https://www.frontpagemag.com/the-moral-inversion-of-antisemitism/
After Oct 7, Robert Spencer, the eminent scholar of religions and expert on Islamic terrorism, witnessed the irrational return of antisemitism, not just on the left, but also on the right.
“Fervent and articulate opponents of globalism and socialism began sending me articles in which globalists and socialists rehearsed all the alleged evils and misdeeds of Israel,” he writes.
“Vociferous critics of the United Nations began citing its figures on civilian deaths in Gaza.”
In response, Spencer began working on what would become his latest book, ‘Antisemitism: History & Myth’. Spencer, already the author of numerous critically acclaimed books touching on the intersections of religion and history including ‘Empire of God’, about the Byzantine Empire, ‘The Palestinian Delusion’ and his recent, ‘Muhammad: A Critical Biography’, once again goes back in time and perhaps further so than his past books have ever traveled before.
In ‘Antisemitism: History & Myth’, Spencer traces the origins of antisemitism to an initial pagan reaction against the translation of the Bible until “in the ancient world, revisionist versions of the accounts in the Jewish scriptures became a cottage industry.” Antisemitism became a way to rebut scripture and with it the moral foundations of a divine religion. The more contemptible the Jews were, the less reason there was to respect anything that Moses and later prophets had to say. This echoes the moral inversion that Spencer now sees all around him on social media in which the Jews attacked on Oct 7 become the perpetrators and Hamas becomes the victim.
In trying to understand this present day moral inversion, ‘Antisemitism: History & Myth’ travels through the ancient pagan world, from Egypt to Greece and Rome, through to the rise of Christianity in which Spencer, a devout member of the Greek Orthodox Church, grapples with the troubled history of antisemitism in Christianity, and then on to the Muslim world.