Monday, March 21, 2005

This sounds like a really good idea........ (not!)

Over the last three months I have done a great deal of reading about Judaism and the origins of CHristianity, because I gave a series of six adult education lectures at my shul on the subject. Fascinating stuff, and different from my normal medieval-modern historical focus. (I did it because I've been giving a Jewish History course at the BAYT for seven years, and the subject of the origins of Christianity has consistently been the single most-requested topic.)
So I was interested to see that David Klinghoffer is publishing a new book called "why the Jews rejected Jesus". His website contains the following excited declaration:

For the first time in modern history, Klinghoffer, an Orthodox Jew, revives an ancient tradition – that of the disputation, going back to the Middle Ages – to explain the Jewish rejection of Jesus.

--- is he, or his publicist, a)ignorant b) out of their minds??????? c) both???

Next -- David Klinghoffer, an Orthodox Jew, will revive the ancient tradition of the pogrom, an exciting opportunity for direct Christian-Jewish dialogue.

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In a different way, I am not at all sure that this somewhat 'in your face', unsubtle, almost daring a confrontation popular scholarship is such a good idea at all. We are a tiny, tiny group. Sometimes we seem to behave without 'sechel'.

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