Dual-covenant theology

Contents

Dual-covenant or two-covenant theology is a school of thought in Christian theology regarding the relevance of the Hebrew Bible, which Christians call the Old Testament.

Some Christians hold that the Old Testament has been superseded by the New Covenant;[1] a minority hold that the Mosaic covenant has been abrogated.

Dual-covenant theology instead holds that the Mosaic covenant remains valid for Jews while only the New Covenant applies to non-Jews or gentiles.

Background

Judaism maintains that in the post-flood era there is a universally binding covenant between God and man in the form of the Seven Laws of Noah[2][3][4] and that there is additionally a unique Sinaitic covenant that was made between God and the Hebrews at biblical Mount Sinai. However Judaism has not historically maintained that there is a separate covenant for gentiles wherein they should convert to Christianity. Indeed from the Maimonidean perspective, belief in the divinity of Jesus would be a breach of Noahide Law.[5]

The 18th-century rabbinic thinker Yaakov Emden has even opined:

the original intention of Jesus, and especially of Paul, was to convert only the Gentiles to the seven moral laws of Noah and to let the Jews follow the Mosaic law—which explains the apparent contradictions in the New Testament regarding the laws of Moses and the Sabbath.[6]

Later, in the 20th century, the unorthodox Jewish theologian Franz Rosenzweig, consequent to his flirtations with Christianity, advanced the idea in his work the Star of Redemption that "Christianity acknowledges the God of the Jews, not as God but as 'the Father of Jesus Christ.' Christianity itself cleaves to the 'Lord' because it knows that the Father can be reached only through him ... We are all wholly agreed as to what Christ and his church mean to the world: no one can reach the Father save through him. No one can reach the Father! But the situation is quite different for one who does not have to reach the Father because he is already with him. And this is true of the people of Israel."[7]

Daniel Goldhagen, former Associate Professor of Political Science at Harvard University, also suggested in his book A Moral Reckoning that the Roman Catholic Church should change its doctrine and the Biblical canon to excise statements he labels as antisemitic, to indicate that "The Jews' way to God is as legitimate as the Christian way".[8]

Messianic Judaism

David H. Stern, a Messianic Jewish theologian, wrote that dual-covenant theology is said to originate with Maimonides. It was proffered in the 20th century by the Jewish philosopher Franz Rosenzweig, and was elaborated upon by such theologians as Reinhold Niebuhr and James Parkes.

These founders believe that Jesus' message is not for Jews but for Gentiles and, that John 14:6 is to be understood thusly: "I am the way, the truth and the life; and no Gentile comes to the father except through me."[9] Stern asserts that the problem of dual-covenant theology is that "replacing Yeshua's 'No one comes to the Father except through me' with 'No Gentile comes...' does unacceptable violence to the plain sense of the text and to the whole New Testament."[10]

Apostolic Decree

The Apostolic Decree in the Book of Acts (15:19–29) has been commonly interpreted as a parallel to Noahide Law.[11]

Although the Apostolic Decree is no longer observed by many Christian denominations today, it is still observed in full by the Greek Orthodox.[12]

Catholic Church

Traditional supersessionist theology, as exemplified in Pope Eugene IV's papal bull, which he published at the Council of Florence in 1442 (1441 according to the contemporary Florentine calendar):

The Holy Roman Church ... firmly believes, professes and teaches that the matter pertaining to the law of the Old Testament, of the Mosaic law, which are divided into ceremonies, sacred rites, sacrifices, and sacraments, because they were established to signify something in the future, although they were suited to the divine worship at that time, after our Lord's coming had been signified by them, ceased, and the sacraments of the New Testament began; ... after the promulgation of the Gospel it asserts that they cannot be observed without the loss of eternal salvation. All, therefore, who after that time observe circumcision and the Sabbath and the other requirements of the law, the holy Roman Church declares alien to the Christian faith and not in the least fit to participate in eternal salvation.[13][14]

John Paul II supported greater dialogue between Catholics and Jews, but did not support dual-covenant theology. On November 17, 1980, John Paul II delivered a speech to the Jews of Berlin in which he discussed his views of Catholic–Jewish relations. During the speech, John Paul II cited Nostra Aetate, claiming that Catholics "will endeavor to understand better all that in the Old Testament maintains its own enduring value ..., since this value has not been obliterated by the further interpretation of the New Testament, which on the contrary gave the Older its most complete meaning, so that the New one receives from the Old light and explanation."[15]

Criticism

Catholic

Cardinal Avery Dulles was critical of dual-covenant theology, especially as understood in the USCCB's document Reflections on Covenant and Mission.[16] In the article All in the Family: Christians, Jews and God, evidence has also been compiled from Scripture, the Church Fathers and official Church documents that the Catholic Church does not support dual covenant theology.[17]

Though it is to be removed from the next edition (at order of the Vatican, as misrepresenting the editio typica) the United States Catholic Catechism for Adults (2006) states:[18]

The covenant that God made with the Jewish people through Moses remains eternally valid for them.

In June 2008 the bishops decided by a vote of 231–14 to remove this from the next printing of the Catechism, because it could be construed to mean that Jews have their own path to salvation and do not need Christ or the Church.[19] In August 2009, the Vatican approved the change, and the revised text states (in conformity with the editio typica):[20]

To the Jewish people, whom God first chose to hear his Word, 'belong the sonship, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship and the promises; to them belong the patriarchs, and of their race, according to the flesh, is the Christ.'

Protestant

In 2006, Evangelical Protestant Jerry Falwell denied a report in The Jerusalem Post that he supported dual-covenant theology:[21]

I have been on record all 54 years of my ministry as being opposed to dual covenant theology… I simply cannot alter my deeply held belief in the exclusivity of salvation through the Gospel of Christ for the sake of political or theological expediency. Like the Apostle Paul, I pray daily for the salvation of everyone, including the Jewish people.

References

  1. 1.Summa Theologica, I-II, q. 100
  2. 2.BT Sanhedrin 57a
  3. 3.Mishneh Torah, Hilkhot M'lakhim 8:14
  4. 4.Encyclopedia Talmudit (Hebrew edition, Israel, 5741/1981, entry Ben Noah, end of article); note the variant reading of Maimonides and the references in the footnote
  5. 5.Maimonides, Peirush HaMishnha on Avodah Zarah 1.3, and his rulings in Hilchos Avoda Zarah 9:4, Hilchos Ma'achalos Asuros 11:7 & Hilchos Melachim 11:4
  6. 6.Appendix to "Seder 'Olam" pp. 32b–34b, Hamburg, 1752, in Gentile, Jewish Encyclopedia Archived October 7, 2011, at the Wayback Machine
  7. 7.Nahum N. Glatzer, 1961, Franz Rosenzweig: His Life and Thought, New York: Schocken Books, p. 341.
  8. 8.Riebling, Mark (January 27, 2003). "Jesus, Jews, and the Shoah". National Review. 55 (1). Archived from the original on March 18, 2005. Retrieved January 5, 2008.
  9. 9.David H. Stern, "Jewish New Testament Commentary", page 196, Jewish New Testament Publications, Inc., 1992.
  10. 10."Archived copy" (PDF). baruchhashemsynagogue.org. Archived from the original (PDF) on 28 October 2010. Retrieved 13 January 2022.
  11. 11.The Acts of the Apostles (The Anchor Yale Bible Commentaries), Yale University Press (December 2, 1998), ISBN 0-300-13982-9, chapter V.
  12. 12.Karl Josef von Hefele's commentary on canon II of Gangra, CCEL Archived December 20, 2016, at the Wayback Machine notes: "We further see that, at the time of the Synod of Gangra, the rule of the Apostolic Synod with regard to blood and things strangled was still in force. With the Greeks, indeed, it continued always in force as their Euchologies still show. Balsamon also, the well-known commentator on the canons of the Middle Ages, in his commentary on the sixty-third Apostolic Canon, expressly blames the Latins because they had ceased to observe this command. What the Latin Church, however, thought on this subject about the year 400, is shown by St. Augustine in his work Contra Faustum, where he states that the Apostles had given this command in order to unite the heathens and Jews in the one ark of Noah; but that then, when the barrier between Jewish and heathen converts had fallen, this command concerning things strangled and blood had lost its meaning, and was only observed by few. But still, as late as the eighth century, Pope Gregory the Third (731) forbade the eating of blood or things strangled under threat of a penance of forty days. No one will pretend that the disciplinary enactments of any council, even though it be one of the undisputed Ecumenical Synods, can be of greater and more unchanging force than the decree of that first council, held by the Holy Apostles at Jerusalem, and the fact that its decree has been obsolete for centuries in the West is proof that even Ecumenical canons may be of only temporary utility and may be repealed by disuse, like other laws."
  13. 13.Pope Eugene IV (1442). "Cantate Domino" [Sing to the Lord]. Archived from the original on 2014-07-14. Retrieved 2014-06-06 – via Dialogika, Council of Centers on Jewish–Christian Relations.
  14. 14.Pope Eugene IV (4 February 1442). Cantate Domino. 17th Ecumenical Council (in Latin). Florence: Holy See. Retrieved 13 July 2026.
  15. 15.Pope John Paul II (17 November 1980). Visita pastorale nella Repubblica Federale Tedesca: Incontro di Giovanni Paolo II con i rappresentanti della comunità ebraica [Pastoral visit to the Federal Republic of Germany: Meeting of John Paul II with the representatives of the Jewish community] (in Italian). Vatican: Holy See. Section 3. Ci si sforzerà di comprendere meglio tutto ciò che nell'Antico Testamento conserva un valore proprio e perpetuo ..., poiché questo valore non è stato obliterato dall'ulteriore interpretazione del Nuovo Testamento, la quale al contrario ha dato all'Antico il suo significato più compiuto, cosicché reciprocamente il Nuovo riceve dall'Antico luce e spiegazione.
  16. 16.Covenant and Mission, America magazine, Archived October 21, 2012, at the Wayback Machine
  17. 17.nForrest; Palm (July–August 2009). "All in the Family: Christians, Jews and God". Lay Witness. CUF. Archived from the original on 2009-09-05. Retrieved 2009-08-22.
  18. 18.United States Catholic Catechism for Adults, Washington, DC: United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, 2006.
  19. 19.O'Brien. "Bishops Vote to Revise U.S. Catechism on Jewish Covenant with God". CNS. Archived from the original on 2015-03-24. Retrieved 2008-11-03.
  20. 20."U.S. Bishops get Vatican 'Recognitio' for Change in Adult Catechism" (news release). USCCB. September 2009. Archived from the original on 2011-06-28. Retrieved 2009-12-04.
  21. 21.Hagee, Falwell deny endorsing 'dual covenant', Jerusalem Post, 2006-03-02, Archived March 4, 2016, at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved 2009-10-21.