Cultural appropriation is defined as “the appropriation of something of cultural value, usually a symbol or a practice, to others”. Cultural appropriation tends to lead to oppression when there is a) an absence of constent and/or b) a power imbalance (Lenard and Balint 2019). A large, powerful social group unilaterally taking and benefiting from a symbol or practice of cultural value from a smaller, disenfranchised social group is what I mean by “cultural appropriation”. The morality of cultural appropriation is debated in the literature, and at least these more intense forms of cultural appropriation do indeed seem to cause harm.

The Christian Bible has two sections, usually called the Old Testament and the New Testament. The Old Testament consists of biblical books that are shared with Judaism, and these were considered sacred and/or canon texts to the early Christians. The New Testament consists of biblical books that are about and/or were written after the life of Jesus of Nazareth.

Is the use of the Old Testament a form of cultural appropriation? It could be suggested that Christians (today, a comparatively powerful cultural group in many, but not all, countries) are participating in cultural appropriation by taking and using the scriptures of Jews (today, a comparatively less powerful cultural group, with the significant exception of the State of Israel).

I cannot speak for Jews. I can only give my own views on this topic, as a Christian and as somebody who staunchly opposes violence in any form, including anti-semitism. Please interpret my views from that perspective. There are some discussions on this topic on the online Jewish forum r/Judaism here and here.

My views are as follows:

  • The use, reuse, modification, and reinterpretation of existing traditions is an ubiquitous feature of the history of religion, including throughout the history of Judaism (Coogan 2008).
  • 1st century Judaism is not 21st century Judaism. I have sometimes noticed a tendency among non-Jews to assume that Judaism has remained more or less the same religion over the past 2,000 years. This is demonstrably false (Küng 1991). I can’t speak for Jews, but I can also see how this mindset might be a bit offensive to Jews today.
  • There are important distinctions between the Christian Old Testament and the Hebrew Bible. Depending on the branch of Chrisianity, the Hebrew Bible and the Old Testament contain slightly different collections of books and these may be ordered slightly differently. According to many Jews, Christians revise, misunderstand, misrepresent, and mistranslate these books, sometimes from slightly different source materials/manuscripts (Reddit).

So, rather than using the phrase “cultural appropriation”, I think that it seems more accurate to say that 21st century Judaism and 21st century Christianity are both collections of traditions (neither is a monolith) that share historical roots in 1st century Judaism. Like two related plant species, 21st century Judaism and 21st century Christianity have some similarities (owing to their common origin) and some differences (owing to a long period of divergence). Modern-day use of the Old Testament doesn’t strike me as a harmful example of cultural appropriation.

There is a very important caveat. Some Christians adhere to “supercessionism”, which broadly holds that Christians have replaced the Jewish people as God’s chosen people. This view can be used to characterise Judaism and the Jewish people as archaic and even morally bad. Obviously, this is a highly offensive way of thinking that has justified a lot of antisemitic violence and oppression. We must reject this view.

Nevertheless, supercessionism subconsciously affects Christian thought in many ways. A prime example is the phrase “Old Testament” itself, which carries connotations of archaism and is rightly seen as offensive and pejorative by many Jews. In day-to-day use, I typically adopt phrases such as “First Testament” or “Hebrew Bible” (Christianity Today). The Queer Christian Commentary, for example, uses the terms “First Testament” and “Second Testament”.

There is an analogy here with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, informally called Mormons. Whether Latter-day Saints form a branch of Christianity or a fully new religion is up for debate; a parallel can be seen with the early followers of Jesus in the 1st century CE which began as a sect within Judaism and, after much political and historical wrangling, eventually emerged as a new religion called Christianity (Fredriksen 2024). Latter-day Saints sometimes hold the view that other Christian churches are not true or valid (see a respectful discussion on this topic here). There’s an old joke that God created Mormons so that Christians know how Jews feel. Clearly, there are many similarities. Latter-day Saints have their own, newer books of scripture and sometimes claim that they have a unique form of authority or relationship with God that other Christians do not have. Of course, there is certainly no problem if Latter-day Saints find value and meaning in newer books of scripture and participating in the life of their Church. However, it would be offensive to claim that Latter-day Saints have superceded other Christian communities in any way.