Dex – You missed one important point in your opening comments: A devout Christian wouldn’t believe that anybody “killed” Jesus. They’d believe, as he claimed, that he chose to die. If you take the gospels at face value, this is certainly the case. That he had power to resist death is evidenced in a couple of places. First, in Luke 4: 29-30, while visiting the Nazarenes in his home country. Angered by his preaching in their synagogue, a mob carries him to the edge of the city to cast him off, presumably to kill or at least seriously injure him. But he simply passes through them and goes his way. The next is in Matt 26: 50-53. Here Peter tries to protect Christ from being arrested in the Garden of Gethsemane. Christ rebukes him saying “Thinkest thou that I cannot now pray to my Father, and he shall presently give me more than twelve legions of angels?” Again, he is choosing to be taken. The clearest reference is John 10: 17-18: “Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I might take it again. No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received of my Father.” Finally, all four accounts of crucifixion agree that he voluntarily gave or yielded up the ghost. (Luke 23:46, Mark 15:37, John 19:30, Matt 27:50.) If the Christians who persecuted the Jews as “Christ killers” truly believed the account in their own Bible, they’d be singing a different tune. Like all acts of terrorism, the true roots of Jewish persecution were political, not religious.
Regardless of whether or not Jesus could resist or prevent his death, the fact that he was permissive does not dismiss that someone else still committed the act.
My Christian upbringing blamed “sinners” rather than Romans or Jews for Jesus’s death, but that is merely accepting the blame rather than identifying who played what role in the process. It’s certainly true that the Jewish leaders turned Jesus over to the Romans under charges that would lead to death. It’s certainly true that the Romans found him guilty under their laws and treated him accordingly, i.e. crucified him. The story suggests that Pontias Pilate, the great guy he was, even offered the Jews another shot at making the decision. Dex et al address the value of that story.
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Make that “some Jewish leaders”. Judaism, in the decades leading to the final crash, was a bit of a patchwork. (Christians, being unfamiliar with the situation, tend to see Judaism in Jesus’ time as monolithic, especially the “Pharisees-’n’-Sadducees”.)
According to the official manual of the Catholic Church (aka the Catechism):
597 The historical complexity of Jesus’ trial is apparent in the Gospel accounts. The personal sin of the participants (Judas, the Sanhedrin, Pilate) is known to God alone. Hence we cannot lay responsibility for the trial on the Jews in Jerusalem as a whole, despite the outcry of a manipulated crowd and the global reproaches contained in the apostles’ calls to conversion after Pentecost.Jesus himself, in forgiving them on the cross, and Peter in following suit, both accept “the ignorance” of the Jews of Jerusalem and even of their leaders. Still less can we extend responsibility to other Jews of different times and places, based merely on the crowd’s cry: “His blood be on us and on our children!”, a formula for ratifying a judicial sentence. As the Church declared at the Second Vatican Council:
. . . [N]either all Jews indiscriminately at that time, nor Jews today, can be charged with the crimes committed during his Passion. . . [T]he Jews should not be spoken of as rejected or accursed as if this followed from holy Scripture.
598 In her Magisterial teaching of the faith and in the witness of her saints, the Church has never forgotten that “sinners were the authors and the ministers of all the sufferings that the divine Redeemer endured.” Taking into account the fact that our sins affect Christ himself, the Church does not hesitate to impute to Christians the gravest responsibility for the torments inflicted upon Jesus, a responsibility with which they have all too often burdened the Jews alone.
621 Jesus freely offered himself for our salvation. Beforehand, during the Last Supper, he both symbolized this offering and made it really present: “This is my body which is given for you” (Lk 22:19).
In conclusion: The physical act of killing Jesus was committed by the Romans at the urging of Jewish politico/religious leaders. However, if we ask the Catholic Church (aka, the biggest, longest-lasting, group of scholars to examine the life of Jesus and be given authority by Christ to do so) what their best assessment of the situation is, the answer is: No single religious or ethnic group can be blamed, and whether the individuals involved genuinely sinned can only be judged by God.
Any number of novelists and dramatists have discovered that you can’t deal with the character of Judas without either making him a mustache-twirling movie-serial villain or else finding that people say you’ve made him “too noble”, or even accuse you of being “on his side”. Human psychology is a damnable thing.
I do think it is possible to engage in a little too much hagiography towards Judas.
:dubious: