Essay 20 (2-20-04)

 

WHO CRUCIFIED JESUS?

 

  (Amidst all the talk about the upcoming "Passion" film and the question of who killed Christ, I remembered a piece I did a few years back that was published in The Disciple under the above title. I thought it might interest you. When Ouida typed it into the computer, she said I should send it to Mel Gibson. I don't know about that, but I am sending it to you.)

 

In a recent book edited by James H. Charlesworth of Princeton Seminary, Irving J. Borowsky, a Jew, says that he is pleased to recognize Jesus as a Jew, and that he admires those who are obedient to the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth.  But he says plainly that "I have no desire to become a Christian."  He does not say why, but the implication is that he is turned off by the way Christians have treated Jews, including what he calls the anti-Semitism of the New Testament.

 

  He says he is appalled by such passages as Jn. 5:16: "And therefore did the Jews persecute Jesus, and sought to slay him, because he had done these things on the sabbath day."  He thinks it should read, "And therefore did the authorities persecute Jesus."  The authorities may have been Jews, or some of them, but they opposed Jesus not because they were Jews but because Jesus was a problem to them as rulers of the people.

 

  Borowsky is especially offended by the inflammatory way Jews are presented to Christian children in Bible story books.  He quoted one that reads:  "The leaders of the synagogue, the Jewish church, were jealous and afraid of Jesus because he was so popular, and they plotted to kill him."  In another book that has 365 stories for children, one story includes this: "If these charges were true, Jesus would be sentenced to death, but Pilate was certain that the Jewish leaders had trumped up the charges, because they were jealous of him."

 

  The Jewish scholar is shocked by such headings as these in the International Children's Bible: "The Jews Try to Arrest Jesus," "The Jews Against Jesus," and "The Day the Jewish Leaders Started Planning to Kill Jesus." He thinks such teaching causes children to see Jews as people to be despised, and it is this anti-Jewish poison that has been passed down from generation to generation, causing untold millions of people to be uprooted from their homes, tortured and killed.

 

  He notices that those who write the children's books, and Christian teachers in general, do not tell their students that the founders of Christianity were all Jews, including Jesus himself.  They do not point out that from all the peoples of the world the God of heaven chose a young Jewess to be the mother of Jesus.  The rabbi could have added that the first Christian church was made up of Jews, and their holy Scriptures were at first the same as the Jewish church.  And without  Judaism there would have been no Christian church! So, are the Jews all that bad?

 

   All through Christian history the Jews have had a problem with the name "Christ," for they have so often been ridiculed as "Christ-killers."  The church has consistently blamed them for the crucifixion of Christ, and this blame reaches beyond those of Jesus' time to all Jews for all time to come.  This is drawn from Mt. 27:25 where, after Pilate washes his hands of guilt and declares his innocence of the blood of Jesus, the people cry out "His blood be upon us and our children," as if they could pass their guilt to their children and to all generations!

 

  That very text names the culprit in the crucifixion of Jesus.  Pilate could not exonerate himself by washing his hands and declaring himself innocent.  There was no Jew on the face of the earth that had the authority to crucify Jesus.  Only Pilate had that authority.  The Apostles Creed has it right in the line that reads, "He was crucified under Pontius Pilate."  It was the Roman authorities who crucified Jesus, and it was Roman soldiers that actually did the dirty work.

 

  A large part of the problem of anti-Semitism in the New Testament -- if that is the right name for it -- is in the gospel of John. John appears to be unduly aware of the role of the Jews in the gospel story.  Matthew mentions the Jews only five times, Mark but six times, and Luke only five times, while John mentions the Jews 68 times!  Moreover, the Synoptics mention the Jews mostly in reference to Jesus being called king of the Jews, while in John there is a continual confrontation between the Jews and Jesus.  They murmured against Jesus (6:24); they sought the more to kill him (5:18); the people would have spoken up for Jesus except for the Jews (7:13); Pilate would have released Jesus except for the Jews (19:12).  And yet John tells how some Jews believed on Jesus (12:11).

 

  This is not easy to explain except that John, unlike the other three, lived and wrote in the Gentile world, and among Gentiles there has always been prejudice against the Jews.  To John it is "the Jews" that are the enemy, not the Jewish authorities, which was the case.

 

  It is similar with the Pharisees, a Jewish sect, who have always gotten a bum wrap in Christian history.  Jesus never really opposed the Pharisees themselves, but rather Pharisaism.  Some of the most heroic Christians, including Paul, were Pharisees.  So with the Jews generally.  Our Lord's quarrel was not with "the Jews," for he was one himself, as were all his people, but with Judaism, the System.

 

  Paul was proud of his Jewish heritage.  Again and again he asserted, "I am a Jew," and he said glorious things about the Jews, even implying that they were God's special people (Rom. 9:4-5).  And yet the most "anti-Semitic" verse in all the New Testament comes from  his pen:  "the Jews who killed both the Lord Jesus and their own prophets, and have persecuted us, and they do not please God and are contrary to all men, forbidding us to speak to the Gentiles that they might be saved (l Thess. 2:14-16).

 

  Paul not only says what the church has continued to say through the centuries -- that the Jews killed Christ -- but he said what Gentiles have said throughout history, finding its infamous fulfillment in Nazi Germany:  The Jews are contrary to all men.

 

  In that same verse the apostle reaches incredible depths in anti-Jewish rhetoric when he adds:  "so as always to fill up the measure of their sins, but wrath has come upon them to the uttermost."  One can't get more defamatory than that!  But the apostle gives a more balanced view in later epistles, even suggesting that if one is a Christian he is a Jew!, as in Gal. 3:29.

 

  The long and short of all this is that if the Bible is "anti-Semitic" it ought not to be, and if we are "anti-Semitic" we ought not to be.  The biblical writers are of the mind of Christ when they say, "There is neither Jew nor Greek" and " We are all one in Christ" and "God is no respecter of persons."  The wrath of God is no more upon the Jews than the rest of us sinners.  And "some" Jews may be contrary to all men just as "some" Gentiles are, but certainly not all or even most.

 

  There is no question but what some Jewish leaders -- the Saducees in particular -- and some rank and file Jews instigated the crucifixion of Jesus by perverting justice in their own courts, and by pressing the Roman authorities.  But that does not make "the Jews" responsible for the crucifixion anymore than "the Germans" were responsible for the holocaust.  Some Jews of the first century were partly responsible for the death of Jesus, but not all Jews of the first century and none in successive centuries.  A person's sin is what he or she does, not what his or her ancestors did.

 

   Paul said a lot of things about his dark past, such as being a persecutor of Christians, but he never suggested that he was guilty of Christ's crucifixion.  He said "the Jews" did it.  He meant "certain Jews did it," else he would be including himself.  Nicodemus was a Jew, did he kill Christ?: Joseph of Aramathea was a Jew, was he guilty?

 

  But enough of this.  It is the wrong question to ask anyway.  It doesn't matter all that much who crucified Christ.  It matters, of course, if we wrongly blame people, and this must cease.  The question to ask is not who crucified Christ but what crucified him -- that is, what sins?  This is where the judgment of God stalks us all, for in answering that question we have to face up to our sins that matter most:  pride, greed, envy, partyism, rebellion.  It was the System with all its prideful arrogance that killed Jesus.

 

  "Were you there when they crucified my Lord?," the old spiritual asks.  It causes me to tremble.  We should tremble in the face of the Cross, not because of the "who" that did it, but because of the sins that produced the infamous deed.  Our sins, too.  Would our System be any differenrt?  I once asked the late Henry Cadbury, noted New Testament scholar at Harvard, what he thought might happen should Jesus appear among us today.  He responded without hesitation. "He would be killed."  When I asked him who he thought would do it, the old professor shocked the class by saying, "The church would kill him." 

 

  Is it possible?