Tomorrow is Orthodox Easter. (Yes, we're five weeks behind everyone else this year.) So, over the past few days, I've heard the story of Christ's Passion from all four gospels read multiple times. Linda is just wrong. The gospels clearly blame "the Jews" for Jesus' death. They depict Pilate as a weakling who caved to a Jewish mob in orde…
Tomorrow is Orthodox Easter. (Yes, we're five weeks behind everyone else this year.) So, over the past few days, I've heard the story of Christ's Passion from all four gospels read multiple times. Linda is just wrong. The gospels clearly blame "the Jews" for Jesus' death. They depict Pilate as a weakling who caved to a Jewish mob in ordering the crucifixion of Jesus.
This is historically plausible. While Pilate had been previously harsh with the Jews, his situation had changed with the fall of Sejanus about a year and a half earlier. Pilate, who had been appointed by Sejanus, had carried out Sejanus's anti-Jewish policies. When Tiberius returned to Rome in AD 31 and deposed Sejanus, he promptly ordered officials to ease up on the Jews. That would have made Pilate more sensitive to demands from the Jewish leaders. He didn't want to share the fate of his patron.
If one wants to interrogate the gospels on this point, I think the key is to consider what is meant by "the Jews". In current English usage, the term can refer to religious belief or practice, ethnic identity, or some combination of the two. But Jesus and his disciples were all Jews in both those senses of the term. So, when the gospels set "the Jews" in opposition to Jesus, the term must mean something else. In the gospels, the term also has a geopolitical valence - i.e., "Judean". According to tradition, Jesus and 11 of the disciples (all but Judas) were from Galilee. The Judean elite were jealous of their status as leaders of the broader Jewish community, and many of them regarded the diaspora as second-class Jews. That also gave it implications of what we might call "class". The Judean establishment regarded Jesus as a threat to their status.
That Judean establishment, including the Sadducees and the priestly class, fell during the First Jewish War (AD 66-74). So, "the Jews" referred to in the gospels were already history by the time Luke and John were written. It does not make sense to read "the Jews" in the gospels as pertaining to all people who might be classified as Jews in the modern understanding of the term.
Tomorrow is Orthodox Easter. (Yes, we're five weeks behind everyone else this year.) So, over the past few days, I've heard the story of Christ's Passion from all four gospels read multiple times. Linda is just wrong. The gospels clearly blame "the Jews" for Jesus' death. They depict Pilate as a weakling who caved to a Jewish mob in ordering the crucifixion of Jesus.
This is historically plausible. While Pilate had been previously harsh with the Jews, his situation had changed with the fall of Sejanus about a year and a half earlier. Pilate, who had been appointed by Sejanus, had carried out Sejanus's anti-Jewish policies. When Tiberius returned to Rome in AD 31 and deposed Sejanus, he promptly ordered officials to ease up on the Jews. That would have made Pilate more sensitive to demands from the Jewish leaders. He didn't want to share the fate of his patron.
If one wants to interrogate the gospels on this point, I think the key is to consider what is meant by "the Jews". In current English usage, the term can refer to religious belief or practice, ethnic identity, or some combination of the two. But Jesus and his disciples were all Jews in both those senses of the term. So, when the gospels set "the Jews" in opposition to Jesus, the term must mean something else. In the gospels, the term also has a geopolitical valence - i.e., "Judean". According to tradition, Jesus and 11 of the disciples (all but Judas) were from Galilee. The Judean elite were jealous of their status as leaders of the broader Jewish community, and many of them regarded the diaspora as second-class Jews. That also gave it implications of what we might call "class". The Judean establishment regarded Jesus as a threat to their status.
That Judean establishment, including the Sadducees and the priestly class, fell during the First Jewish War (AD 66-74). So, "the Jews" referred to in the gospels were already history by the time Luke and John were written. It does not make sense to read "the Jews" in the gospels as pertaining to all people who might be classified as Jews in the modern understanding of the term.