Maimonides

Moses Maimonides was a Jewish scholar of the 12th century. The article in the link above was an interesting one that I wanted to share.

I googled Maimonides because I wanted to find out more about this person. I had read of him several times and I was interested in discovering if what I was told this morning at church was true (that he did NOT consider Christians idolators towards the end of his life).

Here is the statement in the linked article that refers to that possible inference:

Concerning Christianity, with which he probably had no real contact, Maimonides’ views underwent a decided change over time. In his aversion to what he considered to be Christian dilutions of pure monotheism, especially in its doctrine of the Trinity, much of Maimonides’ philosophical critique of Christian theology is similar to Islamic arguments against it. In his earlier work, Maimonides translated his theoretical disdain of Christianity into practice. He deemed Christians to be idolators and bemoaned the fact that political necessity forced many European Jews to live in Christian societies.

Nevertheless, this is not the whole picture. At the end of his great code, Mishneh Torah, in his discussion of the political–legal role of the Messiah–to–come, Maimonides makes a predictable concession to Islam, but a surprising concession to Christianity. He argues that despite the errors of Jesus and Muhammad, the religions that emerged from their respective teachings are instruments of divine providence for bringing all of humankind to the worship of the one true God. Now it is obvious from this concession to Christianity that he no longer regarded it to be a form of idolatry, the worship of a "strange" god. Surely no form of radical idolatry could possibly be the means for the universal spread of monotheism. (Ironically enough, the Christian censors of the printed editions of Mishneh Torah forced the publishers to remove that passage.)

Moreover, in a responsum written after the publication of Mishneh Torah, Maimonides rules that Jews may teach the Torah to Christians but not to Muslims because Christians believe Hebrew Scripture in toto to be the revealed word of God, whereas Muslims believe that primary text to be the Quran; for them, Hebrew Scripture is a flawed revelation. Thus Jews and Christians share a common revelation in a way that Jews share with no other religious community. Furthermore, Maimonides believes that Jews can best proselytize Christians because of this common text. All Jews need do is show Christians how they have misinterpreted that common text (the New Testament being the erroneous Christian interpretation or midrash he has in mind) and how Judaism’s interpretation of it is ultimately more convincingly accurate. (Using the same logic, Christians have frequently regarded Jews as the most logical objects of their own proselytizing efforts.) The Jewish problem with Christianity, for Maimonides, is largely a matter of exegesis, and the differences there are more theoretical than practical. True idolators, on the other hand, could hardly have accepted Hebrew Scripture as the word of God.

I thought this interpretation was excessively interesting. I started searching further, but found that the majority of modern rabbinical scholars either overlook this or still maintain that Christians are idolators.

For example, on one Jewish site, I was informed that we Christians literally worship the cross that we have in our churches. This is absolutely NOT true. If they wish to consider me an idolator for considering a man (Jesus) to have been God, that I can accept their consideration of idol worship, but to believe that the simple reminder of his sacrifice ...a pictoral reminder of a sort is equivalent to idolatry, that I will deny.

This all comes back to the Christian belief in the Trinity.

I cannot fully explain the mystery of the Trinity. I have opinions of what I believe God has revealed to me, but I would not presume to force those opinions upon anyone outside my family. I believe in the Trinity, I believe that I understand it so far as I am able to in this life, in this body of flesh. I hope that in the next life, in my eternal body, that I will be able to better understand, but if I am not able, I can accept that it is not for me to understand, it is merely for me to accept God's will and His word regarding this.

These same people who have called me an idolator in the past have made efforts to help me understand the 'errors' that I have been taught. Errors in translation or otherwise. I believe that it is 'possible' they are correct (after all, we are sinful human beings still of flesh and fully capable of error), but I also believe that it is equally possible that ancient rabbinical scholars made efforts to hide the truth. I cannot consider the possible guilt of one without the possible guilt of the other. I know God. I know His love, it is boundless and eternal. In the Jesus I know, I see God's love at work and I see absolutely nothing that proves otherwise. I have asked God to reveal the truth to me, thus far, I have not received any revelation that Jesus was not God. Through the Holy Spirit, I hear God's voice from heaven, in my heart, in what I read, and in my dreams.

Jesus was born a Jew. Romans 11:11-32 says:

Again I ask: Did they stumble so as to fall beyond recovery? Not at all! Rather, because of their transgression, salvation has come to the Gentiles to make Israel envious. But if their transgression means riches for the world, and their loss means riches for the Gentiles, how much greater riches will their fullness bring!

I am talking to you Gentiles. Inasmuch as I am the apostle to the Gentiles, I make much of my ministry in the hope that I may somehow arouse my own people to envy and save some of them. For if their rejection is the reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance be but life from the dead? If the part of the dough offered as firstfruits is holy, then the whole batch is holy; if the root is holy, so are the branches.

If some of the branches have been broken off, and you, though a wild olive shoot, have been grafted in among the others and now share in the nourishing sap from the olive root, do not boast over those branches. If you do, consider this: You do not support the root, but the root supports you. You will say then, "Branches were broken off so that I could be grafted in." Granted. But they were broken off because of unbelief, and you stand by faith. Do not be arrogant, but be afraid. For if God did not spare the natural branches, he will not spare you either.

Consider therefore the kindness and sternness of God: sternness to those who fell, but kindness to you, provided that you continue in his kindness. Otherwise, you also will be cut off. And if they do not persist in unbelief, they will be grafted in, for God is able to graft them in again. After all, if you were cut out of an olive tree that is wild by nature, and contrary to nature were grafted into a cultivated olive tree, how much more readily will these, the natural branches, be grafted into their own olive tree!

I do not want you to be ignorant of this mystery, brothers, so that you may not be conceited: Israel has experienced a hardening in part until the full number of the Gentiles has come in. And so all Israel will be saved, as it is written:

"The deliverer will come from Zion;
he will turn godlessness away from Jacob.
And this is my covenant with them
when I take away their sins."

As far as the gospel is concerned, they are enemies on your account; but as far as election is concerned, they are loved on account of the patriarchs, for God's gifts and his call are irrevocable. Just as you who were at one time disobedient to God have now received mercy as a result of their disobedience, so they too have now become disobedient in order that they too may now receive mercy as a result of God's mercy to you. For God has bound all men over to disobedience so that he may have mercy on them all.

Revelation of the knowledge of Christ will come to the Jews and Christians, it will come from God when the time is right. It is not our (Christian) place to tell any Jew that he or she is 'going to hell'. We are not the judges. They worship God, they love God and they were born into God's family, we are merely ingrafted branches and we should keep that prideless, unworthy thought in front of our minds. To diminish the law is to diminish a part of God, the law is a blessing, but forgiveness, redemption, grace...these are infinite blessings as well.

So let us, Christian and Jew, come together if only in acknowledging our love of the infinite Lord. Let us love the same God together, the God of love, a just God whose justice is tempered only by His mercy. We know the same infinite God, we love the same just and merciful God, we merely don't see Him the same way. Someday, we will all worship Him together and before Him, all truth will be revealed.

God bless