Dear Readers,
I was thinking about poor Judas Iscariot. The one who betrayed his beloved Teacher to the Jewish High Priests who gave him over to the occupying political Roman authorities where he was tried by Pontius Pilate and crucified by being hung from a torture stake where he died of asphyxiation for being a "rabble-rouser" in the eyes of the Romans. Judas is often demonized by Christians and rather unfairly in my opinion. Rabbi Jesus already said during the Passover meal that he knew who was going to betray him. He even said that it was going to be Judas. Judas kisses Jesus on the cheek as a way of signifying his betrayal. Judas becomes so over-wracked with guilt that he commits suicide although the gospels have contradictory views as to how Judas took his life. The author of the Gospel of Matthew writes that when Jesus is brought before Pilate, the Hebrews cry out that " His blood will be upon us and our children". The author of Matthew did this as to shift the blame from Pilate and the Romans ( who were persecuting Christians at the time Matthew was written) onto the Jews. The Gospel of Mark reads that Pilate knew that the Jews brought Jesus to him out of malice. Matthew merely expands on the story by having the Hebrews exclaim that Jesus' blood is on their hands and on the hands of their children. Without Judas, Jesus could never had been crucified. Seems to me that Judas was predestined by Yahweh to be the betrayer of the Messiah.
During the Crusades, Christians accused the Jews of boiling the infants of Christians and using the fat in their religious services on the "wrong" day of the week. Sabbath is on Saturday, not Sunday. Why do you think the Seventh-day Adventists have the phrase "seventh-day" in their denominational title? I am an ex-Adventist. My daddy is a liberal, multi-generational SDA, born and raised into the denomination. The historical Jesus' death was brutal, but being hung from a torture stake is hardly the most painful way to die. A Christian commenter named Albert Nygren on "Religion Dispatches" had responded to James M. Martin's comment on an article about Mel Gibson's 2004 blockbuster film " The Passion of the Christ" questioning whether Gibson's film intends to incorporate an anti-Semitic message which I will post from AtheistNexus.org with comments from Nexus users. Here's the Nexus blog post and:
Did Mel Gibson Make "The Passion of Christ" to Incite Christians Against Jews: Religious Dispatches Comment - Have At It!!!
Posted by James M. Martin on May 1, 2014 at 7:40am in Theism, Deism, & All Things Religious
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At www.religiousdispatches.com, I commented that Mel Gibson intentionally made the scourging sequence in his billion dollar movie, The Passion of the Christ, hyper-sadistic because he wanted to spread the dogma of his own father's peculiar branch of Catholicism. It teaches that the crucifixion can be laid at the feet of a race of people, not Roman, not Greek but the Jews of a conquered land. Albert Nygren responded:
What you say about this movie being "produced to convince Evangelicals that Jews and Jews alone were the sole cause of the Crucifixion" is simply not the case. I am a Christian , saw the movie when it came to theaters, and did not hear one Christian say that the Jews were responsible for Jesus Crucifixion.
I realize that through much of History after Jesus Crucifixion that ignorant Christians who did not even have the chance to read the Bible blamed Jews and called them Christ Killers and used that as an excuse to commit terrible atrocities against the Jewish people. It also is very human and reasonable that when a Jewish person sees or even hears about a movie like Gibson's that the first thought might be, "O no, we are in for it again".
I would hope that en ough Chr istians were Biblically literate enough to know that Jesus was not killed by the Jewish people nor were they responsible for His death. I know that Jews do not believe this but we are talking about beliefs of Christians. The New Testament and especially in the writings of Paul, is perfectly clear that Jesus was Crucified for the sins of everyone in the whole world and that we Christians are as responsible as anyone else for Jesus Crucifixion. Again as a Christian, when I sae Jesus being scourged I did not feel any hostility toward Jewish people but instead felt how sorry I am for my sins which cause Jesus to have to go through all that pain and suffering.
I know there are some passages in the four Gospels that say negative things about Jews and I don't know why Christian clergy don't explain to everyone that those negative remarks were not directed toward the people that practice the Religion that God gave Moses. Now, anyone descended from any of the 12 tribes of Israel are cal led Jews but not when the scriptures were written. Those remarks were about the people living in Judea only and especially the rulers and leaders of the Temple worship in Jerusalem which is in Judea.
I am deeply ashamed of any violence directed toward Jews by Christians and abhor the ignorance that caused it but please know that today most Christians love and respect our Jewish brothers even if we don't agree on everything. I am not an Evangelical but they in particular love the Jewish people and do a lot to help Israel. I hope that they as I have read the sentences by Saul/Paul that the election of Israel as God's Chosen people is irrevocable and can never change.
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Permalink Reply by Plinius 11 hours ago
Why that last sentence? The election of any nation as god's chosen people is void, because there never was a god to choose a nation. And the world is full of have-nots who need our help, so why should we give help to people who are unjust because they believe that they're better than their neighbours? I'm not an anti-Semite, not at all, but I avoid people who look down on the neighbours.
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Permalink Reply by James M. Martin 1 hour ago
I am not anti-semitic either, only anti-Israeli.
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Permalink Reply by Michael Penn 11 hours ago
This is an interesting question. While in a fundy church as a teen I often heard the term "christ killer" for Jews. Either us young boys were simply mistaken, or someone was preaching sermons saying "the Jews killed christ." When you look back today, it would seem like the latter one wouldn't it. Enter now the fact that each group believed their religion to be true regrdless of the fact that without the Jews there would be no religion as we know it today. (Hey Soos was a Mexican.) Dumb people. (No, he was an Essene.)
From those days as well we have the fact that Pontius Pilate "washed his hands" of the jesus killing because he "found no fault in the man." Oh, no, Ponti. You won't get out of it this easy. We will blame you also, and you will have nightmares. There will be lots of pain, blood, and suffering here. The church carries it forward into today.
The modern conversion prayer. "oh, my lard Jebus. I am so sorry that I killed you!" Boo Hoo, Boo Hoo. "Please come inside me and live in my heart."
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Permalink Reply by James M. Martin 1 hour ago
Not only antinomian Gnostics but some in possession of common sense would tell you that the person most responsible for the crucifixion was either Jesus or Judas. The Gnostics went so far as to canonize Judas. No Judas, no crucifixion. None of the Romans knew the man from Frommer. That kiss on the cheek was the greatest gift that could be given to a Christian. Judas is an O.K. guy. Yahweh, a mean old son of a bitch, caused Judas to go nutz with remorse and hang himself under a tree. Maybe we need a Church of Judas.
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Permalink Reply by Craigart14 35 minutes ago
Mark 15:10 states that Pilate knew the Jews had brought Jesus before him "out of malice." Matthew expands the story, telling us that "with one voice the people cried, `His blood be on us and on our children.'" Both try to clear Pilate of blame to mollify the Romans of their own time, who were persecuting Christians, placing that blame instead on the Jews, which resulted in centuries of hatred and scapegoating and more marvelous Christian inventions, such as the blood libel, ghettos, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, and the Holocaust.
Bastards.
Craig
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Permalink Reply by James M. Martin 14 minutes ago
Now, now, these "bastards" know not what they do. And you raise the specter of the Roman Church. Pogroms against the Jews, including the Crusades, had them boiling Christian babies so that the fat could be used in their hideous religions rites, done on the wrong day of the week, among other things. Now that we know how boring Jewish synagogue services can be, all we can say is Oy, vay, Tsen shifn mit gold zol er farmorgn, un dos gantse gelt zol er farkrenkn.
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Permalink Reply by Dr. Allan H. Clark 9 hours ago
As Benjamin Disraeli said, "The Jews are a nervous people. Nineteen centuries of Christian love have taken a toll."
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Albert Nygren said that when he saw Jesus getting the crapped kicked out of him on screen, that instead
of feeling hostility towards the Jewish people, he felt sorry for that fact that
his "sins" caused Jesus to go through all that pain and suffering. He states earlier that the
Christian bible, especially Paul of Tarsus' writings make it clear that Jesus was
crucified for the "sins" of everyone in the whole world and that Christians are
"just as responsible as anyone else" for Jesus' violent death. Nygren claims that
there negative remarks in the four Gospels about Jews and he claims that they
were not geared towards the Twelve Tribes of Israel, they were directed towards
the people of Judea and the High Priests of the Temple in Jerusalem.
Nygren states that the Apostle Paul still views the Jews of Israel as God's chosen
people and that that can never change. Well, look at the Jehovah's Witnesses and
the Orthodox Mormons, they believe that the Jews were so corrupt that Yahweh
decided to have their specific Christian denominations replace the Jews as "spiritual Israel", so apparently Albert has a problem when he begs all Christians to feel remorse of persecuting the Jews (which is a good thing) and to believe that Jews are still Yahweh's "chosen people". Not all Christians do or will agree with him on the Jews still being the "Chosen People".
The whole world is not responsible for the death of Jesus. He was responsible for his own death. The
Antinomian Gnostics viewed either Jesus or Judas and their actions as having led to the crucifixion of
Yeshua. Nobody's "sins" led to Jesus' death. Nobody is "sinful" or a "sinner". Were just all flawed humans that make mistakes sometimes trying to get by. Is it moral to blame every person in Judea for Yeshua's death? I'm pretty sure that the blame on Jesus' death is put on
the Jewish religious leaders of the Temple and as stated above, the author of Matthew has the Jews
accepting responsibility for Jesus demise. Apparently, Albert has little understanding of Jewish and Christian history and is probably going by what his denominational leaders tell him, despite his good intentions. The largest reason for why fundamentalist Christian Zionists support Israeli causes is because they believe that Israel is where the Battle of Armageddon will take place where the Christians get raptured into Heaven while all the Jews are cast in to Hell, depending on your denomination. JW's, for instance don't believe in the Rapture. They believe that Yahweh's army will wipe out all the non-JW's during the war at Armageddon and that they shall remain dead for all of eternity. Yahweh will then resurrect all of the faithful JW's who are deceased that died before Armageddon along with the people who died before the JW denomination was founded and if those resurrected non-JW's who died before the denomination was founded accept Yahweh's rule over them ( if they don't, then they are to be annihilated. The "evil" people who died before Armageddon will not be resurrected, they will remain non-existent.), the resurrected JW's and newly-converted JW's, along with the JW survivors of Armageddon will help Yahweh turn the earth into a paradise where they will live in peace and happiness forever, except for the pre-ordained 144,000 male leaders of the JW denominations who shall be taken up to heaven to rules as kings and princes over those that live on the earth with Yahweh and Jesus.
Politically-active fundamentalist Christians are merely using the Jews and Israel to support their "end-times" theology. I am a secular Jew and find it appalling at how the Jewish people are being used in the game of apocalyptic horrors.
Sincerely,
B.W.
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