A while back my friend Larry Behrendt, who writes about Jews and Christians and Jewishness and Christian-ish-ness, and I decided to have a bit of virtual Jewish-Christian dialogue on the topic of "problem texts" in sacred scripture. As I understand this conversation, we'll be writing about our own (Larry's and mine) problems with a few passages in "S/scripture" (variously defined) and possible postures toward such texts. My hope is that I will understand Larry's posture a bit better in the process and (hopefully) improve my own posture as well.
See the first part in this series here. I will offer a response post in a few days here on The Jesus Blog.
First a few words about Jewish-Christian dialogue. I've learned a little bit about this dialectic over the past ten years. I don't expect that these are points that are common to all Jewish-Christian dialogue nor do I offer these points as "rules for the road" for anyone else. But here they are:
1) Self-disclosure is necessary. I am a Christian. This self-designation has various components, but one of the components is this: I don't self-identity as Jewish. In short, I acknowledge that my religious commitments and traditional postures are different in many ways from those who self-identify as Jewish.*
2) I tend to understand myself and my people better when I understand an outsider's view better.
3) With points both 1 and 2 in mind, it is often necessary to emphasize the crucial differences between Christianity and Judaism in dialogue (what Larry would call "asymmetries"). This does not mean that we won't find some analogues too. Jews and Christians have a great deal in common. But to play up our commonalities at the expense of our asymmetries is not helpful inter-religious dialogue.
I've learned many other things as well, but these will suffice for now. I hope that our dialogue promotes the well-being of both Jews and Christians.
-anthony
*If you'd like to chime in on our comments, it might be helpful if you self-identify too. Up to you.
I got excited for this when I first read about it on the other blog.
ReplyDeleteThanks for your enthusiasm, Aaron. Since we are all about self-disclosure in this post, may I ask:
DeleteWhen did you first realize that you were nerdy beyond repair?
my deepest sympathies,
-anthony
I knew I was nerdy the first time I tried to work through Teach Yourself: New Testament Greek by Gavin Betts several years ago. I really don't know what I'm talking about, but I can have people fooled for at least five minutes.
ReplyDeleteThe first step is admitting that you have a problem.
DeleteWelcome, brother.
anthony
Anthony, I hate to nitpick, but I don't necessarily consider it to be an "asymmetry" when Judaism and Christianity disagree. Here's how I explained it on my blog. While folks commonly speak of "apples and oranges" in terms of things that cannot be substituted one for the other, I think that apples and oranges can be compared symmetrically. Even where apples and oranges differ, they differ in ways essential to each: the smoothness of their skins, the climate and soil where they grow, the time of year that each becomes ripe, and so forth. And even though apples and oranges taste different, we consider taste to be an essential characteristic to consider when we compare these items.
ReplyDeleteIn contrast, the comparison of apples to baseballs is more asymmetrical. The properties of a baseball that are most important to us – how they curve or slide when thrown by a professional, or how far they travel when struck by a baseball bat – are characteristics that are not important to how we experience apples and oranges.
Consider one Jewish-Christian difference: Christians regard Jesus as the Messiah, Son of God and the second person of the triune God, and Jews do not. I regard this as an asymmetric difference between the two religions. For Christians, belief in Jesus might be the single most important thing characterizing a religion. For Jews, belief in Jesus is not that important an issue -- questions of tradition, covenant, land and scripture are much more important. So, the Jewish-Christian difference regarding Jesus is very important to understanding Christianity, but it doesn't tell us much about Judaism. This is where the asymmetry lies -- not in the differences between the two religions, but in the difficulty in relying on these differences to reach an understanding of the other.
If I haven't adequately explained this, I'm happy to rattle on further.
One final point: I like to nitpick. Though I'm not proud of this.
Very helpful Larry.
DeleteSo not only do we have important differences, but our differences differ differently.
-anthony