Recently, I have had to bear the bigotry of a relative during Easter Dinner. One of his gems was that Jews are “Christ-killers.” Lately I saw a cartoon showing the baby Jesus in the shadows of an Israeli tank and it reminded me of the incident with my relative. Baby Jesus is saying, “Oh no, will they kill me again?” I had to think about this for a while (I’m a little slow on the uptake) before I realized that this was not just a political cartoon whose opinion is that Israel is the agressor in recent events. It also brought up the idea that Jews killed Christ. I was appalled at this cartoon because whatever one believes about the problems in the Middle East, there is no reason to bring this up. It is unfair and arrogant. In retrospect, I am sorry that I did not confront the moron relative above. I could have asked him to prove that Jews killed Christ; in fact, just prove that Christ ever existed at all, a-hole. Plus, if Jesus Christ came down from heaven to DIE FOR THE SINS OF MANKIND, why would Jews killing him be a bad thing? Now, if they got in the way of his death, say by saving him from drowning or something, now that would be a cause to despise this group of people.
Oh, and one more thing, wasn’t Jesus Christ himself a Jew? Kind of ironic if you think about it. An anti-semitic s&*t-head who hates Jews but worships one of them as his God?
What it comes down to is the idea that what one does cannot be wrong while what another supposedly lower being does cannot be right. It is this same mentality that allowed so many unfortunate people to be lynched by self-righteous animals who, if there is a God, are being deep-fried to a crisp right now. Ironically, it is these people who crucify and lynch the innocent, all the while condemning others of being guilty of this or that.
Incidentally, I did not mean to offend any believers by making the point above that Jesus may not have really existed. If you believe, then it doesn’t matter what the hell I say. But when you are dealing with a shit-for-brains monkey, you have to hit him with all you got. I don’t care about blaspheming someone’s religion if he’s a bigoted snot. I would never do the same to someone who knows what respect and class is.
Tony, you hit upon a point there. For salvation, Jesus’ death was necessary. Had the Jews NOT killed Christ, the kingdom of heaven would have remained closed for business. The Jews are fundamentally necessary for salvation. What, would the Christians have prefered the Jews not kill Christ? Wouldn’t that be against the will of God?
But since when is logic a part of religious discussion anyway?
Excuse me, weren’t you an ninth-century pope or something? I know that line sounds familiar but I just can’t place you…
Yes, that was my uncle Lou that did that. The whole family is very sorry.
Jesus? of Nazareth? I’m sorry, I’ve put so many messiahs to death I just lose track…
Well, gee, maybe if you weren’t so damn sinful he wouldn’t have had to come down in the first place, smart guy.
Believe me, you didn’t offend anyone. He and his ilk are much more offensive than any athiest Jew communist rat like yourself could ever be.
And this relative saying this bigoted BS during Easter? How appalling.
I am a Christian. I was always taught that the Jews are God’s Chosen People. Period. Other Christians I know feel the same way - we have great respect for the Jews. I can’t explain what your relative’s problem is, but I’m pretty appalled by his attitude.
My Christian teaching was that each and every one of us is personally “chosen” by God and there is no “chosen people.” A dangerous and irrelevant doctrine if ever there was one.
And it is also utterly irrelevant to today’s situation who killed Jesus. Jew - Roman - Lee Harvey Oswald - the point is Jesus died, according to Judaeo-Christian doctrine the Messiah was supposed to die, and that is that. Jesus was a Jew. Many early christians were originally Jews. Whether some Jews were involved in his death does not mean that all Jews - as a race or religion - were aware of it, approved of it, or participated in it.
Your relative’s bigotry sounds like the sort of thing Hitler used to justify his anti-semitism.
Hmmm. Christ was, of course, executed by the Roman authorities on the insistence of the Jewish religious hierarchy. It seems safe to assume that, if He hadn’t been executed, He would have found some other way to redeem humanity (He was a resourceful sort of chap, just look at His track record in catering and alternative medicine), so, yes, His execution was a bad thing.
On the other hand, I’m fairly sure that all the Romans and Jews who were actually involved in the execution are now dead. All the Jews and Italians I’ve met looked far too young to have been senior officials in Judaea between 25 and 30 AD. So I’m inclined to believe that no currently living Jews are guilty of Christ’s death. I’m sure everyone’s relieved to hear that.
I used to be a Christian (I guess i’m Nothing now…leaning sorta toward new age/pagan type of stuff) So that kind of thinking about Jews really pisses me off, too. The Romans higher-ups killed Jesus, Jewish higher- ups supported it, but even more than that it was in God’s plan to redeem mankind anyway. So what’s the point of calling Jews “Jesus killers”??? :mad:
I’ll ignore the appalling ignorance of what the phrase “chosen people” actually means, so I can go on to this bit of wildly incorrect data:
**
No.
NO.
NONONONONO!
Judaeo-Christian doctrine says nothing even remotely like that. Christian doctrine might, but Jews has no doctrine about a divine Messiah, and no doctrine about said divine Messiah dying for our sins. The messiah of the Old Testament, and the messiah waited for by Jews is A) a man, not the Son of God B) a political leader C) a teacher. No prophecies about dying for our sins, no “washed in His blood” stuff. A man. Please. Keep your Christian doctrine out of my religion. Thank you.
Fenris is right; this is also (given as an explanation as to) why the disciples were totally destroyed after the crucifixion; they were expecting a political takeover (something like that anyway).
