Who Killed Jesus?: Setting the Record Straight

BreakPoint ^ | 12 Feb 04 | Charles Colson

[Mr. Silverback]

The cover of the latest NEWSWEEK magazine asks the right question: "Who killed Jesus?" This has been a raging debate for a year, since Mel Gibson started his remarkable film project THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST. He immediately ran into a buzz saw of opposition from the liberal media and Jewish groups who were afraid the film would rekindle anti-Semitism.

Now, Jews have a legitimate concern about this. During the Middle Ages, Christians treated Jews terribly. In Russia there were pogroms against the Jews. And of course some of the maniacs around Hitler professed that they were killing Jews to purify the Christian race.

But is this sensitivity today well-founded? If we would look at history alone, we would have to say that Pontius Pilate certainly was guilty. Legend has it that years after the crucifixion he was frantically washing his hands trying to cleanse himself from the blood of Christ. And, of course, Caiphus the High Priest certainly bears his share of responsibility. So do the crowds who yelled, "Crucify him." So was it the Romans or the Jews, the venality of Pontius Pilate or the passion of the mob?

It was both and neither. The Jews didn't cause the death of Jesus, nor did the Romans. They were merely instruments carrying out what God had decreed. He sent His only begotten Son to die on the cross so that the sins of mankind might be forgiven. And those who take Scripture seriously have always known who killed Jesus: You and I and all other sinful human beings did so.

Mel Gibson understands this. In his movie, THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST, the hand holding the spike being nailed through Christ's wrist is Gibson's. Who killed Jesus? Mel Gibson knows. And he made the very point with his own hand that he was responsible, not the Jews.

Similarly the Dutch painter, Rembrandt painted THE RAISING OF THE CROSS as a self-portrait. As Christ hangs on the cross while it is being lifted into place, the soldier pulling it up is Rembrandt. Who killed Jesus? Rembrandt knew. He did. And I did. And you did. We're the ones who sent Jesus to the cross loaded down with our sins.

So enough of this foolish controversy. My advice to Christians is that you make it abundantly clear to your friends and neighbors that we are the ones responsible and then take them to see the film. Let them experience the passion and explain to them why it was necessary for Jesus to go to the cross. And be ready with a biblical answer for your Jewish friends who hear all of this propaganda, most of it stirred up by professional activists.

Albert Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, says that it is not who is to blame that really has everybody up in arms. The media elite know that if people see this film, the right answer to the haunting question "Who Killed Jesus?" will be clear. What strikes terror into the hearts of the media elite is that people might once again be convicted of sin, repent, and come to faith in Christ.

So, three cheers for Mel Gibson. And thanks to NEWSWEEK for asking the right question, even if it does not have the right answer. But now it is up to us Christians to do our job to educate our neighbors and flood the movie theaters.

[Dr. Frank fan]

The Bible records someone in the Jewish crowd as having said, "let his blood be upon us..." However, this doesn't mean that Jews bear collective guilt for Jesus' crucifixion. It just means that a man in the crowd said this.

THANK YOU!!

I have tried to explain this to so many people. I'm glad someone gets it :)

[stuartcr]

Why and how...that was before you were born.

[stuartcr]

Why and how.....it was before we were born?

[#3Fan]

Matthew Ch. 27 V. 25 Then answered all the people, and said, His blood be on us, and on our children.

That's the people's words, not God's words. The Kenites killed Jesus, not the seed of Judah.

[Inyokern]

It's true that certain Jews agitated for his execution

Correction: It is your BELIEF that certain Jews agitated for the execution of Jesus. It is not proveable fact.

[Chris Talk]

And we don't even know that the man who said that WAS Jewish. This may have been a "rent-a-crowd" made up mainly of the security guards and low-level employees of the Temple, who are said to have been mostly Idumean and Arabs and the like, shabbos-goyim if you please, who could do the dirty work and handle blood and corpses and what all.

Jesus and all the Good Guys in the NT were Jewish, so if a few of the BAD Guys are Jewish, why, that is just par for the course. To be expected. Why is this such a big deal?

Very much of the problem comes from the translation of "Judaeans" in the Book of John as "JEWS," a blatant mistranslation in our English bibles. This word means "Southerners, Jerusalemites" and thus usually Sadducees or Pharisees; ---

as opposed to the Northerners or "Galileans," which is the appropriate contrasting or opposite term. [The girl said to Peter, "I perceive you are one of them; you are a Galilean."]

The people [including John himself, a Kohan] who were tossing the "insult" Judaeans at Jesus' critics, those of the southern sects.......were just as much Jews by race, descendants of Abraham, as well as by Religion, though of the Northern sect[s] (Nazarenes, Essenes)...as were the targets of the insult.

We need a simple redo of the book of John translation in English, the original has no such anti-Semitic implication...

[Dr. Frank fan]

Perhaps you didn't read the article or don't understand the concept.

I did.

We all killed Jesus; you and me.

I understand the theological interpretation which holds this, yes.

I'm talking about the people who actually, physically or socially participated in the act of getting Jesus killed, ending his life. (Jesus was a physical man and he was physically killed, by some people, and this act was socially prompted, by some (perhaps other) people, meaning that there is a finite list of people who had a hand in the *actual act* of killing him.)

Your/Colson's theological explanation for why "The Jews killed Jesus" would be a ridiculous statement may be satisfying to Christians but many of the people who have stirred up this controversy are not Christians, so I am trying to explain why the charge is ridiculous even from just a plain historical standpoint.

Some people had a hand in killing Jesus. I don't care how many/what percentage of them were Jews; to imply that whatever-percentage of them were Jews is NOT to imply that "The Jews" killed Jesus, as some people are saying Mel Gibson is doing.

[Dr. Frank fan]

Correction: It is your BELIEF that certain Jews agitated for the execution of Jesus. It is not proveable fact.

Look, that's the story. None of the story is "provable fact" but why should that matter.

[Chris Talk]

The reason I think it was a rent-a-crowd is that this day, the Friday, was a day in which any observant Jews were very busy cooking and preparing for the Seder meal that night, that Friday night... much too busy to be hanging around the streets heckling people.

Lambs cooked while Jesus suffered, and the Seder was eaten that night after Jesus was dead.

[In_25_words_or_less]

And those who take Scripture seriously have always known who killed Jesus: You and I and all other sinful human beings did so.

There's a thin line between taking the blame and taking the credit for the Lamb's work of redemption.

[Mr. Silverback]

I guess ol' Chuck has a lot more faith in "the media elite" than I ever will.

I think you're right. I think the reason they hate this movie is an instinctual hatred for any portrayal of Jesus that is remotely like who He really was. I don't think they've thought it through in the way Colson believes, and even if they have, it's only in an "Oh great, then we'll have more stupid Jesus Freaks running around annoying us," way, not an "Oh no, what if people get saved, we'll be ruined" way.

[Francisco]

St. Augustine: "Judaism, since Christ, is a corruption; indeed, Judas is the image of the Jewish people: their understanding of Scripture is carnal; they bear the guilt for the death of the Saviour, for through their fathers they have killed Christ."

[truthingod]

I believe the point is the reason Jesus died. He died willingly--He could have gotten down off the cross and refused to die. Yet, in a loud voice(impossible to do in crucifixion)-he gave up His last breath to finish the work God the Father had sent him to do. Back in Genesis, the mission had already been established, from before the foundation of the world, Christ had died for us. It was a physical manifestation of the spiritual order. It really is pointless to worry about who nailed Jesus to the cross.

[Dr. Frank fan]

And we don't even know that the man who said that WAS Jewish. This may have been a "rent-a-crowd" made up mainly of the security guards and low-level employees of the Temple, who are said to have been mostly Idumean and Arabs and the like, shabbos-goyim if you please, who could do the dirty work and handle blood and corpses and what all.

Good point. People seem to think/assume that the infamous "crowd" was all "Jews", but from what we know of that time period the Romans used e.g. Syrians to keep rebellions down etc. and there were many other foreigners moving around, there's no reason to believe this crowd of people was "the Jews".

To continue in this vein, another thing which bothers me is that people speak as if all "Jews" are the same, that the "Jews" of that time period are the same as the "Jews" we know & love today. (You hint to this by talking about the "Judeans"/"Galileans" split.) Clearly for all Jews today there is a cultural descendence as well as blood descendence (by one's mother) from *someone* who would have (probably) been considered a "Jew" back then, but this all seems to ignore big important things like the Ashkenazi/Sepphardic split. It also ignores that at that time there was far from any kind of homogeneity to "the Jews" and certainly lots of infighting/factions/etc (like any other nation).

The whole controversy seems to be based on the idea that writing, presenting, or filming a story that takes place 2000 years ago on the other side of the world, and which has ONE (1) character saying "his blood is on us" or whatever, and that character would have been a historical analogue of what we now today call a "Jew", this is all THE SAME THING AS saying that 'The Jews' killed Jesus!

Like I said, the controversy is so irritating :)

Jesus and all the Good Guys in the NT were Jewish, so if a few of the BAD Guys are Jewish, why, that is just par for the course. To be expected. Why is this such a big deal?

Exactly. The corollary seems to be that you can't write a story in which a character who's Jewish (or even *presumably* Jewish!) does something bad. This seems to deny Jews their humanity. Jews are people too, and like all other nations/cultures of people, some of them do bad things. To use kid gloves about this is to infantilize them.

One more thing here, the idea that all the Jews who indirectly got Jesus executed did something "bad" is questionable in and of itself. I'm not just talking about theology (where would "Christianity" be if not for his execution & resurrection?), I'm talking about by the moral social & political standards of that time. Jesus claimed or sneakily implied to be the "son of God". Were *I* a member of the Sanhedrin I'm not sure *I* wouldn't have voted to turn him over to the Romans...

[truthingod]

So what? Jesus was going to die. God the Father had already ordained that it be so. The Bible is full of pictures and words that tell us this would happen to restore fallen man to right relationship with the Father.
It does not matter who it was that was there the day Jesus died. It was meant to happen.

[Mr. Silverback]

It was the Anti-Christ, And that my friends is the true answer.

Elaboration?

[Blood of Tyrants]

I am trying to explain why the charge is ridiculous even from just a plain historical standpoint.

Of course it is. The people that killed Jesus have been dead for nearly 2000 years. But the same people who are screaming the loudest are also proponents of "slave reparations" by people who never owned slaves to people who were never slaves.

[MosesKnows]

Who Killed Jesus?

Who asked?

[Chris Talk]

Thank you for your post which is supportive.

I am not certain that Jesus ever claimed to be a "ben-Elohim" [son of the Celestials]... much LESS "ben-YHWH" [son of the G-d of Israel].

He DID obviously refer to himself as the "ben-h'adam" [son of Man, or 'son of the Earthling'] who is mentioned in Daniel 7 and elsewhere, a code-word for the Messiah and a term widely used in Essene literature to mean the Messiah.
Since it was a crime to claim to be the Messiah, he was here getting around that by (literally) claiming to be no more than "an earthling."! --

It was also outlawed to be a Nazarene. He got around that by several clever puns and gematrial constructions that would let Hebrew speakers know he was one, but which would seem innocuous or nonsense if translated into Greek, such as his famous "where the carcass is, there will the vultures be gathered together." statement. Punny, clever, gematrial.

[Mr. Silverback]

I would venture that your prediction will be the single furthest off the mark of any prediction on any subject made on FR this month.

When a Catholic Archbishop says, "I'd trade every one of my homilies for 20 minutes of this movie," it's not just a cash cow. This will be The Jesus Film for American moviegoers, re-evangelizing the Church and maybe making us all a little more serious about the business of Heaven.