Christian Century: Misusing Jesus: How the church divorces Jesus from Judaism by Amy-Jill Levine. This is a really good article1
Nevertheless, when it comes to the pew, the pulpit and often the classroom, even when Christian congregants, ministers and professors do acknowledge that Jesus was Jewish, they often provide no content for the label. The claim that "Jesus was a Jew" may be historically true, but it is not central to the teaching of the church.
The problem is more than one of silence. In the popular Christian imagination, Jesus still remains defined, incorrectly and unfortunately, as "against" the Law, or at least against how it was understood at the time; as "against" the Temple as an institution and not simply against its first-century leadership; as "against" the people Israel but in favor of the gentiles. Jesus becomes the rebel who, unlike every other Jew, practices social justice. He is the only one to speak with women; he is the only one who teaches nonviolent responses to oppression; he is the only one who cares about the "poor and the marginalized" (that phrase has become a litany in some Christian circles). Judaism becomes in such discourse a negative foil: whatever Jesus stands for, Judaism isn't it; whatever Jesus is against, Judaism epitomizes the category.
This divorcing of Jesus from Judaism does a disservice to each textually, theologically, historically and ethically.
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My point is not to play the obscene game of "who is most victimized," and it is not to dismiss the legitimate claims of the Palestinian people. Nor am I arguing that there is no comparably ugly rhetoric on the part of those who would oppose the Palestinian state. My point is that any prejudicial commentary that divorces Jesus from Judaism and then uses the story of Jesus to condemn all Jews is not a Christian message. It is, rather, a recycled anti-Judaism that depicts Israel as a country of Christ killers. The goal of Palestinian statehood is good; these particular means of achieving it are not.
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