‘The enemy of my enemy is my enemy’: Markus Barth's awkward hostility to critics of his theology of reconciliation

Abstract

Markus Barth (1915–1994) is best-known for his pioneering work in Jewish-Christian dialogue, and his Anchor Bible commentaries. Convinced that Ephesians 2:14–16 is the core of Paul's gospel, Barth concluded that the ‘one new man’ in Christ not only necessitates an indissoluble solidarity between Christians and Jews, but entails that all enmities have been negated by Christ's reconciliatory work. Ironically, this conviction provoked in him an antagonism towards many of his Jewish interlocutors. Their refusal to ‘forget Auschwitz’ caused Barth to accuse them of not being sufficiently conciliatory, and in turn led him, with sadly supersessionistic logic, to eschew reconciliation with them, because he did not think they took reconciliation seriously enough.