Why the term ‘Old Testament’ is antisemitic

There are many acceptable ways to describe the sacred books of the Jews. Some of them are “Hebrew Bible”, the “Bible”, “Hebrew Scriptures” or “The Tanakh”, the short Hebrew form for saying, The Law, the Prophets and the (Sacred) writings.

However, many people, including some Jews, use the term “Old Testament”. This is because Christians have used this term for centuries. Christians, however, mean “Old” as something archaic, outmoded, something that ought to be replaced like an old shoe. The reason Christians use this term is because of a basic Christian doctrine, called “supersession”. In plain words, “Old Testament” means that Christianity, and the New Testament, are superior to Judaism and that Christianity replaces Judaism.

Under their theory of “supersession”, Christians, and their churches, have preached for two thousand years that Christians have succeeded the Jews as G-d’s true Israel and succeeded the Jews as the people of G-d. This belief continued, even during the Holocaust, as millions of Jewish adults, children and babies were being gassed, shot , beaten and starved to death. Pope Pius X11, the Pope during WW2, continued this doctrine saying, in his work, “Mystici Corpora’s Christi” (1943) that “… by Deicide the Jews forfeited their covenant” and that “….Jesus’ death established the New Testament in his blood”. In 1999, Pope Benedict XVI, in his work, “Many Religions, One Covenant”, said that “the Sinai (Mosaic) covenant is indeed superseded”. Protestant churches also believe in supersession doctrine. Muslims, on the other hand, believe the teachings of Judaism and Christianity are both corrupt versions of G-d’s word, and that the only true expression of G-d’s word is found in the Koran. So, it seems, that the Muslims have their own version of suppersession.

The Jews rejection of supersession, and their failure to convert to Christianity, made both Catholics and Protestants very angry. Martin Luther, the man who started the Protestant Reformation, wrote a book, after he failed to convert the Jews to Christianity called “On the Jews and Their Lies”. In that book, he said, that if the Jews continue to resist converting to Christianity, “Their private houses must be destroyed and devastated, and they (the Jews) could be lodged in stables. Let the magistrates burn their synagogues and let whatever escapes be covered with sand and mud. Let them be forced to work, and if this avails nothing, (they fail to convert), we will be compelled to expel them like dogs, in order not to expose ourselves to incurring divine wrath from the Jews and their lies”. He also said that if the Jews fail to convert, “…we are at fault in not slaying them”. This sounds, of course, like Hitler’s “Mein Kampf” and Hitler followed Luther’s ideas in his war against the Jews in WW2, culminating in the Holocaust. Luther’s book is, possibly, the first book justifying the mass murder of Jews, and most historians would say that it is a direct line of thought from this book to the philosophy of the Nazis.