There is only one moment in the New Testament where the stridently anti-Jewish tone of the Gospels is matched by a seemingly anti-Gentile message. Since this might be raised as an objection, let us consider that passage now.
The lone possible exception to the pro-Gentile message in the New Testament is the story of the Canaanite woman, as told in the Gospel of Matthew:
Leaving that place, Jesus withdrew to the region of Tyre and Sidon. A Canaanite woman from that vicinity came to him, crying out, “Lord, Son of David, have mercy on me! My daughter is demon-possessed and suffering terribly.”
Jesus did not answer a word. So his disciples came to him and urged him, “Send her away, for she keeps crying out after us.”
He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel.”
The woman came and knelt before him. “Lord, help me!” she said.
He replied, “It is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to the dogs.”
“Ye it is, Lord,” she said. “Even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s table.”
Then Jesus said to her, “Woman, you have great faith! Your request is granted.” And her daughter was healed at that moment. (40)
Here in this cryptic passage Jesus seems to imply that Gentiles, any who are not among “the lost sheep of Israel,” are all “dogs” that are not the concern of his mission.
So, how are we to square this one line with the many times Jesus calls for a transnational Christian Mission in the New Testament?
First, if it is interpreted in this way, this assertion does stand out against all of Jesus’s other pleas for universal peace and brotherhood. However, Jesus also refers to some Israelites as “lost sheep.” Also, Jesus’s definition of his own mission here seems to anticipate Paul’s later claim to being the first missionary to convert the Gentiles. And finally, we see that after Jesus’s objections he nevertheless agrees to heal the woman’s daughter, after all, even in the face of his own disciples’ opposition.
This passage actually implies that Jewish bigotry toward Gentiles was so undeniable in the 1st Century that even the Gospels could not avoid acknowledging it. The best a Roman innovator of Jewish religion could do and still be somewhat credible was to “soften” this xenophobia and then countermand it by example.
Jesus’s assertion also sounds like a well-known adage within the Jewish-Christian movement: “It is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to the dogs.”
In any event, the entire point of the story seems to be Jesus’s correction of his disciples’ opposition to healing a Gentile’s daughter. One can only surmise that the Jewish-Christian rebel leaders, like James, so prominently exhibited this kind of anti-Gentile attitude that it required addressing with a demonstration of why it was “un-Christian.” This “teachable moment,” therefore, shows the very process by which Jewish-Christian ideology was being systematically turned upside-down in the writing of the Gospels.
As a divine being, Jesus Christ is sacrilegious to the Jewish nation and tradition. As early as the authentic Pauline epistles, Christianity would celebrate a man-god who brings to all humanity the Hope of Resurrection and Eternal Happiness in the Afterlife—just like a Mystery Cult demigod of the Suffering Savior archetype common in Hellenistic paganism.
The Sadducees, one of the three great sects of Jews of the 1st Century, denied the existence of an afterlife or an immortal soul, altogether. (41) While the Pharisees and the Qumran sectarians both seem to have shared a belief in the Resurrection of the Dead and a Final Judgment, their conception of the messiah was never equated with God himself.
Meanwhile Jesus himself suggests that Christianity contains a “secret knowledge” revealed only to initiates—a signature of so many pagan “mystery” cults. When he teaches the crowd by the Sea of Galilee, according to Mark, Jesus uses parables, “but when he was alone with his own disciples, he explained everything.” (42) And the first epistle to Timothy explicitly refers to “the Mystery of Faith.” As many others have observed, Christianity’s parallels with pagan mystery cults are plentiful. (43)
As we restore the mosaic of evidence we are getting closer to a complete picture; but there are still many pieces left to fill in.
In the 2nd Century, the pagan Celsus wrote a scathing satire depicting Jesus Christ as the illegitimate son of a Roman soldier. (44)
Celsus was a famous critic of Christianity, and he was surely mocking the notion of a virgin birth, but he added the coded insinuation that the true “lineage” of this messiah was Roman—indeed, that he was born of the Roman war effort. Fascinatingly, this same caricature of Jesus is repeated in the Jewish Talmud, as well. (45)
Obviously, Pauline Christianity is more than a form of Judaism—it is a blend of Jewish and pagan elements. The transreligious and transnational nature of the New Testament that stands in stark contrast to Jewish exceptionalism is visible in its holy scriptures in many ways.
For instance, take the famous Christmas visit of three “Magi” (46), who are said to observe the astrological portent of a rising star that led them to the very spot where the baby Jesus was born. Magi, of course, are priests of the religion of Zoroastrianism. Although popularly referred to as either “wise men” or “kings,” Matthew calls them magi, which identifies them as Zoroastrian. They came “from the East” according to standard translations, though that phrase (ἀπὸ ἀνατολῶν) may literally mean “from the rising [of the sun],” a synonym for the east. Zoroastrians lived to the east of Israel. They invented the Zodiac familiar to us today and their famous reputation for interpreting the stars is being invoked here—something that no Jewish scripture would ever do.
Adoration of the Magi, Roman sarcophagus, 4th Century CE, St. Agnes Cemetery, Rome, coming from the east.
Relating a pagan, Zoroastrian source for one of its star symbols, the Gospels here do something impossible in Jewish religion. The religion of the Hebrews was itself deeply influenced by the religious ideas of their neighbors, but it never credited those polytheistic, idol-worshiping faiths directly for obvious reasons.
The Jews had, however, represented the messiah with a star in Hebrew literature and coins, as in the name given to the 2nd Century messianic rebel leader Bar Kokhba (whose name literally means “son of the Star”). And, alone among Roman emperors, Vespasian and Titus employed this same distinctive eight-pointed star image on coins commemorating their eastern navy.
While Jesus’s birth is heralded by a star, one of the portents of Vespasian’s death was a comet, according to the ancient historian Suetonius. The ancient historian Tacitus tells us that Vespasian’s ascension to the throne was prefigured in the stars. (47)
One Vespasian coin depicts both a ship’s prow symbolic of the 10th Legion, which helped quell the Jewish revolt—and a star. This remarkable star on Vespasian’s coin is the same kind of messianic star used on Jewish coins to represent their messiah. Notice how the unique eight-pointed star also forms an Ichthys Wheel of the type used as an early Christian symbol that we have previously noted:
Vespasian coin with 10th Legion galley and a “Flavian star”
Ancient Jewish coin with Seleucid anchor and Messianic Star
Mark Anthony issue also honoring Judean 10th Legion symbolized by galley (but with no star)