Abraham Heschel: Remarks on Jews and the Church
And as for Ishmael, I have heard you: I will surely bless him; I will make him fruitful and will greatly increase his numbers. He will be the father of twelve rulers, and I will make him into a great nation. Genesis 17:20 NIV
Great nation – I don’t know if you think Ishmael is the father of the Islamic/Arabic people. I don’t. Islam began in the 6th Century of the Common Era. The Arabic people, who are also Semites, were around long before that. If their ancestry crossed paths with the Jews, no one really knows. But that isn’t the point of God’s statement to Abraham. The point is that God isn’t exclusively Jewish. The words used here are gôy gādôl (people/nation – great). Of course, gôy is also the word for “Gentile.” “The term gôy is used especially to refer to specifically defined political, ethnic or territorial groups of people without intending to ascribe a specific religious or moral connotation.”[1] But because our New Testament describes “gentile” as non-Jewish, and because the Church proceeded from Gentile roots, gôy is often understood as those non-Jews who were eventually incorporated into the Church through conversion. The Jews were on one side; the Gentiles on the other. God was on the side of the Church. Therefore, if Jews wanted to follow God, then had to become “Christians,” that is to say, “Gentiles.” But the text suggests that God is quite comfortable working with more than one group of people.
Abraham Heschel had some telling remarks about this idea. And I don’t remember the sources. I think it’s in his work “Spiritual Audacity.”
“One of the biggest scandals in the history of the Church was to try to make Christians out of Jews. Now, Christianity is a religion for which I have very great respect. I have great reverence for many Christians. But I also have to remind them that my being Jewish is so sacred to me that I am ready to die for it. And when a statement came out of the Ecumenical Council expressing the hope that the Jews would eventually join the Church, I came out with a very strong rebuke. I said, ‘I’d rather go to Auschwitz than give up my religion.’”
“This great, old, wise Church in Rome realizes that the existence of the Jews as Jews is so holy and so precious that the Church would collapse if the Jewish people ceased to exist. If there are some Protestant sects who still cling to this silly hope of proselytizing, I would say they are blind and deaf and dumb.”
“As far as I can judge, and I try to judge God’s will from history, it seems to be the will of God that there be more than one religion. I think it’s a very marvelous thing to realize. You know, if I were to ask the question whether the . . . Metropolitan Museum should try to introduce that all paintings should look alike, or I should like to suggest that all human faces should look alike—how would you respond to my proposal?”
“I think it is the will of God that there should be religious pluralism.”
Topical Index: Jew, Gentile, gôy, religious pluralism, Genesis 17:20
[1] (1999). 326 גוה. In R. L. Harris, G. L. Archer Jr., & B. K. Waltke (Eds.), Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament (electronic ed., p. 154). Moody Press.
