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Christian Antisemitism: A History of Hate

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Christian Anti-Semitism: A History of Hate, by William Nicholls. Jason Aronson, Inc. , 499 pp, $40.00.

In William F. Buckley's essay on anti-Semitism Bill is very troubled about some of his friends. In his heart of hearts he doesn't want to believe that these people, people he believes are decent humans, can really be anti-Semites. Nevertheless, he must honestly come to terms with the fact that these same people seem to be obsessed with Jews.

As a Jew born in the United States I always believed that I not only knew who I was as a Jew, but understood the non-Jewish world as well. There were, surely, some things I couldn't understand. It seemed that Christians could never talk about their religion without reference to mine. Whatever was positive in theirs was counterpoint to something negative in mine. More extraordinary was the fact that negative ideas that were ascribed to Judaism weren't even true. I always passed this off as ignorance on their part.

Professor Nicholls' book, Christian Anti-Semitism: A History of Hate, allowed me to see Bill Buckley's observation in a new light. It was not Joseph Sobran or Patrick Buchanan who were obsessed with Jews, but Christianity itself.

True to its title, a goodly portion of the book deals with the history of Christian anti-Semitism. In this sense the book can be compared to such classics as J.R. Marcus's The Jew in the Medieval World or J. Trachtenberg's The Devil and the Jews. Nicholls' real interest, however, is in the theological claims of Christianity and how they logically result in anti-Semitism.

Nicholls starts with Jesus himself. Building mostly on the work of contemporary scholar Geza Vermas, he draws a picture of Jesus not as a founder of a new religion, but as a Torah observant Jew of the first century.

Traditionally, if Jews mentioned Jesus at all, his name would be suffixed with "may his bones be ground to dust." I must admit that I still find it difficult to say his name without a bottle of Listerine close at hand. Nevertheless, our picture of this man has come to us through Christianity. Would it not be the ultimate irony if not only has Christianity been slandering Judaism, but that it has been slandering this man as well?

Nicholls deals one by one with the claims about Jesus made by Christians and their gospels. Did Jesus oppose the Jewish law and the rabbis of his day? Did Jesus claim to be the Messiah? To each of these questions and others he answers a resounding, No! The picture he does draw is that Jesus was one of a number of healers and miracle workers and preachers not unlike others of his time. It was also not unusual in times of troubles for some to look to such individuals as prophets or even the Messiah himself.

Even the earliest claims of the new movement were based on readings of the scriptures which were at variance with those of the rabbis of that time. The real substance of the book is how a messianic fervor surrounding one man became transformed into the Christian myth and why this myth was anti-Semitic.

Nothing based on Jewish tradition predicted a dead messiah. As time went on and Jesus did not return, the new sect looked for evidence of this new kind of messiah in the Torah. They came to see the "Old Testament" not as the Torah, but as a cryptogram of Christian prophecy. Non-Christian Jews had no reason to read the Torah in this strange way. Paul then took the critical step of seeking converts among the gentiles. Not only did he not require them to convert to Judaism first, but he strongly discouraged it. The church rapidly became non-Jewish. The gentile church claimed for itself the sole right of interpretation of the Jewish scripture. It claimed that its interpretation was the same as that of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. It claimed the Jews had willfully distorted the plain meaning of their own scriptures. The Jews must therefore have deserted G-d and their own covenant. The first anti-Semitic Christian act was, therefore, the theft of the Torah. The rest of the anti-Semitic claims were really an attempt to justify the first.

Nicholls lays out a detailed historical record in Christian Anti-Semitism: A History of Hate. Suffice it to say that anti-Semitism is not an ugly accretion to the pure religion of Christianity. It is one of its organizing principles.

Nicholls himself is from a Christian background and has great sympathy for those wishing to create a Christian theology that is not inherently anti-Semitic. He, however, does not believe it is possible, because any Christianity based on Jesus would have to deal with the real historical Jesus, the Jew. "To put it another way, there cannot be a Christ without Jesus....Contemporary Christians cannot ignore the historical Jesus. What we are coming to know about Jesus does not fit what Paul said about him."

Nicholls' book is an exciting, well-balanced read. The scholarship upon which his book is based is only now starting to be absorbed by Christians. Nicholls claims to be no prophet. I believe, however, if you wish to gain a glimpse of the future, you should read this book.

This is truly a seminal book. There is nothing else quite like it - and I've read many books on the subject. In it, William Nicholl traces anti-Jewish sentiment from its earliest political and theological genesis through to its almost inevitable result - the Holocaust. At least the first third of the book is devoted to a fascinating exploration of the life and times of Jesus seen from a clear-eyed and rational historical viewpoint. Then, in the final chapter the author goes back in time, period by period, to see what can be stripped away from Christianity in an attempt to see if it can be divorced from its inherent Anti-Jewishness. That chapter is, to put it mildly, hair-raising! This is an absolute must for any person interested in in the growth and development of Christian theology as well as anyone interested simply in truth. I have three copies: One for myself and two for loaners. All three are loaned out at the time of this writing. Five stars is not a high enough rating.

Religion itself can become idolatry. When loyalty to a creed or church or rite takes the place of fidelity to God who demands loving kindness and righteous action, the religion is made into an object of worship that must be defended against criticism, even justifiable criticism based on verifiable facts. Those outside are mistrusted or hated by religious idolaters simply because they are not part of the community. Nothing is considered acceptable unless it fits within the bounds of the creed. People are not viewed in terms of their essential humanity. From there it is a tiny step to believing that it is right to murder them or be indifferent about their fate. We are seeing this today in the spread of terrorism around the globe. Religious idolatry is the worst enemy of spirituality. It ought to be obvious that if religion is to be shielded from its own tendency towards idolatry, it must be receptive to criticism and judged by its fruits as revealed in history. The king and the priest are not above the law in the Good Book; the greatest figures in the Judeo-Christian tradition, like Abraham, Moses and David, are presented with their flaws. Criticism of religion on theological, philosophical and historical grounds must thus be considered essential in opposing idolatry. The followers of a religion that resists criticism are in danger of becoming idolaters and ultimately fanatics.

This is one of the most intellectually honest books I have ever read. I realize that it will shock Christians as it triggered a profound spiritual exhaustion in me. But denial is not an option. Part One: Before The Myth, raises the questions if Jesus the Jew was the founder of Christianity, whether he was rejected by his people and the concept of the crucified Messiah. The first section deals with myth and history, biblical criticism, Jesus and His own people, the Synoptic problem, oral tradition, Albert Schweitzer's challenge, redaction criticism, checks on authenticity and the diversity of early Christianity. The second explores Judaism in the first century, Roman rule, the mission and message of Jesus, the Sermon on the Mount, Pharisees, opponents of Jesus, various parables, and Jesus and the Torah. The final section considers Jewish messianic expectations, language and society, the development of early ideas about Christ, what Jesus himself said about his mission, the Son of Man, the entry into Jerusalem, the trial of Jesus plus falsifications in the Gospels and what motivated them.

Part Two: The Growth of the Myth, consists of: Paul and the Beginning of Christianity, The True Israel: Battle for the Bible, Jews in a Christian World, Popular Paranoia and the Inquisition & Reformation. In the first section, Nicholls explores the early days of Christianity, resurrection visions, sectarian theology, the crucial break, mythmaking, the traditional interpretation, Paul's intentions, the question of a double covenant, James, Peter and different views in the early church. The Battle for the Bible deals with the break between Judaism and Christianity, editorial bias in the Gospels, different versions of the trial, John's Anti-Judaism, Anti-Judaism in the New Testament, the theology of supercessionism (replacement theology), 2nd century writers, Marcion and Tertullian.

The section titled Jews in a Christian World chronicles the ever increasing laws against the Jews, the codes of Theodosius and Justinian, fall of the Western Roman Empire, Bishop Ambrose, the canon law of the church, theological Anti-Judaism in the Church Fathers, the Christological interpretation of the New Testament, and Gregory the Great and the Jews. The next, Popular Paranoia, deals with Abelarde, the crusades, blood libel, charges of desecration of the host, the Fourth Lateran Council, the Black Death, the origins of the calumnies, pressures on the Christian Psyche, subconscious rage and rebellion, paranoid projection and the transmission of paranoid systems. This is of prime importance for gaining a psychological understanding. The section on the Inquisition & Reformation considers the fate of Spanish Jewry in the 15th century, the Council of Trent, the Reformation and the humanists.

Part Three: The Myth Secularized, is divided into The Napoleonic Bargain, Secular Antisemitism, the Churches in the 20th century, Old and New Antisemitism, and the possibility of ending Antisemitism. In the first, Nicholls analyses the new societies of modernity, liberal Anti-Judaism, the Enlightenment and its views on religion, Anti-Judaism of the philosophers, the French revolution, Congress of Vienna and progress towards emancipation. In the section on secular antisemitism, he looks at the leftwing Hegelians, Karl Marx, the new racial doctrines, the Dreyfuss affair, Russian antisemitism, antisemitic parties of Austria and Germany, and the matrix of Nazism. The role of the churches in the 20th century is considered with reference to the Holocaust and after, Pius XII, the rescuers, the response of the Catholic Church and the relation between it and the Jews in the 1990s, the World Council of Churches and the new theologies.

In the chapter Antisemitisms Old & New, the author comments on the survival of the traditional form, the leftwing variety, mutations, Holocaust denial, Anti-Zionism which he claims is the typical current mutation, media reporting on the Middle East conflict, Liberal antisemitism, that amongst the Black community in the USA, and the influence of Christian Liberalism on Jewish intellectuals. In the final chapter, he explores the possibilities of ending this ancient hatred. He considers Christian history, theology and its effects, removing Anti-Judaic accretions in the church, returning the Bible to the Jewish people, rethinking Christological interpretation of the Old Testament, earliest Christianity, theology and history, the alternatives for Christians and the looming choice between Jesus or Christianity.

There is an appendix of the three accounts of Peter's acclamation of Jesus as the Messiah, 37 pages of Notes arranged by chapter, a vast bibliography and a thorough index. Nowadays the main influences on the western public mind are secular "salvationist" ideologies that sprung from Christianity. Unfortunately they contain the virus without the antibodies provided by the Old Testament in traditional Christianity. And the collapse of political Marxism has only increased its potency as opiate of the intellectuals in various mutant forms. The message of this book is frightening; I encourage all people of good will to read it and act upon its recommendations. Other informative books on this subject are Our Hands are Stained with Blood by Michael L Brown, The Crucifixion of the Jews by Franklin H Littell and The Anguish of the Jews by Edward H Flannery.

Professor Nicholls has published a powerful book that reviews the myths of early Christianity and illuminates the historical Jesus (a practicing and faithful Jew who had no intention of starting a new religion) and the origins of Christian Jew hatred which evolved into the secular antisemitism that culminated in the Holocaust. Whew! Powerful material ... not for those whose inbred dogmas cannot stand up to rigorous critical thinking.

Despite a somewhat inflammatory title, this volume is an extremely well-researched and thorough examination of the history of Christian attitudes toward Judaism and Jews.

William Nicholls begins his examination with an overview of current New Testament research, arguing that it is now clearer than ever before that Jesus himself was a faithful Jew who could not have intended to found the religion which Christianity later became. He then passes to later New Testament history and tries to get clear just what was involved in Paul's mission to non-Jews. (In all of the foregoing, I could pick nits about any number of comparatively minor points. But his overall approach is, in essence, that the historical Christian practice of evaluating the "Old Testament" according to the "New" must be reversed: the gospels and apostolic writings must be evaluated by the standards of the Torah and the other Jewish scriptures. Here I heartily concur, and this is not the place to elaborate my agreements or otherwise on specific issues.)

From there, Nicholls works forward through Christian history up to the present day, including medieval Europe, the Enlightenment, and of course the Holocaust. Again, he covers his topics with remarkable thoroughness and clarity.

Two notable features of Nicholls's presentation should be especially praised. First, he quite properly singles out Calvinism as a glowing exception to certain anti-Jewish trends within Christendom, and correctly attributes this fact in large measure to Calvinism's theology -- in particular to John Calvin's "third use" of biblical law, which is not terribly far from Judaism's first and only use of it. Second, he correctly assigns a great deal of antisemitism to the political Left and occasionally implies that this antisemitism is an outgrowth of "Enlightenment" anti-religious secularism generally. (And along the same lines, he expressly states his suspicions that "liberal" religion is driven more by its political agenda than by religious concerns.)

I would have liked to see this theme explored a bit more thoroughly. The fact is that the (classical) liberal commonwealth as we know it was, historically and theologically, an outgrowth of the Protestant Reformation and specifically of Calvinism, owing precisely to the latter's return to principles that had been present in Judaism all along. This is precisely the reason why more or less Calvinistic societies have refrained from the persecution of Jews in particular and established religious liberty in general. It is also why more "modern" liberalism is opposed to classical liberalism just as surely as it is to Judeo-Christian religion. (Nicholls could have scored a few more points here as well by discussing Roman Catholicism's official opposition -- at the Magisterium level, not the Lord Acton level -- to capitalism, classical liberalism, and both religious and economic liberty.)

Which brings me to another point on which I wish Nicholls had been clearer. He has a great deal to say about Christian silence during the Holocaust and about the way Christian "myth" prepared secular society for antisemitism. But he does not have anything to say about Nazism itself as a deadly enemy not only of Judaism but of Christianity as well.

And one final quibble: Nicholls has written nearly five hundred pages on the topic of rapprochement between Judaism and a properly repentant Christianity _without one single mention of the Noahide laws_. He concludes his ruminations on the future of Christianity by musing about whether "the synagogue" can accept "the church," as though he is imagining a massive influx of converts to Judaism itself as every Christian in the world becomes a Jew. But Judaism requires no such conversion; Nicholls could profitably have inquired what Judaism _does_ require.

Generally, I think Nicholls overstates the need for theological agreement between Judaism and Christianity. Had he focused a bit more on Calvinism and therefore on why Calvinist societies are as friendly to Jews as such societies have historically been, he might have been less concerned with theology and more concerned with broad-level practical politics. We might then also have seen a bit more discussion of why the far Left is _politically_ unable to accommodate Judaism -- and Christianity too, for that matter.

But I do not mean these points to take anything away from my praise for Nicholls's presentation. What he _does_ discuss is handled thoroughly and with tremendous intellectual honesty. This volume is very highly recommended to anyone interested in Jewish-Christian relations in particular and the foundations of the free and prosperous commonwealth in general.

This is one of the most disturbing but intellectually honest books I have read. Sincere Christians unfamiliar with the subject will be shocked or experience a state of spiritual exhaustion. But denial is not an option. Religions must be subjected to criticism and judged by their fruits as revealed in history. Criticism of religion on theological and philosophical but especially historical grounds is of the utmost importance in the pursuit of truth. Fervent followers of faiths that resist scrutiny become fanatics that resort to terror as we are witnessing in our day. The biblical advice "judge them by their fruits" applies here but provides no easy answer. Christianity's fruits are truly mixed. The truth comprises both the praise of the apologists and the harsh criticism of serious historians whilst the facile thoughts of a Dawkins or Harris may be dismissed as atheistic fanaticism. Other recommended works on this tragic history include The Anguish of the Jews: Twenty-Three Centuries of Antisemitism by Edward Flannery and Father Forgive Us by Fred Wright.

Part One: Before The Myth, raises the questions if Jesus the Jew was the founder of Christianity, whether he was rejected by his people and the concept of the crucified Messiah. It covers myth and history, biblical criticism, Jesus and His own people, the Synoptic problem, oral tradition, Albert Schweitzer's challenge, redaction criticism, authenticity, diversity in early Christianity, first century Judaism, Roman rule, the mission, message and opponents of Jesus, the Sermon on the Mount, the Pharisees and various parables. The final section considers, among others, Jewish messianic expectations, language and society, the development of early ideas about Christ, what Jesus himself said about his mission, the trial of Jesus plus falsifications in the Gospels. In my opinion The Authentic Gospel of Jesus by Geza Vermes is the best resource to identify the genuine words of the Nazarene.

The Growth of the Myth is investigated in part two. In the first section, Nicholls explores early Christianity, resurrection visions, sectarian theology, mythmaking, the traditional interpretation, Paul's intentions, the double covenant concept, James, Peter and diverse views in the early church. The Battle for the Bible deals with the break between Judaism and Christianity, editorial bias in the Gospels, different versions of the trial, Anti-Judaism in the Gospel of John and in the New Testament as a whole, Marcion, Tertullian, other early writers and the destructive doctrine of supersessionism (replacement theology) which is so lucidly dissected in Future Israel by Barry Horner. The work of Daniel Jonah Goldhagen and David Kertzer deals extensively with some of its consequences.

The section titled Jews in a Christian World shows how laws against the Jews multiplied with the growth of the church and discusses the codes of Theodosius and Justinian, canon law, theological Anti-Judaism in the writings of the Church Fathers, Christological interpretations of the New Testament and the role of Gregory the Great. Section Seven: Popular Paranoia, deals with Abelarde, the crusades, the Fourth Lateran Council, the Black Death and the origins of calumnies like the blood libel & desecration of the host. This section, from the chapter New Pressures on the Christian Psyche through Subconscious Rage and Rebellion, Paranoid Projection to The Transmission of Paranoid Systems is particularly hair-rising and will be best understood in light of Eric Hoffer's seminal work The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements. William James' Varieties of Religious Experience offers thought-provoking insights on the expression of faith; for example, Luther's mindset was of the morbid variety.

Part Three: The Myth Secularized, deals with The Napoleonic Bargain, the Churches in the 20th century, Secular, Old and New Antisemitism and the possibility of ending it. In the first, Nicholls analyses modernity and its opponents (Stephen Eric Bronner's A Rumor about the Jews covers this issue in detail), liberal Anti-Judaism, the Enlightenment and its views on religion, Anti-Judaism of the philosophers, the French revolution, Congress of Vienna and progress towards emancipation. In the section on secular antisemitism, he looks at the leftwing Hegelians, Karl Marx, the new racial doctrines, the Dreyfuss affair, Russian antisemitism, antisemitic parties of Austria and Germany and the matrix of Nazism. Martin Luther: Hitler's Spiritual Ancestor by Peter Wiener traces the connections. The role of the churches in the 20th century is examined with reference to the Holocaust and after, Pius XII, the rescuers, the response of the Catholic Church, the position of the World Council of Churches and the new theologies. An indispensable work on this subject is Paul Charles Merkley's Christian Attitudes to the State of Israel.

In the chapter Antisemitisms Old & New, Nicholls surveys old and new variants, Holocaust denial, media bias in the Middle East, Leftwing and Liberal antisemitism, the influence of the latter on Jewish intellectuals and Anti-Zionism which he considers as the typical current mutation. Illuminating books on the new antisemitism include those by Foxman and Gabriel Schoenfeld. Exploring the possibilities of ending this ancient plague, Williams meditates on Christian history, theology and its effects, removing Anti-Judaism from the church, returning the Bible to the Jewish people, rethinking Christological interpretations of the Old Testament, the alternatives for Christians and what he perceives as the looming choice between Jesus or Christianity.

There is an appendix of the three accounts of Peter's acclamation of Jesus as the Messiah, 37 pages of Notes arranged by chapter, an extensive bibliography and an index. The collapse of faith has left secular "salvationist" ideologies as the main influence on the public mind; please consult The Resurgence of Anti-Semitism by Bernard Harrison. These post-modern ideologies contain the virus without the Old Testament antibodies that often provided a measure of restraint in traditional Christianity. The message of this book is frightening; I encourage all people of good will to heed the warning and seriously reflect on its recommendations. Valuable information on the Jewish roots of Christianity is available in Understanding the Difficult Words of Jesus by Bivin and Our Father Abraham by Marvin Wilson.

It takes a tremendous amount of courage and integrity to objectively look at your own religion and examine, in an objective and honest light, the very foundings of that religion. Prof. Williams Nicholls does just that. In this eye-opening and compelling book, Nicholls separates the "myth" of Christianity from history.

Who was Jesus? What was his intent? How was he viewed by the Jews of his day? Did he indeed have anything to do with Christianity as we know it today? What was Paul's role in the founding of Christianity? Do the Gospels paint an accurate picture of Jesus in our current understanding of who he was? How did the Jews become the "anti" of everything Christian as the Gospels lay it out? Could a Holocaust have happened in a non-Christian society, or has 2,000 years of anti-Judaism molded today's cultural thinking in such a negative light?

Nicholls does was most Christian authors fail to do. He avoids circular reasoning. His entire book is built on the concept of looking at Jesus as a Jew and from a Jewish perspective. He examines the roots of Christianity and the crucible from which it emerged, Judaism. Most authors (like the obtuseness of a Josh McDowell) try to fit Jesus into the Gospels from a 20th century view of who he was, rather than a 2,000 year old accurate perspective. They argue, we belive it to be such since the "myth" has developed into this, now we will "prove" it from the Gospels.

Nicholls does not make the same grave error. On the contrary, he disgards today's notion of who Jesus was and views him from Jesus' religion and political and cultural environment. Educational, interesting, and most importantly, honest.

AN ABSOLUTE MUST FOR BOTH CHRISTIANS AND JEWS!

Professor William Nicholls, who died in 2003, was a minister in the Anglican Church and founder of the Department of Religious Studies at the University of British Columbia. So his credentials as critic of the religion he loved and was devoted to is clear from his lifework. Which is what makes his 1993, Christian Antisemitism: A History of Hate, so important to the understanding of Christian roots of the Holocaust. Dr. Nicholls' book is unrelentingly honest and powerful, a carefully constructed and well-written indictment of a religion that sees itself as embodying the high ideals of Love, Charity and Forgiveness. Wherever else these ideals refer to, as Dr. Nicholls describes in this volume, clearly they do not apply to the Jews.

I have read much on the history of Christian anti-Judaism and find none equal in scope and unblinking directness to this volume. Nicholls traces Christian theological development from Paul through Augustine, to Luther and into the twentieth century. He begins with the foundational work of Paul and the gospels which followed. The gospels in particular accuse the Jews openly and directly of responsibility for Jesus' death leading to the eternal charge of deicide. John's associating the Jews with Satan, along with the deicide charge, would be repeatedly developed and amplified over the centuries characterizing the Jews in Christianity's midst as enemies of Jesus, a fifth column within Christian society.

Nicholls describes Augustine's rationale providing for Jewish survival in Christendom as punishment for their crimes: from the fifth through the 16th centuries Jews were property of the church or princes and with few exceptions lived in poverty and despair. Their purpose in Christian society was to provide a warning against Judaizing or unbelief. But Nicholls' reserves his harshest criticism for Martin Luther, a father of his own reformed church.

In the early years of his conflict with the Church Luther assumed that, freed of the whip of Church anti-Judaism and the thousand year-long persecution it inspired the Jews would abandon Judaism and enthusiastically accept conversion to his reformist Christianity. When the Jews failed to fulfill his expectations Luther's venom towards them was perhaps unmatched until four hundred years later when Hitler sought to fulfill Luther's instructions to the princes before his death.

"At his trial in Nuremberg after the Second World War Julius Streicher, the notorious Nazi propagandist, editor of the scurrilous antisemitic weekly, Der Sturmer, argued that if he should be standing there arraigned on such charges, so should Martin Luther (Nichols, 1993, pps.270-271)."

What is to be done? Even assuming that Christianity would want to repent its two thousand years of Jew-hatred resulting most recently in what is not likely to be the West's final effort at a Final Solution to its Jewish Problem: is reform even possible? According to Professor Nicholls the likelihood is negligible. On page 168 he writes, "Christian anti-Judaism is not a later distortion of an originally pure religion. It is embedded in the foundation documents of the faith."

What would reform demand if not modifying, even deleting blatantly anti-Jewish references from Christian scripture? What, for example, would the Matthew gospel be without its dramatic rendition of the trial of Jesus: of Pilate "washing his hands" (a typically Jewish, not Pagan, custom!); of the Jews self-condemned forever as deicides: "And all the people answered and said, `His blood be on us and on our children,' (Matthew 27:22-25)?" The John gospel repeatedly describes the Jews as satanic: "Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do, (John 8:44)." From there it is a short step to characterizing the Jews as antichrists. John associates the Jews with Satan many more times than all three other canonical gospels combined.

Even were all branches of Christianity to agree to somehow moderate the anti-Judaism of the gospels and Paul, is this even possible? These documents in their present translation are, after all, considered the inerrant word of God. Unanimity over violating God's inspired words just for the sake of saving the Jews yet another Holocaust? And assuming a wave of remorse, a universal need to express penance, what then would remain of Christianity if indeed it did agree to do so? According to Nicholls, "Once all the anti-Jewish elements have been removed from Christianity, what is left turns out to be Judaism (p. 431)."

But there are other means of reform short of tampering with the documents. A unified Christendom (recall this is all extremely unlikely) could resolve to interpret and teach the documents as holding the Jews blameless of deicide and not in league with the devil; but how interpret `His blood be on us and on our children,' other than "We did it"? And secondly this "conclave" would have to all agree that Judaism is a co-equal religion. According to Christian tradition Judaism is the dead branch out of which sprang the "new Israel," which leaves no room for a living Judaism.

But this is similar to an effort by the Church in 1965. Nostre Aetate, described as an act of contrition by the Church over the Holocaust, instructed its clergy to teach that the Jews of today are not to be considered guilty of deicide in the death of Jesus. A survey conducted two decades later indicated that most clergy ignored the instruction to moderate their teachings, and that antisemitism among Catholics had increased rather than diminished over the years. And in 2011 the head of the umbrella organization for the Jews who continue to live in post-Holocaust Europe described the climate of antisemitism in the EU as at its highest level since the Holocaust. What does this indicate for the efficacy of education and sensitivity training, so strongly promoted by Diaspora Jewish organizations, as the path to understanding and a worry-free life in the West? According to Nicholls, and this in 1993, "The forces that led to the Holocaust are still active. Until they are identified and eliminated from society, there is no enduring safety for Jews, (p. 284)." And, of course, he holds out little expectation of that.

Is there hope for the future? Early in his book Nicholls already concludes that there is little basis for that since, "No amount of tolerance and goodwill can obscure the fundamental threat to the Jewish people contained in the heart of traditional Christian belief [my italics]... The very presence of the Jewish people in the world... puts a great question mark against Christian belief in a new covenant [which] could not fail to cause profound and gnawing anxiety. Anxiety usually leads to hostility [my italics, again] (p.90)."

Professor Nicholls' detailed work traces the theological and historical development of Christianity over the last 2000 yrs. The former Anglican minister begins with Jesus' life, living as an observant Jew. The book continues with the Early Believers (not yet termed 'Christians'), into the 2nd Century when the movement ceased being a Jewish movement at all, and traces every era to modern times.
I was captivated by the author's lucid presentation of historical evidence, and his ability to show how Paul and later Christian theologians missed the mark of Jesus' real life and teachings. Prof. Nicholls explains how Jesus was a Rabbi who taught Judaism [e.g. the Kingdom of Heaven is within reach of the common man] to other Jews. Nicholls presents Jesus as a Jewish Rabbi who only taught to other Jews, and was not some kind of 'new Christian' who taught to Gentiles. Paul on the other hand conflicts with classical Judaism, teaching Gentiles can be 'grafted into Israel' [Romans 11] without requiring the Torah's obligations for converts (i.e. circumcision for men, dietary restrictions & acceptance of all Torah law as binding). This was presumably to gain more recruits who never would have agreed to adult surgery or making major dietary and lifestyle changes. The author shows that consequences of disobeying laws for converts, would in Paul's approach, be fixed upon Jesus' imminent return.
This book is a must for anybody who wants to truly understand the historical reasons why Christianity conflicts with its parent religion, and subsequently, vilifies Judaism in order to defend its agenda.
The author investigates every major era of the last 2000 years of Judeo-Christian history to prove his thesis that the Holocaust could not have happened had it not been for 2000 years of Christianity teaching that Jews are bad.

This is a hard book to read if your are a Christian. My assessment is that his categories of analysis are completely wrong. He is ready to flush historic Christianity down the drain. He knows that Catholicism is corrupt, as is Orthodoxy. He knows that the Reformers didn't get it all right, and the Protestant fundamentalists have made a mess of it.

He has bought into the historic quest for Jesus and the new perspective on Paul. But in doing so he has denied the divinity of Christ and the Trinity and thereby renounces Christianity -- and he's an Anglican priest! Nonetheless, he ends up asking some of the right questions. It was a painful but important read (for me).

On page 390 he sums up his argument that liberalism is fundamentally anti-semitic and concludes: "Against such hate, liberalism, Christian or secular, has no defense." Note his categories: Liberalism, Christian or secular. Not Christianity, liberal or secular or fundamental or whatever. According to the author, neither secular liberalism nor Christian liberalism has a prayer against Islam. So, he has turned to the Old Testament for help. But according to his own work, some of the most vicious anti-semites are Jews! Nonetheless, he wants to abandon the New Testament -- especially Paul.

His history is good, but because he jettisons the Trinity and divinity of Christ he doesn't have the theological categories to do anything with it, except "pile it higher and deeper" (the definition of PhD). His theology is wrong. His analysis is wrong. His approach, like his conclusion, is hopeless.