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[sophiaserpentia]

E. Shuessler Fiorenza has some interesting thoughts on Christianity as an "emancipatory" movement (rather than a "reform" movement) and the implications of this reading.

One concern that comes up in this regard is to watch for the influence of anti-Judaism. She promotes the vision of Christianity as drawing from the long-standing emancipatory current of the Jewish tradition in response to the injustice and inhumanity of a kyriarchal/imperial regime, rather than as reformers stepping outside of Jewish tradition to react against Jewish ideology. This latter view implies that Judaism offered a uniform dehumanizing ideological rigidity, rather than admitting that Judean society and religious views were just as varied and vibrant as any society has ever been.

This becomes thorny:

I recall vividly a Group Project discussion several years after In Memory of Her had appeared. The students had re-presented the story of the hemorrhaging wo/man in Mark 5 and repeated its malestream interpretation that understands the text in light of the purity regulations of Leviticus. There was stunned silence when I criticized the group for not paying attention to the fact that according to Mark the problem is medical and economic rather than one of cultic purity. Finally, a student mustered the courage to object: "But we just followed what you said in In Memory of Her." I checked and she was right: without noticing it I had not quite managed to avoid the anti-Jewish stereotype against cultic purity. (Jesus and the Politics of Interpretation, p. 120)

Secondly, if Christianity was a liberation movement, rather than an apocalyptic millenarian cult, this might change the way we view the dynamics of the movement or even the role of Jesus within it. Should we continue to view Jesus as a charismatic genius who singularly initiated the Christian movement?

It is curious that scholars resort to the language and paradigm of millenarianism among the "natives" when reconstructing the Jesus movement rather than looking critically at the new social movements of their own time and society such as the workers' movement, the civil rights movement, the feminist movement, or the ecological movement, among others. ... To understand social movements and their hopes and dreams in the way millenarianism does is to misunderstand their pathos for bringing about justice.

In contrast to the construct of millenarian movements, social movements for change are not always inaugurated by a charismatic leader nor do they expect that change will benefit only their own group, the "elect." For instance,the civil rights movement was not initiated by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., nor was it considered to be "his" movement. Rather, he was a part of the civil rights movement and provided the rhetorical leadership that galvanized the movement. (ibid, p. 111)

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[sophiaserpentia.livejournal.com]

The point that I glean from Schuessler Fiorenza's argument is that the modern orthodox interpretation of mikvah is but one of several interpretations held within Jewish tradition throughout the ages. In other words, not all Jews, then or now, read the text of the Torah as closely as Orthodox Jews or Fundamentalist Christians today.

The concern is thus that Christianity as cast as stepping outside Judaism to "free us" from the cruel yoke of harsh Jewish law, when it is more appropriately seen as one Jewish interpretation being argued against another Jewish interpretation.