Anexo 1 Unidad Didáctica

There is still a gap that is not clear in the jump from Paul’s letters of apparent astonishment at the generous inclusion of the Gentiles into the commonwealth of Israel and clear and deep pain at his kinsmen in not recognising the Messiah, to the shockingly anti-Jewish and anti-Torah sentiments reflected in the writings of the

See Matthew Tapie, SCJR 12, no. 1 (2017): 1-18, “Christ, Torah, and the Faithfulness of God: The

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Concept of Supersessionism”, https://ejournals.bc.edu/ojs/index.php/scjr/article/viewFile/ 9802/8604. Retrieved December 15 2018

Ibid., 11. See also Jules Isaac, The Teaching of Contempt, 75

early Church Fathers. Despite the visible anguish and the sense of wrestling to be 283

detected in his epistles, Paul nonetheless speaks passionately of restoration and relationship with Israel. Such is his conviction that this is not only possible but 284

inevitable, that he describes the ‘middle wall of partition’, a physical barrier in the Temple in Jerusalem that kept the Gentile court separate from the Jewish one, (the original remains of which today are in the National Archaeological Museum in Istanbul), was broken down with the coming of the Messiah.

“For he himself is our peace who has made the two groups one, and has destroyed the barrier, the middle wall of partition (dividing wall of hostility) between

us…” (Eph 2:14)

The notion of the disestablishment of the ‘wall of partition’ enables connection between Jews and Gentiles, who when they come together in faith according to Paul, are ‘one new man’. There are no barriers or segregation that promote division and 285

hostility, only connection and relationship.

Indeed, NA affirms this when it states,

Krister Stendahl writes, “The main lines of Pauline interpretation - hence both conscious and

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unconscious reading and quoting of Paul by scholars and lay people alike - have for many centuries been out of touch with one of the most basic of questions and concerns that shaped Paul’s thinking in the first place: the relation between Jews and Gentiles.” Stendahl’s words reinforce the importance of establishing context when approaching the Pauline epistles. See Stendahl, Paul Among Jews and Gentiles, 1. See also Young, Paul: The Jewish Theologian, 3-5

See Mark D. Nanos, “A Jewish Contribution to Pope Benedict XVI’s Celebration of the Year of St.

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Paul”, in Reading Paul within Judaism, 173-177

This phrase comes from a particular translation (AMP) of the Ephesians 2:14 verse above.

“Thus the Church of Christ acknowledges that, according to God's saving design, the beginnings of her faith and her election are found already among the Patriarchs, Moses and the prophets. She professes that all who believe in Christ-Abraham's sons

according to faith -are included in the same Patriarch's call, and likewise that the salvation of the Church is mysteriously foreshadowed by the chosen people's exodus

from the land of bondage. The Church, therefore, cannot forget that she received the revelation of the Old Testament through the people with whom God in His inexpressible mercy concluded the Ancient Covenant. Nor can she forget that she

draws sustenance from the root of that well-cultivated olive tree onto which have been grafted the wild shoots, the Gentiles. Indeed, the Church believes that by His

cross Christ, Our Peace, reconciled Jews and Gentiles. making both one in Himself.” 286

This is an altogether different persuasion than that of the Church Fathers and other theologians through the ages who reverse and twist the image of inclusion Paul illustrates to one of replacement, with forceful tones of rejection, exclusion and condemnation. Perhaps a hint to the missing link lies in the fact that Paul was addressing these issues at all, when he says ‘do not consider yourself better than the natural branches’ and ‘do not be arrogant’ in his letter to the Romans (Romans 11:18). He goes to great lengths to illustrate the concept of adoption in the Roman manner, perhaps never expecting or perhaps in warning, that the adopted son would attempt to replace the natural born son. Yet, in place of the ‘wall of partition’ so to speak, a firm wall of separation was theologically and historically erected between Christian and Jew - and it is this impasse which this thesis seeks to address through

Nostra Aetate, http://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-

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reimagining the Jewish-Christian relationship with the Torah as the centre point of that reimagining.

In any case, it is clear why the seedbed of anti-Judaism within a developing Christianity was so acrid and produced such bitter fruit in the historical Jewish- Christian relationship as it developed over the centuries. It was filled with a hatred that was not just directed toward ‘the other’, but was harboured and nurtured toward the Deepest Other from whom this movement had come (and indeed the feelings of hostility and mutual suspicion, and accusations of heresy, were not only levelled by Christians toward Jews. The key difference, as noted earlier, lay in the demographic shift as Christianity moved to become an important political power through the Roman Empire). Perhaps it was rooted in jealousy or fear, or a type of self-loathing, or something altogether more Freudian with overtones of an Oedipus complex, at which Abraham J. Heschel hints. Jonathan Sacks asserts that the almost unexplainable hostility which fuels anti-semitism is a ‘virus’ which historically has mutated to suit whatever environmental conditions make themselves available, and supplants itself into those conditions. 287