Is Mel Gibson's "The
Passion Of The Christ"
Anti-Semitic?
As a writer, the last thing I would ever want to do is to produce
something unoriginal. I am keenly aware that this may be the fiftieth
article you have digested concerning Mel Gibson’s mildly
controversial movie, The Passion. Still, although some of my
points will be familiar, I believe I may add at least one or two new
wrinkles to the discourse.
One such wrinkle is that I am not only a Christian, but also a
converted Jew. As a Christian I am familiar with the New
Testament and the frequent distortions that occur when people take
verses out of context. As a Jew, I was raised to watch out for
anti-Semitism and I do see a lot of genuine Jew hatred in the world
today. I do NOT see such bigotry in The Passion.
Let’s be blunt. With the exception of a few artistic
liberties,
Gibson remained true to the gospel accounts and it is exactly these
gospels that Jews (and some others) falsely (but sincerely) interpret
as anti-Semitic. The reaction is understandable since the New Testament
has been misquoted throughout history by evil religious hypocrites who
persecuted Jews and called them Christ-killers.
If hypocrisy is your concern, it may surprise you to learn that you
actually have something in common with Jesus, for Jesus hated religious
hypocrisy and preached against it quite often.
“Not everyone who says to be ‘Lord,
Lord,’ will enter
the kingdom of Heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who
is in Heaven. Many will say to me on that day,
“Lord, Lord,
did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and
perform many miracles?’ Then I will tell them plainly,
‘I
never knew you. Away from me you
evildoers’”
(Matt. 7:21-23).
This interesting discourse given early in Jesus’ ministry
proved
to be very prophetic. Therefore, hypocrisy in the church,
while
sad, is not a phenomenon which contradicts the words of Christ, for He
not only spoke of hypocrisy but hypocrisy in his own name!
Having acknowledged the inappropriate usage of the New Testament, I
must also admit that the New Testament does assign some credit to some
Jews for Jesus’ death.
Now stop. Before you clutch your chest or fall out of your chair, allow
me to explain.
Any conversation about Jesus is pointless until we understand
Jesus’ actual claims. Whatever you personally may believe
about
Jesus, He actually taught that He was God incarnate, the creator of the
universe visiting the world in the form of a human being. (John 8:58,
14:9-10 Even the title, Son of God, was considered a claim to deity in
those days.) To the ancient Jews, the idea of a mere man claiming to be
the God of Israel was as outrageous and dangerous as false teaching
could possibly be. (unless, of course, Jesus was telling the
truth). But the Sanhedrin (a Jewish puppet court, allowed by
the
Romans to have limited jurisdiction over internal affairs) did not
believe His claim and had no recourse but to denounce Him as a traitor
and blasphemer.
Under Roman law, the Sanhedrin did not have the authority to kill
Jesus. But they would have if they could. Instead, they gave him to
Pilate and he had Jesus killed, thus all the debate over who killed
Jesus, the Jews or the Romans. Actually it was a collaborative
effort. Some claim that this New Testament report not only
contradicts the facts of history but also does so with an anti-Jewish
agenda. Well intentioned and sincerely misinformed, they fail
to
take several key things into account:
1) The New Testament does not teach that all Jews killed Jesus, rather
certain hypocritical Jewish leaders. Many other Jews in Israel followed
Jesus and the original church was made up of Jews. Even some of the
Jews who voted to have Jesus executed, later on became Christians
themselves (Ex. Paul the apostle possibly, because he had been a member
of the Sanhedrin. But the book of Acts does tell us
definitely
that many Jewish authorities converted Acts 6:7).
2) The New Testament was itself (for the most part) written by
Jews. Please grasp the significance of this: It is from Jews
that
we get the account that Jesus was killed by Jews. Although
these
authors had converted to Christianity, their love for Israel never went
away. Just look at the words of Paul, a former rabbi.
For I could wish that I myself were cursed and cut off from Christ for
the sake of my brothers, those of my own race, the people of Israel.
Theirs is the adoption as sons; theirs the divine glory, the covenants,
the receiving of the law, the temple worship and the promises. Theirs
are the patriarchs, and from them is traced the human ancestry of
Christ, who is God over all, forever praised! Amen. Rom 9:3-5
3) It was common even in the Old Testament (Or Holy Scriptures, as Jews
would call it) for Jewish writers to be painfully honest when fellow
Israelites did not obey God. This is one of the greatest arguments that
the Bible is trustworthy, as generally nations tend to paint themselves
in a positive light.
“OK. Maybe the writers of the Bible weren’t
anti-Semitic,
but you still haven’t completely addressed the historical
inaccuracies. After all, the New Testament paints Pontus
Pilate
as a man of conscience and weak backbone who wanted to please the Jews,
but the ancient historian, Josephus, portrays him as a brutal dictator
who massacred Jews and cared nothing for their cause.”
The New Testament does not deny Pilate’s brutality. In fact,
Luke
actually corroborates Josephus:
Now there were some present at that time who told Jesus about
the
Galileans whose blood Pilate had mixed with their sacrifices. Luke 13:1
Even the passion narratives show us a man who condemned Jesus to death,
despite the fact that he found no guilt in the man. That is hardly a
glowing testimonial. Remember also that Pilate had Jesus tortured
before he was executed. This “scourging”, as it was
called
in ancient Rome, was portrayed accurately by Gibson.
“How do you explain Pilate’s fear in the
gospels? He
seems to be putting Jesus to death to please the Jews.
Doesn’t
that contradict his previous behavior?”
This obvious change of attitude is easily explained when we supply an
important missing piece of the puzzle. Before Pilate’s
encounter
with Jesus he had another encounter, a not so pleasant encounter, with
Emperor Tiberius. And this ruler of Rome actually brought
Pilate’s anti-Jewish policies to a screeching halt!
Among his other unpopular practices, Pilate had erected some Roman
shields at his Jerusalem palace and these shields bore pagan
inscriptions, offensive to the Jews. Four prominent Jewish princes
represented their people by writing a letter to the emperor, after
pleading in vain to the stubborn governor of Judea to have them
removed. Tiberius responded sharply with a letter of his own and
demanded that Pilate remove those shields at once! (Philo, Embassy To
Caligula)
Decide now for yourself if Pilate’s political back and forth
persona makes more sense. He has been rebuked by the Emperor for his
treatment of the Jews. Out of the blue, Jesus is thrown his way and as
governor, it is his decision alone to convict or acquit. Out of fear,
he now wants to please the Jews. But which Jews? The leaders
and
representatives of the Jewish court who want Jesus dead but cannot
legally execute him themselves, or the many followers of this very
popular Jesus person? At first, Pilate seemed to be catering
to
the people at large but that changed when the Sanhedrin heads played
their final wild card:
From then on, Pilate tried to set Jesus free, but the Jews kept
shouting, "If you let this man go, you are no friend of Caesar. Anyone
who claims to be a king opposes Caesar." John 19:12
Could Pilate, after finding himself on the bad side of Caesar, ignore
these words about opposing Caesar?
But I have saved the most interesting information for last.
In the Talmud (an ancient rabbinic storehouse of law, wisdom and
commentary) Jesus is described as both a sorcerer and an apostate and
it is clearly admitted that the Sanhedrin condemned him to be executed.
On the eve of the Passover Yeshu was hanged. For forty days
before the execution took place, a herald went forth and cried,
‘He is going to be stoned because he has practiced sorcery
and
enticed Israel to Apostasy. Anyone who can say anything in
his
favor, let him come forward and plead on his behalf. But
since
nothing was brought forward in his favor, he was hanged on the eve of
the Passover (Sanhedrin 43A, Babylonian Talmud from
Tannaaitic
period 70-200 Ad. Translation from Jacob Shachter, Sanhedrin,
Translated into English With Notes, Glossary And Indices, Chapters 1-6
by Jacob Schachter, Chapters 7-11 by H. Freedman, London, 1948:
Soncino, p.281-2). 1
Yeshu, of course, is the Hebrew word for Jesus.
“Hanging” was another way of describing a
crucifixion.2
Apostates were people who broke from the faith and/or preached
heresy. Jesus’ divine claims certainly placed Him
into this
category.
Why did the Talmud go on to conclude that Jesus was also a
sorcerer? Because in those days, if you didn’t like
a
religious personality but could not deny the fact that He was doing
miracles, the only recourse was to call Him a sorcerer, or tool of the
devil.
Conclusion:
I hope the complexity of this subject has been clarified a little.
Ironically, much of the discussion assumes that Jesus’ death
was
somehow contrary to God’s plan. Please understand;
God did
not send His Son, only to have His plans fouled up. He didn’t
say, “Crucifixion? How dare they! There goes that trip to the
Bahamas that Jesus was planning to take with His disciples!”
On
the contrary, Jesus planned to die and Jesus had to die. If He did not
die, and rise from the dead three days later, none of us could be
forgiven of our sins. The ultimate teaching of the New Testament is
that we are all responsible for Jesus’ death. If not for our
selfish natures, He would not have needed to pay the penalty we were
simply unable to pay.
Scripture taken
from THE HOLY BIBLE
New International Version NIV
Copyright 1973, 1979, 1984 by International Bible Society
Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House.
All rights reserved.
Footnotes:
1) Jacob Neusner, who edited his own translation of the Babylonian
Talmud uses Schachter’s translation for this passage and
admits
that the text “is omitted in censured editions of the Talmud
and
is not found in the standard printed text” (Jacob Neusner,
The
Talmud of Babylon, An American Translation XXIII Tractate Sanhedrin,
Brown Judaic Studies 84, 1984, Brown University, p. 74).
2) As far back as the time of Moses, it was a Jewish custom to hang
executed criminals on a tree even if they had first been put to death
some other way such as stoning (Deut.21:22-23).
Although
the Romans crucified Jesus, handing Jesus over to Pilate for punishment
was as close to executing the sentence themselves as the Sanhedrin
could possibly come in those days. Even though crucifixion
was
not a Jewish form of execution, the Roman purpose in crucifixion
closely paralleled the Jewish purpose in hanging. Jesus, in a
manner of speaking, was hanged publicly for all to see.
Setting
such an “example” to other potential offenders was
the
Roman reason for crucifixion ( Josephus, War, 7,
Tacitus
Historia 4, 3, 11). Therefore, the Romans as well as Jews
shared
the practice of a public example even though they had different ways to
execute people. Certainly Paul made the connection between
the
death of Jesus and the hanging described in Deuteronomy 21, for he
actually quotes the verse in Galatians 3:13 while talking about
Christ’s crucifixion.
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From the
column, "What About It, Bob?"
By Bob Siegel
© 2004 by Bob Siegel
This article is not to be reproduced without written permission from
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