Customer Reviews

A House Divided: The Parting of the Ways between Synagogue and Church (Stimulus Books)

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As I write, Saturday January 28, 2012, there is only one other review at amazon.com of Vincent Martin's 1995 A HOUSE DIVIDED: THE PARTING OF THE WAYS BETWEEN SYNAGOGUE AND CHURCH. That review dated November 9, 2004 is by Professor O.J. Thienhaus, MD, also student of classics and Jewish midrash, residing in Las Vegas, Nevada. I urge you to read Dr Thienhaus's stimulating review before tackling mine. (But I include his review verbatim below.)

Like Thienhaus, this reviewer has problems -- but different problems -- with the way Vincent Martin reaches some of his sweeping conclusions. Thienhaus's review invites comment and I thought that it might be useful to readers if I took Thienhaus's as point of departure for my own review. I hope that both he and I work effectively to improve Jewish - Christian understanding. In the first part of my (Killough's) review I will intersperse my comments after quoting Thienhaus.

REVIEW PART ONE

Some excerpts from the 2004 review (with my interspersed comments):

THIENHAUS: "Martin takes on the rich task of analyzing the differences between Judaism and Christianity at the very root -- the time Jesus was still alive and shortly after his death. He raises some good points and strives to be fair to the Judaism of the time, e.g. making the important point that messianism was not a broad concern among the religious establishment of the time. However, anyone reading this book will quickly realize that the author is Christian."

KILLOUGH: That Vincent Martin is Christian is not hidden. The biographic blurb on the black cover describes him as "a monk and Subprior of St. Andrew's Abbey, a Benedictine monastery in Valyermo, California." Martin is also said to be a Harvard PhD in Sociology. More importantly for this book and its readers, Martin "has been an active participant in Jewish-Christian dialogue for the past thirty years" (i.e. since +/- 1965).

Be it noted, as well, that A HOUSE DIVIDED is one of many books contributed by both Jewish and Christian scholars within Paulist Press's framework series of Stimulus Books -- all on various aspects of Jewish-Christian interactions. If any Christian can empathize with and "know" how Jews think, Vincent Martin seems qualified.
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THIENHAUS: "Old stereotypes abound. The description of the Pharisees is copied straight out of the NT -- Josephus does not even rate a reference."

KILLOUGH: Josephus IS referenced. See Index for pp. 7, 34, 112.
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THIENHAUS: "The fact that Judaism provides centrally and amply for atonement and divine forgiveness is apparently unknown to the author. He seems to imply that Jesus was a popular preacher or teacher in his day even though no contemporary historian even mentions him (wouldn't at least the ascension have caught Philo's attention?). In short, to a Jewish reader it feels as though Martin sets up a bit of a foil -- an artificial and biassed background -- against which he develops his observations. I'd recommend a knowledgeable Jewish co-author be engaged to help with the next edition."

KILLOUGH:

-- (a) I found no evidence in A HOUSE DIVIDED that the author is either ignorant of or would dispute the existence of forms of atonement and divine forgiveness in Judaism.

-- (b) Thienhaus's point is well taken that no contemporary (contemporary, i.e., with Jesus) historian, including Philo, writes of Jesus or his ascension (into heaven). Flavius Josephus (37 - c. 100 CE), if memory serves, does write of John the Baptist and James the brother of the Lord. Who doesn't wish for more contemporary writings about Jesus and the earliest church? Remember, to keep things in perspective, how much that we know of some crucial years of Roman history comes from one single ninth century MS of Tacitus.

REVIEW PART TWO

My personal take of A HOUSE DIVIDED:

-- (1) Reviewer Thienhaus seizes on a very, very few points of Vincent Martin's book that he does not like. But there is much, much more in A HOUSE DIVIDED that potential readers should at least know is there before deciding to read it or not.

Basically, A HOUSE DIVIDED asks two questions: (1) When did the break between baptized Jews and unbaptized Jews become unbridgeable? (2) Why did that break happen? Author Martin presents his own personal sweeping, debatable and still debated answers as if there were full scholarly consensus behind them.

Basically, Martin believes that by, say, 150 CE or later, the initially small angle of divergence had grown very, very wide between the rabbinical Judaism of the Academy at Yavneh and its followers on the one hand and Christians in the mould of Saint Paul and the fourth evangelist John on the other. Yavneh did not want circumcised, Torah-believing but baptized Jews admitted any longer to synagogues anywhere. And John's gospel (written in the 90s CE) had definitively concluded that only Jesus's interpretation of Torah and Judaism was from God. Therefore Yavneh was wrong.

-- (2) Compared with other studies familiar to me by Jewish and Christian scholars in the Stimulus Book series, Vincent Martin is much more detailed. Chronologically, almost decade by decade, he takes us from the life and teachings, death and resurrection of the carpenter's son through reactions of official Jewish leaders, the man in the street, of those of Jesus's followers who stayed loyal to him -- and those who did not, and on and on.

The importance of Paul as the first Christian writer and declared apostle to the Gentiles is underscored. Peter's encounters in Antioch with wider circles of Hellenized Jews and proto-Christians get fair attention. How leading rabbis reacted to the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem in 70 CE is well treated. Was it fidelity or non-fidelity to the torah as written or to its oral tradition that caused the break with the Nazarenes and especially the Christian mother church at Jerusalem led by James the brother of the Lord?

All this and much more make A HOUSE DIVIDED a book worth your considering opening and reading. But bear in mind: this is a non-scholarly book by a scholar. In my opinion, at times he oversells his conclusions and personal opinions as if all other scholars agree with him. Nonetheless, take a chance. Read this informative book -- in the spirit of ever growing Jewish-Christian understanding.

-OOO-

Martin takes on the rich task of analyzing the differences between Judaism and Christianity at the very root -- the time Jesus was still alive and shortly after his death. He raises some good points and strives to be fair to the Judaism of the time, e.g. making the important point that messianism was not a broad concern among the religious establishment of the time. However, anyone reading this book will quickly realize that the author is Christian. Old stereotypes abound. The description of the Pharisees is copied straight out of the NT -- Josephus does not even rate a reference. The fact that Judaism provides centrally and amply for atonement and divine forgiveness is apparently unknown to the author. He seems to imply that Jesus was a popular preacher or teacher in his day even though no contemporary historian even mentions him (wouldn't at least the ascension have caught Philo's attention?). Inshort, to a Jewish reader it feels as though Martin sets up a bit of a foil -- an artificial and biassed background -- against which he develops his observations. I'd recommend a knowledgeable Jewish co-author be engaged to help with the next edition.