How Anti-Semitic is the New Testament?

When I first learned that many of my Jewish friends recoiled at the phrase "the Jews" in the New Testament and genuinely believed the Gospels to be anti-Semitic, I was shocked. I never picked up on any of it. Of course, I've never been ridiculed or persecuted for being "a Jew" myself. Are my friends overly sensitive? Am I ignorant about the foundations of my own religion? What is the truth? This sent me on a research quest to listen to evidence from both sides. At the end, I believe there is a major misunderstanding through a 2000 year old telephone game about the Greek term Ioudaios.

Let me be blunt with my Christian brothers and sisters. The Gospels, especially John's, are quite negative about any group labeled "the Jews". John uses the term "the Jews" more than most, more than seventy times in one book. Almost all of the instances of this epitaph are dark and conspicuous in John. In John, the phase "the Jews" reject Jesus, persecute him, seek his death, expel believers from the synagogue, plot Jesus' death, and persecute his followers. And this is just the Gospel of John. Jesus is never referred to as "a Jew" in John except by the scandalous Samaritan woman. None of Jesus' followers are referred to as Jews. When their heredity is praised, they are called "Israelites." At face value, this makes Christianity's core scripture seem derogatory toward Judaism.

This is not an ivory tower debate. This line of thinking has had dire consequences throughout history. It was not hard for the Nazis theologians such as Albrecht Ritschl to disassociate Jesus from Judaism which in turn laid the theological justification for the atrocities that followed. Rather than defending or ignoring the language of the New Testament, I suggest that we (both Christian and Jewish) are fundamentally misunderstanding it.

While words can have many possible shades of meanings, when we actually use words we tend to only intend one particular meaning at a time. Examples are infinite. Take the word bank. It could mean a place to deposit money. It could be the side of a river. It could be a verb that means "to turn sharply". It could be a way "to bet a wager of confidence" on an expected result as in "you can bank on it". Sometimes these uses can be tied to a common core meaning. Sometimes they have nothing to do with each other at all. Language is messy.

I have reason to believe that the New Testament uses the word Ioudaios as a primarily geographic/political term for Jews indigenous to "Judea" in contrast to Jews from Galilee or elsewhere. Yes, the term is all inclusive for both the people and their religion. But in this case a picture from the Jewish Anotated New Testament is worth a thousand words:

But don't take my word for it. Consider what modern Rabbi and professor at Hebrew Union College, Joshua Garroway writes on page 524:

When the Hasmonean kings expanded Judean hegemony by conquering regions to the north and south of Judea--e.g., Samaria, Galilee, and Idumea--they imposed their laws on the native populations. As a result, many who previously had no ethnic or geographic connection to Judea became Ioudaioi, inasmuch as they resided on lands controlled by Judea and obeyed its laws. Yet, opinions varied regarding the extent to which one actually became a Ioudaios through such incorporation.

Today, there are lots of debates about what makes someone Jewish or not. The way the New Testament uses the terms is not right or wrong. It is just different. It grew out of the political realities they experienced. Today, we can and do use very different litmus tests for what it means to be Jewish. For many this is a personal journey of identity, spirituality, heredity, and culture. I am not a player in that debate because it is not my journey.

As further evidence outside the New Testament that first century religious Jews considered the term Ioudaios to be geographic, consider the terms used for proselytes to Judaism. Could a non-native convert be called an Ioudaios? Many like Philo and the Qumran community do not call a non-native convert "a Jew" (the one exception is the historian Josephus). Why? Did they not think conversion to religious Judaism was possible? Sure they did. Were they elitists that withheld the term from converts? No. The simplest answer is that they used the term Ioudaios for "being from Judea". I can begin to follow the one true God, but that doesn't make me Judean even if I begin to act Jewish.

A third piece of evidence is the inscription found at the first century Herodian temple in Jerusalem. The inscription forbids non-natives (ἀλλογενῆ) from entering beyond a certain court. Notice that the prohibition is not based on adherence to Jewish beliefs or practices. Foreigners are categorically banned. Who then is allowed? Judeans are allowed. This reinforces the idea that the term "Jew" was more geographic/national than theological at that time. This is very similar to how we in modern times we use the term "Israeli" to communicate nationality, not religious belief.

My point - we read "the JEWS"  in the New Testament and we hear religious Judaism when we should be hearing critiques about corrupt Judeans at a specific point in history.

Basically, in the New Testament we are listening to an internal Jewish debate, where Jewish Galileans from one region up North are critiquing Jewish Judeans who primarily reside down South around Jerusalem. And all of them seem to prefer to self identify as "Israelite" or "Hebrew". Think about how many names we have used for other Americans in our own complicated history. Tories, Rebels, Yankees, Confederates, but today we all call ourselves Americans. If I were to read George Washington praise "republicans" or "democrats", should I assume he is talking about modern political party interests? Words can change in meaning through time.   

Thus, I believe the New Testament critiques of the Jews are not against all Judaism as we know it today, but rather against a particularly corrupt iteration of it in one particular region of the world at one particular time. After all, it can be well documented that most of the resistance to Jesus' ministry came from the Judean "Southern Establishment".

Now, did not "Southern" Judean Pharisee-ism morph into modern Rabbinic Judaism, and if so, wouldn't Jesus' critiques apply directly to modern Judaism? Not really. It was a long and complicated 400 years from the Pharisees of Jesus' day through the destruction of the temple, through the shrouded council of Jamnia, through the collection of the Mishnah, and to the formation of the Rabbinate. In fact, even within the sect of the Pharisees there were factions with major differences, like the more xenophobic house of Shamai and the more open house of Hillel, the later of which eventually won prominence after the destruction of the Temple and the loss of a home land. 

For the record, I believe Jesus to be a Pharisee, and the son of a Pharisee, in tension with Pharisees. He eats with them, debates with them, often sides with them theologically, and ordains his apostles with similar language. I believe Jesus fought most vigorously against the house of Shamai and often sided in legal disputes with the house of Hillel, but not always. The irony is that Rabbinic Judaism has followed suite. In fact, modern Judaism and Jesus are ironically in agreement on many teachings like the golden rule, anger, generosity, the necessity of spiritual re-birth, and valid grounds for suspending Shabbat etc. We might argue whether Jesus inherited his ideas from Hillel or whether Jesus had a bigger influence on later Judaism than might be comfortable for some. Both are likely true. 

It is not logical that the Jewish authors of the New Testament could be so psychologically conflicted as to demonize themselves. They were, after all, ... Jewish as we use the term today. So, no, I do not believe the New Testament to be Anti-Semitic, but I do believe it uses anti-Judean language easy to mis-hear as anti-Jewish. Perhaps the closest modern analogy is devout Jews speaking against Zionists.

So how do we translate Ioudaios as "Judeans" without cutting Jesus' last tie to Judaism? And how do we purge the term "Jew" from its ancient New Testament connotations? And how do Christians remain true to Jesus critiques of Pharisees without impugning all Judaism?

Most translations utilize both English terms Jews (more religious) and Judeans (more geographic), and making the hard call of which idea might be more prominent in each instance. In practice this means they only translate the term as Judean when the context specifies a location in the surrounding words. The problem is that this also preserves the long standing history of misunderstanding and violence where the term Jew is only employed in dark contexts. I believe the way forward is to translate all instances of Ioudaios as Judeans. This removes the possibility of unintended prejudice to color our translation. Since Jesus is never called an Ioudaios, there is no risk of impropriety about Jesus' inherent Jewishness. Frankly, this allows a more robust discussion of what it means to be Jewish in Jesus' day and in ours.

There is also much to do outside of translation in order to preserve the Jewishness of Jesus. We should embrace unconditional friendships with Jewish people (aka not based on evangelism), and learn about their religion from them, not the New Testament's depiction of it. The two are not necessarily the same thing. Also, attend a Passover Seder meal, ideally with Jewish friends. In my experience they are happy to have non-Jewish guests at Pesach.

Lastly, for the love of Jesus, learn about the basic traditions in which he would have gladly participated. Eventually one begins to realize Jesus wore tzitzit, and sang Jewish hymns, and prayed Jewish prayers, attended synagogue regularly, on Saturday, and loved the chance to read from Hebrew scripture up front on the bimah seat. They might not of called it Judaism then, but we do now.

Here's the irony of the whole thing. Jesus' critique of Jewish leadership has often been just as applicable to Christian leadership, if not more so. Judaism has no unique claim to hypocrisy or legalism. Christianity is full of it. We would do well to head our Rabbi and clean our house without demonizing Judaism.