JUDAISM AS DISBELIEF IN THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD

The Resurrection of the Dead (St. Paul): 12 But if it is preached that Christ has been raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? 13 If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. 14 And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith.

The idea that one’s beliefs are incorrect—one’s faith futile—may arouse rage in the mind of the believer. What a violent anti-Semite seeks to kill—or kill off—when seeking to kill Jews is disbelief, that is, the belief that there is no such thing as immortality, or the resurrection of the dead. Jews are “Christ killers” in a symbolic sense. Their belief system kills the Christian belief in the resurrection of the dead.

At the center of Western civilization lies Christianity. And at the center of Christianity lies the genius St. Paul—who defined this ideology perhaps more clearly than anyone else. At the core of Pauline Christianity is the belief in the resurrection. St. Paul testified that God “raised Christ from the dead” (1 Corinthians 15) and that believers in Christ will also be resurrected.

To the right is St. Paul’s lament: what if there is no resurrection of the dead? If Christ has not been raised—then “our preaching is useless and so is your faith.” If Christ was not resurrected—if we are not to be resurrected in Christ—then one’s faith has been in vain.

Anti-Semitic ideologies and behavior grow out of a fundamental root: Jews are a people who believe in God, but do not embrace Christ and His resurrection. According to Jews, Christ was not God—was not resurrected.

Judaism, from this perspective, represents negation of Christianity. As Daniel Goldhagen put it, “If Jews were right, then Christians were wrong.” As long as Jews rejected Jesus’ revelation, they unwittingly “challenged the Christian certitude in that revelation.” If Jews, the People of God, shunned the Messiah that God had promised them, then something was awry.

Ideologies or belief systems often promise “eternal life” to the believer. As a corollary, other groups of people symbolize—for the believer—non-belief. From the perspective of a Christian who believes deeply in the resurrection of Christ, Jews are “heretics.” Anti-Semitism begins with hostility toward that religious group whose beliefs negate one’s own.

If there is no resurrection of the dead then, as St. Paul says, “our preaching is useless and so is our faith.” If Christ was not raised, “faith is futile”; those who have “fallen asleep” in Christ are lost. If there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christians are “of all people most to be pitied.”