Pastoral Psychology, Vol. 53, No. 4, March 2005 ( C 2005) DOI: 10.

1007/s11089-005-1362-2

Anti-Judaism in the Gospels According to Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and Mel
Judy Yates Siker1,2

Mel Gibsons lm, The Passion of the Christ, has elicited great response, both positive and negative. The purpose of this article is to explore one controversial aspect of the movie, anti-Judaism. After addressing problems inherent in the term, anti-Judaism, the article highlights elements of the New Testament gospels that have been interpreted as anti-Jewish, offers an analysis of Gibsons interpretation of the role of the Jews in the death of Jesus, and closes with a discussion of the implications of Gibsons presentation of the Jews on contemporary Jewish/Christian relations.
KEY WORDS: Gibsons Passion; anti-Judaism; Jewish/Christian relations.

INTRODUCTION Its just a movie! Yes, but its a movie about Jesus and theres no way to avoid strong reactionsboth positive and negativewhen the topic is Jesus, the Christ. Mel Gibsons movie The Passion of the Christ (Gibson, 2004) received unprecedented hype before its release and it continues to elicit much discussion in schools, churches, and among the general population. It has been praised, castigated and ho-hummed on the basis of lm-making, religion, and Jewish-Christian relations. In this essay I want to focus my remarks on one element of the lm that has provoked much controversy both before and after the releasethe topic of anti-Judaism. As a New Testament scholar and a Presbyterian minister this topic is of special interest to me. In the following reection I will conne my comments to the issue
1 Judy

Yates Siker is Assistant Professor of New Testament at the American Baptist Seminary of the West and the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, California. 2 Address correspondence to Judy Yates Siker, ABSW and the GTU, 2606 Dwight Way, Berkeley, CA 94704; e-mail: jsiker@absw.edu. 303
0031-2789/05/0300-0303/0
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2005 Springer Science+Business Media, Inc.

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of anti-Judaism in the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and Mel. I will close with a few reections on the impact of this for the contemporary church. PROBLEMS INHERENT IN THE TERM, ANTI-JUDAISM Let me begin by acknowledging some of the problems inherent in the term anti-Judaism. It is clearly a better and less anachronistic term than anti-Semitism which was not even coined until 1879 by a German racist who feared Jewish dominance in German life. Yet, anti-Judaism itself has not been consistently dened by scholars. Much has been written on this topic. Indeed, we could conne our discussion to this element and have a lengthy discussion, for we are immediately plunged into a problem of semantics. The terms anti-Jewish and anti-Semitic are commonly used by scholars but with no consensus on the denition of either. One distinction often made associates anti-Jewish with the issue of Jews as a religious group and anti-Semitic with the issue of Jews as an ethnic group; however, inconsistent usage of this distinction has led to what Edward Flannery calls a semantic confusion that has often rendered rational discourse on the subject well nigh impossible (Flannery, 1985, p. 5). Neither have many scholars been swayed by the fact that the term anti-Semitic was not coined until 1879 by Wilhelm Marr and is thus an anachronistic term for discussions of literature of the ancient world (cf. Flannery, 1985; Isaac, 1956). Even Samuel Sandmel, in his Anti-Semitism in the New Testament? (1978), uses the term anti-Semitism, his own protestations notwithstanding. A number of scholars have offered suggestions for clarifying the issue. Marcel Simon (1948, pp. 202208) considers anti-Judaism and anti-Semitism synonymous expressions of hostility but distinguishes between pagan anti-Semitism and Christian anti-Semitism. Rosemary Radford Ruether (1974) adds a new twist to the discussion. While both agreeing that terminological distinctions are necessary and acknowledging the basic distinction between anti-Semitism as hostility toward Jews and anti-Judaism as opposition to religious claims of Judaism, she uses both terms in reference to early Christian writings. Ruether insists that anti-Judaism is an inextricable aspect of Christianitys exegesis and that [t]here is no way to rid Christianity of its anti-Judaism, which constantly takes social expression in anti-Semitism, without grappling nally with its Christological hermeneutical self (1974, p. 116). In response to Ruether, D.R.A. Hare (1979, pp. 2747) offers the most rened distinction for the term anti-Judaism to date. Arguing that antiJudaism is too complex to be explained in terms of one factor alone, he suggests three kinds of anti-Judaism in Christian literature: 1) prophetic anti-Judaism (wellestablished tradition in Israel, this is the same invective of the prophets before Jesus as they cried out against the sins of Israel); 2) Jewish-Christian anti-Semitism (unlike prophetic anti-Judaism this form comes after the death of Jesus and includes invective against Israel not only for her sins against God but also for denying the

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salvic signicance of the death and resurrection of Jesus); and 3) gentilizing antiJudaism, (found most explicitly in the Gospel of Matthew, this is an expression of the rejection of Israel by God in favor of a new people). While each of these has its merits, there remains an ongoing discussion among scholars as they continue to use the terms interchangeably, dening as they go the use of each in a particular context. While suggestions do indeed range from Ruethers claim in 1974 that antiJudaism is the tragic left hand of Christology (Ruether, 1974, p. 116) to Douglas Hares rened distinctions for the term including prophetic anti-Judaism, JewishChristian anti-Judaism, and gentilizing anti-Judaism (Hare, 1979, pp. 2747), I have chosen (as I address particular aspects of our four canonical gospels in this essay) to follow the denition created by a research committee of the 1990s formed to study anti-Judaism and the gospels. Writing on behalf of the committee William Farmer dened anti-Judaism as a specically Christian, theologically driven attitude toward Jews, including concepts of the divine rejection and punishment of Jews, as well as Christian supercessionism and triumphalism (Farmer, 1999, p. 49). CONCERNS FROM WITHIN THE NEW TESTAMENT GOSPELS So, what is there in our canonical gospels that has been (or might be) interpreted as anti-Judaism? We begin with the Gospel of Mark. (I should note at the outset that Mark is the least targeted gospel by those who see anti-Judaism in the New Testament gospels.) Marks is the earliest gospel, written somewhere between 6570 CE and written to a mixed audience of Jews and Gentiles. Clearly this gospel portrays Jesus in conict with various Jewish groups and especially with Jewish leaders (e.g., Mark 3:6; 7:113; 14:5964). The passion narrative of this gospel (chapters 1116) portrays the chief priests as having the nal responsibility for Jesus deatha portrayal that could lead to the accusation of these Jews as Jesus killers. I think, however, that the conict driving the narrative is over the issue of authority, a power struggle between Jesus (whose authority comes from God) and some Jewish authorities who do not recognize it and that to label these passages as anti-Jewish is to miss the point. (Indeed there are a number of Jewish characters in this gospel who are positively portrayed. See, for example, the stories of such Jewish authorities such as Jairus, president of the synagogue, Mk 5:21, or the scribe who was not far from the kingdom of God, Mk 12:28, or Joseph of Arimathea, Mk 15:42). Turning now to the Gospel of Luke we read volume one of a two-volume work by an author writing in the 80s CE to a Gentile/Christian audience. One can hardly deny that within this set of writings the reader nds a story of Jesus as a Jewish prophet rejected by his own people. In Luke 4:1630, for example, we nd the Lukan story of Jesus encapsulated in a short pericope. Jesus reads from

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the prophet Isaiah in the synagogue, announces that the scripture is fullled in their hearing, and elicits amazement from the hometown crowd. But he follows this reading with stories of how God has extended blessings outside the bounds of Israel, stories which rouse the ire of the people in the synagogue and prompt them to run him out of town and attempt to throw him over the cliff. Thus Luke begins his gospel with a less than favorable portrayal of the Jews. Additionally, as in all the gospels, Lukes passion narrative makes it clear that it is the Jewish leaders who are responsible ultimately for the death of Jesus (e.g., in 24:20, Luke writes our chief priests and leaders handed him over to be condemned to death and crucied him). As was true in the Markan passion narrative, the stories highlighting the role of the Jews in the death of Jesus could and have been interpreted as anti-Jewish. While Jews do indeed play a role in the death of Jesus in both Mark and Luke, the more blatant anti-Jewish passages are to be found in the gospels of Matthew and John. In the Gospel of Matthew, a Jewish-Christian gospel written in the mid to late 70s CE, we nd even more of what have been characterized as anti-Jewish elements. This gospel contains polemical passages that range from the subtle insult in the birth/infancy narrative (the Jewish leaders know where the child is to be born but do not go, Mt 2:36) to the blatantly insulting woes of chapter 23:
Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within they are full of dead mens bones and all uncleanness. So you also outwardly appear righteous to men, but within you are full of hypocrisy and iniquity (Mt 23:2728),

to the unremitting acrimony of the blood curse of Matthew 27:25, Then the people as a whole answered, His blood be on us and on our children. (Note that a depth of the animosity toward the scribes and Pharisees pervades chapter 23 of Matthew.) Luke Timothy Johnson has documented the existence of the convention of vilication of opponents in the Mediterranean world of antiquity in his insightful analysis (Johnson, 1989, pp. 419441). A close study of Matthews redaction of Marks gospel reveals the intra-Jewish rivalry in Matthews community. Note, for example, the inclusion of their in Mt 10:17 in reference to synagogues (in contrast to Mark 13:9, simply synagogues. Cf. Harrington, 1991, pp. 287298). This harsh Matthean polemic, I would argue, could be called a rhetoric of otherness, for as the condemnatory voice of Matthew rails out repeatedly against the opponents, we discover that those who seem at rst reading to be specic enemies (scribes, Pharisees, etc.) soon become blended together into an amorphous Other. Throughout the gospel, and clearly in the passion narrative, the Jewish leadership has become the hypocritical Other and this point is emphasized in the climactic verse (unique to Matthew) in which these leaders have succeeded to drag the people into their web and we nd that all the people cry out His blood be on us and on our children (Mt. 27:25).

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While Matthew has been called the most anti-Jewish of the synoptics (Hare, 1979, p. 43) an equally destructive picture is painted in the Gospel of John, a Jewish-Christian gospel written at the end of the rst century. In John the leaders and the Jews as a whole again become an amorphous blend of Other. In contrast to the other three gospels, however, Jewish leaders in Johns gospel are not distinguished from one another (even ostensibly, as in Matthew) and the opponent in Johns gospel simply becomes the Jews (cf. Bieringer, Pollefeyt, and Vandecasteele-Vanneuville, 2001). Chapter 8 includes the disturbing conversation between Jesus and the Jews in which he announces to them that their inability to understand him stems from the fact that You are from your father the devil, and you choose to do your fathers desires . . . Whoever is from God hears the words of God. The reason you do not hear them is that you are not from God (John 8: 4447). It is not difcult to imagine that such portrayals of Jews could and have led to the labeling of these passages as anti-Jewish. It is signicant to note here that it is not the labeling of passages as antiJewish that is most problematic. History has demonstrated, I would argue, that the use of these texts in legitimating acts of horror against a people is what is most problematic. From the early years of Christianity to the present, one way of dealing with the polemical language in the gospels has been to use this vitriolic material as proof-text for outrageous actions against the Jews. From the damning preaching of Melito in the second century to the equally vicious condemnations of Martin Luther in the 16th century to the unspeakable horrors of the Nazi regime, the gospels have fueled the res of prejudice and outrage against the Jews, and Christianity has been accused of being anti-Semitic in origin. The infamous Peri Pascha (ca. 176 C.E.) of Melito, Bishop of Sardis, exhibits vigorous anti-Jewish rhetoric. Within this Easter sermon Melito refers to the stories of the Gospel texts and accuses the Jews not only of dishonoring and denying Jesus but also levels the charge of deicide: God has been murdered, the King of Israel has been slain by an Israelite right hand (sec. 96). It is clear from his text that Melito knew Matthew (e.g., pp. 59; 7880, 85, 86, and especially 95 [Pilate washing his hands of the crime]; Hall, 1979; MacLennan, 1992, pp. 209224); Stewart-Sykes, 1997, pp. 271283). Anti-Jewish sentiments ll the pages of Christian writings from the early years (as Christianity ghts for recognition in contrast to Judaism), to the time of Constantine (as Christians and Jews exchange power roles in the Empire), to the time of the Reformation. Here we might not expect to nd anti-Jewish rhetoric in a battle pitting Christian against Christian, but what we nd is that Jews become the polemical sword for both parties. For example, Martin Luther not only accuses the Church of being tarnished with Jewish legalism, but he also wrote a treatise in 1543 containing some of the harshest condemnations of the Jews in Christian history, advising violence against Jews and incorporating many of the venomous expressions found in the New Testament writings and in writings of early Christians anti-Jewish writings. The inuence of this essay was

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long-lasting. In fact, it was often quoted in Nazi propaganda in the 1930s and was part of the 1940 Nazi anti-Semitic lm shown all over Germany, Jude Suess. Thus, the issue came to the forefront most vividly in the past century with the events of World War II. Among those twentieth-century scholars who have argued the role of New Testament polemic in anti-Judaism two are especially noteworthy here. Fueled by the events of the war and the impact on his personal life, Jules Isaac devoted two decades (1940s and 1950s) to writing on the relationship between Judaism and Christianity. According to Isaac the developing breach between Judaism and Christianity led to a misinterpretation by Christians of their founder and their scriptures; the origin of anti-Semitism is thus to be placed squarely at the door of Christianity (but not Jesus). Arguing that anti-Semitism was not prevalent in pre-Christian times, Isaac condemns Christians and Christian texts. In 1943 Isaacs wife, daughter, and several other family members were captured and murdered by the Nazis. As a result of this tragedy he devoted the remainder of his life to writing about the Christian origins of anti-Semitism. His seminal work, Jesus and Israel (1948; English edition, 1971), followed by Gen` se e de lantis mitisme (1956) condemn the strong Christian polemic of the New Tese tament writings. A strong advocate of Isaacs, Rosemary Ruether contends that not only is the origin of anti-Semitism most properly placed at the door of nascent Christianity, but she further argues that it is an inherent and inextricable part of Christianity. It is, she contends, an intrinsic need of self-denition; [t]he character of antiJudaic thinking in the Christian tradition cannot be correctly evaluated until it is seen as the negative side of its Christological hermeneutic (Ruether, 1974, p. 64). Ruether traces the growing estrangement and negation of the Jews from the earliest Christian texts (often quoting the Gospel of Matthew) to the Church Fathers and on through history up to and including the Holocaust. Not only does she eruditely trace this history, but she acknowledges the abuses and offers suggestions for overcoming Christian anti-Judaism. In sum, then, the four canonical gospels do indeed contain elements which could be (and more signicantly, have been) labeled anti-Jewish. The passion narratives especially portray the role of the Jewish leadership in the death of Jesus, all the while playing down to varying degrees the culpability of Pilate and the Roman government. (It is interesting to note that, in spite of the apparent ruthlessness of this Roman prefect of Judea, Pilate gains increasing innocence in Christian literature and is canonized in the Ethiopic and Coptic churches.) So, what are we to say? Context is everything! My students recognize this as my perennial mantra, and it is a signicant factor in the discussion of anti-Judaism and the New Testament gospels. In terms of the context of the gospels, we must remember that the canonical gospels are the theological reections of a variety of early followers of Jesus as they are in the throes of establishing their own identity in

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contrast to an emerging Pharisaic Judaism. Indeed, these are the stories of sibling rivalry, stories of identity crises just before or in the wake of the destruction of the temple, an event that left two forms of Judaism (Pharisaic and messianic) vying with each other in dening Gods will for Gods people. And so we nd polemic; we nd groups vilifying one another in an attempt to establish their own Jewish identity, and as any of you who have siblings knows, theres no baser ght than that between siblings. Thus, we must keep the context of these gospels in mind when considering the issue of anti-Judaism and the gospels. We must not, however, do this in order to dismiss or excuse the polemic in the texts. Rather we must keep the context of these gospels in mind in order to avoid anachronistic readings of the text and to avoid dragging a rst-century conict through 2000 years of history. We must do this to correct the misunderstanding that these theological narratives are historical records. And this misunderstanding, in my opinion, is one problem with the Gospel according to Mel.

MEL GIBSONS The Passion of the Christ The Passion of the Christ is an incredibly graphic and relentlessly violent depiction of the last twelve hours of the life of Jesus. In more than one interview Gibson has stated that his intention was to present the passion story just the way it happened. To that end he solicited the comments and advice of a number of scholars but as several of those scholars have stated, he chose instead to ignore their advice and present his own reading of the story (Fredriksen, 2004). As a lmmaker Gibson certainly has every right to create the story his way, but it is disturbing to me that he would continue to promote it as the passion of the Christ when it clearly is based not only on the gospels but also on his reading of a 19th century Catholic mystic, Anne Catherine Emmerich, whose ideas and visions are so woven through the movie as to be inextricable from the rest. The lm is indeed Gibsons own quite idiosyncratic pre-Vatican II Roman Catholic versioncomplete with stations of the cross and the story of Veronica. The idea of Jesus carrying his whole cross, the manner in which he was nailed to it and the personication of evil are all problematic for me as a scholar and lm-goer, but what bothered me as much as any of these, and the focus of this article, is the polemical stereotyping of the Jews. Elements of the lm that could be considered anti-Jewish include, among many others, the strong role of the Jewish high priests (even present at the crucixion), the mob scene of angry Jews in the courtyard, the offers of bribery from Jews to Jews to help call down the blame on Jesus. The Jews in this lm are contrasted to a rather impotent Pilate whose seeming desire to save this man Jesus could not stand up against the persistence of the angry and violent Jews. (And yet we know from history that Pilate was instead an incredibly cruel tyrant of the period.)

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One especially derogatory element comes near the end of the lm. With the death of Jesus comes an earthquake so violent that the temple is split apart. Yes, there is mention in Matthews gospel of an earthquake, but this I argue was a metaphorical indication of the declaration by naturean apocalyptic signthat Jesus was the Messiah. In Gibsons lm, however, it has the effect of bringing further blame on the Jews for their role in the death of Jesus. (Contrast, for example, the cataclysmic scene in the temple with the small tremble in Pilates court. Pilates court rumbles but with no apparent damage.) This is a strong visual statement about the guilt of the Jews and the punishment they received for their role in the death of Jesus. The temple is effectively destroyed at the death of Jesusa quite supercessionist statement. I am aware that many who have seen the movie have been moved by having a visual representation of this brief period in the life of Christ and I am aware that each of us views this movie through our own personal lens, so let me close by adding a few reections on why I am disturbed by the lm in light of Christian anti-Judaism. IMPACT ON CONTEMPORARY JEWISH/CHRISTIAN RELATIONS For centuries New Testament texts have been misread and abused and for far too long the church taught that the Jews were responsible for the death of Jesus, hence deicide. The atrocities of WWII and the holocaust, however, forced Christians of the twentieth century to come to terms with their role in the antiJudaism of previous generations. Concerted efforts have been made to reread and reinterpret our gospels in light of contemporary Jewish-Christian relations. In 1965, for example, the Catholic Church ofcially repudiated the concept of collective guilt as Vatican II issued Nostra Aetate presenting an important change in the churchs ofcial teaching on Jews and Judaism. This was followed in 1974 by Guidelines for Implementing Nostra Aetate and further statements came in 1985 and 1998 as they continued to reect on ways Christians have represented Jews in Preaching and Teaching (cf. Bristow, 1998). We remember Pope John Paul IIs visit to the synagogue in Rome where he referred to Jews as elder brothers. We also recognize the World Council of Churches 1967 publication The Church and the Jewish People as well as its 1982 Ecumenical Considerations of Jewish-Christian Dialogue. The past 20 years have seen a number of statements from within Protestant Christianity as well. The United Methodist Church, the Episcopal Church, the Presbyterian Church USA, the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America, American Lutheran Church and the United Church of Christ have all issued statement regarding New Testament polemic and the inappropriateness of using it as justication for hostility toward Jews. (An excellent web resource for learning more about these and other statements can be found at www.jcrelations.net). Butit is not good news across the board. Supercessionist

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constructions of Christianity are still being taught by some Christian denominations. (Recall, for example, that twenty years ago the (then) president of the Southern Baptist Convention declared that God did not hear the prayers of the Jews! Later, in 1996, the SBC called on its members to evangelize the Jews.) So what does this have to do with a movie? It seems to me that at a time when we could and should be making further strides in Jewish/Christian relations we ought not allow ourselves to fall back into misreadings and misrepresentations of the story of the origins of Christianity. It has taken Christians a long time to recognize the pain imposed on the Jews by anachronistic misappropriations of the portrayal of the Jews in our sacred texts. We should not and will not excise these passages (as was recently suggested by Goldhagen, 2002), but it is incumbent upon us to deal with them, to recognize the context in which they are written, and to acknowledge the reality of what destructive readings of these texts can do. As we struggle to develop dialogue between Jews and Christians it does not help to once again tell the story of the death of Jesus in such a way that the Jews are stereotyped as the vicious, conniving Christ killers. The portrayal of the Jews in Gibsons lm goes far beyond the New Testament gospel presentations of the Jewish responsibility in the death of Jesus, and in many ways doesnt take the gospels seriously enough. In post-holocaust times when many Christians are trying to rethink and reform relationships with Jews a lm such as this one does not help. In closing, I recall the comments of a friend who is a Jewish New Testament scholar. After seeing the movie he said he came away angryangry as a lm-goer left numb by the orgy of brutality; angry as a scholar who knew that it had been heralded as just the way it happened but was not; and angry as a Jew for whom the token good Jews of the movie were in no way able to compensate for the others. I must say that I agree. Until we stop caricaturing our Jewish brothers and sisters and misrepresenting them in an effort to constitute our own self-understanding, we as Christians cannot hope to remain in conversation. Its only a movie. Yes, it is. But movies reach far and wide and offer larger than life pictures of people and events. In some ways the density of the images makes what appears on the big screen more real than historical fact, more real than biblical truthsand that is dangerous. We cant and shouldnt stop the creative expression of a lmmaker but we can and must take responsibility for critical examination of a story that has had such an impact on history. REFERENCES
Bieringer, R., Pollefeyt, D., & Vandecasteele-Vanneuville, F. (Eds.), Anti-Judaism and the Fourth Gospel. Louisville: Westminster John Knox. Bristow, E. (Ed.). (1998). No Religion is an Island: The Nostra Aetate Dialogues. New York: Fordham University Press. Farmer, W. (Ed.). (1999). Anti-Judaism and the Gospels. Harrisburg, Penn: Trinity Press.

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Flannery, E. (1985). The Anguish of the Jews: Twenty-three Centuries of Antisemitism (2nd edn.). New York: Paulist Press. Fredriksen, P. (2004). Gibsons Passion of the Christ. Christian Science Monitor, Feb. 2. Gibson, M. (Producer/Writer/Director), Davey, B. (Producer), McBeety, S. (Producer), & Fitzgerald, B. (Writer). (2004). The Passion of the Christ [Motion picture]. United States: New Market Films. Goldhagen, D. (2002). A Moral Reckoning: The Role of the Catholic Church in the Holocaust and its Unfullled Duty of Repair. New York: Alfred Knopf. Hall, S. G. (1979). Melito of Sardis: On Pascha and Fragments. Oxford: Clarendon. Hare, D. R. A. (1979). The Rejection of the Jews in the Synoptic Gospels and Acts. In A. Davies (Ed.), Anti-Semitism and the Foundations of Christianity (pp. 2747). New York: Paulist Press. Harrington, D. (1991). Polemical parables in Matthew 24 and 25. Union Seminary Quarterly Review, 44, 287298. Isaac, J. (1956). Gen` se de lantis mitisme. Paris: Calmann-Levy. e e Isaac, J. (1971). Jesus and Israel. New York: Holt, Rinehart, Winston. Original work published, 1948. Johnson, L. (1989). The New Testaments Anti-Jewish Slander and the Conventions of Ancient Polemic. Journal of Biblical Literature 108, 419441. MacLennan, R. (1992). Christian Self-Denition in the Adversus Judaeos Preachers in the Second Century. In R. MacLennan & J. A. Overman (Eds.). Diaspora Jews and Judaism: Essays in Honor of, and in dialogue with, A. Thomas Kraabel (pp. 209224). Atlanta: Scholars Press. Ruether, R. (1974). Faith and Fratricide: The Theological Roots of Anti-Semitism. New York: Seabury Press. Sandmel, S. (1978). Anti-Semitism in the New Testament? Philadelphia: Fortress Press. Simon, M. (1948). Verus Israel. Paris: Boccard. Stewart-Sykes, A. (1997). Melitos Anti-Judaism. Journal of Early Christian Studies 5, 271283.