By Phyllis Chesler

1) Ahh…the Messiah. Absolutely some of the most beautiful, inspiring and uplifting music ever. I don’t listen to it until Xmas time, and then I listen to it over and over for a week or so, with the 6 different recordings I have (favorites: McCreesh, and then Pinnock), as well as all the versions I can get on Idagio (do you know about Idagio? Great streaming classical music, for only about $15/month, with new releases, all kinds of playlists, etc.). I sang some of it in High School Chorus, and even conducted it once in a school assembly.

Do you know about Handel’s more strictly Jewish oratorios? Judas Maccabeus for Hanukah, and Israel in Egypt for Pesach. The Protestants in parts of Western Europe took the Hebrew Bible quite seriously for a few centuries, as an escape from the Catholic Church and claiming the primacy of the Bible over the church. Harvard has some Hebrew on its seal, and Kierkegaard, to graduate from High School, besides Latin and Greek, had to translate some of Genesis into Danish. (High School was a little tougher back then!). In my heyday of being invited to churches to give guest sermons on religion and the environment, I was always surprised when they used parts of the Torah or psalms or prophets as prayers.

2) Beautiful researching Phyllis! It’s like you to catch the distortion (here embedded in Christian theology since the latter part of the 1st century C.E.) and correct it!

Re your question: although there were some among early Christian thinkers who did advocate dropping the Jewish connection altogether (and Christianity did all it could to discredit the Jews and pretend that their place with God had been transferred to the Christian movement lock, stock & barrel) actually the disconnect could not be effected without Christianity losing its claim to be a religion grounded in history. Without that historical connection, Christianity would have floated skyward and turned into one more gnostic sect, of which the ancient world had many. Also without the claim to havesuperseded Judaism while conveniently incorporating its Bible, Christianity would have lost its title to the antiquity enjoyed by Judaism. The ancient world respected antiquity more than modernity, the old more than the new.

3) So glad you heard this and loved it….now you should check out Handel operas! There are dozens! All gorgeous. Or get a CD of Cecilia Bartoli and Bryn Terfel who have recorded many opera excerpts. She is the best singer of baroque….unmatched. Next year go to the Trinity Church Messiah, IMHO the best performance and best singers. Until the last few years I never missed it.

Also there is an amazing new British CD of Messiah that is nothing like the performances of other groups.I was bowled over. (You can get the streaming of Trinity’s Messiah on line anytime).You can find performances of Handel (and everyone else) on the internet. Most are free. And you can rent from the Met!.. Their Agrippina is astounding…..one of his best…but Theodora is probably his masterpiece. Sadly I can no longer go out alone and I have no one interested in opera. You would be amazed how much music you can pull up on the internet! It keeps me breathing.

4) Loved this! Also...ask your Christian friends: if Jesus were to show up at a dinner in his honor on Christmas, and the main course was Christmas ham, what would they serve him?