EP Sanders in limbo

Jerome - our translator of Hebrew into Latin - warned us Christians that if one attempts to be Jewish and Christian, one ends up neither Jewish nor Christian. Davila at Paleojudaica points to EP Sanders' obituary. If the obituary is accurate, then Sanders took Jerome to heart - and to apostasy.

First, we must grant to Sanders his due: he understood the transcendent joy which Jews take in the study of Torah. Fiddler on the Roof touches upon this. Dennis Prager's popularity among Christians hints that some Christians find joy in Torah as well. It may be that Prager is only possible in a post-Sanders world.

But. As long as we're talking Prager, I cannot but see that Judaism does have shortcomings, if not in "legalism", than in its shortsightedness. Last week I leafed through Prager's commentary upon Genesis. (I own his Exodus; this Genesis leafing was done at a bookstore.) I checked out what Prager had to say about what Cain said to Abel, before the two went into the field. Famously the Hebrew term isn't "spoke" but "said", and the Hebrew (including the Dead Sea) has lost what Cain said. The Greek - which like the Samaritan often fills in what the Hebrew is "missing" - provides those words: let's go into the field. The implication is that Cain premeditated the murder.

I've noted before that the ethical legalist must admit evidence from outside his case. Prager was duty-bound to inform his readers what Cain might have said - maybe from Kugel, The Bible As It Was. Prager is then free to say "well that's just a theory, man" and to explain how the Septuagint (and the Samaritan) are known to fill in perceived gaps which the Torah doesn't need. But... Prager doesn't do this.

I don't think Prager is ignorant so I'm concluding he simply doesn't want to concede anything to the infidel. I'm extrapolating that this is a problem in Prager's interpretation of Judaism itself - which must have its roots in Judaism itself.

Judaism is a large tabernacle with other interpretations beneath the canvas than Prager's, as many Jews (like Kugel) will eagerly tell us. Still: if you are not Jewish, then faced with the continued existence of Judaism you have to explain why you yourself haven't checked in with the mohel yet. Atheists have a ready answer: "it's all nonsense".

We Christians don't have this answer. We have, instead, Torah - for all its imperfections. A Jew like Prager has to dodge those imperfections, or what kind of Jew is he? We Christians have our way to graduate from Torah's imperfections, in its Christ Jesus. And if you as a Christian devote yourself to apologetics for a religion not your own, then what kind of Christian are you?