Antisemitism and the NT - A Book List.
Macabi
Antisemitism and the New Testament
A book list found on the Web
If you know of a book concerning the roots of modern antisemitism and the
NT e-mail me details (mac...@cwcon.net) and I will include it in future
versions or this list.
(1) 'Anti-Semitism in the New Testament', Samuel Sandmel
(2) 'The Crucifixion of the Jews', Franklin H. Littel, 1975
(3) 'History of Anti-Semitism', Leon Poliakov, 1965
(4) 'The Devil and the Jews', Joshua Trachtenburg, Harper & Row, N.Y.
(5) 'Anti-Judaism: A Psychohistory', Ernest A. Rappaport
(6) 'Has Anti-Semitism roots in Christianity?', Isaac Jules, 1877 (reprint, 1961)
(7) 'The Teaching of Contempt', Isaac Jules
(8) 'Christianity and Anti-Semitism', Nikolai Aleksandrovich Berdiaev, 1954
(9) 'Ancient Judaism and the New Testament', Fred C. Grant
(10) 'Judaism in the Beginning of Christianity', Jacob Neusner
(11) 'The Myth of the Judeo-Christian Tradition', Arthur A. Cohen, N.Y., 1971
(12) 'Anti-Judaism in Christian Theology', Trans. by Edward Quinn, 1978
(13) 'Roots of Anti-Semitism', Heiko A. Oberman, Pub. Fortress Press, 1984
(14) 'The Origins of Anti-Semitism', J.G. Gager, Oxford, 1983 (Very Good Book)
(15) 'The Roots of Anti-Semitism in the Ancient World', Leiden, 1975
(16) 'The Jews of Ancient Rome', H. Leon, Philadephia, 1960
(17) 'Christian Beliefs and Anti-Semitism', C.Y. Glock and R. Stark, N.Y., 1969
(18) 'Christians and Jews, A Psychoanalytic Study', R.M. Loewenstein, N.Y., 1951
(19) 'Les juifs dans l'empire romain, J. Juster, Paris, 1914
(20) 'Christian writers on Judaism', G.F. Moore, 1821
(21) 'The Conflict of the Church and the Synagogue. A Study in the Origins of
Antisemitism', J. Parkes, Cleveland and Philadephia, 1961
(22) 'Anti-Semitism and the Christian Mind', Alan Davies, N.Y., 1969
(23) 'The Treatment of the Jews in Greek Christian Writers of the First Three
Centuries', R. Wilde, Washington, D.C., 1949
(24) 'Christentum und Judentum im ersten und zweiten Jahrhundert', L. Goppelt,
Gutersloh, 1954
(25) 'Jesus, Paul and Judaism', New York, 1964
(26) 'The Jews and the Gospel', G. Baum, 1961
(27) 'Is the New Testament Anti-Semitic?', G. Baum, New York, 1965
(28) 'Faith and Fratricide: The Theological Roots of Anti-Semitism', R. Ruether,
New York, 1974
(29) 'The Social Construction of Reality', P. Berger and T. Luckmann, N.Y., 1967
(30) 'The Rejection of the Jews in the Synoptic Gospels and Acts', D.R.A. Hare
(31) 'Anti-Semitism and the Foundations of Christianity', A. Davies, N.Y., 1979
(32) 'Greek and Latin Authors on Jews and Judaism', M. Stern, Jerusalem, 1980
(33) 'Judaism and the Early Christian Mind', R. Wilken, New Haven, 1971
(34) 'The Jews under Roman Rule', E.M. Smallwood, Leiden, 1976
JGa...@worldnet.att.net
That is bullshit. The Hebes were already enslaved in Egypt in Goshen and
the Egyptians would not eat with them at the same table. Jew-hatred was
racially based from day one.
JGa...@worldnet.att.net
> have been any II WW,
> or I WW or Napoleon or Henry VIII or Micheleangelo or Leonardo da Vinci
> or Koln Dome or st. Michel Island or baroque style or J.S. Bach or
> gothic style or Hieronimus Bosh or Russia or Moscow or Aachen or
> Charlemagne or S. Kierkegaard or ufff... basically...
>
> ...without christianity there would have been no European culture or
> history as we see it today.<
Well, there was a Greco-Roman empire that wasn't all that bad
beforehand.
M
Macabi, I appreciate your list here, but I have read the NT many many times and this list
just can't be considered to be on the table without reading and discussing particular
passages, which is what I would prefer to do.
I won't deny the anti-semites use selective passages from the NT to kick Jews in the
groin!
But don't they use the HB in same way????
As with many texts, the anti-semites could quote some verses (out of context) I might
add, but they then conveniently ignore the very strong pro-Jewish passages. A while ago
there was a jerk white supremacist here in s.c.i. or in s.c.j. and he couldn't refute my
arguments about the pro-Jewish passages.
For the time being, I remain here in s.c.i. mostly as a foil and an obstacle to the
anti-semites. Of course, if you'd like to discuss the issue, I'm open to that as well.
Bye 4 now.
Murray the gentile Zionist
Macabi
>
>
>Macabi, I appreciate your list here, but I have read the NT many many times and this list
>just can't be considered to be on the table without reading and discussing particular
>passages, which is what I would prefer to do.
>
>I won't deny the anti-semites use selective passages from the NT to kick Jews in the
>groin!
>But don't they use the HB in same way????
>
>As with many texts, the anti-semites could quote some verses (out of context) I might
>add, but they then conveniently ignore the very strong pro-Jewish passages. A while ago
>there was a jerk white supremacist here in s.c.i. or in s.c.j. and he couldn't refute my
>arguments about the pro-Jewish passages.
>
>For the time being, I remain here in s.c.i. mostly as a foil and an obstacle to the
>anti-semites. Of course, if you'd like to discuss the issue, I'm open to that as well.
>
>Bye 4 now.
>
Hi Murray,
I think it is pointless trading "proof" texts from the NT. What I am speaking
of is fairly well expressed in the following passage.
"The Nazis 'did not discard the past; they built upon it. They did
not begin a development; they completed it.' This fact makes
ludicrous any unqualified claim that the Nazis were the enemies
of Christendom. In actuality, they were in very large measure the
agents for the 'practical' application of an established social logic."
Hilberg, R., "The Destruction of the European Jews" (Chicago:
Quadrangle, 1961), and Eckardt, "Elder and Younger Brothers:
The Encounter of Jews and Christians" (New York: Schocken
1973), 12-14.
The established "social logic" referred to is an actualization of
the NT's antisemitic potential. It is this social effect of the distribution
of the NT as propaganda that concerns me.
M
Macabi wrote:
> "The Nazis 'did not discard the past; they built upon it. They did
> not begin a development; they completed it.' This fact makes
The Nazis were Valhallic Nordo-Nietzchians. They were not Xtians. They were going to
exterminate the Xtians after they got the Jews first.
As far as the "past" goes, I repudiate the Inquisition. That happened under a corrupt
state/church organization which killed bunches of evangelical "heretics" as well as Jews. The
independent Xtians were martyred next to the sons of Abraham.
Murray
mor...@niuhep.physics.niu.edu
>Macabi wrote:
>
>> "The Nazis 'did not discard the past; they built upon it. They did
>> not begin a development; they completed it.' This fact makes
>
>The Nazis were Valhallic Nordo-Nietzchians. They were not Xtians.
True, but if the Church had not contributed to and failed to fight against
anti-semitism they wouldn't have been so successful.
>They were going to exterminate the Xtians after they got the Jews first.
And your basis for this claim is?
Albert Reingewirtz
<mac...@cwcom.net> wrote:
> "The Nazis 'did not discard the past; they built upon it. They did
> not begin a development; they completed it.' This fact makes
> ludicrous any unqualified claim that the Nazis were the enemies
> of Christendom. In actuality, they were in very large measure the
> agents for the 'practical' application of an established social logic."
> Hilberg, R., "The Destruction of the European Jews" (Chicago:
> Quadrangle, 1961), and Eckardt, "Elder and Younger Brothers:
> The Encounter of Jews and Christians" (New York: Schocken
> 1973), 12-14.
>
> The established "social logic" referred to is an actualization of
> the NT's antisemitic potential. It is this social effect of the distribution
> of the NT as propaganda that concerns me.
Antisemitism originated with Christianity period. Christianity had a
big problem: How could it claim to be "the true church" if the original
believers where still in existence. So they tried unsuccessfully to
convert us. Up to about 50 years ago the Catholic church had part of it
Catechism a description of Jews as "Christ killers." All the other
churches had the same virulent name for Jews. No wonder that the most
dangerous times for Jews were always at Christmas and Easter when
parishioners came out of church straight to Jewish neighborhood to do
some killings and raping during burning of sacred Jewish books. The
first thing Luther did after posting on the church's doors was to call
on the destruction of Jews in Europe. You are absolutely right, without
Christianity there would never have been any antisemitism anywhere and
the Nazi's antisemitism was just the progression and execution of
Christians immoral stand toward us for 20 centuries. Another detail of
importance. Hitler learned his antisemitism reading his Catechism in
Sunday school and while he served as a choir boy in church. Nice!
Albert Reingewirtz
<73234...@compuserve.com> wrote:
> Macabi wrote:
>
> > "The Nazis 'did not discard the past; they built upon it. They did
> > not begin a development; they completed it.' This fact makes
>
> The Nazis were Valhallic Nordo-Nietzchians. They were not Xtians. They were
> going to
> exterminate the Xtians after they got the Jews first.
Really? Is this why the Vatican was involved with the Nazi's up to
their eyebrows during WW II and afterward organizing escape routes for
Nazi's?
>
> As far as the "past" goes, I repudiate the Inquisition. That happened under
> a corrupt
> state/church organization which killed bunches of evangelical "heretics" as
> well as Jews. The
> independent Xtians were martyred next to the sons of Abraham.
>
> Murray
How can amyone be so ignorant of history?
Bartek Rajwa
> You are absolutely right, without
> Christianity there would never have been any antisemitism anywhere and
> the Nazi's antisemitism was just the progression and execution of
> Christians immoral stand toward us for 20 centuries.
Yeah, you are _absolutely_ right. Without christianity there would not
have been any II WW,
or I WW or Napoleon or Henry VIII or Micheleangelo or Leonardo da Vinci
or Koln Dome or st. Michel Island or baroque style or J.S. Bach or
gothic style or Hieronimus Bosh or Russia or Moscow or Aachen or
Charlemagne or S. Kierkegaard or ufff... basically...
...without christianity there would have been no European culture or
history as we see it today.
So, I cannot agree more. No Christianity - no Holocaust.
-------------------------------------------------------
The question remains: how our world would have been look like? This is
actually a great idea for a sci-fi book! I am sure you will start to
write immediately and post the first chapter ASAP.
> Another detail of
> importance. Hitler learned his antisemitism reading his Catechism in
> Sunday school and while he served as a choir boy in church. Nice!
Sure. This same can be said about Stalin. Did you know that Stalin was a
seminarian? Yes, he studied to be a _priest_. Probably he learned from
the NT how to organize the Gulag. It is quite amazing that those two
people draw so different conclusions from the christian teaching. But of
course their murderous politics proves that christianity (generally) is
immoral. Interestingly, Stalin have not sang in a choir, so probably the
Hitler's concept of gas chambers must have been from church chorales,
while sending prisoners to Siberia is much more a Russian Orthodox
tradition.
(BTW: Jack the Ripper was also a christian!)
Another question: what should be done with those several millions of
christians which are left?
What should be done with their culture which originated from this
immoral christianism? You know: all those wacky El Grecos, Palestrinas,
Dostoyevskys (not mentioning such a nazi collaborators like Ezra Pound
or Thomas S. Elliot!!!!!)
Curious,
B Rajwa
--
ra...@flowcyt.cyto.purdue.edu
Bartek Rajwa
> > ...without christianity there would have been no European culture or
> > history as we see it today.<
>
> Well, there was a Greco-Roman empire that wasn't all that bad
> beforehand.
I didn't want to say that christian culture was "good" (or "bad"). What
I wanted to show is that such a simplification (Christianity=Holocaust)
leads to nowhere. It is a childish pseuhistoriosophy. I didn't even
mentioned the most absurd consequence of this: christianity could have
not been established without judaism, so...
I understand that everybody wants to know _why_? Why Holocaust happened?
Why Germany started II WWW ? Why G. Princip killed archduke Ferdinand?
Why Napoleon was defeated? Why French Revolution occurred? Why G. Bruno
was murdured? Why French Albigens were exterminated? Why Roman Empire
collapsed? Why? Why? Why?
Why there is hate and violence, pain and discrimination, why????
Some idiots have a simple answer: it is because of a Jewish
conspiracy... Some others have a different, but equally sick vision of
history.
All this NT bashing is worth exactly this same like those paranoic
neo-nazi postings about alleged racism in Talmud.
Regards,
B Rajwa
PS: Yes, Roman empire was not that bad. They have occupied Israel to
show their friendship, haven't they?
JGa...@worldnet.att.net
>
> I don't know, Jack.
>
> Slavery and infanticide are pretty bad things.
> The GReco-Romans celebrated these behaviors.<
True. But they sure built nice roads and purty statues and buildings.
And the Greeks wrote some nice plays and had interesting philosophies. I
guess nobody's perfect.
>
> Murray
JGa...@worldnet.att.net
> >state/church organization which killed bunches of evangelical "heretics" as well as Jews. The
> >independent Xtians were martyred next to the sons of Abraham.
> >
You really don't understand what the Inquisition was, at least in
theory. TO understand it you must have a rudimentary understanding of
Christian doctrine. In Christian doctrine, one who accepts Christ as
saviour has saved his soul. However, if one accepts Christ as saviour,
is baptized, and then goes about really practicing another religion has
damned his soul. When the JEws were offered the choice of either being
deported from Spain or accepting Christ, the majority left. However, the
many in the elite chose to accept Christ. But in reality they practiced
Judaism covertly in secret and were known as "marranos" or pigs.
The Inquisition was implemented by Torquemada to expose heretics,
marranos and the like, and to save their souls. If they confessed their
sin their souls could still be saved. OTherwise they would die in
eternal damnation. So in many cases torture was applied to get some to
confess in order to save their souls. Of course, there was the ulterior
motive of robbing the propeties of the wealthy marranos which was then
confiscated by the Church. Many died by torture refusing to confess,
often with the "shema" on their lips. Altogether the 3 centuries of the
inquisition killed about 20,000 people or so.
However, many of the Inquisitors really believed they were saving souls
from burning for an eternity in hell in the process. It wasn't merely an
attempt to be cruel for cruelty's sake.
As for the those who never accepted the Papal version of Christianity,
and who were much later known as "Protestants" they were always in
existence and being ruthless suppressed and tortured to death as
heretics - to save their souls, of course.
JGa...@worldnet.att.net
>
> On Sun, 13 Jun 1999 20:03:54 -0700, JGa...@worldnet.att.net wrote:
>
> >> Antisemitism originated with Christianity period. <
> >
> >the Egyptians would not eat with them at the same table. Jew-hatred was
> >racially based from day one.
>
> This is easily recognised. Pre-Christian anti-Jewish prejudice was based
> on different premises and was not uniform as it has been in the case of the
> Church. I am also addressing modern antisemitism. This has its reasons
> and that is what I am addressing.<
When Josephus retired to Rome after the great revolt, amongst his other
works he also wrote "Against Apion" which was a defense of the JEwish
people against the calumnies and snide insinuations that were already
common in the Greco-Roman world. In essence he said that the Jews
already had a culture and civilization when the Greeks were still
swinging in trees :) But the scourge of antisemitism was already in full
swing before the Church came to power.
JGa...@worldnet.att.net
> were not able to conquer the entire continent of Europe from the
> Christians. Evidence suggests that when Islam was ascendant, it had at
> least some tendency to be tolerantn toward People of the Book. No such
> generalization could be remotely suggested for Christianity.<
First of all, the Jews were in Spain before the Moros came and helped
the Moros conquer Spain, which is why the Christians paid them back
later on. Of course the Jews had suffered under the Christians
beforehand. But the main reason why the Christians went on the offensive
against the Jews were because the Jews had worked in Rome to try to
suppress the very early Christian Church. Naturally, when Christianity
came to fruition and the Empire officially became Christian, they became
the target of ridicule and finally some oppression. Judaism represented
a possible competitor and threat in those early centuries.
piper
<ra...@flowcyt.cyto.purdue.edu> wrote:
[snip]
>All this NT bashing is worth exactly this same like those paranoic
>neo-nazi postings about alleged racism in Talmud.
[snip]
You're totally off the wall on this one, Bartek. Jews haven't spent
the last 2,000 years attacking Christians and Muslims while chanting
some inflammatory interpretation of the Talmud. Christians have killed
millions of Jews saying "You killed God" and variations of that. They
got those opinions from the accounts in the Gospels, particularly John
and Luke, and the preaching of their priests and ministers.
So when you claim that the biggest pogrom had no clear connection with
the 2,000 years of Crusades, blood libels, expulsions, Inquisition and
all the other persecutions of the "ones who killed God," pardon us for
giving your statements short shrift.
One does not have to condemn the creative contributions of Christian
artists and thinkers - as you imply - to see the clear connection
between the Nazi Holocaust and all the earlier pogroms. I also think
your efforts to cite all those Christian historical figures make it
appear you're giving the back of your hand to the Jewish contribution
to German culture: Heine, Mendelssohn, etc.
And keep in mind that, while the Nazis may have had a rather atheistic
ideology, their collaborators in Croatia, France, Hungary, Slovakia,
Romania and other countries were official Christian.
If you want to know more, read up on the Nazis' use of Luther's
viciously anti-Jewish writings.
Michael
To reply by email, please eliminate "NOSPAM" from my address. Personal messages only! If you send a commercial solicitation, I will boycott the product.
Macabi
>
>
>Macabi wrote:
>
>> "The Nazis 'did not discard the past; they built upon it. They did
>> not begin a development; they completed it.' This fact makes
>
>The Nazis were Valhallic Nordo-Nietzchians. They were not Xtians. They were going to
>exterminate the Xtians after they got the Jews first.
>
Macabi
Macabi
>JGa...@worldnet.att.net wrote:
>
>> > ...without christianity there would have been no European culture or
>> > history as we see it today.<
>>
>> Well, there was a Greco-Roman empire that wasn't all that bad
>> beforehand.
>
>I didn't want to say that christian culture was "good" (or "bad"). What
>I wanted to show is that such a simplification (Christianity=Holocaust)
>leads to nowhere. It is a childish pseuhistoriosophy. I didn't even
>mentioned the most absurd consequence of this: christianity could have
>not been established without judaism, so...
So what? Christianity is clearly an interpretation of certain motifs within
Judaism. That such an interpretation in the hands of Greco-Roman pagans
resulted in the NT we now have with its antisemitic potential is no surprise.
>
>I understand that everybody wants to know _why_? Why Holocaust happened?
>Why Germany started II WWW ? Why G. Princip killed archduke Ferdinand?
>Why Napoleon was defeated? Why French Revolution occurred? Why G. Bruno
>was murdured? Why French Albigens were exterminated? Why Roman Empire
>collapsed? Why? Why? Why?
>
>Why there is hate and violence, pain and discrimination, why????
The question that has been asked is, where are the roots of modern antisemitism?
The (mostly Christian) post-Holocaust theologicains/NT scholars suggest that
these roots lie in the NT. I posted a list of books that some people might like to
read with regard to this issue. This is an important debate and your obfuscation
adds nothing other than show how clever you think you are.
>
>Some idiots have a simple answer: it is because of a Jewish
>conspiracy... Some others have a different, but equally sick vision of
>history.
>
>All this NT bashing is worth exactly this same like those paranoic
>neo-nazi postings about alleged racism in Talmud.
Don't be silly. Are you suggesting that post-Holocaust theologians/
NT scholars are no different from neo-Nazi racists?
Surely you can see some merit in the claim that the distribution of the
NT, with its antisemitic potential, has propagated Jew-hatred in a
proportion of the exposed population? This has nothing to do with
history but has to do with things as they are today. I see no
substantial difference between certain sub-plots in the NT and, say,
an advertisement promoting racial hatred. However, the obvious
difference is that this particular piece of antisemitic propaganda
has the support of numerous Christians still in denial concerning the
NT's antisemitic potential.
gab...@hotmail.com
>> Yeah, you are _absolutely_ right. Without christianity there would not
>> have been any II WW,
>> or I WW or Napoleon or Henry VIII or Micheleangelo or Leonardo da Vinci
>> or Koln Dome or st. Michel Island or baroque style or J.S. Bach or
>> gothic style or Hieronimus Bosh or Russia or Moscow or Aachen or
>> Charlemagne or S. Kierkegaard or ufff... basically...
>>
>> history as we see it today.<
>
>Well, there was a Greco-Roman empire that wasn't all that bad
>beforehand.
"Again, all that is best in the ethics of the modern world, in sofar
as it has not grown out of Greek thought, or Barbarian manhood, is the
direct development of the ethics of old Israel. There is no code of
legislation, ancient or modern, at once so just and so merciful, so
tender to the weak and poor, as the Jewish law; and if the Gospels are
to be trusted, Jesus of Nazareth himself declared that he taught
nothing but that which lay implicitly or explicitly, in the religious
and ethical system of his people."- T.H. Huxley; from 'Agnosticism
and Christianity'.
jerzy wk
Albert Reingewirtz <albertre...@access1.net> wrote:
> Hitler learned his antisemitism reading his Catechism in
> Sunday school and while he served as a choir boy in church. Nice!
>
Maybe, but where did he learn to hate/despise non-Jewish Poles?
Jerzy WK
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Share what you know. Learn what you don't.
M
Dietrich Bonhoeffer and other martyrs.
Murray
M
Albert Reingewirtz wrote:
>
>
> Antisemitism originated with Christianity period. Christianity had a
Bull hockey baloney.
You must have been napping during Purim when the Megillah was read. Anti-semitism
is the spawn of the devil to exterminate G-d's Chosen people. The Deceiver will use
ANY ideology and twist it in order to wipe out the Children of Israel.
Murray
M
Albert Reingewirtz wrote:
>
> Really? Is this why the Vatican was involved with the Nazi's up to
If you think I'm a friend of the Vatican's, you're making a big mistake.
The Vatican loves to persecute Xtians who don't toe their line.
Murray
>
> their eyebrows during WW II and afterward organizing escape routes for
> Nazi's?
> >
> > As far as the "past" goes, I repudiate the Inquisition. That happened under
> > a corrupt
> > state/church organization which killed bunches of evangelical "heretics" as
> > well as Jews. The
> > independent Xtians were martyred next to the sons of Abraham.
> >
> > Murray
>
> How can amyone be so ignorant of history?
That's funny, I thought I was a pretty good student of history,
Murray
M
Well, Jack you are right.
The first thing I thought of was Esther but you pushed the time line back
several hundred years.
Thanks.
Murray
JGa...@worldnet.att.net wrote:
> > Antisemitism originated with Christianity period. <
>
M
I don't know, Jack.
Slavery and infanticide are pretty bad things.
The GReco-Romans celebrated these behaviors.
Murray
M
piper wrote:
>
> You're totally off the wall on this one, Bartek. Jews haven't spent
> the last 2,000 years attacking Christians and Muslims while chanting
> some inflammatory interpretation of the Talmud. Christians have killed
> millions of Jews saying "You killed God" and variations of that. They
All the while these anti-semite so-called Xtians were "loving their neighbor as themselves"?
Hardly. The "Xtian" anti-semites are violent hate-filled hypocrites. They are enemies of the Jewish people and the Jewish Messiah.
Murray
M
Macabi wrote:
> The Inquisition killed Evangelicals? Tell me more.
Here is a text of "Foxe's Book of Martyrs" which details how the Roman church killed people for
things like translating the Bible into English (John Wycliffe was martyred for this). Also John
Hus and many others.
http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Pointe/6935/foxindex.html
Murray
Bartek Rajwa
> So when you claim that the biggest pogrom had no clear connection with
> the 2,000 years of Crusades, blood libels, expulsions, Inquisition and
> all the other persecutions of the "ones who killed God," pardon us for
> giving your statements short shrift.
Have you missed my original post? I have said there that I agreed. If it
had not been for the christianity - Holocaust would not have happened.
The whole history would have been completely different. If you want to
use your imagination now, you are welcome...
> One does not have to condemn the creative contributions of Christian
> artists and thinkers - as you imply - to see the clear connection
> between the Nazi Holocaust and all the earlier pogroms.
Of course not. So, you agree that Christianity is immoral and yet you
are not going to do anything about it??? Strange... How can you live
within a culture based on such an immoral, murderous, ideology?
> I also think
> your efforts to cite all those Christian historical figures make it
> appear you're giving the back of your hand to the Jewish contribution
> to German culture: Heine, Mendelssohn, etc.
8-) As you probably noticed I cited historical figures which are
_directly_ connected to Christianity. People and facts which could not
have occurred without this religion (similarly, like Holocaust). Anyway,
I agree - I doubt there would have existed anything similar to music of
Mendelssohn in the "alternative" history.
> And keep in mind that, while the Nazis may have had a rather atheistic
> ideology, their collaborators in Croatia, France, Hungary, Slovakia,
> Romania and other countries were official Christian.
Nazi was an atheistic ideology? Yesterday there was a post claiming that
nazism was a logical continuation of christianity and that Hitler
"learned his anti-Semitism in a church choir".
> If you want to know more, read up on the Nazis' use of Luther's
> viciously anti-Jewish writings.
I read much more about nazism than you suspect. And that is maybe why I
see this subject much more complicated than some other people. If you
are satisfied with the simple answer - fine. I don't care.
Greetings,
B Rajwa
--
ra...@flowcyt.cyto.purdue.edu
Bartek Rajwa
> >I didn't want to say that christian culture was "good" (or "bad"). What
> >I wanted to show is that such a simplification (Christianity=Holocaust)
> >leads to nowhere. It is a childish pseuhistoriosophy. I didn't even
> >mentioned the most absurd consequence of this: christianity could have
> >not been established without judaism, so...
>
> So what? Christianity is clearly an interpretation of certain motifs within
> Judaism. That such an interpretation in the hands of Greco-Roman pagans
> resulted in the NT we now have with its antisemitic potential is no surprise.
Bravo Macabi! You said exactly what I expected. So, it seems that in
fact there was also anti-Semitic potential in Greco-Roman culture. If
Greco-Roman pagans had not re-interpreted the Judaism there would not
have been the Holocaust. I am wondering where it is going to lead us? To
dinosaurs?
> >Why there is hate and violence, pain and discrimination, why????
>
> The question that has been asked is, where are the roots of modern antisemitism?
> The (mostly Christian) post-Holocaust theologicains/NT scholars suggest that
> these roots lie in the NT.
So far we reached a conclusion that the roots were more deeper. In
Greco-Roman culture. Anyway, the christian NT scholars try to find a
guilt within the christian community. That is fine and I agree 100%.
Holocaust happened within the cultural environment created mainly by
christianity. Some scholars claim that false interpretation of NT and
the fact that religion was used by many for political purposes were the
major problems. A fringe group (and obviously calling them "christian"
is an oxymoron) suggest that the NT and christianity itself can be
considered as a reason of anti-Semitism (also: extermination of Native
Americans, slave trade, apartheid, and so on).
It is your choice to accept the extreme position, but don't pretend that
such a view is the mainstream of the christian theology.
> I posted a list of books that some people might like to
> read with regard to this issue.
> This is an important debate and your obfuscation
> adds nothing other than show how clever you think you are.
Debate, are you joking? You call it debate? I am not the clever one
here. You are. You have the _universal_ answer. I only wanted to point
out that there are no universal answers. You want to believe this
christianity=holocaust theory? That's fine. I am not going to argue with
this. It is your problem. In my opinion the simplest way to obfuscate a
_real_ discussion is to throw a simplified answer. Answer which does not
explain anything. We all know that Holocaust happened in Europe.
Contemporary european culture have christian foundations. Saying that
the Holocaust could not have happened without christianity is a childish
tautology not an explanation. And it does not give us any insight about
the future.
> >All this NT bashing is worth exactly this same like those paranoic
> >neo-nazi postings about alleged racism in Talmud.
>
> Don't be silly. Are you suggesting that post-Holocaust theologians/
> NT scholars are no different from neo-Nazi racists?
Obviously, I am not. What I am suggesting is that simplified answers
lead to nowhere.
Also, I am suggesting that some postings about "christian" theology were
exactly as informative as the paranoia about Talmud posted to this group
by some neo-Nazi pigs. The funny thing is: nazi idiots post some
out-of-context quotations from NT and stupid anti-Semitic comments and
even though everybody knows it was a provocation, some people start to
think about it and eventually _believe_ it!
> However, the obvious
> difference is that this particular piece of antisemitic propaganda
> has the support of numerous Christians still in denial concerning the
> NT's antisemitic potential.
Maybe for those numerous christians NT is something else that
"antisemitic propaganda"? Maybe they are less smart than you are and
they have not found any "antisemitic potential" there? You still have
the chance to tell them about it. Do you personally know any christian
or maybe there is a christian congregation in your neighborhood? Visit
them and teach them your simplified history. It is going to be a first
step to our common bright future.
Regards,
B Rajwa
--
ra...@flowcyt.cyto.purdue.edu
Bartek Rajwa
> The Inquisition killed Evangelicals? Tell me more.
Just to clarify:
Inquisition was created to fight against Albigens (a Christians sect
from Southern France).
A crusade against Albigens was lead by their toughest opponents from
North - Normans. They succeeded and exterminated almost the whole
population, destroyed a great culture and annihilated the language.
There are many misconceptions about the Inquisition:
1) _Witches_ During the "witch hunting" in Europe (XVI) 300,000 was
burned. Ca. 200,000 in protestant part Germany and 70,000 in England.
There was no Inquisition in those countries.
2) Spanish Inquisition. It was not controlled by Rome. It was used
rather as a sort of private police by Spanish kings. Even though, the
estimated number of people sentenced to death between 1484 and 1700 is
2500 (two thousand and five hundred). There was ca. 150,000 trials
during that time. It means: ca. 12 person per year were sentenced to
death. Many publications claimed initially that the number was higher,
but sources did not support those estimations.
3) _Trials_ Inquisition codified the first modern trial procedure. It
required that a defendant had a counselor. There was also a jury (20
jurors). Defendant was able to examine himself all the evidence. Every
witness had to testify. Being tried by secular city councils (the only
alternative) was not a fun that time: no lawyer, the only way to prove
the innocence was to survive the six rounds of torture, evidence were
not shown, witnesses were "anonymous". That is probably why many people
literally begged to be tried by Inquisition and not city council.
4) _Persecution_ Majority of people tried by Inquisition were christians
accused of heresy. In Spain Inquisition was used as a political secret
police against real and imaginary enemies of Spanish crown (that
included so called "conversos").
piper
<ra...@flowcyt.cyto.purdue.edu> wrote:
[snip]
>Bravo Macabi! You said exactly what I expected. So, it seems that in
>fact there was also anti-Semitic potential in Greco-Roman culture. If
>Greco-Roman pagans had not re-interpreted the Judaism there would not
>have been the Holocaust. I am wondering where it is going to lead us? To
>dinosaurs?
[snip]
I think you'll find that most Jews probably don't consider
Christianity a higher form of evolution.
As for me (and I've posted this repeatedly), I regret that the Muslims
were not able to conquer the entire continent of Europe from the
Christians. Evidence suggests that when Islam was ascendant, it had at
least some tendency to be tolerantn toward People of the Book. No such
generalization could be remotely suggested for Christianity.
Michael
piper
wrote:
>
>
>piper wrote:
>
>>
>> You're totally off the wall on this one, Bartek. Jews haven't spent
>> the last 2,000 years attacking Christians and Muslims while chanting
>> some inflammatory interpretation of the Talmud. Christians have killed
>> millions of Jews saying "You killed God" and variations of that. They
>
>All the while these anti-semite so-called Xtians were "loving their neighbor as themselves"?
>
>Hardly. The "Xtian" anti-semites are violent hate-filled hypocrites. They are enemies of the Jewish people and the Jewish Messiah.
That's nice revisionism, Murray. The problem is that these enemies of
the Jewish people constituted the leadership of the Catholic,
Orthodox, and Lutheran churches for a considerable period of time.
You are free to say that the most powerful churches were un-Christian
for many centuries, but that cuts no ice with Jewish people. We judge
people by their acts, not by why they "should" believe.
piper
<ra...@flowcyt.cyto.purdue.edu> wrote:
>piper wrote:
>
>> So when you claim that the biggest pogrom had no clear connection with
>> the 2,000 years of Crusades, blood libels, expulsions, Inquisition and
>> all the other persecutions of the "ones who killed God," pardon us for
>> giving your statements short shrift.
>
>Have you missed my original post? I have said there that I agreed. If it
>had not been for the christianity - Holocaust would not have happened.
>The whole history would have been completely different. If you want to
>use your imagination now, you are welcome...
What you "agreed" was that the Holocaust was a part of
Western/Christian history, not that it is demonstrably and
specifically an outgrowth of Christian blood libels against the Jews.
>> One does not have to condemn the creative contributions of Christian
>> artists and thinkers - as you imply - to see the clear connection
>> between the Nazi Holocaust and all the earlier pogroms.
>
>Of course not. So, you agree that Christianity is immoral and yet you
>are not going to do anything about it??? Strange... How can you live
>within a culture based on such an immoral, murderous, ideology?
Cut your silly sarcasm. I am not anti-Christian nor against Christian
culture, except inasmuch as it involves things which are evil, like
antisemitism, sexism, homophobia and so forth. You might be surprised
to know that I am a musician. What do you think I play, only
freilachs? No. I play Bach, Debussy, Mozart, Haydn. I've had the great
honor and pleasure of playing Christian sacred works like the Bach
Magnificat.
>8-) As you probably noticed I cited historical figures which are
>_directly_ connected to Christianity.
And citing Michelangelo contributes in what way to the discussion of
how Christian anti-Judaism led to Nazi attempted genocide?
>> And keep in mind that, while the Nazis may have had a rather atheistic
>> ideology, their collaborators in Croatia, France, Hungary, Slovakia,
>> Romania and other countries were official Christian.
>
>Nazi was an atheistic ideology? Yesterday there was a post claiming that
>nazism was a logical continuation of christianity and that Hitler
>"learned his anti-Semitism in a church choir".
Interesting that you choose not to address my point about the
officially Christian fascist governments which were directly
responsible for a large part of the Holocaust.
>> If you want to know more, read up on the Nazis' use of Luther's
>> viciously anti-Jewish writings.
>
>I read much more about nazism than you suspect. And that is maybe why I
>see this subject much more complicated than some other people.
[snip]
Then why don't you address some specifics instead of trying to shift
the argument to "Nazism has no more relationship to 2,000 years of
blood libels drawn from the New Testament by clergy than it does to
Napoleon, Michelangelo, and Schiller."
Bartek Rajwa
> > I am wondering where it is going to lead us? To
> > dinosaurs?
>
> I think you'll find that most Jews probably don't consider
> Christianity a higher form of evolution.
Yeah... Macabi said that we have a debate here, sure, debate...
Interesting thing is that none of my friends would ever say anything
like that (no matter whether he/she is Jewish or Muslim or Buddhist or
atheists). Maybe because I am a little bit picky about who becomes my
friend and bigotry, stupid prejudice and childish historiosophy is
absolutely a no-no!
> As for me (and I've posted this repeatedly), I regret that the Muslims
> were not able to conquer the entire continent of Europe from the
> Christians.
Another idea for sci-fi book. Actually I like this one. When I was a
young boy I was fascinated with an alternative version of history where
Arabs would have defeated barbarian Spaniards and reconquista would have
failed.
> Evidence suggests that when Islam was ascendant, it had at
> least some tendency to be tolerantn toward People of the Book.
Well, it is quite easy to make it ascendant again. Let's start with
selling some nukes to Saddam.
Greetings,
B Rajwa,
--
ra...@flowcyt.cyto.purdue.edu
M
piper wrote:
> You might be surprised
> to know that I am a musician. What do you think I play, only
> freilachs?
What's a freilach?
Also, I guess you play piano.
I'm partial to my two guitars.
Murray
M
JGa...@worldnet.att.net wrote:
>
> True. But they sure built nice roads and purty statues and buildings.
Some NBA player went to Greece and they asked him if he went to the
Parthenon.
The athlete responded by saying something like "Which club is that?"
True story.
Murray
M
piper wrote:
> As for me (and I've posted this repeatedly), I regret that the Muslims
> were not able to conquer the entire continent of Europe from the
Hitler wished the same thing.
I hope that is the only thought you share with him.
Murray
M
piper wrote:
> That's nice revisionism, Murray. The problem is that these enemies of
Thank you! I try my best!
>
> the Jewish people constituted the leadership of the Catholic,
> Orthodox, and Lutheran churches for a considerable period of time.
Seriously though, you must understand that the state churches persecuted Xtians with whom they disagreed. That is why the Puritans came to Plymouth in the
first place: independent Xtians wanted to be out of the reach of the state church.
Murray
Bartek Rajwa
> What you "agreed" was that the Holocaust was a part of
> Western/Christian history, not that it is demonstrably and
> specifically an outgrowth of Christian blood libels against the Jews.
I agreed that anti-Semitism was part of Western/Christian _culture_ and
that is why the Holocaust happened to be a part of Western/Christian
_history_. I doubt you can demonstrate that it is "specifically an
outgrowth of Christian blood libels against the Jews".
> Cut your silly sarcasm. I am not anti-Christian nor against Christian
> culture, except inasmuch as it involves things which are evil, like
> antisemitism, sexism, homophobia and so forth.
Oh, there is much more bad things: racism (in general), Euro-centrism,
imperialism, and so forth. You pick the good things and you don't want
to have anything to do with the nasty ones. That's cool.
> No. I play Bach, Debussy, Mozart, Haydn. I've had the great
> honor and pleasure of playing Christian sacred works like the Bach
> Magnificat.
This is interesting. So, you think that both good and bad things can
originate from christianity (I mean: from christian culture)?
If so, we agreed again. This was my point from the very beginning: all
European culture was influenced by christianity. You can find christian
roots in homophobia and in anti-Semitism. In apartheid and colonialism.
But also in baroque architecture and music of J.S. Bach. Martin L. King
and bishop D. Tutu, Haendel and Mother Teresa, modern parliamentary
system and idea of human rights.
The problem is: does it (this truism, I mean) help to explain anything?
Of course, not.
> And citing Michelangelo contributes in what way to the discussion of
> how Christian anti-Judaism led to Nazi attempted genocide?
Both Micheleangelo and Nazism happened to be a "product" of the European
Christian culture. Isn't it scary/fascinating/incredible/strange (pick
your favorite)? Do you believe that you can understand Nazism, Fascism
or Communism without studying European culture??? Or studying just a
tiny fragment of European culture? It seems like you do...
> Interesting that you choose not to address my point about the
> officially Christian fascist governments which were directly
> responsible for a large part of the Holocaust.
What does it mean "officially Christian fascist"? Would you also call
British conservatists "officially Christian democrats"? So, what is your
point, you want me to address?
> Then why don't you address some specifics instead of trying to shift
> the argument to "Nazism has no more relationship to 2,000 years of
> blood libels drawn from the New Testament by clergy than it does to
> Napoleon, Michelangelo, and Schiller."
Here we are! So let's address some specifics:
- relation between nazism and "conservative revolution" in Germany.
Vision of christianity in publications of "conservative revolutionists"
- work of Oswald Spengler and it's relation to racism
- German romanticism, recreation of aryan mythology and origins of
modern nationalism
- Integral conservatism in Europe after WW I. Example: Romanian "Legion
of Archangel Michael".
- Italian modernism and fascism - relations with Vatican.
- ....
Where do you want to start? Or maybe you prefer to take pass, and say
"Holocaust was caused by Christianity, period"?
BTW: Many historians believe that nazism had much more to do with
Napoleon and Schiller (I mean: German romantic nationalism) than you
have ever imagined...
Bartek Rajwa
Some more clarification (I don't want to be perceived as a "fan" of the
Spanish Inquisition):
> Inquisition was created to fight against Albigens (a Christians sect
> from Southern France).
Albigens = Cathars (It was XII century)
> There are many misconceptions about the Inquisition:
> 1) _Witches_ During the "witch hunting" in Europe (XVI) 300,000 was
> burned. Ca. 200,000 in protestant part Germany and 70,000 in England.
> There was no Inquisition in those countries.
That is actually one of the reasons why protestant literature was so
harsh about Inquisition. The best way to pass as a righteous is to
accuse other bad guy.
> 2) Spanish Inquisition. It was not controlled by Rome. It was used
> rather as a sort of private police by Spanish kings. Even though, the
> estimated number of people sentenced to death between 1484 and 1700 is
> 2500 (two thousand and five hundred). There was ca. 150,000 trials
> during that time. It means: ca. 12 person per year were sentenced to
> death. Many publications claimed initially that the number was higher,
> but sources did not support those estimations.
King of Spain used Inquisition mainly not to kill people, but to rob
their money (and to expel them from the country). If he got a sentence
from Inquisition he could "legally" confiscate the victims' estates.
That it why over 200,000 Jews left Spain. Basically, it was ethnic
cleansing.
It was believed that numbers of number victims were higher mainly
because many historians identified so call "auto da fe" with burning
people alive. In majority of cases it meant public repetition and so
forth. Even after such a ceremony, all money was taken by the greedy
King. He was much more preoccupied with money than with religion or
"heresy". He has in his personal library complete works of Erasmus, and
Copernicus's "De Revolutionibus", even though "his" Inquisition banned
them. He ruled the largest empire of his time.
Henry Kamen, "Philip of Spain": "denigrated in his own day by political
foes abroad, by Protestants everywhere. [He] acquired a sinister
reputation
that the passing of time has only succeeded in blackening further. [For]
the Protestant propaganda machine was unquestionably superior."
[Do you know the story of Knights of the Temple? Those monks with red
cross? Bankers of the French king?]
> 3) _Trials_ Inquisition codified the first modern trial procedure. It
> required that a defendant had a counselor. There was also a jury (20
> jurors). Defendant was able to examine himself all the evidence. Every
> witness had to testify. Being tried by secular city councils (the only
> alternative) was not a fun that time: no lawyer, the only way to prove
> the innocence was to survive the six rounds of torture, evidence were
> not shown, witnesses were "anonymous". That is probably why many people
> literally begged to be tried by Inquisition and not city council.
I meant the Papal Inquisition, not the Spanish one. In case of Spanish
Inquisition rules were broken all the time.
gab...@hotmail.com
>
> Antisemitism and the New Testament
> A book list found on the Web
>
>If you know of a book concerning the roots of modern antisemitism and the
>NT e-mail me details (mac...@cwcon.net) and I will include it in future
>versions or this list.
>
You forgot Hal Lindsey's 'Road to the Holocaust'.
But I don't think it will fit with your agenda...
JGa...@worldnet.att.net
> > >
>
> We all probably use the same textbook. There must be one somewhere! How
> else would Poles learned to hate Jews, Jews to hate Poles, Germans to
> hate Poles and Jews, Whites to hate Blacks, men to hate women, Pakistani
> to hate Indians (or is it the other way?), Serbs to hate Albanians (and
> vice versa), Japanese to hate Koreans, you to hate me, and so on?
>
> See, depending on our point of view, personal experience or needs we
> often simplify the problem by narrowing it to just one issue: religion,
> skin color, nationality, gender, etc. Hate is something that we all
> share. We hate regardless of our religion, skin color... We hate if we
> choose so.<
I agree. Hatred and poverty are the natural states. Most creatures
struggle for survival at the visceral level every day of their lives.
Love, prosperity and generosity are the unnatural conditions that some
humans strive to attainr. Therefore every creature has to find a means
for self defense and self-preservation. Having one's own defensible
territory is one way that tribes or nations can defend their own
continued existence.
piper
wrote:
>
>
>piper wrote:
>
>> As for me (and I've posted this repeatedly), I regret that the Muslims
>> were not able to conquer the entire continent of Europe from the
>
>Hitler wished the same thing.
[snip]
Hitler wished that the Muslims were able to conquer the whole of
Europe?
What are you smoking and where can I get some?
piper
wrote:
>
>
>piper wrote:
>
[snip]
>> the Jewish people constituted the leadership of the Catholic,
>> Orthodox, and Lutheran churches for a considerable period of time.
>
>Seriously though, you must understand that the state churches persecuted Xtians with whom they disagreed. That is why the Puritans came to Plymouth in the
>first place: independent Xtians wanted to be out of the reach of the state church.
I quite understand that. So perhaps I should stipulate that those
churches which were absolutely powerless to oppress anyone can hardly
be blamed for pogroms. But what's the point?
If your point is that the Catholic and Orthodox churches were
intolerant of many religions and sects in addition to Judaism, I doubt
anyone will disagree. But so the heck what?
piper
<ra...@flowcyt.cyto.purdue.edu> wrote:
>Michael wrote:
>
>> What you "agreed" was that the Holocaust was a part of
>> Western/Christian history, not that it is demonstrably and
>> specifically an outgrowth of Christian blood libels against the Jews.
>
>I agreed that anti-Semitism was part of Western/Christian _culture_ and
>that is why the Holocaust happened to be a part of Western/Christian
>_history_. I doubt you can demonstrate that it is "specifically an
>outgrowth of Christian blood libels against the Jews".
You seem to know enough that you could probably cite numerous examples
of Nazi propaganda which used traditional Christian anti-Jewish
libels. If you can't, you should probably look at more Nazi propaganda
and see for yourself.
>> Cut your silly sarcasm. I am not anti-Christian nor against Christian
>> culture, except inasmuch as it involves things which are evil, like
>> antisemitism, sexism, homophobia and so forth.
>
>Oh, there is much more bad things: racism (in general), Euro-centrism,
>imperialism, and so forth. You pick the good things and you don't want
>to have anything to do with the nasty ones. That's cool.
That's the only way to go.
>> No. I play Bach, Debussy, Mozart, Haydn. I've had the great
>> honor and pleasure of playing Christian sacred works like the Bach
>> Magnificat.
>
>This is interesting. So, you think that both good and bad things can
>originate from christianity (I mean: from christian culture)?
Of course!
>If so, we agreed again. This was my point from the very beginning: all
>European culture was influenced by christianity. You can find christian
>roots in homophobia and in anti-Semitism. In apartheid and colonialism.
>But also in baroque architecture and music of J.S. Bach. Martin L. King
>and bishop D. Tutu, Haendel and Mother Teresa, modern parliamentary
>system and idea of human rights.
We might disagree about your honor roll of great figures there (ever
heard of the book _The Missionary Position_ about Mother Teresa?), but
we agree at least to some degree on what you wrote in that paragraph.
The impact of _religious_ humanism has probably been underemphasized.
>The problem is: does it (this truism, I mean) help to explain anything?
>Of course, not.
Why not? If you can consider justifications for slavery and
anti-racism to arise from different interpretations of the Bible, you
are starting to develop an interesting line of historical inquiry.
>> And citing Michelangelo contributes in what way to the discussion of
>> how Christian anti-Judaism led to Nazi attempted genocide?
>
>Both Micheleangelo and Nazism happened to be a "product" of the European
>Christian culture. Isn't it scary/fascinating/incredible/strange (pick
>your favorite)?
What's scarier is that Germany had produced a very high level of
liberal culture, and had had a Jewish population which was more
integrated into the cultural mainstream than anywhere else.
> Do you believe that you can understand Nazism, Fascism
>or Communism without studying European culture??? Or studying just a
>tiny fragment of European culture? It seems like you do...
No, I don't. I just think that it's absurd to try to divorce the Nazi
Holocaust from close to 2,000 years of Christian anti-Judaism which
preceded it. And I thought you were trying to do that by obfuscation.
>> Interesting that you choose not to address my point about the
>> officially Christian fascist governments which were directly
>> responsible for a large part of the Holocaust.
>
>What does it mean "officially Christian fascist"?
E.g. Hungary, Slovakia, Croatia (Catholic), Romania (Orthodox).
>Would you also call
>British conservatists "officially Christian democrats"?
[snip]
Is that the ideology of the party? I'd say no. The U.K. has an
official religion, but the Conservative Party is primarily an
economic-based party. This was not the case for some time in the 19th
century, when Catholics and Jews had not yet been granted the right to
vote in Great Britain.
But we're getting off the topic. Those fascist states were strong
proponents of the Christian churches that had majority adherence in
those countries, and were strongly blessed by the Church heirarchies
as opponents of Social Democracy and Communism. This was also true in
Argentina, Spain, Portugal, and of course Mussolini's Italy.
Mussolini's Italy actually saved thousands of Jewish lives, but this
clearly was of no importance to the Pope, who blessed fascist Catholic
states indiscriminately.
Given that the Iron Cross and similar governments did _NOT_ operate on
the basis of some neo-pagan myth, but on the basis of Christianity,
how can you argue that Christianity and traditional Christian
anti-Judaism had no direct relation to the Holocaust? You're trying to
turn everything upside down!
>> Then why don't you address some specifics instead of trying to shift
>> the argument to "Nazism has no more relationship to 2,000 years of
>> blood libels drawn from the New Testament by clergy than it does to
>> Napoleon, Michelangelo, and Schiller."
>
>Here we are! So let's address some specifics:
>- relation between nazism and "conservative revolution" in Germany.
>Vision of christianity in publications of "conservative revolutionists"
>- work of Oswald Spengler and it's relation to racism
>- German romanticism, recreation of aryan mythology and origins of
>modern nationalism
>- Integral conservatism in Europe after WW I. Example: Romanian "Legion
>of Archangel Michael".
>- Italian modernism and fascism - relations with Vatican.
>- ....
>
>Where do you want to start? Or maybe you prefer to take pass, and say
>"Holocaust was caused by Christianity, period"?
I never made such a simplistic statement. But what you're overlooking
are things that most Jews know from experience. Why, even in Brooklyn,
my mother at age 6 was beaten up by Irish kids who said "You killed
God. You killed God." Who do you think taught them that? Answer: The
parish priest. So tell me, when Christians killed Jews throughout
Europe during the War, do you seriously think none of them were
killing the "Christkillers"? Nazism went beyond this to incorporate
pseudo-scientific racism (and not incidentally, target various other
"races," particularly the Gypsies), but many centuries of anti-Judaism
provided strong roots for the Final Solution.
>BTW: Many historians believe that nazism had much more to do with
>Napoleon and Schiller (I mean: German romantic nationalism)
Romantic nationalism? Yes, especially Prussian militarism. Schiller,
the man who wrote that "All men are brothers"? I doubt it. Sounds like
you're getting perilously close to blaming all Germans for Nazism.
> than you
>have ever imagined...
Did Napoleon go after any Jews? The French Revolutionaries had a
problem with Jews, which was that Judaism is a religion, and they were
anti-clerical and anti-religious. But I think that Napoleon actually
improved things for Jews in many occupied countries.
piper
<ra...@flowcyt.cyto.purdue.edu> wrote:
>Michael wrote:
>
>> > I am wondering where it is going to lead us? To
>> > dinosaurs?
>>
>> I think you'll find that most Jews probably don't consider
>> Christianity a higher form of evolution.
>
>Yeah... Macabi said that we have a debate here, sure, debate...
>
>Interesting thing is that none of my friends would ever say anything
>like that (no matter whether he/she is Jewish or Muslim or Buddhist or
>atheists). Maybe because I am a little bit picky about who becomes my
>friend and bigotry, stupid prejudice and childish historiosophy is
>absolutely a no-no!
[snip]
So what did your comment about the dinosaurs mean to imply? You didn't
mean to imply that Christianity was a higher form of evolution then?
Macabi
>Macabi wrote:
>>
>> On Sun, 13 Jun 1999 20:03:54 -0700, JGa...@worldnet.att.net wrote:
>>
>> >> Antisemitism originated with Christianity period. <
>> >
>> >That is bullshit. The Hebes were already enslaved in Egypt in Goshen and
>> >the Egyptians would not eat with them at the same table. Jew-hatred was
>> >racially based from day one.
>>
>> Christianity has been tainted by Jew-hatred right from its earliest period.
>> This is easily recognised. Pre-Christian anti-Jewish prejudice was based
>> on different premises and was not uniform as it has been in the case of the
>> Church. I am also addressing modern antisemitism. This has its reasons
>> and that is what I am addressing.<
>
>When Josephus retired to Rome after the great revolt, amongst his other
>works he also wrote "Against Apion" which was a defense of the JEwish
>people against the calumnies and snide insinuations that were already
>common in the Greco-Roman world. In essence he said that the Jews
>already had a culture and civilization when the Greeks were still
>swinging in trees :) But the scourge of antisemitism was already in full
>swing before the Church came to power.
I have not denied that anti-Jewish prejudice existed before the advent
of Christianity. However, if you bother to research the subject you will
find that it is not the same thing as Christian anti-Jewish prejudice. Why
not visit your local library and read up on the subject? The following
book might serve your purpose. Gager, J.G., "The Origins of Anti-
Semitism. Attitudes Towards Judaism in Pagan and Christian
Antiquity", Oxford University Press, 1985.
Macabi
>In article <140619991550291257%albertre...@access1.net>,
> Albert Reingewirtz <albertre...@access1.net> wrote:
>
>
>> Hitler learned his antisemitism reading his Catechism in
>> Sunday school and while he served as a choir boy in church. Nice!
>>
>
>Maybe, but where did he learn to hate/despise non-Jewish Poles?
So where did non-Jewish Poles learn to hate Jews?
>
>Jerzy WK
>
>
>Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
>Share what you know. Learn what you don't.
Macabi
>On Sun, 13 Jun 1999 09:56:10 GMT, mac...@cwcom.net (Macabi) wrote:
>>
>> Antisemitism and the New Testament
>> A book list found on the Web
>>
>>If you know of a book concerning the roots of modern antisemitism and the
>>NT e-mail me details (mac...@cwcon.net) and I will include it in future
>>versions or this list.
>>
>
>You forgot Hal Lindsey's 'Road to the Holocaust'.
>
I'll get a copy. Thanks.
Macabi
>Macabi wrote:
>
>> >I didn't want to say that christian culture was "good" (or "bad"). What
>> >I wanted to show is that such a simplification (Christianity=Holocaust)
>> >leads to nowhere. It is a childish pseuhistoriosophy. I didn't even
>> >mentioned the most absurd consequence of this: christianity could have
>> >not been established without judaism, so...
>>
>> So what? Christianity is clearly an interpretation of certain motifs within
>> Judaism. That such an interpretation in the hands of Greco-Roman pagans
>> resulted in the NT we now have with its antisemitic potential is no surprise.
>
>Bravo Macabi! You said exactly what I expected. So, it seems that in
>fact there was also anti-Semitic potential in Greco-Roman culture. If
>Greco-Roman pagans had not re-interpreted the Judaism there would not
>have been the Holocaust. I am wondering where it is going to lead us? To
>dinosaurs?
You think that the roots of modern antisemitism lie with the dinosaurs?
Interesting thought, but I don't think it has much future <G>.
The principle motif interpreted by Greco-Roman "Christians" was that
of messianic expectation. This they claimed was realized in the life and
death of Jesus of Nazareth. The antisemitism entered NOT though an
interpretation of Judaism, but as a reaction to a number of historical
and theological events/problems experienced by the nascent
"Christian" community. So for example, it became necessary to explain
why the Jewish community generally had not become Christians when
the nascent "Christian" community expected that they would. Somehow
they had to explain away the lack of enthusiasm by the very community
that most of them would have thought might embrace nascent "Christianity's"
messianic claims and so on.
>
>> >Why there is hate and violence, pain and discrimination, why????
>>
>> The question that has been asked is, where are the roots of modern antisemitism?
>> The (mostly Christian) post-Holocaust theologicains/NT scholars suggest that
>> these roots lie in the NT.
>
>So far we reached a conclusion that the roots were more deeper. In
>Greco-Roman culture.
We have? You mean you have. Certainly there was some anti-Jewish
prejudice in pre-Christian Greco-Roman society. However, Christianity
has its own peculiar reasons for its own anti-Jewish prejudice.
>Anyway, the christian NT scholars try to find a
>guilt within the christian community.
Or they could just be trying honestly to address the problem of Christian
antisemitism. The use of the word "guilt" in this context seems so
denigrating. Why do you wish to denigrate their efforts?
>That is fine and I agree 100%.
>Holocaust happened within the cultural environment created mainly by
>christianity. Some scholars claim that false interpretation of NT and
>the fact that religion was used by many for political purposes were the
>major problems. A fringe group (and obviously calling them "christian"
>is an oxymoron
Is this the only way you can dispense of Christian views with which you
disagree? Post-Holocaust theologians are drawn from a number of
mainstream denominations. I am not trying to be funny, but I suppose
you do know the meaning of "oxymoron"?
>) suggest that the NT and christianity itself can be
>considered as a reason of anti-Semitism (also: extermination of Native
>Americans, slave trade, apartheid, and so on).
Not without reasons. I don't know about you, but most people don't just
wake up one morning and think, "Hye, Christianity is the reason for
antisemitism". They have reasons for believing what they believe.
>
>It is your choice to accept the extreme position, but don't pretend that
>such a view is the mainstream of the christian theology.
And it is your choice to try and denigrate opinions you do not like by
characterizing them as "extreme". I'd have thought you could have been
more creative than to fall back on such old "debating" techniques.
>
>> I posted a list of books that some people might like to
>> read with regard to this issue.
>> This is an important debate and your obfuscation
>> adds nothing other than show how clever you think you are.
>
>Debate, are you joking? You call it debate? I am not the clever one
>here.
Don't denigrate yourself.
>You are. You have the _universal_ answer.
Don't exaggerate. I am only reporting the results of Christian
post-Holocaust theology.
>I only wanted to point
>out that there are no universal answers. You want to believe this
>christianity=holocaust theory?
You really must concentrate. Following is the essence of what I am
agreeing with.
"The Nazis 'did not discard the past; they built upon it. They did
not begin a development; they completed it.' This fact makes
ludicrous any unqualified claim that the Nazis were the enemies
of Christendom. In actuality, they were in very large measure the
agents for the 'practical' application of an established social logic."
Hilberg, R., "The Destruction of the European Jews" (Chicago:
Quadrangle, 1961), and Eckardt, "Elder and Younger Brothers:
The Encounter of Jews and Christians" (New York: Schocken
1973), 12-14.
The established "social logic" referred to is an actualization of
the NT's antisemitic potential. It is this social effect of the distribution
of the NT as propaganda that concerns me.
I think that "Without Christian antisemitism the Holocaust would
not have happened" is a reasonable, if provocative, summary
of the above in order to get a debate going.
>That's fine. I am not going to argue with
>this.
You could have fooled me.
>It is your problem. In my opinion the simplest way to obfuscate a
>_real_ discussion is to throw a simplified answer. Answer which does not
>explain anything. We all know that Holocaust happened in Europe.
>Contemporary european culture have christian foundations. Saying that
>the Holocaust could not have happened without christianity is a childish
>tautology not an explanation. And it does not give us any insight about
>the future.
Another fragile personality? I think that the insight I have gained about the
future is that unless the NT's antisemitic potential is neutralized it will
continue to poison the minds of a certain proportion of its readers
regarding "the Jews".
>
>> >All this NT bashing is worth exactly this same like those paranoic
>> >neo-nazi postings about alleged racism in Talmud.
>>
>> Don't be silly. Are you suggesting that post-Holocaust theologians/
>> NT scholars are no different from neo-Nazi racists?
>
>Obviously, I am not.
So it's not "exactly" the same?
>What I am suggesting is that simplified answers
>lead to nowhere.
Or the dinosaurs <G>?
>Also, I am suggesting that some postings about "christian" theology were
>exactly as informative as the paranoia about Talmud posted to this group
>by some neo-Nazi pigs. The funny thing is: nazi idiots post some
>out-of-context quotations from NT and stupid anti-Semitic comments and
>even though everybody knows it was a provocation, some people start to
>think about it and eventually _believe_ it!
<yawn> You are on your soapbox again. Post-Holocaust theologians
cannot be compared to neo-Nazis in any respect. These people realize
that the Holocaust was an important theological event for Christianity
and they study their subject in detail and publish the conclusions for
anyone to read, often, in well recognized academic journals. More
silly obfuscation on your part.
>
>> However, the obvious
>> difference is that this particular piece of antisemitic propaganda
>> has the support of numerous Christians still in denial concerning the
>> NT's antisemitic potential.
>
>Maybe for those numerous christians NT is something else that
>"antisemitic propaganda"? Maybe they are less smart than you are and
>they have not found any "antisemitic potential" there?
Thank you for that compliment, but I must point out that I am only reporting
what Christian post-Holocaust theologians are saying. I suppose you are
one of those guys who seeing a racist poster would say, "Maybe for those
numerous racists this poster is something else than "racist propaganda"?
Wake up.
What is clear is that not all Christians are antisemites. In the same way
that not everyone who reads the NT becomes a Christian, not everyone
becomes an antisemite. This is no different than, say, the general impact
of a Coca Cola advertisement. Not everyone buys the message.
>You still have
>the chance to tell them about it. Do you personally know any christian
>or maybe there is a christian congregation in your neighborhood?
I do and we have many interesting and sometimes heated debates.
However, these folks are mostly not of the closed mind variety.
>Visit
>them and teach them your simplified history.
You really are determined to elevate me to stardom when it is not
warranted. I am only reporting what post-Holocaust theologians
claim. In addition, as you must by now realize (?) history is not
really the deciding factor. It is the here and now social effect of the
propaganda contained in the NT's anti-Jewish sub-plot that concerns
me. Get it?
>It is going to be a first
>step to our common bright future.
Thank you for your good wishes.
>
>Regards,
>
>B Rajwa
jerzy wk
mac...@cwcom.net wrote:
>
> So where did non-Jewish Poles learn to hate Jews?
> >
We all probably use the same textbook. There must be one somewhere! How
else would Poles learned to hate Jews, Jews to hate Poles, Germans to
hate Poles and Jews, Whites to hate Blacks, men to hate women, Pakistani
to hate Indians (or is it the other way?), Serbs to hate Albanians (and
vice versa), Japanese to hate Koreans, you to hate me, and so on?
See, depending on our point of view, personal experience or needs we
often simplify the problem by narrowing it to just one issue: religion,
skin color, nationality, gender, etc. Hate is something that we all
share. We hate regardless of our religion, skin color... We hate if we
choose so.
Jerzy WK
M
piper wrote:
>
> What are you smoking
air
> and where can I get some?
in front of your face.
Murray
P.S. Just joking.
M
piper wrote:
> If your point is that the Catholic and Orthodox churches were
> intolerant of many religions and sects in addition to Judaism, I doubt
> anyone will disagree. But so the heck what?
It means that:
(1) Xtianity is NOT monolithic,
(2) and by extension, not all of it is anti-semitic.
Murray
Bartek Rajwa
> >I agreed that anti-Semitism was part of Western/Christian _culture_ and
> >that is why the Holocaust happened to be a part of Western/Christian
> >_history_. I doubt you can demonstrate that it is "specifically an
> >outgrowth of Christian blood libels against the Jews".
>
> You seem to know enough that you could probably cite numerous examples
> of Nazi propaganda which used traditional Christian anti-Jewish
> libels. If you can't, you should probably look at more Nazi propaganda
> and see for yourself.
Yehuda Bauer wrote an interesting article about this subject. He tried
to make a sort of syntheis, so his paper is short but informative
(Annals of the American Academy of Political & Social Science, Nov96,
Vol. 548). He did not try to cover all the issues, nevertheless pointed
out that the nature of the problem is much more complicated:
"When we compare Nazi antisemitic propaganda with the writings of the
church fathers or even with the statements of anti-Jewish writers in
pagan
times, we find amazing parallels, sometimes even the same expressions.
These
have continued to the present, and one has just to read some of the
stuff
that is published today in Russia, Germany, Egypt, or the United States
to see
how strong the elements of continuity are. Yet there can hardly be a
doubt
that Nazi antisemitism is also a departure--one can choose whether one
wants
to call this departure radical or not--from the so-called traditional
Christian antisemitism that undoubtedly prepared the way for it. The
differences can perhaps be summarized by saying that in Nazi eyes, the
Jews were not symbols of Satan, or possessed by Satan, as extreme
Christian antisemitism had argued, but were Satan. The symbol had turned
into existential reality,as Uriel Tal showed many years ago. That
cleared the way for a murderous solution, because in Hitler's eyes, Nazi
humanity could not coexist with the satanic force of Jewishness, as it
expressed itself in democracy, socialism, liberalism, and ethical
values. It was this consideration that led Nazism into its radical
anti-Christian stance, too, because it saw in Christianity, rightly in a
way, a continuation of Judaism."
Read this fragment carefully before you jump to make an easy conclusion.
There are several important points there:
1) Nazis used _extreme_ form of christian anti-Semitism. Nevertheless,
the most radical, extreme, full-of-hate and violent anti-Semitic chruch
figures like John Chrysostom or Origen _never_ made any statement that
could suggest anything similar to Holocaust.
2) For Nazis Jewishness expressed itself actually in _all_ important
values of Western/Christian civilization (democracy, liberalism, ethics,
humanism, some forms of art, and so forth). Very interesting question
arises here - what sort of "alternative ethics" they proposed. Where was
the origin of this "ethics". It was not Christian not Western not
Greco-Roman based. I will come back to this issue later.
3) Last, but not least: Nazism was anti-Christian. Persecution of
christian clergy was marginal, though. Why? Because Hitler at al. had to
win ideological battle with Christianity first, before they attack
individual human beings. They had to "convert" German people to some
sort of Aryan-Nordic-Germanic mythology. There were places (like SS)
where this new religion had been functional and places where they tried
to create it. There is a plenty of very interesting literature dealing
with this complex issue. Sure thing is: the world dominated by Nazis
would not have known christianity (maybe only as another Jewish heresy?)
Let's go back to point 2) for a moment. I said before that this
"Christianity= Anti-Semitism= Holocaust" mantra leads to nowhere,
because it does not allow us to make any prediction about the future. It
does not help us to understand fully Nazi anti-Semitism (and the
Holocaust). Even worse - it
is deeply misleading when applied to contemporary antisemitism. Macabi
posted couple of times a fragment from Hildberg book claiming that Nazis
did not develop any new ideology, they only used the ideas which were
around. This view is equally naive and... optimistic. If fact Nazis (and
Italian Fascist) built a new "ethics" - it is clearly seen analyzing
contemporary heirs of their ideology. Probably the best example is
Russian philosopher Alexander Dugin and his NBP. Everything that was
created by Nazis or influenced Nazis is present in his work. There is
only one (curious) exception: christianity. Contemporary integral
conservatists do not need christian forms. It needed it before where
society and culture was in majority christian, so communication with the
society had to be based on christian rhetoric and christian phraseology.
Contemporary post-industrial atheistic society uses different form of
cultural expression so this anti-cultural (anit-Western, anti-Semitic,
anti-Democratic) discourse presented by integral conservatists is also
based on different scheme.
Comparing Nazi ideology and contemporary integral conservatism (some
people call it neo-Nazism, but one have to remember that we are not
talking about groups of skinheads wandering around but about ideologues
- figures like Rosenberg in Nazi Germany) we can find some common points
and interesting differences. IC are fascinated with Prussian militarism,
Japanese traditionalism (Yukio Mishima), racial cultural theories
(Oswald Spengler). They are influenced by Julius Evola and Rene Guenon.
They adopted neo-pagan mythology as their religion.
A fragment from "Russian Neo-pagan Myths and Antisemitism" by Victor A.
Shnirelman (The Vidal Sassoon International Center for the Study of
Antisemitism The Hebrew University of Jerusalem) illustrates the case of
Russia:
"Advocates of Russian Neo-paganism assert that contemporary misfortunes
are the result of a betrayal of the `original' pre-Christian
Slavic-Russian treasury of ancestral wisdom. Salvation depends on a
total rejection of the `Judeo-Christian' ideology that supposedly aims
to achieve cultural homogenization and the destruction of Russian
culture. Thus, Russian Neo-paganism explicitly represents itself as an
ethno-national movement, which distinguishes it from Western
Neo-paganism. It is also distinguished by its imperialistic goal of
rescuing and restoring the `Russian Empire', hence the emphasis on the
historiosophic myth that claims vast territories of Europe and Asia as
part of the `Slavic-Rus' empire of ancient times. The `Aryan myth'
serves this end, as well as depicting world history as an eternal
struggle of `Slavic Aryans' against malicious `Semites'."
Neo-pagan integral conservatism is not restriced to Russia. Spanish and
French "new right" also underlines Christian and Jewish origin of
liberalism and marxism. They even proposed an alliance with islamic
extremists!
>From "Antisemitism and the Extreme Right in Spain (1962 1997) " by José
L.. Rodríguez Jiménez:
"Antonio Medrano wrote the pamphlet `Islam and Europe', and in December
1974 dedicated a conference to proclaiming allegiance to Haj Amin
al-Husseini, the Mufti of Jerusalem. Islamic culture was praised as
geniuely Aryan and inspired by the neo-Nazi authors René Guenon and
Johann von Leers, he explained that Islamic culture showed how to
recover the interior light after centuries of Hebraic oppression.
Another established writer, an anti-Jewish apologist for the Islamic
world, is Sánchez Dragó. In one of his best-known books, he says Jews
belong to a masochistic, accusing, and neurotically self-sacrificing
race, insinuating that the Jews favored the outbreak of the Second
World War and even the Holocaust itself in order to seek an excuse for
recovering Israel. "
NG is not a place for a very deep analysis, but you can probably see my
point:
1) Christian anti-Semitism is an abvious fact
2) 30' Nazi anti-Semitism (even being anti-Christian) used Christian
rhetoric because the whole society was based on christian culture - only
this rhetoric could have been understood
3) Contemporary Nazis still preach this same ideology, but they adopted
different rhetoric (because society changed). They are still violently
anti-Semitic
3) Nazism created their own _new_ form of anti-Semitism. Relation
between Nazi anti-Semitism and Christian anti-Semitism is like a
relation between Greco-Roman anti-Semitism and Christian anti-Semitism.
There is _a_ relation, but this relation does not explain a lot (if
anything).
All the above is still a simplification, but you see what I mean: the
whole issue is far more complicated. Any religion can be used (or rather
_abused_) by Nazis. In extreme case they do not a religion at all - they
can create their own.
Let me cite Yehuda Bauer again:
"The outcome is fundamentalism, the flight of people into the assumed
certainty of divine will. That divine will decrees hatred. Muslim,
Christian, Jewish, or Hindu fundamentalism are variations on this theme.
Secular fundamentalism, after the disappearance of Marxism-Leninism as a
major force, is reemerging in the form of exclusivist nationalism all
over the world, not only in Europe. The role of ideology in all this is
central."
I think that eventually we are going to have a really fruitful
discussion,
8-)
Bartek
--
ra...@flowcyt.cyto.purdue.edu
Bartek Rajwa
> mean to imply that Christianity was a higher form of evolution then?
>
> Michael
Michael, forget about it. I said stupid thing, you said stupid thing.
The whole discussion reminded me a long dispute about origin of
communism. I have no idea if you are familiar with the arguments which
historians present, but there is an extreme (but vocal) group that found
communistm in Plato's texts.
It is not a joke. For many historians and philosophers Plato is a father
of communism. For some other guys NT is a source of anti-Semitism.
No comment...
B Rajwa
--
ra...@flowcyt.cyto.purdue.edu
Bartek Rajwa
> So for example, it became necessary to explain
> why the Jewish community generally had not become Christians when
> the nascent "Christian" community expected that they would.
> Somehow
> they had to explain away the lack of enthusiasm by the very community
> that most of them would have thought might embrace nascent "Christianity's"
> messianic claims and so on.
And anti-Semitism was an explanation. Sure. A christian philosopher
asked: "Hey, why Jews don't recognize Jesus?" and another philosopher
answered "It
is because there haven't been enough pogroms yet. We have to be more
cruel. The more cruel we are the more likely they recognize Jesus". It
is called "christian logic".
> >Anyway, the christian NT scholars try to find a
> >guilt within the christian community.
>
> Or they could just be trying honestly to address the problem of Christian
> antisemitism. The use of the word "guilt" in this context seems so
> denigrating. Why do you wish to denigrate their efforts?
You know, I found your eristic tiring. Whatever I wrote you try to twist
it. If you consider your rhetoric skills sophisticated, you are wrong.
The whole situation is simply funny.
You have your political/ideological/whatever agenda. NT bashing makes
you happy. OK. It is not my problem. Fortunately there are other people
in this thread who presents arguments instead of playing with eristic
like citing just a part of a paragraph and then _later_ another part to
comment every piece out of the whole context.
Your suggestion that I compared theologians to neo-nazis is simply
disgusting. You know very well that I have never attempted any
comparison like that, you insist I have, though. I am not going to make
any further comment about it.
One more sentence:
> I think that the insight I have gained about the future
> is that unless the NT's antisemitic potential is neutralized
> it will continue to poison the minds of a certain proportion
> of its readers regarding "the Jews".
You proved that you have no idea about contemporary anti-Semitism,
contemporary neo-Nazism and so forth. Go and preach your anti-NT mantra.
Maybe you will find one day that how much you missed the really
important target. The problem is: it could be too late...
Please excuse me, but there are really _interesting_ postings in this
thread and I'd like to address some of the issues that authors
presented.
Have a good day, Sir
B Rajwa
--
ra...@flowcyt.cyto.purdue.edu
piper
wrote:
>
>
>piper wrote:
>
>> You might be surprised
>> to know that I am a musician. What do you think I play, only
>> freilachs?
>
>What's a freilach?
A freilach (in case no-one else answered this) is a happy tune that's
traditionally played at celebrations like weddings. People dance to
it.
>Also, I guess you play piano.
Why do you guess that?
>I'm partial to my two guitars.
Good.
piper
wrote:
>
>
>piper wrote:
>
>> If your point is that the Catholic and Orthodox churches were
>> intolerant of many religions and sects in addition to Judaism, I doubt
>> anyone will disagree. But so the heck what?
>
>It means that:
>
>(1) Xtianity is NOT monolithic,
No. It means that in countries ruled by monopolistic churches, those
churches at best tolerated, and at worst tried to annihilate anyone
who deviated in any way from their dogmas. Churches which had no power
to oppress anyone don't much count in a discussion of the history of
Christian anti-Judaism; can't you see why?
>(2) and by extension, not all of it is anti-semitic.
So what? Acknowledged that the Spanish Inquisition was equally aimed
at crypto-Muslims.
I have never argued that antisemitism or anti-Judaism were the only
forms of Christian intolerance. I consider all of your post above to
be diversionary.
piper
<ra...@flowcyt.cyto.purdue.edu> wrote:
>> So what did your comment about the dinosaurs mean to imply? You didn't
>> mean to imply that Christianity was a higher form of evolution then?
>>
>> Michael
>
>Michael, forget about it. I said stupid thing, you said stupid thing.
Not so fast. I didn't and don't think I said a stupid thing.
>The whole discussion reminded me a long dispute about origin of
>communism. I have no idea if you are familiar with the arguments which
>historians present, but there is an extreme (but vocal) group that found
>communistm in Plato's texts.
>
>It is not a joke. For many historians and philosophers Plato is a father
>of communism. For some other guys NT is a source of anti-Semitism.
>
>No comment...
I'll comment:
It's very arguable that socialism owes something to the New Testament,
as well. To say that Plato is a "father of communism" is silly, but to
show how his philosophy INFLUENCED fathers of communism is something
else. I think we might agree on this.
Back to the New Testament, no, it didn't directly lead to
anti-Semitism (i.e. RACIAL prejudice against Jews), but it was both
the product of and main source for Christian anti-Judaism. I expect
you to argue with this, but as I understand, many Biblical scholars
contend that the role of the Roman authorities in killing Jesus was
played down in the New Testament, for fear that the 2nd-century Roman
authorities would persecute the Christians (as they did), whereas "the
Jews" were shown in an extremely bad light as a result of a century of
conflict between the initially Jewish Christians and the rabbinic
branch of Judaism which saw the Christians as heretics and tried its
best to end the heresy.
piper
<ra...@flowcyt.cyto.purdue.edu> wrote:
[snip]
>NG is not a place for a very deep analysis, but you can probably see my
>point:
>1) Christian anti-Semitism is an abvious fact
>2) 30' Nazi anti-Semitism (even being anti-Christian) used Christian
>rhetoric because the whole society was based on christian culture - only
>this rhetoric could have been understood
>3) Contemporary Nazis still preach this same ideology, but they adopted
>different rhetoric (because society changed). They are still violently
>anti-Semitic
>3) Nazism created their own _new_ form of anti-Semitism. Relation
>between Nazi anti-Semitism and Christian anti-Semitism is like a
>relation between Greco-Roman anti-Semitism and Christian anti-Semitism.
[snip]
This post of yours was nuanced and sophisticated. I decided to excerpt
what I considered the crux of it.
Without doubt, Nazi, racial-based anti-Semitism was different from
earlier anti-Judaism, in which Jews who could fully convince
Christians that they had sincerely converted to whatever form of
Christianity was in ascendancy could be safe from pogroms (and even
lead them). It's interesting to note in passing that Hitler was a Jew
by his own standards.
But I think that you shouldn't overemphasize German Nazism to the
exclusion of the connection between antisemitic fascism in allies of
the Nazis like Hungary, Croatia, Slovakia, and Romania, which made
very big contributions (if that's the word) to the Holocaust. Please
provide evidence that the ideology of the fascists who ruled those
countries was in any way whatsoever anti-Christian.
Bartek Rajwa
> >Oh, there is much more bad things: racism (in general), Euro-centrism,
> >imperialism, and so forth. You pick the good things and you don't want
> >to have anything to do with the nasty ones. That's cool.
>
> That's the only way to go.
Well... There are some strong proponents of anti-Euroentrism who claim
that everybody
accepting European culture is somehow morally responsible for the
tragedies it caused. If you look into african-american studies you will
find a lot such a statements.
-----------------------------------------------------------
> We might disagree [..] but
> we agree at least to some degree
8-D
I like this phrase! Let's make it the motto of our discussion.
-----------------------------------------------------------
> Why not? If you can consider justifications for slavery and
> anti-racism to arise from different interpretations of the Bible, you
> are starting to develop an interesting line of historical inquiry.
Of course! That is the point: _interpretations_! Slavery and anti-racism
may be justified using this same Bible, NT or Qu'ran. That is why we
need strong moral role models and a religious guidance. Sure, we (who
exactly? An anti-racism committee?) can censore Bible, but I am not sure
if this is a good idea. I guess you would not support it, would you?
> >Both Micheleangelo and Nazism happened to be a "product" of the European
> >Christian culture. Isn't it scary/fascinating/incredible/strange (pick
> >your favorite)?
>
> What's scarier is that Germany had produced a very high level of
> liberal culture, and had had a Jewish population which was more
> integrated into the cultural mainstream than anywhere else.
That is another interesting point! Assimilation and integration. German
nazism was not that much preoccupied with a Jew as an individual, but
with a Jewishness as an universal idea. Jewishness meant: liberalism,
democracy, humanism, christianity (yes) and so forth. For classical
old-style christian ani-Semite Jewish culture and Jewish people were not
integrated into his vision of Western Civilization. For Nazi anti-Semite
whole idea of Western Civilization was "Jewish". Individuals did not
matter. You can find this same pattern in contemporary neo-Nazim and
integral conservatism (which are mainly neo-pagan).
Have you ever read a Nazi newspaper, published before or during the
first part of the II WWW (I mean, before they started to be really
hysterical)? It is quite amazing that their rhetoric is almost
_identical_ to communist propaganda initiated by Stalin. If you take a
typical stalinist article form a regular Russian or East European
newspaper and add adjective "Jewish" before all allegedly "evil" things
(like parliament, democracy, capitalism, financial system) you will end
up with... nazi-style article. This similarity is not accidental. Both
ideologies (and their heirs) opposed Western Civilization (based on
Jewish and Christian tradition). I think that powerful clash - Culture
vs anti-Culture - would have happened even if there would not have been
a singe Jew in Europe.
> >What does it mean "officially Christian fascist"?
>
> E.g. Hungary, Slovakia, Croatia (Catholic), Romania (Orthodox).
Michael, maybe I will address this in a separate post. Believe me it is
_far_ to complicated to cover it with just a one "smart" comment. So, I
am not going to produce any "smart" comments. I want only to point out
that there are actually _more_ differences than similarities between
those governments. You did not include Italy (consciously?) - that is
another fascinating subject: relation between fascist party and Vatican.
Did you know for instance, that Mussolini was an anticlerical? Have you
heard about his book "L'uomo e la divinita"?
> >Would you also call
> >British conservatists "officially Christian democrats"?
> [snip]
>
> Is that the ideology of the party? I'd say no. The U.K. has an
> official religion, but the Conservative Party is primarily an
> economic-based party. This was not the case for some time in the 19th
> century, when Catholics and Jews had not yet been granted the right to
> vote in Great Britain.
Countries which you mentioned before did not have "official religion"
either. Even the term "official" religion is misleading. Do you know
that Italy has not any "official religion" or "state religion" while
Sweden has one?
Ideologically, British Conservatives are equivalent to German CDU/CSU
(Christian Democratic Party and Bavarian Christian Union). Anyway -
those labels do not mean anything. Labeling admiral Horthy in Hungary
"christian" and labeling chancellor Kohl in Germany "christian" does not
help us understanding the history, does it? It fact it is only an
obfuscation. Do you know what sort of esoteric rituals were practiced by
supposedly "christian" members of "Legion of Michael the Archangel" in
Romania? How they are related to Christianity?
> This was also true in
> Argentina, Spain, Portugal, and of course Mussolini's Italy.
> Mussolini's Italy actually saved thousands of Jewish lives, but this
> clearly was of no importance to the Pope, who blessed fascist Catholic
> states indiscriminately.
I am not sarcastic here, Michael, but you don't seem to study history of
nazism and fascism in depth. I am sorry. I don't want to offend you, but
almost every sentence in the paragraph dealing with so called
collaborating countries is just a simple cliché. You really think that
Spanish conservative royalists and Italian modernists are in this same
club??? More about it in a separate post.
> But what you're overlooking
> are things that most Jews know from experience. Why, even in Brooklyn,
> my mother at age 6 was beaten up by Irish kids who said "You killed
> God. You killed God." Who do you think taught them that? Answer: The
> parish priest.
We have here a two separate issue:
1) christian anti-Semitism in Irish (or generally in Europen/American)
culture
2) Your experience, your mother experience and your grief/sorrow
I understand how you feel listening to such a stories. I understand how
you feel reading some stupid posts sent by some neo-nazi scum with cited
out-of-context fragments from NT and racists comments, claiming that NT
teaches to hate Jews [means: MY obligation is to hate YOU]. But we have
to be objective. Otherwise we will not understand each other. In this
discussion I happen to represent "christian" side which is quite ironic
considering the fact that I don't remember when I was in a church last
time and living for 7 year with my Asian Buddhist girlfriend I've never
thought about "converting" her. OK - I can accept and play this role ;-)
but I cannot tell you anything about my experience simply because I
don't have any. I mean: growing in a christian country with (mainly)
christian population I met anti-Semitism first time in a _political_ not
a _religious_ context.
> So tell me, when Christians killed Jews throughout
> Europe during the War, do you seriously think none of them were
> killing the "Christkillers"?
This is probably the most complicated question in the whole dispute. It
can be addressed in a various ways:
1) one can simply say that killing _anybody_ (murdering) is against
christian norms and values. A person who commits such a crime cannot
think about himself: "I am a Christian". Such a person must have been
schizophrenic to accept seriously both Nazism and Christianity. [this
answer is a naive simplification, of course]
2) I agree with Yehuda Bauer that for Nazis a Jew meant rather "a
liberal, a democrat, a humanist" than a "Christkiller". On the other
hand: I have no idea what a regular SS private might have thought. I
guess the Goldhagen book gives as some insight. [this answer is another
simplification, because Goldhagen book is an oversimplification
itself...]
3) There was huge difference between SS personnel involved in mass
extermination (II WW) and blood-thirsty mob starting a pogrom (tsarist
Russia). If I had to guess I would bet that those who participated in
pogroms visualized their victims as "Christkillers" while for SS guys
Jews were not even human beings and I doubt they though about Jesus even
for a minute. The problem remains: concentration camps and gas chambers
were not commanded by orthodox priests.
4) Allow me to reformulate your question: "When Christians killed Jews
throughout
Europe during the War, do you think majority of them were killing the
`Christkillers'?" My answer here would be simply: no. [this was a cheap
trick - the reformulated question is much easier to answer]
4) Micheal, you are really good at asking hard and intellectually
provoking questions.... Trying to answer this one I would have to write
a Ph.D. thesis about the subject (which means that I would have to give
up the Ph.D. subject which I am working on now...)
> Nazism went beyond this to incorporate
> pseudo-scientific racism (and not incidentally, target various other
> "races," particularly the Gypsies), but many centuries of anti-Judaism
> provided strong roots for the Final Solution.
But why Germany? There were countries where Jewish people were far less
assimilated, countries where nationalism flourished, countries where
christianity was much deeper connected to the local culture, even
countries with some sort of local variations of "fascism" and somehow
only Germany managed to produce this sick ideology... [don't try to
answer this one, this is another PhD-style question...]
Another problem, which you have mentioned: other "races". Obviously
Gypsies, but also Slavic people. Apart of huge number of soldiers killed
there is a shocking number of _murdered_ Slavic civilians. At _least_ 15
(yes, fifteen) millions non-Jewish citizens of former Soviet Union was
literally murdered during the occupation (typical method: women and
children were closed in barn or church and burned alive). How their
death is related to NT?
> >BTW: Many historians believe that nazism had much more to do with
> >Napoleon and Schiller (I mean: German romantic nationalism)
>
> Romantic nationalism? Yes, especially Prussian militarism. Schiller,
> the man who wrote that "All men are brothers"? I doubt it. Sounds like
> you're getting perilously close to blaming all Germans for Nazism.
No, no... many scholars ponder the serious problem of relation between
romantic nationalism (born, established during the Napoleonic wars) and
so called "conservative revolution" movement which inspired fascism and
nazism. It has nothing to do with a "blaming-all-Germans" nonsense. This
is a serious stuff, believe me.
> Did Napoleon go after any Jews?
Clarification: I mentioned Napoleon in the context of German romantic
nationalism.
I have never heard any claims that Bonaparte persecuted Jews.
Greetings,
Bartek
--
ra...@flowcyt.cyto.purdue.edu
Bartek Rajwa
> This post of yours was nuanced and sophisticated.
Thank you! 8-) You asked important and serious questions, so I try to
be a serious partner in this discussion.
> Without doubt, Nazi, racial-based anti-Semitism was different from
> earlier anti-Judaism, in which Jews who could fully convince
> Christians that they had sincerely converted to whatever form of
> Christianity was in ascendancy could be safe from pogroms (and even
> lead them).
You underlined this difference using two words: anti-Judaism and
anti-Semitism. Some people may disagree, but I think that this is a good
terminology since Nazi anti-Semitism was much more based on "biology"
than a religion. Interestingly, Nazis believed that abstract ideas (like
democracy or humanism) can be spread by Jews "biologically". This
revolting mixture of naive early vulgar memetics and racial prejudice is
led to conclusion that cultural pattern is somehow genetically
determined. This idea is the fundament and the main principle of the
modern neo-nazism.
> It's interesting to note in passing that Hitler was a Jew
> by his own standards.
Oh, I have not mention this, because almost every time a gentile person
refers to facts like this one can smell a stinky hidden agenda. I didn't
want to be associated with neo-nazis and conclusions which they usually
like to draw.
> But I think that you shouldn't overemphasize German Nazism to the
> exclusion of the connection between antisemitic fascism in allies of
> the Nazis like Hungary, Croatia, Slovakia, and Romania, which made
> very big contributions (if that's the word) to the Holocaust. Please
> provide evidence that the ideology of the fascists who ruled those
> countries was in any way whatsoever anti-Christian.
I cannot provide evidence that those those who ruled those countries
were anti-Christian, because in majority they were not!
Every country you mentioned (plus Italy) had very specific, very
different situation, government and cultural background. And a very
different reason for "collaboration".
Let's make a quick sketch (Hungary and Romania):
Hungary: The political situation in this country resembled closely
Weimar Germany - after collapse of Austro-Hungarian Empire and the
infamous Trianon peace treaty the newly established Republic was not
able to find a political and national identity. It is hard to
demonstrate that the rule of admiral Horthy was in any way more or less
"christian-style" than any other European country of this period.
Anyway: when Germany decided to start a war with Poland and demanded
access to hungarian railway prime minister Teleki rejected this demand
and admiral Horthy informed the German ambassador that he "would sooner
blow up the rail lines than to participate in an attack on Poland."
Between 1939 and spring 1944 Hungary had three governments: 1) Count
Teleki (committed suicide when Germany began to transport their forces
to Yugoslavia crossing Hungarian territory), 2) L. Bardossy and then 3)
openly pro-English M. Kallay. Germany decided to occupy Hungary when it
become obvious that Hungarian prime minister tries to make a deal with
Western Allies. Blackmailed admiral Horthy appointed D. Sztojay as a
prime minister. Under German occupation short-living Sztojay cabinet
accepted all Gestapo anti-Jewish demands (including deportation of Jews
to "military factories" and "working camps"). When Horthy was informed
(by papal emissary and letter from Swedish King) about real truth behind
concentration camps, he informed German authorities that he would resist
(even military) any further deportations. The rest of the Hungarian II
WWW history is a hopeless struggle to save the country and surrender to
Western Allies. UK and USA refused and Hungary surrendered to Soviet
Union facing over 40 year of brutal communism.
Now, compare it with Romania, where notorious, unique "Legion of Michael
the Archangel" led by Codreanu influenced strongly internal affairs.
Romania is a fascinating subject to study because their fascist movement
and the LMA is probably much closer to the vision of modern integral
traditionalism than German nazism is. Codreanu's ideology started from
the christian retoric and ultimately led to strange mixture of aryan
mythology and esoteric. That is probably why Julius Evola, violently
anti-christian fascist guru and traditionalist philosopher considered
the LMA as best example of truly traditionalist movement. The LMA
undoubtedly evolved in and was influenced by christian orthodox culture
but the common element with other branches of fascism was not the
christain tradition but so called "fascist style" (if we use famous
Armin Mohler definition). I am not going further into details - the
concept of Mohler's "fascist style" is widely discussed by many
historians and sociologists.
Both Romania and Hungary "contributed" to the Holocaust. Hungary as an
almost accidental Germany ally, Romania (christian orthodox) as an
authoritarian dictatorship led by military regime. With a lot of "buts"
and "ifs" you can compare admiral Horthy to general Franco, but not to
Condreanu or Antonescu. On the other hand - you can draw a link between
Condreanu and Rosenberg, but (again) the former accepted christian
orthodox tradition (of course, he twisted it immensely) while the latter
was 100% anti-christian.
Thus, we have to be very careful because it is easy to make simple
"reductio ad hitlerum" by insinuation. Every case have to be discussed
separately. I will come back to Italy and other countries in another
posting.
Oh, one more thing: you mentioned "papal blessing" for those "fascist
countries". Romania had nothing to do with papacy and in case of Hungary
the only "blessing" admiral Horthy got from Vatican was an information
about Aushwitz which led him to oppose deportations. It happened
immediately after famous report submitted by Rudolf Vrba (Jewish inmate
who escaped from the camp) to the Papal Nuncio in Slovakia reached
Vatican.
See you,
Bartek
--
ra...@flowcyt.cyto.purdue.edu
piper
You make a lot of interesting points, but this discussion is starting
to tire me, no offense. Yes, there are many facets of it, but please
address the fact that until Vatican II in 1965, the Catholic Church
blamed the Jews for killing God. Only in 1965 were we "forgiven." So
the priestly instructions that "they killed God" must have been rather
common, wouldn't you admit?
As for why I left Mussolini's Italy out of my list, it's not because
the Pope didn't have a close relationship with Mussolini. He certainly
did, regardless of what you may want to say about some personal
anti-clerical feelings on Mussolini's part, which I don't think he
expressed in any policies toward the church. (By the way, it's only
quite recently that Italy has no longer had an official religion.) The
reason is the same reason why I have yet to mention Bulgaria:
Mussolini's fascist government did not seek to kill Jews. In fact,
while the Bulgarian government allowed the Nazis to take foreign
Jewish refugees and kill them, the Italian fascists saved thousands of
lives of foreign Jews. Only after the fascists were deposed did they
begin to collaborate with the Holocaust.
M
Michael,
I don't blame Jews for the death of Jesus,
and ANY Xtian who believes that should be confonted.
If you ever hear a "Xtian" say that the 'Jews killed God',
the best response would be to say:
"I thought you believed it was because of YOUR OWN SIN that he died."
......thus exposing his/her hypocrisy.....
Point made.
Case closed.
End of discussion.
Murray
P.S. I know you don't believe this as a Jew,
but this is what a Xtian should believe.
A knowledge of the NT makes it possible to expose
their errors.
mei...@qqqerols.com
<73234...@compuserve.com> posted:
>Michael,
> I don't blame Jews for the death of Jesus,
>and ANY Xtian who believes that should be confonted.
>If you ever hear a "Xtian" say that the 'Jews killed God',
>the best response would be to say:
>"I thought you believed it was because of YOUR OWN SIN that he died."
>......thus exposing his/her hypocrisy.....
The trouble with this and even more parallel to my analogy, the
trouble with, "because of the sins of all mankind" is similar to what
happens when liberals say some boy burgled a house or mugged an old
lady because he grew up impoverished and deprived. Lots of listeners
just think, excuses excuse, he still did it.
>Point made.
>Case closed.
>End of discussion.
>Murray
>P.S. I know you don't believe this as a Jew,
>but this is what a Xtian should believe.
>A knowledge of the NT makes it possible to expose
>their errors.
>piper wrote:
>> On Tue, 15 Jun 1999 14:22:18 -0600, M <73234...@compuserve.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>> >Also, I guess you play piano.
>>
>> Why do you guess that?
>>
>> >I'm partial to my two guitars.
>>
>> Good.
>>
Meir meirm...@erols.com
Remove the QQQ
and I'll get back to you.
Macabi
>Macabi wrote:
>
>> So for example, it became necessary to explain
>> why the Jewish community generally had not become Christians when
>> the nascent "Christian" community expected that they would.
>> Somehow
>> they had to explain away the lack of enthusiasm by the very community
>> that most of them would have thought might embrace nascent "Christianity's"
>> messianic claims and so on.
>
>And anti-Semitism was an explanation. Sure. A christian philosopher
>asked: "Hey, why Jews don't recognize Jesus?" and another philosopher
>answered "It
>is because there haven't been enough pogroms yet. We have to be more
>cruel. The more cruel we are the more likely they recognize Jesus". It
>is called "christian logic".
That is demeaning and presumably you know it. If one accepts that much
of the NT concerns the period in which it was written rather then the period
about which it was written then the anti-Jewish bits can be seen as
expressions of the conflict between church and synagogue. That is all
I am suggesting.
>
>> >Anyway, the christian NT scholars try to find a
>> >guilt within the christian community.
>>
>> Or they could just be trying honestly to address the problem of Christian
>> antisemitism. The use of the word "guilt" in this context seems so
>> denigrating. Why do you wish to denigrate their efforts?
>
>You know, I found your eristic
In that case we must be two of a kind.
>tiring. Whatever I wrote you try to twist
>it. If you consider your rhetoric skills sophisticated, you are wrong.
>The whole situation is simply funny.
Personally I think it is hilarious. I say one thing and in response you go
off into some long-winded, obscurantic dissertation. I am finding much of
this most educating, but it is irrelevant to my aims. If I see a racist or
antisemitic poster (say) I don't need to concern myself with scholarly
analysis to know that it is racist or antisemitic. I just want to do something
about it. The NT is, of course, a special case because X million Christians
believe it to be the "word of God". Certain of its sub-plots still however
amount to antisemitic propaganda.
>
>You have your political/ideological/whatever agenda. NT bashing makes
>you happy.
I am not NT bashing, and it does not make me happy. If as post-Holocaust
theologians claim, the roots of modern antisemitism lie in the NT, it makes
me very sad, not only for Jews but for Christians also.
>OK. It is not my problem. Fortunately there are other people
>in this thread who presents arguments instead of playing with eristic
>like citing just a part of a paragraph and then _later_ another part to
>comment every piece out of the whole context.
???? And what about you selectively deleting passages?
>
>Your suggestion that I compared theologians to neo-nazis is simply
>disgusting. You know very well that I have never attempted any
>comparison like that, you insist I have, though. I am not going to make
>any further comment about it.
You know what you wrote. Is that why you (some would dishonestly)
deleted the relevant passages?
>
>One more sentence:
>
>> I think that the insight I have gained about the future
>> is that unless the NT's antisemitic potential is neutralized
>> it will continue to poison the minds of a certain proportion
>> of its readers regarding "the Jews".
>
>You proved that you have no idea about contemporary anti-Semitism,
Presumably experience on the receiving end does not count?
>contemporary neo-Nazism and so forth. Go and preach your anti-NT mantra.
>Maybe you will find one day that how much you missed the really
>important target. The problem is: it could be too late...
At least I will have tried to do something practical, even if it amounts to
failure, rather than spend my time "analyzing". My experience is that
academics are often paralysed by their own rhetoric.
>
>Please excuse me, but there are really _interesting_ postings in this
>thread and I'd like to address some of the issues that authors
>presented.
I know and I am finding them most educational.
>
>Have a good day, Sir
And the same to you.
>
>B Rajwa
M
mei...@QQQerols.com wrote:
> The trouble with this and even more parallel to my analogy, the
My theological point is still valid, in my opinion.
Besides, there were only a handful of Jews who were actually present at
the crucifixion.
In fact, there were lots of gentile Roman soldiers there as well.
Why can't the gentiles take some blame for the Romans being there?
Murray
piper
wrote:
>
>
>Michael,
> I don't blame Jews for the death of Jesus,
>and ANY Xtian who believes that should be confonted.
>
>If you ever hear a "Xtian" say that the 'Jews killed God',
>the best response would be to say:
>
>"I thought you believed it was because of YOUR OWN SIN that he died."
>
>
>......thus exposing his/her hypocrisy.....
>
>
>
>
>Point made.
>Case closed.
>End of discussion.
>
>
>
>Murray
>
>P.S. I know you don't believe this as a Jew,
>but this is what a Xtian should believe.
>A knowledge of the NT makes it possible to expose
>their errors.
You're entirely right about all of this. I understand that the Syriac
Christians even consider Judas a saint, because they believe that it
was only through his betrayal of Jesus that He was able to be killed
for our sins.
However, none of this is much comfort to Jews who know that, for close
to 2,000 years, we have been killed because we "killed God."
Bartek Rajwa
> You make a lot of interesting points, but this discussion is starting
> to tire me, no offense.
Michael, a discussion like this cannot be entertaining. This is not a
simple subject. I am sorry, but I am not going to support any slogans
without investigating facts first.
> Yes, there are many facets of it, but please
> address the fact that until Vatican II in 1965, the Catholic Church
> blamed the Jews for killing God. Only in 1965 were we "forgiven." So
> the priestly instructions that "they killed God" must have been rather
> common, wouldn't you admit?
No, I can't admit it. Below is the explanation:
The Roman Catholic attitude toward Jews varied over centuries and was
different depending on the country. This same time when Inquisition
controlled by the Spanish King was investigating "conversos", the Polish
King had to (it was required by parliament) sign "pacta conventa"
stating that "Since Turks, Armenians, Tartars, Greeks, and Jews not only
sojourn in Poland but also reside here and (freely) move from place to
place, they ought (undisturbed) to press their faiths, enjoy their
liberties, and benefit, so to say, from the same rights of citizenship."
[Salo Wittmayer "A Social and Religious History of the Jews"]. According
to the christian doctrine of that time (St. Augistine teaching) Jews
were punished by God who made them to wander the Earth without a
homeland because they had not recognized Jesus as the Messiah.
The most important christian dogma says that Jesus died because of the
sins of all the people. The dogma says that he accepted his death as
some sort of a offering. From the dogmatic point of view sentences like
"Jews killed the Jesus" or "Jews killed the God"
are heretic...
..BUT..
...till Second Vatican Council this unofficial and wrong tradition was
_not_ condemned. Two important encyclicals "Nostra Aerate" and
"Dignitatis Humanae" cover the subject as far as I know. The bottom
line: II Vatican Council was not about "forgiving" (because according to
the Catholic teaching everyone of us is somehow killing the Jesus all
the time because of our sins), but about rejecting and condemning wrong,
inhuman, disgusting tradition which was widespread among catholics (and
non-catholics), although never admitted by the Church.
In case of protestant churches problem is far more complicated because
every denomination has its own set of dogmas and traditions. I am not
sure if the official anti-Jewish teaching of Luther and Calvin have been
ever officially rejected by something like an equivalent of the II
Vatican. Correct me if I am wrong.
Now, let's move to Italy and other Catholic countries ruled by fascists
that time.
Italian fascism was originally (at the beginning) anti-racist and
anti-catholic this same time. Modernists and futurists who created the
intellectual, ideological fundament for fascist movement strongly and
openly criticized christian values and culture. Marinetti is a good
example. On the other side fascist movement was influenced by integral
traditionalist thinkers like Julius Evola, fascinated with Islam and
aryan mythology. At the beginning of his political career Mussolini was
a vocal critic of Vatican.
Mussolini was a smart politician and knew that it is almost impossible
to gain a mass support of regular Italians with such a anticlerical
view. Soon his policy changed and he started to pose as a "good"
Catholic. All his books and articles showing his previous political and
religious attitude were seized by the police. He ordered to confiscate
them from publishers or libraries. Till the end of the Mussolini regime
relations with Vatican were fine. He also literally bought italian
clergy issuing new pro-Church tax policy.
General Franco is Spain- another fascist dictator- was a devout Catholic
from the very beginning of his career. Falanga - the Spanish fascist
organization - had been moderately anticlerical and antiroyalist for
some time, but Franco did his best to change its ideology and to stress
conservative catholic values. Spanish Catholic Church strongly supported
Franco and even if some bishops had favored republican government when
home war had started, facing violent anticlerical policy of communist
militias they ultimately embraced their fascist "defenders". Spanish
fascism was probably the most Church influenced style fascism ever.
Conservative Catholic teaching dominated every public debate and till
the death of Franco Spain was ideologically completely
Church-controlled.
Before asking some crucial questions let's say a little bit about Nazi
Germany: Nazi policy towards christianity (Germany was mainly
protestant) varied over the time. One can easily see three time periods:
1) till 1933: Nazis were openly anticlerical. In 1931 bp. Faulhaber and
other Catholic bishops (Catholicism was dominant in Bavaria) officially
condemned Nazi ideology saying that the basics Nazi concepts were not
compatible with Catholic doctrine.
2) 1933 - 1937: Nazis tried to improve their relations to Vatican. The
"Concordat" agreement was signed. Some protestant bishops accepted Nazi
ideology and even declared that is in essence close to "true German
culture" and tried to censure the NT removing "pro-Jewish" elements
(some people who support removing anti-Semitic "potential" from the NT
may find interesting what sort of colleagues they would have in their
censorship attempt)
3) after 1937: anti-christian ideologues (like Alfred Rosenberg)
prevailed and Nazis started another propaganda attack on Christianity.
It it time to summarize now: my previous three postings clarified some
commonly misunderstood points and sketched the picture of Fascist and
Nazi movement during the time of II WW and nowadays.
The original thesis said that NT was directly related to the Holocaust.
The relation was based in the alleged fact that NT used by the christian
teaching over the centuries contributed to anti-Semitic prejudice. It
also includes assumption that Christian anti-Semitism in fact identical
to Nazi anti-Semitism.
I completely disagree with the view of NT as as "anti-Semitic"
propaganda.
I agree that there were numerous interpretations of fragments of NT (and
other parts of the Bible) that led to anti-Semitism. I think that such
an interpretations were effects of prejudice, not a cause of it.
I agree with the notion that Christian anti-Semitism might have prepared
the way for it Nazi anti-Semitism, but I disagree that there is a simple
connection between those two phenomena.
Here are the main problems I'd like to point out:
1) Contemporary integral traditionalism, neo-fascism and neo-nazism is
rarely related to any form of christianity. In fact the most vocal and
ideologically active contemporary IT groups reject the christian
tradition and their religious views (if they have any) and are very much
islam or aryan-mythology oriented.
2) Nazi anti-Semitism was related to Christian anti-Semitism, but this
relation is complex and, as Y. Bauer mentioned, even the most vocal
proponents of Christian anti-Judaism were far from proposing anything
comparable to the "Final Solution".
3) Among three countries with indisputable nazi/fascist government the
one which was mostly influenced by a church did not participated in II
WW (Spain), the other one ruled by former anticlerical maintaining good
relations with Vatican and stressing "christian values" participated in
II WW, but their contribution to Jewish tragedy is significantly lower
than the contribution provided by the third country (Germany) where
after 1937 Nazis did not even pretend that their ideology had anything
to do with christianity.
4) If we compare historical tradition of Spain and Germany we find out
that while the former was influenced by the church all over its history
(Reconquista, Spanish Inquisition, Franco's dictatorship) the latter
have long, well documented tradition of rejecting official church
doctrines. From Fridrich II Hohenstauffen to our times Germany
challenged continuously christian ideology.
Of course I don't seriously expect anybody to address those issues.
Discussing history of ideas in detail is _much_ harder than writing a
five-sentence NG posting with a clear but not justified slogan. One have
to remember though, that inventing an easily refutable "christianity"
which is as wicked, as anti-Semitic and as diabolical as one wants it to
be is not intellectually productive way of discussing an important
issue.
Please send any comments or remarks to my private address - I found that
discussion by e-mail is usually much more valuable and less "political"
that dispute with NG manifests.
Bartek
--
ra...@flowcyt.cyto.purdue.edu
piper
wrote:
[snip]
>there were only a handful of Jews who were actually present at
>the crucifixion.
>In fact, there were lots of gentile Roman soldiers there as well.
>Why can't the gentiles take some blame for the Romans being there?
Because the New Testament is designed to blame "the Jews" and shift
blame from the Romans:
"The chief priests and the elders...had persuaded the crowd to demand
the release of Barabbas and the execution of Jesus. So when the
governor spoke and asked them, `Which of the two do you want me to
release for you?' they said, `Barabbas.' `But in that case,' Pilate
said to them, `what am I to do with Jesus who is called Christ?' They
all said, "Let him be crucified!' `Why?' he asked. `What harm has he
done?' But they shouted all the louder, `Let him be crucified!' Then
Pilate saw that he was making no impression, that in fact a riot was
imminent. So he took some water, washed his hands in front of the
crowd and said, `I am innocent of this man's blood. It is your
concern.' And the people to a man, shouted back, `His blood be on us
and on our children!'" (Matthew 27:20-26)
So according to the account, Pilate washed the guilt of Rome from his
hands, but the Jews took on the blood guilt for themselves and their
children - to the 10th generation (forever), we might say, using
language from the Tanakh ("Old Testament"). Isn't it quite clear that
this and other blood libels flowing from it are what inspired and
justified pogroms over and over?
Let's look at the Gospel of John now, shall we?
"Pilate said, `Take him yourselves and crucify him: I can find no case
against him.' `We have a Law,' the Jews replied, `and according to
that Law he ought to die because he has claimed to be the Son of God.'
When Pilate heard them say this his fears increased....
From that moment Pilate was anxious to set him free, but the
Jews shouted, `If you set him free you are no friend of Caesar';
anyone who makes himself king is defying Caesar.' Hearing these words,
Pilate had Jesus brought out, and seated himself on the chair of
judgment at a place called the Pavement, in Hebrew Gabbatha. It was
Passover Preparation Day, about the sixth hour. `Here is your king,'
said Pilate to the Jews. `Take him away, take him away!' they said.
`Crucify him!' `Do you want me to crucify your king?' said Pilate. The
chief priests answered,`We have no king except Caesar. So in the end
Pilate handed him over to them to be crucified." (John 19:7-8,12-16;
source: _The Jerusalem Bible_: Reader's Edition. Garden City, New
York: Doubleday, 1968)
See, according to the account, the Roman authorities weren't even the
ones who crucified Him. It was "the Jews" who crucified Him. The point
of such passages is to shift guilt away from Rome, which the early
Christians justly feared, and _collectively_ blame "the Jews," a group
which never includes the disciples, the Virgin Mary, or any neutral or
uninvolved people in the above-quoted passages.
You Christians have to deal with the problems and historical impact of
such anti-Jewish passages in the New Testament if you want to start
undoing the damage of 2 millenia of Christian persecution of the REAL
Jews, not the caricatures in the Passion stories.
M
piper wrote:
> Bartek:
>
> You make a lot of interesting points, but this discussion is starting
> to tire me, no offense. Yes, there are many facets of it, but please
A Xtian cannot blame the death of Jesus on the Jews.
A Xtian must take personal responsibility for the death of Jesus.
It was for MY sin that He died.
It was MY fault.
Jesus died for ME, because of ME.
>
> address the fact that until Vatican II in 1965, the Catholic Church
> blamed the Jews for killing God.
Peace.
Murray
==========observer
<ra...@flowcyt.cyto.purdue.edu> wrote:
>
>Please send any comments or remarks to my private address - I found that
>discussion by e-mail is usually much more valuable and less "political"
>that dispute with NG manifests.
>
>Bartek
>--
>ra...@flowcyt.cyto.purdue.edu
You have done a good piece of research up there Bartek.
But getting into the nitty gritty of details, as ususal ignore the
wider picture.
No offence intended to anyone but religion is a business like all
businesses, It tries its best to survive and flourish, even by
murdering the people of the "other" religion. Having power over the
lives of people usually includes the right to kill some or many of
them unfortunately.
So it should be no wonder that just as religion tries to flourish by
taking control of the lives and minds of the believers, there are
other bullies in the neighborhood who tries to share the loot with the
clergy of the place, whatever country you may be talking about.
Catholicism from its first day was the government of the country
untill a bully came along and called himself "King" or what have you,
and forced the church to live with what he was wiling to allow them to
have.
The church was always very practical about it, knowing that they don't
have the armies to defend themselves and they better share the loot
with the new ruler who have political power over the people while
they, the church, retained the choke hold over the people minds, so
they accepted the new world order and lived with it.
After all, the church learned a bitter lesson in England with Henry
the VIII who simply executed some of the church big shots, opened a
God business of his own and appointed himself the pope of his Anglican
Church. And Hnery was just an ignorant country boy and skirt chaser,
so if he could build his own God business, smarter bullies can surely
do the same and the church is always aware of this.
But other then that you can see how all the corrupt rulers of Europe
always had the Church crosses or other insignias on their coat of
arms and spoke in terms of ""God is with us""
This told the masses that "this king" is approved by God (read: the
church)
This corrupt cooperation was broken by Hitler who apparently, in his
grand design for the world, intended to declare himself God if he wins
all what he tought he is going to win, So he didn't affiliate himself
with the church, didn't use any of their crosses trademarks, etc.
Consider:
Hitler didn't have any past, any platform of ideology, any emblem, any
civil presence to offer the millions of his recruits that no matter
how dumb they were, still, when you want to lead a large number of
people, you must give them a platform , a symbol, a presence to be
inspired with.
Had Hitler tried to be a christian, he wouldn't have had any
difficulty with the church. The church up to the appearance of Hitler,
would have welcomed any one who could kill the Jews for them.
Heck, they tried any thing in the book to achieve this end for two
milleniums and couldn't, so they wouldn't have stood on Hitler's way
if this was all he wanted to do.
Fact that the Pope of the day was very quiet about what was going on
during the holocaust.
But Hitler planned to KILL THE CHURCH TOO.... the Church knew
it...and were scared.
So Hitler simply stole the Swastika from the Jain aryans and also
stole their identity and called himself an Aryan.
The stupid thing here, that no one noticed in the Nazi movement, was
that the real aryans were not fully white as Hitler claimed himself to
be. :->
He idolized the WHITE, NORDIC viking warriors, somehow linking them
to the Aryans who weren't white and he arrived to the erroneous
assumption the he and his thugs are "White Aryans".
This is how he solved the matter of identity he never had. But as far
as religion ? None of that !!
Since ordinary people are still far from becoming real atheists, they
will always ask for 'A' God and God's teachings, Hitler tried to
skirt around the subject by keeping as much as possible quiet about
it.
Hitler and the church had sort of a ceasfire realtionship. Both
waiting to see who will prevail at the end.
But thanks the devil Hitler started to lose and only when his losses
became big enough for him to understand that the end is near, he still
did not repent but for the first time he said to his thugs:
"GOD IS WITH US"............
But........the church didn't second him on that........:-> :-> :->
No statement from the church came out to confirm Hitler screams that
God is with him......
In fact at this point the church was breathing a sigh of relief seeing
the beginning of the end of a monstrous threat not just to the church
but to Christianity altogether. Just imagine the world with Hitler as
its God..............
With this kind of dangerous event, and the holocaust that was part of
it, the church was finally realizing that the relationship with the
Jews must be changed , hence Vatican II, hence removing from the
prayers the idea that the Jews "Killed God" ( in some backward local
churches it is still going unchanged).
Besides, the church as part of the religious business worldwide is
feeling the pinch of loosing people who are loosing patience with the
entire idea of religion be it christianity or all other religions.
People are starting to see the defects of religions altogether. They
want out of it but can't because humans need God more the God needs
humans and this is the big dillema: how to throw away the dirty bath
water without throwing the baby with it ? In other words, people want
the church to change and be more humanistic regardless of what God
"we" worship as opposed to the God "They" worship.
Hence you can now see how all religions have united the many Gods into
one by saying: ""God is the creator of all of us"".......
Really ?????
That wasn't good enough to save Jews, or even other Christians from
the wrath of a powerfull bishop or pope that was partner with the
local ruler and had the power to burn at the stake people at will by
labeling them "witches".
So there was ""our"" god, and the other guys who believed in their
God had obviously "another" God. But in the last half century we
pretend that there is but "ONE" god... Really ???
This concept of one God is for now just a christian mantra because
they feel the heat, it is not shared by Islam who are sure that their
Allah is the one and only. Not to mention the Jews, and from them you
can go on and on with everyone in the world still believing in his own
God.
Uniting the many Gods into one, with Christianity willing to accept
that imaginary God of all as their God, is a matter of self defence
due to contemporary world conditions and the lesson from Hitler.
The church knows that Hitler was not the last word and humanity may
still breed another one or more. So the Catholic Church is now
putting its money on the horse of heightened morals and one of it
being making peace with the Jews, this is most vital for the church in
the coming centuries even if they have to change many stories in the
NT that blame the jews.
Let's hope it continues because the real fight the church have on
their hands now are not the few Jews, it is the mammoth fundamental
Islam now immigrating to and invading most democratic countries,
countries they call : "lands of satan"
The war against serbia is one of the opening shots in which
Fundamental Islam is winning part of europe with the ridicullous help
of the European community who are all Christians but are too blind to
see the reality of it.
CHRISTENDOM vs. FUNDAMENTAL ISLAM...... This is the new frontier for
Christianity, not the Jews.
Observer
piper
<ra...@flowcyt.cyto.purdue.edu> wrote:
>Michael wrote:
>
>> You make a lot of interesting points, but this discussion is starting
>> to tire me, no offense.
>
>Michael, a discussion like this cannot be entertaining. This is not a
>simple subject. I am sorry, but I am not going to support any slogans
>without investigating facts first.
You make a lot of good points, but a lot of what you're doing strikes
me as bon mots.
>> Yes, there are many facets of it, but please
>> address the fact that until Vatican II in 1965, the Catholic Church
>> blamed the Jews for killing God. Only in 1965 were we "forgiven." So
>> the priestly instructions that "they killed God" must have been rather
>> common, wouldn't you admit?
>
>No, I can't admit it.
Oh really? Those leading the pogroms in Ukraine, Poland, Romania,
Russia, the Crusades, etc., weren't incited by the priests (yes, some
were Orthodox) to get the "Christkillers"? Bon mots don't change
history.
>Below is the explanation:
>
>The Roman Catholic attitude toward Jews varied over centuries and was
>different depending on the country.
[snip]
Sure, but that doesn't make my comment false, and you ought to call a
spade a spade. As long as "the Jews" are considered collectively
guilty for the crucifixion of God, the exhortation to annihilate the
Christkillers can be and was trotted out at any opportune time.
[snip]
>...till Second Vatican Council this unofficial and wrong tradition was
>_not_ condemned.
[snip]
Can't you get rid of the double-negatives and rephrase this more
simply?
> Two important encyclicals "Nostra Aerate" and
>"Dignitatis Humanae" cover the subject as far as I know. The bottom
>line: II Vatican Council was not about "forgiving" (because according to
>the Catholic teaching everyone of us is somehow killing the Jesus all
>the time because of our sins), but about rejecting and condemning wrong,
>inhuman, disgusting tradition which was widespread among catholics (and
>non-catholics), although never admitted by the Church.
To my knowledge, Pope John Paul II is the first Pope to publicly
apologize for the Church's history of antisemitism, though I do not
believe he's apologized for theological anti-Judaism (which would be
difficult, since many would argue that it's close to the core of
Christianity). I would say, though, that it would not astonish me if
Pope John had condemned antisemitism. Can you cite a statement in
which he did?
>In case of protestant churches problem is far more complicated because
>every denomination has its own set of dogmas and traditions. I am not
>sure if the official anti-Jewish teaching of Luther and Calvin have been
>ever officially rejected by something like an equivalent of the II
>Vatican. Correct me if I am wrong.
The U.S. Lutheran Church recently confessed its sinful [their words,
IIRC] history of antisemitism, repudiated it, apologized, and begged
forgiveness for it. It was very big of them, and I salute them. I am
unaware of which other branches of that church, if any, may have taken
similar steps.
[respectfully snipped - interesting material]
>I completely disagree with the view of NT as as "anti-Semitic"
>propaganda.
[snip]
How about the view that the NT contains anti-Jewish propaganda which
was used to justify pogroms and persecutions throughout history? Note
my other post of crucial anti-Jewish phrasings of the Passion stories
in the Gospels of Matthew and John.
[snip]
>2) Nazi anti-Semitism was related to Christian anti-Semitism, but this
>relation is complex and, as Y. Bauer mentioned, even the most vocal
>proponents of Christian anti-Judaism were far from proposing anything
>comparable to the "Final Solution".
(1) Look at some of Luther's language.
(2) There was a big pogrom in the Ukraine, IIRC in the 18th century,
in which they seem to have made a concerted effort to wipe out the
Jewish population completely and did really nice things like cutting
open the bellies of pregnant women and flaying people.
[snip]
>Of course I don't seriously expect anybody to address those issues.
>Discussing history of ideas in detail is _much_ harder than writing a
>five-sentence NG posting with a clear but not justified slogan.
[snip]
And for you, perhaps you find it more congenial to write bon mots
which conveniently understate the culpability of the early Christians
who blamed "the Jews" collectively for the crucifixion and the later
Christians who periodically tried to wipe out the Jews in their midst,
or in Israel. You make a lot of valid points, but there's something
uncomfortably dry to me about your scholarly approach. If your point
is that Christianity doesn't HAVE TO BE anti-Jewish, and that fascist
anti-Semitism is not an inevitable consequence of Christianity or even
Christian anti-Judaism, your point is taken. Stalin wasn't a necessary
consequence of Lenin, but Lenin, though in many ways quite different
from Stalin, took actions which prepared the way for his assumption of
absolute power. History is complex, because human beings are complex.
But at a certain point, responsibility does have to be taken and
given. For example, it's not reasonable to say as you do that the
Catholic church did not condemn an "unofficial and wrong tradition."
The Catholic church is historically a heirarchical and authoritarian
institution and one which has never hesitated to condemn anything it
considered doctrinally wrong and dangerous.
> One have
>to remember though, that inventing an easily refutable "christianity"
>which is as wicked, as anti-Semitic and as diabolical as one wants it to
>be is not intellectually productive way of discussing an important
>issue.
Nor is inventing a non-anti-Jewish Church which didn't exist except
perhaps on a regional basis at particular times.
>Please send any comments or remarks to my private address - I found that
>discussion by e-mail is usually much more valuable and less "political"
>that dispute with NG manifests.
No, Sir. With all due respect, I'm not interested in discussing this
by email. It's better to discuss this out in the open where people
with greater knowledge and expertise than I are able to choose to
participate. I am not a scholar of Jewish-Christian relations in
history. I am just a Jew who knows certain things that most any Jew
with family roots in the former Austro-Hungarian and Russian Empires
knows, and one who has read a good deal of New Testament.
piper
[snip]
You wrote a lot of interesting things, but I want to correct this:
>Catholicism from its first day was the government of the country
>untill a bully came along and called himself "King" or what have you,
>and forced the church to live with what he was wiling to allow them to
>have.
Actually, that isn't true. Christians were brutally suppressed in Rome
until Emperor Constantine decided to tolerate them. Shortly
thereafter, Constantine converted to Christianity, whereupon he went
about persecuting the Mithraites, pagans, et al. as brutally as the
Christians had been previously persecuted. Most historians, as I
understand, date the establishment of the Roman Catholic Church to the
time of Constantine. So you see, Catholicism was the religion of the
Roman Emperor and the Pope was the Pontifex Maximum (High Priest) of
Rome in its very institutional beginning.
[snip]
>The stupid thing here, that no one noticed in the Nazi movement, was
>that the real aryans were not fully white as Hitler claimed himself to
>be. :->
[snip]
It's worse than that. The only _real_ Aryans (i.e. people of
Indo-Iranian descent who spoke an Indo-Aryan language and had an
Indo-Aryan culture) in Europe were the Romany, a.k.a. Gypsies, and
they were targetted by Hitler for annihilation along with the Jews and
blacks.
[further snip of much interesting material]
Regards,
Macabi
That is because the Church wanted converts not dead Jews (setting aside
for now the suggestion of some people that Christian converts from Judaism
are effectively dead Jews). As far as I can see the Church generally only
mistreated its converts from Judaism when it thought they were insincere
(i.e. still secretly practicing Judaism, e.g. the Marranos). Christian anti-
Judaism is not racism.
>2) For Nazis Jewishness expressed itself actually in _all_ important
>values of Western/Christian civilization (democracy, liberalism, ethics,
>humanism, some forms of art, and so forth). Very interesting question
>arises here - what sort of "alternative ethics" they proposed. Where was
>the origin of this "ethics". It was not Christian not Western not
>Greco-Roman based. I will come back to this issue later.
So will I (see below).
>3) Last, but not least: Nazism was anti-Christian. Persecution of
>christian clergy was marginal, though. Why? Because Hitler at al. had to
>win ideological battle with Christianity first, before they attack
>individual human beings. They had to "convert" German people to some
>sort of Aryan-Nordic-Germanic mythology. There were places (like SS)
>where this new religion had been functional and places where they tried
>to create it. There is a plenty of very interesting literature dealing
>with this complex issue. Sure thing is: the world dominated by Nazis
>would not have known christianity (maybe only as another Jewish heresy?)
>
>Let's go back to point 2) for a moment. I said before that this
>"Christianity= Anti-Semitism= Holocaust" mantra
This is an over-simplification of what the post-Holocaust school is
claiming. I use the term "antisemitism" to describe NT anti-Jewish
prejudice, however, post-Holocaust scholars prefer "anti-Judaism".
The reason why I use "antisemitism" is because I am interested in
the impact of the NT as social propaganda. I am not interested
in second-guessing the NT's authors' intentions or whatever. As I
understand it, post-Holocaust scholars are suggesting that the NT's
anti-Judaism laid the foundation of anti-Jewish prejudice on which
Hitler (not necessarily consciously) built. In other words, it is possible
to imagine an NT bereft of anti-Judaism that would not have generated
such a foundation of social prejudice, etc. It is in this sense that
some post-Holocaust scholars suggest that without NT anti-Judaism
there would not have been the Shoah.
>leads to nowhere,
>because it does not allow us to make any prediction about the future. It
>does not help us to understand fully Nazi anti-Semitism (and the
>Holocaust). Even worse - it
>is deeply misleading when applied to contemporary antisemitism. Macabi
>posted couple of times a fragment from Hildberg book claiming that Nazis
>did not develop any new ideology, they only used the ideas which were
>around. This view is equally naive and... optimistic. If fact Nazis (and
>Italian Fascist) built a new "ethics" - it is clearly seen analyzing
>contemporary heirs of their ideology. Probably the best example is
>Russian philosopher Alexander Dugin and his NBP. Everything that was
>created by Nazis or influenced Nazis is present in his work. There is
>only one (curious) exception: christianity.
I don't see this as so very curious. If the roots of modern antisemitism
lie in the NT and if one regards it as social propaganda, surely, any
link between Christianity and antisemitism must inevitably be broken?
For example, the NT has been the subject of compulsory education
for centuries in many countries. That some individuals miss out on the
NT's Christian message but imbibe the NT's anti-Jewish prejudice is
hardly surprising. How this might be compounded over long periods
of time in secular society can only be guessed at, but that it might
happen can hardly be doubted.
>Contemporary integral
>conservatists do not need christian forms. It needed it before where
>society and culture was in majority christian, so communication with the
>society had to be based on christian rhetoric and christian phraseology.
>Contemporary post-industrial atheistic society uses different form of
>cultural expression so this anti-cultural (anit-Western, anti-Semitic,
>anti-Democratic) discourse presented by integral conservatists is also
>based on different scheme.
It's the underlying prejudice that counts, not the form in which it is
expressed. Nothing you have said thus far (although I find it sincerely
interesting) eliminates the possibility that NT anti-Judaism generated
the anti-Jewish prejudice that has provided the prejudice concomitant
to modern antisemitism.
>
>Comparing Nazi ideology and contemporary integral conservatism (some
>people call it neo-Nazism, but one have to remember that we are not
>talking about groups of skinheads wandering around but about ideologues
>- figures like Rosenberg in Nazi Germany) we can find some common points
>and interesting differences. IC are fascinated with Prussian militarism,
>Japanese traditionalism (Yukio Mishima), racial cultural theories
>(Oswald Spengler). They are influenced by Julius Evola and Rene Guenon.
>They adopted neo-pagan mythology as their religion.
Who is being naive now? In a social setting antisemitic prejudice does not
necessarily equate with Christianity. On the other hand this does not exclude
the possibility that the post-Holocaust scholars are correct in claiming that the
roots of modern antisemitism lie in the NT. Once a piece of propaganda is
released on society no one can predict how it might be interpreted. That
a piece of religious propaganda establishes a secular prejudice is no
great surprise.
>recovering Israel.”"
What was the position of Jews living under Islamic rule before the re-
establishment of the State of Israel?
>
>NG is not a place for a very deep analysis, but you can probably see my
>point:
>1) Christian anti-Semitism is an abvious fact
>2) 30' Nazi anti-Semitism (even being anti-Christian) used Christian
>rhetoric because the whole society was based on christian culture - only
>this rhetoric could have been understood
This does not preclude the possibility that NT anti-Judaism provided
the underlying prejudice.
>3) Contemporary Nazis still preach this same ideology, but they adopted
>different rhetoric (because society changed). They are still violently
>anti-Semitic
Ditto.
>3) Nazism created their own _new_ form of anti-Semitism. Relation
>between Nazi anti-Semitism and Christian anti-Semitism is like a
>relation between Greco-Roman anti-Semitism and Christian anti-Semitism.
>There is _a_ relation, but this relation does not explain a lot (if
>anything).
>
Nonetheless, Greco-Roman pagan anti-Jewish prejudice (not antisemitism)
in a long spent force (not that its impact ever compared in severity with
Christian anti-Judaism). Christian anti-Judaism is still very much with us.
Until the Church generally does something to neutralize this aspect of
the NT I fear that Jews generally will never be truly free. My own concern
is that the damage has already been done to such an extent that even
a sincere and concerted effort by Christendom generally will not remedy
the situation.
>All the above is still a simplification, but you see what I mean: the
>whole issue is far more complicated. Any religion can be used (or rather
>_abused_) by Nazis. In extreme case they do not a religion at all - they
>can create their own.
The NT is in many respects ideal propaganda. It has the Almighty as
guarantor of its reliability. It has thus been regarded with unparalleled
respect for millennia. Only in very recent time has it been subjected
to criticism (for much of its history a very dangerous pursuit). If the
roots of modern antisemitism lie in the NT it is no surprise that the
anti-Jewish prejudice it has generated finds a wide variety of
expressions both religious and secular. What else would one expect
of a piece of propaganda that has been circulated over such a long
period of time in a wide variety of cultural settings?
>
>Let me cite Yehuda Bauer again:
>
>"The outcome is fundamentalism, the flight of people into the assumed
>certainty of divine will. That divine will decrees hatred. Muslim,
>Christian, Jewish, or Hindu fundamentalism are variations on this theme.
>Secular fundamentalism, after the disappearance of Marxism-Leninism as a
>major force, is reemerging in the form of exclusivist nationalism all
>over the world, not only in Europe. The role of ideology in all this is
>central."
>
>I think that eventually we are going to have a really fruitful
>discussion,
Which is why I started this thread in the first place.
>
>8-)
>
>Bartek
M
Thank you for allowing me to participate here in s.c.i. about this matter.
Your perspectives about the anti-semitism issue have been an education to me.
I don't get very many opportunities to speak face to face with Jewish people
about this topic - it is maybe too sensitive for that.
This whole discussion has made me angry with the 20 centuries of
"Xtians" who lived before me.
I can watch my own attitudes and try to change those of others around
me. Believe me, I am trying to do just that.
Murray
piper
wrote:
>
>
>Thank you for allowing me to participate here in s.c.i. about this matter.
[snip]
No thanks are necessary. USENET is a free medium.
>Your perspectives about the anti-semitism issue have been an education to me.
>I don't get very many opportunities to speak face to face with Jewish people
>about this topic - it is maybe too sensitive for that.
It's sensitive, but you should certainly seek out Jews to speak with
face-to-face. Maybe there's a branch of the Council of Christians and
Jews (name?) in your community. I have had a lot of dialogue with one
of my best friends, a Catholic who is now estranged from his church.
We were roommates in college and had many fascinating discussions.
>
>This whole discussion has made me angry with the 20 centuries of
>"Xtians" who lived before me.
>I can watch my own attitudes and try to change those of others around
>me. Believe me, I am trying to do just that.
Your sincerity is apparent.
newuser
in Jerusalem at the time. Do you think they were all Jews?
M <73234...@compuserve.com> wrote in message
<376914B7...@compuserve.com>...
>
>
>piper wrote:
>
>> Bartek:
>>
>> You make a lot of interesting points, but this discussion is starting
>> to tire me, no offense. Yes, there are many facets of it, but please
>
>A Xtian cannot blame the death of Jesus on the Jews.
>
>A Xtian must take personal responsibility for the death of Jesus.
>It was for MY sin that He died.
>It was MY fault.
>Jesus died for ME, because of ME.
>
>
>
>
>>
>> address the fact that until Vatican II in 1965, the Catholic Church
>> blamed the Jews for killing God.
>
>
>
>
>
>Peace.
>Murray
>
mei...@qqqerols.com
piper...@interport.net (piper) posted:
>It's sensitive, but you should certainly seek out Jews to speak with
>face-to-face. Maybe there's a branch of the Council of Christians and
>Jews (name?) in your community. I have had a lot of dialogue with one
National Conference of Christians and Jews. Baltimore has a unrelated
organization.
>of my best friends, a Catholic who is now estranged from his church.
>We were roommates in college and had many fascinating discussions.
>>
>>This whole discussion has made me angry with the 20 centuries of
>>"Xtians" who lived before me.
>>I can watch my own attitudes and try to change those of others around
>>me. Believe me, I am trying to do just that.
I believe you too. The world gives us many problems.
>Your sincerity is apparent.
>Regards,
Meir meirm...@erols.com
Bartek Rajwa
This is going to be my last post in this thread (below you'll find why),
so I'd like to thank you all to be my partners in this interesting
discussion.
First of all, I must admit that I feel more and more uncomfortable
reading all the posts in this thread. It occurred to me that this
subject provokes so much emotions that actually any objective discussion
extremely difficult. I don't blame you guys! I actually blame myself for
not understanding that I might hurt your feelings. I am sure it would be
much easier if we could see each other face to face.
You wanted to express your grief, sorrow and, last but definitely not
least, your anger. That is probably why you consider my style to be, as
Michael put it, "uncomfortably dry". Well, it is dry indeed and I cannot
be surprised that you don't like it.
My first post to this thread was quite sarcastic, because I considered
ridiculous that anybody can oversimplify such a complex subject. Now, I
see that I shouldn't have write this way. Then, when I tried to clarify
some points, you've jumped from one topic to another and my
clarifications were eventually dubbed "nitty gritty of details" or "bon
mots". Again: I don't blame you - You wanted to draw a general picture.
I mentioned that I feel uncomfortable. Yes. It is because I have a
strange feeling that in this thread I am supposed to fill a role of
frightening, non-compassionate, obssesed-with-details christian, who
doesn't want to admit what was the role of his beloved doctrine. You,
know: sort of K. Starr of soc.culture.jewish 8-)
I understand it is hard to find a credible ultra-Catholic now and I was
around... (just joking)
Anyway...
I think that raising such a provocative issue you all guys did a great
job. I believe you discuss those matters with many other people and I am
sure it makes them _THINK_ (!!) about the doctrine and the cultural
environment in which they grew up. Some of them eventually will find out
that Christianity has also different, humanistic and tolerant tradition.
If they accept this tradition it will make the world better for all of
us.
I think that all those provocative and dangerous subjects have to be
discussed and sweeping them under the carpet in wrong and somehow
immoral.
Here is a citation which should be carefully read by all Christian
gentiles
reading this thread:
"One of the insights Christians can gain from listening to Jewish
voices today is radically messianic nature of Jewish faith in God.
And it is this messianic faith that can challenge the dangerous
kind of triumphalism interpretation of history that has characterized
Christian faith for too long"
"[...] no Christian theology can ever move back behind Auschwitz and
we as Christians never never will be able to move beyond Auschwitz
on our own, but only together with its victims. Accepting this
insight it would seem to me to be essential for Christian theologians
to consider very carefully recent reflections by Jewish thinkers on
the Holocaust and human resistance to oppression"
Johann B. Metz
See you around!
Bartek
Ps: _One_ and only remarks:
Michael wrote:
> (2) There was a big pogrom in the Ukraine, IIRC in the 18th century,
> in which they seem to have made a concerted effort to wipe out the
> Jewish population completely and did really nice things like cutting
> open the bellies of pregnant women and flaying people.
This "big pogrom" which you are talking about, it was actually a war
between Ukrainian Cossacks, their Tatar allies (islamic) and Poland.
All the atrocities that you mentioned (and MORE) had rather social and
political reason (not religious or racial). The Cossacks and Tatars had
murdered thousands and thousand of Jews (and Poles) because they
considered them to be a sort of feudalistic oppressors (sadly, it was
true to some extent). For (Orthodox) Cossack Poles were enemies because
they were land owners (not because they were Catholics) and Jews were
enemies because they were tax-collectors and landlords (not because of
their religion). Of course not every Pole was a land owner and not every
Jew was a tex-collector, but that is how Ukrainians saw them. Rabbi
Nathan Hanover of Ostrog was a witness of this tragic war. He wrote a
chronicle of those atrocities.
Here is a short fragment by Bill Gladstone about his memoirs:
"One of the classic texts of Jewish martyrology, Yeven
Metzulah [book written by Rabbi Nathan Hanover of Ostrog]
presents a graphic and gripping account of the
horrors that occurred in Ukraine and eastern Poland when
Bogdan Chmielnicki led the Cossacks into attack. Tatars
from the Caucaucus region joined the Ukrainians in their
nationalistic rebellion against the Polish nobility and
their largely Jewish landlords. By conservative
estimates, at least 100,000 Jews were slaughtered;
according to Hanover, Jewish losses were much higher.
Many Poles were also slaughtered."
Rabbi Hanover was survived by army led by Count Jeremi Wisniowiecki.
Hanover mentioned that Count Wisniowiecki set out with 3000 soldiers to
revenge the Jews. Some Ukrainian sources claim that this revenge was
even more brutal than atrocities committed by Cossack which might have
been true since Wisniowiecki used to impale (awful thing...) all Cossacs
and Tatars accused of crimes.
The war is well documented and is remembered not only by Jews. For
Poles, although they eventually won, it was first sign of a decline of
the old Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth - according to a
sixteenth-century Italian rhyme - "heaven for the nobility, purgatory
for city-dwellers, hell for the peasants, and paradise for the Jews."
[Rabinowicz, "Legacy of Polish Jewry"]
3db3...@users.realize.com
> I think you'll find that most Jews probably don't consider
> Christianity a higher form of evolution.
:-) Why *do* people of different religions hate each other so?
> As for me (and I've posted this repeatedly), I regret that the Muslims
> were not able to conquer the entire continent of Europe from the
> Christians. Evidence suggests that when Islam was ascendant, it had at
> least some tendency to be tolerantn toward People of the Book. No such
> generalization could be remotely suggested for Christianity.
Perhaps not. I'm not well informed enough to argue this point, and I
guess you would know. What I *do* know is that People of the Womb get a
rather worse deal with the Muslims in some countries ... so I for one am
not in agreement with your view. I do not consider my body unacceptable,
nor do I see why I should have to wear a sack with eye-holes over my
face. I am not a second-class citizen, nor am I inferior to someone who
happens to have been born equipped with a penis. And I rather like having
a job and being able to work with men and speak to them, even when they
are not related to me by blood or marriage.
By the same token, I don't consider my menstruation "unclean". I mean, I
have read about this in the Bible, but I thought it was ancient history
nowadays. Apparently not, according to a brief perusal of this newsgroup,
unless I'm really misunderstanding something. Still, I don't suppose
you'd consider that to be persecution? I find it rather offensive and if
it were race-, rather than gender-, based then I think it would attract
rather more criticism than it does.
Apart from that ... any religion is fine by me. Jewish, Christian,
Muslim, Buddhist and the rest, all fine. Up to you. Persecuting and
denigrating half the world's population? Not fine. Especially since I
happen to be in the persecuted half.
Just MHO.
- Mis
piper
wrote:
>
>
>piper wrote:
>
>> Bartek:
>>
>> You make a lot of interesting points, but this discussion is starting
>> to tire me, no offense. Yes, there are many facets of it, but please
>
>A Xtian cannot blame the death of Jesus on the Jews.
>
>A Xtian must take personal responsibility for the death of Jesus.
[snip]
Respectfully, Murray, you must tell this to your fellow Christians.
Your interpretation doesn't undo the Crusades, the Inquisition, or the
pogroms.
piper
<ra...@flowcyt.cyto.purdue.edu> wrote:
>Hello!
>
>This is going to be my last post in this thread (below you'll find why),
>so I'd like to thank you all to be my partners in this interesting
>discussion.
[snip]
Thank you for your contributions, and for your sincerity.
piper
>On 6/15/99, piper...@interport.net (piper) wrote:
>> I think you'll find that most Jews probably don't consider
>> Christianity a higher form of evolution.
>
>:-) Why *do* people of different religions hate each other so?
Because they claim God told them to? Because they're sinful? I don't
think there's an easy answer.
>> As for me (and I've posted this repeatedly), I regret that the Muslims
>> were not able to conquer the entire continent of Europe from the
>> Christians. Evidence suggests that when Islam was ascendant, it had at
>> least some tendency to be tolerantn toward People of the Book. No such
>> generalization could be remotely suggested for Christianity.
>
>Perhaps not. I'm not well informed enough to argue this point, and I
>guess you would know. What I *do* know is that People of the Womb get a
>rather worse deal with the Muslims in some countries ... so I for one am
>not in agreement with your view.
[snip]
I'm talking about the toleration or persecution of particular
religious minorities (persecution=killings, rapes, maimings), not the
generalized oppression of women - that much should have been clear
from my reference to People of the Book. I consider myself a feminist
and favor equality between the sexes. But I would have to question you
if you think that the position of women was worse under Islam than
under Christianity, until quite recently (perhaps a little more than
100 years). The situation has been complex and has varied according to
region and time to be sure, but women have had a tough time under both
Christianity and Islam, for the most part. Nevertheless, it is also
clear that never have Muslims or Christians tried to wipe out the
female population of any geographical area or expel them all. For
obvious reasons.
In short, you're mixing apples and oranges. Your points are good, but
they are not, in my opinion, pertinent to this particular thread.
============observer
wrote:
>On Fri, 18 Jun 1999 03:03:47 GMT, ==========Observer wrote:
>
>[snip]
>
>You wrote a lot of interesting things, but I want to correct this:
>
>>Catholicism from its first day was the government of the country
>>untill a bully came along and called himself "King" or what have you,
>>and forced the church to live with what he was wiling to allow them to
>>have.
>
>Actually, that isn't true. Christians were brutally suppressed in Rome
>until Emperor Constantine decided to tolerate them. Shortly
>thereafter, Constantine converted to Christianity, whereupon he went
>about persecuting the Mithraites, pagans, et al. as brutally as the
>Christians had been previously persecuted. Most historians, as I
>understand, date the establishment of the Roman Catholic Church to the
>time of Constantine. So you see, Catholicism was the religion of the
>Roman Emperor and the Pope was the Pontifex Maximum (High Priest) of
>Rome in its very institutional beginning.
Thanks for the comment that it was interesting materials.
Sorry for not being more accurate but I was hoping that when I say
Christianity from its beginning, it will be understood as that moment
that Xianity got into enough power to become the government of the
day, wherever this may have been.
It is self explanatory that a body without power and even itself
persecuted in its infancy, is not the Christianity I was talking
about. But once that Christianity took power, it became the real
XIANTY of the devil, of murders and blood shed that surpassed Ghengis
Khan and his hords of mongols who rode all over, destroyed everything
because they didn't value anything other then their steppes and
horses.
At some point of tremendous worldwide fear, a call was issued to all
Xitian countries:
PLEASE COME AND SAVE CHRISTENDOM...........
But the Mongols had no prophets as Xianity and Islam had, so lucky
for the entire world, they eventually disintegrated.
It goes to show you the truth of the Jewish bible that says:
Not by your might and power....but in my spirit, said the lord of
hosts.... And the Jews are so weak and constantly persecuted, yet
they prevailed because of spirituality that some people mock.
But Xianity ?? This so called religion who couldn't have survived
without going after its own Jewish founders big way, never created
distinguishable thinkers of their own, except maybe ST. Augustine
And here is what this Giant of Xianity had to say:
>++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
>>Women should not be enlightened or educated in any way.
>>They should, in fact, be segregated as they are the cause
>>of hideous and involuntary erections in holy men.
>>- St. Augustine
>>http://www.islandnet.com/~luree
>>++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
>
>
Xianity will do well now to realize that their hostility to judaism is
passe, it make no sense any more in the face of the real threat,
Fundamental Islam who at the present is no different then the mongol
hordes at their time, and if Stupid Xianity won't wake up now, it will
eventually have to RE-ISSUE the old papal cry: COME TO SAVE
CHRISTENDOM...
Because the invasion of Islam is not on the horses as were the
mongols, it is much worse, it is internal and comprehensive, it is by
settling everywhere, having very high birth rate, then asking for and
getting democratic rights, getting elected, dismembering countries by
separation demands (Kosovar muslims, India's Kashmiris Muslims, etc.)
and taking over life as we know it.
This is now the world most pressing problem.
Regards
Observer
>[snip]
>>The stupid thing here, that no one noticed in the Nazi movement, was
>>that the real aryans were not fully white as Hitler claimed himself to
>>be. :->
>[snip]
>
>It's worse than that. The only _real_ Aryans (i.e. people of
>Indo-Iranian descent who spoke an Indo-Aryan language and had an
>Indo-Aryan culture) in Europe were the Romany, a.k.a. Gypsies, and
>they were targetted by Hitler for annihilation along with the Jews and
>blacks.
>
>[further snip of much interesting material]
>
>Regards,
>
Macabi
>
>
>Thank you for allowing me to participate here in s.c.i. about this matter.
>Your perspectives about the anti-semitism issue have been an education to me.
>I don't get very many opportunities to speak face to face with Jewish people
>about this topic - it is maybe too sensitive for that.
>
>This whole discussion has made me angry with the 20 centuries of
>"Xtians" who lived before me.
>I can watch my own attitudes and try to change those of others around
>me. Believe me, I am trying to do just that.
>
Murray,
Why not go to your local library and order a photocopy of the following?
This will I am sure add to your insights. Good luck.
Leibig, J.E., "John and "the Jews: Theological Antisemitism in the Fourth
Gospel", Journal of Ecumenical Studies, 20: ", Spring, 1983.