Hector Avalos on the Anti-Judaic Tendency in some NT authors

Let me single out for comment something Dr. Avalos said in response to the non-credentialed nasty wanna-be apologist JP Holding found here. Avalos said...

REFUTATION [against Holding] 3: “[pp.] 56-8...‘Jews’ in the NT actually means ‘Judaeans’ -- as opposed to something like Samaritans or Galileeans or Romans, people whose origins were in the political entity known as Judaea.

I had argued that “Jews” in Acts, among other places, functioned as a “collective” designation and that some NT authors believe in collective punishment for the group identified as “the Jews.”

Holding attempts to whitewash this anti-Judaic tendency in some NT authors by arguing that “Jews” is ONLY a description of territorial/political origins (Judea) and not any sort of religious designation.

First, Holding confuses etymological origins of the word “Jew” with how it was used and redefined in later times. In fact, the first use of the word is may not be territorial, but tribal. It describes the descendants of Judah, regardless of where they are born.

One can be born in the territory called Judea and still not be a Jew. Many gentiles were born in Judea, and were not designated as Jews. And “Jews” can definitely include a religious feature, as is clear in Revelation 3:8-9: [8] "`I know your works. Behold, I have set before you an open door,which no one is able to shut; I know that you have but little power, and yet you have kept my word and have not denied my name[9] Behold, I will make those of the synagogue of Satan who say that they are Jews and are not, but lie -- behold, I will make them come and bow down before your feet, and learn that I have loved you."

Here, “Jews” has to do with a religious or symbolic affiliation, and not a territorial-political affiliation, as the letter is addressed to those in a church in what is now Turkey. Similarly, in Galatians 2:14, religious practices do have a role in making someone Jewish or Gentile: But when I saw that they were not straightforward about the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas before them all, "If you, though a Jew, live like a Gentile and not like a Jew, how can you compel the Gentiles to live like Jews?"

Clearly, living “like a Jew” has nothing to do with living like someone in Judea, but rather with observing certain religious practices (e.g., circumcision) REGARDLESS OF WHERE YOU WERE BORN or living. That is why sometimes it is necessary to specify that Jews were living in Jerusalem where, by Holding’s territorial origin definition, no further specification should be necessary, as in Acts 2:5: “Now there were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews, devout men from every nation under heaven.”

More importantly, Holding also seems to ignore that collective retribution was a recognized part of biblical thinking. This is clear in Exodus 20:5: "...for I the LORD your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me."

Holding’s only defense contends that spatial limitations preclude notions of collective thinking on the part of biblical authors. So he offers this humorous mathematical rejoinder: "Is Avalos truly so thick as to imagine that Luke is envisioning hundreds of thousands of Judaeans (however he defines them) leaving their home nation and crowding into the synagogue meeting at Antioch for the purpose of inciting a handful of people in that city against Paul?"

No, Holding is the one too neurally ossified to realize that the author of Acts implies that, when speaking of a particular locality, actions by “Jews” may refer only to the Jews living in that locality. Sometimes this is specified as in Acts 9:22-23: [22] But Saul increased all the more in strength,and confounded the Jews who lived in Damascus by proving that Jesus was the Christ. [23] When many days had passed, the Jews plotted to kill him."

Thus, we are to understand that “Jews” in v.23 means “the Jews living in Damascus” mentioned in v. 22. Similarly, in Acts 13:50, “Jews” reasonably refers to the Jews in Antioch, the locality mentioned already in vv. 43 and 45.

But that still does not address the problem of collective punishment and guilt, which can be extended to a whole group even if not all of its members were present, or even if they did not all perform any specific action described. Holding ignores that one need not be present or even alive not be reckoned with being guilty of a crime committed by one or a few people belong to a particular group.

Yes, the Bible repeatedly punishes whole groups of people for the actions of a few, as follows:

1. The killing of all men, women, children of the earth in Noah’s Flood (not to mention all animals not aboard Noah’s Ark). The biblical author had no problem with biocide here, even if animals and infants did not participate in any “sins” for which God destroyed humankind (except Noah and his family) in Genesis 6-7.

2. Children to the fourth and fifth generations for those who hate Yahweh (Exodus 20:5).

3. The killing of Amalekite children for the actions of their ancestors (1 Samuel 15:2-3).

4. All of humanity for the sins of Adam (Romans 5:12ff), especially if you follow some orthodox Christian interpretation of imputation

Given such notions of collective punishment, what would prevent NT authors from holding similar views about Jews, especially if they are redefined as those opposed to the true Jews (= Christians) as suggested in Revelation 3:9? Thus, the collective guilt imputed to “the Jews” by some NT authors (e.g., Matthew 27:25) is very much consistent with this view of collective guilt and punishment we find repeatedly in the Bible.

Furthermore, Holding’s complaint that I have succumbed to political correctness and paranoia because I point out the anti-Gentilism in the NT overlooks that rather conservative academic scholars have also commented on anti-gentilism in the NT. One example is Luke T. Johnson, who says: “The NT’s harshest polemic by far is reserved for Gentiles, in which it appropriates the themes of contemporary Jewish polemic” (Luke T. Johnson, ,“The New Testament Anti-Jewish Slander and the
Conventions of Ancient Polemic, Journal of Biblical Literature 108, no. 3 [Fall, 1989]:441, n. 66).

In sum, what Holding seems to hate is his own Bible’s support of collective punishment. He cannot stand the fact that this is a morally reprehensible practice, and so he tries to pretend it does not exist among his cherished NT authors.