Unbelievable?

My soul is being deeply exercised by the things Dr Brown says in the clip Neil (bartle) posted of him.

Also, it is dawning on me how pernicious the words attributed to Martin Luther have been, down through the centuries, which I'd never heard put in such a context before, and which Neil has posted at least twice on SI.

Now, I REALLY don't 'hear' the same man who discovered that 'the just shall live by faith', talking through those words which are attributed to him, and so I have a very simple question, which I hope some of the church historians amongst us may be able to answer..... namely,
[b]just what [u]Scholarship[/u] has ever been applied to [u]ascertaining[/u] that Martin Luther did list those nasty things to be done to Jews?[/b]

My first thought is that he was primarily an artist - a copyist - working with a lot of other like-talented folk. ANYONE who knew him, could have imitated his style, back in those days.

Thoughts?

Information?

Thanks Jordan. My heart sinks. The whole thing reads like a set-up. I am far from convinced.

ginnyrose,

There is a book a little more like a series of biographies, called 'Fair Sunshine', about Covenanters in Scotland who died for their faith.

Thank you for the link to the Martyrs' Mirror.

Have you ever read anything from 'The History of the Jesuits' by J.A. Wylie LLD?

I took a look at the last chapter (not quite sure why) (although what is online may not be the whole book), and was horrified. This inquisition was going at the same time Tyndale was translating the New Testament into English.

Calvin left France shortly after the Catholic king had had Christians set alight as torches, at several points during his procession through Paris. It was not a safe time for anyone who was not Catholic. Stop.

[url=http://www.historicist.com/wileyjesuits/title.htm]http://www.historicist.com/wileyjesuits/title.htm[/url]

Now, I REALLY don't 'hear' the same man who discovered that 'the just shall live by faith', talking through those words which are attributed to him, and so I have a very simple question, which I hope some of the church historians amongst us may be able to answer..... namely,
just what Scholarship has ever been applied to ascertaining that Martin Luther did list those nasty things to be done to Jews?

My first thought is that he was primarily an artist - a copyist - working with a lot of other like-talented folk. ANYONE who knew him, could have imitated his style, back in those days.

Your last paragraph makes me curious to know [i]why[/i] would someone do that to Luther? His view point was the common view point among Christians in those days. Luther didn't just come up with these statements. He came out of the Catholic church which has been pretty anti-semitic. I respect and am grateful for Luther's courage in coming out of the Catholic church and leaving behind many things...but I don't think he left everything behind that he should have.

But you asked for scholarship. Here is a link to an article about Luther on [url=http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/anti-semitism/Luther_on_Jews.html]The Jewish Virtual Library[/url]. It has parts of Luther's writings on there. There is also more information on the website on anti-semitism. I've studied this area quite abit and have not heard any one discredit Luther's words on this subject. Whether he wrote them or not they are certainly attributed to him.

Here are some quotes taken from the book, 'A Gentile With The Heart of A Jew: G. Douglas Young' by Calvin B. Hanson. These paragraphs are in regards to a class on the Christian Roots of Anti-Semitism that Dr. Young taught in Jerusalem.

It is a revelation to the studen to discover the long and sordid thread of anti-semitism which has stained church history. To learn, for example, of the French town of Albi where in 1320 the total Jewish population was annihilated by the Catholic authorities.

Or, it may be a shaking experience to learn that Augustine, the famed Bishop of Hippo and most influential theologian of the fourth century, made this scurrilous statement: "The true image of the Hebrew is Judas Iscariot, who sells the Lord for silver. The Jew can never understand the scriptures and forever will bear the guilt for the death of Jesus."

Saint John Chrysostom, the great orator of the fourth century...said, "The Jews are the most worthless of all men. They are lecherous, greedy, rapacious. They are the perfidious murderers of Christ. They worship the devil, the religion is a sickness. The Jews are the odious assassins of Christ and for killing God there is no expiation possible, no indulgence or pardon. Christians may never cease vengeance, and the Jew must live in servitude forever. God always hated the Jews. It is incumbant upon all Christians to hate the Jews.

I recommend digging around in the Jewish Virtual Library if you want their perspective of how the Church in history has treated the Jewish people.

And the Jewish people know about these things, they know about Martin Luther's statements, they know how those statements affected Hitler. Is it any wonder they have such a distrust of Christianity!?! In this area I feel like the church has failed. We are to provoke the Jewish people to jealousy by the love of Christ flowing out of our lives! In Church history this didn't start happening until the Puritans.

Here is a book, recently written by a Jewish man (not a believer at this point), which is a historical account of the Church's relations with Israel. [url=http://www.amazon.com/Standing-Israel-David-Brog/dp/1591859069/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/102-5288588-4871356?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1172958764&sr=1-1]Standing With Israel[/url]. It has been a journey for him to overcome his apprehensions of Christians and realize that there are Christians who are sincere in their love for the Jewish people.

~Joy

Roniya,

I appreciate the time you took to lay out that awful stuff for me to read. I really am sick at heart. Do we really have to call the people who wrote these things [i]'CHRISTIANS'?[/i] :-?

Thank you for all the links. I don't know if I will ever do them justice, but maybe. This certainly is NOT the Christianity I find in the Bible, and that's what distresses me so much.

Also.... actually, there is whole lot more I would like to say, but don't really have time this evening, I understand that 'Jews' put Christ to death, but there is no correlation between biblical Christianity and anti-semetism, when you take into account that JESUS HIMSELF spent considerable time explaining to the disciples that 'it behoved Messiah to suffer'. He is talking about His resurrection from John 10 onwards.

The best explanation I can find for the heretical attitude of 'Christians' to Jews, is that the average 'believer' did not have access to the scripture in his own language. In fact, in this country, it is in my lifetime that the RCC has allowed Mass to be said in English. And Catholic priests were taking a big risk to read the entire New Testament, even three hundred years after it had been translated to English.

Did anyone look at the information on the Nuremburg Inquisition in Chapter 11 of Wylie's History of Protestantism (the exerpt 'History of the Jesuits')?

[url=http://www.historicist.com/wileyjesuits/title.htm]http://www.historicist.com/wileyjesuits/title.htm[/url]

dorcas wrote:

The best explanation I can find for the heretical attitude of 'Christians' to Jews, is that the average 'believer' did not have access to the scripture in his own language. In fact, in this country, it is in my lifetime that the RCC has allowed Mass to be said in English. And Catholic priests were taking a big risk to read the entire New Testament, even three hundred years after it had been translated to English.

Dorcas,
I agree that the lack of access to the Scriptures probably greatly attributed to this very sad part of 'Christian' history. It seems like the Puritans were the ones who started really digging into the Scriptures and teaching that there is indeed a future for Israel. The influence of the Puritans was what impacted the British leaders to sign the Balfour Declaration. On a side note, I just read in a magazine that it was Woodrow Wilson's strong support of the Balfour Declaration that encouraged the British to go through with it!

Another aspect of the early history part was that it was the switch that Augustine made in interpreting the Scriptures. Augustine introduced to the Church a way of interpreting Scriptures that was more mystical, looking into the Scriptures for deeper hidden meaning instead of reading the Scriptures in a normal or more literal way (reading the Scripture in a literal sense unless context indicates otherwise). Augustine spiritualised what was in the Scriptures concerning Israel/Jewish people. One example of spiritualizing is in relation to Revelation 20:1-10 concerning the millenium. Augustine replaced a literal 1,000 year reign of Christ with a spiritual reign, this is called Amillenialism (no millenium).
I am going somewhere with this. :-)
To believe this mode of interpreting Scriptures affects what God said about the Jewish people and we see the effects of this interpretation in what the early church fathers like Augustine and Chrystostom said about the Jewish people.

Well, I'll stop there. This is a large subject with lots of material to study! But it helps me in understanding why the Jewish people have been so paranoid about Christianity.

Hello Diane,
Sorry about the confusion there. Did you read my first post where I quoted a couple of early church fathers? It ties in with my second post. But in relation to your questions:

“We [Christians] have been led to God through this crucified Christ, and [b]we are the true spiritual Israel, and descendents of Judah, Jacob, Isaac, and Abraham[/b] who, though uncircumcised, was approved and blessed by God because of his faith and was called the father of many nations.” – Justin Martyr

I would consider this to be spiritualizing the Scriptures in saying that the Church is the ‘true spiritual Israel’.

“We Christians are not only a people, but a holy people…nor just any nation…but the chosen people of God…[b]for this is really the nation promised to Abraham by God[/b] when He told him He would make him a father of many nations…and we [Christians] shall inherit the Holy Land together with Abraham, receiving our inheritance for all eternity, because by our similar faith we have become children of Abraham...Thus, God promised Abraham a religious and righteous nation of like faith, and a delight to the Father; but it is not you [the Jews]”in whom there is no faith.” – Justin Martyr.

Note the words, ‘for this is really the nation promised to Abraham by God’. So, when God made those promises to the physical seed of Abraham, they weren’t really to them, but to a spiritual people? If we interpret Scripture in that way than how do know for sure what God’s Word means?
This way of interpreting Scripture led (in history) to the exclusion of the Jewish people from the Covenant of Abraham and at times even life itself.

Here is a quote from David Brog (whose book ‘Stand With Israel’ I mentioned earlier in a post):
“To Justin [Martyr], the dispossession is complete. The Jews-physical Israel- will inherit none of the benefits of the Abrahamic covenants, not even the physical benefits. [b]Everything once promised to the Jews, including the land of Israel itself, will now flow to the church.[/b]”

That is what I meant when I said spiritualizing the Scriptures.

And as to how it ties in to hating the Jews:

Another quote from David Brog, “By Augustine’s day, the issue was…the one of saving their lives [the Jews]. With Christianity now the official religion of the Roman Empire, religious minorities throughout the realm faced increasing peril. [b]Christian leaders of the day were already preaching violence against the Jews, and such violence inevitably followed.[/b] In 414, a full-scale pogrom occurred in Alexandria, the largest Jewish community in the world at the time. The Jews were expelled from the city and their synagogues destroyed…”
David Brog goes on to tell how Augustine actually encouraged the dispersion of the Jews as proof of the existence of the Scriptures so the world would believe in Christianity. Augustine said, “Do not slay them, lest at some time they forget your Law; scatter them by your might.” But those words, ‘Do not slay them’ were forgotten. “Exclusion from God’s covenant led to exclusion from Christian society, and then led, too often, to exclusion from the human family.” – David Brog.
“In the year 387 Saint John Chrysostom…delivered a series of anti-Jewish sermons to his flock.” Here is what he wrote concerning the Jews: “It is because you killed Christ. It is because you stretched out your hand against the Lord. It is because you shed the precious blood that there is no restoration, no mercy anymore and no defense…Through your madness against Christ you have committed the ultimate transgression. That is why you are being punished now worse than in the past…If this were not the case God would not have turned His back on you so complete.”
This anti-Jewish rhetoric inevitably inspired anti-Jewish action. After Chrysostom there were a series of violent pogroms against the Jews in Chrysostom’s city, Antioch. This violence continued until a century later the Jews were expulsed from Antioch. And that was only the beginning.
There is more in David Brog’s book on Constantine and his influence that led to Jewish persecution. But I’ve already shared quite a bit here. I highly recommend his book.

Actually I want to add one more thing.
“What if the church had preached a different message [referring to replacement theology]? What if Christianity’s consistent message had been that God loved and would never forsake the Jewish people? What if week after week for century after century Europe’s priests and pastors had preached to their flocks that he who blesses the Jews will be blessed, and he who curses the Jews will be cursed? What if they had rejected the deicide charge and had instead taught that Christians owe a deep debt of gratitude to the Jews for providing their Messiah, their apostles, and their Holy Bible? Could such Christians have systematically excluded Jews from society and locked them in ghettoes? Could such Christians have murdered Jews in the belief that they were furthering God’s will? Could a Europe so schooled have perpetrated a Holocaust?” – David Brog (a Jewish man who is not born again).

These are sobering questions. Whether [edit]one[edit] agrees with replacement (or fulfillment as some call it) theology or not it is riveting to consider the implications that this theology has had.

Well, I hope that was a little clearer and didn't just muddle the waters more. :-o I'm not very good when it comes to these deep theological discussions, but this is definately an issue I am pretty passionate about. ;-)
Maybe in my next post I can share a lot of Scriptures that pertain to this topic...but I've already spent quite a bit of time on this post. :-)

roadsign wrote:
Personally, I would not use the word “spiritualise” to define the root problem of Jewish persecution. In fact, if there had been more "spiritualizing", or rather spiritual perception, than there would have never been such horrendous brutality. There would have been a true heart for God and the true Church: “Whosoever will…”

You are right, Diane. I will try to be more careful in my termonology. :-)

I agreed with your post...

Dear Roniya,

I'm most grateful for all the time you spent in this thread. Sorry it's taken me so long to get back here. :-(

You have expounded succinctly. Your deep theological discussion was excellent.

Historically, it seems there was an amazing forgetfulness on the part of believers, of the way God carried out His word to Eve

Genesis 3:15
And I will put enmity
Between you and the woman,
And between your seed and her Seed;
He shall bruise your head,
And you shall bruise His heel."

by choosing a people to represent all peoples as a whole in God's dealings with them (through Abraham). The close (although very large) family into which Jesus was born, became, effectively, the womb of humanity to bring forth its Saviour.

This has to be held in mind, just as much as Jesus controversial words

John 8:58
"Most assuredly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I AM."

which were in response to the preceding:

John 8
45 "But because I tell the truth, you do not believe Me.
46 "Which of you convicts Me of sin? And if I tell the truth, why do you not believe Me?
47 "He who is of God hears God's words; therefore you do not hear, because you are not of God."
48 Then the Jews answered and said to Him, "Do we not say rightly that You are a Samaritan and have a demon?"

In v 48, we see blasphemy against the Holy Ghost. v 46 and 47 are interesting, in the implication that 'hear'ing 'truth' has the ability to convict of sin, and [i]that[/i] is a sign a person is 'of God'.

But I digress.

I'm not suggesting the Jews were not chosen by God, nor that His purposes were not fulfilled and are not being fulfilled through Jews; nor that Jews should not be saved, nor suggesting they have not been saved throughout the generations since Jesus' day.

But that is how I see the relevance of their choseness before the Messiah, and I see that they had an advantage through having God's word first, among all nations, in their own language, and many other ways of understanding His heart, shown to them.

Exodus 19
Thus shalt thou say to the house of Jacob, and tell the children of Israel;
4 Ye have seen what I did unto the Egyptians, and [i]how[/i] I bare you on eagles' wings, [u]and brought you unto [b]myself[/b][/u].
5 Now therefore, [b]if[/b] ye will obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant, [b]then[/b] ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto me [u]above all people[/u]: for all the earth [i]is[/i] mine:
6 [b]And[/b] ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests, and an holy nation.

These [i]are[/i] the words which thou shalt speak unto the children of Israel.

My impression is that the people who came out of Egypt did not want to hear God for themselves, and this is what happened to Jesus also.

Yet, God thought He was bringing them to HIMSELF. We see His hopes in this interesting verse (Exodus 19)

24 And the LORD said unto him, Away, get thee down, and thou shalt come up, thou, and Aaron with thee: but let not the priests and the people break through to come up unto the LORD, [b]lest he break forth upon them[/b].

God was hoping the priests and people would want to see Him [b][i]and he was afraid for them[/i][/b].

But they didn't.

You said

I would consider this to be spiritualizing the Scriptures in saying that the Church is the ‘true spiritual Israel’.

Galatians 6
15 For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth any thing, nor uncircumcision, but a new creature.
16 And as many as walk according to this rule, peace on them, and mercy, and upon the Israel of God.

Ephesians 2
14 For he is our peace, who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition [i]between us[/i];
15 Having abolished in his flesh the enmity, [i]even[/i] the law of commandments [i]contained[/i] in ordinances; [u]for to make [b]in himself[/b] of twain one new man[/u], [i]so[/i] making peace;
16 And that he might reconcile both unto God in one body by the cross, having slain the enmity thereby:
17 And came and preached peace to you which were afar off, and to them that were nigh.
18 For through him we both have access by one Spirit unto the Father.

This was the message of John the Baptist, was it not?

Malachi 4:6
And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse.

Luke 1:17
And he [John the Baptist] shall go before him in the spirit and power of Elias, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just; [u]to make ready a people prepared for the Lord[/u].

'prepared for the Lord'

Let us be glad and rejoice, and give honour to him: for the marriage of the Lamb is come, and [u]his wife hath made herself ready[/u]. (Rev 19:7)

Personally, I cannot understand how so many believers could think God was [i]never[/i] going to save another Jew into His Church; nor can I make any sense of persecuting a people - any people - for their rejection of the Messiah, when HIS very own [b][i]commandment[/i][/b] was to [u]LOVE[/u].

Anyone is free to reject the Messiah. Indeed, it comes naturally to many of us at first, but, even the seared conscience can be restored, as we see from the beginning of Romans 2.

The only way I can find to interpret the Jewish rejection of Jesus, is again in the sense of be being representative; this time, of humanity's difficulties with faith, and with sin.

Ephesians 2
4 But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us,
5 Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;)
6 And hath raised [i]us[/i] up together, and made [i]us[/i] sit together in heavenly [i]places[/i] in Christ Jesus:
7 That in the ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches of his grace in [i]his[/i] kindness toward us through Christ Jesus.
8 For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: [i]it is[/i] the gift of God:
9 Not of works, lest any man should boast.

I realise this doesn't answer anything about the nation of Israel today, whether dispersed or in what they have of a national territory. But, if Jews are to be in on the fulfilment of God's word to them in Exodus 19, I'm not sure they can do that outside of the New Covenant. Is not this why Peter quotes those promises so extensively in 1:2:3 - 11, and calls them 'pilgrims'?

Getting back to the writing attributed to Luther, I still find it hard to believe he wrote those things. If he didn't, it would have been very hard for him to retrieve, once it was in print. If he did, then perhaps you are right that he was just giving out the Roman Catholic position.... but after all he'd gone through by then, that also seems [i]unlikely[/i] (to me).

Maybe I'm right out of line, but I like to think outside of the box.