# Christ, Christmas, and Judaism with Ben Shapiro - Bishop Barron's Daily Sermons

An episode of [Daily Sermons With Bishop Robert Barron](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/6783446284), 11 Jul 2026, 9:37.

Audio: https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/api.spreaker.com/download/episode/72733600/christ_christmas_and_judaism_with_ben_shapiro.mp3



## Transcript

[0:00] Speaker 1: Joining us the line is Bishop of Robert Baron.
[0:01] Speaker 2: He's Bishop of the Diocese of Winona, Rochester of Minnesota
[0:04] Speaker 2: and the founder of Word on Fire Catholic Ministries. Through
[0:07] Speaker 2: Word on Fire, Bishop Baron reaches millions of people every year.
[0:09] Speaker 2: He's one of the world's most followed Catholics on social media.
[0:13] Speaker 2: Bishop Baron, great to talk to.
[0:14] Speaker 3: You, then, good to see you.
[0:19] Speaker 1: So let's talk a little.
[0:20] Speaker 2: Bit about something that you've talked about a lot in
[0:22] Speaker 2: recent years, and that is what you call the rejudaizing
[0:24] Speaker 2: of the Church. What exactly does that means. Obviously, they're
[0:27] Speaker 2: fairly significant differences between Judaism and Christianity.
[0:30] Speaker 1: But what do you mean by rejudaizing the Church.
[0:32] Speaker 4: Well, it's exceptionally important because the first Christians read Jesus
[0:37] Speaker 4: thoroughly in light of what we'd call the Old Testament.
[0:40] Speaker 4: If you try to interpret Jesus apart from the Old Testament,
[0:43] Speaker 4: you'll get necessarily a distorted Jesus. So Saint Paul is
[0:47] Speaker 4: a good example. Rabbi Shaolul becomes Paul the Apostle and
[0:51] Speaker 4: he says Jesus is the yes to all the promises
[0:54] Speaker 4: made to Israel, which means you can't understand him apart
[0:58] Speaker 4: from what's anticipated in Israel. When we deed judaize Christianity,
[1:05] Speaker 4: it turns into kind of a gnostic philosophy. You see,
[1:08] Speaker 4: by the way, a lot of that on display today.
[1:10] Speaker 4: Whatever Jesus is presented as a kind of teacher of
[1:14] Speaker 4: timeless moral truths, or he's like a great sage from
[1:17] Speaker 4: the ancient world, you know you've misread him. He's the
[1:20] Speaker 4: yes to all the promises made to Israel, and only
[1:23] Speaker 4: against that background will you properly understand him.
[1:27] Speaker 2: So let's talk more formally about what exactly the distinction
[1:30] Speaker 2: is between those two views of Jesus. One as not
[1:33] Speaker 2: just you know, God in the Catholic world view, but
[1:35] Speaker 2: also as a Jewish figures, as born as a Jew,
[1:40] Speaker 2: lived as a Jew. You know what exactly would that
[1:43] Speaker 2: mean as opposed to the sort of thing that we've
[1:44] Speaker 2: been told by the media, the the sort of almost
[1:48] Speaker 2: Buddha esque figure who just is there to say pithy
[1:51] Speaker 2: statements and then and then get out of your way.
[1:54] Speaker 4: Yeah, I would say, looking at the sweep of biblical history,
[1:58] Speaker 4: you see a kind of five act drama beginning with creation,
[2:02] Speaker 4: followed by the Fall, followed by the formation of a
[2:05] Speaker 4: people Israel, which is God's great rescue operation, God's attempt
[2:09] Speaker 4: to restore his creation. And then we would say the
[2:12] Speaker 4: great story of Israel culminates in the coming of the
[2:16] Speaker 4: Anointed One, the coming of the New David, the fulfillment
[2:20] Speaker 4: of the promises made to Israel. So that's the fourth act,
[2:23] Speaker 4: is the coming of the Messiah. And then we would say,
[2:25] Speaker 4: followed by a fifth act that we're in now until
[2:28] Speaker 4: the very end of time, which is the era of
[2:30] Speaker 4: the Church. Now people being drawn more and more into
[2:33] Speaker 4: what we call the mystical body of Christ. But see
[2:36] Speaker 4: Christ fits into that narrative. It's a Jewish narrative. It's
[2:40] Speaker 4: a biblical narrative from creation to fall, to Israel to
[2:44] Speaker 4: the Messiah.
[2:45] Speaker 3: If you take him out.
[2:46] Speaker 4: Of that, then you get this distorted I would say,
[2:49] Speaker 4: at best, mildly interesting Jesus, but the compelling Jesus is
[2:53] Speaker 4: the one who fulfills the story of Israel.
[2:58] Speaker 2: So obviously we've seen this vast uptake anti Semitism in
[3:01] Speaker 2: the wake of October seventh, which is pretty astonishing given
[3:03] Speaker 2: the fact that it was the largest attack on Jews
[3:05] Speaker 2: since the Holocaust, and much of the world has responded
[3:08] Speaker 2: by hating Jews more as a result of that attack
[3:11] Speaker 2: on Jews. Now, how should number one Christians understand that?
[3:14] Speaker 2: And number two you suggest that a better understanding of
[3:18] Speaker 2: the New Testament is a curative towards some of the
[3:20] Speaker 2: anti Semitism that we're seeing right now.
[3:22] Speaker 3: I think it will help.
[3:23] Speaker 4: I mean, obviously, any form of anti Semitism is morally repugnant.
[3:27] Speaker 4: And you know, in recent years, the popes have been
[3:29] Speaker 4: so good, let's say, commencing with John Paul the second,
[3:32] Speaker 4: but even before him, go back to Pious the eleventh
[3:34] Speaker 4: that we're all spiritually Semites. He said in regard to Christians.
[3:38] Speaker 4: So the pope's have been really good and strong. Think
[3:41] Speaker 4: of the Second Vatican Council nostre a tat as the
[3:43] Speaker 4: document in question that condemns any form of anti Semitism.
[3:47] Speaker 4: So that's a very important theme. But I think our
[3:51] Speaker 4: point is when Christians realize how Jewish their own religion is,
[3:56] Speaker 4: when they realize how Jewish their own scriptures are, that
[3:59] Speaker 4: we can't understand Jesus.
[4:01] Speaker 3: Apart from it.
[4:02] Speaker 4: I think that helps, because a Christianity which has become
[4:05] Speaker 4: anti Semitic is going to tear itself apart, and I'll
[4:09] Speaker 4: go all the way back then to the second century.
[4:11] Speaker 4: This is a very old fight within Christianity. There was
[4:14] Speaker 4: a figure called Marcian. It was a theologian based in Rome.
[4:18] Speaker 4: And Marcian said, look, get rid of the Old Testament.
[4:20] Speaker 4: It's testimony to a fallen a god.
[4:23] Speaker 3: Let's just keep a.
[4:24] Speaker 4: Few parts of the New Testament that are most free
[4:26] Speaker 4: of Jewish influence, and that's our religion. Well, the great
[4:30] Speaker 4: Saint Irenaeus and then other early church figures said no
[4:34] Speaker 4: to Marcian, and that was a decisively important move. But see,
[4:38] Speaker 4: Marsianism is a very persistent heresy. Whenever today you hear
[4:42] Speaker 4: people say, oh, you know, I hate that the God
[4:44] Speaker 4: of the Old Testament is cruel and violent and all that.
[4:47] Speaker 4: I like the God of Jesus the New Testament, that's
[4:50] Speaker 4: a neo Marsianism. And the Church in ancient times and
[4:54] Speaker 4: now has always to say no to Marxianism, because we
[4:57] Speaker 4: will miss Jesus if we go down there road.
[5:02] Speaker 2: So I want to talk now a little bit about
[5:04] Speaker 2: Christmas more broadly and what it ought to mean to people.
[5:06] Speaker 2: So obviously it's been robbed of an enormous Mountain meaning
[5:09] Speaker 2: over the course of the last century or so, particularly
[5:12] Speaker 2: in the United States. I mean, even Jews like me
[5:14] Speaker 2: enjoy a lot of the cultural trappings of Christmas, but
[5:16] Speaker 2: obviously for Christians it's supposed to mean a lot more
[5:19] Speaker 2: than it is for me as a Jew, or I
[5:20] Speaker 2: just go get some Chinese food or something. I mean,
[5:22] Speaker 2: it's been this, It's turned into this commercialized version of
[5:26] Speaker 2: what is a religious ritual. And it's very strange that
[5:29] Speaker 2: that has become the way that people think about about Christmas,
[5:32] Speaker 2: with arguments where the Diehard is a Christmas movie as
[5:35] Speaker 2: opposed to what the original meaning of Christianity, of Christianity was,
[5:38] Speaker 2: what Christmas should be? So why don't you give me
[5:41] Speaker 2: the Christian view of what Christmas should be? How should
[5:43] Speaker 2: Christians act on Christmas? What should it look like?
[5:46] Speaker 3: Well, here's the first observation.
[5:48] Speaker 4: I mean, you and I are going to disagree, obviously
[5:49] Speaker 4: about Jesus and how we read him, but I think
[5:52] Speaker 4: we can and should find common ground in how to
[5:54] Speaker 4: read the Christmas stories. The Christmas stories have to be
[5:58] Speaker 4: read in a Jewish way. You open the first page
[6:01] Speaker 4: of the New Testament, what do you find? Page one
[6:03] Speaker 4: of the Gospel of Matthew. You find this lengthy, detailed
[6:07] Speaker 4: genealogy of Jesus that takes you all the way through
[6:10] Speaker 4: in a very loamy way, from Abraham all the way
[6:13] Speaker 4: up to Jesus, arranged by the way, in three sets
[6:17] Speaker 4: of fourteen generations, from Abraham to David to the captivity,
[6:21] Speaker 4: the captivity to Jesus. Well, of course, the attentive Jewish
[6:24] Speaker 4: reader is going to say fourteen. What's fourteen? But the
[6:27] Speaker 4: number of the corresponds to Dahweed to David. So Matthew
[6:31] Speaker 4: was saying right away, this figure I'm going to tell
[6:33] Speaker 4: you about is David, David David, and he can only
[6:37] Speaker 4: be understood through this long history of Israel. Look for example,
[6:42] Speaker 4: when the Angel says to Mary that you will, you know,
[6:45] Speaker 4: you will give birth to this child who be called Grade,
[6:47] Speaker 4: son of the Most High, and he will reign on
[6:50] Speaker 4: the throne of David, his father, and his reign will
[6:53] Speaker 4: be without end. Well, what's that but the fulfillment of
[6:55] Speaker 4: Nathan's prophecy to David.
[6:57] Speaker 3: In Tewod Samuel seven.
[6:59] Speaker 4: Look at the Feast of the Presentations part of the
[7:02] Speaker 4: Christmas story, when the Lord is brought into the temple. Well,
[7:06] Speaker 4: what's that but the fulfillment of Ezekiel's prophecy that the Shakinah,
[7:10] Speaker 4: the glory of the Lord, had left the temple but
[7:13] Speaker 4: will come back at the time of the Messiah. So
[7:16] Speaker 4: here is now that we would say, the glory of
[7:18] Speaker 4: Yahweh returning to his temple.
[7:20] Speaker 3: My point is we can go on and on with these.
[7:22] Speaker 4: All the Christmas stories are richly Old Testament in their inspiration.
[7:27] Speaker 4: They're meant to call to mind all these stories. So
[7:30] Speaker 4: Jesus is properly situated. Even the massacre of the Innocence, well,
[7:34] Speaker 4: what does that call to mind? But at the time
[7:35] Speaker 4: of Moses, when Pharaoh orders the death of all the
[7:38] Speaker 4: male children, and then in the wake of the massacre
[7:40] Speaker 4: of the innocence, Mary Joseph bring christ child into Egypt,
[7:44] Speaker 4: and then upon the death of Herod he comes.
[7:46] Speaker 3: Back from Egypt. What's that that?
[7:48] Speaker 4: A recapitulation of Israel under Joseph, you know, going into Egypt,
[7:53] Speaker 4: and then the Exodus coming out again. On and on
[7:55] Speaker 4: we could go, but these are all the rich associations
[7:59] Speaker 4: with the Old Testament. That's a way to approach the
[8:02] Speaker 4: Christmas stories.
[8:05] Speaker 1: So when we look at sort of the place of
[8:07] Speaker 1: church in life.
[8:08] Speaker 2: You and I have talked a lot about this in
[8:09] Speaker 2: a wide rite of context, about how that a client
[8:11] Speaker 2: of church in American life has been one of the
[8:12] Speaker 2: great tragedies of our time in the last century and
[8:15] Speaker 2: a half. But there is a revitalized church that is growing,
[8:19] Speaker 2: and it is more traditionalist in orientation. It turns out
[8:22] Speaker 2: that the Jesus that you're talking about, the Jesus that
[8:24] Speaker 2: actually is connected to the Old Testament, is a lot
[8:26] Speaker 2: more inspirational and interesting to people than the sort of
[8:29] Speaker 2: paled out Jesus who is a speaker of progressive truths.
[8:34] Speaker 2: It turns out that doesn't fill churches because if you
[8:35] Speaker 2: want that, you can go to a Democratic Party rally
[8:37] Speaker 2: and wave a different flag, and it's not what people
[8:40] Speaker 2: are actually going to go to church for.
[8:42] Speaker 3: No precisely right as you suggest, correctly why bother.
[8:45] Speaker 4: But this goes all the way back to people like
[8:47] Speaker 4: Friedrich Schleiermacher early early nineteenth century, founder of liberal Protestantism
[8:52] Speaker 4: that tries to make Christianity accessible and agreeable to what
[8:55] Speaker 4: he called its cultured despisers, and that's been the strategy
[8:59] Speaker 4: of most forms of Christian liberalism from that time.
[9:01] Speaker 3: On kind of going hat in hand to our.
[9:05] Speaker 4: Cultured despisers and saying we want to make our religion
[9:08] Speaker 4: as acceptable to you as possible.
[9:09] Speaker 3: The result of that.
[9:10] Speaker 4: Is a very thinned out, uninteresting, blandly spiritual figure. But
[9:18] Speaker 4: it's the richly biblical Christ. You're quite right, that's going
[9:21] Speaker 4: to be compelling to people. Always has been.
[9:26] Speaker 1: Of those.
[9:26] Speaker 2: You can go check out Bishop Baron's work over at
[9:29] Speaker 2: Word on Fire Catholic Ministries. It's all fascinating stuff. Bishop
[9:32] Speaker 2: Baron is always great to talk to you, and Merry Christmas,
[9:35] Speaker 2: God bless you.
[9:35] Speaker 3: Thanks man,

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