uh huh. The "modern" christian interpretation. Meaning the fluffy bunny coverup we've all agreed to in the aftermath of WWII. So as soon as WWII is a sufficiently distant memory we will go back to reading what it plainly says in Matthew?
Matthew 27:5 serves only as an anti-semitic verse to those who want an anti-semitic cop out.
It is not a cop out. It is exactly what I explained to you it was in my first post. The church does not deny any more that it was explicitly intended to condemn jews as it was written at a time when christianity was struggling to win converts from the orthodox jewish faith. And it reads like it condemns jews, just as it was intended to. It is, furthermore, exactly the case, as I stated, and which no one has denied, for obvious reasons, that the fundamental doctrine of salvation through the crucifixion holds that those who know OF Jesus, but do not accept him as savior are condemned, condemns specifically the central sacred teaching of the orthodox jews embodied in the Shema.
This is not an accident, and it is not a trivial point. It was the basis for the Church condemnations of jews for 1400 years up until the Holocaust--and to suggest it had little or nothing to do with the holocaust, to be charitable, unhistorical.
The charge would be that the movie has anti-semitic elements because the early church had such elements, and elements of them therefore appear in the gospels. That this is at least possible is admitted by the present catholic church.
There was a fight against anti-Jewish heresies in the first 3 centuries (e.g. the Marcionites, who condemned the old testament), so it was a live issue at the time, one the church was aware of, and combatted. Acknowledging that there were factions within the early church esposing such views.
Nor is it the position of the church that the gospels themselves are in any way infalliable. It has maintained that they are approved by the church, not the other way around, and has consistently limited the status accorded to passages appearing only in a single gospel, as opppose to the substance they agree on. Protestant literalists might disagree on that subject, but that is a disagreement between them and the church, not between the church and secular or Jewish critics.
But to the substance of the issue. The theological defense is that all sinners are to be regarded as guilty in the death of Jesus. As a point of theological doctrine this may be important, it may be moral, it may have no trace of anti-semitism. But from a secular or ecumenical point of view, this is a freely offered doctrine, not anything it is a dictate of reason or justice for everyone to embrace regardless of their other views.
Now this creates a bit of an issue for a non-catholic who disputes this theological point, and prefers the ordinary sense of guilt and innocence in human affairs to this theological understanding of common human sinfulness. He may understand the offered defense but still not regard it as remotely sufficient.
That is, someone, say me, says "look, I didn't kill Jesus so kindly stop accusing me of having done so." The reply is, "we are all sinners, and as sinners we are all guilty of it." To which I may reasonably reply, "it is all very well for you to admit your own sinfulness. You may call that humility I suppose. You perhaps know the depth of your own heart, I don't pretend to. But when you move on to asserting *my* sinfulness, you pass the bounds of humility and enter the realm of accusation. I repeat, I didn't kill Jesus; please stop saying that I did. Kindly leave me out of your "we all". I don't recognize that "we", and I simply deny the charge."
Now something of a dialogue of the deaf can hear ensue. One is reading as a particular accusation what the other intends as a universal theological doctrine. When the latter insists, not it is perfectly universal, he thinks he is clarifying and in doing so removing all just cause for offense. Which amounts to seeing possible offense only in a particular charge. But the former is not concerned with the particularity of the charge, but that it is a charge at all. Of which he considers himself quite innocent. He is not appeased by being accused along with a whole flock of other people, including the accuser. Because to him the offense lies in being unjustly accused, not in any invidious particularity in the charge.
What this amounts to, however, is taking offense at a theological doctrine of human sinfulness. All are sinners, says that doctrine. I'm bloody well not, says the objector, or at least not that particular sin. If you find another to condemn me for that I actually have committed, we can talk about that. But of this particular misdeed I am utterly innocent.
I do not think this disagreement is unreasonable. But I see no anti-semitism in it. Instead it ought to be formulated as an ecumenical objection to a piece of theological doctrine taught by another faith. Which is a plane on which reasonable dialogue is possible, and on which both can understand the other's position. A catholic could then argue in favor of this doctrine as reflecting a profound moral understanding of failing mankind. An objector might argue against its possible misinterpretation or misuse, or indeed on principle oppose its tendency to lump the truly guilty in with the comparatively righteous. That is a productive disagreement and a basis of moral dialogue. Mutual accusations over past injustices are not.
Indeed, there is a curious and almost comical reversal in the positions people take in these matters, when the subject shifts to present human politics. Some who are completely opposed to the idea of any kind of association with past misdeeds allegedly - and no more than allegedly - committed by some adherents of a certain faith, turn right around and accuse whole faiths of such responsibility for later deeds. Others defending the doctrine of human fallenness and inherent inadequacy, turn right around and justify particular leaders as entirely righteous in their conduct.
One should laugh. The most I manage is a thin smile.