Blaming the Jews
First shown on Channel 4 in April 2004
The crucifixion
Why has Easter so often brought waves of antisemitism? The Gospels tell the story of the last days of Christ’s life – his trial, crucifixion and resurrection – as the story of a mortal conflict between Jesus and the Jews. The New Testament in the 1st century AD, the medieval passion plays and, more recently, numerous films, have been used down the ages, by people looking for a scapegoat, to blame the Jews.
Portraying all Jews as culpable – both at the time of Jesus and ever after – as killers of God, has provoked some of the most murderous events of the last 2,000 years. These range from the massacre of the Jews of York in 1190, and the execution of many of Lincoln’s Jews in 1255 for the alleged ‘ritual murder’ of a Christian boy, to the violent persecution, torture and expulsion in 1492 of the Jews of Spain during the Inquisition, and more recently, Hitler’s genocide of the millions of Jews of Europe in the 1940s.
Rethinking history
So was Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor of Judea, who tried Jesus and condemned him to be crucified, a weak man who was pressurised by the Jews into handing down the death sentence? Or was he a tough soldier, who had no qualms about brutally suppressing any challenge to the Roman empire? History does not support the claim that the Jews manipulated him into killing Christ. The Catholic Church, at the Second Vatican Council in 1965, acknowledged this and issued a statement repudiating the charge of deicide, and since then, most other churches have followed suit.
The New Testament is an important source of information about the life and times of Jesus but it’s not the only one. Other documents give a different perspective on the Roman occupation of Judea in the 1st century AD. The most significant historian of the time was Josephus, whose writings mention Jesus, and give a vivid picture of Jewish resistance to Roman rule.
Roman occupation
Judea was a small country on the eastern Mediterranean, whose capital was Jerusalem. Knowing that Judea was full of rebellious Jews, who were bitterly opposed to the occupation of their land, the Romans sent a soldier, rather than a diplomat, to run it. Although Pilate has been described in the Gospels as a weak, easily manipulated governor, other records show that he was given the job of Prefect of Judea precisely because he was a tough, fighting man who would have no hesitation in suppressing any uprisings.
Wherever the Romans conquered territory they co-opted the leaders of the population that already lived there. In Judea, this meant persuading the Temple priests – the aristocrats of the Jewish community – to support the Roman Emperor. They succeeded in this, but many ordinary Jews did not go along with them. In the first place, the Jews had had a long history of foreign domination – by Egypt, Babylon, Persia, Greece, and now the Romans – and they were desperate for someone to liberate them.
On course for conflict
As well as this, the culture and way of life of the Romans was in direct conflict with that of the Jews. For the Romans, religion and power were combined in worship of the Emperor, whose image was portrayed on coins, banners and statues. This contravened the first two of the Ten Commandments – the bedrock of Jewish belief – which said:
1. Thou shalt have no other gods before me.
2. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image.
Three times a year, at the major festivals, Jewish pilgrims flocked to Jerusalem. These were the moments of high tension, when the crowds were likely to riot, not just against the Romans but against the Temple priests who they saw as doing the Romans’ dirty work. Josephus describes the Aqueduct Riot, when the people were outraged that money from the Temple treasury was used to build an aqueduct. Pontius Pilate had predicted that there would be trouble and had sent soldiers into the crowd in civilian clothes, dressed as Jews, with wooden clubs instead of swords. Large numbers of people were killed that day.
A political challenge
Jesus came from the Galilee, which was renowned for producing dissidents. This rogue rabbi argued that the collusion of the priests with the Romans was making the Temple redundant. Passover, 30AD. Another festival; another pilgrimage. Jesus entered Jerusalem on a donkey as the Bible had prophesied that the Messiah would arrive. As well as an appeal to the Jews, this was a provocation to the Romans, for whom there could be no other king and no other god than their Emperor.
Again the crowd was volatile. And again Pilate put down the uprising, and this time arrested Jesus. The priests had their own reasons for supporting Pilate: the Romans were their bosses, who hired and fired them. So, while they supported Pilate’s actions against Jesus, they didn’t make his decision for him.
There is firm historical evidence that a placard placed over the cross on which Jesus was crucified said: Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews.’ This was the charge that the Romans brought against him: that he was making a political challenge to their rule. Jesus was tried and executed under Roman law as an example to anyone who questioned Roman authority. When the Jewish priests fell into line and said: ‘There is no king but Caesar,’ they certainly didn’t speak for all the Jews, as the Gospels suggest.
The real history
Easter has, over the centuries, been a time of attacks on Jews. Accused of being Christ killers, the subject of fake claims that they used the blood of Christian children in their Passover rituals, vilified in Passion Plays since the Middle Ages, the persecution has always been justified by the New Testament account of these events. The time has come, now, to learn the real history.
