Books Jesus Read

Introduction

9

Chinese majority for the sake of “ethnic unity and social stability.” 21 All this recalls the treatment of Jews in Israel in the second century BC when Antiochus Epiphanes decreed that his entire kingdom “should be one people, and that all should give up their particular customs” (1 Macc 1:41–42). Under that oppressive regime, the practice of circumcision and the possession of Torah scrolls became capital offenses, and many Jews chose to lay down their lives rather than conform. A Spiritual Classic? If it still seems odd that the Apocrypha be numbered with the spiritual classics, that may be due to the popular stereotype of spirituality as passive and other-worldly, though nothing could be further from the truth. The spirituality of Second Temple Judaism is rooted in Jewish awareness of their historical identity as a people loved by God and called to radical obedience and decisive action based on their faith in the God who acts on their behalf in history. This spirituality is expressed not only in worshipful psalms and sagely wisdom, but also in the faithful obedience of Tobit and Sarah, the keen discernment of Daniel, and the guerilla warfare waged by Judith and Judas Maccabeus. Surely the very notion of spirituality’s passivity collapses when one recalls the historical movements fostered by the mystic Mahatma Gandhi and the human rights pioneer Martin Luther King, Jr. What, after all, is true spirituality

21 “People’s Republic of China Gross Violations of Human Rights in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region.” Amnesty International, April 1999. Available online at https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/asa17/018/1999/en.