THE CHILDREN OF ABRAHAM:

It wasn't my first time opening a New Testament, but certainly my first time reading it all through, slowly, together with a large stack of secondary literature. And so began the real shock - I absolutely loved it.

Jews don't read the New Testament. It's not just that it's not part of the Jewish Bible (it isn't). And it's not just that Jews don't accept it as authoritative (we don't). It's that we don't think that it has anything to do with us. We tend to believe that the New Testament belongs to Christians, and that's that. So unless you're a scholar, Israeli tour guide or someone particularly interested in world religions, Jews just don't read the New Testament. Ever. It kind of scares us, frankly. As if somehow reading it is traitorous, or it might magically turn us into Christians.

I wish that Jews could understand that the New Testament is thoroughly Jewish - replete with Jewish categories and Jewish practices, full of Jewish controversies and Jewish scripture, brimming with Jews - I think we could both reclaim some of our own history. Because let's face it, if you want to understand something about the Judaism of our ancestors in this specific period, the New Testament has some real value. And if Jews could feel more comfortable with the New Testament as comprising an important piece of Jewish cultural literature, we might be able to engage more deeply together as Jews and Christians.

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