(RNS) — At Christmas, Christians usher in a pace-setter who will rule with fact and charm; this is excellent news, as the arena has valuable little of both. Trust that Jesus is that this chief offers hope to all those that see in him the affection of God, the forgiveness of sin and the promise of everlasting existence.
As Jews, we honor such ideals, despite the fact that they aren’t ours. Additionally, we acknowledge that Jesus, a first-century Jew, is a part of Jewish historical past.  
As Bible students, we additionally know that Christmas sermons frequently carry out poisonous mistakes regarding Jesus’ Judaism, making anti-Jewish misinterpretations of Scripture as not unusual as Santa and his elves.
Many monks and pastors, even the ones dedicated to raised Jewish-Christian family members, could be appalled to listen to that their sermons support anti-Jewish stereotypes. But once they proclaim that Jesus invented fear for the deficient, love of neighbor and messages of peace, they no longer best yank Jesus out of Jewish historical past, they distort Jewish instructing and open the door to antisemitism.
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The mischief begins even prior to Jesus is born: In conjunction with the previous canard of evil Jewish innkeepers turning away Joseph and Mary as a result of they can not pay a hefty room fee, we’ve learn sermons that insist Mary is shuttled off to the solid as a result of, by means of giving beginning, she would make the inn impure below Jewish regulation. Nonsense. Because the Gospel of Luke makes transparent, there may be merely no room within the inn for her to have a toddler.   
Different ill-informed sermons suggest that the shepherds who welcome Mary’s child constitute the “outcast” or the “unclean.” Nonsense once more. Rachel, Moses and David are shepherds, and the well-known Psalm 23 starts: “The LORD is my shepherd.” Shepherds had been no roughly ritually impure than maximum Jews of the day.
Listed below are any other stereotypes that accompany the excellent news of Christmas:
The traditional rabbis taught, “Simply as God is compassionate, so that you will have to be compassionate.” The divine attributes Jews had been known as to apply integrated clothes the bare, visiting the in poor health, comforting mourners and burying the lifeless.
Nor had been Jews stoning girls for adultery; certainly, rabbinic literature makes it nearly inconceivable to execute folks. The well-known “lady taken in adultery” who seems within the Gospel of John isn’t about to be stoned. The Pharisees had already concluded that stoning was once no longer the suitable reaction to adultery, with the intention to check Jesus’ interpretation of Torah, they ask him “What do you are saying?” concerning the historical commandment.
Jesus in other places makes the Torah extra rigorous: Whilst the Torah forbids homicide, the Sermon at the Mount forbids anger; the commandments ban adultery, however the Sermon at the Mount forbids even serious about it. Jesus didn’t abolish Torah. On the contrary, he teaches his disciples apply it. 
Jews celebrated a large number of sensible, pious and brave girls, from the matriarchs to Rahab to Deborah to Hannah, from Ruth to Esther, and from the Greek texts, Judith and Susannah and the mum of the Maccabean martyrs. The Gospels themselves, a just right supply for reconstructing first-century Judaism, record that Jewish girls had their very own finances, owned their very own houses, served as consumers and worshipped in synagogues and the Jerusalem Temple.
Ladies adopted Jesus no longer as a result of they had been oppressed by means of Judaism; they adopted Jesus as a result of they noticed in him the perfect rabbi, healer and exorcist. 
The Prophet Isaiah broadcasts that Jerusalem’s Temple “might be known as a area of prayer for all peoples,” and on the time of Jesus, it was once. Its Courtroom of the Gentiles welcomed all folks. Native synagogues welcomed gentiles, referred to as “God-fearers.” Luke’s Gospel even studies that Jewish elders requested Jesus to accomplish a therapeutic on behalf of a Roman centurion, “for he loves our folks, and it’s he who constructed our synagogue for us.”
Jesus does no longer invent fear for gentiles; he’s a member of a folks commissioned to be a mild to the countries.  
Peace is a basic worth of the Hebrew Bible and Judaism. The Isaiah wall on the U.N. highlights the prophecy of Isaiah and Micah, who imagined a time when all peoples “shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks: Country shall no longer raise up sword towards country, neither shall they be told struggle anymore.”
Jews on the time of Jesus did their highest to keep away from army encounters with Rome. When the Roman Emperor Caligula demanded that they position his statue within the Jerusalem Temple, the Jews replied no longer with swords, however with probably the most first recorded sit-down moves. Jesus’ fear for peace is a part of his Jewish custom, no longer an innovation. 
The Hebrew Bible’s Guide of Deuteronomy teaches: “Since there’ll by no means stop to be some in want on the planet, I due to this fact command you, ‘Open your hand to the deficient and needy neighbor for your land.’” Ecclesiastes properly states: “The sweetheart of cash may not be happy with cash; nor the sweetheart of wealth, with acquire.”
The Liberty Bell in Philadelphia, which states “Proclaim Liberty All over All of the Land Unto All of the Population thereof,” quotes the Guide of Leviticus in connection with Israel’s custom of the Jubilee yr, when money owed had been canceled. Jesus didn’t invent fear for the deficient; it was once embedded in his custom.  
Jesus was once a Jew, and exactly as a result of he was once a Jew, he spoke of peace, of compassion, of deal with the deficient, of the centrality of Torah and of the price of all folks.
To carry the arena somewhat extra grace and fact, it will be just right if Jesus’ fans would acknowledge and confirm the Jewish custom that Jesus embraced slightly than search to make Jesus glance just right by means of making Judaism glance unhealthy.
(Marc Zvi Brettler is Bernice and Morton Lerner Prominent Professor in Judaic Research at Duke College. Amy-Jill Levine is Rabbi Stanley M. Kessler Prominent Professor of New Testomony and Jewish Research at Hartford World College for Faith and Peace. They’re the co-authors of “The Bible With and With out Jesus” and the editors of The Jewish Annotated New Testomony.)

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