Supersessionism
Supersessionism, also called replacement theology,[1] is the Christian doctrine that the Christian Church has superseded the Jewish people, assuming their role as God's covenanted people,[2] thus asserting that the New Covenant through Jesus Christ has superseded or replaced the Mosaic covenant. Supersessionists hold that the universal Church has become God's true Israel and so Christians, whether Jew or gentile, are the people of God.
Often claimed by later Christians to have originated with Paul the Apostle in the New Testament, supersessionism has formed a core tenet of Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholic and Protestant churches for the majority of their history. Many early Church Fathers—including Justin Martyr and Augustine of Hippo—were supersessionist.[3]
Most historic Christian churches, including the Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholic Church, Methodist churches and Reformed churches, hold that the Old Covenant has three components: ceremonial, moral, and civil (cf. covenant theology).[4][5] They teach that while the ceremonial and civil (judicial) laws have been fulfilled, the moral law of the Ten Commandments continues to bind Christian believers.[4][6][5] Since the 19th century, certain Christian communities, such as the Plymouth Brethren, have espoused dispensationalist theology as contrasted to supersessionism and covenant theology.[7] Additionally, as part of Christian–Jewish reconciliation, the Roman Catholic Church has placed an increased emphasis on the shared history between the Christian and modern Jewish religions.
Rabbinic Judaism disregards supersessionism as offensive to Jewish history. Islam teaches that it is the final and most authentic expression of Abrahamic monotheism, superseding both Judaism and Christianity. The Islamic teaching of tahrif teaches that earlier monotheistic scriptures or earlier interpretations of them have been corrupted by later interpretations of them, while the Quran presents a pure version of their divine message.
Etymology[edit]
The word supersessionism comes from the English verb to supersede, from the Latin verb sedeo, sedere, sedi, sessum, "to sit",[8] plus super, "upon". It thus signifies one thing being replaced or supplanted by another.[9]
Throughout Church history, many Christian theologians saw the New Covenant in Christ as a replacement for the Mosaic Covenant[10] and the Church as the new people of God.[11] The word supersession is used by Sydney Thelwall in the title of chapter three of his 1870 translation of Tertullian's An Answer to the Jews.[12]
Both Christian and Jewish theologians have identified different types of supersessionism in the Christian reading of the Bible.
R. Kendall Soulen notes three categories of supersessionism identified by Christian theologians: punitive, economic, and structural:[81]
These three views are neither mutually exclusive, nor logically dependent, and it is possible to hold all of them or any one with or without the others.[81] The work of Matthew Tapie attempts a further clarification of the language of supersessionism in modern theology that Peter Ochs has called "the clearest teaching on supersessionism in modern scholarship." Tapie argued that Soulen's view of economic supersessionism shares important similarities with those of Jules Isaac's thought (the French-Jewish historian well known for his identification of "the teaching of contempt" in the Christian tradition) and can ultimately be traced to the medieval concept of the "cessation of the law" – the idea that Jewish observance of the ceremonial law (Sabbath, circumcision, and dietary laws) ceases to have a positive significance for Jews after the passion of Christ. According to Soulen, Christians today often repudiate supersessionism but they do not always carefully examine just what that is supposed to mean. Soulen thinks Tapie's work is a remedy to this situation.[84]