Speaking to Jews

Do not ask someone who might be Jewish if he’s “a Jew.” I would have thought that obvious but apparently it isn’t, according to Stuff Christians Say that Makes Jewish People Cringe by Aaron Abramson, who is Jewish and believes in Jesus.

When that term is used to label someone, my mind conjures up images of surly Dickensian characters like Oliver Twist’s Fagin. Pejorative references throughout history have loaded this word with too much baggage. Calling someone a “Jew” or “Jewess” is like calling someone a “Polack” or a “Chinaman.” Is this appropriate? But, being called “Jewish” is different. Like “Chinese” or “African,” it is an ethnic designation. If you must ask (perhaps first take a moment to make sure it’s appropriate to ask at all), try, “Are you Jewish?” not, “Are you a Jew?”

Some Christians, he suggests, are sadly oblivious to the Christians’ long mistreatment of Jews and why some tact and reticence on the part of Christians is required. He includes three other terms and some other Christian actions that make Jews cringe. It’s all very helpful but with one I have some problem. He objects to the use of “Old Testament. It is, he says, not so much

offensive as it is loaded. Most Jewish people do not believe in the Old and New Testament. The scriptures contained within the Old Testament comprise their entire holy book. So labeling it “old” makes it sound, well, antiquated. Replaced. Passé. More appropriate terms to use would be “Tanach” (an acronym of the first Hebrew letters of: Torah or law, Nevi’im or prophets, and Ketuvim or writings), “Hebrew Bible” (even though Daniel is partially in Aramaic), or even, simply, “Jewish scriptures.” Using one of these terms not only shows respect, but cultural awareness.

I see the point but I don’t see that we have an alternative. All three terms, especially the first two, imply that the books are not our Scriptures too. We have the New Testament and no one seriously proposes renaming it. If you have a New Testament you have by definition an Old Testament. The relation of new to old is not just accidental or chronological, the way New York is related to York, but significant and symbolic, the way the New Jerusalem is related to Jerusalem. You could call the Old Testament the Hebrew Bible, the Jewish Scriptures, or the Tanakh, but as soon as you say “the Tanakh and the New Testament” you’ve admitted that “Tanakh” is only a euphemism.

I’m not entirely sure about this, however and would be grateful for responses.

In any case, the problem is that Christians believe that after the Hebrew Scriptures were written man was given a further revelation, one that provides the way of reading the first. If I were Jewish, I’d find this very annoying. It would feel as if my heritage was being appropriated without my permission, like finding someone calling himself “David Mills 2” and helping himself to my bank account. But we’re stuck with it. The way to what friendship can be had, and very, very much can be had, is through that problem, not around it.