Gospel according to Moses

Athol Dickson

Description

"Years ago I exposed myself to the possibility that Judaism might have great truths to offer, and Chever Torah (Jewish Bible study) rewarded my open mind with radical improvements in the way I live and view my Christian faith." -from the Introduction After he spent five years attending Chever Torah, Athol Dickson found his faith radically changed-the result being a deeper relationship with God. In beautiful and simple language, The Gospel according to Moses illustrates Dickson's journey of faith exploring some of the primary theological differences and similarities between Christianity and Judaism. He draws generously on both Old and New Testament scriptures, looking at Christian and Jewish perspectives on topics such as suffering, grace vs. works, and the place of Jesus in the Hebrew Scriptures.

Sujets

• Philosophie et théologie
• Comparative religion

Informations

• Publié par: Baker Publishing Group
• Date de parution: 01 mai 2003
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781585582440
• Langue: English

Extrait

© 2003 by Athol Dickson
Published by Brazos Press
a division of Baker Publishing Group
P.O. Box 6287, Grand Rapids, MI 49516-6287
www.brazospress.com
Ebook edition created 2011
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means for example, electronic, photocopy, recording without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.
ISBN 978-1-5855-8244-0
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
Unless otherwise marked, Scripture is taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®. NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com
Scripture marked JPS is taken from Tanakh, The Holy Scriptures, The New JPS Translation according to the Traditional Hebrew Text, (Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society, 1985).
Scripture marked KJV is taken from the King James Version of the Bible.
Scripture marked NRSV is taken from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA. Used by permission.
Published in association with the literary agency of Alive Communications, Inc., 7680 Goddard Street, Suite 200, Colorado Springs, Colorado 80920.
For my mother, Mary Katherine Garrett Dickson. She considered it all joy.
Contents
Cover Title Copyright Page Dedication Page Introduction 1. God on the Spot
Dealing with Doubts 2. Our Mutual God
Finding Meaning in Monotheism 3. God in Chains
Why God Lets Me Suffer 4. Yes and Yes
Understanding Scriptural Paradox 5. The Beautiful Terror
Approaching the God of “Fire and Brimstone” 6. Spiritual Suicide
Why It Is So Easy to Be Bad 7. Pitching Tabernacles
Finding Connections between Obedience and God’s Grace 8. The Small Print
Christians and the Law of Moses 9. Up from the Well
Reconciliation with God 10. Skeletons in My Closet
Evil Christians in Spite of Jesus 11. One and All
The Trinity and Monotheism 12. The Word in the Word
Jesus in the Hebrew Scriptures 13. One Way
Are Jews Going to Hell? Notes
Introduction

A Stranger among You
The Torah was given in the desert, given with all publicity in a place to which no one had any claim, lest, if it were given in the land of Israel, the Jews might deny to the Gentiles any part in it.
Mekilta on Exodus 19:2 [1]
Life’s most important moments are often disguised as the commonplace. Take this moment for example. As Philip and I make small talk about business and family, we say the things one says when catching up with a casual aquaintance. Then the conversation shifts to religion. He says his Reform Jewish temple has interfaith gatherings every year to reach out to members of other religions. Since I am a Christian, he wants me to come to a thing called “Chever Torah,” in honor of something else he calls an “interfaith Shabbat.” My ignorance of Judaism is prodigious, so I ask Philip the meaning of Shabbat (it means “Sabbath”) and of course those mysterious words, Chever Torah (the “Torah Society,” or “Torah Group”). Chever Torah, says Philip, is basically a Bible study. Will I come?
Unaware that Philip’s simple invitation will change my life as a Christian forever, I accept.
Two weeks later, filled with trepidation at the thought of studying the Scriptures with people who don’t believe in Jesus, I knot my tie and head to temple. There I enter a hall filled with about one hundred and fifty people, half of whom are members of a local church invited for the occasion. Chever Torah meets in a lofty room clad in brick. To my surprise, the place reeks of modernity. I am disappointed, having hoped to experience something more along the lines of dark wood paneling and rough-cut ashlars, preferably lit by candles and partially obscured by wavering tendrils of incense. But the crowd sits at rows of ordinary folding tables draped with white paper. There are no dated black hats, no unkempt beards, no parchment scrolls. These people are as hopelessly modern as the architecture. Many have large books open on the tables before them. Bibles, I suppose. Peering surreptitiously at a woman’s copy across the way, I observe the controlled chaos of Hebrew text on the pages, row after row of dots and squiggles. My disappointment fades slightly. At least this is something Jewish.
A man in a dark suit rises to speak. For the benefit of the Christians present, he introduces himself as Rabbi Sheldon Zimmerman. Although he wears no yarmulke or prayer shawl, his full gray beard and proper bald spot lend the bookish air one expects of a rabbi. He speaks of his pleasure at seeing so many new faces this morning, his large brown eyes sparkling as he surveys the crowd. Rabbi Zimmerman is good with words, and I begin to hope something unusual might yet be salvaged from the otherwise mundane morning. Then the rabbi identifies a man sitting to his left as Dr. George Mason, pastor of Wilshire Baptist Church. His complimentary remarks about Dr. Mason sound ominously like the introduction of a featured speaker. This suspicion is bitterly confirmed when the rabbi steps back and the pastor approaches the podium.
My mood turns sour. Have I been lured away from my comfortable Saturday morning routine with false expectations of the exotic, only to be subjected to a Bible study led by a fellow Christian? I sigh and settle in, feeling the inevitable sermon-inspired drowsiness rise behind my eyelids.
After five minutes, it is clear that Dr. Mason is every bit as fine a public speaker as the rabbi, but this does little to improve my frame of mind. Then a hand is raised, an elderly gentleman near the front asks the pastor a question, and my grouchy train of thought is stopped dead in its tracks.
This is not a Christian kind of question.
It is more aggressive somehow, less deferential to the subject at hand. It may not be asked in the exotic, incense-tinted atmosphere I had hoped for, but it is different nonetheless . . . definitely different. I sit a bit straighter. Perhaps I will get some sense of the Jewish world after all.
As it happens, I get much more than that. The instant Dr. Mason finishes answering the old man’s question, hands shoot up everywhere. Penetrating comments fly across the room with astonishing candor as these Jews become determined miners sifting a rich stream of biblical material with questions unbounded by fear of heresy and unlimited by preconceived notions. I crane my neck to see what kind of people would ask such remarkable things, but these Chever Torah Jews still look like my father, or my wife, or my friend the usual faces one sees in a crowd. Who could have known?
All too soon it is over. Outside on the sidewalk, Philip asks for my reaction. Basking in the afterglow of this Chever Torah experience, I gush, “I loved it! I wish I could come every week!” After a moment’s pause, Philip says, “Well, I don’t see why you couldn’t.”
And so began the five-year odyssey that led me to write this book.

I am ill prepared to teach a Jew about his or her own religion, and fortunately not foolish enough to try. Where important differences between Judaism and Christianity arise within these pages, I will do my best to explain both perspectives fairly, but Reform Jews will undoubtedly have some objections to my presentation of their perspective. For this I apologize in advance. Jewish friends have read rough drafts of this work and attempted to correct my errors, but any remaining mistakes are mine alone and not the responsibility of those who tried to help.
Among those who read early drafts of this book is Philip, the casual aquaintance who first invited me to Chever Torah. Philip has become my dearest friend over the years and is a very devout Jew. He expressed concern that Jews who do not know me may mistake my purpose, believing this is just one more thinly veiled attempt to convert them to Christianity.
It is not.
But after five years at Chever Torah, I know why Philip is worried, so let me be clear about my intentions. In The Gospel according to Moses, I will show that Christianity is a reasonable response to the books of Moses, the writings, and the prophets. For Christian readers, I hope this will be a welcome confirmation that the most basic tenets of our faith are rooted in the earliest moments of creation, in the Garden, in the cool of the day. Ours is a Torah-based faith. For Jewish readers, I hope this will demonstrate that our religious differences flow from a genuine divergence of informed opinion on the meaning of the Hebrew Scriptures, not from scriptural ignorance.
Some of my friend Philip’s concern about Jewish suspicion of my motives may also be relieved if I promise not to disguise my beliefs only to unveil them when the reader’s back is turned. Within these pages I will describe how my faith has been informed and enriched by contact with Jews and Judaism, but make no mistake: this book is about Christian faith. And just as honesty forbids the disguise of my bias within these pages, it also means I must not compromise basic tenets of the Christian faith, not even to build bridges. I agree wholeheartedly with these words by a famous atheist:
The other day at the Sorbonne, speaking to a Marxist lecturer, a Catholic priest said in public that he too was anticlerical. Well, I don’t like priests who are anticlerical any more than philosophers who are ashamed of themselves.
Albert Camus [2]
Like Camus, I am not much for the easy religious pluralism one often hears espoused today. The differences between Christianity and Judaism are too important to ignore or minimize.
That does not mean there is little value in learning from each other. When I first wrote this book, the newspaper headlines wer