tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7143395511928869444.post2514801318689013003..comments2024-01-02T13:37:26.563-06:00Comments on גֵּר־וְתוֹשָׁב: Why Christianity is more ethnocentric than Judaismd. millerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16844676267073730959noreply@blogger.comBlogger8125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7143395511928869444.post-16269127831519836442011-09-05T16:22:45.386-06:002011-09-05T16:22:45.386-06:00Thanks for the comments, everyone. More in a bit, ...Thanks for the comments, everyone. More in a bit, hopefully...d. millerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16844676267073730959noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7143395511928869444.post-43518272392835633762011-08-30T07:18:48.488-06:002011-08-30T07:18:48.488-06:00Your "provocative" post has provoked me ...Your "provocative" post has provoked me to thought. I need some clarification on what you're comparing:<br /><br />Are you comparing /modern/ Christianity with /modern/ Judaism? or /ancient/ (say, 1st-century - supposing that's uniform!) Christianity (which arguably isn't "Christianity") with /ancient/ (biblical and/or second temple and/or rabbinic - supposing that's uniform!) Judaism (which arguably isn't in all cases "Judaism" [of the region of Judea])? (I assume you're not comparing ancient with modern in either category.)<br /><br />I'd also challenge that gentile acceptance into ancient "normative" Judaism was quite so squeaky-clean as you're suggesting.<br /><br />Recommended reading: Christine E. Hayes, /Gentile Impurities and Jewish Identities: Intermarriage and Conversion from the Bible to the Talmud/ (OUP,2002).Jeromeynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7143395511928869444.post-76665213651436871122011-08-26T23:30:20.044-06:002011-08-26T23:30:20.044-06:00How many Jews also teach their kids, as Paul taugh...How many Jews also teach their kids, as Paul taught the Corinthians, "not to be unequally yoked," but to marry a fellow Jew? <br /><br />Christianity in the end amounted to religious supersessionism, Judaism has now been superseded, just as Mormonism and Islam both claim to have revelations that supersede Christian "orthodoxy." <br /><br />So I agree with the author of this blog piece that some Christian teachings certainly are so exclusivistic as to compare them with what one might call, spiritual racism. <br /><br />"He who does not believe is condemned already." John 3<br /><br />"He who does not believe is damned." Mark 16 (late added appendix) <br /><br />Not to mention the "not written in the book of life" stuff, and gory destruction of life on earth depicted in Revelation, all with the imprimatur of the "prince of peace."Edwardtbabinskihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13036816926421936940noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7143395511928869444.post-88075796931024869132011-08-26T00:51:46.512-06:002011-08-26T00:51:46.512-06:00I noticed this post from James McGrath's carni...I noticed this post from James McGrath's carnival and I agree with you along with Buell and others that (at least some) early Christians applied ethnic language to their communities (chosen people, holy nation, new Israel, third race) and that the contrast of Judaism as ethnocentric vs Christianity as universalistic is unfair. I had wrote an article for Studies in Religion applying ethnic reasoning to the epistle of Barnabas and will be presenting on it at the Jewish-Christian relations section for this upcoming SBL. Thanks also for the notice about Love Sechrest's Paul and the Dialectics of Race which I need to check out, though I find myself more drawn to Caroline Hodges reading that Paul did not yet see "Christians" as a distinct people but he still saw himself as an Israelite called to reach out to the nations to have them adopted into the family of Abraham through the Messiah.Mike Khttp://www.ntmark.wordpress.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7143395511928869444.post-80918285785979356822011-08-19T19:22:05.266-06:002011-08-19T19:22:05.266-06:00Or you could reverse it and say that both Jews and...Or you could reverse it and say that both Jews and Christians are universalists in respect to God's Lordship and call to all peoples . . .<br /><br />Are you and the people you cite in your previous post working with the same definition of ethnocentrism? Feels like there is a difference. One is a pejorative, the other is more descriptive?<br /><br />I wonder if perhaps particularity and ethnocentrism (depending upon its definition) are often conflated together in the same way that Pharisees and "lovers of money" are. No doubt some Pharisees were lovers of money, but its not intrinsic to their way of life. Likewise, some Jews (ala Jonah?) fell into ethnocentrism, but this is not a part of being Jewish?Isaac Grosshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00943213217004734460noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7143395511928869444.post-50100289621717894652011-08-19T16:09:29.507-06:002011-08-19T16:09:29.507-06:00Thanks for the response, StuntMonk. No offense tak...Thanks for the response, StuntMonk. No offense taken. Quick thoughts: <br /><br />Re: 2: The teacher-student relationship is rather different. I'm suggesting, following Buell, that early Christians regarded their connection to Christ and, through Christ, to each other as more *real* than a physical sibling relationship. It was more than metaphor. This has contemporary implications. Myth may be confusing here: My assumption is that most ancients did not view their common ancestry as 'mythical', though modern scholars do.<br /><br />Another difference from your contemporary examples is the language that 1 Peter 2:9, for example uses. It had 'racial' resonance in the ancient world.<br /><br />Just as anyone can become a Christian so it is (and was) possible for people to become Jews. I'm toying with the idea that becoming a Christian involved a more radical renunciation of a person's past cultural/ethnic ties than is commonly thought. We miss this because we don't realize that for the ancients Greek religion was indistinguishable from Greekness, just as worship of the One God was indistinguishable from Jewishness. Everything was a package. So when 'pagans' became 'Christians' they literally had to abandon their past way of life and their past social ties.d. millerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16844676267073730959noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7143395511928869444.post-7287282593250690972011-08-19T01:03:42.949-06:002011-08-19T01:03:42.949-06:00*It also appears that you're stretching Hutchi...*It also appears that you're stretching Hutchinson and Smith's definitions beyond what they are reasonably supposed to mean. Makes for good, provocative stuff, but not quite serious work (if I may say so without causing offense).Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15922652724607532192noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7143395511928869444.post-70475439997151223132011-08-19T00:57:45.332-06:002011-08-19T00:57:45.332-06:00With all respect Mr. Miller, it feels like this li...With all respect Mr. Miller, it feels like this list is reaching. Most of these things describe any group or subculture; I can think of parkour and MMA groups who share all of these aspects except for #1. (Your #2 point would, in these groups, take the form of a teaching lineage from instructor to student.) If these points keep Christianity from being "universal" then <i>nothing</i> is universal. Surely when we consider that <i>anyone</i> can take on this "common ancestry in Christ" and that Christianity can take on large variety of outward cultural expressions, a difference between its relative universalism and Judaism's nationalist/particularist trappings has to be acknowledged.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15922652724607532192noreply@blogger.com