Jews, God and History

Max Dimont’s “Jews, God, and History” is a now well-known summary of the subject. As has been pointed out by many previous reviewers, this book is appropriately acclaimed for being readable, helpfully condensed, and free of scholarly obfuscation. His collection of the facts of Jewish history is accessible in ways that more detailed and research-based works are not. One could quickly use an outline of the book to keep the chronology straight and get immediate access to greater detail when needed. He summarizes the key events and issues of Jewish history in a manner that can act as an introduction to more detailed works.

Unlike more scholarly works, he is honest about his advocacy. He advocates a universal rationalism, on the model of Spinoza, rather than a philosophy based on revelation or authority. He minimizes the effects of Christianity and Islam. He is unabashed in his citation of the beneficial effects of Jewish innovations. His roll call of influential Jewish individuals (pp. 328-372) is a mini-encyclopedia in itself. He advocates a non-supernatural approach to history, so he accepts historical and psychological rather than theistic explanations. His secular approach may make the book more accessible to a larger audience.

Dimont’s assets are as monumental as are his liabilities, with three areas of particular weakness. First, the title is a misnomer. The book contains a lot about the Jews, a lot about history, and little or nothing about God. It therefore has the paradoxical effect of portraying the uniquely Jewish theology as unnecessary to understanding Jewish history.

Second, Dimont states that whether God is or is not involved in history is irrelevant to the story of the Jews. “It makes no difference whether it was Abraham who projected this experience onto an imaginary Jehovah or a real Jehovah who proposed it to Abraham.”

Lastly, Dimont’s book contains numerous historical inaccuracies, unsupported theological speculations, and personal prejudices. The following are examples:

“Moses is to Judaism what Jesus is to Christianity.” On the contrary, most Jewish authorities cite Abraham as Judaism’s founding father, and Moses as neither divine nor a cosmic savior.

“In its early days Christianity, too, was embraced mainly by slaves.” This is historically inaccurate because none of the 12 disciples were slaves, the early priests and bishops could not have also been slaves, and the Roman homeowners who held early Christian services in their homes could not have been both homeowners and slaves.

“It makes no difference whether Moses was a Jew or not.” The evidence of Jewish scripture states the opposite.

Dimont refers to the Maccabean revolt “as the world’s first religious war.” However, religious holy war was practiced during time of Saul, centuries before the Maccabees

The author cited two events which led to the downfall of Rome: the growth of Christianity and the migration of the Huns. Historians have shown that the growth of Christianity helped the Roman emperor Constantine solidify his power and build up the Roman Empire. In addition, the growth of Christianity strengthened the Eastern Roman Empire until the 15th century.

The author claims that “Christianity existed at least two hundred years before Jesus”. He bases his opinion on the Dead Sea Scrolls’ description of the Essene Community. How is it possible that Christianity existed prior to Jesus’ birth?

“Nothing he [Jesus] preached, taught, or said was in contradiction to what other Jewish prophets, rabbis, or sects said or taught.” On the contrary, Jesus’ controversial practices of working on the Sabbath, eating with gentile sinners, and claiming to be able to absolve sins incurred the wrath of local Jewish religious authorities.

“ [St. Paul] had repeated hallucinations.” Historical evidence indicates that Paul’s visions and intuitions were no different from those of other important religious leaders throughout history.“From a historical viewpoint it makes no difference whether Christ actually appeared to Paul or whether Paul had a hallucinative experience.” However, it does make a difference whether historical evidence indicates that Paul had visions of Jesus as the eternal Christ or whether he was a madman experiencing hallucinations, which are contrary to observable fact and equivalent to psychosis.

“Jesus had taught that one learned to love God by loving man.” Evidence of the New Testament states the reverse.

“Islam had succeeded where Christianity had failed.” Dimont explains that by the 7th century Islam had spread its influence throughout the Mediterranean world. However, Christianity had already become the official religion of the Roman Empire, two centuries before the time of Mohammed.

“It may be that Nietzsche did not advocate what he wrote.” To the contrary, Nietzsche never printed any retractions and consistently maintained and published the same point of view from early adulthood throughout his life.