 One of the common yet troublesome metaphors in Jewish-Christian
relations is that of family. Throughout the second annual ICJS
Scripture Forum, I was privileged to participate in an inquiry
which tackled four Biblical texts that not only center on family
dynamics but carry potent ramifications for our understanding
of the relationship between Christians and Jews. Continuing the
model begun last year with our study of Job, thirty Christian
and Jewish clergy, educators, and thinkers met over the course
of the year to read and discuss problems raised by the binding/sacrifice
of Isaac, the Hagar cycle, the Joseph stories, and the New Testament's
parable of the Prodigal Son. We met monthly, alternating plenary
sessions that featured distinguished biblical scholars as guest
speakers with small study groups in which we could wrestle with
the text in close and intimate dialogue.
With methodologies ranging from art to history to theology, our
guest scholars brought widely varying perspectives to fuel our
discussions. Art historian Robin Jensen started us off in October
by introducing us to the Isaac of early Christian art and literature.
Noting that the crucifixion motif did not enter Christian art
until the sixth century, Dr. Jenson illustrated the way that the
near-sacrifice of Isaac served as the important early interpretive
model for Jesus' death and resurrection.
For our second plenary session, Dr. Tikva Frymer-Kensky examined
the literary dynamics of the Hagar story while paying close attention
to its historical and cultural matrix. For Dr. Frymer-Kensky,
the Hagar story is a story of terror. Hagar, fleeing from Sarah's
persecution, is instructed by God to return and thus afflict (ve-hith'ani)
herself (Gen 16:9): we do not, Dr. Frymer-Kensky observes, learn
compassion from this story's depiction of slavery. But the terror,
she continues, should be ours. For the story is thematically linked
to God's promise to Abraham that his offspring would be enslaved
before inheriting the land (Gen 15:13). The story thus creates
an internal tension: we instinctively identify with Sarah, who
is our ancestor, yet it is Hagar's story that parallels our own
story of oppression.
Dr. Michael Signer, this year's ICJS Jewish scholar-in-residence,
approached his topic, the Joseph stories, by examining how changing
social factors in the Middle Ages affected the Jewish interpretive
exegetical stakes for Jews, who now had to take seriously the
question: just who is the true Israel? Dr. Signer thus sees a
growing anxiety about continuity in Medieval Jewish exegesis.
He notes the change that took place in only a single generation
in the interpretation of Gen 37:2, "These are the generations
(toldoth) of Jacob." For Rashi (d. 1105), toldoth referred to
chronicles or happenings; for Rashbam (d. ca. 1150), toldoth were
literally children, physical offspring.
For our final plenary session, the ICJS's executive director,
Dr. Christopher Leighton, offered a radical rereading of the parable
of the Prodigal Son. Against a traditional Christian reading that
identifies the Jews with the elder son, Dr. Leighton developed
an interpretation of the parable that repudiates the idea that
the younger brother displaces the older in the eyes of the father,
thus legitimizing a theology of the displacement of the synagogue
by the church. At the same time, he suggested that a supersessionist
impulse is rooted in the book of Genesis, and that Jews and Christians
must contend with this legacy. The discussion that followed was
arguably the most lively of any of our plenary sessions.
These are challenging stories. Informed by common themes of exile
and return, of alienation and reconciliation, each raises its
own questions about the relationships between parents and children,
between siblings, between Jews and Christians, and between people
and God. In the plenary sessions, but most especially in the small
groups, we engaged these texts from the varied perspectives of
our own faith traditions while at the same time gaining greater
insight into the ways these stories function in the other's tradition.
More subtly, and perhaps more significantly, we were able to understand
better the ways we interact with sacred texts, both as Jews and
Christians on the one hand, and as human beings on the other.
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