Supersessionism

[4] Often claimed by later Christians to have originated with Paul the Apostle in the New Testament, supersessionism has formed a core tenet of Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholic and Lutheran churches for the majority of their history.

[11] Additionally, as part of Christian–Jewish reconciliation, the Roman Catholic Church has placed an increased emphasis on the shared history between the Christian and modern Jewish religions.

In the opinion of Roman Catholic ex-priest James Carroll, accepting Jesus's divinity, for Paul, was dichotomous with being a Jew.

His personal conversion and his understanding of the dichotomy between being Jewish and accepting Jesus's divinity, was the religious philosophy he wanted to see adopted among other Jews of his time.

"[27] Augustine of Hippo followed the views of the earlier Church Fathers but emphasized the importance to Christianity of the continued existence of the separate Rabbinic Jewish faith: "The Jews ... are thus by their own Scriptures a testimony to us that we have not forged the prophecies about Christ.

[37] The nullification of the Old Covenant was often explained in terms of the "deicide charge" that Jews forfeited their covenantal relationship with God by executing the divine Christ.

The declaration nostra aetate, which was promulgated in 1965, made several statements which signaled a shift away from "hard supersessionist" replacement thinking which posited that the Jews' covenant was no longer acknowledged by God.

Retrieving Paul's language in chapter 11 of his Epistle to the Romans, the declaration states, "God holds the Jews most dear for the sake of their Fathers; He does not repent of the gifts He makes or of the calls He issues. [...]

"[39] Further developments in Catholic thinking on the covenantal status of ethnic Jews were led by Pope John Paul II.

This is not a merely abstract theological affirmation, but an affirmation that has concrete and tangible consequences; namely, that there is no organised Catholic missionary activity towards Jews as there is for all other non-Christian religions.In his apostolic exhortation Evangelii gaudium (2013),[47] Pope Francis emphasized communal heritage and mutual respect for each other, writing: We hold the Jewish people in special regard because their covenant with God has never been revoked, for "the gifts and the call of God are irrevocable" (Rom 11:29).

As Christians, we cannot consider Judaism as a foreign religion; nor do we include the Jews among those called to turn from idols and to serve the true God (cf.

Traditionalist Catholic groups, such as the Society of St. Pius X, strongly oppose the theological developments concerning Judaism made at Vatican II and retain "hard" supersessionist views.

[52]In the Second Vatican Council's lumen gentium[53] (1964), the Church stated that God "chose the race of Israel as a people" and "set up a covenant" with them, instructing them and making them holy.

[54] After the establishment of the political state of Israel in the wake of the Holocaust, mainstream Christian theologians and denominations began to re-examine supersessionism and some communities came to outright reject the teaching.

Extensive discussion is found in Christian views on the Old Covenant and in the respective articles for each of these viewpoints: for example, there is a section within dispensationalism detailing that perspective's concept of Israel.

For example, the Book of Moses narrates that the biblical patriarch Enoch was shown a vision of Jesus as the Messiah who should be crucified and resurrected.

[70] The Book of Abraham narrates that God revealed to the titular biblical patriarch a vision of the Son of Man (a common title for Jesus Christ) being chosen in a premortal council to serve as the Redeemer of mankind.

[72] However, those teachings have been de-emphasized since the latter 20th century in favor of a competing narrative regarding members being adopted or "grafted" into the House of Israel.

[73] The title page of the Book of Mormon—which adherents believe is among content translated by Joseph Smith from the gold plates—states that one of its primary purposes is "to the convincing of the Jew and Gentile that Jesus is the Christ, the Eternal God.

"[74] The Nephites—whom the Book of Mormon presents as ancient Israelites who escaped Jerusalem just before the Babylonian captivity—are said to have kept the Law of Moses with an understanding that it presaged Christ's messianic mission.

[76] In 1982, Elder Bruce R. McConkie, a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, published a book titled The Millennial Messiah, which devotes an entire chapter to "The Jews and the Second Coming".

And because they turn their hearts aside, [...] and have despised the Holy One of Israel, they shall wander in the flesh, and perish, and become a hiss and by-word and be hated among all nations.

"[77][78][79]Some Jews consider the Latter-day Saint practice of posthumous baptism a particularly disrespectful enactment of supersessionist beliefs, and have repeatedly requested that the Church desist from baptizing Jewish Holocaust victims.

[84][85] In its canonical form, the Islamic idea of tahrif teaches that Jewish and Christian scriptures or their interpretations have been corrupted, which has obscured the divine message that they originally contained.

According to this teaching, the Quran both points out and corrects these supposed errors introduced by previous corruption of monotheistic scriptures, which makes it the final and most pure divine revelation.

[86][87] Sandra Toenis Keiting argues that Islam was supersessionist from its inception, advocating the view that the Quranic revelations would "replace the corrupted scriptures possessed by other communities", and that early Islamic scriptures display a "clear theology of revelation that is concerned with establishing the credibility of the nascent community" vis-à-vis other religions.

R. Kendall Soulen notes three categories of supersessionism identified by Christian theologians: punitive, economic, and structural:[91] These three views are neither mutually exclusive, nor logically dependent, and it is possible to hold all of them or any one with or without the others.