The Anti-Jewish New
Testament
Jewish people, who have read the
New Testament throughout the history of Christianity, became well aware of the
numerous passages of vicious and defamatory anti-Jewish polemic within it. On the other hand, Christians, in general,
have been insensitive to the offensive nature of these texts and to the damage
that their usage has done to the Jewish people throughout the Common Era. When the Emperor Constantine became a Christian
in the fourth century C.E. and installed Christianity as the state religion of
the
Although the Holocaust, which
caused the murderous annihilation of two-thirds of
An increasing number of Christian scholars have concluded that the root of anti-Semitism in the Christian world community is ultimately found within the New Testament. In his book, Elder and Younger Brothers, the late Prof. A. Roy Eckardt [former Professor of Religion at both Lehigh University (PA) and Oxford University (UK), and an ordained minister], asserted that the foundation of anti-Semitism, and the responsibility for the Holocaust lie ultimately in the New Testament. In another book, Your People, My People, Eckardt insisted that Christian repentance must include a reexamination of basic theological attitudes toward Jewry and the New Testament in order to deal effectively with the problem of anti-Semitism and its prevention. The general message scholars such as Eckardt are trying to convey is that, using the New Testament as its authoritative source, "The Church" has stereotyped the Jewish people as an icon of unredeemed humanity; they became an image of a blind, stubborn, carnal, and perverse people. This dehumanization is the vehicle that formed the psychological prerequisite to the atrocities that followed.
Rather than speculate about and explore the reasons why the New Testament contains the racist defamatory anti-Jewish rhetoric, this essay will consider some examples of such New Testament passages that appear in Christian lectionaries. Lectionaries are collections of Scriptural passages from Christian Bibles that are read during regular weekly Catholic and Protestant church services, and which are repeated on some cyclical schedule. As such, these lectionaries are widely used by many millions of Church-going Christians, and they are somewhat similar to Jewish prayer books, such as a Siddur.
The material found in the lectionaries is, of course, only the "tip of the iceberg", but it suffices to demonstrate the plausibility of the assertion that anti-Semitism among Christians is rooted in the New Testament.
Much of the information in this essay has been extracted from the article[1] Removing Anti-Jewish Polemic from our Christian Lectionaries: A Proposal by Prof. Norman A. Beck[2], who is a New Testament scholar and Professor of Theology and Classical Languages at Texas Lutheran University. In his article, Prof. Beck deals with what he calls in some of his published books "… the specific texts identified as most problematic …", texts found in six of the 27 books that comprise the New Testament. Prof. Beck also identifies the offensive passages in the New Testament and indicates the instances in which all or portions of these texts are included in major lectionary series.
The Gospel of Matthew contains approximately 90 verses of defamatory anti-Jewish polemic. These are shown in Table II.A-1.
Table II.A-1 – Anti-Jewish polemic in
the Gospel of Matthew
|
Source |
Description
of Context |
Lectionary Code* |
|
3:7c |
The
Pharisees and Sadducees are called poisonous snakes |
MLR |
|
12:34a |
The
Pharisees are called evil poisonous snakes |
--- |
|
15:3-9 |
Condemnation
of the Pharisees for rejecting the commandments |
--- |
|
15:12-14 |
The
Pharisees are called blind guides leading the blind |
--- |
|
16:6 |
Beware
of the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees |
--- |
|
19:3-9 |
The
Pharisees are said to be hard-hearted |
--- |
|
|
The
disciples of Jesus will judge the twelve tribes of |
--- |
|
22:18c |
The
Pharisees are called hypocrites |
HMLR |
|
23:13-36 |
The
scribes and Pharisees are repeatedly vilified as hypocrites |
--- |
|
|
The
house of |
--- |
|
26:59-68 |
The
chief priests and council condemn Jesus as deserving death |
MLR |
|
27:1-26 |
The
people demand that Jesus, not Barabbas, be
crucified |
MLR |
|
27:62-66 |
The
chief priests and Pharisees request a guard at Jesus' tomb |
MLR |
|
28:4 |
The
guards tremble and become like dead when the angel appears |
LR |
|
28:11-15 |
The
chief priest bribe the guards to lie about their actions |
--- |
* Key to Lectionary Codes:
--- - Not included in a major lectionary series.
H - The "Historic Pericopes"[3] used by
the majority of Christians prior to 1969.
M - The Roman Catholic Lectionary for Mass
used during the 1980s.
L - Lutheran
adaptations of the Lectionary for Mass, printed in the Lutheran
Book of Worship.
R - The Revised Common Lectionary,
1992.
The Gospel of Mark contains approximately 40 verses of defamatory anti-Jewish polemic. These are shown in Table II.B-1.
Table II.B-1 – Anti-Jewish polemic in
the Gospel of Mark
|
Source |
Description
of Context |
Lectionary Code* |
|
3:6 |
The
Pharisees are said to have begun to plan to destroy Jesus |
MR |
|
7:6-13 |
Condemnation
of the Pharisees for rejecting the commandments |
MLR |
|
|
Beware
of the yeast of the Pharisees |
--- |
|
10:2-5 |
The
Pharisees are said to be hard-hearted |
MLR |
|
14:55-65 |
The
chief priests and council condemn Jesus as deserving death |
--- |
|
15:1-15 |
The
crowd demands that Jesus, not Barabbas, be
crucified |
MLR |
* Key to Lectionary Codes:
--- - Not included in a major lectionary series.
M - The Roman Catholic Lectionary for Mass
used during the 1980s.
L - Lutheran
adaptations of the Lectionary for Mass, printed in the Lutheran
Book of Worship.
R - The Revised Common Lectionary,
1992.
The Gospel of Luke contains approximately 60 verses of defamatory anti-Jewish polemic. These are shown in Table II.C-1.
Table II.C-1 – Anti-Jewish polemic in
the Gospel of Luke
|
Source |
Description
of Context |
Lectionary Code* |
|
3:7c |
The
multitudes are called poisonous snakes |
LR |
|
4:28-30 |
The
members of the synagogue in |
MLR |
|
|
The
Pharisees are said to have rejected the purposes of God |
--- |
|
11:39-54 |
The
Pharisees and Torah scholars are repeatedly condemned |
--- |
|
12:1b |
Beware
of the yeast of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy |
--- |
|
13:14-17 |
The
ruler of the synagogue is condemned as a hypocrite |
--- |
|
13:35a |
The
house of |
LR |
|
22:63-71 |
The
chief priests and council condemn Jesus as deserving death |
LR |
|
23:1-25 |
The
people demand that Jesus, not Barabbas, be
crucified |
LR |
* Key to Lectionary Codes:
--- - Not included in a major lectionary series.
M - The Roman Catholic Lectionary for Mass
used during the 1980s.
L - Lutheran
adaptations of the Lectionary for Mass, printed in the Lutheran
Book of Worship.
R - The Revised Common Lectionary,
1992.
The Gospel of John contains approximately 130 verses of defamatory anti-Jewish polemic. These are shown in Table II.D-1.
Table II.D-1 – Anti-Jewish polemic in
the Gospel of John
|
Source |
Description of Context |
Lectionary Code* |
|
5:16-18 |
The Jews are said to have persecuted Jesus and
wanted to kill him |
--- |
|
5:37b-47 |
It is said that God's word and God's love is not
in the Jews |
--- |
|
7:19-24 |
It is said that none of the Jews do (what is
written in) the Torah |
--- |
|
|
It is said that the Jews do not know the One who
has sent Jesus |
--- |
|
8:13-28 |
It is said that the Pharisees know neither Jesus
nor the Father |