CIC: Ecumenism

The Jews and the Death of Jesus
Current Catholic Perspectives

As we approach Good Friday, the question arises: Who is responsible for the killing of Jesus? This question was raised yet again last year when Mel Gibson’s, “The Passion of the Christ” burst upon the world scene. Throughout much of Christian history, the simplistic, erroneous answer is that the Jewish people killed Jesus. Throughout the ages, the Jewish people have borne, with unimaginable suffering, the brunt of that attributed responsibility. That thousands of years of Christian misunderstanding and prejudice did not aid and abet, to at least some degree, the horror of the Holocaust, cannot be seriously denied.

As we approach the reading of the Passion this Palm Sunday and Good Friday, we cannot allow this misunderstanding and prejudice to continue in any form. Pope John Paul II has said,

"Erroneous and unjust interpretations of the New Testament regarding the Jewish people and their alleged culpability have circulated in the Christian world for too long, engendering feelings of hostility toward this people. They have contributed to the Lulling of consciences, so that when waves of persecutions swept across Europe…the spiritual resistance of many was not what humanity rightfully expected from the Disciples of Christ."

Considerations for reading and listening to the Passion Accounts

To read the Passion accounts accurately we must keep in the forefront of our mind:

1. Jesus’ Jewish roots are clearly established in the gospels. He was observant of the Torah, invited people to both respect and obey the Torah and taught in the synagogues. “While Jesus showed uniqueness and authority in his interpretation of God’s word in the Torah-in a manner than scandalized some Jews and impressed others- he did not oppose it or wish to abrogate it.”

2. The gospels were written some time after the death of Jesus. During the interim, the strongly Jewish character of Jesus’ teaching was culturally adapted by an increasingly Gentile Church. Conflicts that arose between newly forming Christian Church and late first century Judaism find their way back into the formation of the gospels themselves.

3. The famous line from Matthew: “His blood be on us and on our children”, and the repeated reference to “the Jews” in John’s gospel, “are unique to a given author and must be understood in the context of that author’s overall theological scheme. Often, these unique elements reflect the perceived needs and emphasis of the author’s particular community at the end of the first century, after the split between Jews and Christians was well underway. The bitterness toward synagogue Judaism seen in John’s gospel most likely reflects the bitterness felt by John’s own community after its parting of the ways with the Jewish community.”

4. “Christ in his boundless love freely underwent his passion and death because of the sins of all so that all might attain Salvation. To the extent that Christians over the centuries made Jews the scapegoat for Christ’s death, they drew themselves away from the pasc