In the Old Testament, there are many sections of texts that have been taken out of one biblical book and inserted into another biblical book (modified or without change) with the intention of being passed off as if such a text (or its modified version) originated in that second text or its own historical situation instead of the text or historical situation it first appeared in. The following is a short list of plagiarized bible passages.
- Isaiah 2:1-5 = Micah 4:1-4 (Who stole the description of the messianic age from who?)
- 2 Samuel 22 = Psalm 18 (David would not have said both with all their different and conflicting words on the day he was delivered from the hand of Saul, so the question is…assuming at least one is authentic…which one is it?)
- Obadiah 1:1-4 = Jeremiah 49:14-16; Obadiah 1:5-6 = Jeremiah 49:9-10; Obadiah 1:8 = Jeremiah 49:7; Obadiah 1:9 = Jeremiah 49:10; Obadiah 1:16 = Jeremiah 49:12 (About a third of the entire book of Obadiah is virtually identical to sections of Isaiah 49. Clearly, one of them took from the prophecy of the other, rearranged it, gave it their own flair, and presented the prophecy as originating with them instead of the other).
- Jeremiah 52 = 2 Kings 24-25 (This one’s a doozy, but it’s obvious that one has taken and changed the other. There are numerous direct contradictions in the parallel stories—like 2 Kings 25:8, which says Nebuzaradan arrived in Jerusalem on the SEVENTH day of the fifth month in the nineteenth year of King Nebuchadnezzar and Jeremiah 52:12, which says Nebuzaradan arrived in Jerusalem on the TENTH day of the fifth month of the nineteenth year of King Nebuchadnezzar.)
On the part of the North, the war was carried on, not to liberate slaves, but by a government that had always perverted and violated the Constitution, to keep the slaves in bondage; and was still willing to do so, if the slaveholders could be thereby induced to stay in the Union.
The principle, on which the war was waged by the North, was simply this: That men may rightfully be compelled to submit to, and support, a government that they do not want; and that resistance, on their part, makes them traitors and criminals.
No principle, that is possible to be named, can be more self-evidently false than this; or more self-evidently fatal to all political freedom. Yet it triumphed in the field, and is now assumed to be established. If it really be established, the number of slaves, instead of having been diminished by the war, has been greatly increased; for a man, thus subjected to a government that he does not want, is a slave. And there is no difference, in principle-but only in degree-between political and chattel slavery. The former, no less than the latter, denies a man’s ownership of himself and the products of his labor; and asserts that other men may own him, and dispose of him and his property, for their uses, and at their pleasure.
(See also Part A and Part B)
Perhaps the capstone on this turning point in Christianity from an acceptance to a rejection of Judaism is Melito of Sardis (circa AD 170), who turned the Apostles’ charges against specific characters in history on the entire Jewish race, when he said, effectively, you [Jews] murdered God
. Since Christianity had now far removed Judaism from itself and given it the status of a failed religion, it was easy for church fathers like Melito to condemn the entire Jewish race. Tertullian, writing at the end of the second and beginning of the third century, took the example of those specific Jews who had failed to recognize Yeshua in New Testament times and universalized it so that he could say the Jews themselves had rejected Yeshua. Judaism itself has rejected and killed YHWH, therefore Christianity has replaced it in everything from authority to inspiration. On that grossly errant path, it would continue to walk.
One consequence of Christianity’s break with Judaism and replacement of it with itself was the fact that, unchecked by Judaism, Christianity developed a myth of prophetic inspiration concerning the entire Greek LXX. Justin and all those apologists after him would spend a great deal of time arguing with Jews about why the LXX and all its differences from the Hebrew scriptures in content as well as additional books, were true, inspired scripture. Augustine would eventually explain away the inconsistencies between the Christian LXX scriptures and the Hebrew scriptures by doing what Justin had done before him—trumping facts, evidences, and arguments by appeal to the Holy Spirit. Augustine contended that both the LXX and the Hebrew were equally inspired—even where they differed and conflicted—because there was not a single meaning in scripture or prophecy, but multiple meanings. Therefore, Augustine was able to claim the Spirit had correctly inspired the meanings and texts in the LXX which differed from the meanings and texts in the Hebrew scriptures. Just one church father rejected the myth of the LXX’s prophetic inspiration—but only temporary (Jerome).
Although a few Christians would seek to return in some way to Judaism (like Jerome and Origen, who took Jews as teachers and tutors to come to a better understanding of scripture), this would now be the exception, not the rule. Judaism would have a say only insofar as it agreed with the decisions and beliefs of gentile Christians. Christianity had cut itself off from the tree onto which it was grafted and its withered, dead fruit remains to this day.
(See also Part A)
Justin Martyr (circa AD 150 to 160), took Barnabas’ rejection of Judaism to a whole new level. While Barnabas had at first reckoned Torah as vital in its whole, Justin did not concede even that much. It was from him that the idea of turning parts of Torah into universals and abolishing the rest took flight and gained widespread approval in Christianity. This was, of course, incompatible with Judaism. While Justin was right in recognizing that following Yeshua had replaced Torah observance as the method and means of Yahweh’s covenant faithfulness, it was part of his overall belief that Judaism had been replaced with the gentile church, as if the gentile branches that had been grafted onto the Jewish tree (as Paul wrote) had actually become the tree itself, ready to graft Jews onto its branches instead. This had the effect not only of rejecting the old and established authority out of which Christianity sprung (as Barnabas did), but sitting its own young, inexperienced self in Judaism’s place.
Like the impetuous youth who tries to usurp the place of the wise elders quickly finds out, not only does he not really know what he’s talking about, but he has to go through strange and even worrisome arguments in order to back up his positions. From reading Justin’s Dialogue with Trypho, such a thing is clearly seen. Although Justin has been quick do away with Judaism, he acknowledges ignorance of it. It has to take balls to say that you don’t really understand something, but you’re right about it anyway. Instead of appealing to any great understanding or authority to back up his claims, Justin depends entirely on the subjective claim that God graciously revealed this truth to him (Dialogue 58:1). When Justin combats Judaism, not only are many of his arguments thin, they sometimes have no substance to them at all. We are now at the point where ignorance, clothed in the name of spiritual insight, has replaced the former, solid foundations.
I purposely chose for this title a term heavy with theological connotation. For it has seemed to me that just as there was a historic point at which mankind fell away from the perfection of Yahweh, so there was a historic point at which Christianity did so as well. Here I will argue that Christianity jumped the shark
(to use a pop cultural term) when it began to lose foundation, authority, and definition in Judaism. I do not mean by this that Christianity lost its way once gentiles began bringing Hellenism into the church. Greek thinking and pagan philosophy had long be assimilated into Judaism already. And one could argue that it brought as much good as ill to the Christian table. The point is, however, that whereas the Jews made outside ideas and ways of thinking subservient to their own perspective and traditions, in Christianity, it was Judaism that became subservient.
We can easily see things which would inevitably lead to feelings of estrangement and hostility between Christianity and Judaism in the first (AD 66-70) and third (AD 132-135) Jewish revolts. When Jerusalem and the very Temple of YHWH itself, the twin centers of Judaism, were threatened with destruction, Jewish and gentile believers left them both to be destroyed. After such great a tragedy, not one gentile Christian wrote or spoke to comfort Zion. And when Judaism rallied behind Bar Kochba, hailed by Rabbi Akiba as the Messiah and their last and final opportunity to re-establish themselves as the chosen people, believers of Yeshua didn’t follow. Apparently, they were violently persecuted for it. For a time, Christianity must have looked really stupid, not only outside but within, as this declared Messiah led the Jews against principalities and powers, overthrew them, and returned the exiles to Jerusalem in triumph. When this last rebellion was crushed, however, it provided Christians with salt to smother into the wounds of those Jews who had not long since tormented them.
It was during the second century that Christianity began earnestly walking the road of Judaic abandonment. I trace the beginning of the end to the writing of the Epistle of Barnabas about AD 130. Barnabas was written to instruct new believers in the way of Yeshua. Though it borrows a great deal from Hebrew scriptures and even Rabbinic sources, it betrays an inherent lack of knowledge and understanding. Here is a document that would have not a little impact on the church, which felt free to parrot the Judaic perspective as if grounded and established in it, when this was clearly not the case. To make matters worse, even though the author of Barnabas concluded that Torah was eternally binding on believers, he spiritualized the entire thing and vehemently rejected the written law, which had the effect of making any Jew…let alone a Jewish believer…seem redundant and perhaps even spiritually absurd (quite a contrast to those first Apostles and believers of Acts who could not even conceive of followers of Yeshua who weren’t converted Jews). This had the effect of yanking Judaism out from under Christianity.
