DID “THE JEWS” KILL JESUS?

By Hugh Fogelman et al

 

For hundreds of years Jews, especially during Christmas and Easter, have been told, “You, the Jews killed Jesus.” The very notion that “the Jews” killed their god has caused so much suffering for Jewish people for over 2,000 years.

 Who actually made and is making these claims today? Christians of course!  These very same people who preach, “turning the other cheek” and following the message of Jesus to “forgive them.” (Luke 23:34) Those are the very same Christians who preach Christianity is a religion of LOVE.

 No Roman, Greek, Persian, or Egyptian historian ever wrote the lie that the Jews killed Jesus. Only bigots who preach hate have said that.  Actually, Christians who have no understanding of their bible, from an intelligent point of view, believe this horrible lie. They have been taught that the Jews killed Jesus from early childhood and they just automatically repeat the lie without thinking.

First of all, did THE Jews, as a whole kill Jesus? That's really a very misleading issue. Would you say that “the Americans” killed Abraham Lincoln? Or, that “the Americans” killed John F. Kennedy? Even if you can prove that there was a plot to kill Kennedy you still can't say that THE AMERICANS killed Kennedy. So even if it this lie is true that Jews killed Jesus, it is not correct to say that “THE Jews (implying all of them) killed Jesus.” Do you see the distinction? What the Christian bible, their New Testament is implying is that every single Jew killed Jesus. That the entire Jewish race will forever be damned for killing Jesus, as told in the author of Matthew, who was to later become a saint.

Again, who did kill killed Jesus? It's not a difficult question.  The Christian bible claims that Jews railroaded Jesus and sent him to the Roman Pilate to have him killed. Examine that issue in itself. Did “the Jews” railroad Jesus? Do we believe at face value, what the Christian bible claims the Council of Rabbis said to Jesus? Who witnessed that event and heard every word spoken? It was certainly not Matthew, nor Mark, nor Luke, nor John, nor Paul! Yes, pray tell, who was the eye witness that recorded these words?

The Christian bible claims that Rabbis “brought false witnesses, but they couldn't find testimony against Jesus.” That sentence itself makes no sense, but that is what it says. Ask any Christian if they can explain that claim. They give one example of the false testimony, and it turns out to be something that Jesus might have done! However, according Jewish law, it was not a punishable offense. What the Christian bible deliberately omits during this inquisition were the sins that Jesus did in public, such as desecrating the Sabbath after being reminded that it was forbidden. That IS an offense that the Torah says is punishable by stoning, yet this is never mentioned at the trial as told in the Christian bible. Why not? Because this event was written by Christians and they wanted to make Jesus look innocent. This brings up still another point. According to John, after a trail, the Jews were not allowed to punish another Jew by way of stoning or any other means that would lead to their death, since Rome took away the Jewish death penalty. Did John fib?

So by the Christian version, it would be impossible for the Rabbis to have killed Jesus. For one reason, there was no reason to do so. So, what did the Christian bible have to do? They made up a claim that Jesus talked blasphemy, which is punishable by death.

But wait; what words did Jesus say that was blasphemy? Being called the son of God was accepted by Jewish law because all Jews were children of God and Jews often called themselves sons of God. Unfortunately the unknowing Christian reading his bible does not know this.

Let us say for purposes of discussion that the so-called trial of Jesus, as only told in the Christian bible, really happened.

What Rabbinical council was this?

Was it the Pharisee Sanhedrin that represented the Jewish populace, or was it the Sadducees who only represented themselves and Rome? 

Was the trail legal, or was it a kangaroo court?

The Christian bible (NT) says that the leader of this Rabbinical  council was the High Priest, Caiaphus, a Sadducee. To the Christian its goes unnoticed, but to those who do know  Halakhah (Jewish Law) the writers of the New Testament unwittingly clearly demonstrate that they did not know Jewish Law. These Christian NT authors did not realize that their writing meant that the Sadducees would have had to brake every Jewish Law of Rabbinical Courts to arrest Jesus.

For example: they arrested a man on the Holiday, they held the council on the Holiday (possibly a Sabbath too, according to the gospel of John), they were led by a Sadducee high priest, they hit the defendant, they did not follow council procedure as spelled out in Pharisaic Law, and many other numerous proofs.

Still, the question has not been answered, who did killed Jesus? It was Rome, indirectly through the Sadducees, a handful of Jews who worked for Rome, and directly by Pontius Pilate―not the Jews as a body of people. Or was it the disciple that is associated with the Jewish people, Judas? Perhaps it was Jesus’ other 11 disciples who could have stopped the so-called Judas at the Last Supper event. The truthful answer, according to the Christian story, was God killed Jesus. The Christian bible tells that Jesus’ death was preordained. Jesus’ mission, according to the Christian bible was preset – nothing in the world could have stopped the motions in action for Jesus’ death.

In the first Gospel story of Jesus' trial and crucifixion, the author of Mark engages in a carefully crafted and delicate balancing act over the question of responsibility for Jesus' death: between Jew and Roman, between the Jewish religious establishment and the secular arm of the Empire. Mark knew full well that only the Roman governor could condemn a man to the cross, but he also wanted to allot to the Jewish leaders and to the Jewish people as a whole an equal if not greater role in Jesus' execution.

Mark, throughout his story, sets the scene by having the chief priests, scribes and elders plot to do away with Jesus, and it is their forces that first arrest him in the Garden of Gethsemane. Mark invented a follower of Jesus, Judas by name―to symbolize all Jewry, to betray Jesus to his enemies and lead the arresting force to him. And it is the High Priest and Sanhedrin who first question Jesus and abuse him, finding him guilty of blasphemy and deserving of death—on grounds that have never made sense. Indeed, the entire circumstances of Mark's trial before the Jewish Council can be seen to contravene so many known conventions and prohibitions that scholars have been led to reject its very historicity. But that's a story for another time.

When Jesus was finally turned over to the Roman governor, Mark makes Pilate behave in a manner which is entirely uncharacteristic of what we know of the “real Pilate” from historical sources, and of Roman policy in general. By whitewashing Pilate, by having the demands of the Jewish leaders and Jewish people override Pilate’s attempts to free Jesus, Mark had the crowd choose Barabbas, the leader of an rebellion (an option no governor of Judea would ever have offered. To further show how ridiculous Mark’s story is, nowhere is there is any historical record of such a Roman policy―freeing a prisoner at a crowd’s request. But Mark had a mission―to place the primary responsibility for Jesus' death at the feet of the Jews.

When Pilate finally washes his hands of the affair, official Roman brutality takes over, and Jesus is further abused, scourged and finally crucified. However, the Christian bible cannot let that lie end because the gospel writers immediately had the Jews reenter the picture in the jeers of the spectators at the foot of the cross. Further the Christian bible portrayed the Jews unbelief was obstinate―contrasting it with the Roman centurion who declared in an act of faith that “truly this man was the Son of God.” Finally, Mark brings God himself into the picture to hide the sun's face behind a blackened sky, and to repudiate his treacherous people by rending the very veil of his own holy sanctuary. Mark thus set the course for the Jews' wretched fate at the hands of Christians and the Christian church for the next two millennia, and Matthew would seal its fierceness with the most heinous line of fiction ever penned: His blood be upon us and upon our children!” Yes, these are the very words Hitler chose to speak to the world at the passion plays of Oberammergau in 1942. Adolph Hitler said: "his blood be on us and our children.... [Matthew 27:25], maybe I´m the one who must execute this curse..... I do no more than join what has been done for more than 1,500 years already. Maybe I render Christianity the best service ever!"

Such is the picture of Jesus' death presented in the Gospels: the unjust execution of an innocent man, beset by betrayal and false accusations and a pitiless Jewish establishment. Its lurid details have been indelibly branded into the mind of every Christian preacher and writer and every convert to the new faith. Instead, there is scarcely a murmur of it until Mark—drawing on a multitude of scriptural passages and an old literary formula found throughout centuries of Jewish writing, known as the Suffering and Vindication of the Innocent Righteous One—sits down to pen his tale, a good half century or more after it all supposedly took place.

And, by the way, for the record, it is forbidden for a Jew to hand over another Jew to be killed by Gentiles. Therefore, it certainly was not an authentically religious Jew who would have done such a thing. Thus, Jews, who follow the Pharisees, cannot be said to be associated with that incident told by the Christians themselves.

This brings us to the next Christian claim that “Jesus was trying to bring back the Torah to the Jews and everyone.” Is this really true? Do Christians have the Torah today? They follow only the Christian bible, the teachings of Paul and give no more than lip service to the Torah, and seldom even that much. Most Christians can not define Torah; much less know what it contains. Jesus, being a Pharisee would have followed the Torah, but Paul’s Jesus refused it. In what way has the Torah been brought to the Christian world?  No, the evidence speaks otherwise. Jesus, in his life as recorded by the Christian bible, and in the deeds of his followers for the past 2,000 years, has not brought the Torah to anyone. Instead Christians have killed hundreds of thousands and spent millions of dollars to wrest the Torah away from Jews and to keep it away from the rest of the world as well.

Jews and others alike, have found you can't accept as truth what a Christian says about Jews or Jewish history, and you can NEVER trust what a Christian says about the religion of Judaism itself. Doesn't the Christian bible say that they should love their enemies, and forgive them for whatever they do, and to speak only words of love? The History of Christianity towards the Jews has proved differently.

Think about this. If Jesus was supposed to die for “your sins” and it was preordained -- then wasn't his crucifixion really a Christian holy act, because, according to the New Testament, God preordained it. If there had been no crucifixion, then I guess all the Christians would NEVER be saved. Instead they would have gone to the Christian hell.

So, instead of hating the Jews, Christians should really be thanking them for allowing Christians to be saved. How many pastors do you think would tell this truth during their Easter sermons?

 Stop all the anti-Semitism!!!! This hate begins and must stop at the pulpit!

 


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