Who Killed Jesus? by Martin I. Lockshin

The impulse to believe the absurd when presented with the unknowable is called religion. Whether this is wise or unwise is the domain of doctrine. Once you understand someone's doctrine, you understand their rationale for believing the absurd. At that point, it may no longer seem absurd. You can get to both sides of this conondrum from here.

Who Killed Jesus? by Martin I. Lockshin

Postby admin » Sun Feb 17, 2019 4:02 am

Who Killed Jesus? From the Gospels to Nostra Aetate, how Jews were accused of deicide.
by Martin I. Lockshin

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In 1965, as part of the Vatican II council, the Catholic Church published a long-anticipated declaration entitled Nostra Aetate, offering a new approach to the question of Jewish responsibility for the crucifixion of Jesus. The document argued that modern-day Jews could not be held accountable for Jesus’ crucifixion and that not all Jews alive at the time of the crucifixion were guilty of the crime. This was a remarkable step forward in the history of Christian attitudes toward Jews, as Jewish blame for Jesus’ death has long been a linchpin of Christian anti-Semitism.

Nevertheless, many Jews were disappointed. They had hoped that the Church might say that the Jews had in fact played no role in Jesus’ death.

Jews Lacked A Motive for Killing Jesus

Indeed, according to most historians, it would be more logical to blame the Romans for Jesus’ death. Crucifixion was a customary punishment among Romans, not Jews. At the time of Jesus’ death, the Romans were imposing a harsh and brutal occupation on the Land of Israel, and the Jews were occasionally unruly. The Romans would have had reason to want to silence Jesus, who had been called by some of his followers “King of the Jews,” and was known as a Jewish upstart miracle worker.

Jews, on the other hand, lacked a motive for killing Jesus. The different factions of the Jewish community at the time — Pharisees, Sadducees, Essenes, and others — had many disagreements with one another, but that did not lead any of the groups to arrange the execution of the other allegedly heretical groups’ leaders. It is therefore unlikely they would have targeted Jesus.


But the belief that Jews killed Jesus has been found in Christian foundational literature from the earliest days of the Jesus movement, and would not be easily abandoned just because of historians’ arguments.

The New Testament Account

In the letters of Paul, which are regarded by historians to be the oldest works of the New Testament (written 10 to 20 years after Jesus’ death), Paul mentions, almost in passing, “the Jews who killed the Lord, Jesus” (I Thessalonians 2:14-15). While probably not central to Paul’s understanding of Jesus’ life and death, the idea that the Jews bear primary responsibility for the death of Jesus figures more prominently in the four gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, which have slightly different accounts of Jesus’ life.

Matthew, the best-known gospel, describes the unfair trial of Jesus arranged and presided over by the Jewish high priest who scours the land to find anybody who would testify against Jesus. Eventually, the high priest concludes that Jesus is guilty of blasphemy and asks the Jewish council what the penalty should be. “They answered, ‘He deserves death.’ Then they spat in his face and struck him” (Matthew 26:57-68). Matthew’s description of Jesus’ suffering and death on the cross (referred to by Christians as Jesus’ “passion”) has becomes the basis for many books, plays, and musical compositions over the years, and is prominent in Christian liturgy, particularly for Easter.

All four gospels suggest either implicitly or explicitly that because the Jews were not allowed to punish other Jews who were guilty of blasphemy, they had to prevail on the reluctant Romans to kill Jesus. Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor of Judea, is described as basically sympathetic to Jesus but unable to withstand the pressure from the Jews who demanded Jesus’ execution. This idea is expressed most clearly in the gospel of John: “Pilate said, ‘Take him yourselves and judge him according to your own law.’ The Jews replied, ‘We are not permitted to put anyone to death'” (18:31).

In the most controversial verse in all the passion narratives, the assembled members of the Jewish community tell Pilate, “His blood be on us and on our children” (Matthew 27:25). This is the source for the Christian belief that later generations of Jews are also guilty of deicide, the crime of killing God.

Church Fathers and Thereafter

In the writings of the Church Fathers, the authoritative Christian theologians after the New Testament period, this accusation appears with even more clarity and force. One of the Church Fathers, Justin Martyr (middle of the second century), explains to his Jewish interlocutor why the Jews have suffered exile and the destruction of their Temple: these “tribulations were justly imposed on you since you have murdered the Just One” (Dialogue with Trypho, chapter 16).

Throughout classical and medieval times this theme is found in Christian literature and drama. For example, in a 12th-century religious drama, entitled “The Mystery of Adam,” the biblical King Solomon addresses the Jews, prophesying that they will eventually kill the son of God. Here is a rhyming English translation from the original Norman French and Latin:

This saying shall be verified
When God’s own Son for us hath died
The masters of the law [i.e. the Pharisees or rabbis] ’twill be
That slay him most unlawfully;
Against all justice, all belief,
They’ll crucify Him, like a thief.
But they will lose their lordly seat,
Who envy him, and all entreat.
Low down they’ll come from a great height,
Well may they mourn their mournful plight.
(Translation from Frank Talmage’s Disputation and Dialogue)


Even into modern times, passion plays — large outdoor theatrical productions that portray the end of Jesus’ life, often with a cast of hundreds — have continued to perpetuate this idea.

In the Talmud

Interestingly, the idea that the Jews killed Jesus is also found in Jewish religious literature. In tractate Sanhedrin of the Babylonian Talmud, on folio 43a, a beraita (a teaching from before the year 200 C.E.) asserts that Jesus was put to death by a Jewish court for the crimes of sorcery and sedition. (In standard texts of the Talmud from Eastern Europe — or in American texts that simply copied from them — there is a blank space towards the bottom of that folio, because the potentially offensive text was removed. The censorship may have been internal — for self-protection — or it may have been imposed on the Jews by the Christian authorities. In many new editions of the Talmud this passage has been restored.) The Talmud’s claim there that the event took place on the eve of Passover is consistent with the chronology in the gospel of John. In the talmudic account, the Romans played no role in his death.

In Jewish folk literature, such as the popular scurrilous Jewish biography of Jesus, Toledot Yeshu (which may be as old as the fourth century), responsibility for the death of Jesus is also assigned to the Jews. It is likely that until at least the 19th century, Jews in Christian Europe believed that their ancestors had killed Jesus.

From the first to the 19th centuries, the level of tension between Jews and Christians was such that both groups found the claim that the Jews killed Jesus to be believable. Thankfully, in our world it is heard less frequently. But we should not be surprised if it persists among people who take the stories of the New Testament (or of the Talmud) as reliable historical sources.
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Re: Who Killed Jesus? by Martin I. Lockshin

Postby admin » Sun Feb 17, 2019 4:05 am

The Land of Israel Under Roman Rule: Judea becomes a Roman tributary.
by Lawrence H. Schiffman

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Government Restructured

Judea was ruled by a Roman procurator who managed its political, military, and fiscal affairs. Its governmental structure was reorganized by Gabinius, the Roman governor of Syria from 57 to 55 B.C.E., who divided the country into five synhedroi, or administrative dis­tricts. This arrangement was clearly intended to eliminate the age‑old system of toparchies (administrative districts made up of central towns and the rural areas surrounding them), dating from the reign of Solomon, and taken over in turn by the Assyrians, Babylonians, and Persians, and then by the Ptole­mies and Seleucids.

The intent of this reorganization was to destabilize the nation and thus make certain that popular resis­tance would be impossible. Julius Caesar restored certain terri­tories to Judea and appointed Hyrcanus II ethnarch (Greek for “ruler of the nation”). [Hyrcanus II was the son of Alexander Yannai, the Hasmonean King who ruled from 103-76 B.C.E.]

Hyrcanus was a weak figure who on his own could neither administer the affairs of Judea nor collect its taxes. For this reason, it became possible for the Idumaean Antipater, whose father had been forcibly converted to Judaism in the time of John Hyrcanus, to insinuate himself into the halls of power. [John Hyrcanus ruled the Hasmonean state from 134 B.C.E. through his death in 104 B.C.E. During his reign, the state vastly expanded, through conquest, to include Samaria, Transjordan and Idumea (northern Negev). When John Hyrcanus conquered Idumea, he converted the Idumeans to Judaism.]

He soon took control of virtually all matters of state, thus exercis­ing the authority that technically belonged to Hyrcanus as high priest, and combined with this the powers delegated to him by the Romans, who clearly saw him as their agent. Antipater’s decision to install his sons as governors, Herod over Galilee and Phasael over Jerusalem, sowed the seeds of the Herodian dy­nasty.

Herod's Reign

Herod, then a man of 25, set about ridding the Galilee of what his official court historian, Nicolaus of Damascus, called “robbers” but who in reality may have been a kind of resistance movement against Roman rule. By 47 or 46 B.C.E., Herod’s summary methods of justice had led him into a confrontation with the Sanhedrin.

Only the intervention of his father, Antipa­ter, prevented him from taking revenge for their having called him to account. Herod’s difficulties with his brethren had no impact on his relations with the Romans, who appointed him strategos (governor and general) of Coele‑Syria, a Greek desig­nation for the area of Palestine and southwest Syria.


In 43 B.C.E. Antipater was poisoned, leaving the fate of Palestine open. Herod and Phasael managed to retain power, even after the accession of Antony as ruler over the entirety of Asia in 42 B.C.E. Despite the complaints of their countrymen, who dispatched embassies to Antony, Herod and Phasael each acquired the title of tetrarch.

The Parthian Invasion

Their fate, and that of Palestine as well, changed markedly with the Parthian invasion in 40 B.C.E. The Parthians allied themselves with Antigonus II (Mattathias) the Hasmonean, the youngest son of Aristobulus II (and nephew of Ilyrcanus II), who as the last of the Hasmonean princes had long been seeking to reassert Hasmonean rule over Judea. Unable to stem the invasion, Phasael and Hyrcanus II were lured into a Parthian trap. Hyrcanus was maimed in the ear in order to disqualify him from serving as high priest and Phasael took his own life. Only the wily Herod had foreseen the trap and escaped.

Now once again Judea had a Hasmonean king. Herod determined that in order to regain power he had no option but to seek Roman support. He set sail for Rome, where he persuaded the Senate to declare him king of Judea despite his lack of an army and of any real claim to the throne. He knew that the Roman desire to see the Parthians expelled from the province would lead the Senate to support his claims.

Herod Returns

In 39 B.C.E., he landed in Ptolemais (present day Akko) and quickly gathered some northerners around his banner, alongside the Roman troops ordered by the Senate to assist him. His first attack on Jerusalem was unsuccessful, with Antigonus still holding his own in the city. But the tide was turning against the Parthians, who had been expelled from most of Syria and were on the run in Palestine as well.

By 37 B.C.E. Herod had subdued virtually all of the country. By order of Antony, Sossius, the Roman governor of Syria, gave Herod aid which ultimately enabled him to take Jerusalem. Antigonus was captured by the Romans and was beheaded at the wish of Herod. Thus Hasmonean rule over an independent nation in the land of Israel was finally brought to an end.
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