I keep hearing that Martin Luther was antisemitic.
There is a fine point here.
I know it is wrong to say synagogues should be destroyed, but isn't that anti Rabbinical Judaism and not antisemitic?
Martin Luther wanted Jews to be saved and later in life was sick and drinking too much and they were writing downeverything he said.
They call it table talk. 50 or so volumes of what Luther said at his dinner table.
See what I am saying, it was wrong for Luther to say burn down synagogues, but it is also wrong to put spin on Luther to make him look like a deep down stone cold sober antisemitic Jew hater.
He didn't go out of his way to write an antisemitic book so it is more like an off handed comment by Mel Gibson when he was drunk out of his mind.
I am not an expert on any of this but to be honest it does bug me all this talk about Luther being a Jew hater.
Chad~
How much does a man have to say to be considered anti-Semitic?
Check this:
On the Jews and Their Lies
The [65,000-word] treatise is a polemic condemning the Jewish religion from a Christian viewpoint, in furtherance of this Luther writes that those who continue to adhere to this religion are a "base, whoring people, that is, no people of God, and their boast of lineage, circumcision, and law must be accounted as filth."[1] Luther wrote that they are "full of the devil's feces ... which they wallow in like swine,"[2] and the synagogue is an "incorrigible whore and an evil slut ..."[3] He argues that their synagogues and schools be set on fire, their prayer books destroyed, rabbis forbidden to preach, homes razed, and property and money confiscated. They should be shown no mercy or kindness,[4] afforded no legal protection,[5] and these "poisonous envenomed worms" should be drafted into forced labor or expelled for all time.[6] He also seems to advocate their murder, writing "[w]e are at fault in not slaying them."[7]
It is what it is....
denounce it!
"I am not an expert on any of this but to be honest it does bug me all this talk about Luther being a Jew hater."
I advise you to get bugged about something more important. You don't seem to mind calling him a sick drunk.
Also, they say he said the Jews live under the devil's tail and eat his dung.
I am not an expert, like I said, but if you put this in context of the brutality of the times even the heretics burned heretics like the Calvanists executed Servetus.
Maybe if Luther explained him self he would say everyone who is under good works systems and not the Gospel is in an anachronistic separation sacred and secular that results in being dominated by satan.
Did he make off color comments like this about everything he was against?
He never actually hurt Jews.
In Forest Hills queens is a Lutheran mission messianic congregation. I wonder what they say about all this.
Ripleys-
Yeah, but what if he wasn't like that his whole life?
I am recalcitrant to condemn the man who gave us the Protestant Reformation with the emphasis on Sola Scriptura, not to mention the great Hymn, A mighty fortress is our God.
Apparently you have answered at least one thing, that he did write an entire book to refute Rabbinical Judaism.
I keep hearing that Martin Luther was antisemitic.
There is a fine point here.
I know it is wrong to say synagogues should be destroyed, but isn't that anti Rabbinical Judaism and not antisemitic?
Martin Luther wanted Jews to be saved and later in life was sick and drinking too much and they were writing downeverything he said.
They call it table talk. 50 or so volumes of what Luther said at his dinner table.
See what I am saying, it was wrong for Luther to say burn down synagogues, but it is also wrong to put spin on Luther to make him look like a deep down stone cold sober antisemitic Jew hater.
He didn't go out of his way to write an antisemitic book so it is more like an off handed comment by Mel Gibson when he was drunk out of his mind.
I am not an expert on any of this but to be honest it does bug me all this talk about Luther being a Jew hater.
He also read the Talmuld and saw what it thought about Jesus. He got offened. And acted in his flesh. I think his wife died then too.
Danny
I just looked up what Missouri Synod and Evangelical Lutheran Seminary and Wickipedia say about Luther's antisemitism.
Robert Wait wrote a book on the psychological development of Nazism and concluded Luther would have been like Deitrich Bonhoefer and given his live to save the Jews.
Luther's Last sermon it points out in the Missouri Synod Lutheran Materiel has Luther calling us to pray for an be kind to the Jews for thier conversion.
And they actually read the book that is supposed to be antisemitic and point out at the end Luther says we should not avenge our selves on the JEws.
So, at least Luther is contradicting him self as if senile or something.
They point out Luther is never mentioned in Mein Kamph except once and then in a neutral way.
It is anachronistic to compare the racial antisemitism of Hitler to the theological anti rabbinical Judaism of luther.
They point out that Luther never says kill the Jews.
It would have even been an improvement to the Jews to own land, a recomendation of Luther.
My family comes from the Czech Republic.
And in the beginning when Luther became a 'protestant' he said that he was a Husite. (conformed himself with the Husite movement, who where not 1 group, and Luther disagreed on different topics) Not that all Husites loved Luther, because before Luther there where all kind of other protestant Leaders, and Luther thought a lot about himself.
The reason why I say this is, is that Luther also wrote a pamflet against the Sabbatists, to burn all their Sabbaticall-Christian churches (incl. people). 1 of the reason was, because they became to Jewish according to his opinion.
Jews and Christians went along with eachother more or the less in the Czech-Republic a century long untill Luther destroyed a lot within the contacts. The Czechs never translated their bible from Latin, first they adopted Priests from Istanbul and later some Jews helped to translate even the new testament. But no A German-Katholic Luther, not use to interreligious contacts, wanted HIS way of contact with the Jews.
Anyway he wanted to make Christianity more logicall for the Jews so that they will come over the Bridge to His kind of believe. That's what most religious fundamentalists want, and in his case allready anti-semitic.
Well to burn people was still tradition in the middle ages, also Calvin did so. So in those days it was not that extreme to do...
But the claim that Luther was sick and he said it only then is wrong, he said those things also when he was still healthy.
Anti-Rabbinical is still anti Semite. For rabbi's are Semites. Also Arabs are Semites so the term is bigger. You can start to think about every term you want to use yourself as extra, but it stays anti-Semite.
It seems to me, with only a cursory view, that he had great hopes that Jews would find Jesus as their Messiah in his "liberation" from Rome...when they did not, he became angry with them.
His earlier writings are generous/charitible, later hateful.
He was just a man, frustated with the reality of things...but we can't let that be a pass. His words are powerfully violent and he was a man of great influence.
His contribution to Christianity is invaluable, but that doesn't excuse this.
Chad~
I suggest you look a little more into the writings, not from a Lutheran site (obvious bias there, come on).
The things he said cannot be swept under the rug.
Like I said, it is what it is. He did not stick with theology, he made vicious/inflamatory statements, every bit as bad as Constantine.