Commenting
on Jewish attitudes to Gentiles during the Second Temple and Talmudic ages,
Joel Rembaum wrote the following:
. . . many of the Jews of the late Second
Temple period (ca. 150 B.C.E.-70 C.E.) and the talmudic age (ca. 70-500 C.E.)
maintained strongly negative views of pagans and pagan society. Not only were
the Jews heirs to the biblical traditions but their experiences with the
Greco-Roman and, later, Persian civilizations were often bitter and
antagonistic. Greeks, Romans, and Persians were, in the eyes of many Jews, no
different from the peoples whom the Bible paints in negative colors. So, for
example, in the Mishnah we read:
Cattle may not be left in the inns of the
gentiles since they are suspected of bestiality; nor many a woman remain alone
with them since they are suspected of lewdness; nor may a man remain alone with
them since they are suspected of shedding blood. The daughter of an Israelite
may not assist a gentile woman in childbirth, since she would be assisting to
bring to birth a child of idolatry (Av. Zar. 2:1).
In a long midrashic account of the day of divine
judgment at the end of time, the gentiles are depicted as having been unworthy
of receiving the Torah (BT Av. Zar. 2bff.) Elsewhere, they are considered to be
infected with lasciviousness (BT Shab. 145b-146a) and sexually immoral (BT Ket.
13b). Further we read: “All the charity and kindness done by the heathens is counted
to them as sin, because they only do it to magnify themselves . . . [and] to
display haughtiness (BT BB 10b) . . . According to Rabbinic tradition, six of
the seven commandments of the children of Noah actually had been given to Adam:
prohibitions against idolatry, blaspheming God’s name, murder, incest, and
stealing and the obligation to establish courts of law . . . These commandments,
for all intents and purposes, were the Sages’ principles of universal ethical
monotheism . . . On occasion, the Sages’ critical view of the pagan world made
them sceptical of the gentiles’ ability to fulfill even these few, very basic
obligations (BT BK 38a; Lev. R. 13:2). (Joel Rembaum “Dealing with Strangers: Relations
with Gentils at Home and Abroad” in Jacob Blumenthal and Janet L. Liss, Etz Hayim: Study Companion [Jewish
Publications Society, 2005], 201-11, here, pp. 208-9)
Such “us vs.
them” attitudes and ethnocentricity is part-and-parcel of ancient texts and
cultures, so it is not unusual that one finds such attitudes amongst the
Nephites towards the Lamanites in the Book of Mormon—yes, the Book of Mormon
(and the Bible and other texts, including the Jewish texts referenced above)
are ethnocentric and the like; no,
the Book of Mormon is not KKK-like racist.
For more,
see, for e.g.:
John A.
Tvedtnes, The Charge of Racism in the Book of Mormon
