Toward a Common Jewish House in the Body of Christ: A Response to Mark Kinzer's Review of Jewish Church

Abstract

This article responds to Mark Kinzer's review of my book, Jewish Church: A Catholic Approach to Messianic Judaism. First, I discuss Kinzer on the “accurate reading” of Scripture. I highlight the preconceived opinion underlying Kinzer's exegesis of Acts 21:20–26, which ascribes to Luke the portrayal of Paul as a Torah-observant Jew. Second, I point to the fundamental ambiguity of attempts to present halakhic Torah observance as an ideal to be pursued by all Jewish disciples of Yeshua. Third, I argue that the death of Yeshua has a salvific meaning for the whole people of Israel, even as “the whole people” has a responsibility for Yeshua's death. Through repentance, this collective involvement becomes the doorway to collective salvation, thus justifying the establishment of a Jewish Church. In conclusion, I argue that the adoption of supersessionism by the whole Constantinian Church had to do with the absence of ecclesial dispositions that would have stymied an otherwise ineluctable process of gentilization in the course of the first centuries.