More Old World Breads...And Soups Too Book

Jacobs takes us on an odyssey of Bread, its impact on human cultures and religions through the age. He writes, not as an anthropologist or an archaeologist, but like a 19th century author, steeped in the classics. We are taken into the minds of those who first discovered that if flour and water stand long enough, it bubbles and rises. Yeast is formed by microbes, but Jacobs never gets that scientific, nor should he. He tells the story of bread through the stories of pagan religions, including the worship of Demeter in Greece. Her adherents, who were numerous, believed that by eating the holy bread during her annual festival, they would be granted eternal life.

The parallel with Christianity and communion is unmistakable. The worship of Demeter was flourishing at the time of Jesus' deification, and the Gospel writers were familar with it. Paul himself was a Hellenized half-Jew, and the Gospels were written in Greek, no Aramaic, Jesus' language.

Jacobs himself was a German Jew. Like many assimilated German Jews, even though he was sent to a concentration camp, he knew nothing about Judaism. But he did know about Christianity. Therefore, he repeats two charges against Jews that any Jew who knew their religion and also knew about Christianity, would never make.

The first is that he claims that the Jews wanted Jesus dead because he contradicted Judaism. For one thing, even if he had done that, it wouldn't be a capital offense in Judaism. Blasphemy was a Christian concept. In fact, however. Jesus did not say anything that wasn't accepted Rabbinical Judaism of his day or of ours. He was a follower of Hillel who formulated The Golden Rule 70 years before Jesus. Jesus called the Pharisees hypocrites because they didn't practice what they preached. What they preached is what Jesus was preaching. You call people hypocrites when they supposedly believe what you believe, but don't act accordingly.

The second charge, one that has caused 2000 years of bloody persecution is that the Jews were responsible for Jesus' death. It was the Romans who wanted him dead. The Jews were very rebellious towards Roman rule, and Jesus was being called The King of the Jews. So,the Romans saw him as a big troublemaker. I know the Gospels claim that the Sanhedrin met to condemn Jesus to death on Passover. However, the Sanhedrin would no more have met on Passover than the Supreme Court would meet on Easter. And, there's no reason the Sanhedrin would have wanted him dead. Crucifixion was a distinctly Roman form of death, not a Jewish one. The Catholic Church itself proclaimed about half a century ago that the Jews were not responsible for Jesus' death.

These facts don't lessen the main point of Jacobs' book: that religions through the ages have made bread the focus of their rituals, up to the practice of modern Christian communion. However, the damage done by ignorant assertions like Jacobs's cannot go unchallenged. Except for those, this is an interesting book