ANTICHRIST17language about God as expressive of atti-
tudes (e.g., to profess belief in God is to
be understood as professing to practice
compassion) rather than making pro-
positional claims about reality.
ANTI-SEMITISM. Disdain, denigration,
or disrespect of Jews. Some early Christian
philosophers such as Justin Martyr
explicitly promoted the credibility of
Christian faith while seeking to discredit
Judaism, arguing that Christians were
“the true Israel” and the inheritors of
divine revelation and beatitude. With the
establishment of Christianity in the late
Roman Empire and Medieval Europe,
Jews were excluded from philosophical
and theological institutions. Jews were
allowed (in places) to train in law and
medicine, but not theology in European
universities. Christian-Jewish dialogue
was effectively annihilated in the late
fifteenth century with the expulsion of
Jews from Spain (in the fourteenth century
Jews had been expelled from England).
Technically, anti-semitism refers to the
Jewish race, while anti-Jewish refers to the
religion of the Jews; however, the terms
are frequently used interchangeably.
ANTI-THEODICY. Coined by Zachary
Braiterman in (God) After Auschwitz
(1998), the term “anti-theodicy” refers
to a particular protesting response to the
problem of evil that may be found in
biblical and post-Holocaust Jewish thought
that intentionally refuses to explore the
relationship between God, evil, and
suffering. An anti-theodicy operates in
opposition to a theodicy, which attempts
to reconcile belief in an omnipotent,
omniscient, and benevolent God given
the magnitude of evil and suffering in
the world. By refusing to justify the rela-
tionship between God and evil, the author
of an anti-theodicy places full blame on
God for the horrendous evils she may
experience in her life. This protest must
arise from an individual’s love for God
and belief in the existence of a relation-
ship between God and evil. Faith gives
rise to and sustains this protest that may
be raised on account of one’s individual
suffering, such as in the biblical book of
Job, or collective suffering, examples of
which are present in Elie Wiesel’s works,
including Night (1958), The Trial of God
(1979), and Ani Maamin: A Song Lost and
Found Again (1973).ANTICHRIST. The “antichrist” often is
referred to in an eschatological fashion and
is treated as synonymous with the devil. In
the New Testament, however, the antichrist
is not someone who attempts to assume
the place of Christ, but rather someone
who turns against Christ. During the
Reformation, the Protestants, especially
Wycliffe and Luther, vehemently attacked
the papacy as the antichrist. Today, the
term’s primary usage is to personify evil.