Blimp deflator: Letting out the gas

After the Hebrew Scriptures became the Christian Old Testament, for Christians the sacred scriptures of the Hebrews must prove that Christ was the Messiah. A vast array of subtle interpretation by way of allegory, metaphor, and arcane symbolism was and is used to do so. In the early centuries the Old Testament became a “vast quarry with no other function than to provide, by any exegesis however farfetched, arguments for his claims.” * Because Judaism was held to validate the central Christian truth, Jewish refusal to accept Christ was soon viewed as nothing less than resistance to the will of the one God of Judaism and Christ. The persistence of Judaism inevitably created profound doubts. Ultimately the Jewish denial of Christ’s divinity became the true deicide, an act which every Jew commits simply by remaining faithful to Judaism. No pagan or heathen ever held such power over Christianity — indeed, this is the psychological source of the legend of the occult powers of the Jews, for what other people has had the power to deny for millennia their own God? Loving concern for the salvation of one’s former coreligionists easily turns into righteous anger at their “arrogant” refusal to acknowledge the “truth” of their own sacred works. Much of the New Testament is meant to prove that Christianity is the divine fulfillment of Judaism. In the different versions of the passion of Christ, responsibility for his death is gradually shifted away from some Jews in Palestine to a collective entity called “the Jews.” By the Fourth Gospel, John, the Jews are regarded as the bitter enemies of Christianity, the two religions distinct and separate.

For Christians, a Jew could be true to Judaism only if he or she became a Christian, the new chosen people; yet the vast majority of Jews remained within the faith of their fathers. In a time drenched with religion, compromise was impossible. If Christianity is true, Judaism is false; if not, then Christianity is blasphemy. Even today the Vatican and Protestant Fundamentalists cannot recognize Judaism as a separate and valid religion, for that would be tantamount to announcing that Jesus was not prophesied by the Hebrew Scriptures. In the early centuries, passions were at their most intense, for the identity of Christianity was being formed, and it could only be done at the expense of the parent religion. Mythology, as yet untempered by secularism or science, made it inevitable that Christians would turn against the Jews, the one people among them whose faith denied Christ and whose religious credentials could hardly be ignored.

* James Parkes, The Conflict Between Church and Synagogue (New York, 1974), p. 99.

(The above passage is an excerpt from Ideology of Death: Why the Holocaust Happened in Germany, by John Weiss. Ivan R. Dee, 1996. It can be found on p. 6-7.)

From reviews:

An extremely stimulating and informative work…Weiss has produced a detailed, clearly written account. — Kirkus Reviews

Effective. — ALA Booklist

For many readers this book can safely take the place of an entire history. — Raul Hilberg, author of The Deconstruction of the European Jews

Illuminating…deserves a permanent place on bookshelves. — Publishers Weekly