On “Image and Reality” by Judith Lieu ***

This work explores the images of Jewish people in second-century Christian literature, especially that focused around Asia Minor. Literature includes the writings of Ignatius, the Martyrdom of Polycarp, Justin Martyr's Dialogue with Trypho, various apologists, and Melito. The writing is very much scholarly, and the work isn't, in the end, terribly approachable. Lieu, of course, makes some excellent points and drew to my attention a number of issues and contexts of which I'd been unaware, but the work is difficult to outline or summarize, given a certain degree of unapproachability.

The gist of the argument seems to be that we should be cautious about how we view Jews in Christian literature of the time. Jews were often used to define Christianity, as so many scholars point out. This “image” isn't necessarily accurate when compared to the “reality” of the situation. Even so, Lieu cautions, we have to be careful even about this common trope—namely, that Christians used Jews to define their own faith. Often, Jews don't show up at all, and the way in which they are portrayed depends heavily on who is writing, why they are writing, and the genre that they are using. We can be just as careless, in other words, in presenting an “image” of Christianity rather than the “reality,” as we can be about the Jewish people and faith, when writing about the period. Indeed, anytime we write about literature or history, we are dealing in generalities that may not actually apply to a specific situation and that may color how a given work is read. That seems a valid warning, but I'm not sure how useful it is; rather, it seems an obvious truism that anyone who studies in any field should be aware of.