Category: Books and Culture

“The difference is much wider than the fact that Christians have both the Old and New Testaments while the Jews have the Old Testament. Rather, the distinction is that Christians have the entire Word of God while the Jews have an Old Testament which they have in effect nullified with their traditions. This process was already well underway when Jesus rebuked it, and it has continued down to the present, with the Jews unrepentant.”

American Milk and Honey, p. 53

“So according to Christ, the rabbis had been supplanting the teaching of the Word of God for the sake of their traditions, and they had been doing this for centuries [Mark 7:6-13]. To be clear, what Jesus is talking about here is a gradually forming Talmud.”

American Milk and Honey, pp. 47-48

“Replacing the Temple system with the tradition of the elders resulted in what might be called the triumph of Pharisaism, and the Talmud is the monument to that triumph. Prior to the judgment on Jerusalem, they already had a few centuries of a wrong-footed head start; the traditions that Jesus so violently rejected were the traditions of the first half of the Talmudic stream. Indeed, the Talmudic traditions of the elders were the reason why Jerusalem was judged so severely.”

American Milk and Honey, pp. 49-50

“Many Christians naively believe that Orthodox Jews are basically on the same page with Christians, only they are running one testament short. This kind of superficial treatment of Judaism and Christianity reduces everything to whether you say ‘Merry Christmas’ or ‘Happy Hanukkah.’ Do you put up Christmas lights, or do you light a menorah? Many Christians, particularly some in the dispensational tradition, regard our differences with the Jews as extreme denominational differences, but still somehow within the pale. But modern Judaism is not the religion of the Old Testament. It is something else entirely. It is not the biblical faith with Jesus left out.”

American Milk and Honey, pp. 47-48

“If Christians over here, purporting to have a biblical worldview, start expressing their sympathy with the open skunks because they are convinced that the hidden skunks are just as bad, then it does not astonish me at all that people don’t want to listen to us.”

American Milk and Honey, p. 44