The Jewishness of Jesus from the Perspective of Christian Doctrine

Abstract

The task undertaken in this essay is to consider the significance for Christology of a relatively orthodox incarnational kind, of the fact that Jesus of Nazareth was a first century Jew. In other words the frame of reference taken here is the Christianity of the Christian creeds. The question asked is what the Jewishness of Jesus means for that. The task, no doubt, would have been much easier, though less interesting, had we followed the example of those who seek to demythologise the doctrine of the Incarnation, either in the interests of an eirenic global, pluralist, theology of religions, or in the interests of a purely expressivist, anti-realist, analysis of Christian faith. Even on such views as these, as represented by John Hick and Don Cupitt for example, there would be some interesting questions remaining: what still differentiates Christianity from Judaism? Why follow the Jewish prophet, Jesus, rather than some other? Does the Christian ideal necessarily retain its historical links with the Jewish ideal? But these are not the questions pursued here. It is not necessary to abandon the characteristic tenets of one's faith in order to make progress in inter-faith dialogue. Rather, what we bring to the dialogue and submit to mutual questioning are the distinctive and representative faith-stances, true to the patterns of belief and worship of the majority of our coreligionists.