The Anti-Jewish New Testament

 

 

I.            Introduction

 

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 Roman Empire, Jewish people became a primary target of persecution by "The Church"

 

Although the Holocaust, which caused the murderous annihilation of two-thirds of Europe's Jewish population, was in some ways different from previous historical acts of mass persecution and genocide of the Jewish people, it shared the motive of its precursors, the Crusades and Inquisition, and the many pogroms and expulsions.  Each of these events was fueled by anti-Semitism, the hatred of Jewish people, and was aimed at their murder and plunder.  The Holocaust distinguished itself from the other events in the scope of its genocidal goals and the fact that it did not offer its victims the "option" of conversion to Christianity – there was no escape from death.

 

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.

 

II.            Anti-Jewish Polemic 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.

 

1. Gospel of Matthew

 

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

 

* 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.

 

2. Gospel of Mark

 

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

 

* 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.

 

3. Gospel of Luke

 

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

 

* 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.

 

4. Gospel of John

 

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

 

* Key to Lectionary Codes:

--- - Not included in a major lectionary series.

H - The "Historic Pericopes" 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.

 

5. Acts of the Apostles

 

The Acts of the Apostles contains approximately 120 verses of defamatory anti-Jewish polemic.  These are shown in Table II.E-1.

 

Table II.E-1 – Anti-Jewish polemic in the Book of Acts

 

* 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.

 

6. Paul's Letters & Epistles

 

Within the seven letters written by Paul and the six Pseudo-Pauline and Deutero-Pauline epistles are found four verses which constitute some of the most virulent anti-Jewish polemic present in the New Testament.  These are shown in Table II.F-1.

 

Table II.F-1 – Anti-Jewish polemic from Paul's 1^st Thessalonians

 

* Key to Lectionary Codes:

--- - Not included in a major lectionary series.

 

III.            Observations and Conclusions

 

Some general observations may be drawn from the material presented above:

 

Æ     An ever-increasing number of Christian scholars agree that the New Testament contains defamatory anti-Jewish polemic.

 

Æ     Although various speculations exist regarding the reasons such defamatory anti-Jewish polemic found its way into the New Testament, a salient and good "food for thought" question is:

 

?        Can such anti-Jewish language be the "breathed word of G-d", as many Christians believe the New Testament is, or the "inspired word of G-d", as many other Christians believe? 

 

Æ     Whatever might have been the reasons such defamatory anti-Jewish polemic originally found its way into the New Testament, there is no doubt about the fact that it served to fuel anti-Semitism and its resultant atrocities against the Jewish people throughout the history of Christianity.

 

Æ     Based on quantity alone, the Gospel of John appears to be the most anti-Jewish book in the New Testament, with Acts of the Apostles being a close second.  As an example, consider the following samples out of a passage from the Gospel of John listed among others in Table II.D-1 above [words in brackets were added for clarification; highlighting added for emphasis]:

 

John 8:44,47(KJV) – (44) Ye [Jews] are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye [Jews] will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it.

(47) He that is of God heareth God's words: ye [Jews] therefore hear them not, because ye [Jews] are not of God.

 

Æ     Based on virulence and viciousness, the one selection that may have been most responsible for the shedding of the blood of millions of innocent Jewish victims over the history of Christianity is from Paul's epistolary [highlighting added for emphasis]:

 

1 Thessalonians 2:13-16(KJV) – (13) For this cause also thank we God without ceasing, because, when ye received the word of God which ye heard of us, ye received it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God, which effectually worketh also in you that believe.  (14) For ye, brethren, became followers of the churches of God which in Judaea are in Christ Jesus: for ye also have suffered like things of your own countrymen, even as they have of the Jews:  (15) Who both killed the Lord Jesus, and their own prophets, and have persecuted us; and they please not God, and are contrary to all men:  (16) Forbidding us to speak to the Gentiles that they might be saved, to fill up their sins alway: for the wrath is come upon them to the uttermost.

 

Several passages from the Acts of the Apostles convey similar messages.

 

Table III-1 shows summary statistics, extracted from the various tables in Sec. II, on anti-Jewish polemic found in the major lectionary series.

 

Table III-1 – Anti-Jewish polemic in the New Testament and in Christian lectionaries

 

 

Additional observations can be drawn from the data shown in Table III-1:

 

Æ     Although the "historic pericope" tradition may not have deliberately selected blatantly anti-Jewish texts, the tradition did not demonstrate sensitivity to this issue.  While there may not have been a conscious attempt to select large numbers of defamatory anti-Jewish texts, it does not appear that there was any directed effort to avoid their usage either.

 

Æ     The Roman Catholic Lectionary for Mass contains 23 selections that are blatantly anti-Jewish, as compared with the six in the "historic pericopes".  It appears, then, that the liturgical specialists who developed the Lectionary for Mass did not apply to their process of lectionary formation the principles and the spirit of Nostra Aetate (the Declaration on the Relationship of the Roman Catholic Church to Non-Christian Religions approved by the Vatican Council II - 10/28/65).  They were particularly insensitive in their selections of virulently anti-Jewish texts from the Acts of the Apostles, which they use during the important Easter Season.

 

Æ     The Lutheran liturgists and the liturgists within the other Christian denominations, who became interested in the (Roman Catholic) Lectionary for Mass and in adopting it, with modifications, for their own use, apparently had no concerns about its expanded use of defamatory anti-Jewish texts.  In fact, the liturgists from the Lutheran tradition added more viciously and blatantly anti-Jewish selections in the Lutheran Lectionary for Mass, thereby making it the most anti-Jewish lectionary analyzed by Prof. Beck.

 

Æ     The Christian liturgists who developed The Revised Common Lectionary also demonstrated the same lack of sensitivity as did the others.  In fact, they actually added several blatantly anti-Jewish passages to their collection.

 

Considering the large numbers of Church going Christians who have used these liturgical collections in their regular church services, is it any wonder that anti-Semitism has been so rampant within "The Church" and Christendom?  The anti-Jewish rhetoric in the New Testament has been very effective in poisoning the minds of those who study it and accept it as "the word of G-d", or as "inspired by G-d".

 

IV.            Summary

 

The summary view of this essay is simple:

 

Question:  What is the source of the common thread of anti-Semitism shared

                   by the historical acts of persecution of the Jewish people? 

 

Answer:  The New Testament.

 

The "Christian love for the Jew", of which so much is heard these days, turns out to be conditional in overwhelming majority of cases.  Christians, evangelical Christian missionaries in particular, view the Jewish people as blind and in need of being made into "believers".  When their missionary efforts fail, or when their deceptions are exposed, their professed love for the Jew quickly turns into hatred and contempt.  Today's hand-clapping Jew-loving "new Christians" are evangelical Christian fundamentalists in disguise, some of whom even profess to be "Torah Observant".  They teach the same anti-Semitic doctrines as have been taught by "The Church" throughout the Common Era.  And while their tactics may have changed, their agenda and message remain the same. 

 

The number of Jewish people who have been adversely affected, maimed, and murdered in the name of Jesus throughout the history of Christianity significantly exceeds the six million who were massacred by the Nazis during the Holocaust.  Yet, there are Jews who, for various reasons, have chosen to overlook this fact and have joined themselves to "The Church" with its built-in anti-Semitism.  According to Shmuel Golding, who founded and directed the Jerusalem Institute of Biblical Polemics for many years:

 

"Any Jew who can pay homage to the New Testament or allow himself to believe in it, is, in my opinion in the same category as a Jew who tries to justify Hitler's Mein Kampf or, as one who covers up for the deeds of the Nazis."[4]

 

A Jewish person who is approached by Christian missionaries should realize that, in order to be "loved" by them, he or she will have to embrace and accept the New Testament as part of his or her Bible.  Therefore, every Jewish person, whether still a member of the Jewish community or one who has already joined a Hebrew-Christian organization, must ask himself or herself the following questions and try to answer them honestly: 

 

?        Can the New Testament, which has led to the persecution and murder of millions of my Jewish ancestors throughout the Common Era, truly be the breathed word of G-d, or be inspired by Him?

 

?        Am I ready to embrace this New Testament, which spouts hatred and lies against the Jewish people and, therefore, against me as a Jewish person, and accept it as part of my Bible?

 

Hopefully, the honest and objective answers to these questions will be the motivation for any subsequent action by the affected individual.

 

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References for further study

 

[Selected material from some of these sources was used in preparing this essay]

 

Internet Websites:

 

The New Testament & Anti-Semitism (http://www.messianic-racism.mcmail.com/ca/antisem/idx.htm) - Several relevant articles may be found at this website.

 

Jewish-Christian Relations (http://www.jcrelations.net/) - This website contains a wealth of scholarly materials that deal with all aspects of Jewish-Christian relations.

 

Books:

 

Elder and Younger Brothers: The Encounter of Jews and Christians, by A. Roy Eckhardt, Schocken Books (1973)

 

Your People, My People: The Meeting of Christians & Jews, by A. Roy Eckhardt, Crown Publishing Group (1974); ISBN 0-81290-4125

 

Antisemitism in the New Testament , by Lillian C. Freudmann, University Press of America (1994); ISBN: 0819192953

 

Removing the Anti-Judaism from the New Testament, by Howard Clark Kee and Irvin J. Borowsky, American Interfaith Institute, Philadelphia, PA