Now the gospels were written at a time when the Romans were persecuting the Jewish people—in fact Jerusalem had just been destroyed by the Roman army! This meant that the Christians had to distance themselves from the Jewish people or they themselves would have been subject to the might of Rome. The gospels contain a combination of both oral tradition passed down through at least three generations (talk about Chinese whispers) and because of this and the above-mentioned need to separate themselves from the Jews; a large amount of propaganda crept in. So if we take this as ‘the word of God’ and place these gospels in our day and age, what will be the result? It’s followers will become anti-semitic of course—funny that!
The first Christians of course, were converted Jews, thus the Gospels were in fact written through Jewish eyes and by people who had detailed knowledge of the Old Testament and believed Jesus to be the fulfilment of these scriptures. But unfortunately, we Christians became gentiles just after the first century of this Common Era, and we began to read the scriptures as if they were gentile objective history books. We were so anti-semitic that we didn’t even raise the question of how these ex-Jews wrote their sacred stories. How can this, in essence Jewish work be understood if one ignores the Jewish context, the Jewish mind-set, the Jewish frame of reference, the Jewish vocabulary, and even the Jewish history that shaped and formed the writer? But this has been the reality of the Christian west for most of our history!
your wanting an example?? stay tuned
We have just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love one another. - Jonathan Swift
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