Theological And Historical Analysis For Martin Luther's Idea On The Jews

Martin Luther wrote five articles about Jews, and he also spoke them in his sermons, lessons, and table talk. Between 1513 when he began to teach Psalm in the college and 1546 when he launched his last sermon, he always kept an eye on Jews, which was rare among his contemporaries. On the other hand, these articles accounted for a small part in his works. Luther was a diligent writer, and never stopped writing, with the recording by his students, his books as many as sand in the sea. How should these articles on the Jew be understood?Luther was concerned about the Jew for a long time. One of the reasons is that he explained his theological ideas by refuting the Jew. Especially he accused Jews "self-righteousness" and "the lawism". Luther blamed the Jews obeyed the law literally. But the law is given to the perfect human, who are not able to behave according to the law after falling down. The Jews act the law without pure heart, which leads to a kind of formalism. As a result, Luther persuaded the Jews to give up Judaism and accept Christ. He began to explain the Old Testament and said it came true in Jesus Christ. However, the Jews can not agree with him.It is not fair to judge a man out of context, and we have to judge Martin Luther in the context of the sixteenth century. Middle Ages have seen a lot of prejudice and superstition about the Jews, which had impact on Luther. The contemporaries, the Catholics, the Humanist, the Reformers, accused the Jews without any sympathy. It is not very strange when we see Luther in the context.Before Nazi, it is not very easy for us to say that the Luther's articles on the Jews have an important influence in the history, until Hitler. Obviously, there is a big difference between the Anti-Semitism in the sense of modern racism and Luther's anti-Judaism in the sense of theology. Luther wished the Jews convert to Christianity; otherwise, Hitler destroyed their bodies. Luther did not know the concept of race and gene in modern time, and in his mind the Jews were different from Christian by faith. We also can not absolve the responsibility for Luther, after all, many of his negative evaluation and description about the Jews are abused by Nazi, and lead to very bad consequences.This thesis is divided into four parts on Luther's ideas on the Jews, theological analysis, historical background and influence. At last I will evaluate them.