question were the Eschaton to have arrived. We Christians affirm that Jesus of Nazareth is the Son of Man because we have faith that he is the Messiah, and the two individuals are inextricably linked. For Jews, who have not come to the same conclusion about Jesus’ Messiahship, the determination as to whether Jesus is Son of Man is at best an open question that cannot be answered in the course of ordinary history. 

IV. SON OF GOD

“The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.” So begins the Gospel account according to St. Mark.³⁴Some of the more ancient manuscripts, including the Sinaiticus (א) lack the phrase υἰος θεου hyios theou “son of God.” From the earliest years of the Christian movement, Jesus has been proclaimed not only as Christ/Messiah but as the Son of God. The term Son of God occurs no less than 39 times in the Second Testament. As was the case with the word Messiah, it is not a term without context.

In Israel’s understanding, the one anointed with God’s Spirit is also called ‘Son of God.’³⁵See, e.g., Psalm 2:7 “I will tell of the decree of the LORD: He said to me,  ‘You are my son; today I have begotten you.’” Furthermore, Israel sees itself as God’s son: “When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son.” (Hosea 11:1) Israel’s use of the term in the First Testament does not imply any metaphysical identity but a special relationship and intimacy.³⁶This element of the word ‘son’ can be clearly seen in Hebrew scripture in the Binding of Isaac (Genesis 22). Isaac is referred to as בן ben “son” throughout until it is time for Abraham to sacrifice Isaac at which point he becomes נער na’ar “the boy” signifying a distancing between the two. Also, son carries with it the sense of “heir” which, on account of Isaac’s purported fate, would no longer have been true. This understanding continues in Jewish thought, and we can see it in Israeli Professor Pinchas Lapide’s belief that Jesus was one of several “sons of God” as in the Hebrew tradition. “But,” he continues, “an ‘only begotten Son of God’ I do not know.”³⁷Pinchas Lapide and Jürgen Moltmann. Jewish Monotheism and Christian Trinitarian Doctrine. Translated by Leonard Swidler. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1981

However, this Christology defined by special relationship is not what Christians mean when they confess Jesus as “Son of God,” however long the idea had been around in Judaism.³⁸To be sure, relational Christology has always occupied a minority position in the Christian tradition, from Arius, to the Ebionites, to the Liberal Protestants of our own day. When Christians confess that Jesus is the Son of God, they are confessing something very much more. They proclaim that Jesus is the Incarnate Word of God, through whom “All things came into being… and without him not one thing came into being.” (John 1:3) Christian belief confesses faith in a Triune God: Father, Son, and Spirit—a God known to us as love in community. It is the love among the Father, Son, and Spirit that speaks to the very nature of God.

As strange as these ideas are for most Jews (and a fair number of Christians!), they are not wholly alien to Jewish understandings of God. Jews, like Christians, believe in the God of Israel, who “created the universe through His word.”³⁹Peter Ochs, “The God of Jews and Christians,” in Christianity in Jewish Terms. Tikva Frymer-Kensky, David Novak, Peter Ochs, David Fox Sandmel and Michael A. Signer, Eds. Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 2000, p. 60. According to the Biblical narratives, that creation also saw the רוח אלהים ruach Elohim “spirit/breath of God” oscillating over the face of the waters. (Gen. 1:2)  The presence of the creating “word” alongside God’s “spirit” or “breath” is compatible with Moltmann’s formulation that God’s creative activity represents a unity of breath (רוח ruach) and voice (דבר davar): “all are called to life through God’s Spirit and Word.”⁴⁰Jürgen Moltmann, The Spirit of Life: A Universal Affirmation [Geist des Lebens]. Translated by Margaret Kohl. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2001, p. 41. (Hereinafter “TSOL”)

This unity of word and breath is visible in the Hebrew Scriptures, notably in the Psalms: “By the word of the Lordthe heavens were made, and all their host by the breath of his mouth.” (Ps. 33:6). Indeed, Judaism has long affirmed the idea that God creates all life by God’s Word and animates all life by God’s Spirit. Moreover, the Word and Spirit are understood to be of God in God’s self. In the words of one Jewish theologian: “The Jewish concept of God’s being author of the divine speech is analogous in Trinitarian theology to the Father’s begetting his divine Son.”⁴¹Ochs, supra, at 65.

Likewise, Jewish tradition attests to a God who suffers with his creation. Nowhere is this more clearly seen than in Exodus 3:7: “Then the Lord said, “I have observed the misery of my people who are in Egypt; I have heard their cry on account of their taskmasters. Indeed, I know their suffering.” In Hebrew, the verb ידע yada “to know” implies more than intellectual cognition; it implies knowledge by experience.⁴² Indeed, when Adam “knows” his wife, he experiences her in the most intimate fashion. God does not coldly and rationally understand human suffering—God experiences it and suffers with afflicted humanity. This knowledge works both ways. We can only know God by encountering and experiencing God. Still, at the same time, the “experience of God” also points toward God’s experience of us.⁴³Jürgen Moltmann, The Trinity and the Kingdom: The Doctrine of God [Trinität und Reich Gottes]. Translated by Margaret Kohl. London: SCM Press Ltd., 1981; reprint, Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1993 (Hereinafter “TTATK”)

Furthermore, the idea that God suffers with humanity is tied directly to affirming that God is love. Because of God’s willingness to love, God renounces his impassability and becomes able to suffer.⁴⁴Moltmann, TSOL, at 51.

In all of the preceding theology, there is little a Jew could find to argue with. Instead, the biggest problem with the Christian affirmation of the Trinity is not that God is Father, Son, and Spirit, nor is it that God suffers with God’s people. The biggest problem is that the Son of God, the Eternal Word of God, should become incarnate in the human person of Jesus of Nazareth.

V.   INCARNATION

Michael Wyschogrod, a noted Jewish scholar, has observed that the doctrine of the Incarnation is “undoubtedly the most difficult in the dialogue between Judaism and Christianity.”⁴⁵Michael Wyschogrod, “Incarnation.” Pro Ecclesia 2, no. 2 (1992): 208-15, p. 208.  Indeed, Jews willing to grant that God is Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer will draw the line at the notion that God could become “enfleshed” in a particular human being. But is Incarnation so wholly opposite from the God of the Hebrew Bible?

Taken to its logical extreme, the very opposite of an incarnate God—an entirely spiritual, non-corporeal God, a God without spatial location—is also inimical to the God of Biblical faith. As Wyschogrod notes, 

Once we understand that this is the kind of God who is the extreme opposite of the incarnated God, we must draw the conclusion that this extreme opposite of the incarnated God is also not the God of the Hebrew Bible. The God of the Hebrew Bible does have spatial location. He walks in the Garden of Eden. He has a dwelling place in the world. The whole history of the tabernacle and of the temple in Jerusalem is a history of a concept of a home for God in the world, a dwelling place for God.⁴⁶Id., at 210.

How else can we make sense of the understanding preserved in a statement like “In this house, and in Jerusalem, which I have chosen out of all the tribes of Israel, I will put my name forever” (2 Kings. 21:7)?  Indeed, the understanding of the שכינה Shekhinah “Divine Presence” is that the Divine Presence is God himself, present at a particular place and at a particular time.⁴⁷Moltmann, TSOL. at 48 (Moltmann cites a Jewish observation that ‘When two sit down to study the Torah, the Shekinah is in their midst.” G. Scholem Von der mystischen Gestalt der Gottheit, Frankfurt 1973, 135ff.) Further, the God of Biblical faith walks “in the garden in the cool of the day” (Gen. 3:8), appears to Abraham and eats with him (Gen. 18:1), wrestles with Jacob (Gen. 32:24, 30), and appears to Moses (Ex. 24:9-11).⁴⁸Kogan, supra, at 103. The idea of God taking human form is not alien to the Jewish faith, although it is by no means as central to such faith as it is in the Christian context.⁴⁹Id., at 103.

God had, as part of Israel’s election, chosen to dwell in Israel. In a very real sense, God was already incarnate in the people Israel. As a Jew, Jesus would be part of the very people in whom God had decided to dwell.⁵⁰Wyschogrod, Incarnation, supra, at 212 (citing Numbers 35:34 “for I the Lord dwell in the Israelites.”)  In contrast, the church has traditionally concentrated “all of the incarnations of God into the people of Israel in one Jew, Jesus of Nazareth.”⁵¹Id., at 213.  The church has stated that it has “known that its physical bond with God is through a Jew and that the killing of that Jew constituted a central event in the relation between God and humanity.”⁵²Id. The problem, Wyschogrod points out, is the “severing of this Jew from his people.”⁵³Id. It is not troublesome from a Jewish point of view that the world might come to experience the God of Israel through the Jew Jesus of Nazareth; the idea of a Jesus outside of his Jewish context is.

Is it realistic to expect Jews to embrace the incarnation, even in this limited fashion?  Perhaps, perhaps not. Perhaps the best that can be hoped for is for Jews to embrace the possibility of the truth of Christian claims—for the sake of the gentile nations. After all, if God is the author of the Christian faith as well as the Jewish, as many Jewish teachers have maintained, the question must be asked: “Would God act in such a way as to bring the nations to know God employing fraudulent claims?”⁵⁴Kogan, at 101. Kogan’s thesis is that while Jews need not affirm Christian claims as true, they no longer need insist on their falsity. Through this lens, Jews could re-evaluate the truth of Christian claims without altering the faith and practice of Judaism. Doing so can allow the Jewish community to see God’s purposes and perhaps even God’s miraculous action in Christianity.

VI. COMMON GROUND

Moltmann notes:

“[At] the centre of all Jewish-Christian dialogue is the inexorable messianic question: ‘Are you he who is to come, or shall we look for another?’ The messianic hope leads us to Jesus, but it also hinders Jews from seeing Jesus as the expected messiah who has already come.”⁵⁵Moltmann, TWOJC, at 28.

In this, Moltmann identifies the tension between the Christian ‘yes’ and the Jewish ‘no.’ He gives great deference to Buber’s assertion that Jews are incapable of believing in Jesus as the messiah because the brokenness of the world testifies as to its unredeemed character. Moltmann beautifully resolves this tension by stating that

“Anyone who confesses Jesus as ‘the Christ of God’ is recognizing the Christ-in-his-becoming, the Christ in the way, the Christ in the movement of God’s eschatological history; and that person enters upon this way of Christ in the discipleship of Jesus.”⁵⁶Id., at 33.

Jesus is, in the tension between the Jewish ‘no’ and Christian ‘yes,’ a saving figure for each for the sake of the other. As Israel’s Messiah, Jesus becomes the savior of the gentiles. In Jesus, the nations experience all of Israel’s salvation history. Indirectly, in Jesus, Israel encounters the savior of the nations, the one who brings the peoples of the earth to the knowledge of the God of Israel.⁵⁷Id., at 36. With this understanding, while still maintaining its Jewish ‘no,’ Israel can begin to look at Christianity as the praeparatio messianica of the nations and recognize in it Israel’s own hope for the messiah now brought to the nations.⁵⁸Id., at 37.  However, if Israel is to have this view of Christianity, Christianity must renew and reexamine its theology of Israel.⁵⁹Id.

I would like to examine one possibility. For centuries, the Servant Songs of the Book of Isaiah have informed Christian understandings of Jesus Christ.⁶⁰The Servant Songs are found at Isaiah 42:1-4; 49:1-6; 50:4-11; and 52:13-53:12. In these prophetic passages, we find a description of the Servant of God, who suffers redemptively for the people:

Surely he has borne our infirmities and carried our diseases; 
yet we accounted him stricken, struck down by God, and afflicted. 
But he was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities; 
upon him was the punishment that made us whole, and by his bruises we are healed. 
All we like sheep have gone astray; we have all turned to our own way, and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. (Isaiah 53:4-6)

These passages have come to be so identified with Jesus that they suggest the carpenter of Nazareth even outside the Christian community.⁶¹In a recent interfaith Biblical discussion group I lead, one of the Jewish students, upon reading these passages, remarked, “That does sound like Jesus!”  Indeed, it is difficult for most people to read these verses and not hear strains of Händel’s Messiah playing in the background. But Biblical scholarship and liberal Christians have long acknowledged that the subject of Isaiah’s prophecy is not an individual but Israel as a whole.⁶²See, e.g., Wayne A. Meeks, Ed. The HarperCollins Study Bible: New Revised Standard Version, with Apocryphal/Deuterocanonical Books. 1st ed. New York: HarperCollins, 1993, p. 1071, n. 42.1-9 (“The position taken here is that the songs should be read in context and that the servant is the nation Israel…The language point to the identification of Israel as the servant (41.1-8; 44.1-2; 44.21)”). See, also, Walter Brueggemann. Isaiah 40-66. Westminster Bible Companion. Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster John Knox Press, 1998, p. 42 (“Here it is enough to assume, as is generally the case, that ‘my servant’ is the people Israel. That appellation draws upon the entire memory of ancient Israel that affirms that Israel is related to Yahweh as servant to master (king) and that the life of Israel consists in obedience to the will and command and purpose of the king.”)

The interpretation of the identity of the Suffering Servant has echoes of an age-old debate: is God’s chosen Israel or Jesus (and through him, the church)?  This question, however, is a false dichotomy. It is like asking, “Is God’s presence in Jerusalem or the Temple?” The answer is: yes, both! 

As Michael Wyschogrod notes, Christianity is “the gathering of peoples around the people of Israel.”⁶³Wyschogrod, Incarnation, supra, at 215. Through the person of the Jew Jesus, the nations come to know Israel and Israel’s God. St. Paul would agree. When Paul states that the mission to the nations is “until the full number of the Gentiles has come in” (Rom. 11.25), we might very well ask, “Come in where?” The only logical answer is into the covenant that God has established with Israel. Israel is the locus of the blessing that Christians claim through Jesus.

In the Servant Songs of the Book of Isaiah, we encounter a servant who suffers for the sake of the nations. As Moltmann notes, the identity of the Servant of God is left open—perhaps deliberately—in the Isaiah text, requiring us to ask the question continually.⁶⁴Moltmann. TWOJC, at 20.  I  propose that both Israel and Jesus are the Suffering Servant, that Jesus is, in addition to other Christological titles, the personification of Israel to the world. 

Jewish thinkers have long recognized the redemptive pattern of Israel’s suffering in the life of Jesus. Marc Chagall’s painting, “White Crucifixion” superimposes the icon of the crucified Christ, loins wrapped in a blue and white tallith, or prayer shawl, over a background of images of pogroms, burning synagogues, and fleeing Jews, emphasizing the parallels between the experiences of Jesus and his people Israel.⁶⁵Kogan, at 105.

In Jesus, then, the nations experience Israel, and in so doing, come to know the faith of Israel and the love of the Father toward his Son. Through Christ, the nations are brought into the faith of Israel, into a covenant relationship with Israel’s God.

VII. CONCLUSION

Christians and Jews can be in dialogue without betraying the fundamental tenets of their respective faiths. For Jews, the confession that God is One is not simply custom or tradition; it is essential for the very self-identity of the people Israel. It is that which distinguished them from among the nations and which has served as a great gift to the human family. 

Likewise, whatever the historical processes that yielded it, Christian understandings of the Triune God are not something that can be discarded for the sake of ecumenical and inter-religious dialogue. The confession of the Triune God comes directly out of Christian experience,  responding to the need to comprehend the testimony of the history of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. The history of Jesus the Son cannot be grasped except as part of the history of the Father, the Son, and the Spirit.⁶⁶Moltmann, TTATK, at 16. Further, for the Christian, the doctrine of the Trinity carries with it not simply doctrinal consequences but ethical and social as well, as Christians contemplate the significance of God’s passion and indwelling with humanity.⁶⁷Id., at 19-20.

Christians and Jews can be in more than simply dialogue; they can be in authentic partnership for the Kingdom of God. To create this partnership, Christians and Jews must make movement on both sides, but not so far as to invalidate the fundamentals of each community’s faith. 

For its part, the church must continue to affirm the ongoing covenantal relationship between God and Israel. The church must put behind it the evils of supersessionism and all the attendant horrors it brings and affirm with St. Paul that “the gifts and calling of God are irrevocable.” The church must come to understand that such an assertion does not undermine the church’s claim to uniqueness—God is capable of accomplishing his purposes in a variety of ways simultaneously. And most importantly, the church must continue to affirm Jesus of Nazareth not only as Son of God and Son of Man but as a pious and faithful Son of Israel. We can no longer afford to allow the Jewishness of Jesus to be our “dirty little secret.” As Sherwin writes: “It is time for Christians to accept Jesus as a Jew.”⁶⁸Sherwin, supra, at 260.

For its part, once the church has made it clear that Judaism’s continued existence is not a contradiction to the Christian message, the synagogue can begin to acknowledge that Christianity may be a part of God’s divine plan for the redemption of the world.⁶⁹To be sure, as long ago as the middle ages, Jewish thinkers were acknowledging a role from Christianity and Islam in the divine plan for human redemption. See, Sherwin, supra, at 257-8. One wonders at the ability of a persecuted minority faith to allow for the participation in God’s plan for two religions that were at that very moment preaching Judaism’s obsolescence. Indeed, it has long been noted in Jewish thinking that far from being an idolatrous religion, Christianity has helped to fulfill Malachi’s prophetic words “For from the rising of the sun to its setting my name is great among the nations.” (Mal. 1:11)⁷⁰Kogan, at. 95.  And this necessitates that as Christianity is coming to acceptance of Jesus’ Jewishness, Judaism must follow by reclaiming Jesus as a “legitimate and honored member of the Jewish people—as a brother.”⁷¹Sherwin, at 260. Sherwin quotes Rabbi Leo Baeck, the most important Jewish leader in Nazi Germany, that in beholding Jesus: “we behold a man who is Jewish in every feature and trait of his character, manifesting in every particular what is pure and good in Judaism. This man could have developed as he came to be only on the soil of Judaism; and only on this soil, too, could he find his disciples and followers as they were. Here along, in this Jewish sphere, in this Jewish atmosphere…could this man live his life and meet his death—a Jew among Jews.”

As to the person of Jesus, Judaism might even acknowledge that God was present in this person in some unique way, as he is in the people Israel. Just as God was present in all the land of Israel, but especially so in the Temple and in the Holy of Holies, so too, might God be ‘incarnate’ in Israel, and especially so in Jesus of Nazareth, through whom the nations are evangelized to the God of Israel. This is not to say that Jews and Christians will conceive of God’s presence in Jesus in the same manner—Christian Trinitarianism and Jewish Monotheism will be in dialogue for a long time in exploring this issue.

But if both communities can see themselves as part of the broader community of faith, with Jesus as God’s chosen bridge between Jew and Gentile, then perhaps both communities can be about the work of the Kingdom together, witnessing to all of creation. And in doing the work of the Kingdom, we—Jew and Christian—can await the fulfillment of that Kingdom and the coming of our long-awaited Messiah, as “partners in waiting” together.

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Notes

^[1] Dieter Georgi. “Was the Early Church Jewish?” Bible Review, December 2001, 33-7, 51-2.

^[2] Pinchas Lapide and Jürgen Moltmann. Jewish Monotheism and Christian Trinitarian Doctrine. Translated by Leonard Swidler. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1981, p. 91.

^[3] In this paper, the terms “First Testament” and “Second Testament” will be used in place of the customary “Old Testament” and “New Testament”.

^[4] Mary C Boys. Has God Only One Blessing?: Judaism As a Source of Christian Self-Understanding. New York and Mahwah: Paulist Press, 2000, p. 162.

^[5] Boys, supra,  at 163. 

^[6] Id., at 157.

^[7] Id., at 163. See, e.g., ‘Lady Wisdom’ of Proverbs 8:22-31; the Logos of Philo of Alexandria; and Moses and Enoch, as exalted “agents of God.”

^[8] Id., at 167. (Citing William P. Loewe, The College Student’s Introduction to Christology (Collegeville, Minn.: Liturgical Press, 1996), pp. 193-4).

^[9] Richard Rubenstein. When Jesus Became God: The Epic Struggle Over Christ’s Divinity in the Last Days of Rome. 1st ed. New York: Harcourt Brace & Company, 1999, p 208.

^[10] Rubenstein, supra, at 210.

^[11] Id., at 74.

^[12] The disputations that occurred in the Middle Ages cannot count toward dialogue in this regard.

^[13] Byron L. Sherwin “‘Who Do You Say That I Am?’ (Mark 8:29): A New Jewish View of Jesus.” Journal of Ecumenical Studies 31, no. 3-4 (1994): 255-67, p. 257.

^[14] Sherwin, supra, at 255-6.

^[15] Id., at 256.

^[16] See, Jacob Z. Lauterbach, “Jesus in the Talmud,” in Jewish Expressions on Jesus: An Anthology, Trude Weiss-Rosmarin, Ed. New York: Ktav Publishing House, Inc., 1977, pp. 1-98.

^[17] Siddur Sephath Emeth: Order of Prayers for the Whole Year, Hebrew and English. New York: Hebrew Publishing Company, n.d., p. 90-1.

^[18] Robert W. Jenson “Toward a Christian Theology of Israel.” Pro Ecclesia 9, no. 1 (1999): 43-56, p. 47. Jenson, himself, rejects the proposition that the church must abandon its traditional Christology to conquer supersessionism.

^[19] See, generally, R. Kendall Soulen. The God of Israel and Christian Theology. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1996.

^[20] R.J. Zwi Werblowsky, “Messianism” in. Contemporary Jewish Religious Thought: Original essays on critical concepts, movements, and beliefs. Arthur A. Cohen and Paul Mendes-Flohr, eds. New York: The Free Press, 1987, pp 598-99. 

^[21] Sherwin, supra, at 263.

^[22] Jürgen Moltmann, The Way of Jesus Christ: Christology in Messianic Dimensions [Weg Jesus Christi]. Translated by Margaret Kohl. London: SCM Press Ltd., 1990; reprint, Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1993, at 28. (Hereinafter, “TWOJC”)

^[23] Id. 

^[24] Sherwin, in his article “A New Jewish View of Jesus” proposes that Jews consider Jesus a Jewish messiah, a Messiah Son of Joseph, a preparatory figure, rather than the final Messiah Son of David. The relegation of Jesus to John the Baptist status would probably not be satisfactory for most Christians however much a Messiah Son of Joseph is necessary to redemption. But that is not the point of Sherwin’s article—Jewish theology is.

^[25] Moltmann, TWOJC, supra, at 32-33.

^[26] Michael S. Kogan “Toward a Jewish Theology of Christianity.” Journal of Ecumenical Studies 32, no. 1 (1995): 89-106, at 98 (citing “God’s Covenant with the Jewish People,” Resolution XII, passed by the 114^th Convention of the Episcopal Diocese of Newark, New Jersey, in 1988).

^[27] Moltmann, TWOJC, at 13.

^[28] The Other Bible. Willis Barnstone, Ed. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1984

^[29] Moltmann, TWOJC, at 13.

^[30] Id., at 8ff. 

^[31] Id., at 16.

^[32] Id., at 17.

^[33] Id., at 17.

^[34] Some of the more ancient manuscripts, including the Sinaiticus (א) lack the phrase υἰος θεου hyios theou “son of God.”

^[35] See, e.g., Psalm 2:7 “I will tell of the decree of the LORD: He said to me,  ‘You are my son; today I have begotten you.’”

^[36] This element of the word ‘son’ can be clearly seen in Hebrew scripture in the Binding of Isaac (Genesis 22). Isaac is referred to as בן  ben ‘son’ throughout until it is time for Abraham to sacrifice Isaac at which point he becomes נער na’ar ‘the boy” signifying a distancing between the two. Also, ‘son’ carries with it the sense of ‘heir’ which on account of Isaac’s purported fate, would no longer have been true.

^[37] Pinchas Lapide and Jürgen Moltmann. Jewish Monotheism and Christian Trinitarian Doctrine. Translated by Leonard Swidler. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1981

^[38] To be sure, relational Christology has always occupied a minority position in the Christian tradition, from Arius, to the Ebionites, to the Liberal Protestants of our own day.

^[39] Peter Ochs, “The God of Jews and Christians,” in Christianity in Jewish Terms. Tikva Frymer-Kensky, David Novak, Peter Ochs, David Fox Sandmel and Michael A. Signer, Eds. Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 2000, p. 60.

^[40] Jürgen Moltmann, The Spirit of Life: A Universal Affirmation [Geist des Lebens]. Translated by Margaret Kohl. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2001, p. 41. (Hereinafter “TSOL”)

^[41] Ochs, supra, at 65.

^[42]  Indeed, when Adam ‘knows’ his wife, he experiences her in the most intimate fashion.

^[43] Jürgen Moltmann, The Trinity and the Kingdom: The Doctrine of God [Trinität und Reich Gottes]. Translated by Margaret Kohl. London: SCM Press Ltd., 1981; reprint, Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1993 (Hereinafter “TTATK”)

^[44] Moltmann, TSOL, at 51.

^[45] Michael Wyschogrod, “Incarnation.” Pro Ecclesia 2, no. 2 (1992): 208-15, p. 208.

^[46] Id., at 210.

^[47] Moltmann, TSOL. at 48 (Moltmann cites a Jewish observation that ‘When two sit down to study the Torah, the Shekinah is in their midst.” G. Scholem Von der mystischen Gestalt der Gottheit, Frankfurt 1973, 135ff.)

^[48] Kogan, supra, at 103.

^[49] Id., at 103.

^[50] Wyschogrod, Incarnation, supra, at 212 (citing Numbers 35:34 “for I the Lord dwell in the Israelites.”)

^[51] Id., at 213.

^[52] Id..

^[53] Id.

^[54] Kogan, at 101. Kogan’s thesis is that while Jews need not affirm Christian claims as true, they no longer need insist on their falsity.

^[55] Moltmann, TWOJC, at 28.

^[56] Id., at 33.

^[57] Id., at 36.

^[58] Id., at 37.

^[59] Id.

^[60] The Servant Songs are found at Isaiah 42:1-4; 49:1-6; 50:4-11; and 52:13-53:12.

^[61] In a recent interfaith Biblical discussion group I lead, one of the Jewish students, upon reading these passages, remarked, “That does sound like Jesus!”

^[62] See, e.g., Wayne A. Meeks, Ed. The HarperCollins Study Bible: New Revised Standard Version, with Apocryphal/Deuterocanonical Books. 1st ed. New York: HarperCollins, 1993, p. 1071, n. 42.1-9 (“The position taken here is that the songs should be read in context and that the servant is the nation Israel…The language point to the identification of Israel as the servant (41.1-8; 44.1-2; 44.21)”). See, also, Walter Brueggemann. Isaiah 40-66. Westminster Bible Companion. Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster John Knox Press, 1998, p. 42 (“Here it is enough to assume, as is generally the case, that ‘my servant’ is the people Israel. That appellation draws upon the entire memory of ancient Israel that affirms that Israel is related to Yahweh as servant to master (king) and that the life of Israel consists in obedience to the will and command and purpose of the king.”)

^[63] Wyschogrod, Incarnation, supra, at 215.

^[64] Moltmann. TWOJC, at 20.

^[65] Kogan, at 105.

^[66] Moltmann, TTATK, at 16.

^[67] Id., at 19-20.

^[68] Sherwin, supra, at 260.

^[69] To be sure, as long ago as the middle ages, Jewish thinkers were acknowledging a role from Christianity and Islam in the divine plan for human redemption. See, Sherwin, supra, at 257-8. One wonders at the ability of a persecuted minority faith to allow for the participation in God’s plan for two religions that were at that very moment preaching Judaism’s obsolescence.

^[70] Kogan, at. 95.

^[71] Sherwin, at 260. Sherwin quotes Rabbi Leo Baeck, the most important Jewish leader in Nazi Germany, that in beholding Jesus: “we behold a man who is Jewish in every feature and trait of his character, manifesting in every particular what is pure and good in Judaism. This man could have developed as he came to be only on the soil of Judaism; and only on this soil, too, could he find his disciples and followers as they were. Here along, in this Jewish sphere, in this Jewish atmosphere…could this man live his life and meet his death—a Jew among Jews.”

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Copyright © 2001, 2021. Mark A. Schaefer. All Rights Reserved.