Jesus' Anti-Jew Slurs
Though seemingly a Jew, Jesus was an anti-Semitist. The gospels are full of anti-Jewish slurs. Jesus did claim to be a Jew but it is not clear if all Jews at the time agreed that he was. The Jews talked to him at times as if he were a non-Jew imposter with a dubious birth.
Anti-semitism is the most destructive form of sectarian hatred imaginable. It is so irrational and prevalent that it is clear religion is the only explanation.
Nobody worries about the antisemitism that will be dished out through the
Bible readings - particularly the up and coming ones at Easter in
The Romans were brutally oppressing the Jewish people and the Pharisees may
have been complicit in this if only to save their own skin.
The total silence of Jesus on the abuses is telling and is him letting
his people down. He was able to
speak out against things in a way that put him in danger and he ended up on a
cross. But speaking for his people
was not one of those things. That is
silent anti-Semitism. What was not
silent anti-semitism is how the Jews and their leaders were singled out by him
for verbal abuse and he even mocked their
Religions often hurt their own. The Jews liquidated
many people such as adulteresses and heretics and homosexuals because prophets
like Moses told them God commanded it and God knows best. I consider the
antisemitist's faith in the Bible as divinely inspired and as a moral book to be
part of the problem. I think it's antisemitic of Christians to be okay with
what happened to those executed Jews. It is antisemitic to approve of
Jesus who railed abuse against the Jews and who blessed the scriptures that
oppressed them and even said not a word or tittle of the law and prophets was
wrong.
The Christians say that Jesus said that the Hebrews of the past and of his day
were so stubborn that God had to let them have divorce even though it was just
legally making the woman commit adultery (Matthew 5:31,32). God forced them to
do lots of things abhorrent to them and he could have forced one more despised
law on them. Jesus was slandering God if the Christians are right. He was saying
that God was incompetent. He was also smearing the Israelites by saying that
they were so bad that God could not manage them.
He said that it was easier for sinners who were not smug to be saved (Matthew
21:31, 32; 23) and yet he spent his time with sinners and not the self-righteous
(Mark 2). A truly good man would have had more interest in the ones who needed
him more. And he has the nerve to say he came to call sinners. Think about this,
it was the Jewish leaders and the respectable that he had in mind so he was
slandering them as if they were beyond redemption which is not true for even the
sinners and publicans and prostitutes Jesus associated with had self-righteous
sides. Self-righteousness was a sin so what was he thinking of? When you do
wrong you are being proud and self-righteous. He was an anti-Semite and so is
anybody who approves of him.
Jesus said that he came on earth to call sinners to repentance and not the
self-righteous (Matthew 9:13). Some Bibles say the righteous. The context is
about insulting the Pharisees who were regarded as sanctimonious so
self-righteous is the meaning. It is positively evil and satanic to reserve your
services for one kind of sinner only to ignore those who need help far more. The
person who does wrong and admits it is in less danger than the sinner who will
not admit it. Jesus seems to be implying that the smug cannot be rescued or
reasoned with. This was slander for all sin, in a sense, is an act of pride or
independence from God – a manifestation of self-righteousness. “I am too
superior and wonderful to be submissive to God”.
Jesus complained about the people not believing in him as if he were well known
and they should which was slander. Herod and others thought that he was John the
Baptist back from the dead not knowing that John had been Jesus’ forerunner.
This proves that Jesus was not big in the public eye.
Jesus told the Sadducees who did not believe in the resurrection that they did
not know the scriptures or the power of God (Matthew 22:29) for denying the
doctrine. First he was accusing them of stupidity when it was himself who was
stupid for he said that God saying that he was the God of the deceased Abraham,
Isaac and Jacob proved the resurrection. Secondly, they did know that God had
the power to raise the dead for they were convinced that Adam was raised from
the dust of the earth which does not prove they were stupid for denying the
resurrection.
Jesus said that the religious leaders of the Jews were to blame for the killings
of the saints from Abel to Zechariah who was murdered between the altar and the
temple (Matthew 23:34-35). Abel died before any Jews existed and Zechariah died
long before the people of Jesus’ time were even born as well. It is argued that
Zechariah was the prophet Zechariah who wrote an Old Testament book for Jesus
says this one was the son of Berechiah but there is no record that he was
murdered in the temple. Jesus was unlikely to have meant a person whose death we
know nothing about. It would have been an excuse for accusing him of lying and
God would not give Jesus leave to divulge miraculous knowledge that could not be
verified at least soon after. Miracles are meant to be signs not wastage of
power. Zechariah son of Jehoiada died as Jesus described so it is more likely
that it is him and the name of the father was a mistake. The Jews were not to
blame for these killings. Christians say that Jesus could have meant that they
were to blame in the sense that they would have killed them but they didn’t kill
him then! And surely they were not so evil that they preferred murdering to
exiling?
Jesus unjustly blackened the Jews in Matthew 23. He called them vipers and
bastards AFTER commanding the people to obey their preaching. It is said that
Jesus attacked them so strongly because he sought to save them from everlasting
punishment. If that’s true then his actions do not conflict with his rule about
loving everybody – but that’s not true. Making people angry serves no purpose.
And if God is all-powerful there is no need for employing mental cruelty for he
has the power to melt the frozen and would not make it harder for himself. Jesus
made them very angry which could have prevented them from changing their ways
and made it less likely for them to do that. He hated them for he wanted to
increase the danger of eternal suffering for them.
If the leaders of the Jews were as anti-God as Jesus makes out then he wouldn’t
have been able to sanction their religious guidance and even more so when the
morality of the Law of Moses is nasty and barbaric. Christians answer that he
meant we should obey them when scripture backs them up. But, if we have to go
through the Old Testament to test them before we can heed them then why not use
the Old Testament only? Was Jesus hinting here that he was not a prophet and so
had no right to be revered? Was he showing that he wanted no New Testament?
In Mark 7, it is made clear that the Pharisees and all the Jews observe the
traditions of men and thus insult God for man has no authority in religion apart
from God. Jesus is plainly talking about all the Jews. The Christians make out
that the vitriol against the Jews in the New Testament refers to the Jewish
leaders. That is just an excuse for trying to get around how Jesus hated all the
Jewish people and abused them.
It is mad to say that when Jesus abuses "the
Jews" he means the leaders though "the Jews" in many places has to mean all the
Jews (eg John 2:13). Does John 9:22 limit the condemning to the
Jewish leaders? Maybe on that occasion. And what if the
author was trying to say that the leaders were targeted by Jesus for
doing the talking for the people and that all are responsible?
If it is equivocal then why? Why write that way and risk
inflaming an anti-Jew world? Using the word so equivocally can
be a sign that the author and his Jesus were anti-Semitic but didn’t
want to make it too obvious. They wanted to put arsenic in the
water rather than pure poison. Jesus was too harsh with people
in John calling them children of the father of lies and so on.
That is always a sign that there is more going on than a dispute.
Some kind of racist hate is there. To call the leaders such
terrible things by implication insults those who followed them.
Jesus had no right to tell the people that the Pharisees do all they do just for
show. He had not risen from the dead yet to prove his mission was divinely
inspired and here he was claiming he could reveal what was in the hearts of
these men as if he were a super-psychic god. He had no right to because the
people had no right to believe what he said at that stage.
Christians who recognise that the Pharisees seem on the
basis of historical evidence to have deserved no special criticism argue that
Jesus' only difficulty with them was how they did not believe in being friendly
to those who they considered seriously immoral. But if they were like that
that was more reason for Jesus to be nice to them not less. And is a
dishonest tax collector really better than a Pharisee who tries to keep company
only with upright people? Jesus never says his main or only problem with
them was their holding sinners in contempt. He never says the Pharisee in
the tale of the Pharisee and the Publican describes a typical Pharisee.
It is appalling that an anti-Semitic opus like the New Testament can be promoted
in our two-faced society. It is supposed that Jesus was not an anti-Semite and
the Gospellers said he was one because they hated the Jews who did terrible
things to the new religion. There is no evidence for that idea except that Jesus
was made up himself. If Jesus existed then he and his Gospellers were as bad as
one another.
They say that Jesus was infallible and in doing so they condone his racism.
To call him even a medium role model is to do that as well never mind to call
him the perfect one! To use Jesus who is not around to speak for himself
as some kind of God is anti-Semitism even though he was a Jew. There is
something triumphalist about using a man who was a Jew and hated his own race
like that.
BOOKS CONSULTED
Catechism of the Catholic Church, Veritas. Dublin, 1995
Christ and Violence, Ronald J Sider, Herald Press, Scottdale, Ontario, 1979
Miracles in Dispute, Ernst and Marie-Luise Keller, SCM Press Ltd, London, 1969
Moral Philosophy, Joseph Rickaby SJ, Stoneyhurst Philosophy Series, Longmans,
Green and Co, London, 1912
Objections to Christian Belief, DM Mackinnon, HA Williams, AR Vidler and JS
Bezzant, Constable, London, 1963
Putting Away Childish Things, Uta Ranke-Heinemann, HarperCollins, San Francisco,
1994
Reason and Belief, Bland Blanschard, George Allen & Unwin Ltd, London, 1974
Robert Schuller, Satellite Saint or High Flying Heretic, Cecil Andrews, Take
Heed Publications, Belfast
The Hard Sayings of Jesus, FF Bruce Hodder & Stoughton, London, 1983
The Resurrection Factor, Josh McDowell, Alpha Scripture Press Foundation, Bucks,
1993
The Truth of Christianity, WH Turton, Wells Gardner, Darton & Co Ltd, London,
1905
Why I am Not a Christian, Bertrand Russell, Touchstone Books, Simon and
Schuster, New York, undated
