jack_hunter

Jew killed jesus for blasphemy?


Jews wasn't civilised back then?




Paul writes in the Bible:


"...from the Jews, who killed both the Lord Jesus and the
prophets, and drove us out, and displease God and oppose all
men by hindering us from speaking to the Gentiles that they
may be saved--so as always to fill up the measure of their
sins. But God's wrath has come upon them at last!"
[Bible, I Thessalonians 2:14-16]


That pretty much covers the Christian view of things

"Therefore let all Israel be assured of this: God has made this
Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ."
[Bible, Acts 2:36]





In the Gospel according to Matthew, Pontius Pilate, the Roman
leader in charge, wants nothing to do with Jesus'
crucifixion, and he symbolically washes his hands of the affair.
The gospels portray Pilate as the one arguing with the Jews for
Jesus' release. It is the Jews who continue to demand his
death.


"So when the crowd had gathered, Pilate asked them, "Which
one do you want me to release to you: Barabbas, or Jesus who
is called Christ?" For he knew it was out of envy that they
had handed Jesus over to him. While Pilate was sitting on
the judge's seat, his wife sent him this message: "Don't have
anything to do with that innocent man, for I have suffered
a great deal today in a dream because of him." But the chief
priests and the elders persuaded the crowd to ask for Barabbas
and to have Jesus executed. "Which of the two do you want me
to release to you?" asked the governor. "Barabbas," they
answered. "What shall I do, then, with Jesus who is called
Christ?" Pilate asked. They all answered, "Crucify him!" "Why?
What crime has he committed?" asked Pilate. But they shouted
all the louder, "Crucify him!" When Pilate saw that he was
getting nowhere, but that instead an uproar was starting, he
took water and washed his hands in front of the crowd. "I am
innocent of this man's blood," he said. "It is your
responsibility!" All the people answered, "Let his blood be on
us and on our children!" [Bible, Matthew 27:17-25]


"Let his blood be on the Jews and their children.", so the
Christian believes the Jews declared. Christians have killed
Jews on a large scale in the past for the sole reason that the
Christian believes the Jews killed God.


Finally, let us here from one of the most respected of Christian
leaders:


"The true image of the Hebrew is Judas Iscariot, who sells the
Lord for silver. The Jew can never understand the Scriptures
and forever will bear the guilt for the death of Jesus."
-- St. Augustine, Bishop of Hippo, Father of the Church.


I'm sure I could find many more quotes from the Bible and various
church fathers to farther indite the Jews from a Christian
perspective but I don't think there is any need.

Julian

The passage from 1 Thessalonians has been disputed and is probably a later interpolation, i.e. not by Paul.

Julian

Spherical Time

I think that Julian's reply highlights that this post might get more response in BC&H, so I'm moving it over there.

motorhead

The Jews didn't kill Jesus, the Romans did. Yeah, the Jews (i.e. Temple authorities) probably helped the Romans capture him but the Romans did the deed. The Romans wanted to kill him because he was stirring people up against the Romans by preaching the imminent coming of the Kingdom of God, which pretty much meant the end of Roman rule.

Toto

But it is certainly by a later Christian, not an interloper trying to make Christians look bad.

There are a lot of Bible passages that sound anti-Semitic, which were used by Christians to justify pogroms against Jews or other anti-Jewish activities through most of European history. This culminated in the Holocaust, in which a few Christians acted honorably, but the instutional churches collaborated with Hitler or did little or nothing to oppose his policies.

After World War II, German theologians repented, and Christians in general started to reformulate their theology and stance towards the Jews. The Roman Catholic church formally repudiated the idea that the Jews killed Christ. Lutherans have repudicated Martin Luther's stance towards the Jews. Most well meaning people applaud this, however historically accurate it might or might not be (and at this point in history that is unknowable.).

So I don't know where you want to go with this. The entire trial of Jesus is historically improbable and appears to be a work of literary fiction. The Jews could have killed Jesus for blasphemy - there were laws calling for the death penalty for blasphemy, but those laws were rarely carried out, and would have resulted in Jesus being stoned, not in a crucifixion. It seems more likely that the Biblical passages blaming the Jews for killling Jesus came from a historic period when early Christians were in conflict with the Jewish establishment. If you are not a fundamentalist, there seems no reason to believe that they reflect much real history.

Julian

Absolutely.

Apikorus

Yeah, we had him whacked. What you gonna do about it?

sharon45

No, as was pointed out, but they were commanded to kill any false prophet, which jesus was from out of Deuteromony 13.Unfortunately, there was plenty done about it.

Dargo

After the Jewish revolt in the 60's Christians were naturally trying to separate themselves from their Jewish origins, and prove they were loyal Roman subjects. They had two strikes against them by being viewed as a Jewish sect and having their founder crucified. This penalty was only used for escaped slaves and insurrectionists. They needed to shift blame to those nogoodnik Jews and portray Roman Procurator Pilate as a just man doing everything he could to avoid killing an innocent man. According to first century Jewish historian Josephus, Pilate was a harsh man who would rather have his soldiers slaughter an angry mob than give in to their demands. He was recalled to Rome in the mid thirties because of this very reason. Besides, if he was really interested in sparring Jesus, he could have always chosen a less painful execution method.

If the Jews really hated Jesus so much they could have simply killed him themselves. The Gospels claim that the Jews did not have to right to execute people, but according to Josephus, they did not lose the right to capital punishments until after the revolt in the 60s. This is a good reason to believe the Gospels were written after the revolt and the writers either were unaware of this fact or hoped their audiences were unaware of it. Interestingly enough the book of Acts claims that the Jews had no problem stoning Stephen for blasphemy and the book of John shows Jesus sparing a woman from being stoned for adultery. I guess the authors couldn't keep their stories straight.

Of course, all of this assumes that Jesus even existed and was in fact crucified. Some historians doubt both of these.

RUmike

Also, if I'm not mistaken, Paul claimed himself to have been stoned at least once.

In all fairness, virtually no critical historians doubt either of those facts.