We Are Pardoned

Last updated on: March 3, 2011 at 4:59 pm by Jeffrey L. Falick

We Are Pardoned 2011-03-03T16:59:00-05:00 Jeffrey L. Falick

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Big news from the pope. The Jews are innocent of deicide.

Pope Benedict XVI has made a sweeping exoneration of the Jewish people for the death of Jesus Christ, tackling one of the most controversial issues in Christianity in a new book.

In “Jesus of Nazareth-Part II” excerpts released Wednesday, Benedict explains biblically and theologically why there is no basis in Scripture for the argument that the Jewish people as a whole were responsible for Jesus’ death.

Interpretations to the contrary have been used for centuries to justify the persecution of Jews.

Well, that’s that. No harm no foul. But how did his holiness arrive at this conclusion?

…[H]e explains how with a thorough, Gospel-by-Gospel analysis that leaves little doubt that he deeply and personally believes it to be the case: That only a few Temple leaders and a small group of supporters were primarily responsible for Christ’s crucifixion.

So was it just blind stubbornness that kept previous generations of Christians from seeing what is so clear to this pope? The problem with his new insights is that they are a misrepresentation of the texts themselves. Many parts of the New Testament absolutely cast collective blame on the Jews. They were written in order to do just that.

Anyone who has done any critical, objective study of these texts and the events that led to their composition is aware of this. The stories were crafted as a response to the Jewish challenges to and rejection of Christianity. The response included the demonization of the Jews and the rabbis (a.k.a. Pharisees).

So it’s really nice and all that Ratzi has found a new way of reading the text. But to arrive at this very polite re-interpretation means to ignore the original intent of the authors and the millennia of enmity that they created toward the Jews.

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