Christianity in Relation to Judaism: Historical Memory and Polemics in Constructing the Story of Christian Faith

Throughout most of Christian history, Christians have told a replacement story: Christianity has replaced Judaism and is the one valid pathway to God. As both Judaism and Christianity are based on historical events, the story of Christian faith is inevitably told with reference to events in Jewish history, especially events recounted in the Hebrew Bible (or the Christian Old Testament) that contextualize the emergence of Christianity and situate events concerning Jesus of Nazareth within a Jewish context. But over the last seventy years or so, a growing number of Christian scholars and church leaders have acknowledged that traditional Christian ideas about the Jewish tradition and about Christianity in relation to Judaism derive more from Christian polemics than from accurate historical memory. Consequently, the traditional story of Christianity replacing Judaism needs to be replaced by more historically reliable accounts of these religions and their relationship to each other. This essay is my prologue to what I hope in the near future to offer as my own reconstruction of the story of Christian faith in relation to Judaism, a story that will draw inspiration from others who have shown how Christianity is more credibly affirmed when it is presented as allied with Judaism rather than as replacing or even fulfilling it.