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February 9, 2010 8:41 pm PST

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“Certainly there are violent and offensive passages in the Tanakh… But I can think of none in the Christian New Testament.” I guess ‘offensive’ is a relative term. But are you kidding? Antisemitism is in the air western civilization breathes, the water it swims in and imbibes. Do you think Mel Gibson just made it up? You will say - it isn’t offensive if it’s true. Many have said that. But what if it isn’t? Truth it seesm is also a relative term. Hint 1. Today’s Jews are of the Pharisees. Hint 2. We don’t believe it is true. Love, Love, Love… bah. This stuff does not create warm and fuzzy feeling for the Jews, and may explain much.

Anti-Jewish polemic in the Gospel of Matthew - total 90 verses
3:7c The Pharisees and Sadducees are called poisonous snakes
12:34a The Pharisees are called evil poisonous snakes
15:3-9 Condemnation of the Pharisees for rejecting the commandments
15:12-14 The Pharisees are called blind guides leading the blind
16:6 Beware of the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees
19:3-9 The Pharisees are said to be hard-hearted
19:28 The disciples of Jesus will judge the twelve tribes of Israel
22:18c The Pharisees are called hypocrites
23:13-36 The scribes and Pharisees are repeatedly vilified as hypocrites
23:38 The house of Jerusalem is to be forsaken and desolate
26:59-68 The chief priests and council condemn Jesus as deserving death
27:1-26 The people demand that Jesus, not Barabbas, be crucified
27:62-66 The chief priests and Pharisees request a guard at Jesus’ tomb
28:4 The guards tremble and become like dead when the angel appears
28:11-15 The chief priest bribe the guards to lie about their actions

Anti-Jewish polemic in the Gospel of Mark - total 40 verses
3:6 The Pharisees are said to have begun to plan to destroy Jesus
7:6-13 Condemnation of the Pharisees for rejecting the commandments
8:15 Beware of the yeast of the Pharisees
10:2-5 The Pharisees are said to be hard-hearted
14:55-65 The chief priests and council condemn Jesus as deserving death
15:1-15 The crowd demands that Jesus, not Barabbas, be crucified

Anti-Jewish polemic in the Gospel of Luke - total 60 verses
3:6 The Pharisees are said to have begun to plan to destroy Jesus
7:6-13 Condemnation of the Pharisees for rejecting the commandments
8:15 Beware of the yeast of the Pharisees
10:2-5 The Pharisees are said to be hard-hearted
14:55-65 The chief priests and council condemn Jesus as deserving death
15:1-15 The crowd demands that Jesus, not Barabbas, be crucified

Anti-Jewish polemic in the Gospel of John - total 130 verses
5:16-18 The Jews are said to have persecuted Jesus and wanted to kill him
5:37b-47 It is said that God’s word and God’s love is not in the Jews
7:19-24 It is said that none of the Jews do (what is written in) the Torah
7:28d It is said that the Jews do not know the One who has sent Jesus
8:13-28 It is said that the Pharisees know neither Jesus nor the Father
8:37-59 The Jews are said to be descendants of their father, the Devil
9:13-41 The Pharisees and other Jews are condemned as guilty
10:8 The Jews are said to be thieves and robbers
10:10a The Jews are depicted as those who steal and kill and destroy
10:31-39 The Jews are said to have picked up stones to throw at Jesus
11:53 It is said that the Jews realized that they would have to kill Jesus
11:57 It is said that the chief priests and Pharisees wanted to seize Jesus
12:10 It is said that the chief priests planned to kill Lazarus and Jesus
12:36b-43 It is said that most Jews loved the praise of men more than of God
6:2-4 (The Jews who) kill Jesus’ disciples will think they are serving God
18:28-32 The Jews are said to have demanded that Pilate sentence Jesus to death
18:38b-40 The Jews are said to be demanding that Jesus, not Barabbas, be crucified
19:4-16 The Jews are depicted as insisting to Pilate that Jesus be crucified

Anti-Jewish polemic in the Book of Acts - total 120 verses
2:23b Peter tells the men of Israel that they crucified Jesus
2:36b Again Peter tells the men of Israel that they crucified Jesus
3:13b-15a Peter tells the men of Israel that they killed the originator of life
4:10a Again Peter tells the men of Israel that they killed Jesus
5:30b Peter tells the members of the Jewish council that they killed Jesus
6:11-14 Some Jews are said to have brought false accusations against Stephen
7:51-60 Stephen shown as condemning the Jews for betraying and killing Jesus
9:1-2 Paul is depicted as planning the arrest of disciples of Jesus
9:23-25 Jews are said to have plotted to kill Paul
9:29b Jewish Hellenists are also said to have tried to kill Paul
12:1-3a It is said that the Jews were pleased when Herod killed James
12:3b-4 Herod is said to have seized Peter also to please the Jews
12:11 Peter is said to have realized that the Jews wanted to kill him
13:10-11 Paul is said to have condemned the Jew Elymas as a son of the Devil
13:28-29a It is said that the Jews had asked Pilate to crucify Jesus
13:39d It is said that Jews cannot be forgiven by means of the Torah
13:45-46 Jews are said to have spoken against Paul
13:50-51 Jews are said to have encouraged persecution of Paul and Barnabas
14:1-6 Many Jews opposing Paul and Barnabas and attempting to stone them
14:19-20 Jews are said to have stoned Paul, thinking that they had killed him
17:5-9 Jews are said to have incited a riot, looking for Paul and Silas
17:13 Jews are said to have stirred up turmoil against Paul
18:6 Paul said to have told the Jews, “Your blood will be on your own heads!”
18:12-17 Jews are said to have brought accusations against Paul
19:13-19 Jewish exorcists are shown to be condemned
21:27-36 Jews are depicted as seizing Paul and as trying to kill him
22:4-5 Paul says that when he was a Jew he had persecuted Christians
23:2-5 Paul is said to have condemned the chief priest for striking Paul
23:12-22 Jews are said to have plotted to eat nothing until they kill Paul
23:27-30 Paul is said to have been nearly killed by the Jews
24:9 The Jews are said to have accused Paul of many crimes
25:2-5 Jews are said to have plotted to kill Paul
25:7-11 Jews are said to have continued to bring accusations against Paul
25:15-21 Jews are said to have spoken repeatedly against Paul
25:24 All Jews are said to have shouted that Paul must be killed
26:21 The Jews are said to have seized Paul and tried to kill him
28:25-28 Paul is said to have condemned the Jews for never understanding God

Anti-Jewish polemic from Paul’s 1st Thessalonians
2:13-16 Condemning the Jews for killing Jesus and the prophets, and celebrating the suffering of the Jews now that the “wrath of God” has come upon them

Comment by Ben Plonie on 9/07/08 at 12:59 am

I meant to say “This stuff does not create warm and fuzzy feeling for the Jews, and may explain much about Christian/Jewish relations over the last twenty centuries. Understating the case”

Comment by Ben Plonie on 9/07/08 at 6:30 am

You’re right, Ben. I was mistaken in my choice of words. The Christian New Testament contains passages that certainly have been considered offensive by non-Jews and, more tragically, have been uses throughout history to incite violence—though I would argue that such application was not Christlike.

Comment by Brad A. Greenberg on 9/07/08 at 7:38 am

I am not sure that NON-Jews care enough to find these things offensive. It is interesting that the goal of Christianity is to be Christ-like, when Christ is not strictly speaking human. There has also never been an identifiable group or mass movement that could be considered Christ-like, other than the perhaps the Jewish martyrs against conversion. Correct me if I am wrong. Devout? Sure. Passionate? Mais oui. Christ-like? Where and when and how?

But to the point, how does one differentiate between characterization of Jews in this way from those ideas in the Koran? They cannot help but motivate those who will say “Dayum, I’m no Christ but I can for sure revenge on the Lord’s rejectors and enemies and killers!”

Comment by Ben Plonie on 9/07/08 at 9:24 pm

Ben,
I am a NON-Jew, and I DO find anti-Semitism offensive.  I don’t find it MORE offensive than other sorts of group-hate, but I do find it equally offensive.

I believe it is important to try to understand hateful statements in their original context, rather than deny them.  I believe anti-Christian and anti-Jewish (and racist) statements in literature should be allowed to remain accessible, at least to scholars and students, lest we lose access to the historical reality of such hatred.

Be Well,
Bob Griffin

Comment by Robert Griffin on 9/15/08 at 10:17 am

Not to compete, but in extent, duration, quality, quantity and consequences antisemitism is unique. Or, never have so few been so hated by so many for so long in so horrific a manner and with such results. Nobody would thank me for pasting in a selection of savage details.

My point had nothing to do with censorship, more like shining the light of day upon it. What I said about mel Gibson was targeted. He is a theological follower of some radical nun who liked to focus upon statements about Jews such as the ones above. But that is not just cherry picking. There are no corresponding pro-Jewish/Israel sentiments in the Christian works. Nothing new has really been said since then, and all of Western antisemitism is rooted in them.

Rabbi Dr. Asher Wade, http://www.asherwade.com/ a cornfed midwestern Oxford theological doctoral candidate (no slouch as a scholar) with several years of ministry behind him ultimately converted to Orthodox Judaism. This is not the place for his story, but he has stated in lecture that those verses listed above were never really taught or focused upon in his seminary training. As far he knew, it was all love, all the time.

The Islamic texts are one step removed from the Christian ones, and mixed with Arab culture as they are have less inhibitions or shame about Jew hatred. I just saw a review of a new book carefully documenting the centuries of Islamic antisemitism (spare me Arabs are ‘semites’, there is no meaning for ‘antisemitism’ than Jew hatred) which I can’t locate right this minute. If I come across it I’ll let you know.

Comment by Ben Plonie on 9/17/08 at 8:18 am

Ben,
Group hatred and disdain has resulted in the complete destruction of a number of groups.  The entire native population of Paraguay was slaughtered in the early 19th century.  A sizable portion of the Armenian population was slaughtered between the 1880s and the 1920s, and roughly three-quarters of the Assyrian population (survivors of earlier ‘pogroms’) in and around Turkey were slaughtered during the same period. The destruction of the Pontic and Anatolian Greek communities during the same period is equally notable.

While the earliest anti-Jewish statements in the New Testament seem to me to derive from an intense rivalry (note Rabbi Tarfon for a Jewish perspective) paralleled by the anti-Pharisee statements in the Dead Sea Scrolls, these were unfortunately soon compounded with already-existing Greek and Syrian anti-Semitism. 

It is also unfortunate that ancient pagan anti-Semitism (eg. anti-Jewish riots and massacres of Jews in Alexandria) was further fueled by massacres (by Jews) during the early 2nd century CE (Mered haGaloyot/Kitos War).

Be Well,
Bob Griffin

Comment by Robert Griffin on 9/17/08 at 1:19 pm

Brad,

Ben has provided us with a fairly extensive list of New Testament passages which HAVE been used as a pretext for Christian anti-Semitism. I wish there were no such history, I wish modern anti-Semitism could fade into the past, but ...

It appears from my readings that as long as any group holds closely to its history as a recipient of persecution, members of the group will act out of anger towards outsiders, provoking newer reactions.  Quoting a Jain friend ‘Hurt people hurt people’.

Be Well,
Bob Griffin

Comment by Robert Griffin on 9/17/08 at 1:26 pm

Robert G.
Here is the difference. Those other genocides occurred because the victims were in somebody’s way. The way to their stuff; their gold or other property and resources, their land, their independence, whatever.

The victimization and degradation of the Jews happened for none of those reasons, by people who had nothing to gain from it. Sure, looting and rape etc. for some, but primarily evil joy. Revenge for the Lord. Whatever. The list of justifications is endless but eventually is seen to be false and contradictory.

You would have to tell me what Rabbi Tarfon said on the subject but the pattern was no different in this case. The Pharisees had nothing that anyone else wanted or needed except for their submission. The sovereignty was in the hands of the Romans, the Temple was in the hands of their stooges the Sadducees, the popular culture was in the hands of the leftover Hellenists and Roman collaborators, and the Pharisees had nothing but the chain of Torah transmission and grassroots support. There was no meaningful competition for that notwithstanding the Dead Sea Scrolls. Of all the splinter groups in Judea including the Nazarenes, none have survived (as identifiable Jews) but the Pharisees. Jesus originated from Pharisees, I am a Pharisee. Pharisee means ‘Separatist’. It means people who follow Abraham the Ivri, or the one who stands in opposition to the world if necessary, who will take their football (the Torah) and go home if necessary.

Robert, your intimation to Brad that the Jews somehow attract their persecution is obscene. There has always been a subset of Jews that will do anything anyone wants in order to shed their Jewish identity and their persecution in that way, but it never helps anyone. Let’s skip anecdotal examples of Jews involved in drugs, sex and rock n roll, but you would have to prove that Jews acting out of anger is a cause of antisemitism. I submit that Jews have been on the whole as inoffensive as possible, to a fault. In fact, the case is made that it is that inoffensiveness that attracts antisemitism rather than the reverse. I have no doubt that the spirit of revolt and insurrection was strong in the days of the Romans, whose persecutions and atrocities are not as well known as our resistance. But the art of propaganda was well established and the historicity of accounts of the Jewish revolts is poor. And if it wasn’t it still would not explain the next twenty centuries.

Your knowledge on the topic is too abstract. You would have to really know Jews to understand that they really do not dwell on persecution, other than on occasions designated to commemorate them. They are forward-looking and life-affirming, and generally do not waste energy on brooding and revenge. They do not either waste energy on ‘rejecting’ Jesus etc. A useful concept is ‘the opposite of love is not hate, it’s apathy’. “Here’s the Good News!” Have a nice day. “Allah is Great!” Have a nice day. “Hare Krishna!” Have a nice day. “Om mani padme hum!” Have a nice day. I think that is what they really hate.

Here, I got a million of ‘em. people do try to make sense out things.
http://www.aish.com/seminars/whythejews/
http://www.simpletoremember.com/vitals/Why_Do_People_Hate_The_Jews.htm
http://www.simpletoremember.com/vitals/reason-for-anti-semitism.htm

Comment by Ben Plonie on 9/17/08 at 8:16 pm

Ben,

Genocidal actions against the native peoples of the Americas, Australia, and Tasmania did indeed occur “because the victims were in somebody’s way.”  However the Armenian, Assyrian, Pontic and Anatolian Greek genocides are ethno-religious in character, resembling the religiously-based destruction of Jewish communities during the Middle Ages, and the Russian pogroms.  If you want to know more, look up Hrant Dink.  You might possibly also be interested in the works of Yair Auron (which I just now discovered).

The destruction during the Chmielnicki rebellion, while partially religiously fueled, was based on the socio-economic position of the Jewish community in the Ukraine at that time, paralleled more recently by the position of the Baha’i community in Iran under the Shah. The Ukrainian Jews were caught in the middle between the Ukrainian peasants and the Polish-Lithuanian nobility.

You should be easily able to find more about Rabbi Tarfon, who wrote during a period before Gentiles predominated in the early Christian community. His opponents were not the rich, the powerful, the riotous; they were the minim, who, from the viewpoint of the Romans, were merely some wierd impoverished Jewish sectarians.

Judging from my readings, the Nazarene was neither a Pharisee nor an Essene, but was from a community drawn vaguely to both positions.  Many of his teachings resemble those of Hillel, while others parallel the apocalyptic teachings of the Essenes.  His early followers did cherish many of the non-sectarian books found at Qumran, though the sectarian teachings appear to have been unknown to them.

In regards to Jewish attitudes to genocidal actions against Gentile populations - Names of general interest:Franz Werfel, Henry Morgenthau Sr., Raphael Lemkin

Is there a sort of ‘exceptionalism’ found in persecuted communities?  As far as I can tell, yes, frequently.  One case where this is seen is American Black anti-Semitism, where Blacks, who still suffer some racial oppression, resent Central and East-European Jewish immigrants who never participated in the oppression of the Blacks. Many survivors of native American peoples show no interested in the histories of other oppressed peoples; so also with many Assyrians and Armenians.

This is most likely my last response here, so
Be Well (REALLY!! - yehi lakem Tob bchaim, Tob babet, Tob bkol asher lkem)
Bob Griffin

Comment by Bob Griffin on 9/18/08 at 11:58 am

If this is your last response I guess there is no point to this post except for context. You are certainly more of a scholar than I am, but I still stand by my statement “... in extent, duration, quality, quantity and consequences antisemitism is unique. Or, never have so few been so hated by so many for so long in so horrific a manner and with such results”. In the long history of all the inhumanities of men to men. Certainly, if you give modern weapons to Hutus and Tutsis and Soamlis and Janjaweed and ‘Palestinian’ Arabs etc. you are going to get a lot of atrocities. But given the level and variety of cultural advancement of the enemies of the Jews that is not a good analogy.

Or more compactly, in quality and quantity. You should also know that the Jewish socio-economic position often deliberately maneuvered them as a buffer between peasants and nobility, to provide scapegoats for oppressive taxation and other policies. The Church was more than happy to collaborate in this so that a distinct line cannot be drawn. I read an account of a Polish Jewish woman who attended a church school pre-war (the only school available to her) where the priest would shout to the Polish children in their rags that the Jews were the cause of their poverty and misery. Judging by Cardinal Glemp I wouldn’t doubt that kind of thing.

In telling me about the minim (heretics, Nazarenes), I understand what you are referring to about Rabbi Tarfon. I don’t see that as rivalry so much as a guarding of the borders of Jewish ideology, something more than a game to Rabbi Tarfon et al. The minim would attempt to infiltrate synagogues and alter the custom and focus of the service according to their creed. Their attempts and methods are documented in the Talmud. There is no doubt that they resented Jewish (Pharisaic) resistance to that leading to their joining and identifying with the enemies of the Jews (not that this same thing doesn’t go on today).

Comment by Ben Plonie on 9/18/08 at 12:30 pm

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