Being a Hindu, I don’t know a great deal about other religions. But I’d like to learn a little about Christianity before I go watch “The Passion of the Christ”. It seems that some people are up in arms over the way the Jews are portrayed. Apparently they report Jesus to the Romans who then crucify him. But wasn’t that the purpose of Jesus’ existence? If the Jews were real friendly with Jesus and never set him up to be crucified, he wouldn’t have died for your sins. Am I right? So, shouldn’t Christians be thankful to the Jews for helping to achieve their salvation? Or I could just be way off base here. Please educate me.
I’d say you’re right. Nevertheless, since the time of Jesus, there have always been people eager to denigrate Jews in any number of ways. The roots of this are pretty well laid out in this staff report: http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mjesuskill.html
Right on the money, Jack. God sent his son to be the perfect and ultimate sacrifice. Jesus had to be killed in order for the plan to come together. He took on mankind’s sins on the cross and shed his blood for us. The Jews were the ones who brought Jesus before Pilate (Roman governor) and called for his death. Pilate judged Jesus innocent for the most part but he let the mob have their way and sentenced him to death.
Now, really you can’t say “the Jews” killed Jesus. This group of Jews asked for his death. Other Jews followed Jesus. Still others had never even heard of him. Regardless, this bunch did what was always going to be done, and that is lead the way for Christ’s death. As a Christian myself, I’m glad it happened. I’ve never held any bad feelings toward anyone of the Jewish faith (on basis of their religion…maybe if they were a jerk or something) and “Christians” that do condemn the Jews obviously haven’t given the situation 1 nanosecond of thought.
I’ve obviously given you a very shortened version. There were many other groups involved but since you said you’re Hindu with not much knowledge of Christianity, I didn’t want to bog you down with details. You can email me if you want me to ask more of me. But you do have it absolutely right. Christ had to die, and the Jews (God’s chosen people) were used as part of God’s plan to save man.
But, unfortunately, that has been used as an excuse for the past 2,000 years by the misguided or leaders with agendas to round up and kill the “Christ-killers.”
Bizarrely enough, this is a big part of why the attempt in the movie The Life of David Gale to make the pro-death-penalty governor a bad guy falls so flat. He’s just an unwitting cog in a plan he knows nothing about, so how can he be blamed?
Thanks for the answers. And that Mailbag response was excellent. If everything is correct in the mailbag response, it was really the early Christians who were most responsible. They started calling him “King of Jews”, which pissed off not only the Romans, but the other Jews as well. After all, it didn’t say anywhere that he was the “self-described” King of Jews. I think that I’m ready to see the movie now. Anything else that I should know?
The movie is essentially based on John’s gospel. It follows that account pretty closely, though there is some artistic license here and there. My impression is that Gibson wanted to really drive home Jesus’ suffering. That is important to Christians, though not nearly as important as the resurrection. The latter gets only the briefest whisp of screen time, but that’s not the story Gibson wanted to explore.
Because every fairy tale needs a villain…
I don’t think anything you say in your post is wrong, Jackknifed, but I’m not a Christian either. It’s also worth noting that the events as described in the Gospels don’t always match up with what we know about the way things worked historically - so often it seems like the the Jews are included just so they can be scapegoated. I’m not an expert, but to some degree that seems like the truth - if the early Christians had blamed the Romans for the whole thing, the Empire wouldn’t have liked it.
The Old Testament is filled with horrible catastrophies being meted out to the Chosen People by their neighbors as punishment for various transgressions that offend their g-d; however, you don’t hear many people thanking King Whomever for fulfilling g-d’s will and acting to correct bad behavior. It’s religion–making sense really isn’t what it is all about.
*[fundie love] He died for your sins too. [/fundie love]
I had pretty much assumed that this was an after-the-fact justification comparable to, say, Fred Phelps who pretty much hates homosexuals and justifies it with the bible. Was the anti-Jewishness of Europe really iniated by biblical accounts, or were biblical accounts just a way to justify extant hatred for the Jews?
My favorite quotes on this are by Lenny Bruce:
“Because I’m Jewish, a lot of people ask why I killed Christ. What can I say? It was an accident.”
"A lot of people say to me, ‘‘Why did you kill Christ?’’ ‘‘I dunno… it was one of those parties, got out of hand, you know.’’
‘‘We killed him because he didn’t want to become a doctor, that’s why we killed him.’’
“We Jews killed Christ, and if he comes back, we’ll kill him again!”
Read the linked report in my first post.
Kinda funny that Christians get anti-jewish sentiment from the story, when it also says their God is a Jew… You’d think that might cancel some of it out.
I think the bad part comes in from Matthew 27:24-25 -
That last part has been used to justify anti-Semitism, on the theory that the guilt of Jesus’ innocent death has descended on all Jews to the present day.
Which, as has been noted, ignores all the teachings of the Church that Jesus died for the sins of all, and that I bear more guilt for his death than all the Jews on earth put together.
[gratuitious hijacking joke]
Two Catholic ladies are discussing the film, The Passion of the Christ. One lady says to the other, “They say it is anti-Semitic, but the Pope is on record saying that the Jews are not responsible for killing Jesus.”
“Oh really!” says the other lady.
“Yes, that’s right”, says the first lady. “I am betting it was really those Puerto Ricans.”
[/gratuitious hijacking joke]
Regards,
Shodan
I thought I had. Specifically,
“Anti-Judiasm and the Christ-killer myth had become prominent,” yet I see no indication of the latter leading to the former. Jews reject your religion and your god, something that seems to piss people off, and they reject salvation. Clearly they’re bad people. Adding in the Christ-killer shtick to the mix as an afterthought seems pretty natural.
So I’m still comfortable with my question. Is the Christ-killer bit the reason for the hatred of Jews, or is there some other reason–e.g. their stubborn refusal to become Christian–that generated the hate and the Christ-killing became an incendiary tool in encouraging the hate?
[Kinky Friedman]
“We Jews believe it was Santee Clause that killed Jesus Christ…”
[/Kinky Friedman]
Ah, I didn’t fully understand your question. I’m afraid I don’t have an answer for it.
As previously said many times in this thread, from the theological angle, all people are responsible for Jesus’ death. However, I can also read into your post a bit of a different question, the political angle, that I’ll try to also answer.
Up to the time Jesus went to Jerusalem, the Romans didn’t give a wet slap about him. They sort of figured he as another religious crackpot, and ignored him. The Temple priests, however, viewed him as a threat to their power base, and wanted him gone. Being under Roman rule, they couldn’t do anything like have him publicly stoned, because only the Romans had the power of capital punishment. Hence the arrest in the garden, and the trial before Pontius Pilate. PP found no guilt on Jesus’ part, but gave in to the blasphemy charge, and had Jesus executed anyway.
At the most mechanical level, the Jewish priests killed Jesus by having him framed, and the Romans are in on it because they physically nailed him to the tree. Where is the matching hatred for the Italians, who are the modern-day Romans? Surely they should share the blame. My enlightened 21st century mind cannot understand how any of the story can be used to justify anti-semitism in the past or present, because that flies in the face of the real message.
Have I muddied the picture sufficiently? 
I think you have hit upon some of it, africanus, those that don’t convert to Christinanty (or Islam or whatever the majority faith of a region is) often get the short end of the stick…note the persecution of the Hugenots in France and the bias against Catholics in 19th Century US.
I have also learned (many years ago and I might have it wrong) that early Christians (like Muslims today) did not believe in charging interest in loans to their brethern, which left the “banking” industry of the Middle Ages often in the hand of the Jews, often loaning money with huge rates of interest…more than once, a ruler who found himself deeply in debt found that ‘turning out the Jews’ was easier than paying the loans back.
But religion defintiely entered into it, see 1492-Spain, when the Moors were driven out, one of the early things Ferdinand and Isabella did was expell the Jews who had been living there in relative peace under the banner of Islam (how things change!)
“Why is that bad?”
Look, they could have invited them out to a nice restaurant, had some vino, some antipasto, a nice brie, everybody has a good time. Instead, they take him out, & nail him to two pieces of wood.
What’s up with that?!? 