WE HAVE NOTHING TO CONFESS


Stephen Waldman, in an effort to "alienate both his Jewish and Christian relatives" offers up moral equivalence on the incendiary issue of the Passion Play - brought once more into public debate by the upcoming medeival cinematic version by Mel Gibson. Jews, Waldman asserts, should admit that "some of [our] forefathers probably helped get Jesus killed," but Christians should admit that the Gospels were probably a biased version of the facts, and that Christian reprisals against the Jews were antithetical to Christian theology. So, you see, there's a perfectly reasonable solution to the problem - we can all agree that we've both been wrong, agree to call it a day, and go on to intermarry away our divisions.


The problem of course is that there's simply no equating the so-called "wrongs" on both sides in this case. To put it in stark contemporary terms, it is the equivalent of stating that Jews should admit that that some of their leaders helped cause Germany's defeat in World War I, but that Germans should admit that the Holocaust was an overreaction.


Waldman evinces an awareness of the polemic nature of the Gospels, admitting that "there is a strong possibility that" they "distorted the history of the 'Jewish' role" in Jesus's death. Yet his argument for his claim for "as best as we can tell, Jews did kill Jesus" rests solely on the Gospel. There is a bit of an absurdity in setting up the New Testament as the accepted basis for Jewish-Christian dialogue. After all, there is no getting past the fact that the Gospels are Truth for Christians and rejected heresy for Jews. Therefore, the fact that Bible scholars consider Mark to be the most authentic of the Gospels, and it contains the charge as well, is irrelevant. It can no more establish Jewish culpability in the death of Jesus than the first version of the Protocals could establish Jewish control of world capital. (Of course, unlike the Protocals, the Gospels contain the truths of Jesus's ethical teachings, while the Protocals are wholesale and sinsiter fabrications).



So rather than turning to proof texts that one side reveres as revelation and the other side rejects as polemics, it would be better to look to the other information we have about Roman Judea during the life of Jesus. The cite from Josephus (who is the most reliable historian of the period only because he is the only historian of the period) therefore is the strongest support for anything like the Gospel account. However, any argument in support of Jewish culpability must address a number of countervailing facts. First, that the Jewish religious authorities had autonomy to execute heretics (by stoning, not crucification). Second, within all the strains of Second Temple Judaism, the Messiah was seen as a temporal, political savior, not the Christian understanding of a spiritual purifier, and therefore a threat first and foremost to the temporal power of Rome. More than one would-be Messiah was crucified by Rome during the period of Jesus's death.


Finally, to the extent that any possible colloboration between Jews and Romans existed, it would clearly not have involved the forebearers of rabbinic Judasim, the Pharisees. Jerusalem was dominated by the temple-centered Saducees. The Pharisees base of power was centered in the outlying parts of Judea, especially in the Galilee. It is well-documented that the Saducees more than any other sect were the most collusive with the Roman authorities. The Pharisees, on the other hand, clashed with the colonial power, leading their eventual entanglement in the doomed revolts - and the development of pacific ethos by their rabbinnic followers. Thus the chances that any of "our forebearers" involvement are truly slim.


It is one thing to in an academic discussion of the death of Jesus, come to the conclusion intra-Jewish infighting might have played a role. It is something else to require of the Jews, who have sufferred immeassureably from the slander of deicide for over 2000 years to admit to anything. (Nor does Waldman's Jewish ancestry give him leave to do so on the Jews behalf). Jews have every right to "be defensive" about the theological linchpin of Christian anti-semetism. Alas, there is only one party required to look inward on this issue - and that is Christianity. The beauty of that faith, seen everyday in the lives of those who, inspired by Jesus's example, pursue justice and seek holiness, is stained by the slander of the deicide against the Jews and its bloody consequences. No the Jews did not kill Jesus, and until Christianity commits to this truth, a religion that through Jesus shows a path to G-d will keep leading some of its members hopeless astray.