Interview: Reading the New Testament without Contempt
Rev. David Pileggi & Dr. Steven Notley discuss practical strategies for addressing antisemitism in the local church
The following transcript has been edited for clarify and length.
Rev. David Pileggi: Since 1945, post-Holocaust antisemitism in most Western and a few Eastern countries has come in waves. Historians differ, saying there are five or six waves, but this recent one that started immediately on October 7, 2023, has been the most violent, vociferous, ugliest, and dangerous.
We can't fix the world, but our concern is ensuring we give no place for this in the church. There has been a huge amount of progress in Jewish-Christian relations and in addressing anti-Judaism since the Holocaust. It was the shock of the Holocaust that made churches, seminaries, and Bible colleges start to clean up their act. But now we are going backwards. We want to address this, take it out of the history department, and put it in the local church.
When you talk about parables being in Hebrew and from the land of Israel, how does that help the Christian sitting in the pew? Secondly, how does that help us address the polite anti-Judaism that still leaks from TikTok to TikTok, from YouTube video to YouTube video, from preacher to preacher, and from commentary to commentary? How can we go further to clean up our act?
Dr. Steven Notley: It's important to begin by saying that we're tethered to a Jewish Messiah. When we say that the gospel is relevant to everyone and that Jesus enters everybody's world—which is part of the miracle of the incarnation—someone from Asia or South America can engage Jesus as part of them. That's fine. But we can never move away from recognizing Jesus's Jewish identity. If you are going to spout antisemitism, you're actually doing it towards Jesus as well. He is part of the Jewish people.
I tend to shy away from politics. But when I'm in conversations with people who are not in love with the political decisions of the government in Israel, I tell them there should always be room to criticize governments. However, one has to be very careful that you are not feeding an undercurrent of anti-Judaism or antisemitism that resurged with October 7th. I don't think it was an accident that this surge happened on October 8th; there were calculations to that. We have to be very careful navigating it.
I am a deeply devout believing Christian, but I'm also a critical scholar. There are times when you have to engage scripture with a critical eye. As Christianity moved forward, people spoke of the "parting of the ways" between Christianity and Judaism. I believe it took longer than a lot of people think, and it happened differently at different places. But those tensions are already present in the telling of our story in the gospels. There are passages we need to put warning cones around—like the declaration "may his blood be upon us and upon our children," which only shows up in Matthew's gospel.
When I talk to my Jewish friends, I say, "Look, you have your own challenges because you pray the Birkat HaMinim in the synagogue, and Christians do not come out very well in that." For both communities of faith—I speak specifically for Christians—we have things we must be careful with. When the historical and social situation is right, those seeds rise up again, using the same texts. I think of depictions of 10,000 people crying "crucify him, crucify him," which has absolutely no historical basis, or all of Jerusalem turning on Jesus. These are seeds that feed a resurgence of anti-Jewish tensions. It doesn't surprise me to see these things recurring in our day, because things are ripe for those attitudes.
David: It does. What are some other examples of scriptures that come up and are misused by typical antisemitic tropes passed down in commentaries?
Steven: One that you hear, of course, is in Revelation: the "synagogue of Satan."
David: Very popular with anti-Semites.
Steven: People don't realize this is an internal Jewish recrimination; you can find the exact equivalent in the Dead Sea Scrolls. This is an internal, very vigorous debate. It has nothing to do with Christians speaking wholesale of Jews in the synagogue.
Having studied for 16 years in Israel, I know discussions get very vigorous, emotional, and impassioned. This type of rhetoric gets misunderstood and becomes fuel for the fire. A person has a certain inclination regarding the Jewish people and misuses the text, because that was certainly not its original intent. You can find the same terminology in the Dead Sea Scrolls—a different name for Satan, Belial, but the same idea.
Action point: Audit Teaching Materials and Translations
- Watch for Misleading Translations: Be aware of subtle biases in English translations. For example, note how the Greek synagoge is sometimes translated as "assembly" for Christians but "synagogue" for Jews, or how anoia in Luke 6:11 is often mistranslated as "fury" rather than "bafflement."
- Correct Historical Inaccuracies: Challenge common, unhistorical commentary tropes that stoke anti-Jewish sentiment—such as the idea that the entire populace of Jerusalem or the Pharisees were present and driving the crucifixion of Jesus (historical data points to the Sadducean elite).
- Contextualize Internal Debates: Teach congregations that highly rhetorical New Testament phrases (like the "synagogue of Satan" in Revelation) represent internal first-century Jewish debates rather than a wholesale Christian condemnation of Judaism.
David: What about the way our Bibles are translated into English? The Greek synagoge is used in other contexts, but when it connects to Christian believers, it's often translated as "assembly," while when it's used of Jews, it's translated as "synagogue."
Steven: Yeah, there are massive translation issues. One of my favorites is at the end of the healing of the man with the withered hand in Luke 6:11. It says they were filled with—and the Greek is anoia. All of your translations say they were filled with "wrath, anger, fury." Never in the history of the Greek language does anoia mean that; it means bafflement or confusion. What just happened challenged their understanding of God. God just did work on the Shabbat. Jesus didn't lay a hand on him or do anything, yet God affirms Jesus's message of the value of a human being. They watch this man be healed on Shabbat and go out filled with bafflement. The translations use anger, fury, or wrath because the translators carry assumptions regarding the relationship of Jesus with the Pharisees.
I have had a standing offer to my students for 30 years now: I will give anyone $50 to find me the Pharisees mentioned in the trial and crucifixion of Jesus. Our assumption that the Pharisees were the enemies of Jesus collapses with the passion narrative. They're not there. It's the Sadducees, and even beyond them, it's a small family roundly criticized in Jewish sources for their abuses of power. We make these huge assumptions, carry them over into our translations, and it fosters a division where it's Jesus and his followers on one side and the Jewish people on the other.
The reality is that when Jesus "cleanses the temple," he gives voice to the concerns of the populace. It's his popularity with the populace of Jerusalem that drives Caiaphas and Annas to do the unthinkable. No Pharisee would have handed a fellow Jew over to foreign authorities leading to their death; that is an unforgivable sin in rabbinic Judaism. It only happens because Jesus gives voice to the people. These misunderstandings stoke an anti-Jewish perspective in the reading of the gospels.
Action point: Teach Gospels
- Root Discipleship in the Gospels: Move away from relying solely on the Epistles for preaching and discipleship. Re-center the church's foundational teaching on the life, words, and context of Jesus.
- Teach the Jewish Context of Discipleship: Intentionally incorporate the first-century Jewish framework of mentorship and community into small groups and leadership training, rather than viewing discipleship through a purely modern lens.
David: What would be an example from the epistles that ends up being an anti-Jewish trope, enabling this latent anti-Judaism to rise to the surface?
Steven: Off the top of my head, Paul has a difficult circumstance because he's dealing with the Gentile problem—meaning, how to integrate non-Jews into what had been a Jewish faith and community. Preachers and philosophers, even Spinoza, latch onto Paul to claim he's preaching a universalism where Jewish identity and peoplehood become irrelevant now that there is "no Jew or Gentile."
David: It would seem to me that universalism—Jesus being the universal Lord and Savior—is actually because he is a Jew, right? And this is somehow not erasing God's covenant with Israel or pushing aside Jewish identity. How do we address some of these issues from your perspective?
Steven: The difficulty the church faced in Acts 15 was: what do we do with these Gentiles? It's an issue of faith and culture, which the church still grapples with today. You had Gentiles—God-fearers—coming into this Jewish movement. This was a first-century Jewish debate on what to do with the Gentiles. Some Jewish sages believed that unless Gentiles were circumcised and became Jewish, they had no hope in the world to come; others disagreed. What you have going on with Paul and his Jewish adversaries is actually an internal Jewish debate. It's not about Christianity vs. Judaism at all.
Another thing is that people like to read Paul as saying that the church is now Israel. Israel is Israel. I'm not Israel; I'm a believer who has been grafted in.
David: An Oklahoman.
Steven: I'm an Okie. But when people say the church is Israel, I ask, "How can you take something so embedded in terms of their identity and say, 'No, he doesn't really mean that'?" Fortunately, we live in a time where some of that is being addressed in scholarship. It takes time for that to trickle down to seminaries, pastors, and the church, but these ideas are being thought through and corrected.
David: Let's be practical. How should a local community—a prayer group, a Bible study, or a congregation—better understand the Jewish context? By better understanding Jesus, we come to a better understanding of what it means to be his disciple. I don't think I've ever seen a discipleship course or video series that talks about discipleship in its Jewish context. The Navigators did not invent discipleship; it was an existing practice in the first century. How is a congregation or Bible study going to access this stuff? Which commentaries should they read?
Steven: First of all, no one gets it completely right. You have to be discerning. I always tell my students it's never my objective for them to agree with me; I'm here to provoke thinking.
Whatever you read, Jesus is the cornerstone. It's no secret that in most evangelical churches, sermons are usually out of the epistles, out of Paul, not the gospels. The gospels are the place you need to start. There are good books looking at Jesus in his Jewish world and how that impacts our reading.
As long as it comes back to the incarnation—that at a specific point in time, in a specific place, and to a specific people, God revealed himself—it's helpful. I'm not a theologian, so I stay away from purely theological treatments. I'm more interested in the history, culture, and dynamics. For me, theology is when scripture hits life. Finding good books, tapes, and ministries is key. Apart from your ministry, David, I'm always happy to recommend others.
The work of Brad Young is always commendable on a wide variety of subjects. I also think Jewish scholars are valuable if you're up to it. David Flusser's volume, republished by Eerdmans as The Sage from Galilee, is excellent; I highly recommend it. Building a core of understanding puts you in a place to discern these other ideas that resurge.
Action point: Defend and Teach the Reality of the Incarnation
- Maintain the Historical Pivot Point: While celebrating that Jesus relates to every culture and ethnic group, firmly resist modern political attempts to erase his historical identity (e.g., claims that Jesus was ethnically Palestinian or a Westerner).
- Preach a Tethered Universalism: Teach that Jesus is the universal Savior precisely because He is a first-century Jew, and remind the church that according to the book of Revelation, His Jewish identity is eternal, not temporary.
David: In this highly politicized age, we hear statements such as "Jesus was a Palestinian." How do you respond to that without denigrating the Palestinian people or minimizing their conflict with the State of Israel? What do you do when you hear statements being used to distort history?
Steven: For me, it's all part of the dynamic of the incarnation—that God enters into each one of our worlds. I always remind my students that Jesus was not an American. I know people in Latin America or Asia who suffer and see Jesus as identifying as one of them. I have no problem with Palestinians seeing him as one of them in the sense that God enters everyone's world.
But it is a distortion to remove the historical starting point: it begins in the life, teachings, and words of a first-century Jew who lived in the land of Israel, spoke Hebrew, and whose ideas reflect the world of the sages. If we move away from that and say the historical Jesus was something other than what he was, it becomes a slippery slope.
The "Palestinian Jesus" claims are not original. A number of years ago, a mutual friend of ours was at a BBC planning session for a program on Jesus. They were debating how to present him: "Should Jesus be Black? A Westerner?" She sat there and said, "Well, what about a Jewish Jesus?" Everybody was shocked.
I'm sympathetic to the idea that God relates to us through His Son in all of our various experiences. But that's a different matter than blurring the historical act of the incarnation, which should always remain central. We must remain tethered there.
David: Isn't it interesting that in the book of Revelation, it's not just that Jesus was a Jew; he remains a Jew.
Steven: Yes, he remains in a human body. He can identify with every culture, but at the same time, he is still described as the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David. So he still keeps a Jewish identity.
Action point: Build Active Relationships with the Local Jewish Community
- Show Solidarity: Reach out to local Jewish leaders and synagogues to offer a message of presence and support (e.g., "You are not alone"), especially during waves of rising global antisemitism.
- Separate Peoplehood from Politics: Model a healthy framework for your congregation: show that you can deeply respect, engage, and learn from Jewish neighbors without needing to carry an uncritical blanket endorsement of every political decision made by the Israeli government.
David: He keeps a Jewish identity, but in that identity, the entire human family can relate to him.
So, a local church can be more discerning about the material they use for teaching and preaching. What else should we suggest?
Steven: You can always engage the Jewish community. Especially in this day and time, with the Jewish community on edge because of rising violence, it's vital to communicate and reach out.
In October 2023, I was excavating in Israel, and about six months later I attended a gathering at the Jewish Theological Seminary where I was the only non-Jew. My friend Steven Fine from Yeshiva University asked me to speak. I said, "I have nothing to say. What am I supposed to say to these individuals who are suffering from the repercussions of October 7th?" He replied, "What you can say is that we're not alone."
Reaching out to say "you're not alone" doesn't mean you have to sign off on every political decision by the Israeli government—I don't know any Israelis who do that. But it is important for us as a Christian community to continue to engage our Jewish brothers and sisters. Out of that relationship can grow a healthy dynamic that will help the local church.
Action point: Invest in Holy Land Education and Experience
- Prioritize First-Hand Exposure: Treat study and time spent in the land of Israel as a vital component of ministerial development, recognizing that historical geography directly shapes how scripture is read.
- Invest in the Next Generation: Allocate church or scholarship resources to send young ministry candidates, pastors, and lay leaders to study the language, culture, and geography of the text firsthand.
- Model Balanced Prayer: Lead the congregation in praying for the peace of Jerusalem in its entirety—praying for the land as a whole and its complex dynamics, rather than praying for one side against another.
David: I'm sure you will agree with the following: if we are entrusting our souls to pastors, deacons, priests, and Bible study leaders, would it not be to our benefit to ensure or insist that they spend time in the Holy Land? That they spend time in Israel learning about the holidays and a deeper biblical culture? A mutual friend of ours once said, "Why would you study French literature with someone who doesn't speak French and has never been to France?"
Every rabbi in the US—whether Reform, Conservative, or Orthodox—spends a year studying in Israel. I don't know why we shouldn't insist on the same value for our ministers.
Steven: I agree. Right now, given the political situation, some people may not feel comfortable traveling, but it's always important to visit the land. As a historical geographer, I can tell you that the land itself shapes our reading of scripture.
You go there not just to climb over the stones, but to encounter the "living stones"—the peoples of the land—to hear their stories and gain a deeper understanding of the complexities. We are commanded to pray for the peace of Jerusalem. That doesn't mean praying for one side against the other; it means praying for the land as a whole and its complexities.
I echo your point about the importance of studying there. That's the whole reason I went: I felt that if I immersed myself in the land, language, and culture of the gospels, I would be able to read them from the inside out. There are all kinds of opportunities to do this, whether a short study tour or a longer stint. It is always beneficial.
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Dr. Steven Notley is a New Testament scholar and historical geographer whose work focuses on the Second Temple period, early Judaism, and the Jewish origins of Christianity. He moved to Jerusalem in 1983 to pursue his doctoral work at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, spending eight years studying under the preeminent Jewish scholar Dr. David Flusser, with whom he later co-authored the biography Jesus (Magnes Press/Eerdmans).
From 1996, Dr. Notley served at Jerusalem University College (the Institute of Holy Land Studies), where he collaborated with world-leading biblical historical geographer Anson Rainey. Since 2016, he has overseen archaeological excavations at Bethsaida, co-leading the discovery of the first-century home of the apostles Peter, Andrew, and Philip.
A frequent collaborator with Israeli and Jewish scholarship, Dr. Notley has partnered extensively with Professor Zev Safrai of Bar-Ilan University. Together, they produced the first English translation of Eusebius’s Onomasticon and published the first complete anthology of early rabbinic parables, translating 456 parables of the Tannaim from Hebrew to provide Christian students access to the linguistic and cultural genre used by Jesus. Dr. Notley is a strong proponent of the historical reality that Jesus spoke conversational Hebrew and communicated his popular message within the local oral traditions of the land of Israel.
Rev. David Pileggi is the rector of Christ Church Jerusalem and the director of the Narrow Bridge Initiative, which hosted the webinar.
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