Book Review: The Mythmaker, Paul and the Invention of Christianity - Hyam Maccoby
Case Dismissed for Lack of Evidence
It is true. Most of the conclusions this book offers about the origins of the "Jerusalem Church," the Roman Christian Church and Paul of Tarsus, are actually intuitive assumptions and speculations based upon circumstantial evidence and hearsay. Hyam Maccoby's case would therefore be thrown out of court, or dismissed by any other professional fact-finding panel.
This is the argument usually resorted to by Maccoby's critics and, as a matter of fact, they're quite right. His book actually "proves" nothing. However, this argument fails simply because the same can be said for any book written about the origins of the Christian faith, regardless of its author's purpose.
How pleasant it must be for fundamentalists who understand the Holy Bible as the literal and unquestionable word of God, given to us through inspired writers. Everyone else has to struggle with faith, drawing conclusions by reading between lines and parsing obscure passages originally written in the archaic vernacular and unfamiliar language of some ancient culture. Jesus, as far as we know, never wrote anything. Neither did anyone else, for the most part - no newspapers, magazines or books, not much in the way of carefully documented and archived official records. Therefore, the only research materials available are the scant offerings of people who usually wrote for a targeted audience, and without the journalistic or secretarial scruples we now understand as appropriate to such efforts. We therefore do Bible studies, peruse Bible commentaries, and read books like this one, attempting to figure out what we believe and why, never finding any truth, because there is none to find.
Most of us are persuaded by the religion of our birth; I am no exception. As Christian children, we are taught the fundamentals. I was no exception to that either. While fundamentalism suffices for children, increasing age and experience is likely to bring a decreasing willingness to accept the nebulous and obscure explanations traditionally offered for various aspects of our faith. Frankly, I began to think that some of it, including even the sacraments, was poppycock - hocus-pocus that Jesus himself might have found strange, irrelevant and/or inappropriate.
I admit that I was therefore favorably disposed towards Maccoby's book from the very beginning. In it, I found confirmation of my surmise that what we call "Christianity" is really based more upon what Paul thought than what Jesus taught. Whatever else he was, Hyam Maccoby was a highly respected scholar with impressive credentials. His intuitive assumptions and speculations therefore cannot be dismissed out of hand as the work of some charlatan, religious kook or bitter Jew. Furthermore, his explanations and ideas seem quite plausible in light of our understandings of human nature, politics, and the way things usually work out in the real world.
In this respect, Maccoby is a problem only for bible-believing fundamentalists and mainline churches intent on rigidly adhering to sixteenth century theology. A thoughtful reader is likely to finish the book wondering if the time has come for another reformation, this time to sort out the Paul vs. Jesus questions, towards developing a faith that makes sense to intelligent, thinking adults. Ideas that cannot stand this kind of review are not worth holding on to, since they are bound to fail us in times of trials and troubles. To this extent, Maccoby's work is of great value to serious Christians.
The express purpose of this book, however, is not to defame Paul of Tarsus or debunk the Christian faith, but to show how and why Paul's invention created anti-Semitism, vaguely hinting that Christian anti-Semitism was ultimately responsible for the holocaust. It is not his first attempt. In other works, he dances around the same accusation, without ever coming right out with it.
I do not buy Maccoby's "Christ-killers" explanation for anti-Semitism. By kicking that dead horse, I'd say he exhibits a very poor understanding of what practical Christians really think about. My religious upbringing taught that some Jewish higher-ups in Jerusalem were complicit with the Roman government in an affair that was otherwise mainly political and Roman. We were more apt to attribute that complicity to the usual corruption of people in high places, rather than to Judaism as a whole. Having said that, I must also admit that one of the things I have always found somewhat confusing is that while Christians are taught to revere the Old Testament's Israel as the foundation of our faith, the New Testament's Jews seem to somehow become the bad guys.
After reading Maccoby's arguments, I am willing to consider the possibility that a generally negative attitude, which I am not sure rises to the level of anti-Semitism, arises from the various defamatory comments about the Jews, which appear here and there in the New Testament. Maccoby lays the direct or indirect responsibility for these on Paul's doorstep. To that extent, his assertions seem to have merit.
However, I cannot remember ever encountering anyone, even among the most zealous radicals, who found in any of that reason enough for Christians to hate Jews. Like everyone else, I learned about what had happened to European Jews at the hands of the Nazis shortly after World War II ended, but I never heard of "anti-Semitism" until age fifteen, when a traveling lecturer speaking at a school assembly explained the meaning of the word "restricted," as used on signs in front of real estate developments.
Through common sense, practical people understand that there are always two sides to every story. For the case in point, it seems obvious that any group seeming to have a "better than thou" attitude is likely to encounter some backlash. Claiming a preferential status in the eyes of God, a reluctance to socialize outside their particular faith or ethnic group, discouraging offspring from marrying "outsiders", being quick to remind others of their particular faith or ethnicity whatever the occasion, and maintaining an allegiance to a country and culture other than the one they are sharing with their present countrymen - these are good ways to distance one's self from others.
This is not "anti" anything. It is, for better or for worse, just human nature. During my life, where I live, I have seen the same negative attitude arise with respect to others, and for the same reasons: the Christian Reformed Dutch ("Holanders"), the Catholic Polish ("Polacks") and the Catholic Bohemians ("Bo-hunks"). This accompanied the arrival of nineteenth century immigrants, lasted for a generation or two, after which the ethnic and religious differences giving rise to these feelings faded away, and the discriminatory feelings were gradually forgotten.
Maccoby does not address this reality at all. In view of that, one can only conclude that his opinion was that the sole source of anti-Semitism was Paul and the Christian religion he "invented." That, unfortunately, discredits the quality of his thinking by revealing as underlying bias.
Were it not for this, I would give this work a five-star rating. As it is, I give it a one-star rating for Jewish readers, since its premise is mostly invalid, and it probably will not otherwise teach them anything they do not already know.
For Christian readers, however, I think it merits at least a four-star rating, the above notwithstanding - the reason being that the book includes a lot of historical and other background information that has significant value as part of a well-rounded program of religious study and spiritual growth.
-=glw=-
It is true. Most of the conclusions this book offers about the origins of the "Jerusalem Church," the Roman Christian Church and Paul of Tarsus, are actually intuitive assumptions and speculations based upon circumstantial evidence and hearsay. Hyam Maccoby's case would therefore be thrown out of court, or dismissed by any other professional fact-finding panel.
This is the argument usually resorted to by Maccoby's critics and, as a matter of fact, they're quite right. His book actually "proves" nothing. However, this argument fails simply because the same can be said for any book written about the origins of the Christian faith, regardless of its author's purpose.How pleasant it must be for fundamentalists who understand the Holy Bible as the literal and unquestionable word of God, given to us through inspired writers. Everyone else has to struggle with faith, drawing conclusions by reading between lines and parsing obscure passages originally written in the archaic vernacular and unfamiliar language of some ancient culture. Jesus, as far as we know, never wrote anything. Neither did anyone else, for the most part - no newspapers, magazines or books, not much in the way of carefully documented and archived official records. Therefore, the only research materials available are the scant offerings of people who usually wrote for a targeted audience, and without the journalistic or secretarial scruples we now understand as appropriate to such efforts. We therefore do Bible studies, peruse Bible commentaries, and read books like this one, attempting to figure out what we believe and why, never finding any truth, because there is none to find.
Most of us are persuaded by the religion of our birth; I am no exception. As Christian children, we are taught the fundamentals. I was no exception to that either. While fundamentalism suffices for children, increasing age and experience is likely to bring a decreasing willingness to accept the nebulous and obscure explanations traditionally offered for various aspects of our faith. Frankly, I began to think that some of it, including even the sacraments, was poppycock - hocus-pocus that Jesus himself might have found strange, irrelevant and/or inappropriate.
I admit that I was therefore favorably disposed towards Maccoby's book from the very beginning. In it, I found confirmation of my surmise that what we call "Christianity" is really based more upon what Paul thought than what Jesus taught. Whatever else he was, Hyam Maccoby was a highly respected scholar with impressive credentials. His intuitive assumptions and speculations therefore cannot be dismissed out of hand as the work of some charlatan, religious kook or bitter Jew. Furthermore, his explanations and ideas seem quite plausible in light of our understandings of human nature, politics, and the way things usually work out in the real world.
In this respect, Maccoby is a problem only for bible-believing fundamentalists and mainline churches intent on rigidly adhering to sixteenth century theology. A thoughtful reader is likely to finish the book wondering if the time has come for another reformation, this time to sort out the Paul vs. Jesus questions, towards developing a faith that makes sense to intelligent, thinking adults. Ideas that cannot stand this kind of review are not worth holding on to, since they are bound to fail us in times of trials and troubles. To this extent, Maccoby's work is of great value to serious Christians.
The express purpose of this book, however, is not to defame Paul of Tarsus or debunk the Christian faith, but to show how and why Paul's invention created anti-Semitism, vaguely hinting that Christian anti-Semitism was ultimately responsible for the holocaust. It is not his first attempt. In other works, he dances around the same accusation, without ever coming right out with it.
I do not buy Maccoby's "Christ-killers" explanation for anti-Semitism. By kicking that dead horse, I'd say he exhibits a very poor understanding of what practical Christians really think about. My religious upbringing taught that some Jewish higher-ups in Jerusalem were complicit with the Roman government in an affair that was otherwise mainly political and Roman. We were more apt to attribute that complicity to the usual corruption of people in high places, rather than to Judaism as a whole. Having said that, I must also admit that one of the things I have always found somewhat confusing is that while Christians are taught to revere the Old Testament's Israel as the foundation of our faith, the New Testament's Jews seem to somehow become the bad guys.
After reading Maccoby's arguments, I am willing to consider the possibility that a generally negative attitude, which I am not sure rises to the level of anti-Semitism, arises from the various defamatory comments about the Jews, which appear here and there in the New Testament. Maccoby lays the direct or indirect responsibility for these on Paul's doorstep. To that extent, his assertions seem to have merit.
However, I cannot remember ever encountering anyone, even among the most zealous radicals, who found in any of that reason enough for Christians to hate Jews. Like everyone else, I learned about what had happened to European Jews at the hands of the Nazis shortly after World War II ended, but I never heard of "anti-Semitism" until age fifteen, when a traveling lecturer speaking at a school assembly explained the meaning of the word "restricted," as used on signs in front of real estate developments.
Through common sense, practical people understand that there are always two sides to every story. For the case in point, it seems obvious that any group seeming to have a "better than thou" attitude is likely to encounter some backlash. Claiming a preferential status in the eyes of God, a reluctance to socialize outside their particular faith or ethnic group, discouraging offspring from marrying "outsiders", being quick to remind others of their particular faith or ethnicity whatever the occasion, and maintaining an allegiance to a country and culture other than the one they are sharing with their present countrymen - these are good ways to distance one's self from others.
This is not "anti" anything. It is, for better or for worse, just human nature. During my life, where I live, I have seen the same negative attitude arise with respect to others, and for the same reasons: the Christian Reformed Dutch ("Holanders"), the Catholic Polish ("Polacks") and the Catholic Bohemians ("Bo-hunks"). This accompanied the arrival of nineteenth century immigrants, lasted for a generation or two, after which the ethnic and religious differences giving rise to these feelings faded away, and the discriminatory feelings were gradually forgotten.
Maccoby does not address this reality at all. In view of that, one can only conclude that his opinion was that the sole source of anti-Semitism was Paul and the Christian religion he "invented." That, unfortunately, discredits the quality of his thinking by revealing as underlying bias.
Were it not for this, I would give this work a five-star rating. As it is, I give it a one-star rating for Jewish readers, since its premise is mostly invalid, and it probably will not otherwise teach them anything they do not already know.
For Christian readers, however, I think it merits at least a four-star rating, the above notwithstanding - the reason being that the book includes a lot of historical and other background information that has significant value as part of a well-rounded program of religious study and spiritual growth.
-=glw=-
Labels: Religion
posted by BoysMind at
6:28 PM
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