Says Who?
“The Son of Man is going away just as it is written about Him; but woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed! It would have been good [a]for that man if he had not been born.” Matthew 26:24 NASB
As it is written – I recently engaged in a lively interchange with someone who didn’t quite understand what I meant when I suggested that most Christian believers don’t actually worship the God of Israel. That was apparently quite challenging, particularly since this person claimed that Christians know God’s name (YHVH) and follow the Ten Commandments. I pointed out that most Christians, in order to be Christian, do not follow all the Ten Commandments (they quite deliberately ignore number four) and don’t worship Him according to His instructions even if they think they know Who He is. After all, just because I know the name of the king of England doesn’t mean he is my sovereign nor does it mean I follow his instructions. Citizenship is more than name-calling. But the conversation continued and I realized that it really wasn’t about theology at all. It was about the interpretive paradigm behind the theology. It usually is. You see, both religions use pretty much the same text (excluding the apostolic writings, of course), and both religions claim (sort of) the same historical development, but they do not approach the text with the same objective and that difference makes all the difference.
Christianity is by and large the application of Greek philosophical methodology to ancient texts whereas Judaism appropriates these texts in an entirely different way. Boyarin points this out when he writes: “ . . . Christological formulations made possible by the philosophical terminology available in Greek and Latin. In the succeeding centuries [i.e., after 350 CE] the Church Fathers within the Persian Empire express themselves in a thoroughly Hellenistic idiom.”[1] In other words, without the philosophical background of Greek and Latin, certain essential doctrines of Christianity would not be possible. That’s because the idea of truth in Christian thought is based on the Greek notion of exclusion. What is true cannot be the same as what is not true. If I am presented with two opinions and only one can be true, then the other must be false. The entire pursuit of truth is to eliminate all those false opinions, and once something is determined to be true, then all other opinions can be discarded as false. This is the thinking of Christian dogma and doctrine. There is, in the end, no room for “maybe.”
But this is not the Jewish approach. “ . . . Rabbinic literature, the result of a common choice by its anonymous editors to preserve minority as well as majority opinions, the varieties of traditions rather than single versions.”[2] Boyarin continues with this crucial insight:
“At approximately the same time that rabbinic Judaism was crystalizing the characteristic discursive forms of orthodoxy—interpretative indeterminacy and endless dispute—the orthodox Church was developing the discursive forms that were to characterize it, its nearly proverbial ‘dogma and hierarchy.’ Without ascribing any particular differentiation in social structure to the two formations on the basis of this distinction, we can nevertheless point to these shifting differences as significant moments in the epistemologies and theologies of language of the two communities.”[3]
What does this mean? It means that Judaism (Rabbinic Judaism) has deliberately decided not to look for the final truth, precisely the opposite of Christian epistemology. Judaism is built on the idea of different opinions. Every opinion has value and none is final until all is resolved in the Olam Ha’ba. Before that time, everything counts—so, we retain it all and worry about how it all gets straightened out later. “Interpretative indeterminacy and endless dispute” is the gist of Judaism. It is the polar opposite of Christian dogma and doctrine.
When someone is disturbed by a challenge to Christian dogma, it is usually because that person believes in the “one truth” exclusivism of Greek thinking. Such a person has a hard time imagining that the world is messy, that there are fifty shades of gray, or that God hasn’t written it all down so that we know exactly what it means. That person lives in Athens, not Jerusalem. And it very hard to travel between the two.
Topical Index: truth, epistemology, Boyarin, written, Matthew 26:24
[1] Daniel Boyarin, Border Lines: the Partition of Judeo-Christianity (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004), p. 156.
[2] Daniel Boyarin, Border Lines: the Partition of Judeo-Christianity (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004), p. 158.
[3] Daniel Boyarin, Border Lines: the Partition of Judeo-Christianity (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004), p. 156.
The “dialectic” is taken up in the process of the Divine Spirit’s work of a higher “synthesis” utilizing an individual’s commitment to Scripture as a normative guide for understanding truth.
I am curious to see if I understand this. You contrast “the Greek pursuit of singular truth with the Jewish acceptance of multiple opinions, suggesting that those disturbed by challenges to Christian dogma often adhere to Greek-style exclusivism, contrasting Athens with Jerusalem”. But, what then does this suggest about the “excluding the apostolic writings” by Judaism? Would it not be in the “acceptance of multiple opinions”? I learned and continue to learn, many thought-provoking themes from your writings. I am grateful for the posts from this site.
Good point. Rabbinic pluralism seems limited to what falls within Jewish “orthodoxy.” Multiple opinions are allowed only inside the boundaries (see Boyarin’s work). The apostolic material is excluded, unfortunately, not because it is outside orthodoxy if read from a Jewish perspective, but rather for social/.political reasons, namely, as a reflection of Christian antisemitism (with a long tragic history). Boyarin’s book on the Jewish Gospels shows how this material might be incorporated, but the pogroms and Trinitarian theology stand in the way for most Jews.