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- [00:02]
A
From the Free Press, this is honestly and I'm Bari Weiss. It's Christmas, a holiday celebrated by 2.4 billion people around the world. A holiday which centers on a 2000 year old story about a Jewish man born in Bethlehem who became a rabbi and who died when the Romans executed him in Jerusalem. But what's hard to remember, and perhaps something that many people don't know, is that the first people who believed in Jesus didn't think they were starting a new religion. They were a small group of Jews in Judea who thought of themselves as history's last generation and who believed that Jesus was a descendant of King David and that he was their Messiah. Of course, as we all know now, history didn't end. They weren't history's last generation. Instead, they became remembered as history's first Christians. How did that happen? When did Christ's followers begin to see themselves as distinct and separate from Judaism? These first few centuries are essential for understanding not just Christianity and Judaism, but the way ideas spread and why. And why many of the ideas formed in this period, the good, transformative ones, but also some very bad ones, how they still persist in our world today. My guest today, Paula Fredrickson, has spent her career studying this period of history. She is one of the world's leading scholars of early Christianity and the author of many, many books, including When Christians Were the First Generation, Paul the Pagan's Apostle, and Ancient Christianities the first 500 years. Paula was born in Rhode island and she now lives In Jerusalem, just 20 minutes from Golgotha, where Jesus was crucified. This is a really fascinating conversation. It's amazing to hear the echoes of this ancient history in our own time. And I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. A quick break and we'll be right back with Paula Fredrickson for a special Christmas episode. Honestly is proudly supported by the Jack Miller Center. At a time when our democracy faces real challenges, one question matters more than ever. Are we preparing the next generation to understand and uphold the principles that define America? At the Jack Miller center, they believe the answer begins in the classroom. Their mission is to revive the teaching of America's founding ideals, documents and history on college campuses, in K12 schools and beyond. Since 2004, the Jack Miller center has built a national network of over 1300 scholars who are bringing the American political tradition to life for students across the country. And through their Teach for Freedom campaign, they're working to reach millions more by 2026, our nation's 250th anniversary why? Because a strong democracy depends on informed citizens. The Free Press is really proud to partner with the Jack Miller center on Old School, a new podcast about how great books can change your life, hosted by the brilliant Shiloh Brooks. To learn more about their work or to get involved, visit jackmiller center.org Again, that's jackmiller center.org. Paula Fredrickson, welcome to Honestly, thank you for having me. It may sound like a strange thing for a Jewish woman in the 21st century to say, but I'm fairly obsessed with Jesus. And the reason for that, and we'll get to this later in the conversation, is a I'm fascinated by the history of ideas and why certain ideas take off and become so mimetic and why others, even good ones, seem to fail. And I'm also fascinated with Jesus because I would argue that he's the world's most powerful symbol. You know, he was a real person, but he is used and misused in so many ways that it's sometimes hard to remember that that he was a real person and for that matter, a God, depending on your beliefs. And that is one of the many reasons that I wanted to talk to you, because you are a scholar about the actual person and the world that he was born into. And that is where I want to begin this conversation. Paula, tell me a little bit about the world Jesus was born into, which is Judea in the first century, and what we know about the real historical person.
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B
Well, we're already dealing with a complicated issue because most of our material draws on the four gospels that are now part of the New Testament, and those were written in Greek, which was not a language, was native to Jesus. And it means that the authors who wrote the stories about Jesus, the earliest stories we have about him, were using a biblical tradition that he himself would not have been familiar with. He would have known the Bible in Hebrew or Aramaic, and stories about him are written in Greek. So already we're at a remove from what he actually said and did. So we have to it's like peeling an onion. We have to peel back the layers of Greek erudition that coat this figure and set him in historical context. And one of the ways we can do that is by using the works of Josephus, who is a Jewish historian contemporary with the Gospel writers, and by using Josephus descriptions of the Galilee and Judea in the early first century and using the Gospels, that's how we get a kind of line on who the real person actually was.
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A
What do we know about that real person?
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B
Well, to start with, we don't know what year he was born. According to the Gospel of Matthew, Herod the Great was alive when Jesus was born. And Herod the Great dies in 4 BCE. And according to the Gospel of Luke, there's a cry that goes out that all the world must be taxed. And we know about that tax from Josephus that happens in plus 6, in 6 CE. So that's a 10 year gap right there. In terms of the two earliest records we have about his birth, I incline to think that if he were born under Herod the Great, and he was probably born in minus 6 and probably died sometime around the year 30, when Pontius Pilate would have been the prefect of Judea. So he's a Galilean man, he's Jesus of Nazareth, which is a city in the north. And he is a prophet and a wonder worker and a charismatic figure. And he goes down to Jerusalem several times according to the Gospel of John. And at one point, at one particular Passover, he's arrested, according to the Gospel of John, by a cohort of Roman soldiers and police from the temple, and he's crucified as an insurrectionist. I mean, crucifixion is one of the ways that Rome dealt with trying to discourage insurrection. But he wasn't an insurrectionist. And we know that Rome knew this because within a few weeks after his death, his original community settles in Jerusalem and is not harassed by Rome thereafter. So already we're dealing with a lot of these, these mixed pieces. We don't know where he was born. If he's Jesus of Nazareth, that implies that he's born in the Galilee. But of course, the nativity stories have him born in the little town of Bethlehem.
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A
So very hard to figure out what is based in history and what is based in myth. You mentioned that Jesus was a prophet and a wonder worker, and he wasn't the only one. Right. This period is one of great political and religious turmoil and there were all kinds of people claiming to be prophets or even the Messiah. Why was the idea of a Messiah in the air at this time? What was it that made Jews of this period hungry for, I don't know, divine intervention or hungry for a Messianic era.
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B
Divine intervention is good. I mean, it's looking for a resolution to history. Scholars talk about this mentality as apocalyptic eschatology, which means that it's a revelation. An eschaton is a final thing, a revelation of things at the end time. And we know again from Josephus and a little bit from the Gospels that there were a number of prophets who were talking about this. This happens in the period under the Maccabees. Since it's Hanukkah. I can mention the Maccabees now too, right? Sure. There's a political texture to this. When there's foreign domination, there are hopes for a reversal of circumstance. And you get that in the prophet Daniel, which is written at the time of the Maccabees and this period between -200 and +200. There's a great efflorescence of Jewish prophecy concerning expectations about the end of the world. And there's a kind of punch list of different the resurrection of the dead, a final judgment, the triumph of good over evil. Sometimes angels are fighting bad angels, sometimes there's a Messiah, sometimes there's not. We have the Dead Sea Scrolls with the Teacher of righteousness. We have a lot of prophets who are cut down by Rome according to Josephus. So there's a lot of intense hope and expectation that history is about to be resolved and good will end up triumphing over evil. And Jesus fits well. Jesus is part of that movement within Judaism.
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A
In many of your books, you have this incredibly evocative phrase. You say that the first believers in Christ were, quote, racing on the edge of the end of time. Can you say more a little bit about that? Describe the urgency that they felt?
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B
That thought came to me when I was reading, actually, the earliest evidence we have, not about the historical Jesus so much as the Christ of faith, which is letters of Paul, who writes in the mid first century, letters around the year 50. So he's only 20 years out from the lifetime of Jesus. He would have been at the same generation of Jesus. He would have known the original followers of Jesus. He says he does in his letters. And he is absolutely convinced that history is about to be resolved. And he's getting what he's actually. This sounds a little bookish, but it's got incredible kinetic energy. He's thinking a lot with the prophet Isaiah, and he's thinking, sees himself as that kind of prophet who's called to preach the God of Israel to the nations. So he's going to pagan audiences. He's speaking in Greek. He's wandering around in the cities of the Eastern Mediterranean, and he's convincing pagans to become ex pagans and to dedicate themselves to the God of Israel, which he sees as a miraculous affirmation of his conviction that the end of time is. He's dancing on the edge of the end of time. And he's being empirically reinforced by the success he's having among Gentiles.
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A
I'm going to ask you a very maybe such a basic question. It might strike you as offensive, but once Jesus died and all of these things that were part of the punch list that you just described, the revival of the dead, the triumph of good over evil, there are many other things on that list, but let's just take those two. Once those did not happen, how then were the early followers of Jesus able to convince people that he was indeed the Messiah and the Son of God?
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B
Well, the claims of his being Messiah develop. And we can see that development between Paul's letters, which are around the year 50, and the Gospels, which were written after the destruction of the temple. So post 70 to around 70 to 100. And there's a kind of Davidization of Jesus. There's a Davidization because he must have talked a lot about the resurrection of the dead, or there would have been no psychological preparation on the part of his followers to think that he himself was raised from the dead. And once he's raised from the dead, the question is, when is he coming back? And that's where we have the first level of Davidization of Jesus, where he's talked about as a messiah. And one of the things a messiah does is he's a warrior, and Jesus is going to come back and defeat pagan gods and establish the kingdom of his father. What we also get now, many mention this, since we're talking about Christmas, we then eventually get a Davidization of the birth of Jesus, which is why we have these stories about Jesus being born in Bethlehem, even though historically he's known as Jesus of Nazareth. It's because Bethlehem is the town where David comes from, so his birth story is Davidized as well. So what ends up happening is Jesus has this enormous biblical backstory that begins to be part of the message of this movement.
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A
So they start to revise his own story in order to suit the prophecy as laid out in the Hebrew Bible,
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which is absolutely vital because that's what gives it a meaningful framework. And Paul in all his letters, and he's right, he's been telling people that the kingdom of God is at hand for 20 years by the time we have his letters. And he's just as convinced in the year 50 as he would have been in the year 34 when he joined the movement himself. And so he's been stoked, encouraged by the success he's having among ex pagans, but he's convinced that Jesus is about to come back and he says it throughout his letters. The form of this world is passing away. We who are alive, who are left when he comes, I mean, he's absolutely convinced. And then the letters stop and we don't know what happens to Paul.
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A
Let's talk a little bit about how the early followers of Jesus went from thinking of themselves as Jewish to being a separate identity. You write in your work about this early controversy among these early believers about who is allowed to eat with whom. Can Jews eat at the same table as Gentiles who don't keep kosher? But it's really a question of whether or not following Christ means becoming a Jew, including all of the strict laws, including keeping kosher and kind of what is a Jew in the first place? Talk about that debate.
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B
What a Jew is a perennial question, isn't it?
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A
Yes.
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B
When you look at Jews in the Diaspora, you don't have texts as much as you have inscriptions. And the inscriptions are wonderful because they're where the rubber meets the road. You get glimpses of what people are actually, what Jews in the Diaspora are actually doing. First of all, Jews in the Diaspora are reading their traditions in Greek, which makes the Bible compatible with Greek philosophical thought. That's a very important. That's a very important thing. Secondly, we have Jews who are town councilors. They are getting educated in the gymnasia. They are fluent in Greek culture and getting into arguments about who's older, Moses or Homer. It's a big argument in the minus first century. And so you have Jews who have become completely comfortable in Greek culture, Greek Diaspora culture. And it's not like they're Greek and Jewish at the same time, which is what Paul is as well. He's completely comfortable and flexible in Greek. So there are. In other words, this is a big shocker. There's no standard definition of what is a Jew and what a Jew does in the first century. In other words, it's just like it is now.
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A
At what point, though, does sort of being a follower of Jesus and a believer in him as a messianic figure stop being kind of an internal Jewish disagreement and start becoming a fully separate identity?
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B
That is one of the big questions that compels scholarship. When does something that is such a Jewish movement that bases its arguments on Jewish scriptures, that that believes in two premier Jewish ideas, the resurrection of the dead and the coming of the Messiah? How does this thing end up being anti Jewish? And what we have already, by the second century, by around the year 150, we have writings in Greek by committed followers of Christ. Who are Gentiles. I'll refer now to the figure of Christ rather than the historical figure of Jesus of Nazareth. And they're anti Jewish.
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A
What do you mean when you say
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that they are blaming Jews for the death of Christ even though Jesus of Nazareth was crucified? And the only authority in Jerusalem who had the power and the authority to do that would have been Pilate. If Jesus was crucified, it was a Roman execution. And yet we already have in the Gospels the blame being put on the priests and the people of Jerusalem. The Gospels themselves seem to have been Jewish writings written in Greek. And what the Gospels are trying to do, because they're all written after the catastrophe of the year 70 and the destruction of the Temple is the Gospels writers are trying to explain why the God of the universe, their God, the God of Israel, has allowed his temple to be destroyed. And what they do is say that it's because the priests rejected Jesus and therefore God rejected the priests by destroying the institution that the priests are most associated with, namely the Temple. This is an intra Jewish argument. These are Jewish writers talking about Jewish themes, arguing about who's responsible, and they're making it an intra Jewish argument. What happens by the second century is that the readership of these traditions has changed. There's been an ethnic evolution so that in the evidence we have, it's Gentiles who are reading these intra Jewish arguments, but they're now reading them as anti Jewish arguments. So that by the year 150, you
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A
have just to draw a line under it. It's like once the Temple was destroyed, the psychological and spiritual or religious ramifications of that are like the Jews are searching for an answer as to why that happened. And this becomes one of their answers, right?
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B
And if you think about the structure of Jewish scripture, of Tanakh, the explanation for the destruction of the first temple and the exile, which is a historical fulcrum for Jewish consciousness, and the explanation for that is that God hasn't broken his relationship with Israel, he's disciplining Israel for having sinned. So the question is always, what's the sin that the people have done that merits the destruction of the temple? And what the Gospel writers for the second Temple are saying is that the sin was that the priests and the population of Jerusalem weren't signing on to this idea that Jesus is the eschatological Messiah who's about to return.
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A
Paula, one of your books is called When Christians Were Jews. And that book, and your work in general, as I understand it, has been central to the shift among historians and scholars to sort of take part in the conversation we're having right now, which is treating Jesus as fully Jewish and not in his Judaism, not as a footnote, but as absolutely essential that he was not only born a Jew, but he lived a Jew and he died a Jewish. Tell me what's at stake in that? Like, what is at stake in us understanding that? Why is it so important to understand Jesus as a Jew? And what are the stakes of that scholarship for people who are listening to this and thinking, like, why did. Why does it really matter? Explain the ramifications it has on today and to understanding our world to understand Jesus in the way that you're framing him?
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B
Well, historians have noted that the quest for origins of something is often a covert quest about identity. So it's the identity in the present that's determining the approach to the data from the past. And Jesus himself becomes a Christian in as Christian tradition develops, as Gentile Christian tradition develops, so that there's a loss of his Jewish context because he has to be a Christian because that's seen as the origins of Christianity. Same thing with Paul. Paul is absolutely Jewish. He's always talking about how Jewish he is. He gets straight A's in day school, he's circumcised on the eighth day. He's smarter than everybody else about the traditions of his people. And he's very, very, very Jewish. He keeps telling his recipients of his letters. And yet Paul himself becomes a premier anti Jew. Because Paul argues in his letters that Gentiles who want to be part of this new community and turning to the God of Israel do not have to be circumcised in order to be part of the movement. And there's an argument that Paul is having with other Jewish apostles also going to Gentiles, also saying that Jesus is coming back and saying that Gentiles to be integrated into the movement, indeed the men do have to be circumcised. So there's an argument about circumcision of gentiles joining the movement. And Paul is saying, no, no, no, they don't have to be. There's no point in that. It doesn't make any sense. And that's the argument that remains in his letters. So that an intra Jewish argument about how to integrate Gentiles in the mid first century becomes by the mid second century an anti Jewish argument that nobody should be being circumcised, including Jews. So Paul is telling gentiles not to start circumcising and by the mid second century gentiles are saying that Jews shouldn't be circumcising either. And I think that a lot of the documentation we have from the second century is about the formation of Christian identity. And it's not just generic Christianity, it's specifically Gentile Christianity, which has a complicated project because Gentile Christianity is basing itself on Jewish scriptures in Greek. It's not the Old Testament yet because there's no New Testament yet. But they're drawing on Jewish Scriptures, which means whenever they're questing for meaning, they are confronted with representations of Jews and they're trying to figure out what their identity is vis a vis Jews. When these people have never circumcised, don't keep kosher, don't follow the laws that are part of the biblical tradition, and yet they're basing themselves on that biblical tradition. So there's a lot of turmoil in trying to get that to be coherent. How do you value Jewish Scripture if you're not going to be, if you're not going to live like a Jew, if you're not a Jew, how do you make sense of Jewish scripture? And one of the ways that that's done is by looking at Jewish Scripture itself as criticisms of Jews.
- [27:08]
A
I think the thing that's just so maybe the word is a paradox is like they need Judaism and the prophecies of the Hebrew Bible that is the basis of Christianity. But the continued existence of Jews after Jesus kind of becomes intolerable. The fact that there are still Jews around means that like it's displeasing. Does that make sense?
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B
It's more than displeasing, it's undermining.
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A
Yes, undermining.
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B
So there's tremendous anxiety in fact about the continuation of Jews not buying into the Christian message and insecurity often results in anger. So you get a lot of vitriolic descriptions of Jews and Judaism from people who are using the Jewish Bible for evidence of Jewish hard heartedness, stiff neckness. I mean if you think about it, one of the wonderful things about Jewish scriptures is the warts and all literature of the people. And it probably feeds into the Jewish, not always healthy enthusiasm about self criticism. The Bible is a story of warts and all Jews. And what these gentile readers who are outsiders to the tradition, appropriating the tradition is they focus on the negative. So they have God complaining about the Jews, they have Moses complaining about the Jews, they, they have the prophets complaining about the Jews and they take all the negative stuff and say that's why the Jews are wrong and we're right because they never got with the program to begin with. And we finally, now that Christ has come, we've gotten with the program that God intended all along. So one of the, it's a terrible irony, one of the biggest sources of Christian antisemitism and anti Judaism is the Jewish Bible.
- [29:32]
A
But I totally see that. I totally see. But then I think the thing that's so strange and I had this experience the first time I was in a church on Christmas is so many of these songs, you know, Come Emmanuel, you know, O Branch of Jesse, O Key of David. Like I was sort of sitting there with my eyes bulging out of my head being like, this is all our material, you know. And you know, Christianity is just so fully rooted in the Hebrew Bible. It's, you can't separate it. And yet it becomes also the evidence of the badness or even the evil of Jews.
- [30:13]
B
Christians will skim off all the positive stuff that you know, cause there's a lot of positive stuff about the relationship between God and Israel and the Jewish Bible. But all the positive stuff is reckoned to the church and all the negative stuff is seen as perpetually descriptive of Jews. Jews are always hard hearted, they're always stiff necked, they never get with the program. And there's this anxiety because meanwhile in the Roman Empire, Jewish populations are flourishing. And that's unsettling if you have an ideology that says that they should have either joined your side or disappeared.
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A
As we discussed earlier, only Rome could have had the authority to crucify someone. And yet you've written about how kind of as you move chronologically through the Gospels, blaming Jesus death on the Jews sort of escalates in temperature while Rome's role diminishes and Pilate becomes increasingly sympathetic while the Jewish crowds become more culpable. You write in your book Ancient Christianities that by John, and this is you writing the Jews seem to do the crucifying themselves. Explain that escalation.
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B
There's an inculpation of the priests which spreads to an inculpation of the population of Jerusalem which then spreads to. If you look at the Acts of the Apostles, another book in the New Testament, Peter after the first Easter, tells everybody in Jerusalem, including the pilgrims who were there, that they are responsible for the death of Jesus. And by the second century, when you have all of these flourishing Jewish communities in the Diaspora and the Christians are insisting that those communities are actually exiles, they are saying that the fact that they're living outside of the Land of Israel proves that they are guilty of deicide, of having killed Christ. It's important. For as Christianity develops as a gentile religious movement, it's important to explain how this new movement can be so full of Jewishness and yet people are not acting and behaving like Jews. They're doing something else. And so that means that the Jews who are continuing to live as Jews must be doing something wrong. And the only reason that they are in exile, this is how anti Zionism and antisemitism are really connected. Right, because they're saying since Jews are not living in their homeland, they are in exile. And that means that they are in exile. It's a punitive situation. What are they being punished for? They're being punished for the death of Christ.
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Even though many people walking around today that think of themselves as anti Zionists would never make that connection.
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B
Well, that's right. But if you look at the formative centuries of gentile Christianity, the anti Zionism is hardwired into the anti Judaism because it's the landlessness. It's Augustine, who's a great Christian intellectual and figure from the 4th 5th century, says that after the crucifixion of Jesus and the temple is destroyed, Jews are permanently in exile as punishment for the death of Christ. Which means that, I mean, jumping ahead to the first Zionist Congress, right?
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A
That's the gathering organized by Theodore Herzl in what year? 1890 something in Basel, Switzerland.
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B
That's right. And you have the response of a Jesuit newspaper saying that there can never be a Jewish state because it goes against the prophecy of Christ. Hmm,
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A
that is fascinating.
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B
It's framing, it's absolutely framing the foundation of a Jewish state in this myth of the Jewish guilt for the death of Jesus.
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A
More with Paula Fredrickson after the break. Just in the past three days there has been a pogrom in broad daylight on Bondi beach in Australia in which more than a dozen people were killed, including a 10 year old Jewish girl. Jewish bakery in Australia, Avner's is shutting down because it's publicly Jewish and they can't keep their workers safe. There was a attack that was foiled in la. There was a house in Redlands, California with huge Hanukkah decorations that was shot at. People said fuck the Jews. There was a stabbing in Crown Heights. I mean it is relentless. It is now part of the, it is part of our day to day life. And so it feels like the sort of resentments and anger that have their locus in the period you study is still with us in 2025.
- [36:05]
B
It's not only still with us, it became intensified in the European Middle Ages when you have Christian crusaders marching to the Holy Land to liberate it from Muslim conquerors who butcher European Jewish populations on the way, on the way to the Holy Land. Jews are always legitimate victims with this mentality. And it's even more complicated with Islam because Islam divides the world into the realm of Islam or the realm of the sword. And the realm of the sword is any real.
- [36:42]
A
So it's like Dar el Harabend dark.
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B
Exactly. And that means that the State of Israel is this psychological and political anomaly that's intolerable even though there are how many Muslims and how many Muslim countries and just little tiny Jewish Israel and it's just impossible for them to tolerate. And this is again the lie of the difference between antisemitism and anti Zionism. Why would Jews in Australia be a legitimate target for Islamist terrorists except that they cannot tolerate the existence of the State of Israel and all Jews are in the same boat?
- [37:34]
A
I guess I want to, as somebody that is both, like every Jew in the world, affected by what's happening around us and also just sometimes baffled at how Jews that are such a tiny percentage of the population become the fixed point of so many people's imaginations or the imaginations of so many ideologies. I want to understand how the kind of like the anti Judaism that starts to take form in the years after the death of Jesus, like why it becomes so sticky.
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B
It's in a way there's a simple answer, and that is that despite everything, Jews have continued to be Jews. I mean, the biblical trope that we're stubborn works.
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A
It's true.
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B
We're not right. We're not converting to Christianity and therefore validating its interpretation of the Bible. Were not converting to Islam and therefore validating the interpretation in the Quran. And that's unnerving. It doesn't matter that there are billions of Christians and Muslims and it's this constant irritant that I think taps into a deep insecurity. If they were right, Jews should have become Christians or Muslims by now. And Jews aren't doing that and therefore they're culpable. And therefore they're legitimate targets because they're undermining the identity of these much bigger, more powerful communities.
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A
Paula, as you know, there are a lot of people, including a fair number of Jews, who deny the idea that being anti Zionist or denying the legitimacy of the State of Israel is inherently anti Semitic or anti Jewish. And I want you to contend with that. Is there merit to that perspective?
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B
I'm sure arguments are made, and what that does is legitimate criticisms of Israel. But if you look at the newspaper headlines just in the past week, that's not how people are acting. Jews everywhere are somehow guilty of whatever sins are attributed to the state of Israel. And the fact that the. I mean, what other country is told that whether it has the right to exist or not? Right. It's really. This Jewish difference is something that has been indigestible for majority culture for a long time. And also with the specifically religious tropes of Jewish guilt for the death of Christ, that makes all Jews in every generation guilt. I mean, that's something that the Catholic Church didn't disavow until 1965. You, Barry, are not personally responsible for the death of Christ. That's good to know. But the 20th century, we talked at
- [41:03]
A
the beginning a little bit about how powerful Jesus is as a symbol and the way that Jesus is sort of used and misused. And one thing that really struck me is at the height of the Israel Hamas war of the past two years, I would often see posts on social media saying things like, Jesus was a Palestinian. Can you unpack that? Explain why that is not just ahistorical, but why that is so loaded up what that means?
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B
Well, Jesus as Palestinian means that if you're Palestinian, you can't be Jewish, and if you're Jewish, you can't be Palestinian. And by, I mean, the term Palestine for Judea didn't get hardwired into Roman politics until after the Bar kokhba revolt in 135. And the word Palestine is a Latinization of the word Philistine. So the Romans were deliberately de Judaizing the neighborhood. I mean, all this talk about colonialism is terribly ironic because it was the ultimate colonial power, namely Rome, that changed the name of the neighborhood from Judea to Palestine. So if you have Jesus as a Palestinian, that means somehow he is a victim of the Jews. And that fits into the whole Palestinian narrative of being victims of the Jews.
- [42:39]
A
What is it? Whenever I see someone tweet Jesus was a Palestinian, I just roll my eyes and I'm like, this person knows nothing about history. And then I kind of move on and keep scrolling. But what does it mean to, like, what is at stake in detaching Jesus from history in that way and from the truth?
- [43:03]
B
Detaching Jesus from history is. And it's. I've. I've seen it done by, by Christian churchmen saying that Jesus is Palestinian. I've seen it on, you know, online where Jesus is presented. There was this amazing image of Jesus praying with his hands open in the Muslim prayer form with Al Aqsa behind him. So he's, it's the Muslimification, if you will, of Jesus because if he's Palestinian then that means he's not Jewish in
- [43:39]
A
the same way that the conversation around Jesus was an inter Jewish conversation. I feel like a lot of the fight that's happening today is this very fascinating and complicated inter Christian fight about their perspective on Israel and Jews. And you see a lot of self described Christians in the public square having more venom for Christian Zionists than they do for, I don't know, jihadis. And I find that fascinating, the fight between those factions sort of of American Christianity. Maybe this is just me and I'm spending too much time online, Paula, but I'm wondering if you're, if you're following any of that and what you make of it.
- [44:31]
B
I find it terribly unnerving and depressing because it's something that I see as rooted so deeply in the history of the period I study where there's a delegitimization of Jewish existence that becomes an important aspect of the development of Christian identity. And Christian Zionists are looking at what's for them the Old Testament in a particular way. And Christian anti Zionists are looking at the politics of the current situation and criminalizing Jews exclusively. I mean, Muslim terrorism, as you said, isn't nearly as upsetting as Zionism is. So it's a broad, I mean this is also important to remember. Just as there's no one way of being a Jew, there's no one way of being a Christian. So you get this broad sweep of different attitudes toward Jews and toward Israel. I keep thinking of what a plastic image Jesus is. Jesus fit into any narrative because he's such a compelling and important figure that he can be stretched to fit anything. There's two images I use when I lecture about this transition from intra Jewish argument to anti Jewish argument. And that is there's a heel bone of a young man, Yohanan, who was crucified in Jerusalem in the mid first century. The nail that was driven through his heel hit a knot in the wood so that when his body was taken down from the cross, the nail had to be extracted also. So we have this powerful image of this heel bone of this young Jewish man with a Roman nail through it. That is, that is an intense visualization of the experience of Jesus. And then by the turn of the 6th century. There's a mosaic in Ravenna in Italy of a beautiful beardless young man dressed in Roman armor with a purple cloak on, holding a book that says I am the way, the truth and the life. It's an image of Jesus Christ as a Roman emperor. That's an amazing level of symbolic flexibility, and that's how important Jesus is to formulating Christian identity.
- [47:22]
A
So what I'm hearing you saying a little bit is like my core question that has driven my curiosity about this topic has always been why did it catch fire? Why did it work? Why do we keep time according to it? How did Christianity conquer the world? Conversation that I had last year around this time with the wonderful historian Tom Holland. And what I'm hearing you say, Paula, is because it was such a flexible idea.
- [47:50]
B
It was such a flexible idea. And it was. I mean, Christianity is not an anti Roman religion. It's a form of Roman religion. And obviously Constantine is a big figure in this development of this story. And once you get the power of the Roman state behind one branch of the Christian church, you have a kind of empowerment that carries the movement forward. Something I tell my students, and it always surprises them, is that the most virulent period of Roman anti Christian persecution happened after the conversion of Constantine. Constantine backed only one church and he criminalized Christian diversity so that Christians were Christians who were of different. I'll use the word denomination. That's not quite right for antiquity. But different types of Christians were persecuted if they were not members of the church, the particular church that Constantine backed. So there's a. I don't know why diversity makes people so insecure, but that's also the problem, I think with diversity of faith between Jews, Christians and Muslims. It just makes people insecure and insecurity can make people angry.
- [49:22]
A
Do you feel just to. I don't want to depress you more, but I have a short amount of time with you as an expert and I've been thinking so much about your work. When you're saying you just see the echoes in our present time of the things that you have spent your adult life studying. Do you feel like we're in
- [49:44]
B
a
- [49:44]
A
period that is maybe. And tell me if this is too crazy, that feels similar to after the temple was destroyed, when everything is in flux.
- [49:56]
B
I think we're at an inflection point in Western culture. I think of, you know, one of the ways that Protestantism came into being was because of the printing press. I mean, that was social media in the 16th century. We're dealing in a convulsive period of social media now where hateful tropes are being spread, conspiracy theories. I mean, we don't have as a culture the psychological throw weight to stand firm with this sort of thing. And I think we're in a real inflection point. And Israel is the perfect international punching bag. And that means an anti Israel sentiment ends up expressed by something like what just happened in Australia at Bondi Beach.
- [50:53]
A
So for people who see these events happening, some Jews getting stabbed, synagogue getting shot up, things happening on a beach and see them as discreet, please make explicit the connection between all of those things.
- [51:11]
B
Jews, because Jews are different, always are legitimate targets. And this is, I mean, this is what's amazing. After the horror of the Holocaust only bought a couple of generations of safety and now Jews are back as punching bags again. All Jews everywhere. Jews in France. Jews in France can't. They've called off New Year celebrations in Paris because they can't guarantee the, the safety of people gathering because of terrorism. Right. Yes, we're at a serious inflection point. I think in Western culture and the complicated politics of Israel right now after October 7th and the subsequent war in Gaza is not making anything any, any easier. But if you're inclined to blame Jews for everything, you certainly have a lot of material.
- [52:20]
A
Before I let you go, I want to just talk a little bit about the future of faith and religion in the west and what trends you're seeing. I know that you tend to look back in time, but I'm hoping you're reading some of the headlines that I am. The fastest growing religion in the world today is Islam. And I want to know why you think in the 21st century, that is the stickiest idea. Why?
- [52:51]
B
You know, you're right. I'm a historian, I'm a professional retrospecter. I only understand things after they've happened. So I'm out of my wheelhouse at this point by speculating about the, the growing popularity of Islam. But I think that any. Strong ideology is attractive because it resolves so many questions. And it's just like Nazism was a very strong ideology. I mean, how did Germany, my God, swing over to Nazism? It was a very powerful ideology. So something that doesn't admit of questions is always going to attract people. And I think that dealing with complexity and respecting the humanity of the people you disagree with is something that a lot of these strong ideologies don't permit. And that's why I view with unhappiness and anxiety. This, the hyper extreme ideologies that are gaining, especially through social media, now are spreading and, in my view, metastasizing.
- [54:20]
A
I forget who to give credit to with this phrase, but someone said, and it really stuck with me, that we were living in an era of sort of the return of the strong gods. You have, you know, Chinese communism, Islamism, nationalist populism. And I wonder where you see Christianity fitting into that, because one. You know, one argument for the appeal of Islam right now is that Christianity, which, at least in many people's contemporary understanding of it is based on mercy and forgiveness, feels almost like too soft, too feminine. In an era where people are drawn to more forceful ideologies, what do you make of that?
- [55:05]
B
Well, white Christian nationalism isn't warm and fuzzy.
- [55:08]
A
That's true.
- [55:10]
B
I mean, there's. And, you know, the religion of love and mercy brought us the Crusades and the inquisitions and the 30 Years War, which was one of the biggest bloodlettings in Europe between Catholics and Protestants in the 17th century. I mean, there's always been this type of violent argument between worldviews. So I don't think it's a question of Christianity is soft and Islam is hard, and that's why Islam is winning, because there are hard forms of Christianity as well, and we're seeing those expressed in contemporary American politics, too. So I have to say, and I regret, as a person who studies religion professionally, of saying this, but I don't know what the future of religion is going to be. Hmm.
- [56:07]
A
You were, I think, a student at Wellesley College in the late 60s. You've talked about how the Bible department was totally empty when you arrived there. It feels like a really different moment now. It feels like we're. There's a lot of religious foment. Some people have talked about a religious revival. What do you think is going on in our present moment that makes us, or at least many of us, drawn back to some of these ancient traditions?
- [56:38]
B
I think there's a. First of all, you can't step into the same stream twice. Right. It's the modern interpretation of what the ancient tradition is that people are grasping. You'd have to be a historian to know what the actual ancient tradition was. So I think people like clarity and clear answers, and clear answers deny complexity. But in fact, being human is a very complex and complicated thing. And one of the ways to clear the clutter of all this complexity is to attach yourself to a strong and simple ideology. And I think that's what a lot of fundamentalisms in all of these cultures represent.
- [57:31]
A
I feel really scared about where everything is going. And do you feel scared?
- [57:44]
B
I feel scared for my grandchildren.
- [57:46]
A
What does history teach you about how we should prepare for what could be coming?
- [57:53]
B
You know, again, it's because of this impact of social media that we don't know how to contain or control yet. I mean, the negative stuff is spreading so wide. The conspiracy theories, the hatred that's alive on the ether is terrifying. And I think the only way to prepare is to refuse to despair is to refuse to despair and to. Stay strong. I mean, it's we've done it so far, right, under terrible circumstances. The Babylonian exile, the war with Rome that destroyed the Temple, the Bar Kokhba revolt, the medieval, the European Middle Ages, the Inquisitions, Nazism. And we'll get through this, too.
- [59:00]
A
More with Paula Fredrickson after the break. Okay. Are you ready for a little lightning round?
- [59:18]
B
Sure.
- [59:21]
A
I feel like you've never been in a lightning round, so I'm excited to ask you these Paula, you live in Jerusalem. It is a very cold, rainy time of year, and not a lot of the buildings are insulated. I know from my own experience. What is your favorite thing about this holiday time in Jerusalem?
- [59:39]
B
I love walking in Jerusalem at night during this holiday because in every window you see the Hanukkiah, you see the lights of Hanukkah burning. And it's thrilling to me. It's just thrilling. And it's beautiful. And it means that it it knits the community together no matter what the political persuasion. And Jews have lots of different political persuasions in this neighborhood, but everybody's together on the same page about that, about shedding more light. And that's thrilling for me as a resident of Jerusalem.
- [60:21]
A
Other than your own books, what's one book that you'd recommend to listeners to understand this critical period of early Christianity?
- [60:31]
B
You know, there are so many good books.
- [60:34]
A
Just recommend two.
- [60:38]
B
Well, actually, I'm thinking of something that's later which explains how Christianity ends up evolving in the early modern period, which is something that affects us. It's called Fatal Discord by Michael Manning. And it's a book. It's a double biography of Erasmus and Luther, and it's about the formation of the modern political state and how Christianity fits in with that and how anti Judaism fits into the formation of Protestantism, which is facing off with Catholic Rome. And it's an incredibly powerful book about something that's much closer to our current circumstances. The other book I would recommend, going Back to the 1st century of Christianity would be a book by John Gager called the Origins of Antisemitism, which he traces the development of Christianity by using antisemitism as a plumb line to organize his material. So the Origins of Antisemitism by John Gager is actually about the origins of Christianity.
- [62:08]
A
Okay. You only can choose one. Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John.
- [62:13]
B
Oh, Mark.
- [62:14]
A
Why?
- [62:16]
B
In a sentence, it's short, it's powerful. There's no birth narrative. There's no resurrection story at the end. It's this incredibly kinetic, strong, simple story. And I think it's just. It's absolutely my favorite.
- [62:38]
A
If you could witness one moment from the first century, what would it be?
- [62:46]
B
I'd want to be. I'd want to be in Jerusalem around Passover. It probably didn't happen at Passover, but I wish I could be a witness when Jesus was hauled before Pilate. I would like to see how that conversation went.
- [63:04]
A
What is your favorite Bible verse, if you have one?
- [63:10]
B
You know, what just came to my mind is not a biblical verse, but a line from John Donne. Every man's death diminishes me, for I am involved with mankind. Therefore ask not for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee.
- [63:26]
A
Paula, what is the most Jewish thing that Jesus ever said?
- [63:34]
B
Wow. I think it's, our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.
- [63:43]
A
If you could ask Jesus one question, what would it be?
- [63:47]
B
What made you think that the kingdom of God was at hand?
- [63:54]
A
What's your favorite Christmas song?
- [63:58]
B
Oh, Come O come Emmanuel and ransom captive Israel.
- [64:03]
A
What's your favorite Israeli food? Like, are you a falafel or a shawarma gal?
- [64:08]
B
Oh, I'm falafel all the way. And I have to say, hummus is wonderful with fresh pita. But I'm also a feta cheese person, so I don't know. There's so many good things to eat, and I eat them all.
- [64:23]
A
When did you move to Jerusalem?
- [64:27]
B
In 2005, because I started working at the Hebrew University.
- [64:32]
A
What's the best thing about living in Israel?
- [64:35]
B
Not being a religious minority.
- [64:38]
A
What's one book or chapter from the Bible, Hebrew or new, that you wish everyone would read?
- [64:48]
B
It's a reading from Isaiah that we do on Yom Kippur about get up and make straight the causeways and seek justice. And I think those passages in Isaiah that we read on Yom Kippur are beautiful.
- [65:08]
A
Why do you think everyone should read it?
- [65:11]
B
Because it's inspiring. It's a vision of social justice, which I think is one of the strongest aspects of Jewish tradition. Social justice.
- [65:25]
A
That phrase has been has come to mean very different things in recent years. It's interesting to me that you're using it.
- [65:34]
B
Yeah.
- [65:37]
A
You still believe in it.
- [65:39]
B
Yeah. I'm thinking also of the Supreme Court building here, where the architecture. Are you familiar with the building?
- [65:48]
A
Yes.
- [65:50]
B
Intellectual content of the architecture, where it's a tension between a straight line and a curve. The straight line being justice. Right. And the curve being mercy, and the tension between that. Now, the opposite of justice is not mercy. The opposite of justice is injustice. But it's this idea of the importance of justice and how we define it. And a lot, I think, of what Judaism as religion is, is trying to search for a definition of justice that's humane and fair.
- [66:35]
A
Ella Fredrickson, I could talk to you for hours and hopefully next time I'm in Jerusalem, you will make time to have some falafel with me. Thank you so much for being here today.
- [66:45]
B
That would be wonderful. I look forward. Thank you, Barry.
- [66:53]
A
Thanks for listening. If you liked this conversation, share it with your friends and family and use it to have a conversation of your own. Last but not least, if you want to support honestly, there's just one way to do it. It's by going to the Free Press's website@vfp.com and becoming a subscriber today. Merry Christmas, happy New Year, and I'll see you next time.