WHY THE JEWS REJECTED JESUS

Holy Assertions!: David Klinghoffer says Jews saved the world.
Q&A by Kathryn Jean Lopez (National Review)

David Klinghoffer, former literary editor at National Review has a new book just out — Why the Jews Rejected Jesus: The Turning Point in Western History — which, as you can imagine from the title, has gotten a little attention already. NRO Editor Kathryn Jean Lopez (a Catholic) chatted with her former office neighbor (an orthodox Jew) about his book, his claims (he tells Lopez: “Had more Jews accepted Jesus, Mel Gibson today might be praying toward Mecca.”) and goals.

National Review Online: David, you’ve got chutzpah. What were you and your publisher thinking publishing a book on the necessity of Jews rejecting Jesus so close to Easter?

David Klinghoffer: It’s not chutzpah. I’m just trying to answer the Big Question when it’s most on Christian minds. On Easter, Christians recall the death and resurrection of Jesus, his saving death, as they believe. The question is, Why don’t Jews understand that they also need the gift of unmerited grace that came with that death? The quickest answer is that Judaism has always understood that we received such a gift, but 1,300 years before Jesus died, at Mt. Sinai. The Christian offer of salvation through Christ’s death is an offer of a gift we already had in exchange for giving up the unique grammar of our relationship with God through the mitzvoth, or commandments. I also hope that my book will remind believing Christians of the most important thing we have in common: a belief that there is such a thing as religious truth in the first place. That idea is under attack from the secular left. In this sense, my book is a battle cry on behalf of both Jews and Christians.

NRO: You’re not a Biblical scholar. Why are you wading in such deep waters?

Klinghoffer: Because most professional Biblical scholars don’t believe in religious debate. The ones at secular universities mostly don’t believe there’s such a thing as religious truth — so what would the purpose be in debating? They believe in “dialogue” — that namby-pamby word, smacking of relativism, designating the activity where professors sit around talking to each other. So it falls to me, a journalist.

NRO: How can the whole of Western Civilization rest on the rejection of Jesus?

Klinghoffer: Because the earliest Christian church was initially hobbled by insisting that new converts adhere to Jewish law — keep kosher, be circumcised, etc. For an adult man to be circumcised was a bummer, let me tell you. The decision was made, however — at a church council in Jerusalem in 49 — to jettison Jewish law as a requirement for new Christians. This was done at the apostle Paul’s insistence, and he explains in Acts that since the Jews were rejecting his presentation of Jesus as savior and messiah, the Christian message would now be taken to the gentiles. Dispensing with Jewish practices like circumcision made this possible. Had the Jews not rejected Paul’s preaching about Jesus, the church likely would have held on to those laws. Had it done so, the church would have remained hobbled, and could hardly have become the world-bestriding institution it is today. Jewish Christianity would have remained a sect in Judaism, and probably would have died out along with other such sects in 70 when the Temple was destroyed by Rome and the Jews scattered. In that case, there would be no Christian civilization, and, among other things, no America as we know it — a country whose founding was deeply influenced by Christian faith. There is a possibility that we would all be Muslims. Had more Jews accepted Jesus, Mel Gibson today might be praying toward Mecca.