When C. S. Lewis was asked what makes Christianity unique among religions, he answered: grace. As a young man in my early twenties who had recently embraced Christianity, I was captivated by this concept, because grace was foreign to Islam. Coming from a performance-based religion, my transition to Christianity felt like what Christ described, coming to Him “weary and heavy laden” to find rest (Matthew 11:28).
During my seminary years, I was exposed to other belief systems, including African spiritual religions and Asian mystical traditions. All of them shared an ethnocentric, technique-driven emphasis on self-reliance for salvation, which further cemented my sense that grace was unique to Christianity. Judaism, naturally, was portrayed as a legalistic, works-based religion. We were taught that Jews are bound to obey the Mosaic Law to achieve salvation and that Christ came to transform this, fulfilling the Law and establishing a new covenant of grace through His death and resurrection (Hebrews 8:6–13). Paul’s writings, particularly in Romans and Galatians, seemed to make this understanding unshakable: the Law functioned as a “pedagogue” or “guardian,” exposing human sinfulness and pointing to the need for a Savior, since no one could perfectly obey it (Romans 3:20; Galatians 3:24).
This framework shaped the lens through which I read the Old Testament. I assumed the Israelites’ actions were driven by a desire to earn salvation “I have set before you life and death” (Deuteronomy 30:19). Coupled with James 2:10 “For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become guilty of all of it”, reinforced the idea that the Law was an unattainable standard and thus Christ becomes the answer to Israel’s struggle.
I never looked hard at Judaism. I assumed there was nothing to find. We “knew” it already, and I thought Paul had settled the matter as works-based, so why dig? Back in 2015 I started reading about the “New Perspective on Paul,” which actually forces you to read Judaism on its own terms, but a Christian scholar I respected told me to drop it. I did. I shelved the subject and poured my energy into translating and publishing Reformed books in the Middle East, and I didn’t touch the question again.
After October 7, 2023, the world witnessed a resurgence of antisemitism, fueled by various factors. Christ was weaponized by some in the anti-Israel movement to attack Israel and further isolate Jews. As someone from a Muslim background who now follows Christ, I have never believed Islam belongs in the same theological family as Judaism and Christianity. I believed Christians and Jews worship the same God, so it was natural for me to write against those who used Christ to support Islamic jihad and attack Jews. I responded to the hypocrisy of critics who fixate on a few ambiguous, potentially offensive references to Jesus in the Talmud, which is a vast library of Jewish interpretation and law, while ignoring the antisemitic writings of church fathers. John Chrysostom, in his Adversus Judaeos sermons (c. 387 CE), called synagogues “brothels” and “dens of robbers,” and Martin Luther’s 1543 tract On the Jews and Their Lies urged burning synagogues and confiscating Jewish property.
However, the anti-Israel rhetoric didn’t stop there. A movement among some on the U.S. right began attempting to fracture the relationship between evangelicals and Jews, reviving old conspiracy theories and theological distortions to undermine Christian support for Israel. They accused Jews, specifically the Rothschild family, of funding the Scofield Reference Bible, a 1909 annotated edition that popularized dispensational premillennialism, to manipulate Christians into backing Zionism and the modern State of Israel. This narrative, popularized by figures like Lyndon LaRouche, gained renewed traction through influencers like Candace Owens, who explicitly claimed the Rothschilds “hired” Cyrus Scofield, a former lawyer with no formal theological training, to insert Zionist-friendly notes into the Bible, thereby “brainwashing” evangelicals into supporting Israel as a divine mandate. Similarly, Tucker Carlson amplified these ideas, questioning the biblical basis for supporting Israel and challenging Sen. Ted Cruz’s citation of Genesis 12:3 (“I will bless those who bless you”) as outdated or manipulated theology tied to “Zionist propaganda” infiltrating churches.
Attacking the Talmud, accusing “Zionists” of manipulating Christians, or insisting that modern Israel isn’t the Israel of the Bible, none of that, strictly speaking, is theological. Those claims can be answered with history, text criticism, context, and basic logic. You can show how cherry-picked rabbinic lines don’t represent Judaism as a whole; you can expose the Scofield–Rothschild conspiracy as recycled folklore; you can debate nation-state continuity without touching the doctrine of God. All of that lives in the realm of evidence and argument.
But a different line was crossed when people began reviving claims that echo the old Marcionite heresy, the move that splits the “wrathful” God of the Hebrew Scriptures from the “loving” Father of the New Testament. I didn’t need a crash course in Judaism to answer that. The Church settled this centuries ago. Marcion was condemned; the rule of faith was affirmed; the canon was received with Israel’s Scriptures intact. The Apostles’ and Nicene Creeds confess the Creator of heaven and earth as the Father of Jesus Christ, not a rival deity, not an upgrade from Israel’s God, but the same God who spoke through the Law and the Prophets. Any Christian who believes the Word of God worships the God of Israel.