I first began writing this piece with only people of Jewish
background in mind, since I was concerned about the unnecessary humiliation and
suffering people from countries in the former Soviet Union, Ethiopia, Burma and
elsewhere -- even "Christians" from the United States -- undergo in
seeking conversion or when they emigrate to Israel.
I was also worried about the problem of intermarriage, an
issue I am told affects some 50 percent or more of Jews in America and
elsewhere. But I have since found that as many non-Jews (perhaps more) -- and,
in particular "Abrahamic-minded Christians," of whom I have met
perhaps thousands -- were just as interested.
Since I am writing the article for those who might find
something helpful, useful or edifying in it -- whether "Jewish,"
"Christian," "Buddhist, "Hindu," "atheist,"
even "Muslim" -- I will begin as I originally intended. For those who
are curious or interested (including many Evangelicals), that will be enough.
For those that are not, nothing will be lost.
One of the problems Judaism is experiencing in the 20th and
21st centuries is the question of who is a Jew -- who needs conversion or
"re-conversion," and how or in what way a person can or should become
a Jew.
One does not wish to be needlessly crude about this, but the
Nazis had no difficulty determining this, even though many and even most so-called
"Jews" -- not to mention others -- still do today. They just looked
into your genealogy or ancestry to see if there was some "Jewish"
ancestor somewhere (male or female, it didn't matter to them) or, in many cases
if one were male, they just looked to see if you were circumcised (rightly,
unfortunately, realizing this had something to do with honoring "the
Covenant of Moses") and that was that. Hitler didn't ask if your mother
was Jewish, though, inter alia, this might have been one of the questions he
might have asked.
But if we are going to be honest and go back even further
than this, it is clear that the Old Testament (as some call it) is even more
liberal and inclusive even than any of these. Everyone has come to realize that
what Jews or Hebrews and even "God-Fearing" Christians call "the
Forefathers" often had "non-Jewish" wives, whatever might have
been meant by that at the time.
Abraham himself, supposedly, in his older years even took a
non-Jewish, younger woman to be his wife, whose name was Keturah (Genesis
25:1). The Bible makes it plain that earlier he also had another
"wife" named Hagar -- very important in traditional song and story --
who is portrayed in many respects even more sympathetically than Sarah is. The
Bible doesn't either idealize or romanticize its "folk heroes or
heroines," which, to the present writer, is one of its strengths and
attractions.
Jacob is not idealized, nor is Abraham. Isaac comes through
as rather doddering and something of a fool. Sarah is the typical jealous
mother. Abraham, if the traditions are to be credited (I put many of them down
to the embellishment of good story-tellers, just like the Greek epic writers
did), was even willing to sell his own wife to either Pharoah or Abimelech
(again an anachronism) and claimed her as his sister, i.e., the
"incest" common in Northern Syrian practices of the time (Genesis 12
and 20).
Esau comes out better -- even than Jacob who supplants him
-- and does nothing really wrong except being a bit dim-witted and "selling
his birthright." In fact, he is portrayed as being very generous and
forgiving. Ishmael and Hagar the same. Esau's only real problem is that he
seems to marry the wrong woman or women (Genesis 28:1-9)!
David, certainly, is no better and despite his heroism does
some particularly horrific things, especially, once again, where women are
concerned. Again, Saul's son Jonathan comes out looking better. But this is
literature and, in literature, often almost anything goes and one can do a lot
of things (Judah,
for instance, stops by the wayside and has intercourse with his son's wife,
disguised as a whore. Beat that if you can!).
But to get back to our subject: Who is a Jew and what is a
proper conversion? One of the purist and most heroic of all early Jewish/Hebrew
characters, Joseph, certainly marries the daughter of an Egyptian Priest,
"the Priest of On" (Genesis 41:45), and, of course, his children are
by her. No one makes any great issues over this in the Bible. In fact, Jacob,
according to the story at the end of Genesis, even gives him a double share of
the future land to be conquered and settled, Ephraim and Manasseh.
Moses definitely marries out, to a woman named Zipporah who
is a daughter of the Midianite (probably Ishmaelite) priest who goes by several
names: Jethro, Hobab, Shuaib. In fact, the Bible makes a big issue of this when
it comes to the circumcision of their offspring, Zipporah being pictured as
crying out in horrified maternal pain, "You are a bloody bridegroom to
me" (Exodus 4:24-5), presumably referring to their second son, Eliezer
(though Aaron, Moses' alleged brother, has a third son in addition to Nadav and
Abihu by a similar name, Eleazar, and somehow the priesthood devolves upon him
despite "the Golden Calf" episode, while Moses' offspring -- the
first allegedly being Gershom -- seem virtually to evaporate).
Even David, the arch hero, or hero of all heroes by rabbinic
standards, wouldn't be considered Jewish at all (though, to go back to more
recent grimness, by Nazi standards, he most certainly would have) since his
paternal great grandmother, Ruth, is clearly designated as a Moabitess. In
fact, her words to her mother-in-law Naomi at the death of her first husband,
"whither thou goest, I will go," have become proverbial for conversion.
But this is certainly no rabbinic conversion and brings us
to the whole point of my article. It is certainly looser, less formal, and more
spiritual or behavioral than anything any of the forms of Judaism, which of
course become more stringent the more "Conservative" or
"Orthodox" one gets, would deem sufficient or even recognizable.
So what should one call it, "Davidic" or
"Abrahamic"? I prefer to call it "Abrahamic Conversion"
because all of this is covered quite plainly, clearly and explicitly in Genesis
17:10-14 when Abraham is commanded to circumcise all the males in his
household. In fact, the Mosaic Covenant hasn't even been revealed yet,
something both Muhammad and Paul (to counter-effect) play off of very
effectively in their dialectic.
This "Abrahamic Conversion" is very liberal -- to
the extreme -- and extends to all the males in Abraham's household, including
all those traveling with him (i. e., all the "fellow-travelers," as
it were, or what would later be called in the Dead Sea Scrolls and nascent
Christianity "God-Fearers"). There is nothing said about the women in
this situation at all, and that is just the point. This is also the end point
of the story about David's origins and genealogy which does involve the woman's
place -- anyone who wanted to be "Jewish" or chose to share the fate
of "the Jews" (never an easy one) was considered part of the People.
There was nothing else asked and nothing else required.
This is what is implied by the watchword, "Whither thou
goest, I will go." Anyone who wished to share the fate of the Jewish
People or be part of its traditions was considered part of it -- period! There
was nothing ever said about women or who one's mother might have been
throughout the whole of the Old Testament except ever so slightly, as I said,
in the story of Esau. If you wanted to be "Jewish,"
"Hebrew" or part of the tradition, then you were. It was as simple as
that.
It had nothing to do with who your mother was (of course,
this is one of the other things Ruth is pictured as saying: "your People
will be my People"). By implication too, the opposite was true: If you did
not, then you were not. To my mind, Karl Marx and people like today's George
Soros, Noam Chomsky or Bernadine Dohrn would be good examples of this.
So when did this idea of one's mother being Jewish as the
determining factor of whether one was "Jewish" or of one's Judaism
begin to enter or show itself in the tradition? Of course, it is rabbinic, as
there is nothing about it before that time. But precisely what period and under
what circumstances? To my mind, too, this is a very easy question to answer. It
starts to enter the tradition during the Maccabean or pre-Roman/Roman/Herodian
Period.
It is certainly not in the Dead Sea
Scrolls. Genesis 17:16-7 is mentioned very importantly in the Damascus Document, for instance. But I have
yet to see anything about matrilineality or matrilineal descent before either
Talmudic or rabbinic literature, and there it emerges quite clearly in
"The Herodian Period"!
Why the Herodian? I have covered this in a number of pieces
I have done relating to the Temple or Temple Mount
and making its "Herodian Stones" into religious icons and the like --
the Western or Wailing Wall for instance. It comes in during the Herodian
Period because neither Herod, nor his father Antipater (the first Roman
Governor of Palestine after the conquest under the Roman General Pompey in
B.C.E. 63), nor his brothers, nor any of his family, were "Jews" or
"Jewish" in the proper sense of that word or even as it came to be
defined at this time and later by the rabbis. Nor, as I would define it and see
it, did any of them particularly want to be.
But the Pharisees -- cum Rabbinic Party and Rabbinic Judaism
to be -- from Hillel and Shammai's time onward approved of this takeover, since
in the main they were anti-Maccabean. To anyone who doubts this, Josephus makes
this plain in all his works in his description of the fall of the Temple in 63 B.C. and
what follows it.
The Herodians were Greco-Arabs from the Palestinian
Coastline and from the Kingdom
of Petra. They weren't
even Idumaeans, as many in rabbinic literature enjoy referring to them --
Herod's father, who was a Greco-Arab Priest of Apollo from Gaza,
for a time having been kidnapped by so-called Idumaeans; his mother, a
high-born woman of Petra.
The Herodians turned a Roman governorship into a Roman kingship -- "the
King(s) of the Jews" as they would come to be called in the New Testament
and even though they were not necessarily "Jews" themselves. This was
typical of Roman nomenclature.
But Herod had at least two "Jewish" wives, both
called Mariamne or Miriam (the prototype of the later Marys) and both
descendants of High Priests -- the first and favorite Maccabean, and the second
of the High Priest of the Jewish Temple that had been established in Egypt at
Leontopolis (see my "The Dead Sea Scrolls and the First Christians"
and "James the Brother of Jesus"). The descendants of the first of
these, for obvious reasons, became more important as time went on and included
such persons as Herodias and Salome, Agrippa I and Agrippa II, Bernice
(ultimately Titus' mistress), Drusilla Felix's wife, etc., the last four of
whom appear in the Book of Acts and the first in the Gospels.
Herod (like Muhammad six centuries later) had some 10 wives,
most of whom were non-Jewish of one background or another. But his descendants
by his Maccabean wife were the line most recognized and favored by the People
-- again, for obvious reasons. This was the reason, for instance, that everyone
wanted to marry them (Herodias' situation, for example, in the background to
the beheading of John the Baptist story).
For that matter, it was also the line most favored by
Julio-Claudian Rome, even though Herod not only executed his two sons by Mariamne
because of the People's preference for them, incurring the displeasure both of
the Divine Augustus, who hated this kind of family fratricide, and also this
first Mariamne, her brother, one Jonathan when he came of age and was the last
Maccabean High Priest, and her uncle Hyrcanus II, who had originally paved the
way for his own father's ascent.
But it was in the second generation of Maccabean Herodians
where these things really came into play and, in particular in relation to
Agrippa I above (c. 40 C.E.), of whom both the rabbis and even Josephus
approved, and his son Agrippa II (c. 50-95 C.E.), in whose time the Temple was
destroyed.
Not only was Agrippa I brought up in Rome as part of the
Imperial Family (probably to protect him as the Romans, particularly under
Augustus, honored Royal blood) and almost a blood-brother of the coming
Emperors-to-be Caligula and, in particular, Claudius who sent him back to
Palestine as "King" and not "Governor" (in fact, in place
for a time of the Roman Governors, see, for instance, Acts 12:1-23), but he was
also approved of by the rabbis and this is made very clear in the Talmud,
especially in the earlier Mishnaic part of it.
When Agrippa I, who died under mysterious circumstances in
44 C.E. (again see Acts 12:23), came to read the Torah on Sukkot -- the custom
of the time for the King -- and came to "the Deuteronomic King Law"
(Deuteronomy 17:16-7: "Thou shalt not put a foreigner over you"), the
Talmud records -- since he at least among other "Herodians" seemed to
reflect some piety -- that he began to weep, obviously thinking that they did
not consider him Jewish but rather "a foreigner" because of his
Herodian origins. Whereupon the Talmud records (Mishnah Sota 7:8, 41a), the
People and, presumably, all the assembled rabbis cried out "You are one of
us, you are one of us, you are one of us!" three times, just like many
similar and probably derivative numerations in the New Testament.
And that is just my point. He was "Jewish" in
their eyes because his grandmother, the Maccabean Princess Mariamne was
"Jewish," even though the marriage had been forced upon her and even
though she and all her relatives were eventually killed by the ever
blood-thirsty Herod who had 10 wives, most of whom were non-Jewish. In my view,
this is the first instance of matrilineal descent being the determinant in
Jewish lore.
In other words, like many things we now recognize as Jewish
or Judaism, it is a Herodian imposition or appendage and a product of the
Herodian Period -- in this case, to legitimatize this one line of the
descendants of Herod who could at least claim some legitimacy via his
"Jewish" wife Mariammne/Miriam/Mary. Again, in other words, they were
using it to legitimatize themselves over the other lines. This is how it came
into rabbinic Judaism and this is where it has remained up until today. Again,
too, it is Herodian, which is in contradistinction to a wider and more general
biblical view that stems from the portraits or time of Abraham or David. That
is why I call it "the Abrahamic view."
That view was that anyone "traveling with us" or
"wanting to be part of us" was Jewish or Hebrew or whatever you wish
to call it. Again, if you wanted to be Jewish or part of the tradition, then
you were Jewish or "a God-Fearer" (words found, as we noted, both in
the Dead Sea Scrolls and New Testament), a part of the tradition. In my view,
this is the older, more classical and uncorrupted view (this and, of course,
"circumcision for males" as in Genesis 17 above, "the sign of the
Covenant," with which I agree and which even Spinoza viewed as the
keystone of Jewish survival) -- to my mind, everything Herodian being a
corruption of that Judaism that was in place before it, including even that
found in the Dead Sea Scrolls.
Moreover, this is how it should remain today. Those who want
in are and should be in. Those who want out are and should be out. And this has
nothing whatever to do with who your mother was or who your grandmother or
great grandmother might have been. It might just as well have to do with who
your father, grandfather or great grandfather might have been. But basically,
really, your own soul.
No such persons need conversion or "re-conversion"
as it were. As God put it or is pictured as saying to Abraham, "Circumcise
all those traveling with you." It had nothing to do with who your mother
was or your father might have been, though it might have. Then, again, it might
not have. It is all-inclusive.
The same today. We have already lost 6 million
"Jews" -- most of whom probably were not asked "who their mother
or grandmother was" -- and this, in my view, was and still is the greatest
barbarity in human history. No other, to my knowledge, approaches it in
systematic cruelty or finality. We now must, rather, follow Ruth's words to her
mother-in-law Naomi: "Whither thou goest, I will go."
Whoever wishes to travel with us -- we, the new restored
Israel or old or new "Jewish People," both in and out of its Homeland
-- is with us. Whoever does not wish to, is not. It should have nothing whatever
to do with who one's mother was or is. It never did before the Herodian Period
and it should not now. This is a Herodian graft on traditional Judaism before
that time and only had meaning in the context of determining the only
legitimate line the people could stomach within that family, even though for
the most part they were pretty abominable too.
But it has no legitimacy now and can and should be discarded as an imposition -- or, as Paul would have it in Romans 11:19-25, "a graft." In fact, in the run-up to the war against Rome, these third-generation, last "Herodians," Agrippa II and Bernice, with whom Paul converses so convivially in Acts 24-27, to say nothing of Drusilla and her brutal Roman-Governor-husband Felix -- a marriage connived at by someoneJosephus calls "Simon a magician" -- were barred from the Temple as foreigners, a wall being deliberately constructed to block their view of the sacrifices; and even stoned as "incestuous fornicators" by the Zealots!
Rather, it has everything to do with what is in your soul
and in your heart. If you identify or want to identify, then you are. This is a
hard enough requirement in today's often brutal, cruel and already-proven
barbaric world. Surely this takes courage and spiritual purity enough. That is
all it has to do with and all it ever had or should have to do with.
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