Christian Scholars Just Don't 'Get' Judaism (and so don't even understand their own tradition)

I have said it time and time again - almost every scholar who has written anything on the subject of earliest Christianity lacks the necessary Fingerspitzengefühl to put all the pieces together. Above all else, they don't have a #%^@% clue what Judaism is.

Yes, they took classes on the various traditions and practices in Judaism. But - as I have spent a considerable part of my life engaged in discussions with scholars, I can tell you firsthand - they just don't get it.

Whenever you corner them and tell them 'you don't know what the #$#%^ your talking about' AND you happen to be Jewish, they inevitably take one of two courses of action.

Either they will utter some veiled anti-Semitic slur or they will develop some baloney about Christianity being a separate religion from Judaism.

I have seen this pattern repeated over and over again in my time in the field. Indeed even among the enthusiasts of 'Marcion' and his tradition I see it play out.

There are - as you can imagine - a number of 'Marcionite enthusiasts' in the world. Many are attracted to the tradition I presume because they see Judaism as a 'corrupting force' in Christianity. Jesus was a 'God of love' who 'abolished all the rules' in order to teach people 'to love one another' etc.

It's so stupid. All you have to do is think about things from a practical point of view.

To whom was this message of love directed? To pagans? Why would they need Jesus to abolish the Laws of Moses? They were never 'under' these rules in the first place.

On some level you see Marcion necessarily emerged in a Jewish setting. The logic is inescapable. All you have to do is think about matters. Of course this is difficult for most people and they can't 'get out of their own cave' as Plato would say.

They project their own frustration with an oppressive and legalistic European religion (Christianity) and end up blaming Judaism.

I always find a streak of paganism running through most Marcionite enthusiasts. They delight in pointing out that Christianity was 'really pagan' or appropriated its ideas from paganism.

Of course the only way that Marcionitism makes any sense is if the message was directed at Jews or - as Tertullian notes in Book Three of Against Marcion - at pagan proselytes to Judaism, which must have been a considerable number of people in the Roman Empire especially in the region now called 'the Middle East.'

In any event, once you acknowledge the orientation of Marcionitism and you begin to see that it's central sacrament - baptism - was developed in terms of a castration ritual or 'true circumcision' it is hard to avoid seeing that the question of 'redemption' itself (a term we have already demonstrated appears over and over again in the anti-Marcionite literature) must have been conceived as a Pidyon Haben.

But then again you'd have to know what the Pidyon Haben ceremony was and how it was rooted in Exodus chapter 13.

What scholars out there could pull this off? None, because you couldn't write your doctorate on this subject. It's just so 'out there' that no one touches the subject. No one even tries to make Marcionitism sensible.

It's too much of a stretch ...