February 28

For this week, we had to read 2 Esdra and Revelations. After reading them, I understood the initial split between modern Judaism and Christianity, even though the pair had shared origins.

It all really started, I reckon, around the time of sacking of the Temple and the overall destruction of Jerusalem, and the eventual dissolution of Israel. The anonymous author of 2 Esdra talks about that event in very raw, uncompromising tones: he talks about the land of Israel, the second coming of Jerusalem, and of the destruction of the Eagle of Rome (presumably, though he does not name names) by the Lion of David. He uses metaphors and allegories; the titular character has an active dialogue with an angel, Uriel, but 2 Esdra adheres to its point: why Israel, the Promised Land is suffering so, why the Jews are suffering so, and will the divine promise is executed?

That promise, incidentally, is not so much of Moses on Mount Sinai, even though the Mosaic Laws were kept in mind by the author too, but to Abraham in the desert – will the Jews be as sand underfoot or as stars in the sky? Whether rightly or wrongly, this question mattered heavily to the Jewish nation of old and may have influenced their political decisions, especially in the actions of the pre-exilic prophets.

By contrast, the author of Revelations was a Christian, albeit an early one. He has not quite severed all of his ties with Judaism, but is in the process of doing that all the same. Just like the author of 2 Esdra he uses metaphors and is anti-Rome (Rome at the time of Nero was quite anti-Christian), but his metaphors are more literary and elaborative, he is more emotionally detached than his 2 Esdra counterpart is.

For the Christians, Rome at the time of Nero and immediately after his demise was Babylon, or the Whore of Babylon, worthy of nothing else but destruction. In this the author of Revelations (the apostle John is the popular version) comes very close to the author of 2 Esdra, but throughout Revelations he is almost over the top with all the symbolisms and metaphors – what rider on what horse symbolizes what and etc. He can be carried away with that because he is more detached from Rome’s spiritual corruption – furthermore, to him that corruption is spiritual rather than corporeal: he does not care so much about the destruction of the Temple, Jerusalem and Israel, for he is a Christian, not a Jew.

Whether or not Jewish nationalism (especially of the times of yore) was good or bad for the country can be argued about. However, severing that nationalism from themselves, was the action that set the Christians apart from the Jews back in the antiquity. The Christians basically declared themselves to be cosmopolite – “neither Hellene nor Jew” – and that is why the orthodox Jews did not recognize them and had conflicts with them.

Ah well, God has judged the two faiths themselves. Nowadays, Jews have Israel and Jerusalem back to themselves (though they have to fight for it again, as they did in the days of the Maccabees), while Christianity is spread almost worldwide and shows no signs of abating.