Antisemitism in the New Testament?

Is the New Testament antisemitic?

Scholars like Amy Jill-Levine¹ would argue, though it wasn't intended, the texts have been read to that conclusion.

"Some texts lend themselves to such readings and have contributed to the long and tragic history of Christian antisemitism.”

Who is to blame? Is it the authors for leaving out clarifying information? Is it the interpreters who have failed to communicate the cultural, linguistic, and theological context?

To answer these questions, we must be willing to confront our knowledge gaps and maybe some underlying assumptions.

Why Ask Why?

For some readers, there is no further context necessary. The simplest explanation is that the Rabbis and the Jewish people have rejected Jesus and are outside of the Gospel's span of care.

Many are simply unaware there is more to the story.

Unless you are Jewish or have some degree of Jewish affiliation, what incentive is there to dig deeper? For those who harbor anti-Jewish biases, the popular interpretations serve as a convenient confirmation bias.

Martin Luther's Contributions

These anti-Jewish biases go pretty far back. We can find these sentiments by the mid-second century through Marcion and the Hadrianic persecutions. They become more prominent in the writings of the emerging church fathers like Eusebius and John Chrysostom, and others.

Many Christians are often shocked to learn that these ideas were forwarded by Martin Luther. Luther, projecting the corruption of the Catholic leadership into the Gospels, painted the "Jews" as the enemies of the Gospel.

He saw fit to call for their persecution in his writings²:

“I advise that their [Jews] houses be razed and destroyed,” he wrote, and “I advise that their Rabbis be forbidden to teach… on pain of life and limb.”

As Protestantism migrated, it carried with it the virus of antisemitism. From the influence of Martin Luther, one can draw a connection to many powerful, influential, and antisemitic cultural icons like Henry Ford and Adolph Hitler.

Street-level Nazi propaganda played up the ever-present tropes that the Jews killed Jesus, inflaming anger to recruit the citizenry into the persecution campaign. Where did they get these ideas?

On this, Luther scholar Heiko Oberman states;

“The terrible tragedy of the relationship between Jews and Christians in world history can be studied in concentrated form in the history of this one man."

Let's explore a few passages to understand where they went wrong.