What do you think about these Martin Luther quotes?

[NathanH83]

Did I not tell you earlier that a Jew is such a noble, precious jewel that God and all the angels dance when he farts?

Moreover, they are nothing but thieves and robbers who daily eat no morsel and wear no thread of clothing which they have not stolen and pilfered from us by means of their accursed usury. Thus, they live from day to day, together with wife and child, by theft and robbery, as arch thieves and robbers, in the most impenitent security.

Sixth, I advise that usury be prohibited to them, and that all cash and treasure of silver and gold be taken from them and put aside for safekeeping. The reason for such a measure is that, as said above, they have no other means of earning a livelihood than usury, and by it they have stolen and robbed from us all they possess. Such money should now be used in no other way than the following: Whenever a Jew is sincerely converted, he should be handed one hundred, two hundred, or three hundred florins, as personal circumstances may suggest. With this he could set himself up in some occupation for the support of his poor wife and children, and the maintenance of the old or feeble. For such evil gains are cursed if they are not put to use with God’s blessing in a good and worthy cause.

Seventh, I commend putting a flail, an ax, a hoe, a spade, a distaff, or a spindle into the hands of young, strong Jews and Jewesses and letting them earn their bread in the sweat of their brow, as was imposed on the children of Adam (Gen 3[:19]}. For it is not fitting that they should let us accursed Goyim toil in the sweat of our faces while they, the holy people, idle away their time behind the stove, feasting and farting, and on top of all, boasting blasphemously of their lordship over the Christians by means of our sweat. No, one should toss out these lazy rogues by the seat of their pants.

Martin Luther - "The Jews & Their Lies"

Encyclopedia of Jewish and Israeli history, politics and culture, with biographies, statistics, articles and documents on topics from anti-Semitism to Zionism.

www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org

 

[Josiah]

There's just no end to this myth.... For some 80 years now, this has been perpetuated by people who know nothing of Luther, nothing about what he said, and LOVE to just tear things out of context and change the definition of "Jew" that existed for centuries before a French anthropologist changed it to refer not to those holding to the Jewish faith but to the Hebrew people, those who hold they are physical descendants of Abraham.

And I find it ... curious.... since I became a Lutheran, I've noted that Lutherans seem to care less what Luther said than others (especially Catholics). To LUTHERANS, Luther is not a Pope, not infallible, not even authoritative or seen as necessary right about anything (well, he says a lot of good things about beer). He put his pants on one leg at a time.... he sinned.... he erred....he talked too much... he used a lot of hyperbole and often was very polemic. And he ate too much. We respect his courage and celebrate his focus on the Gospel but.... Telling Lutherans what Luther said is similar to telling US residents what George Washington said... just not all that important. But he SURE said a lot.... and it's very easy to find WHATEVER you want if you dig long enough and don't care about context or what people meant by these things over 500 years ago.

We've been over this many times here at CH. See this thread: Luther and the Jews



Game over.

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[Lamb]

Luther quotes need to be read

In context
With attention to what time period and time in his life it was written
and To Whom it was written

Without that, you have people stating all kinds of things that might have changed or are twisted.

 

[Tigger]

Although a lot of off color remarks were hyperbole or taken out of context Luther himself made no bones about his verbose speaking habits especially while drinking beer with his compadres. It doesn't help when your students made it a point to hang out until something attention getting spude out of Luther's mouth.

In someways it makes him endearing to me much like the actions and remarks made by the Apostle Peter does.

 

[NathanH83]

Luther quotes need to be read

In context
With attention to what time period and time in his life it was written
and To Whom it was written

Without that, you have people stating all kinds of things that might have changed or are twisted.

How about saying we should burn synagogues to the ground? Can you explain that in context?

 

[Lamb]

How about saying we should burn synagogues to the ground? Can you explain that in context?

Did you go through the process I suggested first to try to understand why a person would say such a thing? It's deplorable for sure, but there is a reason why.

 

[NathanH83]

Did you go through the process I suggested first to try to understand why a person would say such a thing? It's deplorable for sure, but there is a reason why.

I’m sure Luther had his reasons. I just find it interesting that Luther is a good guy, even though he said deplorable things like burning synagogues. But Hitler is a completely evil person for actually burning synagogues.

 

[Lamb]

I’m sure Luther had his reasons. I just find it interesting that Luther is a good guy, even though he said deplorable things like burning synagogues. But Hitler is a completely evil person for actually burning synagogues.

Luther was a good guy? Luther was a sinner. I'm a sinner. You're a sinner. All the more reason to point to Jesus. Right?

 

[NathanH83]

Luther was a good guy? Luther was a sinner. I'm a sinner. You're a sinner. All the more reason to point to Jesus. Right?

To be honest, I’m not condemning Luther, nor am I vindicating Hitler. I just find it interesting that BOTH of them were extremely frustrated and angered by the usury of the Jews.

What do you think is happening in America?

 

[Lamb]

To be honest, I’m not condemning Luther, nor am I vindicating Hitler. I just find it interesting that BOTH of them were extremely frustrated and angered by the usury of the Jews.

What do you think is happening in America?

What does the present day have to do with Luther's quotes?

 

[Stravinsk]

To be honest, I’m not condemning Luther, nor am I vindicating Hitler. I just find it interesting that BOTH of them were extremely frustrated and angered by the usury of the Jews.

What do you think is happening in America?

I think of it like this: The people that have the most influence over media, politics and finances hide behind a jewish label in order to further their plans and discredit Judaism at the same time.

It should be remembered that though the "chosen people", these people have a long biblical history of rebellion, idol worship, and horrendous, inhumane acts, even to their own children, recorded right there in what we call the "old testament". Even in Isaiah, animal sacrifice, thought to be what God desired to remove sin, is exposed as a lie, added to the Torah. Who added? Rebellious people hiding under "israelite" or "jewish" label.

As for usury, if one removes the "jew" label which is used to shut off probing thought, it is the method by which evil people gain control of all the world's resources and media. They create money at interest, putting all nations (usually through war and other wasteful expenses) into unpayable debt, and the people themselves into debt. With this they then eventually buy up and control all the world's resources and it's influential media.

To what end though? A new world order that may look "jewish" (for instance, having a world court based in Israel), but is actually just another expression of their rebellion against God, which God will come and destroy.

 

[NathanH83]

What does the present day have to do with Luther's quotes?

One of Luther’s quotes complains about usury.

Usury is happening today.

 

[Josiah]

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Luther was anti-Jewish RELIGION. He was not anti-Semite. Luther was opposed to the Jewish RELIGION... and thus to those who held to and proclaimed the Jewish RELIGION. His position was NOT anti-Semitic, it had nothing whatsoever to do with race or ancestry, it had to so with RELIGION. Hitler, who abused religion (and pretty much everything else) for his own purpose, was not opposed to the Jewish RELIGION but to the Jewish PEOPLE; he was anti-Semitic. Apples and oranges.

Now, without a doubt, no one I know would EVER defend the verbiage Luther used..... He lived in an age that was the antithesis of our "Political Correct" milieu, people just talked like that 500 years ago in Europe, but even admitting the culture of his age, it's terrible. While I agree with him that the Jewish RELIGION is wrong to deny Christ and the Christian Gospel (no shock there), I repudiate the way he expressed that.




The following is from James Swan (not a Lutheran BTW): Was Luther an Anti-Semite?

It should be kept in my mind that Luther’s later anti-Jewish tracts were written from a position different than current concept of anti-Semitism. Luther was born into a society that was anti-Judaic, but it was not the current anti-Judaic type of society that bases it racism on biological factors. Luther had no objections to integrating converted Jews fully into Christian society. He had nothing against Jews as “Jews” as a race. He had something against their religion because he believed it denied Christ.

Dr. Heiko Oberman points out, “One thing must be clearly understood: Luther was anti-Jewish in his repeated warnings against the Jews (of any race) because of it denied the Christian Gospel and thus Christ. But Luther was not an anti-Semite or racist of any kind because- to apply the test appropriate to his time- for him a baptized Jew is fully Christian and because it matters not at all to him whether an advocate of the Jewish religion was Jew or Gentile."

Lutheran scholar Dr. Eric Gritsch echoes Oberman’s point: “Luther was not an anti-Semite in the modern racist sense. His arguments against the Jews were theological, not biological or racist." Dr. Gritsch goes on to point out the origin of biological anti-Semitism: “Not until a French cultural anthropologist in the nineteenth century held that humankind consisted of ‘Semites’ and ‘Aryans’ were Semites considered inferior. Alfonse de Gobineau’s views were quickly adopted by European intellectuals and politicians, and Jews became the scapegoats of a snobbish colonialist society in England, France, and Germany. The rest is history- including the Jewish holocaust perpetrated by Adolf Hitler and his regime. National Socialists abused Luther to support their new racist anti-Semitism, calling him a genuine German who had hated non-Nordic races.”

In his article “Luther’s Attitudes toward Judaism,” Dr. Carter Lindberg provides an excellent example proving Luther’s anti-Jewish writings were not motivated by racism. Dr. Lindberg says, “More to the point is Luther’s stance on religious intermarriage. In his criticism of the medieval Catholic canonical prohibition against a Christian marrying a Jew, Luther wrote, "Just as I may eat, drink, sleep, walk, ride with, buy from, speak to, and deal with a heathen, Jew, Turk, or heretic, so I may also marry and continue in wedlock with him. Pay no attention to the precepts of those fools who forbid it. You will find plenty of Christians—and indeed the greater part of them—who are worse in their secret unbelief than any Jew. A heathen is just as much a man or a woman—God's good creation—as St. Peter, St. Paul, and St. Lucy, not to speak of a slack and spurious Christian."

Rather than being motivated by biological factors, Luther’s criticisms were motivated by theological concerns. Luther directed intensely abusive language against Anabaptists, lawyers, the papacy, and the Jews, the issue never being race but theology. The Jews had a religion based upon works righteousness. When Luther attacked these groups, he felt he was attacking the devil- the underlying spirit of works righteousness.

Equally, he was opposed to any sense of racial superiority. In his last expositions on Genesis in 1544, Luther makes it explicit that no one has the right to boast on their race or lineage: “Accordingly, the Jews have no grounds for boasting; they should humble themselves and acknowledge their maternal blood. For on their father’s side they are Israelites; but on their mother’s side they are Gentiles, Moabites, Assyrians, Egyptians, Canaanites. And by this God wanted to point out that the Messiah would be a brother and a cousin of both the Jews and the Gentiles, if not according to their paternal genealogy, at least according to their maternal nature. Consequently, there is no distinction between Jews and Gentiles, except that Moses later separated this people from the Gentiles by a different form of worship and political regime. Moreover, these things were written to make it known to all that the Messiah would gather the Gentiles and the Jews into one and the same church, just as they are joined by nature and consanguinity.”

In his commentary on Galatians 3:28, Luther explains we are all equal. No particular people has any right to claim special privilege before God: “ ‘There is neither magistrate nor subject, neither professor nor listener, neither teacher nor pupil, neither lady nor servant.’ For in Christ Jesus all social stations, even those that were divinely ordained, are nothing. Male, female, slave, free, Jew, Gentile, king, subject—these are, of course, good creatures of God. But in Christ, that is, in the matter of salvation, they amount to nothing, for all their wisdom, righteousness, devotion, and authority.”

Luther’s most well known anti-Jewish writing was On The Jews and Their Lies. It is often quoted and cited as the clearest example of Luther’s anti-Semitism. Interestingly though, this very document proves that Luther was not a biological anti-Semite, he was not against the Jews as people, nor did he seek for their extermination. In that treatise, Luther launches into a long section against any notion that the Jews are better than anyone else. He puts forth an alleged popular anti-Jewish argument that they thanked God that they were not born gentiles or women. In arguing against this caricature, Luther mocks those who think any one particular people is better than another: “…[T]he Greek Plato daily accorded God such praise and thanksgiving—if such arrogance and blasphemy may be termed praise of God. This man, too, praised his gods for these three items: that he was a human being and not an animal; a male and not a female; a Greek and not a non-Greek or barbarian…Similarly, the Italians fancy themselves the only human beings; they imagine that all other people in the world are nonhumans, mere ducks or mice by comparison.”



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[MrW]

Luther didn’t say Jews were pigs who should be killed?

 

[Andrew]

Luther didn’t say Jews were pigs who should be killed?

Did he?

 

[Lamb]

Luther didn’t say Jews were pigs who should be killed?

Where did he say that? What is the context? To whom did it say it? Why did he say it?

Like I said before, people pull quotes out without considering all those questions above. It's an absolutely horrible thing to say if he said it but you can understand more about why he said it if you investigate more.

 

[NathanH83]

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Luther was anti-Jewish RELIGION. He was not anti-Semite. Luther was opposed to the Jewish RELIGION... and thus to those who held to and proclaimed the Jewish RELIGION. His position was NOT anti-Semitic, it had nothing whatsoever to do with race or ancestry, it had to so with RELIGION. Hitler, who abused religion (and pretty much everything else) for his own purpose, was not opposed to the Jewish RELIGION but to the Jewish PEOPLE; he was anti-Semitic. Apples and oranges.

Now, without a doubt, no one I know would EVER defend the verbiage Luther used..... He lived in an age that was the antithesis of our "Political Correct" milieu, people just talked like that 500 years ago in Europe, but even admitting the culture of his age, it's terrible. While I agree with him that the Jewish RELIGION is wrong to deny Christ and the Christian Gospel (no shock there), I repudiate the way he expressed that.




The following is from James Swan (not a Lutheran BTW): Was Luther an Anti-Semite?

It should be kept in my mind that Luther’s later anti-Jewish tracts were written from a position different than current concept of anti-Semitism. Luther was born into a society that was anti-Judaic, but it was not the current anti-Judaic type of society that bases it racism on biological factors. Luther had no objections to integrating converted Jews fully into Christian society. He had nothing against Jews as “Jews” as a race. He had something against their religion because he believed it denied Christ.

Dr. Heiko Oberman points out, “One thing must be clearly understood: Luther was anti-Jewish in his repeated warnings against the Jews (of any race) because of it denied the Christian Gospel and thus Christ. But Luther was not an anti-Semite or racist of any kind because- to apply the test appropriate to his time- for him a baptized Jew is fully Christian and because it matters not at all to him whether an advocate of the Jewish religion was Jew or Gentile."

Lutheran scholar Dr. Eric Gritsch echoes Oberman’s point: “Luther was not an anti-Semite in the modern racist sense. His arguments against the Jews were theological, not biological or racist." Dr. Gritsch goes on to point out the origin of biological anti-Semitism: “Not until a French cultural anthropologist in the nineteenth century held that humankind consisted of ‘Semites’ and ‘Aryans’ were Semites considered inferior. Alfonse de Gobineau’s views were quickly adopted by European intellectuals and politicians, and Jews became the scapegoats of a snobbish colonialist society in England, France, and Germany. The rest is history- including the Jewish holocaust perpetrated by Adolf Hitler and his regime. National Socialists abused Luther to support their new racist anti-Semitism, calling him a genuine German who had hated non-Nordic races.”

In his article “Luther’s Attitudes toward Judaism,” Dr. Carter Lindberg provides an excellent example proving Luther’s anti-Jewish writings were not motivated by racism. Dr. Lindberg says, “More to the point is Luther’s stance on religious intermarriage. In his criticism of the medieval Catholic canonical prohibition against a Christian marrying a Jew, Luther wrote, "Just as I may eat, drink, sleep, walk, ride with, buy from, speak to, and deal with a heathen, Jew, Turk, or heretic, so I may also marry and continue in wedlock with him. Pay no attention to the precepts of those fools who forbid it. You will find plenty of Christians—and indeed the greater part of them—who are worse in their secret unbelief than any Jew. A heathen is just as much a man or a woman—God's good creation—as St. Peter, St. Paul, and St. Lucy, not to speak of a slack and spurious Christian."

Rather than being motivated by biological factors, Luther’s criticisms were motivated by theological concerns. Luther directed intensely abusive language against Anabaptists, lawyers, the papacy, and the Jews, the issue never being race but theology. The Jews had a religion based upon works righteousness. When Luther attacked these groups, he felt he was attacking the devil- the underlying spirit of works righteousness.

Equally, he was opposed to any sense of racial superiority. In his last expositions on Genesis in 1544, Luther makes it explicit that no one has the right to boast on their race or lineage: “Accordingly, the Jews have no grounds for boasting; they should humble themselves and acknowledge their maternal blood. For on their father’s side they are Israelites; but on their mother’s side they are Gentiles, Moabites, Assyrians, Egyptians, Canaanites. And by this God wanted to point out that the Messiah would be a brother and a cousin of both the Jews and the Gentiles, if not according to their paternal genealogy, at least according to their maternal nature. Consequently, there is no distinction between Jews and Gentiles, except that Moses later separated this people from the Gentiles by a different form of worship and political regime. Moreover, these things were written to make it known to all that the Messiah would gather the Gentiles and the Jews into one and the same church, just as they are joined by nature and consanguinity.”

In his commentary on Galatians 3:28, Luther explains we are all equal. No particular people has any right to claim special privilege before God: “ ‘There is neither magistrate nor subject, neither professor nor listener, neither teacher nor pupil, neither lady nor servant.’ For in Christ Jesus all social stations, even those that were divinely ordained, are nothing. Male, female, slave, free, Jew, Gentile, king, subject—these are, of course, good creatures of God. But in Christ, that is, in the matter of salvation, they amount to nothing, for all their wisdom, righteousness, devotion, and authority.”

Luther’s most well known anti-Jewish writing was On The Jews and Their Lies. It is often quoted and cited as the clearest example of Luther’s anti-Semitism. Interestingly though, this very document proves that Luther was not a biological anti-Semite, he was not against the Jews as people, nor did he seek for their extermination. In that treatise, Luther launches into a long section against any notion that the Jews are better than anyone else. He puts forth an alleged popular anti-Jewish argument that they thanked God that they were not born gentiles or women. In arguing against this caricature, Luther mocks those who think any one particular people is better than another: “…[T]he Greek Plato daily accorded God such praise and thanksgiving—if such arrogance and blasphemy may be termed praise of God. This man, too, praised his gods for these three items: that he was a human being and not an animal; a male and not a female; a Greek and not a non-Greek or barbarian…Similarly, the Italians fancy themselves the only human beings; they imagine that all other people in the world are nonhumans, mere ducks or mice by comparison.”



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I didn’t read this big long book that you wrote. But I agree with your first statement. Luther was against the anti-Christ religion of modern Judaism. He was not a racist who was against the Jewish RACE. Thus, he was not an anti-semite. He was not racist. He makes it clear that his anger is against their blasphemy against Christ, and against their usury against God’s people. Modern Judaism is based more on the Talmud than on the writings of Moses or the prophets.

 

[MrW]

Martin Luther and antisemitism - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

 

[Lamb]

Martin Luther and antisemitism - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

And so?

 

[MrW]

I read it. If the history is true, it’s terrible.