Richard Weikart kindly writes to say,
I’m happy to announce that my article, “The Role of Darwinism in Nazi Racial Thought,” has just appeared in German Studies Review (Oct. 2013 issue), one of the most important journals publishing on German history.
Here’s the Abstract:
Historians disagree about whether Nazis embraced Darwinian evolution. By examining Hitler’s ideology, the official biology curriculum, the writings of Nazi anthropologists, and Nazi periodicals, we find that Nazi racial theorists did indeed embrace human and racial evolution. They not only taught that humans had evolved from primates, but they believed the Aryan or Nordic race had evolved to a higher level than other races because of the harsh climatic conditions that influenced natural selection. They also claimed that Darwinism underpinned specific elements of Nazi racial ideology, including racial inequality, the necessity of the racial struggle for existence, and collectivism.
A bit from the Intro:
Many historians recognize that Hitler was a social Darwinist, and some even portray social Darwinism as a central element of Nazi ideology. Why, then, do some historians claim that Nazis did not believe in human evolution? George Mosse argued that human evolution was incompatible with Nazi ideology, because Nazis stressed the immutability of the German race. More recently Peter Bowler and Michael Ruse have argued that the Nazis rejected human evolution, because they upheld a fixed racial type and racial inequality.4 Nowhere is this irony more pronounced than in the work of Daniel Gasman, who claimed that Hitler built his ideology on the social Darwinist ideas of Ernst Haeckel, but simultaneously argued that Nazis rejected human evolution. How is it possible to embrace social Darwinism, while rejecting Darwinism and human evolution? Anne Harrington suggests that the Nazis liked some elements of Darwinism, especially the struggle for existence, but not human evolution. Robert Richards agrees, claiming that Nazi racial ideas “were rarely connected with specific evolutionary conceptions of the transmutation of species,” even though they bandied about the term “struggle for existence.” In another essay Richards went further, arguing that Hitler and the Nazis completely rejected biological evolution. The notion that the Nazis could embrace racial struggle without believing in evolution seems plausible at first, especially since Houston Stewart Chamberlain, a forerunner of Nazi racial ideology, embraced this position. However, the claim that the Nazis did not believe in the transmutation of species and human evolution runs aground once we examine Nazi racial ideology in detail. In this essay I examine the following evidence to demonstrate overwhelmingly that Nazi racial thinkers embraced human and racial evolution:
1) Hitler believed in human evolution.
2) The official Nazi school curriculum prominently featured biological evolution, including human evolution.
3) Nazi racial anthropologists, including SS anthropologists, uniformly endorsed human evolution and integrated evolution into their racial ideology.
4) Nazi periodicals, including those on racial ideology, embraced human evolution.
5) Nazi materials designed to inculcate the Nazi worldview among SS and military men promoted human evolution as an integral part of the Nazi worldview.
This should pretty much end the discussion but won’t because the issue isn’t about the massive evidence that Nazis were social Darwinists but about defending Darwin’s sacred name from the sacrilegious facts.
Note: Weikart explains how he first got involved with this matter here:
Actually, at first, he wasn’t interested. While living in Germany some years ago to improve his German, he was mainly interested in the nineteenth century. He doubted that he would uncover anything new about the Third Reich. For one thing, in his view, it was an overworked field. But then he discovered one neglected point:
[A]s I investigated the history of evolutionary ethics in pre-World War I Germany, I noticed—to my surprise—remarkable similarities between the ideas of those promoting evolutionary ethics and Hitler’s worldview. This discovery (which happened around 1995) led me to investigate Hitler’s worldview more closely, and this research convinced me that I had found something important to say about Hitler’s ideology.
One wonders if Weikart will ever be forgiven for documenting it all so carefully, in the faces of all those who want to explain it away.
Page 552:
Christianity and Lutherian views of Jews being critical non-Darwinian elements mixed in as well.
LT, From your choice of words, you evidently want to indict the Christian faith in general for Nazism.
May I therefore beg to remind you of the key relevant foundational Christian ethical teachings?
In short, all men per creation from a common ancestor are held to be brothers and sisters, and we are4 reminded that in loving neighbour as self, we ought not to harm that neighbour, where the Good Samaritan is forever the standard of neighbourliness.
Whatever evils Hitler may have imbibed (whether via church leaders or otherwise), he did not gain this from the core moral teaching of the Christian faith. Where, that core moral teaching — which holds authority over any given Church leader past or present — has been repeatedly publicly taught, documented knowledge for the better part of 2,000 years.
KF
LarTanner: “Christianity . . . mixed in as well.” No doctrine of the historic Christian faith supports what the Nazi’s did. Charity would oblige me to classify you as an ignorant clueless bumpkin were this fact not so blindingly obvious. Sadly, therefore, I must classify you as a shameless liar.
No indictment at all. Nazism viewed itself and an embodiment of practical Christianity, and Nazi ideology synthesized many elements, just as Weikart says.
Do you think there’s an essential difference between the relationship of Nazism and Darwin’s theory of evolution, on the one hand, and Nazism and Christianity, on the other hand?
Try to insult me Barry, but know that no one takes seriously the rantings of your Bachmann-addled mind.
LT: “Do you think there’s an essential difference between the relationship of Nazism and Darwin’s theory of evolution, on the one hand, and Nazism and Christianity, on the other hand?”
( Descent of Man,1874, p. 178).
On the one hand, the Nazis’ views on racial supremacy were no different from Darwin’s views expressed in the Descent of Man and are generally consonant with the views of most Darwinists from 1859 though the 1930’s. It is no coincidence that one of Darwin’s relatives was the leader of the worldwide eugenics movement.
On the other hand, as KF has demonstrated, the Nazis’ views generally were utterly antithetical to the central tenants of the historic Christian faith.
So, is there a difference? Well, is there a difference between “generally consonant with” and “antithetical to”?
LT: “Try to insult me . . .” LT, I am not insulting you. I am pointing out an obvious fact about you.
It cannot possibly be the case that you do not know that Nazism is antithetical to the tenants of the historic Christian faith. It follows that your slander of the faith is not based on your ignorance but on your purpose intentionally to mislead and slander. Therefore, you are a liar and not an ignoramus. Simple logic.
We have words from Hitler and the Nazis explaining how Christianity informs their mindset and validates their policies.
LT: “We have words from Hitler . . .” Oh, well that settles it. Not.
Hitler was possibly the most outrageous liar in history. Of course this does not mean everything he said was a lie. How do you sort out the difference? By judging whether his ACTIONS were consulate with his words.
His actions demonstrate that he was telling the truth about his Darwinist racial views and he was lying about being motivated by Christian principles.
Can it possibly be that you do not know the difference between Nazi propaganda and the actual truth about the Nazis? Can you be that supremely ignorant? It beggars belief. But if that’s what you are saying, I will reclassify you as “supremely ignorant” from “intentional liar.” Let me know.
Barry, can it possibly be that you don’t know what antisemitism is and where it comes from?
You should talk more with Robert Byers.
A scholarly type I follow has recently written a book to cover this topic:
http://www.tektonics.org/gk/hi.....anity.html
Key points:
– German “Christianity” in the 1930 era had degenerated into a psuedo-Christian cult where Jesus was considered an Aryan, not a Jew (!).
– Bible was considered corrupted and large parts were ignored in favor of nationalistic/anti-Semitic views.
So while there may be Hitler quotes claiming to be Christian, it’s important to look at what he meant by “Christian”.
To use the same label without noting the differences is to use the same word for different meanings, which is inaccurate and logically fallacious.
LT: “can it possibly be that you don’t know what antisemitism is and where it comes from?”
I do know what anti-Semitism is. I will not pretend to know what motivated everyone who has hated Jews over the centuries. Doubtless, they were motivate by a myriad of factors, including the rantings of some Christians. It is also true that evil men acting in the name of Christianity have persecuted Jews over the centuries. That does not prove that Christianity is a bad thing. It proves that the evil in the hearts of men can subvert any good thing.
That which is done in the name of Christianity or by those who call themselves Christians does not define the fundamental non-negotiable tenants of the historic Christian faith. Those tenants were set forth in the sayings of Jesus and by the later writers of the New Testament. And it cannot be doubted that hatred of one’s fellow man (of which anti-Semitism partakes) is antithetical to those fundamental tenants of the historic Christian faith. For heaven’s sake man, Jesus was a Jew! “Anti-Semitic Christian” is very close to an oxymoron.
LarTanner
The issue has nothing to do with the origins of antisemitism, which can be traced all the way back to the pre-Christian era. On the table is the question of what ideology prompted the German anti-semite leaders to “bring science into the service of the Nazi vision,” as they themselves put it. It wasn’t Christianity that provided the rationale for mass murder and produced all those damning charts, diagrams, and photographs; it was Darwinist ideology–the same ideology that produced the anti-Christian eugenics movement in the United States.
Interesting.
So you think some Christians acted against “the fundamental non-negotiable tenants” of the Christian faith, although you must admit these same Christians would proudly proclaim themselves to have acted perfectly “consonant with” Christian faith.
Fortunately, you know you have the right interpretation of the faith, right Barry? Phew. Thank goodness you happen to have it correct.
Please, tell me more about “the fundamental non-negotiable tenants” of the theory of the origin of the diversity of Earth’s species.
Martin Luther, etc., will be pleased to know this.
@LarTaner:
Have you read Weikert’s paper? He actually puts the blame on intelligent design ideology:
StephenB, Yes, it is worth noting that the specific contribution of Darwinism was the resulting widespread notion that there was something *scientific* about anti-Semitism (and racism). As we all know, the original feud between Christians and Jews revolved around whether Jesus was the Messiah and whether, if so, Jews were culpable in his death, an explicitly religious quarrel. Jews who converted were treated as Christians.
The Nazis, who saw everything in Darwinian terms, saw Jews as a threatening *race,* in Darwin’s sense (“man in a more civilised state, as we may hope, even than the Caucasian, and some ape as low as the baboon, instead of as now between the Negro or Australian and the gorilla.”) That is a completely different point of view, and one that lent itself to genocide as a Final Solution.
Incidentally, a traditional Christian belief was that just before the end of all things, the Jews would convert en masse. An English poet tells his mistress (17th century):
“And you shall, if you please, refuse
Till the conversion of the Jews”
= till, practically, the end of the world. The belief must have been widespread because he was a popular poet, and assumed that people understood what he meant.
The situation lent itself easily to persecution, but not so easily to extermination. There is a big difference, and it is not in Darwinism’s favour. – O’Leary for News
JWTruthInLove, if you have to reach this far, you have already lost. – O’Leary for News
Ah, I see. Christianity on its own led to a few pogroms and some massacres every Easter for a few centuries. So, yeah, a few Jewish communities here and a few Saracens there. But for one full national program of extermination, that took a theory about the development of different animal species.
Thanks for clearing that up, News.
Lartanner, Darwin never distinguished between humans and “other” animals – that was his and is now his followers’ major point about humanity.
I do not say this lightly but I begin to think you are quite seriously dishonest. That is, you know that is true. In another forum it would never be challenged. When it is, you deny and obfuscate.
Readers who think facts matter should pay attention to Weikart’s research and reporting when confronted with Darwinism’s many fashionable defenders and some less fashionable ones.
@O’Leary:
Finally. Can I have my UD News writer badge now?
Aaaaand your point is?
I don’t care whether you think I am dishonest. I think you are a terrible journalist, a bad writer, an ideologue, and a sloppy thinker. So there.
Look, Nazi ideology was built on many elements. We all know how they sought to use Darwinian evolution to validate their ideas. They used Christianity and traditional Christian antisemitism also. I don’t say this to indict Christianity at all. Christianity is quite malleable. Yet your — you, not commenting on Weikart’s paper — attempt to convert the IS of Darwin’s theory to the OUGHT of Nazi Germany is scurrilous. You really should stop and think, and have some shame. Then you should apologize publicly.
LarTanner: “We all know how they sought to use Darwinian evolution to validate their ideas.” No, as Weikart provides numerous examples of, many writers have sought to exculpate Darwin and Darwinism in this matter. But glad you at least admit that they did indeed seek to do that. It is a fact. So that is refreshing.
They were believed to be scientific ideas long before Darwinism. And Darwin argued against the more extreme rationales of racism, such as polygenism (which was a mainstream idea until Darwinism).
The central theme of the Nazi’s (especially Hitler’s) racial theory is the importance of keeping racially pure, and thus saw miscegenation as dangerous, unnatural, and against God’s Law.
Darwin rarely spoke of racial purity, but when he did, he saw it as a bad thing, and saw racial mixing as a positive. (Racial purity is basically the elimination of variety, which selection needs for adaptation. Darwin also noted how close interbreeding seems to cause infertility and illness.)
The reason Hitler and many other Nazis saw racial purity as so important was the belief that only the Aryan race is capable of civilization. Thus, racial mixing was a threat to civilization itself. By expanding the Aryan race, and removing other races from their territory, they believed that they were safeguarding civilization. Obviously, you won’t find any such thing in Darwin’s writings.
But this is the central theme of Gobineau’s “Essay on the Inequality of the Human Races”, which predates Origin. Gobineau is one of the originators of “Aryanism.”
SB: It wasn’t Christianity that provided the rationale for mass murder and produced all those damning charts, diagrams, and photographs.
Lar Tanner:
That is not a very intelligent statement. Martin Luther, the off again on again anti-semite, did not provide any scientific charts, diagrams, and photographs to confirm the truth of Darwinian evolution or its application to social policy, which was the driving force of the holocaust.
If you want to know Hitler’s true attitude about religion, just consult the anti-ID, pro Lar Tanner website called Wikipedia and search for “The Religious View of Adolph Hitler.”
Or, if you have even a modicum of intellectual curiosity, consult “Hitler’s Table Talk” to get a feel for how much he hated Christianity and how much he identified with materialist biology and Nietzschean ethics. There comes a time when willful ignorance degenerates into dishonesy.
LarTanner
You have been reading too much Hume. People derive their OUGHT TO from their IS on a daily basis. “If God does not exist, everything is permitted.”—Dovtoevsky
StephenB, I know Table Talk and you have completely missed my point, probably due to your zeal to downplay the undeniable role in the German atrocities played by Christianity, Christian institutions, Christian antisemitism, and ardent Christian believers.
I have already pointed out that the Nazis sought to use Darwinian evolution to validate their ideas. The Nazis also used an already existing Christian cultural bedrock for the same reason, and they viewed themselves as serving God eminently.
Not even super-weasels KF, Barry and News have denied it.
I know you all don’t agree that the Nazis were serving God, that the Nazis were horribly mistaken in their Christian practice. Unfortunately, your view of Christianity’s true message is but one in a centuries-long cacophony of conflicting true Christianities. So, whenever you people get your story straight on what the true religion truly lived is, just send me an email.
Specifics please.
I’d like to know what Jesus and the Apostles wrote that could have justified genocide and all the rest of the Nazi atrocities.
And this quote is supposed to carry the force of authority? You are too much!
Somebody bring back Joe G. from the wasteland!
goodusername, the Nazis believed in racial purity but they were willing to scour various lands for humans whom they thought represented it (cf kidnappings of “Aryan” children in occupied territories):
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new.....-race.html
The Nazis probably were not as ignorant of the genetic issues you raise as is sometimes supposed. Their kidnapping-from-foreign-parts and have-babies-with-local-women strategies might have tended to reduce the foreseen medical issues over time. Happily, they never got the time.
Moreover, “Christianity” is an extremely imprecise term. It was never used by Jesus and the Apostle themselves, and it is so broad, you could blame just about anything on “it.”
Be specific, LarTanner. What specific teachings and/or statements of Jesus, the Apostles, and the New Testament writers inspire Hitler and his associates to exterminate 20th century Jews, and commit all the rest of the Nazi atrocities?
Ridiculous. Public speeches to that effect by Hitler were demogogic overtures to gain power–nothing more. Pay no attention to what political leaders say in public. Watch what they plan for and do. There were not altar calls in private chambers of the Third Reich. Get real.
CS and all,
I am going home now to enjoy my weekend. This is the reason I won’t respond anymore. I think all you emperors are pretty much standing naked right about now anyway.
CS, yours evokes my final comment. Have you not read your own Greek Testament? Surely one of your learned UD colleagues or Bing/Google-trained terrier could help you locate NT sources of antisemitism. You can also find statements made by Hitler and comments from other Nazi literature on Christianity and the Nazis’ view of themselves.
Barry, of course, chooses to take anything Hitler and the Nazis say about Christianity as lies, and anything they say about their understanding of evolution as true. And he says that Nazi actions show the difference, even though others might suggest that Nazi actions show the truth going the opposite way from Barry’s interpretation.
So, do a little homework. But be careful: one of the most powerful causes of atheism is actually reading the Greek Testament. When you read it, you might start saying to yourself, “These are just dull stories by some long-dead dudes. Why am I giving them any weight whatsoever?”
SB: If God does not exist, everything is permitted.”—Dovtoevsky
It conveys a fact. Any fact ought to carry the force of authority. People do, in fact, get their ought to from their is. I can successfully argue that point all day long.
I don’t know why you are getting so upset. If you would read a little literature that transcends your Darwinist ideology, you would gain immeasurably from the increase.
Heh.
Kill the Jews! – Words Jesus Never Said
Blame the Jews! – Stuff Not Said by Paul, the Jewish ex-Pharisee
Stinking Jews! – Not the Opinion of the 12 Apostles, all Jewish
The Jewish “cult” sure hates Jews. Just read the Bible’s NT writings, where it says there is one body in Christ, with no Jew or Gentile (non-Jew) … So anti-Semitic.
Umm, the point of the kidnappings was to maximize the number of racially pure Aryans by preventing their mixing with the foreign races, and to make sure they mated with other racially pure Aryans.
LT: “This is the reason I won’t respond anymore”
No it isn’t. You are taking your marbles and going home, because you advanced a thesis only to see it utterly demolished. That has to be discouraging.
“one of the most powerful causes of atheism is actually reading the Greek Testament”
Blithering nonsense. You truly are shameless.
“NT sources of anti-Semitism”
Nonexistent. I notice you provide no examples. Telling.
Yes, indeed, that WAS the point, goodusername at 4:01pm. And MY point was that the Nazis were aware of the issues Darwin would raise about inbreeding – and their strategy would actually minimize that because “Aryans” from distant parts were not usually closely related.
Unfortunately, the Nazis were not as dumb as we might have hoped.
What I find really interesting is the way some of Darwin’s followers go ballistic when the evidence that the Nazis were fond of his theories is brought up.
It’s curious, really. Protestants don’t usually go ballistic about the history that many of their denominations got suckerpunched into supporting eugenics. Catholics don’t typically go nuts with denial over the Inquisition. Mormons don’t often abandon their faith just because their church has a chequered former history around racism. Any point of view has its scandals (unless it disappears within seconds after it gets started).
Yet Darwinists react as if a calm discussion of Nazis’ affection for Darwin’s theory means that people think today’s Darwinists are Nazis. And no reasonable person thinks that.
Perhaps they are sensitive about growing disconfirmation of their ideas. One can only keep shouting fact! Fact! FACT! for so long, as a defense …
I’m quite sure I’ve read the New Testament in Greek a lot more than you have.
So, no specific examples, eh?
I thought not.
Case closed.
F/N: It seems appropriate to again outline the core moral teachings of Jesus and his apostles, as directly relevant to and corrective of distortions, errors and obfuscations across the ages. Let me clip from no 2:
Thus, “the [Christian] Faith once for all delivered unto the saints” and passed down to us by apostles, martyrs and confessors:
So, plainly, where christians, christianised peoples and church leaders have violated these principles — and that is a serious historical challenge, the sins of Christendom [cf. here on]– this has been in violation of undeniably core, foundational Christian teaching. Such wrongs, though grievous (remember, I am a descendant of Black slaves, indentured Indians, oppressed Irish and oppressed Scottish), have never had the warrant of the Christian Faith qua Christian Faith.
So, it is never fair or appropriate to tax Christianity as being responsible for evils in direct violation of core Christian ethics. A fairer assessment, is that we are all finite, fallible, morally fallen and struggling, as well as too often stubborn and ill-willed. This is multiplied by the moral hazards of power, where power is always dangerous and if accountability is weakened, that danger tends to go out of control. Hence a dictum I strongly believe, from Lord Acton: power tends to corrupt, absolute power corrupts absolutely. He goes on to great men are bad men, but I think I would moderate that a bit to, too often.
And that core moral teaching as cited is important, as it is the classic springboard for reformation as the natural and proper fruit of genuine repentance, renewal of mind and heart and revival. Which is materially responsible for any number of reforms in our civilisation.
Now, too, someone above suggests the NT teaches antisemitism.
I think some have read it that way improperly, as the NT itself warns against. In the Gospels, there is undoubted tension between the Galilean and the Judaean Jewish leaders but obviously, that is between Jews and Jews; where both Jesus and the apostles are all Jews. There is even more tension with Samaritans, but we can notice Jesus’ response to the Woman at the Well and in the parable of the Good Samaritan.
The judicial murder of Jesus is seen as implicating both corrupt Judaean leaders and corrupt Gentile leaders. If anything, that is subtly anti-authoritarian. And it is across the board. Pastors in this part of the world are fond of pointing out that it was Simon of Cyrenica, an African [the man who seems to have been coming into the city as everyone else was going out], who helped carry Jesus’ awful burden.
And it is ordinary Jewish women who wail at his fate, the fate shared by so many prophets.
The difference is of course that in Christian thought “That was Friday, but Sunday was coming.”
Nor can you find justification for a general hostility to Jews in the rest of the NT.
As for the Christian idea that in the end of days many Jews will turn to Jesus as messiah, that comes from a very specific OT passage in the prophets:
Quite opposite to antisemitism, this envisions nations rising up against Jerusalem, only to find themselves fighting God. And in the midst of this, grace poured out on the people of Jerusalem leads them to turn to “him whom they have pierced.”
This, not in the NT, but the OT.
But, I fear, there has been such lonngstanding polarisation and hostility, that it is hard indeed for the balance to be struck.
Just remember, Christian Zionists see the hostility of nations to the Jews of Jerusalem through this lens, of such finding themselves to be enemies of God. The very God who is seen as decisively intervening in defense of the people of Jerusalem; sparking a bitter regret and change of heart to “him whom they have pierced.”
It is time for some re-thinking.
KF
They were racially pure Aryans and yet not closely related? I don’t think you understand what racially pure means.
They believed that the people they were kidnapping were pure Aryans (ie. they hadn’t yet mixed with the local population genetically) who had wondered from the North into foreign lands, and the Nazis saw the kidnapping as rescuing them from potential race mixing. And so they hardly saw it as helping with problems of inbreeding (a problem they never mentioned, and with tens of millions of German Aryans available, a problem they probably didn’t need to worry about).
The central tenant of Nazi racial theory is the importance of racial purity. The Nazis didn’t believe they were kidnapping people of a different race, and so it’s irrelevant here.
Darwin viewed race mixing (and at times, even species-mixing) as a good thing, which is something Hitler viewed as a crime against God and Nature and as a threat to civilization. On this, and just about every other racial belief, Hitler was in utter disagreement with Darwin.
If LarTanner thinks the NT is anti-semetic he should read the OT!
goodusername at 5:41: People could all be “Aryans” in the Nazis’ sense and thus “racially pure” without running genetic risks from interbreeding if they are not closely related (consanguine), as you seem to indicate yourself.
Could you provide some quotations from Darwin approving of race-mixing? Species-mixing? For our edification.
It’s odd if the Nazis never noticed that Hitler was in utter disagreement with Darwin. One wonders why that might be.
The problem is lessened in a larger population, but Darwin believed it still wasn’t healthy in the long term to remain racially pure. The problems, such as infertility, would develop slower in larger populations, but fertility was just one issue. Race mixing brings variety, which Darwin saw as good for a population.
Here’s a good example of Darwin discussing the benefits of race (and even species) mixing from The Variation of Animals and Plants:
http://www.freefictionbooks.or.....?start=115
In Origin of Species he writes that there are many “good effects of frequent intercrossing.”
And in Descent of Man, Darwin argued (contrary to just about everyone else) that mixing of human races caused no fertility or health problems.
(It’s hard to convey just how shocking this idea was at the time. Nearly a century later assumptions of the deleterious effects of miscegenation were still cited in anti-miscegenation laws.)
Interesting article. I suspect that the support of evolution in Germany at that time was not that much different than in many other nations, the US included.
However, Adolph Hitler, being a consummate politician, included those aspects of Darwinism, anthropology, and eugenics that supported his agenda. According to my research, evolution in general was NOT a guiding principle of Nazi philosophy, but “genetic hygiene” appealed to Germans, as was the idea of a racial “manifest destiny.” The perceived competition between the races meant that Germans had the ability and thus the moral obligation and right to succeed lesser-evolved races (allowing them to be displaced and to slowly die out in a humanitarian way), and they abhorred miscegenation as an impediment to this natural process.
Hitler’s antisemitism was generally viewed as a passing “children’s disease” (immaturity), but it ran deep with Hitler and his cronies, who felt that Germany in the Great War was betrayed from within by the Jews, and directly resulted in the devastation of Germany afterwards, including the systematic starvation imposed by the Allied Powers after the armistice to punish Germany.
Nazi racial scoring based on phrenology, and their human breeding programs underscored their obsession with race. Their alliance with Japan required some mental gymnastics that placed the Japanese at the head of the Asian races.
All social institutions, including the Catholic and Lutheran churches were made subservient “partners” to the State. They were to provide their support, but the real “religion” of the Nazis was occult—blood and race.
While I’m not a believer in Darwinism, I believe that blaming Darwinism for the rise of Nazi ideology is incorrect. Certainly aspects of Darwinism were incorporated, but the emphasis in this area of their ideology was on racial purity, selective breeding, eugenics, and racial superiority and destiny. This was the foundation for the German people. Their allies in this struggle for dominance included national socialism and organizing society through the leadership principle. Europe was considered a mess, a collection of “dirt states” that would easily be toppled by this powerful and irresistible new political movement.
We should not judge Hitler too harshly. It was all in his genes, after all.
Q:
Pardon, but we must let the beast speak, from his own mouth, Mein Kampf, Bk 1 Ch 11:
It is no accident that these ideas from 1925 shaped the policies of Nazi Germany from 1933 – 45.
This was not just window dressing, it is the very shaping frame of thought in summary.
And as we read them, again and again, they draw on Darwin as his ideas were embedded in German culture.
KF
PS: It seems we need to remind on the sub-title of Origin: Origin of Species, or the preservation of favoured races in the struggle for existence. In that context, remarks on plant hybrids have but minor impact. Let us again note the shaping effect of Darwin’s discussion of the Scots, Irish and English in Chs 5 – 7, with the chilling significance of the quote above. Like it or lump it, Darwin was among the first social darwinists. And it is no accident that eugenics was founded by Darwin’s cousin Galton and thereafter strongly associated with Darwin’s family for decades, being shaped on darwinist principles shaped by the hope that understanding the underlying laws of nature wise nations could control breeding along the lines of engineering, to achieve desired, channelled evolution.
Chs 5 – 7 of Descent of Man.
F/N to 42: I should note that a subtlety lies behind the Christian Zionist views on Zech ch 12.
Namely, following Mt 24, there is a view of parallel gospel proclamation to the nations AND a rising tide of hostility to it. This tends to be seen in light of what we may summarise as hostility to the Judaeo-Christian tradition and a great falling away, even as the great global gospel missionary mandate is carried forward.
This also points to pressure on Jews that pushes resettlement in the Jewish homeland, viewed as a place of refuge and protection. (NB: also prophesied in the OT, including reference to a second return from exile — seen as vindicated from the 1870’s on culminating at 1948 and ’67.)
So, the nations envisioned in Zech 12 as gathering against Judah and Jerusalem, on this view, are expressing that hostility through aggression on some flimsy excuse or other. And thereby finding themselves in (patently futile and foolish) enmity against God.
Ezekiel 35 – 39 is especially relevant in that light.
Enmity against God is not exactly a desirable position for Christians.
KF
@Mung:
Who should we judge? The intelligent designer of his genes?
goodusername at 11/01 7:03: Yes, Darwin acknowledged what agriculture had long known: Too much inbreeding leads to magnification of faults. Of course, the fault may be tolerated by humans if the desired traits remain, otherwise breeding back (“intercrossing”) is a wise idea.
Interestingly, less techologically developed peoples apparently knew this stuff quite well. Re the circumpolar Inuit peoples: “The neutering of all male dogs was an excepted practice, except for their best lead dogs for breeding purposes. The practice of neutering the majority of male dogs, made a family dog supply vulnerable though accident or death. In the event of an accident or death, a female dog on heat was left tied up to bred with by wolves. Only the most dog like of the litter was kept, as the wolf hybrids were considered very unpredictable. And the wolf coats did not repel the snow and were therefore unsuitable for working in the icy conditions, as ther snow would cling to their guard coat and turn to ice. The wolf hybrid would lick the ice off, this resulting in their guard coat falling out, and without their coat to protect them from the subzero temperatures they would soon die. mother nature made the decision, and overtime a certain dog prevailed.”
http://www.icepaws.com/history-of-the-malamute.asp
The current existence of the State of Israel in Palestine populated by so-called Jews has nothing to do with the fulfillment of Bible prophecy.
Querius @ 47: “Interesting article. I suspect that the support of evolution in Germany at that time was not that much different than in many other nations, the US included.”
And your suspicions would be confirmed were you to investigate the matter. In his Liberal Fascism Jonah Goldberg does a masterful job of tracing the various threads in the totalitarian fabric that includes Mussolini’s Italy, Hitler’s Germany, and Stalin’s Soviet Union and how the philosophical impulses behind each of those three threats to human freedom and dignity find their expression today in the “progressive” political movement.
Hitler himself commented on creationism vs evolution, too bad I can’t find the quote again. He wrote that it confused him to learn one thing in religionclass, and then to learn something entirely different in biologyclass. Then he sai that it wasn’t his position to comment on it, and that in either scenario there would have been a first of any specie, so that, obviously implying, both creationists and evolutionists should support the nazi’s.
Hitler’s beliefs are extremely rationalistic, rationalizing everything in terms of a struggle too survive. He rationalized love in terms of self-preservation. All to Hitler was a matter of fact, including beauty, love and goodness. It is just a classic case of knowledge of good and evil, original sin. The only room for opinion in this rationalization was that you can believe anything if it seems to help the struggle for survival. Nordic gods, Jesus the Aryan fighter, anything that seems to help.
So you have this calculating in terms of survival going on without any emotion, the only emotion is in the freedom to believe anything which helps the struggle.
Darwin shares blame, because Darwin too inclined to rationalize everything in terms of survival, including love. Darwin did not leave any room for subjectivity in his views. Mayhem, slaughter, should be expected when emotions become to be excluded. Noticeably Darwin complained a lot of “dark thoughts” while writing his book on emotions.
Hi Barry,
Yes, I believe progressivism is neo-fascism. Fascism is fundamentally collective, elitist, and eventually totalitarian. It allows private ownership with state control.
The ruling elite in any such regime believe that they’ve heroically achieved security, stability, and equitable distribution of goods and services.
Thanks for the book suggestion.
Mung,
I’ve heard that before, and even some Jews agree. But I’m not sure what “so-called” referring to Jews means. Ashkenazi? Aren’t they the ones that died in “so-called” concentration camps in WW2?
Mung:
Pardon, I am not here intent on multi-sided theological debates, which are not really proper for UD anyway. But as LT raised a general accusation against “Christianity,” that needs to be addressed.
In that context, I ask that it be kept in mind that first I explicitly summarised the views of Christians who are Zionists. Those views are a matter of record and direct familiarity. That such widely held views exist immediately undermines any attempt to insinuate or suggest by invidious linkage to Hitler’s demonic folly and mass murder, that the Christian faith as a whole or its movements in toto, can be broad-brush characterised as hostile to Jewishness.
Next, as there is a view that tries to disconnect today’s Jews from those of classical times, I note:
1 –> Judaism c. C1, was a missionary religion (as is reflected in the remarks of Jesus on making proselytes in a context of a defective approach to religiosity, as well as the presence of the God-fearers that crop up so often in the NT).
2 –> Jewishness, historically, is not only a matter of ethnicity, but of covenant. So, accession to the covenant makes one and one’s descendants who maintain that identity authentically Jewish. Even in the days of the Exodus, Caleb (one of the faithful two spies) was a Kenizite, i.e. an Edomite.
3 –> It is also not a coincidence that David’s ancestry included both Rahab (a Canaanite woman) and Ruth (a Moabitess, who seems to have been close to the royal house of that nation). Likewise, Moses’ wife — possibly a second wife after the death of Zipporah — was a [dark skinned] Cushite — and in the record, God punished those who objected. (This sort of almost footnoted record is evidence of considerable mixing, and directly cuts across the racialist insinuations involved in accusations of “Genocide.”)
4 –> So, even if there were good reason to take stories of the Kazar accession to the covenant seriously as dominating Ashkenazi Jews, that accession would be legitimate.
5 –> But in fact, the Y-Chromosome summaries I have seen, indicate that the Ashkenazi Jews are closely related to Jews from the Middle East (known to derive from settlements and the exiles of 2600 years ago . . .), to Arabs, and to Kurds. That is, it seems there is such a thing as Y- Chromosome Abraham, Isaac and Ishmael. (I have a personal suspicion that the Kurds, who come from the right region, may well be descended from some of the famously lost tribes, though there are obviously groups from as far away as India and China that have been acknowledged as having a claim, and there is a group from far to the south in Africa as well.)
6 –> The suggestion I have seen from apparent lack of common female ancestors, is that circles of Jewish men settled in areas — perhaps as merchants or as refugees or even slaves. They took wives from local girls, then a covenantal community formed and continued.
[NB: There was a HUGE wave of Jewish slaves post the AD 66 war, to the point where slave prices were apparently depressed. Also, some have argued that a part of the success of the Christian faith is that the AD 79 eruption that hit the playground of the Roman elites, was seen as divine punishment for the degrading enslavement of Jews, e.g. the prostitutes in the obscene wall pictures from Pompeii may very well have been Jewish captives.]
7 –> On the other side of Jewish resettlement in Israel, we have continuity in part (there is apparently a village in Galilee that traces back to the classic times), and in part waves of irreconcilable refugees from the wider ME amounting to originally some 600,000. These Jews and their descendants are the core of the Jewish population of Israel. That status also grounds the legitimacy of Israel above and beyond the 1920’s – 1940’s League of Nations mandate and UN recognition, as a land of refuge in a context of an exchange of refugees. (The situation of Pakistan and India is a direct and concurrent parallel.)
8 –> So, the all too common attempt to sever modern Jewry and the modern state of Israel from historic Jewish roots and roots in the land of Israel, are ill-founded.
9 –> In that context, there is indeed a known and fairly widespread school of thought with significant and responsible study of the Scriptures behind it, that understands the prophetic scriptures of the Tanakh or Old Testament [substantially the same, just differently organised], to speak of a second exile and to speak of a return in the end of days culminating in the advent of Messiah. Which last is the reading of Zechariah 12 that I have highlighted above.
10 –> That is, the Christian Faith, cannot properly be broad-brush dismissed as antisemitic and the root of Jewish persecution. (Thus, I have answered the issue raised by LT.)
11 –> Now, in addition, I am aware of schools of thought that would take the prophetic texts and apply them instead to the Church, often described as “replacement theology” by Christian Zionists. And I am sure you are aware that such pre-millenial Christian theology advocates [onlookers, you may wish to look here on for a 101 level outline survey of that area of theology — pay attention to the diagrams adapted from Wayne Grudem] often warn that any school of interpretation of scriptures that opens the door to alienation of the Jews from the covenantal promises of the Bible, is an invitation to anti-semitism. Though, it in itself may and one hopes usually is not antisemitic.
12 –> In response, I think the following remarks from Paul are worth noting, coming form the letter in which he lays out his theological differences with the Jewish leadership who have rejected the claims of Jesus to be messiah, as well as the unmistakable cry of his heart that hey come to know God in the face of Jesus through the gospel:
13 –> This is a man who literally states that he would willingly forfeit his own blessed state were that enough to see to the eternal welfare of his kinsmen, and who openly characterises his converts from the gentiles as grafted in wild olive shoots. In that context he warns us gentiles to beware or arrogance and falling away from God. He concludes that while there is enmity to God and to his move at this point, it is driven by want of knowledge and it is in the context of an ultimate restoration of a remnant. (Which BTW is the precise view of the OT prophets, time and again, not just Elijah who he explicitly refers to.)
14 –> Yes, it is obviously possible to wrench some of this out of context to make anti-semitic claims, but that obviously falls under the warning given by the fellow apostle, Peter:
15 –> Scripture-twisting is an evil indulged at peril, even if driven by ignorant folly. Arrogance in such error is definitely a sign that does not speak well of one’s spiritual health. And plainly, abuse of the NT (and OT) scriptures to foment hatred of Jews — or for that matter, as Ac 17 so plainly implies, Arabs and any other nation — is scripture-twisting.
16 –> So, even if one were to for a moment entertain that replacement theologies [yes, I know that I am using the Christian Zionist term not the self-identification] have validity, that would not justify hostility to or persecution of Jews (or any other ethnicity for that matter).
17 –> And, one has to reckon with the direct statement in Rom 11:29 that he gifts and calling of God are not taken back.
Which means that while one may have a theological dispute as to whether the Zionist movement triggered resettlement of Israel has eschatological, scriptural significance, that is separate from any question that he Christian faith as a whole is hostile to Jews as such.
Even someone as beset by out of control anger as Luther who said and wrote inexcusably intemperate things about Jews, cannot properly be viewed as characterising the Christian faith as a whole. Luther has some serious explaining to do, and probably would have been horrified as to the long term consequences of his intemperate and incendiary remarks, but his blunders are not to properly be seen as characterising the Christian faith from roots up.
He was right on many things, but on this, he was utterly, inexcusably, wrong. And wrong in sadly obvious ways:
In short, on both substance and tone, Luther was in gross error.
We can only ask forgiveness that this was not sufficiently corrected in good time.
KF
PS: Those wishing to understand the grounds for the core gospel message regarding Jesus as Messiah and Saviour, may wish to read here on in context. Here on specifically addresses “according to the {Hebraic] Scriptures.”
I see I am on the hook to bring out examples from that Greek Testament that are, as I said, sources of antisemitism. So I’ll bring the examples out.
First, however, let me give appreciation to KF in comment 59 for calling out Mung’s stupidity in 55. Mung, you personally show why the term “IDiot” is not limited only to intelligent design creationism.
But, KF, your point number 9 in comment 59 is flatly incorrect. You say that the Tanakh and the OT are “substantially the same, just differently organised.” The differences between the Hebrew Scriptures and the Old Testament are much broader and deeper than you have characterized. They are different altogether texts because the words, the punctuation, the mechanical features, and the interpretive apparatus of the OT all presuppose a Christological reading. The Hebrew Scriptures do not have this presupposition, although late-ancient and early medieval development of the Tanakh suggests to me that it was increasingly read in such a way as to limit potential Christology.
To illustrate the difference between the Hebrew Scriptures and the Christian OT, look at the way the two traditions tend (or have tended) to present “law” in their English versions. English renderings of the Hebrew Scriptures will often give “the Torah” — meaning a specific set of instructions, narratives, and records — where the Christian OT give “the law” — a more abstract formulation. The theological and religious difference between Judaism and Christianity inheres in this very difference because the Christian argument is that Judaism errs by overvaluing, or even idolizing, the law. The Jewish argument is that Christianity has erred by rejecting that which has been given by God directly to all the Hebrew slaves and their descendants.
So, contra KF, the Hebrew Scriptures and the Christian OT must properly be understood as fundamentally different and irreconcilable texts. Their different number of books and different arrangements are only part of much more substantial conflicts.
Next up: Sources of antisemitism in the Christian NT.
Lar Tanner
Trumping up false charges of anti-semitism against the New Testament has nothing at all to do with the historical fact that Hitler was a Darwinist and was not a Christian.
You want sources of antisemitism in the NT? You got it.
My earlier comment gave “law” as only one example showing how significantly different the Hebrew Scriptures and the Christian OT are. We could add several more examples, but I really don’t wish to have an extended argument on this point. I feel, however, that Christians are well instructed to appreciate how divergent Judaism and Christianity are: these are not mere squabbles over Jesus or Torah but rather conflicting theories about God and history
Now I’ll return to provide examples of passages in the Christian NT that were used to validate and justify centuries-long prejudice, policy, persecution, and violence against Jewish people. After you review all the examples, you may want to dispute that they are antisemitic, or that otherwise well-meaning people got Jesus’ message wrong, but in doing so you would deny history and then deny the power of Jesus’ message.
People who learned of Jews from the texts and from their commentaries/commentators drew upon the passages I will cite as authoritative. It happened, and you cannot revise that. Yet if you accept that either the texts are unfortunately wrong or can be taken wrong, then you admit not only the fallibility of the NT (and its writers/readers) but also failure of whatever divine inspiration is supposed to be behind the NT. Remember, we have nothing in the NT that can be verified as “what Jesus actually said,” just as we have no verified facts about Jesus. These are the mysteries of faith, and perhaps they can simply be ignored as inconsequential.
One more prefatory remark: In comment 38, Barry Arrington unbelievably states that sources of antisemitism in the NT are “Nonexistent.” In comment 41, CentralScrutinizer also wants to see some examples. CS also boasts of having better ancient Greek than I do. He might, except that as a scholar of early medieval literature and language Ancient Greek was part of what I needed to know — a little — to be able to assess the period in its context. I am no longer a professional scholar, but I say only in passing that I have a little familiarity with Greek, though I really have not seen an opportunity in this discussion to bring out my old textbooks and readers in Greek.
On to the examples. This is not my own analysis but a composite; I mention this only to remind you that very many others with impeccable credentials are quite aware of the these examples. The usual responses are to deny that they are actually antisemetic, to assert that they are not (as) antisemitic in context, or to admit they are antisemitic and to explain that its a contextual instance and not a general condemnation of all Jews for all time. Pick your strategy as it suits you.
The Gospel According to Mark contains about 40 verses of defamatory anti-Jewish rhetoric, as follows:
3:6, The Pharisees are said to have begun to plan to destroy Jesus
7:6-13, Condemnation of the Pharisees for rejecting the commandments
8:15, Beware of the yeast of the Pharisees
10:2-5, The Pharisees are said to be hard-hearted
14:55-65, The chief priests and council condemn Jesus as deserving death
15:1-15, The crowd demands that Jesus, not Barabbas, be crucified.
The Gospel According to Matthew contains about 80 verses of defamatory anti-Jewish rhetoric:
3:7c, The Pharisees and Sadducees are called poisonous snakes
12:34a, The Pharisees are called evil poisonous snakes
15:3-9, Condemnation of the Pharisees for rejecting the commandments
15:12-14, The Pharisees are called blind guides leading the blind
16:6, Beware of the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees
19:3-9, The Pharisees are said to be hard-hearted
19:28, The disciples of Jesus will judge the twelve tribes of Israel
22:18c, The Pharisees are called hypocrites
23:13-36, The scribes and Pharisees are repeatedly vilified as hypocrites
23:38, The house of Jerusalem is to be forsaken and desolate
26:59-68, The chief priests and council condemn Jesus as deserving death
27:1-26, The people demand that Jesus, not Barabbas, be crucified
27:62-66, The chief priests and Pharisees request a guard at Jesus’ tomb
28:4, The guards tremble and become like dead when the angel appears
28:11-15, The chief priest bribe the guards to lie about their actions.
The Gospel According to Luke contains about 60 verses of defamatory anti-Jewish rhetoric:
3:7c, The multitudes are called poisonous snakes
4:28-30, The members of the synagogue in Nazareth try to kill Jesus
7:30, The Pharisees are said to have rejected the purposes of God
11:39-54, The Pharisees and Torah scholars are repeatedly condemned
12:1b, Beware of the yeast of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy
13:14-17, The ruler of the synagogue is condemned as a hypocrite
13:35a, The house of Jerusalem is to be forsaken
22:63-71, The chief priests and council condemn Jesus as deserving death
23:1-25, The people demand that Jesus, not Barabbas, be crucified.
The Gospel According to John contains about 130 verses of defamatory anti-Jewish rhetoric:
5:16-18, The Jews are said to have persecuted Jesus and wanted to kill him
5:37b-47, It is said that God’s word and God’s love is not in the Jews
7:19-24, It is said that none of the Jews do (what is written in) the Torah
7:28d, It is said that the Jews do not know the One who has sent Jesus
8:13-28, It is said that the Pharisees know neither Jesus nor the Father
8:37-59, The Jews are said to be descendants of their father, the Devil
9:13-41, The Pharisees and other Jews are condemned as guilty
10:8, The Jews are said to be thieves and robbers
10:10a, The Jews are depicted as those who steal and kill and destroy
10:31-39, The Jews are said to have picked up stones to throw at Jesus
11:53, It is said that the Jews realized that they would have to kill Jesus
11:57, It is said that the chief priests and Pharisees wanted to seize Jesus
12:10, It is said that the chief priests planned to kill Lazarus and Jesus
12:36b-43, It is said that most Jews loved the praise of men more than of God
16:2-4, (The Jews who) kill Jesus’ disciples will think they are serving God
18:28-32, The Jews are said to have demanded that Pilate sentence Jesus to death
18:38b-40, The Jews are said to be demanding that Jesus, not Barabbas, be crucified
19:4-16, The Jews are depicted as insisting to Pilate that Jesus be crucified.
The Acts of the Apostles has approximately 140 verses of defamatory anti-Jewish rhetoric:
2:23b, Peter tells the men of Israel that they crucified Jesus
2:36b, Again Peter tells the men of Israel that they crucified Jesus
3:13b-15a, Peter tells the men of Israel that they killed the originator of life
4:10a, Again Peter tells the men of Israel that they killed Jesus
5:30b, Peter tells the members of the Jewish council that they killed Jesus
6:11-14, Some Jews are said to have brought false accusations against Stephen
7:51-60, Stephen is shown as condemning the Jews for betraying and killing Jesus
9:1-2, Paul is depicted as planning the arrest of disciples of Jesus
9:23-25, Jews are said to have plotted to kill Paul
9:29b, Jewish Hellenists are also said to have tried to kill Paul
12:1-3a, It is said that the Jews were pleased when Herod killed James
12:3b-4, Herod is said to have seized Peter also to please the Jews
12:11, Peter is said to have realized that the Jews wanted to kill him
13:10-11, Paul is said to have condemned the Jew Elymas as a son of the Devil
13:28-29a, It is said that the Jews had asked Pilate to crucify Jesus
13:39d, It is said that Jews cannot be forgiven by means of the Torah
13:45-46, Jews are said to have spoken against Paul
13:50-51, Jews are said to have encouraged persecution of Paul and Barnabas
14:1-6, Many Jews opposing Paul and Barnabas and attempting to stone them
14:19-20, Jews are said to have stoned Paul, thinking that they had killed him
17:5-9, Jews are said to have incited a riot, looking for Paul and Silas
17:13, Jews are said to have stirred up turmoil against Paul
18:6, Paul said to have told the Jews, “Your blood will be on your own heads!”
18:12-17, Jews are said to have brought accusations against Paul
19:13-19, Jewish exorcists are shown to be condemned
21:27-36, Jews are depicted as seizing Paul and as trying to kill him
22:4-5, Paul says that when he was a Jew he had persecuted Christians
23:2-5, Paul is said to have condemned the chief priest for striking Paul
23:12-22, Jews are said to have plotted to eat nothing until they kill Paul
23:27-30, Paul is said to have been nearly killed by the Jews
24:9, The Jews are said to have accused Paul of many crimes
25:2-5, Jews are said to have plotted to kill Paul
25:7-11, Jews are said to have continued to bring accusations against Paul
25:15-21, Jews are said to have spoken repeatedly against Paul
25:24, All Jews are said to have shouted that Paul must be killed
26:21, The Jews are said to have seized Paul and tried to kill him
28:25-28, Paul is said to have condemned the Jews for never understanding God.
It seems clear to me that antisemitic attitudes were written into the NT from the beginning. The question generated from the OP is whether these attitudes were part of Nazi ideology, and this also seems clear to me.
Here, for instance, is an excerpt from the 24th principle of the Nazi party, from the Twenty Five Points (1920):
The Party represents a positive Christianity. Indeed. I can provide additional quotes, but can I ask why we are denying that the Nazis drew upon and used Christianity in their personal and political practice? What is to be gained by revising history in such a way?
These are rhetorical questions.
kairosfocus
Correct. On the subject of anti-semitism. Luther was, not at first, but finally, guilty; St Paul was innocent from beginning to end.
LarTanner:
You didn’t understand what either I or kf wrote, but I’m the idiot. Right.
You’re the one claiming the bible is anti-semitic, but I’m the IDiot. Right.
Let me tell you what is anti-semetic. Anti-semetic is encouraging ‘Jews’ to emigrate to Israel while believing that there is another future holocaust far worse than what took place in Germany (and elsewhere) coming in the near future that will center upon that area of the world and that it will be the fulfillment of Bible prophecy.
That’s anti-semetic, and that is (as far as I know) a uniquely ‘Christian’ belief. So why not focus yourself on that?
I can’t wait. Anti-Semitism does not come from the New Testament, it comes from people. It’s like your Anti-Christianity, which doesn’t come from a book, it comes from you.
But just for starters, will you be citing Jewish sources or Christian sources?
LarTanner:
Seriously? “It is said…”? “Are said to have…”?
It’s like your source doubts the authenticity of the accounts.
Does your source offer an opinion about the origin of each of these statements?
Oh boy, I think I’ve broken poor Mung….
LarTanner:
Of course.
LarTanner, you left one out:
LarTanner:
To be honest, I expected better from you. I should have known better.
Lar Tanner, in an attempt to escape refutation of his false charges of anti-semitism in the New Testament, hopes to fill cyberspace with so many unexamained passages that no one can respond to the sheer volume of it all. Well, not so fast.
In fact, not a single example qualifies. Rather than plunge in into the whole irrational mess, I will just take up a few examples:
This is hilarious. All the passages that have been cited here reflect history. It isn’t anti-semitic to report events as they happened. There is not a single rhetorical flourish in the bunch.
At this point, I will just take one from each group:
Well, duh, yeah, they were hypocrites. So said Jesus, who was JEWISH. Was Jesus, a Jew, an anti-semite.
Well, yes, of course, they did. As everyone knows, they plotted against Jesus and successfully arranged his death. You may recall (if you ever knew) that Pilate tried to find a way out and they wouldn’t give it to him.
Who do you think Jesus ran out of the temple for unethical trading–Babylonians? This is incredible.
By whom? Which anti-semite Jew wrote them in?
If the intent is to smear Christianity, facts hardly matter.
LarTanner:
Liar
John 10:1
Truly, truly, I say to you, he who does not enter by the door into the fold of the sheep, but climbs up some other way, he is a thief and a robber.
LT:
Pardon, but this starts out on the wrong foot.
First, Jewish scribal codices and manuscripts — often from Genizas of Synagogues — are routinely used by professional exegetes, and such certainly form the basis of modern English translation. Where of course a revolution in Biblical studies was triggered by the Dead Sea scrolls.
Second, the principal early “Christian translation” of the OT was not actually Christian. That is, the Septuagint dates to probably C2 – 3 BC.
Differences between MSS traditions and over interpretations are different from the claim you are making, two different books, with a fairly obvious subtext of, you Christians have twisted the text.
KF
PS: The rendering, “the Law” or “the law of Moses” does carry in English the specific meaning the Pentateuch and the specific instructions therein; and it is to be noted of course that in professional work, the readings are going to be directly in Hebrew in any case. and it is simple to get a link back to the Hebrew. For instance, pulling a freebie Bible Study package on Josh 1:7, I see the law of Moses referenced and linked through Strong’s numbers: “H8451 ??????? ??????? towrah (to-raw’) (or torah {to-raw’}) n-f. 1. a precept or statute, especially the Decalogue or Pentateuch [from H3384] KJV: law. Root(s): H3384
[?].” Precept of course means “1. A rule or principle prescribing a particular course of action or conduct.
2. Law An authorized direction or order; a writ” — AmHD. That’s a reasonable rendering by your own admission, accessible to any serious Bible reader in seconds. (In the old days, I would have had to pull the old hard bound Strong’s and go to the Hebrew Dictionary, 3 – 5 mins work.) Where also, the works of the Pentateuch are patently sufficiently shot through with specific laws in the regulatory sense to make that a reasonable metonymy; somewhat as Holland often stands in for Dutch Netherlands in English. Likewise, “the law is a teacher,” is proverbial. With all due respect, this seems to be a case of looking for a difference and pushing it beyond reasonable limits. Yes, there are 2,000 year long differences of opinion and views, but there is no good reason to infer or suggest systematic manipulative distortion, as your own prime example shows.
PPS: I guess we could expect WP to butcher Heb script.
LT:
Pardon, but this does not add up, especially given what was already cited from 2 Peter 3:15 ff above:
This is nonsense. As was already shown, the NT explicitly teaches the universal brotherhood of man, calls us to neighbour love, holds that per the Good Samaritan, neighbourliness extends across hereditary enmities, and explicitly warns gentile Christians against denigration of Jews. All of this was cited line by line from core ethical teachings.
Let me now re-cite from 60 above, Peter’s warning against scripture-twisting (which is put in terms that would take in OT and NT):
So, the NT affirms what should be obvious to common sense. People who are ignorant or willful can and do distort texts, and we unfortunately routinely ignore direct teachings to the contrary of our stubborn folly, rage or lust etc.
That this happens is not the fault of text or teacher whose words are in the text, but of those who are willful in ignorance or misbehaviour.
KF
LT:
I will take your very first example of alleged antisemitism and defamation as a case of a slice of cake with all the ingredients in it.
First, your assertion:
But by simply reading the context, we can directly see:
In short, Jesus here is held in high regard by many ordinary people, specifically including people from Galilee and Judaea — presumably largely Jews. But, he was held an enemy and schemed against by members of two power elite groups, Pharisees and Herodians.
When for instance Jeremiah the prophet had a falling out with the Jewish kings of Judaea after Josiah, was he viewed as an anti-semite? Was Elijah an anti-semite when he destroyed groups of king’s men who came after him on instruction of Northern kings?
Likewise, at the birth of the Hasmonean uprising, I read in 1 Macc:
Were these worthies who struck down a fellow Jew anti-semitic?
(And, what did Jesus say to Peter when at the arrest in the garden, he cut off the High Priest’s servant’s ear? How does what Jesus said resonate with the fate of 4 of 5 Hasmonean brothers in the above uprising? Does Jesus’ teaching provide grounds for Nazis to violently attack Jews, and others, or does it not warn rather against the path of the sword, much less that of aggressive war, murder and theft by those nmeans?)
I have no doubt that some have distorted that hostility of elites in Mk 3:6 — which seems to be accurate history not defamation — into a general perceived enmity of Jews, but that is hardly John Mark’s fault or that of Peter whose testimony Mark records.
The utterly strained, out of context nature of your citation does not commend your level of understanding of or familiarity with the NT, or that of the sources you seem to have used.
Frankly, this one comes across as a mischievous, ill-informed, out of context, hostile misreading that does not even seem to recognise a commonplace of history: elites often retaliate against those who speak unwelcome truth to them.
I think you need to go back and seriously think again about what led you to speak in terms of “Christianity” being responsible for Hitler’s behaviour.
KF
KF
Mung: you forget the part of being hunted and fished, ending up seeking refuge back in Eretz Israel. In short, before we get to what sounds suspiciously like a UN war against Israel, the signs suggest persecution with Israel as refuge, even as other prophecies speak of Christians serious about the gospel being hated of all nations and persecuted. Israel is a land of refuge, and in that context I beg to remind of shiploads of Jewish refugees that no-one was willing to take in in the context of WW II, though I should note the commendable behaviour of the Dominican Republic. as long s Haifa and Tel Aviv exist, and of course the upgraded Lod airport, that will not happen again. Given that history, I frankly support a well armed, alert state of Israel and use of the veto in the UNSC to block hate-driven actions. I also think the blind eye to Iran and its obvious agenda is inexcusable. (While we are at it let us remember why in ’56 and ’67 Israel had to fight with junkyard tanks and mostly second line French equipment, though the Mirage and the 105 mm tank gun are major exceptions to that. Remember, how they had to cut that 105 mm down to fit junkyard Shermans. I say this to the shame of the USA.) KF
Nicely stated, kairosfocus. I’d like to add a few points:
– Adolph Hitler did not want to fight against the Lutheran and Catholic traditions in Germany. He wanted to integrate the church into his program. However, Hitler would not tolerate independent leadership as demonstrated by his application of the Führerprinzip (leadership principle) to the church, and by his confrontation with Dietrich Bonhoeffer. For any of you who are interested, this history worth looking at in detail. Ultimately, Hitler was threatened enough to assert that Bonhoeffer was his “personal prisoner.” Bonhoeffer was imprisoned without further appeal, and was later hanged in a Nazi concentration camp shortly before the German surrender.
– Rabbi David Stern, a Messianic Jew, created the Complete Jewish Bible partly to rectify the antisemitism in some translations, and partly to use Jewish terminology, pronunciations, and context. That the majority of Herodian Jewish religious authorities were vehemently against the teachings, rebukes, and miracles of a certain Yeshua Ha’Nazaret who was widely considered the Mashiach of long-standing prophecy is hardly surprising and certainly not antisemitic. After all, the prophets in the Tanakh were also persecuted and killed.
– Even the Talmud, hardly considered antisemitic (lol) provides evidence of the miracles that occurred following the execution of Jesus. See http://www3.telus.net/public/k.....idence.htm for an excellent summary.
Q:
Pardon, but a few years back, Nuremberg papers documenting intended and partly carried out persecution of Christians remaining faithful, came out.
Of course, the Barmen Declaration from the 30’s, is also on that, as a counterblast to Nazi subversion of the church deemed a heresy.
KF
PS: FWIW, so long as countries like Jamaica and the like remain solidly Christian, Jews are more than welcome. Indeed Jews are the longest settled inhabitants of Jamaica save for the Spanish based Maroons, the Arawaks having partly died out and been assimilated. About 10% of Jamaicans reputedly have Jewish ancestry, reflected in names like Lindo, Henriques, DaCosta, DeSouza, DeLisser, Pinto etc. Sadly, so far as I know, I am not one — I have to settle for African, Indian, Scottish and Irish (and behind, Belgian). My Jewish Mom and bro are honorary.
Here’s antoher one missed by LT’s source(s):
By the way, the New Testament is not anti-semitic, it is anti-apostacy. There’s a difference. Not that LarTanner would have a clue. how does he justify his decision to cherry-pick from the NT and ignore the Old Testament?
Zechariah 13:
7 “Awake, O sword, against My Shepherd,
Against the Man who is My Companion,”
Says the Lord of hosts.
“Strike the Shepherd,
And the sheep will be scattered;
Then I will turn My hand against the little ones.
8 And it shall come to pass in all the land,”
Says the Lord,
“That two-thirds in it shall be cut off and die,
But one–third shall be left in it:
9 I will bring the one–third through the fire,
Will refine them as silver is refined,
And test them as gold is tested.
They will call on My name,
And I will answer them.
I will say, ‘This is My people’;
And each one will say, ‘The Lord is my God.’”
Past or future?
“Christian Jew” is either redundant or an oxymoron, depending on how you’re using the terms.
I don’t care to get into a discussion about who is or is not a Jew. Even ‘Jews’ can’t agree on it. LarTanner says I’m an IDiot for my post #55 but fails to recognize the allusions in it, so who’s the real idiot?
kf highlights some of the issues involved
Is it a matter of birth? Is it the mother, the father, or both? Is it a matter of religion? Some combination of birth and/or religion? In what sense is modern Israel even a Jewish state?
How did Hitler’s followers decide who was a Jew?
I’m more interested in claims that the modern state of Israel exists as a consequence of the fulfillment of Bible prophecy. This is just pure bunk.
Yes, kairosfocus, the Confessing Church movement resisted Nazi control over the German Christianity. The German church was split as a result, with the compromising church willing to embrace Hitler and comform to Nazi doctrines.
From our position of historical perspective and relative safety, it’s easy to distain the cowardice of the compromising church, but within context, one can see the pressure put on the church leaders. Oddly, the threat of losing ones retirement benefits was a more effective weapon against the German clergy than arrest and incarceration.
And be sure to check out this link regarding the temple: http://www3.telus.net/public/k.....idence.htm.
Mung,
Yes, there are different interpretations, but the one that I ascribe to refers to a community of faith beginning with incluing pre-Jewish Abel, Abram, and non-Jewish Ruth, Rahab, and many others. The founding believers in Jerusalem were overwhelmingly Jewish. For years after Jesus rose from the dead, “Christianity” was almost exclusively a Jewish sect. According to the Bible, by faith, I’ve been grafted into this root of faith.
It was a decision based purely on race, not creed.
I’m anti-racism. There is no “Jewish race.” There is no “white race.” There is no “Aryan race.”
Querius: It was a decision based purely on race.
How so? There’s a racial test for “Jewishness”?
kairosfocus:
Yes, I’m well aware of this school of thought, and it is this school of thought that is wrong and anti-christian at it’s core.
The authors of the New Testament clearly place “the end of days” in their own time. They also clearly interpret Zechariah 12 as being fulfilled in their own time.
As for a “second exile” that is highly debatable. I assume the first exile was the Babylonian exile.
The first challenge that your assertion presents is to identify the Old Testament passages that refer to a second exile. If they do not describe a second exile, how is it to be believed that they describe a return from a second exile?
The second challenge that your assertion presents is how to tease apart those passages in the Old Testament that refer to the “first return from exile” from the “second return from exile.”
The third challenge your assertion presents is to examine these passages and how they are interpreted in the New Testament.
kairosfocus:
Rejecting the characterization of “instead,” you mean like the authors of the New Testament?
Would you likewise say that they took the prophetic texts and applied them “instead” to the Messiah?
Take this text, for example:
Leafing through responses to my comment #64:
72, Mung: Point is?
73, StephenB: Extreme naivete: “All the passages that have been cited here reflect history. It isn’t anti-semitic to report events as they happened. There is not a single rhetorical flourish in the bunch.”
74, Mung: This is just ear-plugging to drown out the unpleasant sound.
75, Mung: Did you actually read 10:8?
76, KF: The subtext you ascribe to me is explicitly not a point I am making. Everything before your charge is tangential piffle.
77, KF: Another distraction.
79, KF: A predictable, and predicted, argument. For centuries, people found that the gospels, etc. validated their anti-Jewish sentiment, and this is still the history. I understand that you believe that we now finally have the “common sense” Christianity formulated rightly. Better late than never, I guess.
80, KF: Another predictable, and predicted, argument. KF, tell me in a simple yes or no: have people found in the NT support for anti-Jewish feeling?
84, Mung: That Revelations quote certainly does qualify, thanks much. I have discussed the OT already in this thread. My position on it should be clear: it is the result of a certain approach to the Hebrew Bible; the Hebrew Scriptures are another approach. The Hebrew Bible, incidentally, is also the result of an approach. The Hebrew Bible predates both what I am calling the Christian OT and the Hebrew Scriptures, yet it represents a certain way of looking at ancient Israel’s library of texts.
But back to the matter at hand. You all asked me to back up my claims, and I have done so. You dislike the back-up, and I certainly understand why, but please let it never be said that I did not include examples to support my position. I imagine Barry and others are preparing their apologies to me now.
I also notice you all have failed to address the specific quote I included at the end of comment 64. Any thoughts on it?
LT, do you personally hold that it is the “Christian” thing to do to be an anti-Semite or a racist in any regards? I personally, as a Christian who was miraculously touched by the grace of God at a low point in my life, find this racist/anti-semite claim of yours to be a very peculiar claim for someone to make against Christianity. Although I’m becoming less surprised by the outrageous claims of atheists nowadays since I’ve found that many dogmatic atheists will make any and all claims they can possibly imagine, no matter how ludicrous, simply to deny the reality of God and Jesus Christ in particular. For instance, Hitchens’s claim that Mother Teresa was a fraudulent fanatic (and those are the nice things he said about her). I’ve found, over and over, that atheists, though claiming to be ‘rational’, are the most irrational people that there are. Moreover Jesus’s own life testifies to the contrary. For instance,,,
I simply cannot fathom where someone would get that it is OK to hate and kill your neighbors (‘if’ they are Jews) from Jesus’s teachings. If anything Jesus’s life, and teaching for us, is a example of self sacrifice to the point of death if need be in the service of love for our fellow man.
Verse and Music:
Rewriting Jesus – Inspirational Videos
http://www.godtube.com/watch/?v=FM2F0JNU
LT: You are clearly not listening. I now simply summarise for record that the very first example you chose Mk 3:6, shows that you and your sources have indulged the same out of context misinterpretation that 2 Peter 3:15 ff speaks to in solemn warning. That Jesus, like leading members of the Hebraic prophetic tradition, had differences with elites who plotted against him is utterly unsurprising and simply not evidence of antisemitism or fomenting of same. At the same time, from the outset, it is quite clear that the core NT teachings on ethics and on the brotherhood/ neighbourliness of man (I notice, you have never seriously responded to these) — directly derived from the Hebraic tradition cited as scripture — cut clean across the racism, aggression, murder and theft involved in Nazi aggression. That’s before we get to the clear spirit of false and idolatrous political messianism and blasphemy manifest in Hitler, exposing Nazism as utterly anti-Christ, not Christian. I therefore suggest, with all respect, that you seriously need to review and revise tour views and tone. KF
Mung:
Pardon, but I think you should take a look here on, with an eye to the principles of prophetic foreshortening, multiple [including partial] fulfillment due to the “history repeats or echoes itself” effect, veiling and ultimate completion of history.
I think you also overlook the issue of mounting global hostility, the hunters and the fishers that lead to Israel as centre of refuge and protection in parallel with global eschatological hostility to the Judaeo-Christian tradition manifesting in a globally suicidal tribulation that would threaten to wipe out not only Jews and Christians but humanity “except those days be shortened.”
That is, with Israel there, and well armed and supported by decent people and nations everywhere, we will not again see the sad spectacle of Jewish refugees with nowhere to go. And of course, decent people everywhere will welcome refugees, Jewish or otherwise; as the Dominican Republic shamed the world over in the days of Hitler. (And do I need to note how Israel took in Vietnamese boat people?) Sadly, the time envisioned in Zechariah is one where such decency will have been globally defeated, manifestly that of the eschatological son of perdition.
I note also this direct allusion to Zech 12 (and to Daniel 7:9 – 14 as well as Ac 1:1 – 9 and Mt 24) in Rev 1 (which is discussed in the linked):
Also, cf the very text on which Jesus was accused of blasphemy in that night court of Sanhedrinists:
Plainly, this has not been fulfilled in history to date, but we have from Ac 17:29 ff assurance that the resurrection as witnessed by 500+ is a substance of things hoped for and evidence of what we do not yet see.
In that context, I clip the referenced notes:
I hope it is sufficiently clear why a pre-mill theological view is not inherently anti-semitic, nor other significant views for that matter, in light of the clear scriptural teachings on neighbour love, harmlessness, the brotherhood of humanity and explicit proscriptions on hate, envy, selfish ambition, theft and murder etc. All of which, of course, Nazism wantonly disregarded.
At this stage, it seems that all that can reasonably be done in a blog thread that has drifted far from the proper focus, is to speak for record, trusting to the decency of onlookers to see in light of what can be outlined in a blog thread, that the charges made are ill founded.
And of course now that we have sufficiently addressed red herrings and ad hominem laced strawmen, it should be well worth noting that no-one has been able to substantially undermine the evidence above that Darwinism and linked social darwinism were material influences on Hitler and nazism.
That needs to be squarely faced, not distracted from through toxic side tracks.
KF
PS: Following up on a note above, loss of pension etc as controlled by the state is of course a threat of impoverishment in old age in a context where one could literally freeze to death. We should take this as a warning on state control of major benefit funds. Financial control, direct or indirect, is control; and, in the hands of the ruthless can be devastating — in some ways worse than imprisonment as the effects are subtle. I wonder if we are willing to learn this lesson from history? Or, do we imagine that the lords of the state will always be oh so benevolent and just?
PPS: I should note that, strictly, the whole concept of messiah and the spreading of good news to the nations in the power of the poured out Spirit — “in the last days says God, will I pour out my Spirit on all flesh . . . ” — is eschatological. I would actually argue that from the days of Daniel in which the prophetic 70 7’s clock was set a ticking, the Last Days have been at least in gestation. The time of culmination is the time of birth pangs of increasing frequency, not that of beginnings. And I should stress THE primary sign of the end from Matt 24: “14 And this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.” Yes, there are waves of accelerating distress, but those are the side effects on which the counsel is to see to it that we be not distracted, deluded, intimidated or paralysed by fear. The main thing is the gospel and sound evangelisation including discipleship and the prophetic call to the nations to repentance, renewal, revival and reformation. Those who refuse to heed such may well turn on us in rage, hate and violence backed up by abuse of state power, but that is their fault. Our main job remains: the truth, in love, to all nations.
Querius at 87, this may interest you:
Who Am I? Bonhoeffer as a Historical Mentor in Prayer: Part 2
http://blog.emergingscholars.o.....er-part-2/
LT @64,
If you were going to bother posting this list of “anti-semitic” Bible verses from the NT, you could have helped your cause greatly by at least making the first one pass the ROFL test. I didn’t read any further.
Brent @99:
With you on that one. What a joke.
The whole list seems to have been prepared by someone without a clue as to what the NT is about or who wrote it.
KF at 95,
I am listening.
You claim that in its proper context, Mk 3:6, which you offer as an illustrative example, does not constitute defamatory rhetoric against the Jews.
Yet look at what you yourself say in comment 80:
Yes, “ome have distorted that hostility of elites in Mk 3:6” and in other verses too.
Regardless of what you or I think about the NT, the historical fact is that it has (in some times and places) been used just as I said it has — to validate and support anti-Jewish enmity.
So I understand that you want to declare again and again that Nazism goes against the grain of Christianity. It may go against the grain of your understanding of Christianity, yet others have found it going with the grain of their Christianity.
On the other hand, you want to ensure that Darwin’s theory of life’s evolution on earth is seen as itself containing an endorsement of Nazism. So, in the case of evolution, the Nazis didn’t distort science; but in the case of Christianity, they did. That’s Barry’s argument, too.
What you seem not to want to accept is that the Nazis did use Christianity just as they used the science of the day.
Brent and Eric, I guess a doctorate from Princeton Theological Seminary doesn’t qualify one of my main sources for the list. I’ll tell the old professor that two randoms on the internet think he doesn’t know the NT. He’ll be crushed, I’m sure.
LT,
Eric and I agree on one thing, but not on something else. I do think the person, or persons, who made the list does know what the NT is about, and even Who wrote it; and that’s the real reason for the list. Being full of knowledge and being wise are two different things. Whoever made the list is an idiot (and I’m not talking about Mung, who apparently is ten years old, did you know?).
SB: All the passages that have been cited here reflect history. It isn’t anti-semitic to report events as they happened. There is not a single rhetorical flourish in the bunch.
LT:
Is that supposed to answer the point. The four gospels are historical accounts of real events. If you want to deny the point, you need to provide some kind of rationale, such as the argument that the apostles made it all up or that someone else wrote those passages. Tell us why you think that the simple act of reporting constitutes anti-semitism.
You simply copied and pasted reports in which Jesus or one of the apostles criticized the Pharisees or Chief priests and then tried to pass it off as anti-semitism.
Lar Tanner
Oh, you mean this?
Obviously, you do not know what Hitler and the Nazi’s meant by “positive Christianity.”
Do you have any other passages that you would like to explore?
StephenB,
I was not going to respond any more in the thread. The issues have been laid out well enough.
But this is completely wrongheaded on your part:
No, that’s not what’s happening at all.
Really, do try and be more critical. Maybe try imagining what it’s like to be a Jew and to read the NT. At any rate, you don’t need to be so defensive.
Besides, the main objective behind everything I’ve discussed has been to suggest that Nazis and Nazism applied their own versions of both Christianity and ToE in building their ideology. They drew from many wells. You can’t responsibly lay the Nazis at Darwin’s feet –it’s not fair or right in any case — and not do the same for Christianity.
LT:
Pardon, but the matter is quite plain, and not in your favour or that of the sources you used.
Whether one looks in OT — I cited Jeremiah — or NT, you will find clashes between elites and those who made prophetic or social critiques of the sort of things elites too often fall into. These are reports of incidents and are all within Judaism.
The NT Gospels fall well within that pattern.
The NT also explicitly sets core moral principles that cut across racist prejudice of all types.
That — as the NT warns against! — some would come along and wrench principles and cases out of context has little to do with the core teachings or examples. That is obvious, too.
Unfortunately, SB is manifestly right, you are acting as though any critique of a Jewish leader is an expression of racist hatred of Jews. Sorry, that is so outlandish that it simply will not wash.
For instance, there are some very questionable incidents due to the action of modern Israeli leaders (try the things that led to massacres in camps in Lebanon) and individuals like was it Baruch Goldstein. If I were to criticise such leaders or individuals for their actions, it would not be reasonable to deem that anti-semitism.
Likewise, I disagree with you in how you have handled the NT text and how you have tried to denigrate the OT, for cause. That does not make me antisemitic. (My honorary Jewish mom and bro would shake their heads at such a notion.)
Frankly, at this point you are coming across like the foolishly blind supporters of Mr Obama who seem to imagine that any criticism of their leader must be motivated by racism.
Sorry, it does not work that way.
When it comes to Nazism and several other movements of that era, it is an easily shown historical fact that Darwinism, Social Darwinism, eugenics and the like were very important influences that had in them serious moral hazards. Nazism was an extreme case, but — save to one who wishes to turn Darwinism into a holy cow — the lines of influence are plain.
We need to face those influences and make reforms that make it unlikely that similar problems will crop up again; and that extends across the whole domain of ethics of sci and tech. (Physics, let us never forget, was responsible for nuke weapons. Chemistry, for Chem weapons, and so forth.)
Just as our civilisation as a whole needs to face its historic sins and address them. Don’t forget, I come from and live in a region whose history is shaped by 500 years of Western expansionism and oppression.
It is time to face facts, and do something positive about them.
KF
LT: you state:
when StephenB stated the obvious:
Maybe you should take your own advice and try to be a bit more critical? Why should a Jewish person be upset that Jesus’s main enemies were the religious leaders of his day? Indeed they were the ones who orchestrated his crucifixion! Clearly Jesus was castigating those who thought they had God all figured out, but, in reality, because of their lust for power, had missed God in the flesh, Jesus their Messiah, altogether.
LT, for you to (purposely?) fail to make this important distinction between self serving religious leaders, and the Jewish people as a whole, is what is truly ‘not fair or right in any case’. Simply inexcusable for someone claiming to be reasonable!
PS: Pardon me for being direct, but — on the strength of the above — you come across as never having read the NT in any meaningful sense. Rather, you come across (remember, I come from a country where the same NT and OT were instruments of liberation in the hands of men like Liele and Knibb, Equiano, Wilberforce and Buxton, etc.) as having come to it with a chip on the shoulder looking for any trigger to unleash a seething anger. Yes, there is an obvious 2,000 year old theological dispute over messiah, with Isa 52 – 53 as the epicentre, which is not going to be settled until the event of Zech 12:10. Yes, there is a pretty sordid record of elite misbehaviour in both the NT and the OT, but that is par for the course of history: power tends to corrupt, absolute power corrupts absolutely. Yes, adherents of the Christian faith — despite the scripture and obvious ethical principles to the contrary — did some awful crimes that still have consequences. (On the history, Hitler was not one of these, he seems to have been neo-pagan- skeptical but perfectly willing to manipulate ill informed Christian people and gaol men like Niemoller or the like who objected, and he cut off the heads of the White Rose martyrs who exposed his evil in the name of God.) But none of that justifies your attempt above to indict the NT, imply willfully deceptive conspiracy to distort the OT, and pretend that Christianity — which on a reasonable understanding involves the core faith and its foundations — is antisemitic and responsible for Hitler’s behaviour. I strongly suggest you rethink.
F/N: I think I need to underscore the response I made at 2 to this, from LT at 1 above:
On seeing such, I noted:
__________
>> 2 kairosfocus November 1, 2013 at 11:29 am
LT, From your choice of words, you evidently want to indict the Christian faith in general for Nazism.
May I therefore beg to remind you of the key relevant foundational Christian ethical teachings?
In short, all men per creation from a common ancestor are held to be brothers and sisters, and we are4 reminded that in loving neighbour as self, we ought not to harm that neighbour, where the Good Samaritan is forever the standard of neighbourliness.
Whatever evils Hitler may have imbibed (whether via church leaders or otherwise), he did not gain this from the core moral teaching of the Christian faith. Where, that core moral teaching — which holds authority over any given Church leader past or present — has been repeatedly publicly taught, documented knowledge for the better part of 2,000 years. >>
___________
It seems to me that such teachings have been record for nigh on 2,000 years, building on the Hebraic tradition that goes back many centuries beyond.
No reasonable person can deny that these are in fact core Christian ethical teachings, echoing Jesus’ remarks in the Sermon on the Mount and the parable of the Good Samaritan, and more.
It is quite obvious that those core teachings simply cannot be made in any wise compatible with the principles and practice of Hitler’s Nazism. Indeed, had they been heeded, Nazism would have got nowhere.
Those are patent facts, and the remarks Peter made in warning against scripture-twisting and its perils are also facts.
Yes, there have been adherents of Christian beliefs who have failed to live up to them, sometimes horribly.
But it is not proper to equate distortion and disobedience — a challenge not exactly unknown in the accounts of the OT prophets — with easily shown core teachings and standards as though the distortion has the same validity as that which rebukes it.
I think it is reasonable to expect you to be able to make that distinction, as simply an educated person.
Kindly do so in future.
KF
SB: You simply copied and pasted reports in which Jesus or one of the apostles criticized the Pharisees or Chief priests and then tried to pass it off as anti-semitism.
Lar Tanner
You provided a list of passages with no other explanation, as if the anti-semitism speaks for itself. It doesn’t. You have yet to make your case. That is going to be difficult since there is no case to make.
Thank you for the link, bornagain77. Be sure to look at http://www3.telus.net/public/k.....idence.htm.
And the only thing I’d add to the apparently futile attempt to educate LarTanner is that once people have made up their minds, especially in ignorance of the Tanakh and the B’rit Chadashah, and the experience of an encounter with God’s son, Yeshua HaMachiach, and who make the mistake of depending on the opinions of some ideologically contaminated academics, there is little hope that they would tear themselves away from the opinions they hold dear in spite of our testimony of a powerful, shared, life-changing experience with the love of God.
LarTanner, using an appeal-to-authority argument sarcastically wrote:
Yes, it will indeed be exactly as you said: a bitter old professor certainly will be crushed by the glory and love of the living God, before which everyone will eventually stand alone to answer for their willful selfishness and pride.
Oh, and I’d be delighted to be called a “random” or anything else along with my brothers and sisters here!
– Q
Q:
It seems that part of this is that those who abuse authority as teachers have a lot to answer for.
Indeed, I note that James 3 — though it applies to the matter of gossip, slander, over-talking, imprudent speech, foolish talk and jesting etc — is actually primarily and focally addressed to the responsibility of the teacher:
Too often, those in the seat of the educator, fail this test.
The actual textual evidence such as Mark 3:6 in context, prevails over all systems and schemes, certifications and credentials, or Councils. Which was of course the point of much of the protestant reformation. (A point Luther, who came in for knocks above, got right.)
KF
Querius,
Amen Brother! It is extremely funny for me to see atheists trying to prove God does not exist to people who know for a fact that He does exist because they have had a spiritual experience of and from Him.
As to the ‘bitter old professor’, I think you may find this trailer of a forthcoming movie interesting:
==============
Of related note:
The most radical, outrageous, claim of the Bible? That God, the creator of the universe, can be known personally by each of us!
There are millions upon millions of people in the world, including myself, who have personally experienced a miraculous touch from Jesus Christ in their lives when they have called on Him. Here is one such story in this following video (starting at the 6:40 minute mark):
KF,
Whether it’s harassing Christians, or promoting their own opinions, professors need to make an ethical distinction between a podium and a pulpit. This includes using their position of authority to intimidate students with tactics such as deep sighs, looking up, eye-rolling, and head-shaking to mock a student’s beliefs. I believe every educator should be required to watch the films, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, and Stand Up and Deliver.
BA77,
Thanks for the links. How many Freshmen are equipped and mature enough to firmly but politely stand up against professors who abuse their position of authority? This is tough for even an adult to do, plus the professor always has the last word.
One thing that would help is public debates between faculty members (these debates do not necessarily need to be on religious or political topics). Debates would tend to force professors to treat opposing views with a little more respect, and it would demonstrate to students that professors can and do vehemently disagree with each other. This would be a Good Thing in my opinion. It would help everyone to practice critical thinking, and not just accept whatever a professor says.
Of course, the problem remains that many universities lack diversity of world views . . .
-Q
Q:
Abuse of power and intimidation are academic bullying, period.
There should be academic ethics standards about such.
(Sometimes there are, but who will bell the cat? [BA77’s movie trailer is about that. I now think we should give supplementary, parallel education to equip and support those who have to face the sort of atmosphere to be found too often on the college campus.])
I think on matters of real controversy, there should be open debates and panels, or better yet, both. A debate, responded to by a panel, with comments then questions and then opened to the floor. But, such works only if there is willingness to admit that informed and serious people hold diverse views. The ad hominem laced strawmsn caricature stereotyping –> scapegoating and branding with a scarlet letter –> no true scotsman put-down game is all too common, and underlies Dawkins’ outrageously sophomoric dismmissals: ignorant, stupid, insane or wicked.
Unfortunately too much of the above from LT reeks of this attitude, and I don’t think he recognises how unnecessarily polarising and off-putting his behaviour is.
(Ironically, today, Jews have ONE serious ally in the battles over world opinion, Bible-believing serious Christians; a point recognised by at least some key political and religious leaders; e.g. I think Mr Netanyahu does, whatever one may think of him in general. Yes, there are longstanding theological debates, such as on Isa 52 – 53 and “according to the scriptures” in 1 Cor 15:1 – 11. But, that does not excuse the blunder of projecting patently false accusations of antisemitism against the NT (with the similar insinuations that the OT in the vernacular is a case of dishonest translation of the Heb text . . . ) and pretending that the core ethical teachings and warnings against scripture-twisting, taken seriously, are not corrective. Yes, adherents of Christianity have done serious wrong, but — regrettably — realistically when it comes to movements that are broad and long enduring, that is to be expected: wheat and tares, cf. what the OT prophets had to say. A little discernment of one’s true friends would go a long way. As someone who comes from a history of oppression and injustice amounting to now acknowledged crimes against humanity that was sustained for centuries, and who learned the difference between wheat and tares, sheep and wolves in sheep’s clothing . . . or shepherd’s clothing, I think I have a right to say this without being unnecessarily saddled with ill-grounded accusations and suspicions that have little or no bearing on actual merits.)
As for the Princeton prof-random commenter on the web attitude, that is a capital example of intellectual malpractice.
Above, I showed — by dint of simply citing context in a credible translation — that the very first example of alleged antisemitic defamation in Mark, from 3:6 is nothing of the sort; in a context where one slice of the cake has in it all the ingredients.
Yes, there is a clash with ruling elites and pointing to hypocrisy and dirty politics that came to a climax one certain Friday outside Jerusalem on a cross — that was Friday, but Sunday was coming . . . — where, at the same time, we see the common people of Galilee, Judaea (and even Jerusalem!) flocking to this new, refreshing . . . and patently, Jewish . . . voice. A pattern that should be instantly familiar from the careers of OT prophets, and which should be very familiar from the force of the saying on speaking unwelcome truth to power.
If LT had the substance on the merits, it would have been easy for him to demolish my remarks from the context. For, there would have been facts and reasoning on facts to show defamation. Blanket demands to submit to the pronouncements of an un-named professor, without even outlining reasons simply disrespects our ability to reason. And to pretend that the fact not in dispute — that some have twisted cases like this in support of an existing attitude — does not suddenly confer on such equal warrant to what can be seen on a reasonable, generally informed common sense based reading. (Do I need to highlight that such texts on how elites, pagan and jewish alike abuse power and on the prophet’s duty to speak unwelcome reforming truth to such have given backbone to more than one voice? Do I need to explicitly point to Ezekiel 33 on this? Do I need to elaborate on the similar force of “that was Friday?”)
There is need to move on beyond the sort of sophomoric exercise in out of context twisted proof texting that LT unfortunately indulged above.
I don’t know if he is lurking, but it is necessary to speak here for record.
KF
BA77: The trailer is eye-opening. KF
If LT wanted to make a case against the the Darwin-Hitler connection, he ought to have approached it this way.
“No, the most profound influences on Hitler were Machiavelli and Nietzsche, both of whom were bed-time reading for the Fuhrer. The former taught him how to say one thing when he means another and the latter taught him to hate God. There was no bible reading during that formation period.”
Now I could meet that objection, but at least it would be based on a reasonable and a rational argument. It would have some substance and basis in fact. It would reflect Hitler’s true intellectual orientation and it would explain his behavior.
This:
Who have I scapegoated?
Have I branded Christianity as responsible for Nazism? No. Have I said that Christianity leads to Nazism? No.
Have I said that the New Testament is antisemitic? No.
Have I said that Nazi ideology used Christianity? Yes.
Have I said that Nazi ideology used scientific theories, practices and ideas, including the theory of evolution? Yes.
Have I said that historically, Christian antisemitism has drawn upon the New Testament for scriptural justification for hostility toward Jews? Yes.
I admit having a hard time seeing any of these positions above as controversial, but you all think the purpose of my earlier list of defamatory statements was an attempt to call the NT antisemitic. It wasn’t such an attempt but was rather — in addition to being my response to a call for examples/back-up — an illustration of the sources (the SOURCES) of Jewish stereotypes and suspicions.
On the other hand, many Jewish people will be uncomfortable reading John and Acts. I think such discomfort is warranted. I also don’t particularly like the depictions represented by Shylock or Fagin.
But, lest I be accused again of having little understanding or appreciation of the NT — which may be true, although I have read it many times in a few different languages — I will review my new purchase of the Jewish Annotated New Testament and post my commentaries of each book.
LarTanner,
To be fair, also look at the Complete Jewish Bible by (Messianic) Rabbi David Stern. There are some outstanding additional sections in it that explain what he did and why. Stern also published his own commentary in a separate book.
One “hot button” for Stern is references by Rabbi Saul/Paul to “the Law.” Paul is an expert on Torah, and not denigrating it. Stern translates this as “the legalistic misapplication of the Law” instead.
And many Jewish people are also uncomfortable reading Isaiah 53, Psalm 22, Zechariah 12, and Daniel 9 (in which the Messiah’s arrival is precisely predicted along with the fact that he will be killed, followed by the destruction of the temple).
Other Jewish people and many Gentiles have made the decision to accept Jesus as the promised Messiah, and as God’s sacrifice for their (and your) sins!
Christians who are familiar with the Bible recognize that God will never ever forget the Jewish people, and will give them extra honor for their suffering in maintaining the integrity of the Tanakh. They remember from the scriptures that anyone who harasses the Jews is putting their finger in God’s eye!
Give it a chance.
LT:
Pardon, but you first need to distinguish a general problem in our increasingly polarised era that also is creeping into the College campus, for which I suggested a particular debate format with a panel of expert responders — one I have successfully used — and the particular issue for this thread. I did so in the direct context above of a BA77 link to a movie trailer on a professor abusing his authority as a teacher to intimidate students regarding his attempt to preach atheism in the name of philosophy. This is fictional, but it is notorious that the problem is real, and in fact resulted in a known case of suicide some years ago in the context of using Atheistical literature as reference material.
So, too, while I note your list of bland denials above, I must secondly remind you of your list of alleged blatant cases of antisemitism in the NT in 64 above, beginning with this claim about Mark, which I responded to on the first alleged case of “defamat[ion]” in Mk 3:6, at 80 above on the one slice of the cake principle:
Defamation is a very strong and specific word, which is specifically coloured in this context by the existence of a group known as the Anti Defamation League of B’nai B’rith which has a specific remit regarding antisemitism. So the language you used is loaded and has very direct implications, further multiplied by the context of the rise of Hitler.
However, as the linked at 76 directly shows, this example, read in context, in fact simply shows that — as the OT prophets before him — Jesus confronted elites with their questionable conduct, and also that he drew a significant following from the common people of Galilee, Judaea (and even Jerusalem). As SB corrected you, it is improper to convert such speaking truth to power conflicts with elites — a common part of the prophetic role — into an accusation of defamation and antisemitism.
Third, I have to again remind you of the original exchange when I saw your (successful) diversionary attempt at 1, which taxed “Christianity” as being a significant contributing factor to Hitler’s conduct. Let me again clip, reproducing 110 above 9which you side stepped as though it were not there):
========
>>> I think I need to underscore the response I made at 2 to this, from LT at 1 above:
On seeing such, I noted:
__________
>> 2 kairosfocus November 1, 2013 at 11:29 am
LT, From your choice of words, you evidently want to indict the Christian faith in general for Nazism.
May I therefore beg to remind you of the key relevant foundational Christian ethical teachings?
In short, all men per creation from a common ancestor are held to be brothers and sisters, and we are4 reminded that in loving neighbour as self, we ought not to harm that neighbour, where the Good Samaritan is forever the standard of neighbourliness.
Whatever evils Hitler may have imbibed (whether via church leaders or otherwise), he did not gain this from the core moral teaching of the Christian faith. Where, that core moral teaching — which holds authority over any given Church leader past or present — has been repeatedly publicly taught, documented knowledge for the better part of 2,000 years. >>
___________
It seems to me that such teachings have been record for nigh on 2,000 years, building on the Hebraic tradition that goes back many centuries beyond.
No reasonable person can deny that these are in fact core Christian ethical teachings, echoing Jesus’ remarks in the Sermon on the Mount and the parable of the Good Samaritan, and more.
It is quite obvious that those core teachings simply cannot be made in any wise compatible with the principles and practice of Hitler’s Nazism. Indeed, had they been heeded, Nazism would have got nowhere.
Those are patent facts, and the remarks Peter made in warning against scripture-twisting and its perils are also facts.
Yes, there have been adherents of Christian beliefs who have failed to live up to them, sometimes horribly.
But it is not proper to equate distortion and disobedience — a challenge not exactly unknown in the accounts of the OT prophets — with easily shown core teachings and standards as though the distortion has the same validity as that which rebukes it.
I think it is reasonable to expect you to be able to make that distinction, as simply an educated person.
Kindly do so in future. >>>
========
In that light bland denials multiplied by rewriting concessions as though they were corrections does your credibility no good.
I trust that in future, you will acknowledge the concerns we have had to highlight above.
And one hopes that, even belatedly, this discussion can now actually address historical facts Weikart has brought to the table through this recent paper. His abstract, for instance summarises:
He goes on to summarise his facts:
Now, are these claimed facts so, and does Weikart substantiate reasonably?
That, would seem to be a profitable onward focus.
KF
F/N: The following clip, regarding Hitler’s remarks in Mein Kampf which have been cited here at UD several times, seems a good place to begin:
************
>> Evolution plays a central role in the chapter in Mein Kampf on “Nation and Race,” which was the only chapter published as a separate pamphlet, thus circulating widely to promote Nazi ideology. 19 In that chapter Hitler explains why he thinks racial mixing violates evolutionary principles:
A few lines later he continues:
Thus, Hitler opposed miscegenation because it hindered evolutionary progress, which for him was the highest good. Since the whole point of this passage is to apply these principles to human racial relations, it is apparent that Hitler believed that humans had evolved and were still evolving. Hitler’s racial policy aimed at advancing human evolution. >>
************
This seems a reasonable rendering and seems to provide a first level of warrant: a foundational book, from the sole chief leader of the party, separately published and widely disseminated to inculcate the ideology.
In the bits Weikart does not specifically cite, Hitler goes on to create a rationale for predatory conduct and for dehumanising intended targets of aggression as inferior prey beneath empathy or concern.
So, it seems there is substantial reason to be concerned on worldview implications, associations and influences of Darwinist thought, with this as a significant case study. Unpleasant and uncomfortable though it must be.
But then, on such matters, I am of the declared opinion that we are only fitted for responsible roles in a world that presents major challenges if our hearts have lurched, deeply wounded.
(And my example is the tragic and ambiguous figure, then Gen Petain, standing by the roadside at the Sacred Way, watching young men he is forced to send off into the face of a battle of attrition, throwing away a division every several days to buy time and space for the needed defences. Where his promotion had been retarded pre-war because he emphasised, against the tide, the need for the very defensive focus that was not there. And now he was responsible for a good part of the butcher’s bill to be paid. [With the fore-shadows of where he would be in the aftermath of defeat in 1940 already dimly looming.])
History is painful, awfully painful, but we neglect its hard-bought lessons at our peril.
KF
Q: I put down a few thoughts on Is 52 – 53 here and here on. It is interesting in the context of the “according to the scriptures” in 1 Cor 15:1 – 11, c AD 55. KF
Thanks, KF. There are so many facets to all of this—the Bible never ceases to astonish me!
It’s not widely known that in the US, there were anti-miscegenation laws on the books until the US Supreme Court overturned them in 1967.
Those who opposed inter-racial marriage on some vague religious arguments probably never read in the Bible what happened to Aaron’s sister who used the opportunity of Moses marrying a black woman as a reason to undermine his leadership. Yes, it’s there. God’s response is pointed an ironic!
Q: Indeed, the exemplary judgement — mercifully brief — was a sharp lesson that had it been heeded would have done much to correct racial prejudices. On balance, the evidence is, that scripture-twisting (often by Bible verse hopscotch that conveniently leaves out context and relevantly parallel cases providing key balances) that tickles itching ears with what they want to hear is far easier to indulge, than we may think. And soundness that cuts across what people wish to believe may well face what happened to Paul in Ac 17: prejudice-driven ill-advised, dismissive mockery by those who literally built a monument to their ignorance of the root of being who then turned around and refused to entertain evidence-backed enlightenment. Rather like how Plato speaking in Socrates’ voice spoke of how the denizens of the Cave [doubtless, a veiled reference to Athens] preferred their shadow-shows to reality. But, long run, it is soundness that counts, whether or not the taste of it is bitter or sweet. One hopes one will not be in the position of a Gen Petain knowingly sending men up the road into a meat grinder of a battle, to buy time to put a sounder approach in place. KF
KF at 121:
OK, I will endeavor to “distinguish a general problem in our increasingly polarised era,” namely using the name of philosophy, science or reason to preach ideology. So, I frown upon preaching “atheism in the name of philosophy” just the same as preaching Christianity in the name of science. I assume you feel just the same.
Next, you are setting up a polarizing strawman with this: “your list of alleged blatant cases of antisemitism in the NT.” Mark 3:6 is not a case – blatant or otherwise – of antisemitism. It-is-not-a-case-of-antisemitism.
What is it, then? It is a source of antisemitism. It is a passage that allows a reading of the Jews (represented by the Pharisees) plotting to destroy God incarnate. It casts the Jews in the roles that become stereotypical: schemers, hypocrites, legalists, elitist, power-hungry, blind. So, my claim is that it, like all the other in the list I made available, is a source. The passage also presents a defamatory and rhetorical depiction of Jews in the figure of the Pharisees, in my opinion, but it is relatively tame compared to other passages inside the NT and outside. Nevertheless, you are right that “defame” is a strong word. Since neither of us can be certain of what, if anything, might have transpired between a real Jesus-figure and the local leaders, maybe we should just use the word “negative” to describe how Jews are portrayed in the NT. Is that acceptable to you?
Next, you say “I have to again remind you of the original exchange when I saw your (successful) diversionary attempt at 1, which taxed ‘Christianity’ as being a significant contributing factor to Hitler’s conduct.”
Gee whiz, Gordon, if you just read what you quote of me you can plainly see that I do not name Hitler but rather am following from Weikart to discuss “Nazi ideology.” Yes, Christianity is part of Nazi ideology — this is exactly what I am saying. Not Hitler and not Hitler’s conduct. You must be better than this, so maybe you are the one trying “diversionary” tactics.
And again, I am in no way blaming Christianity or the NT for the Nazis and for Adolph Hitler. I am in no way saying that the Nazis or Adolph Hitler were acting in a way that is consistent with what you present as Christianity’s core teachings. I cannot be any clearer than this.
Can we also recognize that Jews were not legitimate human beings to the Nazis, and therefore not able by definition to be murdered? Christianity’s core ethical teachings are like many other ethical teachings from other traditions. The problem is often not the teachings themselves, but who they apply to and when.
Finally, Weikart’s argument seems to be well-grounded concerning what the Nazis believed in the arena of evolutionary ideas. Is that what you want to discuss, what the Nazis believed? Is what the Nazis believed supposed to impeach what Darwin had written about in 1859?
If so, I think that’s unfair and incorrect to do. It reminds me of humanities types, like myself, who use Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle as if it means we cannot really know about the world.
LT:
So that onlookers can see for themselves, let me roll the tape from 80 above where I responded to your list, citing your bolded heading and very first claimed example, Mk 3:6:
=========
>>> I will take your very first example of alleged antisemitism and defamation as a case of a slice of cake with all the ingredients in it.
First, your assertion:
But by simply reading the context, we can directly see:
In short, Jesus here is held in high regard by many ordinary people, specifically including people from Galilee and Judaea {and Jerusalem} — presumably largely Jews. But, he was held an enemy and schemed against by members of two power elite groups, Pharisees and Herodians.
When for instance Jeremiah the prophet had a falling out with the Jewish kings of Judaea after Josiah, was he viewed as an anti-semite? Was Elijah an anti-semite when he destroyed groups of king’s men who came after him on instruction of Northern kings?
Likewise, at the birth of the Hasmonean uprising, I read in 1 Macc:
Were these worthies who struck down a fellow Jew anti-semitic?
(And, what did Jesus say to Peter when at the arrest in the garden, he cut off the High Priest’s servant’s ear? How does what Jesus said resonate with the fate of 4 of 5 Hasmonean brothers in the above uprising? Does Jesus’ teaching provide grounds for Nazis to violently
attack Jews, and others, or does it not warn rather against the path of the sword, much less that of aggressive war, murder and theft by those means?)
I have no doubt that some have distorted that hostility of elites in Mk 3:6 — which seems to be accurate history not defamation — into a general perceived enmity of Jews, but that is hardly John Mark’s fault or that of Peter whose testimony Mark records.
The utterly strained, out of context nature of your citation does not commend your level of understanding of or familiarity with the NT, or that of the sources you seem to have used.
Frankly, this one comes across as a mischievous, ill-informed, out of context, hostile misreading that does not even seem to recognise a commonplace of history: elites often retaliate against those who speak unwelcome truth to them.
I think you need to go back and seriously think again about what led you to speak {at 1 above} in terms of “Christianity” being responsible for Hitler’s behaviour. >>>
=========
When you used terms such as:
. . . there can be no question but that you intend to indict the NT as anti-semitic [hostile to Jews as a race] and in so accusing you used a specific and loaded term, DEFAMATORY.
These terms are unjustified by the very evidence you listed, starting with the first case you listed “as follows” i.e. Mk 3:6. I took opportunity to show what was really going on and it is not defamation of Jews in general, but a very familiar clash with the elites in a context where the common Jewish people in material part supported and flocked to Jesus.
The record speaks for itself, sadly, not to your credit.
KF
LT,
You are profoundly wrong in this statement. The Nazis were only interested in the Christian church as a political unit that must act in concert with the NDSAP. The teachings of Jesus are diametrically opposed to Nazi ideology at every level!
Well, considering your previously quoted statement, maybe you could have been just a teensy bit clearer. 😉
Speaking of which, why don’t you you give it a shot and go directly to the source material to see whether it’s anti-semitic or anything that Hitler and his gang would have been interested in. This is what a scientist or researcher would do. Here’s a link. It’s an easy read and kind of fun.
http://www.biblegateway.com/pa.....ersion=CJB
The preface starts out like this:
(In Greek, logos means an articulated concept, principle, or reason)
-Q
The comments regarding anti-semitism in the NT are directed at two groups, the Pharisees and the Sadducees. When Jesus was on earth, Judaism was divided into factions, all competing for influence over the people. That is the picture presented in the Gospel accounts as well as in the writings of first-century Jewish historian Josephus.
The Pharisees and the Sadducees appear on this scene as important voices, capable of swaying public opinion even to the point of rejecting Jesus as the Messiah. (Matthew 15:1, 2; 16:1; John 11:47, 48; 12:42, 43) However, there is no mention of these two influential groups anywhere in the Hebrew Scriptures.
Josephus first mentions the Sadducees and the Pharisees in the context of the second century B.C.E. During this period many Jews were succumbing to the appeal of Hellenism, that is, Greek culture and philosophy. The tension between Hellenism and Judaism peaked when the Seleucid rulers defiled the temple in Jerusalem, dedicating it to Zeus. A dynamic Jewish leader, Judah Maccabee, of a family known as the Hasmonaeans, led a rebel army that freed the temple from Greek hands.
The name Pharisees is generally connected to the Hebrew root meaning “separate ones,” although some view it as related to the word “interpreters.” Pharisees were scholars from among the common people, of no special descent. They separated themselves from ritual impurity by a philosophy of special piety, applying temple laws of priestly holiness to the ordinary situations of daily life. The Pharisees developed a new form of interpreting the Scriptures and a concept later known as the oral law. During Simon’s reign they gained greater influence when some were appointed to the Gerousia (council of older men), which later became known as the Sanhedrin.
Josephus relates that John Hyrcanus was at first a pupil and supporter of the Pharisees. However, at a certain point, the Pharisees reproved him for not giving up the high priesthood. This led to a dramatic break. Hyrcanus outlawed the Pharisees’ religious ordinances. As an additional punishment, he sided with the Pharisees’ religious opponents, the Sadducees.
The name Sadducees is likely connected with the High Priest Zadok, whose descendants had held the priestly office since Solomon’s time. However, not all Sadducees were of this line. According to Josephus, the Sadducees were the aristocrats and wealthy men of the nation, and they did not have the support of the masses. Professor Schiffman comments: “Most of them . . . were apparently priests or those who had intermarried with the high priestly families.” They had thus long been closely connected with those in power. Therefore, the increasing role of the Pharisees in public life and the Pharisaic concept of extending priestlike sanctity to all the people was perceived as a threat that could undermine Sadducean natural authority. Now, in the final years of Hyrcanus’ reign, the Sadducees regained control.
In other words, Pharisees and Sadducees were independent groups that broke away from traditional Judaism. The period of the Hasmonaeans, from Judah Maccabee to Aristobulus II, laid the foundation for the divided religious scene that existed when Jesus was on earth. The Hasmonaeans began with zeal for worship of God, but that deteriorated into abusive self-interest. Their priests, who had the opportunity to unite the people in following God’s Law, led the nation into the abyss of political infighting. In this environment, divisive religious viewpoints flourished. The Hasmonaeans were no more, but the struggle for religious control between the Sadducees, the Pharisees, and others would characterize the nation now under Herod and Rome.
F/N: Time for some notes on selective but important points from LT’s latest remarks at 126 above:
_____________
>>I frown upon preaching “atheism in the name of philosophy” just the same as preaching Christianity in the name of science. I assume you feel just the same.>>
1 –> Inappropriate attempted tu quoque
>> Mark 3:6 is not a case – blatant or otherwise – of antisemitism. It-is-not-a-case-of-antisemitism.
What is it, then? It is a source of antisemitism. It is a passage that allows a reading of the Jews (represented by the Pharisees) plotting to destroy God incarnate. It casts the Jews in the roles that become stereotypical: schemers, hypocrites, legalists, elitist, power-hungry, blind.>>
2 –> The passage in question is not a SOURCE of antisemitism, it is a source on a known historical situation and shows conflicts among factions of Jews, with a clear indication that he abusive elites were not popular.
3 –> It seems that LT needs here to look in a mirror on the subject of projecting broad-brush inappropriate stereotypes and strawmen.
>>So, my claim is that it, like all the other in the list I made available, is a source. The passage also presents a defamatory and rhetorical depiction of Jews in the figure of the Pharisees, in my opinion, but it is relatively tame compared to other passages inside the NT and outside.>>
3 –> Your accusation does not make it so, especially in a context that clearly identifies distinct groups and has ALL characters in play as Jews dealing with a fairly common problem of abusive elites.
>>Nevertheless, you are right that “defame” is a strong word. Since neither of us can be certain of what, if anything, might have transpired between a real Jesus-figure and the local leaders, maybe we should just use the word “negative” to describe how Jews are portrayed in the NT. Is that acceptable to you?>>
4 –> When one has falsely accused as you did there is need to acknowledge wrong and turn from it.
5 –> The text and the wider Gospel in no wise portray any global abstract entity “Jews” as wholly evil or negative in accord with stereotypes. Instead it shows individuals and groups warts and all, in a realistic and credibly accurate historical situation.
>> if you just read what you quote of me you can plainly see that I do not name Hitler but rather am following from Weikart to discuss “Nazi ideology.”>>
7 –> You full well know that you have been asked not to use my personal name in web discussions for reasons of security and harassment. Kindly refrain in future.
8 –> Hitler of course was the chief ideologue of Nazism, and to speak of one or the other is more or less equivalent, in terms of ideology.
>> Yes, Christianity is part of Nazi ideology — this is exactly what I am saying.>>
9 –> This, as has been shown to you repeatedly above, is a falsehood, one maintained now in the teeth of more than adequate correction, and one revealing of an underlying hostility to the Christian faith verging on hatred.
>>Not Hitler and not Hitler’s conduct. You must be better than this, so maybe you are the one trying “diversionary” tactics.>>
10 –> A silly turnabout and false accusation based on distinctions without a material difference.
>>And again, I am in no way blaming Christianity or the NT for the Nazis and for Adolph Hitler.>>
11 –> Directly false given your remarks in and from 1 above. We were not born yesterday.
>>I am in no way saying that the Nazis or Adolph Hitler were acting in a way that is consistent with what you present as Christianity’s core teachings. I cannot be any clearer than this.>>
12 –> Any reasonable and informed person would know and acknowledge that it is not a matter of what this particular individual portrays as Christianity’s core ethical teachings, but that which is easily and firmly ascertained to be so, from foundational documents that credibly trace to Jesus and the apostles.
13 –> Just to note:
14 –> Thus it is entirely legitimate to note that when Paul underscores that the law forbids murder and theft, that cuts directly across Nazi aggression and tyranny.
>>Can we also recognize that Jews were not legitimate human beings to the Nazis, and therefore not able by definition to be murdered? >>
15 –> The Nazis may well have tried to dehumanise those they wished to murder, as I pointed out above in speaking of cats vs mice and fox vs geese from Hitler. This traces to Darwinist not Christian, Scriptural views, which would immediately recognise that Jews, Nordics, Japanese, Chinese, Blacks and the like are all obviously members of the human family descended form our common ancestor.
>>Christianity’s core ethical teachings are like many other ethical teachings from other traditions. The problem is often not the teachings themselves, but who they apply to and when.>>
16 –> So, we should be willing to understand cases of willful disobedience, whether in elites of the OT era who schemed against Jeremiah and put him in a broken muddy cistern to rot, or those who schemed against Jesus even on the Sabbath day, or those who schemed to mislead the German people into aggressive war, mass murder and worse.
>>Finally, Weikart’s argument seems to be well-grounded concerning what the Nazis believed in the arena of evolutionary ideas. Is that what you want to discuss, what the Nazis believed?>>
17 –> this happens to be the focal matter of the thread. And it is corrective to many who have tried to argue that what Weikart has documented is wrong.
>>Is what the Nazis believed supposed to impeach what Darwin had written about in 1859?>>
18 –> If anything it is more relevant to what Darwin wrote c 1871 in Descent of Man, especially chs 5 – 7, and as this then flowed on to shape science and thought in subsequent decades. There is a clear moral hazard in those chapters, as has been pointed out, one that needed to be taken far more seriously.
>>If so, I think that’s unfair and incorrect to do.>>
19 –> Strawman caricature, set up, preached against, knocked over.
>> It reminds me of humanities types, like myself, who use Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle as if it means we cannot really know about the world. >>
20 –> More of the same, in this case carrying an ad hominem circumstantial pivoting on my home discipline, Physics.
____________
LT, do you understand the way you have come across over the life of this thread?
Were I you, I would take a time out and seriously rethink the obvious hostility and distortion, twisted about and projected though strawman stereotypical caricatures.
You can, and should, do a lot better than this.
KF
F/N 2: Where it comes to “impeaching” the Darwinian and/or Neo-Darwinian theories of macro-evolution that has to account for body plans, it is more than enough to point out that there is simply no observational warrant that such or similar mechanisms can account for the required functionally specific, complex organisation and associated information. There is but one empirically — and abundantly — warranted source for FSCO/I, design. Where also the analysis of the config space challenge for blind chance and mechanical necessity shows that the gamut of atomic and temporal resources held to be available are simply not materially different from zero relative to what would be needed; whether we speak of our solar system or our observed cosmos — the only observed cosmos. Until such an empirical basis is forthcoming, what we have is a theory able to account for some micro-level adaptations grossly and inappropriately extrapolated beyond the plausible limits for blind mechanisms to hit upon FSCO/I, i.e. 500 – 1,000 bits. So, there is no adequate empirical basis for the Darwinist account of the tree of life. The issue of Darwinist influences on Nazism runs down a separate line: history of ideas, and in this case the history of a moral hazard present in Darwinism from the 1870’s on that was seen as backed up by science and ended up as being a component of great evils, plural. (We must not forget eugenics and other evils.) Nor is identifying such a new thing, this exact concern was shouted from the house tops by H G Wells from the 1890’s in War of the Worlds and Time Machine. One wishes that his warning had been heeded. KF
LarTanner,
Either you’re a liar, or your source is lying, or both.
What steps did you personally take to ensure that you were not simply repeating lies? Or do you even care?
Interesting how this thread has been allowed to turn from a charge against Hitler to a charge against Christianity.
Does Hitler fail to qualify as an anti-semite according to LarTanner?
Will LarTanner provide a comparison of Hitler’s statements about Semites to statements about Semites in the New Testament?
Will LarTanner provide a comparison of Hitler’s statements about Semites to statements about Semites in the Old Testament?
Color me skeptical.
kairosfocus:
IOW, you’re asking me to believe that Jesus was just a precursor to yet another future prophetic fulfillment, ad infinitum. I reject that, for what I trust are obvious reasons.
Zechariah 13:8
Past or future? Or past and future? Or past and future and future?
If future, who on earth can encourage the return of ‘the Jews’ to ‘the Land’ and escape the charge of anti-Semitism?
Who could possibly, in good conscience, encourage ‘Jews’ to return to a situation in which two-thirds of them will be slaughtered, even if it’s “Bible Prophecy”?
Barb@129 – Nicely summarized, and I agree with your characterization of the gulf between the ordinary Jewish people of the time and the Pharisees and Sadducees.
Mung@89,
I believe AH employed some so-called “experts” at that time in detecting racial impurity. There were even points awarded for Aryan physical characteristics. All a bunch of baloney.
There are genetic markers associated with people of Jewish descent (not race), most famously the YAP- marker on the Y-chromosome of nearly all Kohanim (Cohens, priests). See
http://www.cohen-levi.org/jewi.....dition.htm
Mung:
Pardon me but there is such a concept as foreshortening in which the debate becomes one of Messiah ben Joseph and ben David as two individuals with separate fates. The first, on some accounts, falling in battle in defense of Israel. (I have already linked a discussion that touches on these themes.)
By contrast, in light of the Passion, this was resynthesised in the Christian understanding (driven by especially Isa 53 and Zechariah) as one who is suffering servant and wounded healer who having ascended from Mt Olivet will return at eschatological crisis of ultimate fulfillment to the same point.
I think you may need to revisit your thought.
And on Israel, given trends the issue is a land of certain refuge, vs increasing hostility.
I have already spoken of the situation in the 1930’s – 40’s of Jewish refugees with nowhere willing to take them, with exceptions like the Dominican Republic. Which materially contributed to the holocaust.
I note that support for Israel is not at all equal to driving Jews out to Israel. I suggest to you that many people who support Israel also support Jews of the diaspora, and if they are Christians and Zionists, for much the same reason. Including, that if one fears widespread hostility and driving out (or worse), it makes sense to support a very strong centre of refuge that cannot be taken away at the whim of some new politician manipulating the electoral game and having support of the media spin meisters.
In the context of the eschatological text you have brought up, it has already been points out that this looks like the end game of a global driving out, stopped in its course by decisive intervention. Whether the numbers are literal or symbolically echo things said regarding the Assyrian and Babylonian exile, I cannot determine for sure. But you better believe that the implication is that global hostility leads to attacking the last refuge in defiance of God, only to find out the hard way that God is perfectly willing to break through the ordinary course of the world at the eschaton.
So, I think your suggestion that support for Israel by pre-millennialists as an expression of lack of concern for Jews, is off base. I think, it needs to be revisited.
Now, normally, I would not discuss theology at UD, but this seems to be so toxic and loaded that some balancing is needed.
The proper focus for this thread is the history of ideas influences acting through Darwinism as manifest in Herr Schicklegruber.
KF
F/N: Unfortunately, right from comment 1, there has been a sustained well-poisoning attempt. I think there is in this case sufficient of a lack of familiarity that some attention needs to be given to substantial correctives. It is also quite clear above from evidence given, that the lines of influence from Darwin’s thought to Hitler’s agendas is quite adequately documented. KF
I must be tired, ARE. Subjects and verbs this morning. Pardon.
KF, you are full of it. You say in 128
Yet I have clarified that my intent was different, and I have made the same clarification a few times now. I have proposed alternate language. You keep beating dead horses, and I wonder why: methinks thou dost protest too much, eh?
How about we hear about the Pharisees from a working scholar who understands the key texts and contexts much better than you do. The following is from a sidebar essay at Mark 2 in The Jewish Annotated New Testament (2011), edited by Amy-Jill Levine and Marc Zvi Brettler, page 64:
This clearly vindicates my points as reasonable enough for consideration by serious people. I still am not claiming that the NT is antisemitic; neither are the editors of the fine volume I have cited.
The record speaks, KF, and not to your credit.
Moving to Querius in 128:
Sez you, and with no documentation and support. Telling. You apparently have intimate knowledge of the Nazi mindset and what their interests “really” were. You tell us that the Nazis were not True Christian Scotsmen. Yet, they called themselves Christian and seemed to admire the person on the gospels. They had an issue with Paul, as a matter of fact.
Barb in 129:
Perhaps, but Josephus himself ain’t all that reliable. He’s often quite the liar and anything he says ought to be considered suspect or skewed. There are additional sources of information and perspective about the Pharisees, Sadduccees and Essenes. The Pharisees are a proto-rabbinic movement. They are more what I’d call blue collar compared to the Sadducees, who are associated with the high priesthood.
You also say:
Be careful here. The Pharisees, as you can see earlier in this comment, are a lay sect, apart from Temple administration. I’m sure you do not mean to imply that Pharisaic Judaism is an illegitimate form for Judaism, do you?
Then KF comes back in 130. Sorry, but I see nothing worth responding to until you give this howler:
Ask me if I care. The truth is, I have patiently tried to educate you and your comrades and correct your misreadings. I have been patient with you and endured your tireless whines. KF, if you are so concerned about image and reputation, you might give better care to reading what people actually say before attempting to jump on whatever imaginary persecution they level against you.
131: Meh.
Mung at 132: Sorry, you are a junior varsity bench-warmer here. You know neither what you are saying nor what you are talking about. All you can do is be hateful and vile. You have my pity, sir.
You all continue to expose yourselves. Live with that.
LarTanner complained sceptically:
Yes, it’s as you say, I have a pretty good knowledge of the subject. Having read many books touching on the subject, and having had conversations with people who lived through the nightmare, I’m confident that my previous statements are accurate.
For your benefit, here are a couple of easily verifiable references:
http://prezi.com/l925nni351uc/religion-and-nazism/
“The Nazi government also attempted to supplant Christian worship with secular Nazi party celebrations which adopted many symbols of religious ritual but instead glorified the party and the Führer” Form- Historical Article
The Nazi Persecution of the Churches (c)1968 John S. Conway
http://books.google.com/books?.....38;f=false
You can read portions or all of the above book online—you’ll find that the descriptions are completely compatible with mine. Go ahead and read some passages.
Now, a person honestly interested in the truth of the matter rather arguing for its own sake would happily submit a sincere expression of gratitude for the enlightenment provided.
Are you such a person? 🙂
-Q
Lar Tanner @64
Lar Tanner #120
Unbelievable.
Querius (141) – The Lauren Bout slideshow shows exactly what I have said: Nazism incorporated cultural and religious Christianity into their program. As for the second cite: Nazi persecutions targeted many people and institutions they considered undesirable. I have never indicated otherwise. Now, here is a link for you to check out: http://coelsblog.wordpress.com.....darwinism/. Let me know what you think.
StephenB (142) – It would help you to read comment 126. Nevertheless, to say that the NT disparages Jews, often in symbolic use of the Pharisees, is not to say it is antisemitic. The writers setting down the gospel stories are wielding their rhetorical weapons. The sidebar quote I gave in comment 140 also tells something of the rhetorical strategy of the gospels:
The above is from page 64 of The Jewish Annotated New Testament (2011), edited by Amy-Jill Levine and Marc Zvi Brettler. So, again, I am not claiming the NT is antisemitic. Negative in attitude to Jews (especially in John), yes; antisemitic, no. I trust this closes the matter, unless you and KF have some violent hatred of dead horses and you must keep beating together.
Lar Tanner:
The passage speaks for itself. The Pharisees did, indeed, plot to kill Christ in concert with the Sadducees and Chief Priests. It is not anti-semitic to report facts. By the way, are you ever going to tell us who you think this allegedly anti-semitic “source” was?
In keeping with that question, you have changed your story several times:
First, you said the the Gospels contain multiple examples of “anti-Jewish” passages.
Then you said that the sources for these writings come from someone other than the authors, but you will not tell us who that someone is.
Then you said that the Gospel writers were not anti-Semitic after all (after saying that they were anti-Jewish [which is the same thing]) but, nevertheless, were using “rhetorical weapons,” indicating that they were doing more than simply reporting events and that they were purposely trying to incite undue anti-Jewish sentiment.
Now, you have changed your story again and suggest that the Jewish interpretation of the New Testament will illuminate the points of our discussion. But nothing you have presented will change the basic facts.
It was not the responsibility of the Gospel writers to play down examples of malicious Pharisaic behavior or to eliminate it from the record in order to make sure that future zealots may not take it the wrong way? That some did is unfortunate, but that responsibility is rightly assigned to the zealots themselves.
Symbolic? Is that supposed to mean anti-historical? These are reports of historical events. The Jewish leaders (indeed, the vast majority of Jews) were given a choice to choose Christ or Barabbas. They chose Barabbas.
Gospel stories? You mean you think they were making things up? Rhetorical weapons? You mean they were using incendiary language? Where do you get such nonsense?
Each of the Gospel writers was speaking to a specific audience and designed individual presentations accordingly, but each approach was based on historical facts. You are trying to con people who are much more familiar with the Scriptures than you are.
Oh, please stop it. Everyone knows that Nicodemus was a good Pharisee and the great Joseph of Arimathea was a member of the Sanhedrin. We receive that information from none other than the Gospels.
That opposition was real and it persists to this day. Ninety percent of Jews are secularist and reject Christ. They prefer the Talmud over the Torah or interpret the latter in terms of he former. It has been that way ever since they were asked to choose between Christ and Barabbas.
That is a silly statement. To have a “negative attitude” toward Jews is to be anti-semitic.
LarTanner suggested:
No disagreement then. The whole point of Hitler’s Führerprinzip was to incorporate ALL aspects of German society under a leadership hierarchy with Hitler at the top. Hitler indicated to his cronies that he could not oppose the German Christian churches directly (yet), instead, he chose to syncretize his program with a nationalized church, and pandered to cultural Christians. If you read any of the sermons published by the nationalized church, you will see the unrelenting glorification of Adolph Hitler as a common theme.
Did you read sections from the book reference that I provided? It’s well researched, thorough, and accurate.
Yes, I checked it out. Frankly I found Coel Hellier’s interpretation at odds with most historians, also my own discussions with people who were there (they’re dying off now). I find Coel Hellier’s referencing Ann Coulter bizarre.
Do take the time to contrast your source of information with a more scholarly, mainstream one.
– Q
LT:
Pardon, but you now force me to be pretty direct.
Are you so blind to yourself, and what you have tried — and failed — to do? As in, from the very first comment designed to poison the well?
Do you not see how revealing the kind of hostility you put on display
. . . is?
Yes, certain Jews and certain gentiles come in for some very negative portrayals in the NT.
Simon Peter, a loudmouth, impulsive, coward at times.
Paul, a self-confessed murderously persecuting chief of simmers and trophy of grace.
Several unjust Idumean, Jewish, and Roman rulers.
Judges of the proud Roman Colony, Philippi, willing to whip men who have not been properly tried then toss them in the stocks and try to throw them out of town quietly the next day.
A thinly veiled portrait of the Emperor Nero as an irresponsible, vicious pervert, typical of the ruling classes (as in, Read Rom 1 with historically informed eyes).
And more.
For that matter, read Josephus; not only on the Herods but incidents like the seizing of opportunity of a gap in governorship in AD 62 to put James the Just — both leader of the church in Jerusalem and a very zealous, evidently respected Jew [who happens to have been Jesus’ brother] — to death in ways that are simply dubious.
Let’s see:
Is Josephus anti-semitic?
Or, on your slip-slide version 2.0 with code words and dog whistles: making negative portrayals of Jews serving as a presumably intentional root source of anti-semitism?
Or, does this not instead echo the same pattern of ruthlessly abusive elites and people who beg to differ that we see repeatedly in the NT? Or, for that matter, doesn’t this echo the NT pattern where consistently the ultimately more dangerous party is the Sadducees? (As in, c. 57, Paul of Tarsus appeals to his FELLOW Pharisees [as son of a Pharisee brought up as a student under Gamaliel] for support against the Sadducees in the Ruling Council! And gets it.)
Wake up and smell the coffee, the key lesson here is not general hatred of Jews or stereotyping of Jews, but that power tends to corrupt over and above the basic moral hazard of being human. So, it is not wise to naively trust in princes, their promises, carefully cultivated charismatic aura and dealings.
Power without effective accountability leads to corruption spreading like a disease. By and large, the powerful will not bear close moral scrutiny — even moreso than us ordinary folks. And yes I am rephrasing Acton in ways that allow us to get at what he was observing as a great historian.
And, a prophetic critique that speaks truth to power is going to be less than flattering.
Yes, men motivated by hostility have wrenched the NT in service to that hostility (e.g. Herr Schicklegruber’s failure to consider what Jesus would have done with a whip in his own office). But that is the point: to do so, they have wrenched, ignoring the core ethical teachings that start from our equality under God.
And since you wish to accuse John, let’s hear him on the subject of ethics and its relevance to discipleship and responsiveness to the gospel:
Let’s see, the principle is God’s love and gift leading to the challenge and our response: do we turn in penitence to the light or scurry off into the darkness we prefer for fear of exposure of our evil?
And, we see such in a well known case in point, a woman caught in the act of adultery — where was the MAN? — and dragged to Jesus.
Used as simply a prop to a poisonous dilemma: yes stone her, and you are a rebel against Rome worthy of death. No, and you are in rebellion against Moses, an exposed blasphemer to be lynched. (Where of course, their own compromises as a colonised state were conveniently not on the table.)
Yes –> dead.
No –> equally dead.
Literally.
The ultimate gotcha.
And yes, here we find the exact groups from Mk 3:6 who Peter reports through John Mark, as plotting Jesus’ death. And, manifest in the institutional centre of the religion of Judaism (which he probably had already cleansed once and was going to cleanse a second time at the start of passion week).
Ruthless power elites weaving traps with clever words.
Something that is abundantly familiar across the world and down the long march of history down to today.
Notice Jesus’ answer, going through the middle by exposing hypocrisy. (He probably first scribbled the text of the law, that BOTH involved were liable, and a question, where is the other? Second time, probably a pointed sin list; written, so it could be read, but not announced to incite the crowd.)
Then, he rises a third time and asks, where are your accusers? Gone.
His response is then that of love for an obviously penitent sinner: you are forgiven, walk in a new life.
To twist something like this into an accused source of antisemitism is blatant scripture-twisting driven by obvious and unjustified hostility.
Which should stop.
Forthwith.
More from the pen of John:
It is time to flush away hostility and scripture-twisting driven by hostility, then think again.
KF
PS: One issue I think needs a specific remark, attitude to Jews and to Judaism. In my case — and that of a lot of others, I am quite sure, there is respect, and recognition in light of the olive branch principle. There may be disagreements of various kinds, but that does not remove respect. And, when it comes to the sins of power elites and factions, I see the very like patterns to the concerns of OT and NT alike, in businesses, communities, institutions, countries and international relations. This reflects the moral hazard of being human, and the additional hazards of power. The key issue is repentance and reformation, not race — or for that matter, age or sex.
PPS: Coel’s Blog — obviously a New Atheism site [i.e. a movement that lacks balance and depth] is not credible. What has been done is to snip out of context and balance to ptop up a pre-chosen position.
Let’s go back to what Weikart pointed out from that pivotal passage in MK, which was published as a pamphlet, again, and ask, is there a willingness to face facts?
Answer, no.
Instead, side tracks and distractions.
For instance the posing of a flag with a cross and a swastika in the middle says only one thing to someone like me the so-called German Christians were in idolatrous heresy [a particularly blatant and bas species of political messianism], exactly what the Barmen Declaration of 1934 denounced:
And, a plain intent to smear “Creationiosts” as would be totalitarian nazis.
If LT is so hyp[er sensitive to any criticisms of some leaders of Jews from 2000 years ago, cannot he be at least concerned to get a reasonable balance about Christians, creationists and the like today? KF
PPS: Particularly note how the Gospel of John is used to characterise the heretical leaders usurping the Church from gospel-anchored faith as robbers not true shepherds (with echoes from the prophets being well known). Barth, whatever one may say about his neo-orthodoxy, is a world class, famous exegete and author inter alia of a major systematic theology of was it 6,000 pp.
F/N: Recall, 49 above:
========
>>>> 49 kairosfocus November 2, 2013 at 12:20 am
Q:
Pardon, but we must let the beast speak, from his own mouth, Mein Kampf, Bk 1 Ch 1[0]:
It is no accident that these ideas from 1925 shaped the policies of Nazi Germany from 1933 – 45.
This was not just window dressing, it is the very shaping frame of thought in summary.
And as we read them, again and again, they draw on Darwin as his ideas were embedded in German culture. >>>>
=========
The clip of course is from the passage published as a pamphlet. It clearly lays out a darwinist, natural and sexual selection ideology, imbued with social darwinism. In it too are echoes of a sort of nature worship that seems to have been Hitler’s real religion.
If there is a sustained failure to come to serious grips with this by any who try to project blame to the Christian faith, it is clear that they are not seeking truth but toxic diversion of attention.
KF
KF (150): I am glad you want to bring in Hitler’s own words. Let’s read what the man himself said:
That’s from a speech delivered at Munich, 12 April 1922. See Norman H. Baynes, ed. (1942). The Speeches of Adolf Hitler: April 1922-August 1939. Vol. 1. New York: Oxford University Press. p. 19.
Querius (145)
Sure, that’s pretty much what I have claimed all along. Nazi ideology and policy was build from many available materials. They used a self-serving form of Christianity and a self-serving form of Social Darwinism.
We agree, but folks like KF and StephenB don’t seem to be able to handle this and want us to proclaim that Hitler was No True Scotsman.
Unfortunately, at the time Hitler thought he was a True Scotsman and very many other True Scotsman openly supported the Reich.
Maybe they all failed to live up to the ideals of KF’s True Christianity. Maybe everyone except Lord Jesus fails. OK, but then maybe Lord Jesus could have been a shade more clear about what True Christianity was so that we wouldn’t have had to wait/waste all this time for Prophet KF to enlighten the world.
These are the mysteries of the faith.
LT: You have failed to notice that you cited a public speech meant to manipulate and using the propaganda technique Hitler was notorious for, the big and frequently repeated lie, indeed one that contributed to the rise of the heresy that he tried to substitute for genuine Christian faith — the strongest possible proof that he was not in any reasonable sense a Christian. That is what the Barmen declaration denounced, and rightly so; whatever reservations we may have about participants in it, on this they were right. (If you had cited from his table talk, his second book or the recently published Nuremberg papers on the intentions towards the Church which were already being implemented in some places that would be different.) And yes this was intended to draw all Germany under his absolute rule, making him an antichrist, a counterfeit messiah in the guise of a politician. Further to this, you Fail to acknowledge the core principles of Christian ethics, as usual. This is a case of stubborn insistence on corrected error, evidently motivated by deep seated hostility that is here resistant to plain and well documented truth. All you are managing to do is to further expose yourself as irrational on this subject, motivated by and to hostility that leads you to do things that were they done to you in turn you would cry to the highest heavens. KF
PS: More later DV, when the effects of an antihistamine clear.
LT: At this point you are also descending into personal abuse. I have taken time to point out objective and longstanding facts and documentation that you cannot confute so you are now trying Alinskyite sarcastic mockery. That speaks volumes about your attitude, motives and behaviour. That is sadly revealing. KF
KF, We have Hitler’s own words — public or not — we have the declarations of Nazi principles (as in the 25 points), and we have the overwhelming support of the Nazi regime by Christian leaders and churches.
None of this is to indict Christianity but only to acknowledge the fact that Nazism found Christianity to be compatible or malleable enough to their warped worldview. Your denials and deflections of this fact are as hollow as they are frustrating. And revealing.
If I mock it’s only to help you see how ridiculous you look in trying to deny the plain historical fact. Notice, too, that I have not once contested the historical fact that the Nazis sought to employ their own version of “Darwinism,” which is the subject of the OP.
By the way, I have been reading the NT again. I have started with John. In reading it, it seems to me that the explicit references to Jews and Judaism are often (not always) hostile, and plainly so.
KF: Great posts,a very enlightening read.
Hitler in his own words is anything but Christian.
Nazism is a political ideology and/or Hitler has nothing to do with Christianity, to argue otherwise is extremely deceptive and mischievous.
LT:
In light of the above, it is sadly clear that you are so determined to invidiously associate Hitler with the Christian church that you are unable to listen to evidence that shows that his behaviour was indisputably antichristian, not only ethically but theologically. (I still shake my head over your unwillingness to acknowledge that the longstanding, long since well known ethical core of the Christian faith is what it is. The very fact that in our civilisation Jesus of Nazareth, in the Sermon on the Mount, is the source most strongly cited for/associated with the Golden Rule [which he explicitly cited as being from the Torah, i.e. as Mosaic . . . ], should give a clue or two on that, and the obvious fact that the NT holds that we are equally created in God’s image, should provide a clue, as to just what lies behind the major body of ethical teachings in the NT. The ethical core of the Christian faith is not in doubt — at least among those genuinely interested in dealing with facts on the merits.)
That double anchorage is why the Barmen Declaration was cast in terms of a theological declaration against heresy.
That is also why Hitler’s declarations from the political stump are patently deceitful and manipulative, as there is an objective standard that has both theological and ethical components, and he dismally fails both.
Maybe it has escaped you that ever since Pliny the Elder’s investigations by torture and threats c 110 AD as reported to Trajan, it has been well known that genuine Christians have certain theological standards that will not be violated even at the cost of life, and similarly have certain ethical standards.
If you don’t know that you don’t know enough to say anything of substance. If you do know such but wish to play rhetorical games in the teeth of truth you know or should know, you are being deceitful. No ifs, ands or buts about it.
So much for your no true scotsman talking points.
Hitler was simply not a Christian, whatever twisted “I am not a crook” or “I did not do X with that woman” or ” you can keep it” or ” Socialism is Christianity in action” rhetoric he may have used to pull wool over eyes.
BTW, just on a historical note that shows just how poor was the research done by the sources you seem to favour, the God is with us belt buckles used by German Wehrmacht soldiers in WW II actually came down to them from Prussia in C19. (And would have been dubious even then.)
Perhaps, for instance, it did not register with you that Barth [Swiss citizen — probably saved him], Boenhoffer [a martyr BTW] and Niemoller [a Confessor, BTW who suffered in concentration camps] et al had the better of the matter than Hitler and those he successfully intimidated? Where, Barth may have been the leading protestant theologian in the world at the time and Boenhoffer, the leading German one. Niemoller — Bishop as I recall — was simply a former hero U boat captain and a leading pastor. These are three key lights in the Barmen Declaration, which is seen as so significant that it is taken as having creedal force.
At this stage it is clear that you are simply looking for and endlessly repeating rhetorical talking points to prop up hostility driven accusations of no substance.
Ironically, in a campaign to accuse the NT of being a source of antisemitism, and to blame “Christianity” for materially contributing to Hitler — obviously meant to distract attention from serious issues and evidence over the role of darwinist ideas in the rise of Nazism — you have only managed to expose your own visceral anti-Christian bigotry and stubborn closed mindedness in the teeth of cogent correction.
KF
PS: Those genuinely wishing to understand the spiritual nature of Hitler’s Nazism, kindly cf here, noting onward linked discussions, especially the recently published Nuremberg papers linked here for eye-opening reading on his long term plan for the Christian church.
PPS: At this point it is also sadly clear that you are unfortunately approaching the NT with a jaundiced eye, in light of how you have mishandled key texts. Until that attitude is fixed, you will be unable to see objectively.
F/N: Ezekiel on the Shepherds — leaders (with a spiritual not just a temporal remit) — of Israel:
===========
>>Ezek 34: 1 The word of the LORD came to me: 2 “Son of man, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel; prophesy, and say to them, even to the shepherds, Thus says the Lord GOD:
Ah, shepherds of Israel who have been feeding yourselves! Should not shepherds feed the sheep?
3 You eat the fat, you clothe yourselves with the wool, you slaughter the fat ones, but you do not feed the sheep. 4 The weak you have not strengthened, the sick you have not healed, the injured you have not bound up, the strayed you have not brought back, the lost you have not sought, and with force and harshness you have ruled them.
5 So they were scattered, because there was no shepherd, and they became food for all the wild beasts.
6 My sheep were scattered; they wandered over all the mountains and on every high hill. My sheep were scattered over all the face of the earth, with none to search or seek for them.
7 “Therefore, you shepherds, hear the word of the LORD:
8 As I live, declares the Lord GOD, surely because my sheep have become a prey, and my sheep have become food for all the wild beasts, since there was no shepherd, and because my shepherds have not searched for my sheep, but the shepherds have fed themselves, and have not fed my sheep, 9 therefore, you shepherds, hear the word of the LORD:
10 Thus says the Lord GOD, Behold, I am against the shepherds, and I will require my sheep at their hand and put a stop to their feeding the sheep. No longer shall the shepherds feed themselves. I will rescue my sheep from their mouths, that they may not be food for them. >>
===========
Is this, a negative view of Jews, and a source of antisemitism?
Or, is it simply the same age old challenge that power has in it moral and spiritual hazards above and beyond those of simply being human? In a context of the covenantal nation of Israel.
Which the prophet is speaking unwelcome truth to power about. (Never mind he had been warned that many would treat him as someone singing love songs, and pay him but little heed.)
KF
F/N 2: And again, now God speaks through the prophet to the sheep:
==========
>> Ezek 34: 17 “As for you, my flock, thus says the Lord GOD:
Behold, I judge between sheep and sheep, between rams and male goats.
18 Is it not enough for you to feed on the good pasture, that you must tread down with your feet the rest of your pasture; and to drink of clear water, that you must muddy the rest of the water with your feet? 19 And must my sheep eat what you have trodden with your feet, and drink what you have muddied with your feet?
20 “Therefore, thus says the Lord GOD to them: Behold, I, I myself will judge between the fat sheep and the lean sheep. 21 Because you push with side and shoulder, and thrust at all the weak with your horns, till you have scattered them abroad, 22 I will rescue my flock; they shall no longer be a prey. And I will judge between sheep and sheep.
23 And I will set up over them one shepherd, my servant David, and he shall feed them: he shall feed them and be their shepherd. 24 And I, the LORD, will be their God, and my servant David shall be prince among them. I am the LORD; I have spoken. >>
==========
Is this a negative view of Jews, and a source of anti-semitism?
Or, is it the prophet speaking to the moral hazards of wealth and power unconcerned about and crushing of neighbours, as well as the general hazards of being human, in the context of being a covenant people?
KF
F/N 3: Is Jeremiah speaking negatively about Jews, and a source of antise4mitism, here?
==============
>>Jer 1: 11 And the word of the LORD came to me, saying, “Jeremiah, what do you see?” And I said, “I see an almond branch.” 12 Then the LORD said to me, “You have seen well, for I am watching over my word to perform it.”
13 The word of the LORD came to me a second time, saying, “What do you see?” And I said, “I see a boiling pot, facing away from the north.”
14 Then the LORD said to me, “Out of the north disaster shall be let loose upon all the inhabitants of the land. 15 For behold, I am calling all the tribes of the kingdoms of the north, declares the LORD, and they shall come, and every one shall set his throne at the entrance of the gates of Jerusalem, against all its walls all around and against all the cities of Judah.
16 And I will declare my judgments against them, for all their evil in forsaking me. They have made offerings to other gods and worshiped the works of their own hands. 17 But you, dress yourself for work; arise, and say to them everything that I command you.
Do not be dismayed by them, lest I dismay you before them.
18 And I, behold, I make you this day a fortified city, an iron pillar, and bronze walls, against the whole land, against the kings of Judah, its officials, its priests, and the people of the land. 19 They will fight against you, but they shall not prevail against you, for I am with you, declares the LORD, to deliver you.” >>
=============
Sounds like Jeremiah contra mundum to me.
KF
F/N 4: What about Moses and his prophetic song of warning:
================
>>Deut 31: 24 When Moses had finished writing the words of this law in a book to the very end, 25 Moses commanded the Levites who carried the ark of the covenant of the LORD,
26 “Take this Book of the Law and put it by the side of the ark of the covenant of the LORD your God, that it may be there for a witness against you.
27 For I know how rebellious and stubborn you are. Behold, even today while I am yet alive with you, you have been rebellious against the LORD. How much more after my death!
28 Assemble to me all the elders of your tribes and your officers, that I may speak these words in their ears and call heaven and earth to witness against them.
29 For I know that after my death you will surely act corruptly and turn aside from the way that I have commanded you. And in the days to come evil will befall you, because you will do what is evil in the sight of the LORD, provoking him to anger through the work of your hands.”
30 Then Moses spoke the words of this song until they were finished, in the ears of all the assembly of Israel:
. . . . Deut 32:8 ????????When the Most High gave to the nations their inheritance,
when he divided mankind,
he fixed the borders of the peoples
according to the number of the sons of God.
9 ????????But the LORD’s portion is his people,
Jacob his allotted heritage.
10 ????????“He found him in a desert land,
and in the howling waste of the wilderness;
he encircled him, he cared for him,
he kept him as the apple of his eye.
11 ????????Like an eagle that stirs up its nest,
that flutters over its young,
spreading out its wings, catching them,
bearing them on its pinions,
12 ????????the LORD alone guided him,
no foreign god was with him.
13 ????????He made him ride on the high places of the land,
and he ate the produce of the field,
and he suckled him with honey out of the rock,
and oil out of the flinty rock.
14 ????????Curds from the herd, and milk from the flock,
with fat of lambs,
rams of Bashan and goats,
with the very finest of the wheat-
and you drank foaming wine made from the blood of the grape.
15 ????????“But Jeshurun grew fat, and kicked;
you grew fat, stout, and sleek;
then he forsook God who made him
and scoffed at the Rock of his salvation.
16 ????????They stirred him to jealousy with strange gods;
with abominations they provoked him to anger.
17 ????????They sacrificed to demons that were no gods,
to gods they had never known,
to new gods that had come recently,
whom your fathers had never dreaded.
18 ????????You were unmindful of the Rock that bore you,
and you forgot the God who gave you birth.
19 ????????“The LORD saw it and spurned them,
because of the provocation of his sons and his daughters.
20 ????????And he said, ‘I will hide my face from them;
I will see what their end will be,
For they are a perverse generation,
children in whom is no faithfulness [Note Peter’s citation of this text at Pentecost Sunday in Ac 2]. >>
================
Is this Moses speaking negatively of Jews, and being a source of antisemitism?
Or, is he not warning against the perversity of mankind, who will often turn away from the truth and right they know or should know to follow evil, and folly, also warning against consequences.
KF
F/N 5: Finally for now, Jeremiah at the potter’s house:
==============
>> Jer 18: 1 The word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD:
2 “Arise, and go down to the potter’s house, and there I will let you hear my words.”
3 So I went down to the potter’s house, and there he was working at his wheel. 4 And the vessel he was making of clay was spoiled in the potter’s hand, and he reworked it into another vessel, as it seemed good to the potter to do.
5 Then the word of the LORD came to me:
6 “O house of Israel, can I not do with you as this potter has done? declares the LORD. Behold, like the clay in the potter’s hand, so are you in my hand, O house of Israel. 7 If at any time I declare concerning a nation or a kingdom, that I will pluck up and break down and destroy it, 8 and if that nation, concerning which I have spoken, turns from its evil, I will relent of the disaster that I intended to do to it.
9 And if at any time I declare concerning a nation or a kingdom that I will build and plant it, 10 and if it does evil in my sight, not listening to my voice, then I will relent of the good that I had intended to do to it.
11 Now, therefore, say to the men of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem:
‘Thus says the LORD, Behold, I am shaping disaster against you and devising a plan against you. Return, every one from his evil way, and amend your ways and your deeds.’ >>
==============
That is in a promise of blessing there is a warning, and in a warning of judgement there is a hope of repentance and relenting or preserving of a remnant.
The NT needs to be read in light of this very strongly emphasised dimension of the OT.
KF
Of course, as a politician, Hitler appealed both to Christianity and to Darwinism. Both held sway among the body politic in the Germany of his day.
The question is, did the ideology which he claimed followed logically from the New Testament’s and Darwin’s writings actually follow logically from those writings?
In the case of Darwin’s, the answer is yes. In the case of the New Testament’s, the answer is no. His convolutions of scripture in the citation @151 qualify it as Exhibit 1, that his ideology did not follow logically from the New Testament’s teachings at all.
LarTanner,
As you agree, Hitler’s Führerprinzip established a pervasive leadership hierarchy with Hitler at the top. This is the opposite of Christianity. As proof, I would quote you the words of Jesus recorded in Matthew 20:24 in response to an argument among his disciples as to who was the greatest.
This is about as opposite as you can get! That hierarchies were later established in many Christian denominations is typical of human institutions, but contrary to the teachings of the Jesus. And in Matthew 7, Jesus says
If you read the Gospel of John in the Complete Jewish Bible, you’ll notice that the places where it talks about “the Jews” is translated “the Judeans” (to contrast with the Galileans in the north). Rabbi Stern makes a strong historical argument for this choice of words. Starting with the book of Acts onwards, the word “Jew” (especially when addressing the diaspora) came to mean all Hebrews, not just those from southern Israel.
Keep reading. 🙂
– Q
KF, you say
Yet even the Barmen makes no explicit statement against antisemitism, as even Weikart admits in his critique of a book on Bonhoeffer by Eric Metaxas:
Don’t get me wrong, I genuinely admire Barmen, and Barth and Boenhoeffer too. I do not and have never said that there was a unified Christianity behind the Nazis. Very many Christians saw Nazism as incompatible with the core teachings of the faith. But others have not seen it so. As I have indicated at least once before, the substance of Jesus’ ethical teachings — insofar as they have been related to history through later writings — have never been the issue I have focused on here so much as to whom and when such teachings applied.
You say of me that I am —
I have listened to the evidence, and I have been aware of it for some time. In some respects I agree with you, but you also have a clear bias yourself: understandably, you in no way want Hitler’s Christianity to find any legitimacy as Christianity.
Unfortunately, you cannot have this. Let’s imagine that Hitler’s program arises in 1097 instead of 1933 and following. In 1097, at the dawn of what R.I. Moore calls a persecuting society, Jews become a target of religiously motivated violence. Many seek to protect the Jews, on economic, religious, and fellow-feeling grounds. In some ways the period from 1097 to 1944 has a troubling consistency when it comes to the Jews and Judaism: ambivalence to full acceptance of Jews and ambivalence to hostility against Jews.
KF, I have in this thread sought to engage your arguments and clarify and refine to find common ground. StephenB called it “changing my story,” but I backed off of the stronger “defame” for “negativity” when it came to written perceptions of Jesus’ conflict with the Pharisees. I have incorporated Barmen into our wider discussion.
Have you even conceded the existence — ever — of Christian negativity against Jews and Judaism? Have you acknowledged that the New Testament has been a source of validation for some hostility, even if to you such validations have been misreadings or misinterpretations of the text? Maybe you have indeed made such a concession and acknowledgement, but to me it seems like you insist on explaining all the bad stuff away.
Yet I also wish to be fair: So tell me, what are the true sources of antisemitism?
Querius,
The meaning of the Greek hoi Ioudaoi in John can in some cases be “the Judeans.” It varies by context. But in John particularly there is a relentless repetition of hoi Ioudaoi that has, I think, an unmistakable effect of making the Jews appear to be a homogeneous group (they weren’t) and violently hostile to Jesus (we don’t really know). The Jews are the people who reject Jesus (1.11), persecute him (5.16), seek his death (8.40), expel believers from the synagogue (9.22), plot Jesus’ death (9.49-52) and persecute Jesus’ followers (16.2).
How does Stern address 8.44?
LT:
It is quite clear that the Barmen declaration targets Nazism and nazification of the churches as heresy. Such would by immediate implication call Nazified thought under the correction of scripture, which includes its antisemitism, political messianism, attempt to subvert the Christian faith in Germany, and the imposition of Hitler as another lord in opposition to Jesus.
It also very explicitly commits to the Lordship of Christ only and reformation based on his teachings. (Or, have you forgotten that Christians under pagan Rome were accused of and executed for disloyalty as they would not go to a pagan altar and toss in a pinch while saying “Caesar is lord.” That echo is just beneath the surface of the Declaration.)
Yes, there is no programmatic declaration on any and all topics, the document is primarily (and perhaps too narrowly) theological. Though it must be reckoned that that was the strength they had and could stand on.
There is indeed a strategic blunder in the wider context (I suspect c 1934 no-one realised just what they were dealing with; we have the benefit of hindsight). Niemoller is after all is said and done, the one who after surviving the camps said that his silence when they came for unionists, communists and Jews is what opened the door that when they came for him there was no one left to speak up for him.
Notice, however the actual implication of the focus:
This intentionally creedal confession rejects as heresy the nazification of the church and the nazi party behind it, and underscores that genuine renewal is biblical and in line with the Holy Spirit of God, the Spirit of the truth in love.
As long since shown above [never overthrown, just rudely mocked via ad hominem], anti-semitism is directly and explicitly contrary to the core ethical and theological teachings of the NT, and the wider Bible. Wherein 39 of 66 books as Protestants group it, are the hebraic OT.
And in the NT, in Romans — Barth’s major stomping grounds! [in the most strongly theological book in the NT] — we may again read this on relations and attitudes between Jews and Gentiles:
That is, Paul here echoes a theme of fruitfulness vs unfruitfulness that Jesus built on from Isa 5, in Jn 15 — root-stock and fruitful/ unfruitful branches. Though, Paul shifts the species from the Vine to an Olive tree to bring in a further point.
Namely, we Gentiles must always remember that if a branch refuses to bear genuine fruit through the Spirit because of unbelief [i.e. willful disbelief leading to rejection of the life giving sap], it will be removed. And if the natural ones were so removed, the grafted in wild olive branches even moreso . . . as is so plainly happening in Europe and North America today; a trend that may make Heinie’s prophetic comment from 1830 sadly relevant again.
And as a bonus, as a didactic device Paul has an imaginary, rhetorical conversation with a Christian antisemite.
One of correction.
So, in context of known NT teachings on the matter, and contrary to your source, Barmen does demonstrably directly imply rejection of antisemitism as contrary to the Lordship and Spirit of Christ, in light of Scripture. And, the reference to renewal by the Word implies that where Christians have fallen down, we are to get back up through the sanctifying action of listening to and heeding said Scriptures.
The proper Christian attitude to unbelieving Jews is therefore, per direct teaching, respect, concern (thus, by direct implication, prayer) and expectation of eventual restoration in good time by the grace of God. Not rage, contempt or hate.
Exactly 180 degrees out of alignment with the attitude of Nazism.
No great surprise there.
And, BTW, if you read in context, Q’s point on a contrast between Galilean and Judaean Jews has a point. Jesus’ primary base of support is clearly Galilee and the centre of opposition is Jerusalem and environs. It is after Pentecost in Jerusalem that there is an evidently conscious shift of focus to Jerusalem. Though, a later Roman Emperor would interrogate descendants of Jesus’ family who per the report were farmers in the Galilee.
It is of course noteworthy that you have studiously avoided direct parallels to the prophetic critiques of elites and people in the OT that I have sampled. Let me now go to the prince of the prophets, Isaiah, in Chs 5 and 53:
This of course builds up to:
In short, judgement by defeat and exile for apostasy, unbelief and unfruitfulness that inverts right and wrong, true and false. (The echo in the fate of Germany is not a coincidence, as Heine — BTW, a Jewish Christian — foresaw c 1830.)
But all of this is preliminaries.
We now come to — note discussion here — one of the main prophetic bones of contention between Jews who saw Jesus as Messiah and those who rejected him as such:
700+ years before Jesus of Nazareth.
The roots of the Christian theology of the Atonement are not hard to discern, nor why in the earliest Christian creed — c. 35 – 38 AD — we may see the appeal to fulfillment of prophecy as a major focus [ cf. here on on that in light of attempts to read in a very different way], namely:
Thus, the explicitly Hebraic and scriptural roots of the gospel are plain, as is the anchorage in 500+ witnesses (~ 20 identifiable by name) in an official declaration that can readily be dated to AD 35 – 38, in an Aramaic circle [Note how the nickname is rendered Cephas, not Peter]. That is, Jerusalem.
There is a theological division between Christians [whether Jewish or Gentile, whether C1 or C21] anf Jews, but it is equally explicit that this is a debate in the context of a common life-giving holy rootstock, with branches — whether Jewish or Gentile — accountable for fruitfulness, and even after being broken off on account of willful unbelief there is the concern and hope of restoration.
Which echoes a consistent theme from Moses forward that identifies a tendency to drift off from roots.
As we look on examples from Moses on, we find that the critiques of elites and their followers in the NT are entirely consistent with the OT prophetic tradition. Indeed, such critiques are consciously within that tradition, of Jews speaking to Jews in the name of God and calling to repentance in light of looming judgement.
For instance, observe the very first recorded Christian Sermon not preached by Jesus, Peter at Pentecost:
Yes, Peter addresses his fellow Israelites with an emphasis on the issue that yet again the nation has killed none of its prophets, showing itself crooked [a direct echo of the song of Moses]. Yes, in so doing he speaks of the Gentiles involved as lawless men. Yes, he highlights prophetic scriptures including that of pouring out the Spirit — which drew the crowd. Yes, he calls attention to Jesus as not just a prophet but the promised messiah, who was unjustly crucified by the Gentile overlords with the connivance of leaders and crowd alike in Jerusalem.
To wrench such out of context and export them to a context of projected racial hostility to Jews as a people is scripture-twisting.
Such should cease.
And instead of steady drumbeat repetitionjs of unsubstantiated accusations that “Christianity” is to blame for Hitler, we should recognise that insofar as Christians were caught up in antisemitism or nazism, that was in disobedience to Scripture, NT Scripture. Indeed, in the case of the German Christian movement, genuine Christians enmeshed were demonstrably caught up in a movement of heresy.
Something to be regretted among the sins of Christendom, but reflective of precisely the inclination to apostasy warned against by the apostle.
After this, we can now determinedly walk back from this distractor to the material facts being distracted from, i.e. derailment of a discussion must not be allowed to succeed.
KF
PS: Jn 8:44 in context (and bearing in mind both the OT prophetic rebukes to Israel and the underlying context fr Ch 6 of former disciples who had turned against Jesus):
In short the issue, as usual is that of hearing and heeding the voice of God, vs the sad pattern of killing the prophets who brought unwelcome correctives.
Reading out of context allows injection of an alien one, racial hatred of Jews.
In short this is all cut from the same cloth as the wrenching of Mark 3:6 as was already pointed out and studiously ignored.
Enough of correction on a side track [the corrective point has been more than adequately made], time to return to focus as highlighted in the OP.
KF
LarTanner asserts:
No, in context, the text is referring to *Judean* Torah teachers and pharisees, not Jews in the sense that you’re using the term.
LarTanner asks:
Paraphrasing Stern, in 8:44, Jesus is through with these self-righteous Judean religious leaders who claim Abraham as their genetic father. In response to their veiled accusation that Jesus was illegitimate, Jesus counters that being a genetic descendent is inconsequential compared to being a spiritual descendent.
Palestine was divided at that time into Galilee, Samaria (Shomron), and Judea. Jesus spent most of his time in Galilee, traveled through Samaria, and was in intense conflict with the Judean religious leadership, especially around the Judean town of Jerusalem.
Here’s a link to the Complete Jewish Bible translation: http://www.biblegateway.com/pa.....ersion=CJB
– Q
F/N: One of the most important responses to those who insistently and toxically side-track a discussion is to refuse to be distracted; even, in cases where the side-track — for want of easy access to corrective information — requires some attention. Let us therefore remind ourselves of the focal issue from the OP and its significance. Namely, that, per Weikart’s abstract:
The key significance of this is that it shows an important lesson of history about how a scientific enterprise influences social, ethical and political thought. Also, here, showing a moral hazard of the scientific thought. Which raises the issue of the dangers of scientism.
The moral hazard in question comes out in root documents, for instance we see how Darwin wrote in his 1871 The Descent of Man, ch 6:
Darwin was addressing fossil gaps, and did not seem to recognise the serious moral hazard just exposed or that it demanded a serious and immediate response. Doubtless he would have been shocked by what happened only seventy years later, driven by the onward development of the social darwinism just laid out in outline.
Similarly in 1881 he wrote a Mr Winston Graham as follows:
This is a full decade on, and it is even more clear that he was speaking of conflicts between “races” of man, of the white races as the more civilised and superior, and of the wiping out of “lower races.” Again, the consequences loom.
As we come back to Weikart, let us notice, again, where this went to in Germany (noting that at the same time it gave rise to a eugenics movement with which Darwin’s family was involved with for many years). Clipping 122 above — studiously ignored above — of course:
************
>> Evolution plays a central role in the chapter in Mein Kampf on “Nation and Race,” which was the only chapter published as a separate pamphlet, thus circulating widely to promote Nazi ideology. 19 In that chapter Hitler explains why he thinks racial mixing violates evolutionary principles:
A few lines later he continues:
Thus, Hitler opposed miscegenation because it hindered evolutionary progress, which for him was the highest good. Since the whole point of this passage is to apply these principles to human racial relations, it is apparent that Hitler believed that humans had evolved and were still evolving. Hitler’s racial policy aimed at advancing human evolution. >>
************
In the lines Weikart did not cite, we find:
Immediately, we see an attempted justification as following the alleged law of higher development through survival of the fittest [and extinction of the allegedly unfit to live — life unworthy of living . . . ], of a predatory mentality which in ideational context leads straight to aggressive war to wipe out and replace inferior races. Such as the Poles etc. With of course Jews being involved; the Jews of Poland are half the Jewish holocaust already, and another 2 million Poles — overwhelmingly Catholic, Christians — died at the hands of Hitler and co. (Pope John Paul II was a survivor of that war.)
But it is not just Nazism that is implicated.
We can see how rapidly and deeply eugenics triumphed among elites in the name of science, becoming embedded in national policy and law for decades. And the logos for the Eugenics conferences bear a telling definition:
With roots being in fields such as: genetics, biology, medicine, psychology, psychiatry, geology, statistics, law and politics.
In short we see here a science in society issue that was intended to shape policy and be embedded in law.
Evolutionary materialist scientism and its fellow traveller ideologies have potential — and, if we will listen to the ghosts of the past, historical — consequences and lessons that reach far and wide that we had better understand and respond to appropriately.
So, we must hear with concern declamations such as this from Richard Lewontin:
As well as this from Dawkins:
That is we see ideological impositions dressed up in the lab coat, that would inject into our general thought, education systems, public policy etc a view that is question-begging, openly dismissive of other views and utterly amoral. Such opens the door to the sort of nihilism and domineering destructive factions Plato warned against 2350 years ago in The Laws, Bk X:
Ideas plainly have consequences, and in this case potentially destructive ones. We have a right to be concerned and critical. Nor should we be intimidated by the dressing up of these ideas in a lab coat.
To argue for common descent is one thing, to question-beggingly insist on censoring scientific thought by imposed a priori materialism dressed up in the lab coat is another. And to lead on from such materialism (whether or not dressed in a lab coat) to its logical consequence, amorality, is yet another.
So, we must be prepared to reflect on worldview and methodological issues, evaluating whether or not such an imposition is reasonable or censoring of alternatives that would otherwise be seriously considered. We must also be prepared to deal with moral hazards implicated by these ideologies and presented in the guise of consequences of science.
In that, the case study of Darwinism, social darwinism and its historical consequences through not only Nazism but eugenics and more, is vital. At least if we are willing to face the issue that understanding the truth about hard-bought lessons of history gives us a guide for being prudent as we try to build our own future.
KF
F/N: Lead to Wikipedia on Hitler’s religious views,following up from SB at 25 supra:
In short it is not well substantiated to view Nazism as Christian in character, and it is utterly irresponsible or cynically deceitful to suggest that such is the case in the teeth of evidence so strong that Wikipedia (which is notoriously ideological and largely anti-Christian itself) has to concede as above.
KF
Querius (171) —
Well, there are very many different contexts in John, some of which seem to support “Jew” better than “Judean.”
But let’s say we agree that all and everywhere the text really means “Judeans” instead of “Jews.” Would you agree that it has taken a long, long time to get people to see what the proper interpretation ought to be? Or are you saying that all along clerics and laity alike have known the proper interpretation “Judeans” and somehow only recently people have become confused?
Finally, as a messianic Jew Stern is ideologically committed to converting Jews into Christians. Do you think it’s possible he’s looking for ways to make the NT as palatable to Jews as possible?
Modern Judaism teaches that God spoke directly to Israel, gave them the Torah, and taught Moses the instructions for proper interpretation–a chain of transmission that remained unbroken from Moses to modern rabbinic Judaism. Do you contend that Modern Judaism is in error on these teachings?
KF (172), Oy.
I am not trying to side-track discussion. From comment #1, I added an important and true clarification to Weikart’s text. After all these comments, what you have neither refuted not acknowledged is the simple truth that Nazi ideology incorporated Christianity.
Did the Nazis twist Christianity? Yes? Did they violate much of its ethical core? Yes. Did they attack other Christians and Churches (something not uncommon among different Christian denominations, by the way)? Yes.
We are in agreement over virtually everything except for the idea that Christian beliefs and institutions were part of the materials the Nazis used in building their ideology. I already showed you their Principle 24 of the Twenty-Five Points (1920):
It simply will not do, KF, to try barricading “positive Christianity” by saying it’s not True Christianity, as this is a classic No True Scotsman attempt. The plain and incontrovertible fact is that some Christians have and do apply the core teachings differently than you would like.
This is not to besmirch or tarnish Christianity, nor is it meant to reduce Christianity to one time, place, and people. But If we are going to talk about Nazi ideology then for sake of completeness and accuracy there is a Christian element to contend with. That’s a fact, and I think I have enough of having to repeat this. So I’ll stop now.
But let’s move on. When you quote Weikart —
This statement should tell you that this topic is controversial, unsettled, and open to various interpretations. The same is true of the Nazi embrace of Christianity.
When you, KF, say —
I agree. And science is not alone in influencing “social, ethical and political thought.” Religious beliefs, controversies, and institutions also have influence. There are many other influential forces besides; the greater point is not only the dangers of scientism but rather the dangers of dogma and orthodoxy in all forms.
Surely you can agree with this last bit? For every Darwin quote you have on “the savage races” I have Pope Nicholas V, with his Dum Diversas (1452)
And Romanus Pontifex (1455)
Again, my point is not to indict Christianity or to ignore the great and many humanitarian/civil equality struggles that people of all faiths and non-faiths have taken on, but rather to agree with you on the moral hazards of many an -ism.
I agree wholeheartedly that “Ideas plainly have consequences,” and that we ought to remain vigilantly “concerned and critical.” In many regards you and I have the same mission.
KF & Q: Fantastic posts & great scriptural references. Kudos!
This person LarTanner is basically trying to inflict guilt on Christianity by quoting Nazism. Time and again Hitler has renounced Christianity and has been open about his hatred such as this one:”The dogma of Christianity gets worn away before the advances of science. Religion will have to make more and more concessions. Gradually the myths crumble. All that’s left is to prove that in nature there is no frontier between the organic and the inorganic. When understanding of the universe has become widespread, when the majority of men know that the stars are not sources of light but worlds, perhaps inhabited worlds like ours, then the Christian doctrine will be convicted of absurdity.”
— Adolf Hitler, from Hitler’s Table Talk (1941-1944)
Apparently this poster ‘LArTanner’ is engaging in sophism and is deceitful, has not divulged its own religious views, and sounds like a pantheist/polytheist trying to argue Abrahamic religions.
Keep up the great work in speaking the truth in the gospels to the lost!
LT: Pardon, but your track record in this thread speaks loud and clear, and not to your advantage. Since we can all scroll up and see, I leave it at that for now. I guess it is time for a second clip from the Weikart article, on substance. KF
That’s fine, KF, but please do remember that Weikart is not the only scholar on the subject and his view is not definitive. Are you interested in reading others on the same subject?
A fair review of the present thread shows that you keep trying to characterize my argument, as when you suggest in 173 that my claim amounts to “Nazism as Christian in character.”
When you say things that are so flagrantly opposite what I have actually said — much like what you accuse Nazism as having done to Christianity — and that can be easily verified above, I struggle to determine whether you are a liar or just hopelessly ideological.
I always taught my students to read first what a writer actually says before trying to establish what s/he means. You would do well to heed this lesson.
Speaking of alternative views, here is a brief quote from pp. 196-7 of Robert Richards’ (U. Chicago) new book, Was Hitler a Darwinian?:
Richards demonstrates that Hitler and his minions rejected evolutionary biology. What’s more, Richards shows, the Nazis used sources who themselves rejected Darwin in building a specious racial theory.
Richards addresses claim after claim and, going back to the primary sources (including, of course, Mein Kampf), shows that the influence of Darwin on Nazism and Nazi eugenics was negligible at best.
FYI: More on the debate and Weikart’s argument in outline:
=========
>> How is it possible to embrace social Darwinism, while rejecting Darwinism and human evolution? Anne Harrington suggests that the Nazis liked some elements of Darwinism, especially the struggle for existence, but not human evolution. 6 Robert Richards agrees, claiming that Nazi racial ideas “were rarely connected with specific evolutionary conceptions of the transmutation of species,” even though they bandied about the term “struggle for existence.” 7 In another essay Richards went further, arguing that Hitler and the Nazis completely rejected biological evolution. 8 The notion that the Nazis could embrace racial struggle without believing in evolution seems plausible at first, especially since Houston Stewart Chamberlain, a forerunner of Nazi racial ideology, embraced this position.
However, the claim that the Nazis did not believe in the transmutation of species and human evolution runs aground once we examine Nazi racial ideology in detail. In this essay I examine the following evidence to demonstrate overwhelmingly that Nazi racial thinkers embraced human and racial evolution: 1) Hitler believed in human evolution. 2) The official Nazi school curriculum prominently featured biological evolution, including human evolution. 3) Nazi racial anthropologists, including SS anthropologists, uniformly endorsed human evolution and integrated evolution into their racial ideology. 4) Nazi periodicals, including those on racial ideology, embraced human evolution. 5) Nazi materials designed to inculcate the Nazi worldview among SS and military men promoted human evolution as an integral part of the Nazi worldview. >>
=========
In short the game plan is to suggest a picking from a smorgasbord of ideas, so blame can be spread around, tainting as it goes. Then, rhetors will be able to come along and divert attention to preferred targets should anyone be so uppity as to suggest that something like Hitler’s statements in the Nation and Race chapter show a significant history of ideas root.
Tut tut, you didn’t do your homework, it’s really CHRISTIANITY and Lutheranism to blame. So there.
Why do I put it so strongly?
Because the decisive evidence is not so hard to find, Hitler co-wrote a book that said it in so many words and turned the pivotal chapter into a pamphlet. So, if there is not a willingness to face the moral hazard in Darwinist thought that led to Social Darwinism, eugenics and some pretty sordid behaviour in a lot of places, then something is wrong. Seriously wrong.
If over the years, I had found that responsibility and sobriety, I would take a different track. But, that is not what I have seen, over and over again.
So, I am in the mode, not by preference, of confronting advocates over their unmet challenge of social and moral responsibility. (Don’t forget, my home discipline is in some ways responsible for worse — nukes; which came too near to blowing up the world at least twice. A sober responsibility to be learned from.)
That is why I think it is important to listen carefully to Weikart, not try to club him down or trash him or dismiss him.
I find that H G Wells — a student of Huxley — was at least concerned, as we can see from opening remarks from War of the Worlds, which inverted the superior race game and put the matter in sharper focus by setting the “Saxons” of England as the inferiors targetted for destruction:
I can respect this, at least it recognises the problem and warns.
Would that we had heeded the warning, which is repeated in Time Machine and with a focus on Science out of ethical control in The Island of Dr Moreau (IIRC).
But it seems few were paying serious attention. (Let us not forget the impact of Dickens’ novels.)
KF
C: Thanks. UD is not really a proper venue for a largely theological debate, but I thought this is an issue where there is a lack of familiarity that calls for more than a short dismissal. KF
PS: More to follow, it is not this prof vs that one or some “random” bloggist, but documented facts. For instance, ponder the implication of the warning on raw evo given by Wells above, then think of Time Machine as an exercise on critiquing Eugenics and making a further point on elitism with the twist that the lower classes turn the upper classes of England into sheep bred for slaughter. Remember, Wells is by and large before the worst excesses happened so he foresaw the problem and shouted a warning. So, what should we be saying after the fact What ARE vwe actually saying? Why? (Also, for enjoyment and significant details with key illustrations, have a look at the Lecture embedded here as a FYI.)
Lar Tanner quoting Richards
In the first instance, no one has argued that Hitler’s behavior “nullifies” evolutionary theory. In the second instance, it doesn’t matter a whit whether or not whether Darwin or Haeckel was dead or alive when Hitler was being influenced by their “scientific” views. Your writer is very confused.
Lar Tanner
How could Richards demonstrate something that isn’t true. Show me how he demonstrates it. You cannot show it because he does not demonstrate it.
Ridiculous.
From Chapter 11.
This is pure Darwin, both the ideas and the technical terms. Hitler is here using Darwinian “science” to justify his genocidal program.
Chalciss – Thanks for the kudos, also the very appropriate table talk quote.
kairosfocus – Great overview and summary . . . and for the focus.
While this long discussion has focused on Darwinism (and Eugenics) on Adolph Hitler’s program and the embodiment of his ideas and prejudices into public policy, the more pertinent issue is the potential impact of current and future scientific philosophy. In my opinion, without a strong moral anchor, any number of Draconian measures can be considered imperative. For example
– The environmental impact of the relentless expansion of the human population is a clear threat to life on the planet.
– The human genome has been compromised by an expanding number of defects that would ordinarily have been eliminated by natural selection.
– Scientists have gained the ability of genetic modification and a planned scientific selection process that includes genetic screening; this ability suggests an overarching biological mandate to do so.
As a result of these observations, there are scientific conclusions that will be made, which will be implemented as public policy by politicians with political goals in mind.
– Q
LarTanner,
First of all, please know that I appreciate good observations and intelligent questions.
It’s actually even worse than that. I think most Christians are still unaware of who the Judeans were, much less the origin of the term “Jew.”
Before running across Dr. Stern’s translation, I thought the references to “the Jews” meant something like self-identified SuperJews(tm) . . . with PhDs. 😉 It would otherwise be nonsensical that Jesus, who was a Jew along with all his disciples who were Jewish, after preaching and teaching an audience that was predominantly Jewish, would then have a confrontation with (drumroll) “The Jews” (gasp).
Know that as a Christian, I believe that the Jews were and still are God’s chosen people, who were entrusted with the oracles of God. Even if many Jews are atheists, God has a special love for them, will never ever abandon them! As it is written by the prophet Isaiah (chapter 49, CJB)
It is also my belief as a Christian, that any empire, ruler, politician, or petty bureaucrat who tries to harm Jewish people as a group is from the devil and is trying to thwart the writings of the prophets and the promises of God. As such, the enemies of the Jewish people are promised swift destruction, as has happened repeatedly in history.
As far as the translations are concerned, I believe they were rendered in good faith, albeit in partial ignorance of the complexities of the culture of the time. Dr. Stern attempts to address these issues on several levels.
Technically, he wants to bring the light of God’s love and salvation to convert unatoned Jews (and Gentiles) into completed, Messianic JEWS. But, answering your question directly, I’d say yes, he does, but he must hold himself to the highest ethical standards. When I first read the Complete Jewish Bible, the translation of “the Jews” to “the Judeans” made me highly suspicious for the same reason that you mentioned. After studying the subject, I came to the conclusion that the translation was reasonable and not forced.
Great question!
In the Tanakh, you see an unbroken succession of covenants and dispensations that included Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, and David. Furthermore, there are prophetic references to a mysterious personage named “Messiah.” These are facts. The covenants were different, and seem to progress in some fashion.
Then Jesus came along and said some pretty surprising things, which you’ve perhaps read. For example, what do you think that Jesus meant when he said,
Then, when the Temple was destroyed by the Romans about 40 years after Jesus was crucified (the Roman method of execution), there was another remarkable change, a “fork in the road” so to speak. Some Jews embraced the “new” covenant, others held to a new form of Judaism, one without a temple or sacrifices, called Rabbinic Judaism. Both of these Jewish sects were derived from and a dramatic deviation from the earlier form of Judaism. So the question becomes which fork to take, and for what justification.
Regarding “anti-judaism,” you might be interesting in reading this link:
http://orthodoxmessianic.blogs.....ction.html
– Q
F/N:
Weikart continues, in a context of noting that this is — obviously — not the sole line of influence involved in the rise and actions of the National Socialist German Workers Party (NSDAP, aka Nazis):
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>> Not only will my analysis help us understand better the rationale behind Nazi racial policies, which were intended to improve the human species biologically, but it will also help illuminate the interaction between German science and Nazi ideology.
Despite many recent studies showing the close rapport of the Nazi regime and Ger-man scientists, and despite many recent works rejecting the notion that Nazi ideology was pseudoscientific, as most historians used to think, even today some scholars are still loathe to entertain the idea that key elements of Nazi ideology could have been in harmony with the thinking of leading German scientists.
Indeed the Nazi embrace of Darwinism in their racial ideology demonstrates the influence of science on Nazi ideology. Nazi racial ideology was largely consistent with the scholarship on race taught at German universities. This makes even clearer why so many German anthropologists and biologists supported Nazi racism—they were already committed to it before the Nazis came to power.
If this is so, why have some historians mistakenly argued that Nazis denied human evolution?
First, we need to recognize that this issue has not received much atten-tion.
Many historians mention the Nazi embrace of social Darwinism, but they do not explore the scientific underpinnings of it. Paul Weindling points this out, stating that “historians have been loath to engage with the biological sciences. Historians of Nazi Germany have curiously not seen race within a scientific framework. . . . The biology of race remains relatively unexamined.” 10 This may seem odd in light of a spate of recent works arguing for the primacy of biology and race in the Nazi worldview and the many recent studies of scientists under Nazism. However, even if Weindling is overstating the case a little, he is largely correct: the study of Nazi racial ideology and of German biologists under the Nazi regime have not connected sufficiently.
Nonetheless, some historians have noticed the importance of human evolution in Nazi racial ideology. Christopher Hutton argues that Darwinism was a crucial element of Nazi racial ideology. 11 Uwe Hoßfeld’s and Thomas Junker’s important work on biologists and anthropologists under the Nazi regime also helps illuminate the connections between evolutionists and the Nazi regime, though their emphasis is on the scientists more than on Nazi ideology. 12
One reason some historians (such as Mosse and Bowler) have erred is because of a mistaken belief that the Nazi insistence on hard heredity entailed a rejection of evolution. Hard heredity—the idea championed by German biologist August Weismann—is the idea that environmental influences cannot affect hereditary traits. Weismann rejected the Lamarckian idea that organisms can evolve by pass-ing on acquired characteristics to their progeny. The Nazis continually insisted that heredity cannot be directly affected by the environment, charging that Lamarckism was a Marxist doctrine. The Nazis’ embrace of hard heredity is not antievolutionary, however, since Weismann was a leading evolutionist.
When the Nazis occasionally claimed that the Nordic race had been unchanged for thousands of years, they were not claiming that it had been immutable over geologic time.
Walter Gross, head of the Nazi Racial Policy Office, clarified this point in an essay on “The Racial View of History.” After bashing Lamarckism, he reminded his readers that even though racial traits do not change over historical time, “selection and elimination” (“Auslese und Ausmerze,” a phrase often used by German evolutionary biologists to mean natural selection) do alter racial traits. 13 Most Darwinists admitted that as far as we could tell, humans had not changed significantly during the past several thousand years. The evolutionary anthropologist Otto Reche admitted that human races had not changed significantly in the past 20–30,000 years. 14 By rejecting Lamarckism and insisting on hard heredity, Nazi racial theorists were consistent with the best science of their day (in this case).
Another reason some historians have erred is because they think Nazis would have rejected a common ancestor for the various human races, because a common origin would imply human equality. This is an anachronistic view, for in the early twentieth century, most German Darwinists emphasized racial variation and inequality, not racial equality. Haeckel and many other Darwinists saw evolution as evidence against human equality, not supporting it. As I will show, many Darwinian biologists, such as Konrad Lorenz and Hans Weinert, argued that Darwinism supports racial inequal-ity. Nazi racial theorists believed that the Nordic race had diverged from other races far enough in the past that it had diverged considerably from other races. They also explained that natural selection was the process driving the evolution of the allegedly superior Nordic race [–> traced to particularly severe selection pressure in a harsh environment, presumably that of the ice age and beyond]. >>
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So, here Weikart addresses key misconceptions that would lead to a misreading of for instance the pivotal text in Mein Kampf. We would also be well advised to recall that the original subtitle of Origin was or the preservation of favoured races in the struggle for existence. A pattern of thought that Darwin clearly extended to human varieties.
We need to appreciate that race — almost, sub-species on the way to species — was seen as an index of fitness, and that elimination of the allegedly less fit was expected, most plainly by Darwin in Ch 6 of Darwin’s 1871 Descent of Man as already cited:
These words clearly set a frame in which the line of thought Hitler tapped into developed in Germany. And, frankly given Eugenics and the like, elsewhere also. Let us never forget that early Nazi “race hygiene” laws were rooted in American antecedents, in I think California.
The moral hazard involved swings into play long before we come to the gates of death camps.
We need to face the history, not play games to divert its lessons.
While I am at it, I am in no wise using these moral hazards of Darwinism to undermine the theory. That has long since fallen of its own weight as an account of origin of body plans due to a 150 years long want of adequate, empirically substantiated mechanism that can account for the functionally specific complex organisation and associated information (much of it CODED — as in, language) required to form new body plans by incremental steps driven by blind chance variation and differential reproductive success. That is multiplied by the systematic absence of the implied intermediates in the fossils, and again by the Lewontinian ideological imposition of question begging a priori materialism that indeed implies something like darwinism but only prevails because serious alternatives are ruled out a priori. To which, we must add the utter absence of a credible explanation for the origin of cell based life, which requires a solution to the same FSCO/I problem. So, the whole tree of life icon — the first one of evolution, collapses from root to trunk to branches and sub branches.
So, the actual issue on the table is history of ideas and their consequences, which has little to do with whether or no an idea is actually sound. Many a ridiculously fallacious ideology has had major impact on history. Too often, devastating.
So, that strawman can be set aside.
The issue at stake is the links from Darwin’s thought as a dominant intellectual and cultural influence, multiplied by a receptive situation and associated moral hazards, to Hitler.
And the reason for it is the simple one that we had better learn from appalling history lest we repeat it or even echo it.
In a context where — tracing to the lingering dominance of the same basic ideas on origins and associated worldviews — there seems to be considerable resistance to learning from the history. Or even refusal to acknowledge that well substantiated facts are facts.
Which is an obvious red flag issue.
KF
F/N 2: Let us (again) document that embrace of Darwinism as related to human evolution, in the strategic context of education:
==========
>>Evolutionary biology had been well entrenched in the German biology curriculum long before the Nazis came to power (this is why it was so influential on Nazi ideologists).
The Darwinian explanation for evolution was the most prominent theory taught in German schools, though it was not uncontested. The biology curriculum under the Nazi regime continued to stress evolution, including the evolution of humans and races. The Nazi curriculum and texts espoused Darwinism and rejected Lamarck-ism, which it sometimes castigated as Marxist, because it flew in the face of the Nazi stress on hard heredity.
In 1938 the Ministry of Education published an official curriculum handbook for the schools. This handbook mandated teaching evolution, including the evolution of human races, which evolved through “selection and elimination.” It stipulated, “The student must accept as something self-evident this most essential and most important natural law of elimination [of unfit] together with evolution and reproduction.” In the fifth class, teachers were instructed to teach about the “emergence of the primitive human races (in connection with the evolution of animals).”
In the eighth class, students were to be taught evolution even more extensively, including lessons on “Lamarckism and Darwinism and their worldview and political implications,” as well as the “origin and evolution of humanity and its races,” which included segments on “prehistoric humanity and its races” and “contemporary human races in view of evolutionary history.” 22
The Ministry of Education’s 1938 biology curriculum reflected the biology cur-riculum developed by the National Socialist Teachers’ League in 1936–37, which likewise heavily emphasized evolution, including the evolution of human races. The Teachers’ League document, authored by H. Linder and R. Lotze, encouraged teach-ers to stress evolution, because “The individual organism is temporary, the life of the species to which it belongs, is lasting, but is also a member in the great evolution of life in the course of geological times. Humans are also included in this life.”
Thus evolution was supposed to support the Nazis’ collectivist ideals—the importance of the species or race over the individual. This biology curriculum called for teaching plant and animal evolution in classes three and four and human evolution in class five. Of the ten topics required for biology instruction in the upper grades, one was evolution and another was human evolution, which included instruction on the origin of human races. 23
All the biology texts published in Germany in the late 1930s and early 1940s needed official approval of the Ministry of Education, and all provided extensive discussion of evolution, including the evolution of human races. Jakob Graf’s 1942 biology textbook has an entire chapter on “Evolution and Its Importance for Worldview.” Therein Graf combated Lamarckism and promoted Darwinian evolution through natural selection. He claimed that knowing about human evolution is important, because it shows that humans are not special among organisms. He also argued that evolution substantiates human inequality. In the following chapter on “Racial Science” Graf spent about fifteen pages discussing human evolution and insisted that humans and apes have common ancestors. 24 >>
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You can bet that if this is what was embedded in the schools, it was there for a strategic ideological/worldview reason and was intended to dominate the society, shaping it in the way the leadership — ultimately der Fuhrer — wanted.
When this is multiplied by what we can see in Mein Kampf and what we saw from Darwin, the lineage is plain and the intent is even plainer.
There is a moral hazard in Darwinism that has to be faced, even before we get tot he issue of the patent amoralit6y of evolutionary materialism that has been warned about as long ago as Plato in The Laws Bk X.
And given the responsibilities of scholarship on such a vital piece of history, this alone is decisive. What is embedded in schools is an instrument of state policy, especially in a totalitarian regime.
This has to be squarely faced, acknowledged and soberly addressed, not resisted derided and dismissed.
The best context for that in my mind is that we need tot each basic principles of right reason, critical thinking skills, core ethics and in that context address both the strengths and weaknesses of science methods in achieving useful knowledge, and the responsibilities of science in society with key case studies — which should include Chemical warfare in WWi and since, biological warfare, the Nazi and eugenics etc movements, and the nuke weapons issue, , in an age that looks to science for guidance.
Sorry, but one sided indoctrination on “climate change” is not good enough, not by a long shot. Indeed the above may well serve to rebalance that one too. (As in, for just one instance, computer simulations and models are not equal to empirical reality, nor can they replace it in scientific investigations.)
KF
Querius (185:)
And maybe even worse still: If one expression from a fraction of the total work is open to misinterpretation, then how must we view the total work? After all, this is not a matter of a textual variant. Surely, we should probably (reasonably and appropriately) be cautious about any interpretation of the text.
The big gaping hole that we are identifying here is our lack of ability to assert confidently the meaning that the original tellers intended to convey to their historical audience.
No, I don’t think it would be nonsensical. John makes use of duality fairly often, so the contrast of Jesus and the Jews/Judeans seems par for the course. An illustrative analogy: American Democrats have confrontations with American Republicans, even though they are all Americans. Even now, within the GOP, the Tea Party has become a distinct sect that has some choice words about the Republicans. Maybe in the span of time (decades) from the Roman execution of Jesus to the emergence of the Johannan version of events, a similar kind of break had already irrevocably occurred.
You say —
Hmm. Do you take the text to be inerrant but the interpretation of that text to be fallible? Wouldn’t a truly inerrant text — if one is to go to the trouble of making it inerrant — also be open to only one, true interpretation at all times?
Finally, this:
Well, I think an orthodox Jew would say that part of your statement above could be expressed differently:
Some Jews embraced the “new” covenant, others held to a [refinement in the] form of Judaism, one without a temple or [animal] sacrifices, called Rabbinic Judaism.
Rabbinic Judaism asserts itself to be not a derivation or “dramatic deviation” of earlier Judaism but a necessary evolution brought by the destruction of the Second Temple, diaspora events, the development of formal talmudic and midrashic practice, and the emergence of Christianity.
I appreciate your attempt to make Judaism and Christianity children of the same parent, but it cannot be so. Are you familiar with the thirteen principles of faith by Maimonides?
Rabbinic Judaism sees itself, in my opinion, as a formalization of what Judaism has always believed and been. Much as KF asserts an unshakable ethical core to Christianity, I think Rabbinic Judaism sees the 13 principles as the eternal core of Jewish belief.
LarTanner,
This is an enjoyable discussion regardless of whether we come to agreement. I promise that I will answer your questions and issues as carefully and honestly as I can.
Your kal v’chomer argument is acknowledged, and yes, you’re right. While the p’shat is often clear, there are many facets and pitfalls in the Word of God. Sometimes there is no exact word match between languages, sometimes there is a cultural, historical, or textual context to be aware of, or a rendering of an aphorism, adage, or colloquial expression to understand. Thus, sometimes a paraphrase is more accurate than a word-for-word translation. I often find myself referring to other translations (you can compare them at http://www.biblegateway.com). I also look at Hebrew usages and context in the Tanakh to help me understand the range of meaning in a Hebrew word. This is often very difficult.
Yes. And I believe in the living Word of God that requires reverence, wisdom, and humility to discern, and the guidance of the Ruach HaKodesh to apply it to our lives.
Yes, this is very possible. I understand that there are many untranslated letters from this time that might shed more light.
Both the translation and the interpretation of the text is fallible. And some people twist the Word of God to the harm of many and to their own destruction.
Not necessarily. First of all, in Jewish tradition, there is the PRDS—different levels of meaning. Then, there are the “riddles of the wise,” as mentioned in Proverbs, and finally, I believe there are reasons why God intended the Word of God to be spiritually rather than intellectually unlocked in our hearts.
Ok. If God raised up Moses to provide the complete details of Torah, built on a legacy of earlier covenants sealed with blood sacrifices, how much more would God provide a prophet or the Messiah if the temple and the atoning sacrifices were to be changed!
No, I’m really not attempting to do this. Sorry for offending anyone, but I believe that God’s desire was to see Judaism become Messianic Judaism, and not be superseded by a new Gentile temple and priesthood in Rome, or any other equivalent.
Rabbi Sha’ul, also known as the Apostle Paul, describes the humility required of the Gentiles in his letter to the Roman church (chapter 11, start at verse 16):
http://www.biblegateway.com/pa.....ersion=CJB
You may well ask “What happened?”
Regarding The Thirteen Principles of Jewish Faith, I will tell you as honestly as I can what I believe in regarding each one:
I believe this with all my heart, all my soul, and all my mind.
There is one and only one God as the Shema says. Notice that the Shema uses the word echad for unity, not yachid. I have a spirit, soul, and body, but there is only one of me. Jews understand that the Ruach HaKodesh is God, not a second God.
Jesus said “God is spirit; and worshippers must worship him spiritually and truly.” This is what I also believe. But is it impossible for God to walk in the garden of Eden, or to have lunch with Abraham?
God created time, thus He is eternal.
I believe in all 10 commandments—none have passed away.
Yes, and through the conviction or inspiration of the Ruach HaKodesh as certainly was the case with the prophets.
Yes, until Messiah comes. Moses said, “Adonai will raise up for you a prophet like me from among yourselves, from your own kinsmen. You are to pay attention to him. (Deuteronomy 18)
They are the oracles of God entrusted to the Jews. (Romans 3)
Jesus said, “Yes indeed! I tell you that until heaven and earth pass away, not so much as a yud or a stroke will pass from the Torah — not until everything that must happen has happened.” (Matthew 5:18) I believe this too.
This appears throughout the scriptures, and I trust it as well.
Yes. Everyone must appear before God, but no one can stand without atonement for sin.
Yes, as is affirmed in prophecy—Messianic Judaism. For example, in Daniel 9, it says that Messiah will come before the temple is destroyed.
Yes, even as David also affirmed.
Which of these 13 were not believed by Moses and the Patriarchs, or by Jesus and his talmidim?
Kind regards,
– Q
F/N: Given a clear intent evident all around not to see unwelcome facts, it is unfortunately necessary and even vital to hammer home the facts and clench over the nails, to firmly anchor our understanding. That is, if we refuse to learn the lessons of history we will be doomed to repeat or echo its worst chapters. So, though often painful, we must take a clear-eyed look at what its sobering facts teach us from the mistakes, errors, crimes and blunders of the past. (And yes, that specifically includes learning from the sins and errors of Christendom, cf. here on to see how I think this should shape a basic systematic theology study.)
Major premise: we neglect, ignore, reject or dismiss such hard-bought, soundly rooted lessons at our peril.
So, painful though it be, I insist on continuing on the main topic from the OP.
For, these lessons teach us what we need to learn about science, education, policy influence of science, science and ideology, and ethics.
Thence, frankly, reformation.
Let us therefore now see how Weikart speaks of Hitler’s views, and why:
Between these cites, Weikart discusses the clip from the Nation and Race chapter in Mein Kampf, translating key terms as indicated. (And even if one softens “evolution” to “development” the context makes the matter utterly clear — evolution and onward higher evolution of especially the Nordic race through natural selection, sexual selection by women choosing acceptable mates, and — ominously — the fox having no pity on geese and the cat having none for mice.)
In short, regardless of other influences and their sources, it is quite evident that:
1 –> Nazism, in general reflected the general views in Germany on darwinist (as opposed to Lamarckian . . . the alternative that seemed to be around) evolutionary origins of life and of humans in particular.
2 –> This is specifically true of the principal leader and ideologue, Hitler.
3 –> This was entrenched as a premise in political speeches, key books, and pamphlets drawn from such.
4 –> It was embedded in state controlled education, which actually aimed to have students imagine that darwinist core principles of survival of the fittest and ELIMINATION of the unfit by contrast were “self-evident.” Citing again:
5 –> This is of course a case where the appeal to self-evidence is being used fallaciously, reflecting a still too commonly encountered tautological and question-begging formulation of the concept of natural selection.
6 –> This is then reinforced by loaded conceptions as to what “fitness” means that take on menacing proportions when it is blended with the notion of Nordic superiority and elimination of the allegedly unfit.
7 –> In this context, the attack on mixing of races as frustrating the yet higher evolution of the superior seen as the will of nature, takes on a demonically mystical cast.
8 –> Where also, we must not overlook that breeding and selection to breed the best is set in a specifically evolutionary context, that is attempts to use this to divert from the darwinist context are misinformed, at best.
9 –> Let us therefore again — with clearer eyes — read the excerpt from the Nation and Race chapter (Bk I Ch 11 I believe) in Mein Kampf as Weikart cites and comments on it, again clipping 122 above:
In short, it is quite plain — once we cease from reading into the text to avoid what it plainly teaches, goes out of its way to emphasise in fact.
We need to face the facts, recognise the moral hazards in darwinism, and address the ethical and worldview issues that such hazards raise in light of such horrific living recollection history.
And, let us determine to do so before that now elderly generation moves off the scene.
KF
PS: It seems, there is a continued argument that requires some attention to core Christian ethics and theology.
On ethics, it is indisputable that the charter statement is the Sermon on the Mount as recorded in Mt 5 – 7 , given by Jesus in Galilee, given as a rabbi teaching his disciples on their expected manner of life, standing foursquare in the hebraic tradition.
Let me excerpt certain particularly illuminating parts that lead up to and illuminate what Jesus highlighted as the pivot of Biblical morality, the Golden Rule (which he of course draws from Moshe):
It is quite plain that this is the intentional touchstone of Christian ethics, to the point where to neglect these words is viewed as suicidal folly. And, it is a commentary on core scriptural principles of ethics found in the OT, going on to emphasise inner transformation and helping one another in growth. The premise is that we are children of a common Father, our Lord and God, the only Lord and God. The further premise is that his word must guide us and must be fulfilled in our lives in light of Christ’s commentary and the underlying teachings. Further to this, we are to make God’s holy, loving, caring perfection our target.
And more like that.
In this light, we can hear again — there seems (sadly) to be a great reluctance to accept what should be patent, and what any fair minded reading would immediately yield — the great messianic rabbi Paul, teaching the gentiles (in accordance with Isa 52 – 53 which envisions: “so shall he sprinkle[c] many nations . . .”) as represented by the Athenian elites and the obviously present onlooking crowd of ordinary people eager to hear the latest ideas:
And again, in his most extensively theological letter, we read — let me use the AMP instead of the usual ESV:
The context in light of the Sermon on the mount is obvious, and the onward Hebraic scriptural frame and anchorage in our being equally made in God’s image as neighbours should be patent. Save, frankly, to those too stirred up and hostile to see or hear straight.
It is time that that regrettable warping be corrected and fully acknowledged as corrected.
Beyond, I need only mention, that Jesus taught by the parable of the Good Samaritan that our brotherhood and neighbourliness do and must extend across racial, theological, religious and hereditary enmity divides.
Let me be plain: Nazism is completely at odds to core Christian moral principles and precepts, as should be evident to anyone who has taken trouble to simply read the major ethical teachings of the NT. In that context, Jesus’ warning against wolves in sheep’s clothing as cited is specifically and highly relevant.
Christianity as represented by its foundational ethics is utterly antithetical to nazism. Those who have misrepresented it as though it is a major root of what Hitler et al believed and taught are in grave error and need to definitively retract and repudiate such assertions and insinuations.
And yes, in the long history of Christendom, too many have failed to live up to such principles, and some have even taught in contravention to them. The same can be said of those corrected by the OT prophets. And indeed, any movement, institution, party, nation or civilisation can be said to have its fair proportion of moral failings, wrongs and crimes. That reflects the moral hazard of being human, which is the exact reason why we need to be restrained by the inner governance of principles and it is why we need governance in community, which itself must be restrained by justice as a guiding star.
And, it is why we must mark teachings, ideas, worldviews and theories that embed moral hazards that undermine sound morality, and it is why we must handle such with extra caution and vigilance lest they let loose great evils.
I dare to say, this plainly includes both classical and modern forms of Darwinism as a grand theory of origins, and it especially includes scientism and evolutionary materialism.
That is part of why it is necessary to make a sober study of Nazisn, as a case of just how bad it can get.
KF
PPS: When it comes to core Christian theology, perhaps the best general summary is the Nicene Creed of 325 and 381 — yes, it was re-issued and reinforced after fifty years of debates and issues:
(A summary on the point by point scriptural basis is here.)
The hebraic, scriptural roots are obvious.
Indeed, it pivots on 1 Cor 15:1 – 11 in light of Isa 53 [and with Genesis in the background], with support materials addressing Creation, the Christian understanding of the complex unity nature of the one true, living God [cf. here on], and also the culmination of history.
But, kindly note, this is for record, not to entertain more and more distractive side tracks led away to strawmen soaked in toxic ad hominems and inviting the spark of polarising words.
KF
KF,
It’s interesting to contrast the belief-based creeds with the behavioral requirements of the early Messianic community. Ya’akov (James) says the following:
A very different outlook in my opinion.
– Q
Q,
Since this thread seems to have acquired a definite theological cast, I will make some observations on James’ remarks.
Okay, let me try to clear matters up a bit, on grounds that this is sufficiently unfamiliar that it is worth the risk of the above to provide some perspective.
In Ac 15, there is an internal debate over what is to be done with Gentiles. The unauthorised party from Jerusalem argued they have to be come Jews in order to be saved, Paul and Barnabas argued no, on justification by faith; backed up by their recent journey and its results.
That was in Antioch, Syria (Paul’s missionary base and a church that was of mixed Jewish and Gentile character having been founded c 3 – 35, and strengthened c 45 – 47, sending missionaries c 47 – 48 . . . onward being a major Christian base for centuries [one of five main patriarchates]), after they returned from their first major Missionary Journey.
A delegation was sent to Jerusalem [c. 48 – 49], and we ended up with the first church council, with the college of apostles and elders hearing both sides and coming to a decision, stated by James.
The focal issue was not ethical as such, but on the nature of justification.
Accordingly, let us note Peter’s decisive input, based on his then fairly recent experience with Cornelius the Centurion, his family and friends, where he had gone to preach to them under a vision, as Ac 10 – 11 records. He describes the circumstances under which the Spirit was poured out on them in power then draws theological conclusions and infers to the issue of whether Gentiles need to become Jews in order to be saved.
First, backdrop:
In Jerusalem the, council gathers:
Peter’s input based on actual experience of the Spirit poured out, not debate points:
Notice the timing in the actual event, in Caesarea:
So, let us see how Peter applies this lesson by direct demonstration of the timing of and thus conditions for justification, in the Council of Ac 15, as he continues speaking:
So, the rest is summing up and conclusion:
After this, James sums up and discusses the issue of unity and not causing unnecessary offence in so doing:
In short, gentiles do not need to become Jews in order to be saved. Similarly, as there are certain particular matters that are known issues or points likely to cause alienation, we underscore:
In short, these are applications of core moral principle, argued out based on them, when they need to be argued out.
We must realise that the overarching principle and premise is relationships of pure love to God and man, from which we get principles of ethics and from which detailed precepts and steps of wisdom and self restraint where abuse of liberty may harm another, apply.
But at the same time, the one who would bind others unduly, should realise there are such things as areas of freedom, which are quite extensive. (I think here of e.g. those who would say that as NT texts do not mention use of a musical instrument, such is forbidden and against the will of God in worship. With all due respects to those who under certain traditions have come to think this is from God: nope!)
KF
F/N: A further clip from Weikart, illustrating attitude to Creationism and to core Christian ethics in academic-scientific nazi circles:
Nazism is simply not in accord with a creation anchored ethic that sees us as made in God’s image, loved by God, valued enough to be redeemed at astonishing cost, and commanded to love one’s equals in nature as one loves oneself even across racial, religious and ideological divides.
And, frankly, if man is the product of time, chance and the impersonal, through a cosmos that happens to throw up carbon chemistry self replicating automata, which then by blind chance and mechanical necessity somehow vary and self-improve, ending up at us, for the moment, what value does the individual have? What worth or rights beyond might and manipulation make ‘right,’ and so it is struggle for power that determines how one should be treated?
On evolutionary materialism, ethics is dead, and man is dead. So is mind.
Yet more reasons to look twice, nay thrice, ten times and more . . . before we blindly leap.
KF
KF,
Yes. Very nicely put into context and articulated!
Pulling this all back into the orbit of the original topic, one can see the attempt by AH to justify and combine his antisemitism, nationalism, and socialism under a consistent idealistic philosophy, which included Darwinism for scientific support.
This philosophy was antithetical to Judeo-Christian beliefs, but pandered to German loyalties and tradition.
All humans, not just Germans, look for these “from first principles” methods for constructing value systems—Japanese Bushido and Enlightenment Deism immediately come to mind. It reminds me of the following passage in Scripture:
Nowadays, the fashionable blend seems to be Environmentalism, Socialism, and Neo-Darwinism (although the US seems to have embarked on a new, world crusade for sexual tolerance). The new trinity will once again usher in (pun intended) statist oppression in the name of these ideals.
Even to the end, many Germans believed that Hitler was an idealist and visionary, but that some of his supporters went to extremes.
Who will be the next visionary?
– Q