Jesus the Jew: Survey on the Cliché in Its Context

Year 2023, Volume: 64 Issue: 64, 47 - 70, 30.06.2023

Omer Faruk Kalinturk

https://doi.org/10.15370/maruifd.1275227

Abstract

This essay pursues the studies pertaining to the Quest for the Historical Jesus, which began in the Enlightenment era, and focuses on the dominant discourse of this quest in the present-day scholarly works on Jesus the Jew. The late-coming acceptance of the Jewishness of Jesus is now a scholarly cliché. In the context of the Gospels, to say “Jesus was a Jew” is not a really shocking or unexpected idea. The problem with the Jewishness of Jesus is why it took until the 1970s for this idea to develop. The second problem is how the assertion of the Jewishness of Jesus could develop so tremendously in the contemporary academy. That is a difficult question to answer within the borders of mere theology. Therefore, in this essay, I will have recourse to the help of politics and anthropology, and ultimately will claim that the changing of the main discourse in the New Testament scholarship on Jesus the Jew has happened for several reasons, but the 1967 and 1973 Arab-Israeli Wars and the Prague Spring of 1968 have played more important roles than others, such as multiculturalism, the Second Vatican Council, and neoliberalism. These two events might show us the motivation for the sudden but widely accepted alteration. With the rise of the Jesus the Jew emphasis in Historical Jesus Studies, the intensity of Holocaust studies has also increased. Whereas until the 1970s there was no significant concentration of work on the Holocaust, since the 1970s this trend has been reversed and has taken a dominant place in modern academia. The Holocaust narrative has also been valorised by the changing geopolitics of the world, which has also influenced Historical Jesus Studies. With the rise of Israel in the region as a result of the Arab-Israeli wars, which made Israel one of the countries that could serve the world system, the emphasis on the Holocaust and Jesus the Jew became a kind of propaganda in the academy. However, it is not these movements that have ensured the success of this wind change. The event that led to the thawing of the Cold War was the Prague Spring of 1968. The ideal of a Socialism outside the example of the Soviet Union, which was trying to be created in Czechoslovakia, was crushed by Soviet tanks. Since the Soviet Union itself destroyed this attempt to heal the corruption within itself, the Soviet reaction must be seen as the suicide of Socialism. It is for this reason that the second power of the Cold War period ideologically withdrew from the scene. The crushing of the Prague Spring led to a spring in a different field of modern academia: the Quest for the Historical Jesus and Holocaust Studies.

Keywords

The Quest, the Nazis, Arian, Holocaust, Prague Spring, Communism, USA, Israel.

Yahudi İsa: Bağlamı İçerisinde Bir Klişe Üzerine İnceleme

Abstract

Bu makale, Aydınlanma döneminde başlayan tarihsel İsa arayışına ilişkin çalışmaları takip etmekte ve bu arayışın günümüzde yapılan akademik çalışmalarda karşımıza çıkan "Yahudi İsa" söylemine odaklanmaktadır. İsa'nın Yahudiliğinin geç de olsa kabul edilmesi artık akademik bir klişedir. İnciller bağlamında, "İsa bir Yahudi'ydi" demek gerçekten şaşırtıcı ya da umulmadık bir fikir değildir. İsa'nın Yahudiliğiyle ilgili sorun, bu fikrin gelişmesinin neden 1970'lere kadar sarkmış olduğudur. İkinci sorun ise İsa'nın Yahudiliği iddiasının modern akademide nasıl bu kadar muazzam bir gelişme gösterebildiğidir. Bu, salt teolojinin sınırları içinde yanıtlanması zor bir sorudur. Bu nedenle, bu makalede siyaset ve antropolojinin yardımına başvuracak ve nihayetinde Yeni Ahit çalışmalarında Yahudi İsa'ya ilişkin ana söylemin değişmesinin çeşitli nedenlerle gerçekleştiğini, ancak 1967 ve 1973 Arap-İsrail Savaşları ile 1968 Prag Baharı'nın çokkültürlülük, İkinci Vatikan Konsili ve neoliberalizm gibi diğerlerinden daha önemli roller oynadığını iddia edeceğiz. Bu iki olay bize bu ani ama büyük ölçüde kabul gören değişimin motivasyonunu gösterebilir. Tarihsel İsa Araştırmalarında Yahudi İsa vurgusunun yükselişiyle birlikte Holokost çalışmalarının yoğunluğu da artmıştır. 1970'lere kadar Holokost üzerine kayda değer bir çalışma yoğunluğu yokken, 1970'lerden bu yana bu eğilim tersine dönmüş ve modern akademide başat bir yer edinmiştir. Holokost anlatısı, Tarihsel İsa Çalışmalarını da etkileyen dünyanın değişen jeopolitiği tarafından da değerlendirilmiştir. Arap-İsrail savaşları sonucunda bölgede yükselen İsrail'in dünya sistemine hizmet edebilecek ülkelerden biri haline gelmesiyle birlikte Holokost ve Yahudi İsa vurgusu akademide bir tür propagandaya dönüşmüştür. Ancak bu rüzgar değişiminin başarıya ulaşmasını sağlayan bu hareketler değildir. Soğuk Savaş'ın çözülmesine yol açan olay 1968 Prag Baharı'dır. Çekoslovakya'da yaratılmaya çalışılan Sovyetler Birliği örneği dışında bir Sosyalizm ideali Sovyet tankları tarafından ezilmiştir. Sovyetler Birliği kendi içindeki yozlaşmayı iyileştirmeye yönelik bu girişimi bizzat kendisi yok ettiğinden, Sovyetler'in bu tepkisi Sosyalizmin intiharı olarak görülmelidir. Bu nedenle Soğuk Savaş döneminin ikinci gücü ideolojik olarak sahneden çekilmiştir. Prag Baharı'nın ezilmesi, modern akademinin farklı alanlarında bir bahara yol açmıştır: Tarihsel İsa Arayışı ve Holokost Çalışmaları.

Keywords

Tarihsel Isa Arayışı, Naziler, Ari, Holokost, Prag Baharı, Komünizm, ABD, İsrail.

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