Part XXVII Matthew: Sukkoth, Jewish Thanksgiving Day

Column by Bishop John Shelby Spong on 11 September 2014 1 Comments
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Question

Would you please state the "case" for the Jews not murdering Jesus? I am now, by my son's marriage, part of a large Jewish family and have become aware of the simmering prejudice against the Jews. I hear comments ranging from off the cuff comments at a dinner party, "Of course, the Jews did it," to the local Catholic priest reading St. John's gospel on Good Friday, where the claim is made that the Jews crucified Jesus. My experience in attending the Anglican Church leads me to expect the priest would then speak to the claim and explain some well understood theological arguments to the contrary, but no. I have read your book, Liberating the Gospels: Reading the Gospels with Jewish Eyes, but I find it hard to counter all the arguments that are raised when I try to bring some theological and historical common sense into this. I am preparing a letter, as strongly worded and to the point as I can make it, to send the priest which I would like him to receive before the next Good Friday. My very best wishes to you and your endeavors to save us from that pretzel mind.

Answer

Dear Anna,

Religious prejudice dies hard no matter how ignorant it is. Christian anti-Semitism is one of those prejudices. Recall that the gospels were written 40-70 years after the death of Jesus and at a time when the Jews were being blamed for the destruction of Jerusalem at the hands of the Roman army, which occurred in 70 CE at the climax of the Jewish-Roman war. In order for the Christians, who were also predominantly Jews (the Church did not separate from the Synagogue until about 88 CE or 58 years after the crucifixion), to escape being victims of this anti-Semitic fervor, they joined in and suggested that the same people who brought about the destruction of Jerusalem had also been instrumental in the crucifixion of Jesus.

The facts are that capital punishment was forbidden to the citizens of the conquered Jewish nation, so the Jews could not have crucified Jesus. The Romans were obviously the guilty ones, but if you seek their favor in order to escape their oppression at the end of a war, you accomplish that by finding a common enemy. The Jews were hated by the Romans so the Christians simply piled on. That is why the traitor bore the name of the entire Jewish nation and why the name of Judas was unknown to Paul, who wrote between 51 and 64 CE.

The gospels are funny. They argue that the death of Jesus was pre-ordained by God to bring about salvation and then say that the Jews are the guilty ones. That makes little sense. I go into this in much more detail in my book, Jesus for the Non-Religious.

Thanks for writing.

~John Shelby Spong

 

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