Living in fear (Getty)
For the ten years leading up to 2019, I was the author of a teen advice column, and my agony aunt inbox was often an early warning system for whatever youth-driven phenomenon was on its way down the cultural pike. This is why I knew what a “demisexual” was all the way back in 2013.
“I just heard about demisexuality a few days ago,” read the first letter I received on the topic. “When I read the description of it, I thought to myself ‘That is definitely me, wow!’”
For those not in the know, demisexuality refers to the state of not experiencing sexual attraction or desire without a strong emotional bond. The term originated on a role-playing forum back in the early Noughties, where a teenage girl assigned it to one of her fictional characters. But after it migrated onto Tumblr in 2011, it was adopted in earnest by extremely young and terminally online users who collected identity markers like they were baseball cards. Outside Tumblr, the reaction was largely sceptical; as many a snarky commenter pointed out in the moment, the whole idea of demisexuality also described the normal sexual experience of, if not everyone, then an awful lot of people, most of whom never felt the need or desire to append a label to their sexual preferences. The delighted self-discovery of the teen who wrote the aforementioned letter was only slightly tempered by this concern: “[Some] people are saying it’s people trying to be ‘special snowflakes’ by putting a label on this kind of attraction,” she wrote.
But if the whole thing seemed frankly silly and, okay, snowflakey, it also seemed pretty harmless. Gender and sexuality were just the latest lens through which young people were trying to understand their place in the world; “demisexuality” was to 2013 what being a little goth-curious was for a teen in 1995, more or less — except that with so much of life happening online, this identity was less about how you moved through the world than about finding just the right flag to affix to your social media profile. But unlike shopping at Claire’s Accessories, demisexuality didn’t stay a teenage conceit; a combination of creeping identitarianism in mainstream culture plus a general obsession with What The Youths Are Into eventually made the concept irresistible to adult millennial women.
“IT HAPPENED TO ME: I’m A Demisexual,” read the headline on a 2015 essay on the site XOJane, where the author boldly proclaimed that her inability to feel sexual attraction toward strangers made her “not quite heterosexual”.
The essay was met with a fair amount of ridicule, for all the obvious reasons — “they want to be oppressed so bad” was the unkind but not entirely untrue thrust of the critiques — but there was something about the way it lamented “the many struggles of living in such a sexually charged culture” that spoke to the anxieties of digital natives trying to navigate a post-sexual revolution dating scene. Hookup culture, dating apps, the endless sorting and filtering of potential suitors in a manner that resembled online shopping more than human connection: it’s no surprise that people struggling in this system jumped on a term, a hard-wired identity, that offered an explanation as to why. The young women who adopted a “demisexual” label as a means of opting out were less angry than their closest analogue, the young male incel, but both shared a sense that the system was broken. If male incels were made miserable by the spectre of the sex they wanted but could have, the demisexuals were perhaps equally tormented by the pressure to want, full stop.
Seven years after the XOJane essay, demisexuality remains a contested notion but also a far more visible one, in everything from beer marketing to dating guides, as with this recent dispatch from the dating app Hinge. A hypothetical demisexual dater asks, “What’s the best way to set expectations around waiting to get sexual?”, prompting a supportive but altogether unintelligible response from the app’s resident therapist that is short on actionable information and long on inscrutable axioms like: “Boundaries are bridges, not fences.” (Are they, though?)
Demisexual visibility seems to have less to do with a grassroots shift in human sexuality, and more to do with its corporate profitability. In a world of identity-driven marketing, a massive piece of the pie awaited any advertiser who figured out how to make young, male-attracted women (the group that includes most demisexuals) feel special and seen — and, of course, not quite heterosexual, thus saving them from the curse of being just another basic cishet bitch.
At the same time, the allure of demisexuality as a label clearly reveals something about the inadequacies of the contemporary dating landscape, particularly as experienced by young women. Taking it slow, assessing your feelings, and perhaps requiring a commitment before sex enters the picture: the tenets of demisexuality are fundamentally conservative, and more or less indistinguishable from the advice your grandmother would have given you about when and whether to have sex. But affixing the demisexual label dresses up these traditional values as a form of queerness, making them not just more palatable to younger folks but rhetorically unassailable. “I don’t want to have sex unless we’re emotionally connected” is a statement open to criticism; demisexuality is an identity that cannot be questioned.
This was clearly part of the allure for the teens who first gravitated toward the term. Demisexual may have been a snowflakey word but there was safety in it, especially if you were young, inexperienced, and a little afraid of sex. The kids who wrote into my advice column not only constructed elaborate identities around the type of sex they didn’t want to have, but also an elaborate consent framework in which any negotiation of one’s sexual boundaries constituted a violation of consent. The notion of pushing the limits of one’s own comfort in the spirit of experimentation, let alone for the sake of a partner’s pleasure, was horrifying to them, even if that meant (to use a provocative example) letting young men off the hook for being serial non-reciprocators of oral sex. When I suggested in one such scenario that a couple in a committed relationship might revisit and revise their boundaries, and even compromise them in the name of mutual satisfaction, the response was outrage. To these teenagers, a no in one context was meant to be understood as a no forever, and any further discussion or negotiation was, if not rape, then somewhere on the same spectrum.
Identifying as demisexual may offer a coveted membership in the “queer” community (although even this remains a subject of some debate), but it does nothing to forestall the consensual-but-not-desired encounters that so many young women find themselves engaging in, the kind of bad sex that was so vividly and memorably depicted in Kristen Roupenian’s viral short story, “Cat Person”. And more than that, it elides certain truths about when and why and with whom we choose to be intimate, truths that clash with the contemporary notion of sexual desire as a thing that either exists or doesn’t, organically and entirely out of context.
To posit the possibility of seduction, of a no that becomes a yes, is seen as akin to rape apologism. We don’t like to talk about the complex alchemy whereby indifference might give way to fondness, even lust — or how the flattering, exciting sense of one’s own desirability can sometimes stand in so fully for desire itself that it’s impossible to tell the difference. The protagonist of “Cat Person” doesn’t want the man who wants her, but oh, the thrill of being wanted: “Imagining how excited he would be, how hungry and eager to impress her, she felt a twinge of desire pluck at her belly, as distinct and painful as the snap of an elastic band against her skin.”
Instead, we instruct young people that sexuality is mainly a matter of identity, one in which the main concern is choosing not a partner but a label. Indeed, adopting a term like demisexual is a way to sidestep the question of desire entirely, along with the fraught and frightening process of learning by experience what kind of sex you want (which, inevitably, requires stumbling uncomfortably against the kind you don’t). But the result is less safe than it is strange, a funhouse-mirror version of sexuality that has very little to do with the physical act itself, or the good things associated with it. And what’s under the surface of this label? Not self-knowledge, but fear: of intimacy, of heartbreak, and of being naked.
Kat Rosenfield is an UnHerd columnist and co-host of the Feminine Chaos podcast. Her latest novel is You Must Remember This.
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SubscribeThis is a wonderful, most welcome article. I am one of those Jewish Catholics. I have never abandoned my Jewish identity. It’s not something one can abandon. I was born a Jew and will die a Jew, but one of Catholic Christian faith. I was ‘converted’ in the darkest hour of my life, when something pressed me to read St John’s gospel. The first few verses entered my soul like rays of light and I grasped the Christian faith whole and entire, in one moment. Before that moment I could never understand the worship of Jesus Christ. After that moment I got it. Deo gratias.
And why Catholicism? There was never any doubt in my mind that I would enter the Church that stood behind Western civilisation, that built the cathedrals I loved even during my Jewish life, and existed above and beyond nationalities and ethnic groups.
I appreciate your love for sacred buildings. By the way in the Jewish tradition it is not allowed to sell a sinagogue for any reasom except one. In case the funds recovered from the sale are used to build a school then it is allowed to sell ie study comes before praying. This means that Jews have the foremost duty to study deeply before taking any steps which sometimes are taken hastily.
Indeed, the colloquial Ashkenazi term for synagogue is ‘shul’ (school).
Indeed, the colloquial Ashkenazi term for synagogue is ‘shul’ (school).
I appreciate your love for sacred buildings. By the way in the Jewish tradition it is not allowed to sell a sinagogue for any reasom except one. In case the funds recovered from the sale are used to build a school then it is allowed to sell ie study comes before praying. This means that Jews have the foremost duty to study deeply before taking any steps which sometimes are taken hastily.
This is a wonderful, most welcome article. I am one of those Jewish Catholics. I have never abandoned my Jewish identity. It’s not something one can abandon. I was born a Jew and will die a Jew, but one of Catholic Christian faith. I was ‘converted’ in the darkest hour of my life, when something pressed me to read St John’s gospel. The first few verses entered my soul like rays of light and I grasped the Christian faith whole and entire, in one moment. Before that moment I could never understand the worship of Jesus Christ. After that moment I got it. Deo gratias.
And why Catholicism? There was never any doubt in my mind that I would enter the Church that stood behind Western civilisation, that built the cathedrals I loved even during my Jewish life, and existed above and beyond nationalities and ethnic groups.
I have attended Christian Seder (Passover) meals, led by Jews who have also become Christians.
Such services are astonishing, so rich in both Jewish and Christian meaning and symbolism.
You see the original Jewish rituals in their historical context, but also see so clearly how they prophetically point to and reveal Jesus as Messiah, His sacrificial death as the lamb of God, and His ultimate victory over sin and death.
Almost all of the first Christians, including Jesus and his disciples, were Jews. Jewish Christians are the literal founders of Christianity, thus Christian persecution of the Jews was the greatest betrayal of Christ in history, something to be continually repented of.
Of todays Jewish Christians shown in the article, may their tribe increase!
I have attended Christian Seder (Passover) meals, led by Jews who have also become Christians.
Such services are astonishing, so rich in both Jewish and Christian meaning and symbolism.
You see the original Jewish rituals in their historical context, but also see so clearly how they prophetically point to and reveal Jesus as Messiah, His sacrificial death as the lamb of God, and His ultimate victory over sin and death.
Almost all of the first Christians, including Jesus and his disciples, were Jews. Jewish Christians are the literal founders of Christianity, thus Christian persecution of the Jews was the greatest betrayal of Christ in history, something to be continually repented of.
Of todays Jewish Christians shown in the article, may their tribe increase!
The last supper celebrated yesterday is the final celebration of Jewish Passover by Christ. The story of his betrayal not just by Judas, his friend, for a trivial reward of thirty pieces of silver but in less crucial ways by his disciples that he predicts at that religious meal is a prologue to Christian betrayal of his own religious background as a Jew. Christian persecution of those of his earthly relatives who failed to acknowledge him to be the Messiah is merely another facet of that continued betrayal that Christians are bound to admit. It is a foolish Christian that does not acknowledge his continued state of sin. It is equally foolish of non-Christians to expect that Christians will be without sin. A Jew who becomes a Christian is merely one who sees Christianity as a continuation of the story of their faith by accepting Jesus to be the Messiah foretold in their book – a rather easier transition one would have thought than for a Buddhist or an Atheist. There is no need for the Jew to escape his roots when he converts it is natural for him to carry them with him.
Hi Jeremy, that’s fascinating perspective on the Last Supper and its symbolism in light of history. Had never thought of it that way. Thanks for sharing.
It is highly debatable that The Last Supper was a Pesach dinner or Seder. Most historians think it was started after the destruction of the Second Temple which was in 70 AC, time by which Jesus was no longer alive quite a few decades. Da Vinci painted it as free interpretation apparently.
Josef, I am, of course, drawing on Biblical tradition. Clearly the destruction of the Temple in 70 AD removed the public ceremonial element but I quote the following commentary:
“A Talmudic tractate devoted to the festival, Pesachim, suggests that home observance of Pesach began prior to the destruction of the Temple.”
I don’t claim any Talmudic scholarship and merely add it for what it is worth. As you say debatable but not certain.
Yes, but the Seder, or Pesach dinner was meant to compensate/replace the offerings after the distruction of the Main Temple.
Yes, but the Seder, or Pesach dinner was meant to compensate/replace the offerings after the distruction of the Main Temple.
Josef, I am, of course, drawing on Biblical tradition. Clearly the destruction of the Temple in 70 AD removed the public ceremonial element but I quote the following commentary:
“A Talmudic tractate devoted to the festival, Pesachim, suggests that home observance of Pesach began prior to the destruction of the Temple.”
I don’t claim any Talmudic scholarship and merely add it for what it is worth. As you say debatable but not certain.
Hi Jeremy, that’s fascinating perspective on the Last Supper and its symbolism in light of history. Had never thought of it that way. Thanks for sharing.
It is highly debatable that The Last Supper was a Pesach dinner or Seder. Most historians think it was started after the destruction of the Second Temple which was in 70 AC, time by which Jesus was no longer alive quite a few decades. Da Vinci painted it as free interpretation apparently.
The last supper celebrated yesterday is the final celebration of Jewish Passover by Christ. The story of his betrayal not just by Judas, his friend, for a trivial reward of thirty pieces of silver but in less crucial ways by his disciples that he predicts at that religious meal is a prologue to Christian betrayal of his own religious background as a Jew. Christian persecution of those of his earthly relatives who failed to acknowledge him to be the Messiah is merely another facet of that continued betrayal that Christians are bound to admit. It is a foolish Christian that does not acknowledge his continued state of sin. It is equally foolish of non-Christians to expect that Christians will be without sin. A Jew who becomes a Christian is merely one who sees Christianity as a continuation of the story of their faith by accepting Jesus to be the Messiah foretold in their book – a rather easier transition one would have thought than for a Buddhist or an Atheist. There is no need for the Jew to escape his roots when he converts it is natural for him to carry them with him.
It is extremely sinful for a Catholic to be anti- semitic. It is a scar on the Catholic Church that it encouraged pogroms against Jewish people. As a Catholic I often think that Catholic persecution of Jews made the Holocaust possible, maybe inevitable. I pray for the safety and happiness of the Jewish people, still targeted in this very day.
First of all thank you. Unfortunately you are right. The environment was for many centuries hostile to the Jews. Since the pogroms were a form of extermination of the Jews not efficient enough, with the 20th century and the age of industriliazation, it moved to much more efficient methods: the gas chambers.
It is extremely sinful for a Catholic to be anti-semitic… As a Catholic I often think that Catholic persecution of Jews made the Holocaust possible,
I agree with the first sentence, but not with the second.
First of all thank you. Unfortunately you are right. The environment was for many centuries hostile to the Jews. Since the pogroms were a form of extermination of the Jews not efficient enough, with the 20th century and the age of industriliazation, it moved to much more efficient methods: the gas chambers.
It is extremely sinful for a Catholic to be anti-semitic… As a Catholic I often think that Catholic persecution of Jews made the Holocaust possible,
I agree with the first sentence, but not with the second.
It is extremely sinful for a Catholic to be anti- semitic. It is a scar on the Catholic Church that it encouraged pogroms against Jewish people. As a Catholic I often think that Catholic persecution of Jews made the Holocaust possible, maybe inevitable. I pray for the safety and happiness of the Jewish people, still targeted in this very day.
As a Roman Catholic, I feel a very close fraternity to and with my Jewish ” religious cousins” and Israel too: one only has to listen to the words spoken at every Mass and in most gospels and readings.
As a Roman Catholic, I feel a very close fraternity to and with my Jewish ” religious cousins” and Israel too: one only has to listen to the words spoken at every Mass and in most gospels and readings.
This movement called Christian Jews is, in my opinion, a huge misunderstanding. Before taking the decision to embrace another faith, no matter if it is related to some extent to Judaism, one has to deepen first of all the Jewish religion. In order to do this it is essential to have a very high knowledge of Ancient Hebrew, this helps understanding the Hebrew scriptures. This is a job for several lifetimes.
The Christian faith is based on the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible the so called the septuagint. But this translation was also meant for the Jewish community of Alexandria which was helenized and not able to read Hebrew anymore. And this brings us to the key issue: the exact translation of the Hebrew Bible into another language is an impossible task for the very simple reason that the WORDS have a different meaning and other languages cannot find the equivalents. Words derive from habits which are unique to every civilization.
Then before it is decided if the Messiah has arrived it is essential to study what are the conditions the Jews pose for his arrival. The concept of the Messiah is a Jewish invention so we better listen to them and understand what they mean by it.
It is true that some steps have been taken to improve the attitude towards Judaism but there is still a long way to go. Then as to the Issue of the Judas’ betrayal I will point out simply to the fact that the Romans were the real, ruthless, rulers of the land of Israel in those days. They did not understand the Jews and despized them.This should be enough to explain, if at all possible, what happened. What followed was a huge wave of destruction of the Jewish people.
Finally unless the phomenon of Marcionism is seriously marginalized a good portion of antisemitism will still remain. At the popular level Marcionism is alive and kicking and this is a source of a lot of prejudice.
The Jews are at the origin of an extraordianry construction of civilization but had to endure terrible consequences. The fact that they survived to these days is due to the unbelievable amount of wisdom which lies in their scriptures. Scriptures which Jews in the first place have to study before jumping to conclusions.
I appreciate your effort, Josef, to go against the grain by opposing Jewish conversion to Catholicism. Not many readers will thank you for doing that, but I do because you haven’t resorted to ranting. But I do think that you could improve your argument in several ways.
You say that “the exact translation of the Hebrew Bible into another language is an impossible task for the very simple reason that the WORDS have a different meaning and other languages cannot find the equivalents. Words derive from habits which are unique to every civilization.”
What you say is true of every translation (and supports the Muslim belief that no translation of the Qur’an is acceptable). But I’m not convinced that we should therefore abandon efforts to translate from one language to another or to look down on those who make those efforts. I say that for two reasons. First, some translators try real hard to do their job well and often provide readers with alternatives for some words (which I see in more than a few translations of the Bible into English). Second, and more important, translation is an inherently moral endeavor. It relies on the belief that people should try to understand each other, after all, and not remain isolated behind linguistic (or ideological) barriers.
On a closely related matter, it’s true that the messiah originated as a Jewish idea, but you add a non sequitur that does nothing to support your argument. The Jewish origin of this idea does not necessarily mean that later interpretations of it, including Christian ones, are not worth taking seriously. Many ideas originated in the remote past, after all, but have been elaborated ever since, even transformed to suit new needs, in ways that are useful and sometimes admirable. In other words, ideas are not like property. No one can own them. They have lives of their own.
What you say about Marcionism is true, but you could have explained that Marcion was a theologian of the early Church, which declared him a heretic, ca. 145, for (among other things) proposing to remove the Old Testament from Christian scripture along with several other texts that had already been canonized in the New Testament. Marcion was profoundly dualistic, believing that the material world was evil and therefore that salvation was an entirely spiritual (immaterial) goal. It made no sense to him that God would not only create a material world but also become incarnate in the material body of a man, let alone one who was crucified. The Old Testament contained passages, moreover, that the Church interpreted as prophecies of Christ.
Dear Paul, the subject requires many, many pages of explanation. The argument between Judaism and Christianity has been going on for two thousand years. Anyway I’ll try to be more specific but the more I write the more I have to explain. Let us see:
A person who translates from one language to another is a servant to two masters, not an easy task. To translate from a semitic language to a European language is a daunting job, since we are in Pesach or Easter let us come to the word Egypt. In Hebrew the term used is Mitzraim which is using the same letters as Meitzarim ie Straits meaning that the Jewish people in that land were in dire straits, once translated into Egypt it loses all this.
Second example :
As you may know in the days of the creation after each day the Almighty says that He saw that what was done was good. The sixth day Friday He created the man-Adam= alef, daled, mem.Then He says that he saw it was very good, in Hebrew Meod=mem,alef,daled. It is an anagram of the name of Adam, in other words the humanity is very good and it is expressed in letters. The translation inevitably misses it and the whole beauty of it. I can give you further examples, there are hundreds of cases.
Messiah=Mashiach=Annointed and Tikun Olam (reparation/improvemen of the world) are totally related. We are meant to correct our world all our life to facilitate the arrival of the Messiah. Once we say he arrived there is the temptation to relax and do nothing more. People inside Judaism also lose their patience (Shabtai Tzevi) and anticipate his arrival. But if he arrived why is the world today in such a dreaful state? Maimonides suggests not exaggerate with his arrival. He says that when he will arrive he will be a person of such a level and value that nobody will object. Does it make it any simpler ? I am afraid not, are we sure there will not be someone objecting ? Highly unlikely, hence back to square one.Having said this Judaism accepts every effort to make the world better. By the way one small detail, in the days of the Mashiach the meat of pork will be Kasher, why? The pig will start to ruminate but till then it is not, Anyway I do not want to digress.
Marcion, I know perfectly that he was excommunicated but for other reasons not for the fact that he stated that the G-d of the Jews was vindictive and a source of evil. Believe me Marcionism is deeply rooted in many people’s mind.
It is true there has been some effort to treat the Jews better but it is by no means irriversible. Hence I write extensively all this.
Dear Paul, the subject requires many, many pages of explanation. The argument between Judaism and Christianity has been going on for two thousand years. Anyway I’ll try to be more specific but the more I write the more I have to explain. Let us see:
A person who translates from one language to another is a servant to two masters, not an easy task. To translate from a semitic language to a European language is a daunting job, since we are in Pesach or Easter let us come to the word Egypt. In Hebrew the term used is Mitzraim which is using the same letters as Meitzarim ie Straits meaning that the Jewish people in that land were in dire straits, once translated into Egypt it loses all this.
Second example :
As you may know in the days of the creation after each day the Almighty says that He saw that what was done was good. The sixth day Friday He created the man-Adam= alef, daled, mem.Then He says that he saw it was very good, in Hebrew Meod=mem,alef,daled. It is an anagram of the name of Adam, in other words the humanity is very good and it is expressed in letters. The translation inevitably misses it and the whole beauty of it. I can give you further examples, there are hundreds of cases.
Messiah=Mashiach=Annointed and Tikun Olam (reparation/improvemen of the world) are totally related. We are meant to correct our world all our life to facilitate the arrival of the Messiah. Once we say he arrived there is the temptation to relax and do nothing more. People inside Judaism also lose their patience (Shabtai Tzevi) and anticipate his arrival. But if he arrived why is the world today in such a dreaful state? Maimonides suggests not exaggerate with his arrival. He says that when he will arrive he will be a person of such a level and value that nobody will object. Does it make it any simpler ? I am afraid not, are we sure there will not be someone objecting ? Highly unlikely, hence back to square one.Having said this Judaism accepts every effort to make the world better. By the way one small detail, in the days of the Mashiach the meat of pork will be Kasher, why? The pig will start to ruminate but till then it is not, Anyway I do not want to digress.
Marcion, I know perfectly that he was excommunicated but for other reasons not for the fact that he stated that the G-d of the Jews was vindictive and a source of evil. Believe me Marcionism is deeply rooted in many people’s mind.
It is true there has been some effort to treat the Jews better but it is by no means irriversible. Hence I write extensively all this.
I appreciate your effort, Josef, to go against the grain by opposing Jewish conversion to Catholicism. Not many readers will thank you for doing that, but I do because you haven’t resorted to ranting. But I do think that you could improve your argument in several ways.
You say that “the exact translation of the Hebrew Bible into another language is an impossible task for the very simple reason that the WORDS have a different meaning and other languages cannot find the equivalents. Words derive from habits which are unique to every civilization.”
What you say is true of every translation (and supports the Muslim belief that no translation of the Qur’an is acceptable). But I’m not convinced that we should therefore abandon efforts to translate from one language to another or to look down on those who make those efforts. I say that for two reasons. First, some translators try real hard to do their job well and often provide readers with alternatives for some words (which I see in more than a few translations of the Bible into English). Second, and more important, translation is an inherently moral endeavor. It relies on the belief that people should try to understand each other, after all, and not remain isolated behind linguistic (or ideological) barriers.
On a closely related matter, it’s true that the messiah originated as a Jewish idea, but you add a non sequitur that does nothing to support your argument. The Jewish origin of this idea does not necessarily mean that later interpretations of it, including Christian ones, are not worth taking seriously. Many ideas originated in the remote past, after all, but have been elaborated ever since, even transformed to suit new needs, in ways that are useful and sometimes admirable. In other words, ideas are not like property. No one can own them. They have lives of their own.
What you say about Marcionism is true, but you could have explained that Marcion was a theologian of the early Church, which declared him a heretic, ca. 145, for (among other things) proposing to remove the Old Testament from Christian scripture along with several other texts that had already been canonized in the New Testament. Marcion was profoundly dualistic, believing that the material world was evil and therefore that salvation was an entirely spiritual (immaterial) goal. It made no sense to him that God would not only create a material world but also become incarnate in the material body of a man, let alone one who was crucified. The Old Testament contained passages, moreover, that the Church interpreted as prophecies of Christ.
This movement called Christian Jews is, in my opinion, a huge misunderstanding. Before taking the decision to embrace another faith, no matter if it is related to some extent to Judaism, one has to deepen first of all the Jewish religion. In order to do this it is essential to have a very high knowledge of Ancient Hebrew, this helps understanding the Hebrew scriptures. This is a job for several lifetimes.
The Christian faith is based on the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible the so called the septuagint. But this translation was also meant for the Jewish community of Alexandria which was helenized and not able to read Hebrew anymore. And this brings us to the key issue: the exact translation of the Hebrew Bible into another language is an impossible task for the very simple reason that the WORDS have a different meaning and other languages cannot find the equivalents. Words derive from habits which are unique to every civilization.
Then before it is decided if the Messiah has arrived it is essential to study what are the conditions the Jews pose for his arrival. The concept of the Messiah is a Jewish invention so we better listen to them and understand what they mean by it.
It is true that some steps have been taken to improve the attitude towards Judaism but there is still a long way to go. Then as to the Issue of the Judas’ betrayal I will point out simply to the fact that the Romans were the real, ruthless, rulers of the land of Israel in those days. They did not understand the Jews and despized them.This should be enough to explain, if at all possible, what happened. What followed was a huge wave of destruction of the Jewish people.
Finally unless the phomenon of Marcionism is seriously marginalized a good portion of antisemitism will still remain. At the popular level Marcionism is alive and kicking and this is a source of a lot of prejudice.
The Jews are at the origin of an extraordianry construction of civilization but had to endure terrible consequences. The fact that they survived to these days is due to the unbelievable amount of wisdom which lies in their scriptures. Scriptures which Jews in the first place have to study before jumping to conclusions.
There are also converts to Judaism, among them Catholic priests whose reading of the Hebrew scriptures lead them to see things from the Judaic point of view.
There are also converts to Judaism, among them Catholic priests whose reading of the Hebrew scriptures lead them to see things from the Judaic point of view.
Beautiful article. I am reminded of Pope Benedict reminding us that the Jews are ” our spiritual older brothers.” Beautiful. I worked most of my life with and among some wonderful Jewish men , women and children. Wonderful people. Indeed Catholics are in truth Messianic Jews. Warm greetings to my brothers and sisters.
Beautiful article. I am reminded of Pope Benedict reminding us that the Jews are ” our spiritual older brothers.” Beautiful. I worked most of my life with and among some wonderful Jewish men , women and children. Wonderful people. Indeed Catholics are in truth Messianic Jews. Warm greetings to my brothers and sisters.
Today’s article should have appeared during the six weeks of Lent, which ended yesterday, because that is when Catholics focus their attention on repentance. Instead, it appeared during the run-up to Easter, when Catholics focus their attention on the ultimate victory of Christ—and, by extension, of his church. But I see no need to elaborate on what the article and the comments on it have already said about Catholic repentance.
Although I think that Jews should be free to adopt or reject Christianity (or Judaism), I think also that adopting it can be naïve. That’s because people cannot be Christians (or Jews) except in the contexts of historical communities. The Catholic church has indeed changed the course of its own history by denouncing both antijudaism and antisemitism. And it has done so not only on moral grounds but also on theological grounds. Even so, history itself remains. I refer here not to something negative such as the history of Christian hostility toward Judaism or Jews. Rather, I refer to something positive: the history of blending and reconciling two very different civilizations, that of “Jerusalem,” as Tertullian famously put it, with that of “Athens.” Christianity is no longer a Jewish sect. Christians inherit not only the biblical scripture but also classical philosophy. That cultural marriage is not only the sine qua non of Christianity but also the foundation of Western civilization.
I can’t help wondering, therefore, about the extent to which Jews who join the church now actually become Catholics in any useful sense of that word. From reading Zenou’s article, from some of the comments on this blog and from sociological studies of Hebrew Christians, I get the impression that they are trying to restore the religious (and political) conditions of two thousand years ago, before the Christian community separated from the Jewish community (which probably occurred ca. 70, either just before or just after Rome destroyed the Temple in Jerusalem). In doing so, they soon became not only demographically Roman but also spiritually Roman.
For modern Jewish converts to Catholicism (or Protestantism), their choice depends heavily, even exclusively, on scriptural prophecies of a coming messiah—that is, Christian interpretations of those prophecies. At some point, the first Christians had to reinterpret the whole Jewish notion of a messiah. Many Jews had assumed that the messiah would be a royal but earthly hero, albeit with a divine mission to expel the Romans. Others had decided that the messiah would be a divine savior who would not only expel the Romans but also inaugurate a new kind of kingdom beyond time. Still others now argued that this divine figure was none other than Jesus.
These disputes were common among both Jews and Jewish Christians. It did not take long, for instance, for the latter to be afflicted by “cognitive dissonance.” Why did the expected return of Jesus not occur almost immediately and bring an end to history? Some proposed that Christ had already inaugurated the Kingdom of God, to be sure, but internally instead of externally. In that case, the community would have to settle down under Roman rule for the foreseeable future and establish its own institutions accordingly.
In short, it took many generations for the earliest Jewish followers of Jesus to become Christians, just as it had taken many generations for the ancient Israelites to become rabbinic Jews. There was no time when it all seemed simple. People had to keep making choices, and those choices entailed others.
Today’s article should have appeared during the six weeks of Lent, which ended yesterday, because that is when Catholics focus their attention on repentance. Instead, it appeared during the run-up to Easter, when Catholics focus their attention on the ultimate victory of Christ—and, by extension, of his church. But I see no need to elaborate on what the article and the comments on it have already said about Catholic repentance.
Although I think that Jews should be free to adopt or reject Christianity (or Judaism), I think also that adopting it can be naïve. That’s because people cannot be Christians (or Jews) except in the contexts of historical communities. The Catholic church has indeed changed the course of its own history by denouncing both antijudaism and antisemitism. And it has done so not only on moral grounds but also on theological grounds. Even so, history itself remains. I refer here not to something negative such as the history of Christian hostility toward Judaism or Jews. Rather, I refer to something positive: the history of blending and reconciling two very different civilizations, that of “Jerusalem,” as Tertullian famously put it, with that of “Athens.” Christianity is no longer a Jewish sect. Christians inherit not only the biblical scripture but also classical philosophy. That cultural marriage is not only the sine qua non of Christianity but also the foundation of Western civilization.
I can’t help wondering, therefore, about the extent to which Jews who join the church now actually become Catholics in any useful sense of that word. From reading Zenou’s article, from some of the comments on this blog and from sociological studies of Hebrew Christians, I get the impression that they are trying to restore the religious (and political) conditions of two thousand years ago, before the Christian community separated from the Jewish community (which probably occurred ca. 70, either just before or just after Rome destroyed the Temple in Jerusalem). In doing so, they soon became not only demographically Roman but also spiritually Roman.
For modern Jewish converts to Catholicism (or Protestantism), their choice depends heavily, even exclusively, on scriptural prophecies of a coming messiah—that is, Christian interpretations of those prophecies. At some point, the first Christians had to reinterpret the whole Jewish notion of a messiah. Many Jews had assumed that the messiah would be a royal but earthly hero, albeit with a divine mission to expel the Romans. Others had decided that the messiah would be a divine savior who would not only expel the Romans but also inaugurate a new kind of kingdom beyond time. Still others now argued that this divine figure was none other than Jesus.
These disputes were common among both Jews and Jewish Christians. It did not take long, for instance, for the latter to be afflicted by “cognitive dissonance.” Why did the expected return of Jesus not occur almost immediately and bring an end to history? Some proposed that Christ had already inaugurated the Kingdom of God, to be sure, but internally instead of externally. In that case, the community would have to settle down under Roman rule for the foreseeable future and establish its own institutions accordingly.
In short, it took many generations for the earliest Jewish followers of Jesus to become Christians, just as it had taken many generations for the ancient Israelites to become rabbinic Jews. There was no time when it all seemed simple. People had to keep making choices, and those choices entailed others.
Thank you for sharing this insight. I would like to think that over the last few decades we Christians (and even Catholics) have become more aware of and appreciative of our shared heritage. We have moved on from the AD/BC binary. We are making up for our past and becoming philo-semites. Time and necessity make great healers. Catholics and Protestants no longer kill each other, while respecting that divisions are caused by serious and important issues. Anyway, we end up in the same naughty corner of the secular world.
You have helped as well by seeing past conflicts as theological rather than racial. Many Catholics have seen this clearly, moving on from the paranoid Dreyfus world to Pius Xl’s ‘spiritually we are all semites’ amidst the suffering. The Nazis did draw on older tropes but were deeply anti-Christian as well as anti-Semitic. For all the horrors, there are also heartening accounts of Jews being rescued and sheltered at great cost, priests issuing fake baptismal certificates, enclosed convents providing refuge. Some good history to balance the bad.
Thank you for sharing this insight. I would like to think that over the last few decades we Christians (and even Catholics) have become more aware of and appreciative of our shared heritage. We have moved on from the AD/BC binary. We are making up for our past and becoming philo-semites. Time and necessity make great healers. Catholics and Protestants no longer kill each other, while respecting that divisions are caused by serious and important issues. Anyway, we end up in the same naughty corner of the secular world.
You have helped as well by seeing past conflicts as theological rather than racial. Many Catholics have seen this clearly, moving on from the paranoid Dreyfus world to Pius Xl’s ‘spiritually we are all semites’ amidst the suffering. The Nazis did draw on older tropes but were deeply anti-Christian as well as anti-Semitic. For all the horrors, there are also heartening accounts of Jews being rescued and sheltered at great cost, priests issuing fake baptismal certificates, enclosed convents providing refuge. Some good history to balance the bad.
One of the largest Catholic cathedrals in Madrid says a special mass ever year for the repose of the soul of Adolf Hitler. I wonder whether Mr Elmaleh would attend that mass and receive the Sacrament. If there were TV cameras there, probably.
Oh dear, spreading lies with a pinch of the truth in them are we? How satanic.
The incident you are talking about happened at the Church of St. Martin in Madrid on the 10th of May 1968. It was not organised or condoned by the Vatican, but rather held by right wing extremists who are probably all dead now.
A simple Google search can confirm this, Howard.
Very interesting! Anybody can become Catholic actually, it’s not really surprising. But welcome!
Of course one should be careful not to overemphasise the Old Testament in Catholicism. Catholicism has absorbed a lot of pagan influences especially from Egypt, Greece and Mesopotamia. And the gnostics. It makes it all very fascinating.
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I was raised in a mixed family. My dad’s stepfather was Jewish, but he married a Methodist Minister’s daughter, my grandmother. (Proudfoot is a pen name) When I was in grade school, my family used to say a Jewish prayer each night that ended in the Shema, said in Hebrew. On Sundays, we went to Protestant Church. We lived in Missoula, Montana. On Jewish holidays, including Seders, my dad’s Army buddy, who was Jewish, invited us to the Jewish gathering in the area. There was no Synagogue in Missoula then. So I grew up half and half, although I identified as Protestant, because I certainly wasn’t kosher enough to be Jewish. My upbringing did make me a closet Unitarian. “Here O Israel, the Lord our G_d, the Lord is One,” says the Shema.
When in later life I was teaching Sunday School in a Congregational Church in Suburban Chicago, I used to cover the differences between Jews and Protestants by putting my thumb in the page in the Bible between the end of the Old Testament and the start of the New Testament. I would tell my class, “We agree on this much,” showing the thickness of the Old Testament. “We disagree on this much,” showing the relative thinness of the New Testament. It was a good place to start the discussion.
I was raised in a mixed family. My dad’s stepfather was Jewish, but he married a Methodist Minister’s daughter, my grandmother. (Proudfoot is a pen name) When I was in grade school, my family used to say a Jewish prayer each night that ended in the Shema, said in Hebrew. On Sundays, we went to Protestant Church. We lived in Missoula, Montana. On Jewish holidays, including Seders, my dad’s Army buddy, who was Jewish, invited us to the Jewish gathering in the area. There was no Synagogue in Missoula then. So I grew up half and half, although I identified as Protestant, because I certainly wasn’t kosher enough to be Jewish. My upbringing did make me a closet Unitarian. “Here O Israel, the Lord our G_d, the Lord is One,” says the Shema.
When in later life I was teaching Sunday School in a Congregational Church in Suburban Chicago, I used to cover the differences between Jews and Protestants by putting my thumb in the page in the Bible between the end of the Old Testament and the start of the New Testament. I would tell my class, “We agree on this much,” showing the thickness of the Old Testament. “We disagree on this much,” showing the relative thinness of the New Testament. It was a good place to start the discussion.
From an atheistic viewpoint, all this heart searching over which ancient book, doctrine or mythical deity to ascribe to is bemusing, but not surprising. Differences inevitably divide, so why shouldn’t similarities have the opposite effect?
Well I think Freud was an atheist but I recall him saying something about “the narcissism of minor differences”…
To move from Judaism to Romanism is simply to replace on set of pointless rituals for another. It has been said, with good reason, that Romanism is an Old Testament religion.
Well I think Freud was an atheist but I recall him saying something about “the narcissism of minor differences”…
To move from Judaism to Romanism is simply to replace on set of pointless rituals for another. It has been said, with good reason, that Romanism is an Old Testament religion.
From an atheistic viewpoint, all this heart searching over which ancient book, doctrine or mythical deity to ascribe to is bemusing, but not surprising. Differences inevitably divide, so why shouldn’t similarities have the opposite effect?