Should Jews Thank the Church?

As I finish up Paula Fredricksen's "Augustine and the Jews," there is a question that lingers in my mind. Perhaps those of you with strong opinions one way or another about Christianity and/or the church can weigh in here. I'm talking about Augustine's "witness doctrine," derived from Psalm 59 that says, "Slay them not, lest my people forget." I know this was big doings for the church in the medieval period, but I don't know how much it played into other strands of Christianity throughout time and through the present.

Augustine's philosophy, although really, incredibly backhanded, was that Jews survive and should survive throughout all time until the End of Days in order that they serve as evidence to Christianity's truth. By Jewish survival, Jewish books survive, and, according to Augustine, it is Jews and their books that provide a walking, talking, breathing witness to the truth of Christianity -- that the church fathers didn't just "make it up." Jews and Judaism were not a challenge to Christianity, insisted Augustine, but a witness to it!

So my question is this: Does the world's Jewish community underestimate the power of this doctrine's importance throughout the past 1600+ years? Is it Augustine's (REALLY BACKHANDED) doctrine that has allowed the world to not completely destroy Jews and Judaism? Hitler wasn't too interested in church philosophy, and I honestly don't know his thoughts on Augustine or the "slay them not" doctrine. Anyone know?

Either way, I'm intrigued. We joke so often about how every great nation, political entity, or world power that has tried to destroy us has failed and disappeared into time. But is this G-d, or is it the church?

Talk amongst ya'selves.

The End of Days & Big Differences

This is where it begins, that flurry of blog posts inspired by blurbs in books stacked high on my "to read" list for class. There's no such thing as "pleasure" reading during the semester, not exactly. "Pleasure" reading would be defined as books I chose to read, books that I picked off the bookshelf myself with delight. Don't get me wrong, all of the books I read during the semester are in my area of interest, and they all are (usually) fascinating. It's just a different kind of reading. There's no fiction, only books that are nonfiction in so much as they resemble fact, although my professor likes to say that "history is not facts." At any rate, I offer some thoughts on something I'm reading: "Augustine and the Jews" by Paula Fredriksen.

I hadn't thought of it before, but in the apocalyptic literature of Judaism, the texts usually say that in the end of days, the nations (ha'goyim), referring to gentiles and whomever else, will turn to the one G-d. Nowhere, I repeat NOWHERE, does it suggest that the nations will convert to Judaism. In the Christian literature, on the other hand, there is a strong principle of understanding that in the end of days those non-Christians (specifically Jews) will turn -- as in convert -- to Christianity. For Judaism, in the end of days Jews will be Jews and the nations, the Gentiles, will revere and exist before the One G-d of Israel, but they need not convert to worship the Israelite G-d. That, folks, is a big, stark difference in the theology of each. I'd never thought about this difference in relation to the apocalyptic literature, but wow. Fascinating to consider, yes?

Back to reading ...