AHC: Prevent Martin Luther From Becoming an Antisemite

As most of us know, Martin Luther was notoriously antisemitic, writing such works as On the Jews and Their Lies and is often blamed (at least in part) for Europe's widespread antisemitism. However, earlier in his life, he seemed to promote tolerating Jews and even went so far as to say Jesus was born a Jew. Any ideas on how to get him to be less hateful of Jews?
 
I've read one account that said that to some extent part of the problem was that people understood his critique of contemporary Christian theology as being crypto-judaic or a judaicizing(?) of Christianity, and so he injected extra venom afterwards in his writings about Jews to emphatically dis-associate himself. But I've not read his book so I don't feel comfortable endorsing that view.

Given the relationship of late-medieval society to Jews, even if we were to somehow reduce his opinions as expressed in the 1530's to the received opinions of the day that still wouldn't suffice to render him not anti-semitic by any real standard.

In the end, you might want a point of departure further back that produces a less anti-semitic Christian Europe. On one hand that's tough. On the other hand, the issues that it leads one to, including the social origins of late-medieval anti-semitism, are really interesting.

One excellent book on the subject I read a good while back is Moore's "Formation of a Persecuting Society." I heartily recommend it.
 
As most of us know, Martin Luther was notoriously antisemitic, writing such works as On the Jews and Their Lies and is often blamed (at least in part) for Europe's widespread antisemitism. However, earlier in his life, he seemed to promote tolerating Jews and even went so far as to say Jesus was born a Jew. Any ideas on how to get him to be less hateful of Jews?

It's my understanding that most of his dislike of Jews comes from their rejection of his reformation. Luther believed that Christianity had originated among the Jews (which is true, kind of) and that the primary thing holding them back in his day was the excesses of the Catholic Church. When he proposed his "correction" of Christian doctrine, he expected the Jews to come running and accept Jesus and Christianity. When this failed to happen, he got pissed.

If that is indeed the case, it's tough to change his feelings. Either make him less sensitive, I guess, or have a wave of Jews convert to Lutheranism.
 
As I understand it, he was originally convinced that the corruptions of the Roman Church were what kept the Jews from Christianity; once the pure Gospel shone forth, they'd convert en masse. Once this didn't happen, a disgruntled Luther decided that their stubbornness and pride was holding them back.

So, if you could convince him instead that the Gospel wasn't shining forth purely enough (and there were definitely many abuses even in Protestant circles), that would defang him. Most modern people still wouldn't call his earlier views pro-Semetic, but they'd be much, much better and hardly lead to any actual hatred.
 
Top