Christians and Muslims and Jews, Oh My!
The New Testament is anti-Jewish. There. I said it. Simply, without elaboration, a bald-faced statement about a collection of writings millions of people consider the Word of God. There was a time when I would have found this interpretation scandalous, offensive, heretical, even blasphemous. It's not that I was raised to believe every word of the Bible was literally God's word (however contradictory those words might be). My father never imposed any interpretation of Scripture on me. I was brought up to be a critical thinker, to approach texts with a skeptical eye, to look for the deeper meaning beneath the literal translation. But going deep does not come easily for an adolescent, and the most profound religious experience I ever had was when I was in middle school, and not prone to deep thinking. My mother was the organist and choir director of the United Methodist Church of Emmett, Idaho, of which my father was the pastor. One year for Holy Week, she taught the choir...