Abstract
This chapter explores how Friedrich Nietzsche’s work The Anti-Christ inspired not only an unexpected charitable reading of Jesus’s life and thought in the New Testament, but also an unlikely sense of “holy envy.” The topic of Jesus is very tricky for Jews. The legacy of Christian anti-Judaism provides the hermeneutical lens for how Jews may interpret the life and teachings of Jesus in the New Testament. Incorporating aspects of Jesus’s life and teachings into a Jewish religious way of engaging the world, or even just appreciating them, can be an anathema to classical and many forms of modern Jewish thought. Sax explores the irony and power of how Nietzsche’s Jesus could inspire a contemporary Jewish thinker to admire and connect to the Jesus of the New Testament.
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Notes
- 1.
Ignatius to the Magnesians, in The Apostolic Fathers: Revised Greek Texts, ed. J.B. Lightfoot and J.R. Harmer (New York: Macmillan, 1898), 145.
- 2.
Walter Kaufmann, Nietzsche, Philosopher, Psychologist, Antichrist (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1974), 361–62.
- 3.
Anti-Judaism and anti-Semitism denote different, though, interrelated concerns. Anti-Judaism refers to a theology , ideology, or worldview that opposes the religion of Judaism, or the belief that Jewish practice is inferior or antiquated. Anti-Judaism can take many forms, though, its most prominent expression is most likely found in Christian supersessionist theological movements. Modern anti-Semitism however is distinct from Christian medieval contempt toward Judaism and Jewry. It is usually advanced ideologically, and its motives tend to be secular . “The term anti-Semitism,” wrote Hyam Maccoby, “was coined in the nineteenth century as a would-be scientific attempt to give a rational justification for Jew hatred when theological explanations had come to seem out of date.” [See Hyam Maccoby, “Anti-Judaism and Anti-Semitism,” in 20th Century Jewish Religious Thought, eds. Arthur A. Cohen and Paul Mendes-Flohr (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 2009), 13.] For example, Wilhelm Marr (1818–1904) introduced the term “Anti-Semitism” to inaugurate the League of Anti-Semites (Antisemiten Liga). [See Wilhelm Marr, Der Sieg des Judenthhums ueber das Germanenthum vom nicht confessionellen Standpunkt ausbetrachtet (Bern: Rudolph Costenoble, 1879), 30–35.] Marr was a proud anti-Semite. His movement —The League of Anti-Semites—was most likely the first modern, popular political movement entirely based on anti-Semitism. You may notice that even in his title, Marr is contrasting Jews with Germans. Unlike an anti-Jewish position, he is not speaking theologically. His view was simple. Jews and Germans are distinct and stand diametrically opposed to one another. In fact, they are at war. Marr wrote: “Not individual Jews, but the Jewish spirit and Jewish consciousness have overpowered the world.” Jews, then, are part of a pernicious revolution against Europe. There are six important features of anti-Semitism:
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1.
Jews and Citizenship: Jews were perceived to be a “State within a State.” For an anti-Semite, Jews are an anathema to the modern state. Any state requires national and cultural assimilation. Jews do so only publicly since they refuse to disassociate with their national and cultural aspirations, which is at odds with nations that afford them citizenship. Their first priorities are to other Jews, regardless of their perceived national identities .
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2.
Jews and Money: Jews were (are) perceived to have an uncanny attachment to money. With the emergence of capitalism, the Jewish proclivity toward money afforded them a great advantage in the modern world. Capitalism’s most egregious features—greed, oppression, etc.—are attributed to Jewry (i.e., Marx and others).
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3.
Excess of Jewish Influence in Public Life: Following (1) and (2), Jews have attained a disproportionate amount of influence in public life, ranging from media to finically supporting political movements that advance the interests of the “Jewish spirit” in overpowering the world.
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4.
Modernity Works for Jewry: Jews are guilty of introducing unsavory views into the world. They sell these positions through a variety of media. Culture, as a result, changes. Jews, as result, benefit from these changes. For example, Jews in entertainment influence society negatively. Also, Jews are accused of atheism.
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5.
The Jewish Conspiracy: Jews are conspiring against the world. A “Jewish spirit” can, as a result of (1), (2), (3), and (4), manipulate in a clandestine manner the myriad forces of politics and modernity—from capitalism to socialism (by creating both, Jews are able to divide and conquer)—to prevent a peaceful and just world (A classic example is the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.).
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6.
Modern Dualism: This idea is a modern, secular variation on earlier theological ideas of the “demonic Jew ” or the “Devil Incarnal.” [See Joshua Trachtenberg, The Devil and the Jews: The Medieval Conception of the Jew and Its Relation to Modern Anti-Semitism (Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society, 1943), 11–56.] It is also based on the theological concept of supersessionism. This notion can also be expressed in racial theories that associate intellectual or moral acumen with racial biology in an attempt to explain the racial and intellectual division of human beings. Some races are good, others evil . Jews, in these theories, are biologically inferior morally and intellectually.
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1.
- 4.
See Rosemary Ruether, Faith and Fratricide: The Theological Roots of Anti-Semitism (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock Publishers, 1997).
- 5.
Steven E. Aschheim, “Nietzsche, Anti-Semitism, and the Holocaust ,” in Nietzsche and Jewish Culture, ed. Jacob Golomb (New York: Routledge, 1997), 3.
- 6.
See Benjamin Silver, “Twilight of the Anti-Semites,” The Jewish Review of Books, winter, 2017: https://jewishreviewofbooks.com/articles/2397/twilight-of-the-anti-semites/
- 7.
Stephen Prothero, American Jesus: How the Son of God Became a National Icon (New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2003).
- 8.
She writes, “If one the popular level we Jews are willing not only to acknowledge but also take pride in the Jewishness of such generally nonobservant Jews as Sigmund Freud, Albert Einstein, the Marxes (Karl and Groucho, although Karl was baptized as a child), and Jerry Seinfeld, why not acknowledge the quite observant Jesus? Such recognition need not entail citing the Gospels in a bar mitzvah talk or in a d’var. Torah, an interpretation of the biblical reading for the week, although I have heard rabbis in Reform and Conservative synagogues cite Homer (both the Greek poet and Bart’s father ), Plato, the Buddha, Muhammad , Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr., the Dali Lama, and even Madonna (the Kabbalah-besotted singer, not the mother of Jesus). At least Jesus is Jewish with regard to family, practice, and belief.” See Amy-Jill Levine, The Misunderstood Jew: The Church and the Scandal of the Jewish Jesus (New York, N.Y.: HarperOne Publishers, 2006), 8.
- 9.
Douglas Martin, “Krister Stendahl, 86, Ecumenical Bishop, is Dead,” The New York Times, April 16, 2008: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/16/us/16stendahl.html?mcubz=0
- 10.
Mishnah Avot 5:17.
- 11.
Babylonian Talmud , Sotah 49a.
- 12.
Religious pluralism here refers to the civic engagement with religious diversity as articulated by Diana Eck and the Pluralism Project, and not the theological pluralism laid out in Alan Race’s well-known three-fold typology.
- 13.
See Paul Mendes-Flohr, German Jews: A Dual Identity (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999).
- 14.
Ellen Singer (ed.), Paradigm Shift: From the Jewish Renewal Teachings of Reb Zalman Schachter-Shalomi (Northvale, New Jersey: Jason Aronson, Inc., 1993), 18.
- 15.
“A Portrait of Jewish Americans,” Pew Research Center, October 1, 2013: http://www.pewforum.org/2013/10/01/jewish-american-beliefs-attitudes-culture-survey/
- 16.
Babylonian Talmud , Chagigah 14b.
- 17.
Moses Mendelssohn, Jerusalem: Or On Religious Power and Judaism, trans. Allan Arkush (Hanover, N.H: Brandeis University Press, 1983), 89–90.
- 18.
Isaac Deutscher, “The Non-Jewish Jew,” The Non-Jewish Jew and Other Essays (Boston: Alyson Publications, 1968), 26–27.
- 19.
David Biale, Not in the Heavens: The Tradition of Jewish Secular Thought (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2011), xi.
- 20.
Isaac Deutscher, The Non-Jewish Jew and other Essays, 51.
- 21.
Hyam Maccoby, ed. and trans., Judaism on Trial: Jewish-Christian Disputations in the Middle Ages (London: The Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 1982), 121.
- 22.
See David Nirenberg, Anti-Judaism: The Western Tradition (New York, N.Y.: W.W. Norton, 2013). Nirenberg’s study examines how theories of language, politics, and culture relate to actual events. For example, empirically speaking, Jews living in medieval Christian and Islamic societies did not enjoy the same rights and privileges as their Muslim and Christian neighbors. However, the idea of “Judaizing” culture as something nefarious was absent in Islamic society, while prevalent in Christian society. Even though in both cases Jews are empirically distinct (politically speaking, having fewer rights and privileges), in Christian society Jews were theologically a threat to the Christian imagination, and thus to Christian society. This is where we see the influence of Augustine: more particularly, the Augustinian paradox of preservation and persecution. Jews, for Augustine, were the “living letter.” In his oft-cited Contra Faustum, Augustine remarked, “no one can fail to see that in every land where the Jews are scattered they mourn for the loss of their kingdom, and are in terrified subjection to the immensely superior number of Christians” (12.12). The survival of Jews, as people baring the mark of Cain, is evidence that they are scriniaria (“the writing desk”) of Christians. Jews endure as “testimony to the tenets of the church , so that we honor through the sacrament and what it announces through the letter.” These passages have been used to justify violence toward Jews. They have also been used to demonize Judaism . Yet they have also been used to protect (more appropriately, preserve) Jews. Hence, we have the Augustinian paradox: While the potential for violence against Jews is real (and has a long track record), it is not perforce a logical extension of an Augustinian worldview.
- 23.
Benjamin E. Sax, “The Theology of the In-Between,” in Jewish Theology in our Time: A New Generation Explores the Foundations and Future of Jewish Belief, ed. Elliot J. Cosgrove (Woodstock, VT: Jewish Lights Publishing, 2010), 176.
- 24.
Amanda Porterfield, The Transformation of American Religion : The Story of a Late Twentieth-Century Awakening (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), 158–162.
- 25.
Thomas Jefferson, The Jefferson Bible: The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth (Boston: Beacon Press, 1989), 9–10.
- 26.
Isaac of Troki, Faith Strengthened, trans. Moses Mocatta (New York: Ktav Publishing, 1970), 274.
- 27.
Abraham Geiger, Judaism and Its History in Two Parts, trans. Charles New Burgh (New York: Bloch, 1911), 130–136.
- 28.
Kaufmann Kohler, Jesus of Nazareth from a Jewish Point of View (New York: Funk & Wagnalls, 1899).
- 29.
Daniel Boyarin, The Jewish Gospels: The Story of the Jewish Christ (New York, N.Y.: The New Press, 2012), 6.
- 30.
Jack Miles, “Forward,” The Jewish Gospels: The Story of the Jewish Christ (New York: The New Press, 2012), ix–xxii.
- 31.
Friedrich Nietzsche, “The Anti-Christ: A Curse on Christianity,” trans. Judith Norman, in The Anti-Christ, Ecce Homo, Twilight of the Idols, and Other Writings, ed. Aaron Ridley and Judith Norman (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014), 3–68.
- 32.
Ibid, 26–27.
- 33.
Ibid, 27.
- 34.
See Susannah Heschel, The Aryan Jesus: Christian Theologians and the Bible in Nazi Germany (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2008), 26–66.
- 35.
Nietzsche, The Anti-Christ, 39–40.
- 36.
See Samuel Sandmel, We Jews and Jesus: Exploring Theological Differences for Mutual Understanding (repr., Woodstock, VT: SkyLight Paths and Jewish Lights, 2006).
- 37.
Boyarin, The Jewish Gospels: The Story of the Jewish Christ, 158.
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Sax, B.E. (2018). Nietzsche and the Jewish Jesus: A Reflection on Holy Envy. In: Gustafson, H. (eds) Learning from Other Religious Traditions. Pathways for Ecumenical and Interreligious Dialogue. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-76108-4_2
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