One
measure of the ill-feeling that was felt by early Christians
towards Judaism of that time is to list texts in the New
Testament that accuse Jews or the Jewish religious leaders of
violent intentions or physical violence against Jesus or his
followers:
Matthew
12:9-14, 16:21, 20:17-19, 21:33-46, 26:1-5, 14-16, 47-50,
26:57, 66, 27:1-2, 19-26.
Mark
3:1-6, 8:31, 10:33-34, 12:1-12, 14:1-2, 10-11, 43-49, 64,
15:1, 8-15.
Luke
9:22, 20:9-26, 22:1-6, 52-53, 22:26, 23:5, 23:13-25.
John
5:15-18, 7:1, 10-13, 19-20, 28-34, 8:20, 37-40, 57-59,
10:30-39, 11:45-57, 12:9-11, 18:3-14, 19-24, 28-32, 19:6-7,
12-16. Acts 2:22-23, 3:13, 4:22, 5:17-42, 6:8-15, 7:50-60,
8:1-3, 9:1-2, 9:21, 13:28-29, 50, 14:1-6, 19, 17:5-9, 20:19,
21:11, 22:22-23, 23:2-3, 10, 12-15, 20-21, 27, 24:1-9.
2 Corinthians
11:24.
1
Thessalonians 2:15-15.
Jesus
made scathing attacks on the Jewish religious leaders of his
day and their teachings. (Matthew 15:12-14, 16:5-12,
21:12-13, and chapter 23, Mark 11:15-17, 12:38-40, Luke
12:1-3, 16:14-15). His condemnation of those who rejected his
message was savage. (Matthew 10:11-15, 11:20-24, Luke
10:13-15). One of the earliest controversies in the church
was whether circumcision and Old Testament food taboos
applied to non-Jewish converts to Christianity. (Acts 15,
21:17-26, Galatians 2:3-6). One of Paul's letters warns about
"unruly and vain talkers and deceivers, specially those
of the circumcision: whose mouths must be stopped, who
subvert whole houses, teaching things which they ought not,
for filthy lucre's sake". (Titus 1:10-11).
The
Acts of the Apostles shows how much the early Christian
missionaries depended on the synagogues to preach and reach
potential converts. (Acts 13:14-16, 14:1, 17:1-4, 18:1-4).
Indeed in Rome, the Jewish leaders visited him when he came
there as a prisoner (Acts 28:16-17, 21-25), and seemed to
give him a very fair hearing.
In
the Book of Revelations, however, feelings against the Jews
were much nastier:
...I
know the blasphemy of them which say they are Jews, and
are not, but are the synagogue of Satan. Revelation 2:9.
Behold
I will make them of the synagogue of Satan, which say
they are Jews, and are not, but do lie; behold, I will
make them to come and worship before thy feet, and to
know that I have loved thee. Revelation 3:9.
Add
to this the description of Paul:
...the
Jews; who both killed the Lord Jesus, and their own
prophets, and have persecuted us; and they please not
God, and are contrary to all men: forbidding us to speak
to the Gentiles that they might be saved, to fill up
their sins alway: for the wrath is come upon them to the
uttermost. 1 Thessalonians 2:14-16.
Which
echo the words of Jesus himself about the Jewish Scribes and
pharisees:
Wherefore,
behold, I send unto you prophets, and wise men, and
scribes ... that upon you may come all the righteous
blood shed upon the earth, from the blood of righteous
Abel unto the blood of Zacharias ... All these things
shall come upon this generation. Matthew 23:34-36.
And
Woe
unto you! for ye build the sepulchres of the prophets,
and your fathers killed them. Truly ye bear witness that
ye allow the deeds of your fathers: for they indeed
killed them, and ye build their sepulchres. Therefore
also said the wisdom of God, I will send them prophets
and apostles, and some of them they shall slay and
persecute: that the blood of all the prophets, which shed
from the foundation of the world, may be required of this
generation ... verily I say unto you, It shall be
required of this generation. Luke 11:47-50, 51.
Finally,
top that off with the words attributed to the crowd just
before Jesus' crucifixion:
Then
answered all the people, and said, His blood be on us,
and on our children. Matthew 27:25.
The
horror and suffering that came upon innocent people because
of these verses almost defies description. And no wonder.
Jesus himself is quoted as saying that all the righteous
blood that was ever shed shall come upon these Jews!
Thomas
Paine said of the Bible:
...it
would be more consistent that we call it the word of a
demon than the word of God. It is a history of wickedness
that has served to corrupt and brutalize mankind...
Certainly
that judgment applies to these verses, at least.
Of
course there's another side to it in the Bible. Paul warns
Gentile believers not to be boastful because some of the
original branches of the olive tree (the Jews) had been
broken off to graft them in:
For
it thou wert cut out of the olive tree which wild by nature,
and wert graffed contrary to nature into a good olive tree:
how much more shall these, which be the natural branches, be
graffed into their own olive tree? Romans 11:24.
And
Jesus himself said to the Samaritan woman, "Salvation is
of the Jews." (John 4:22).
But
the evidence goes further than this. Matthew's gospel records
an incident where a Gentile woman begged him to save her
daughter from being possessed by a devil...
...But
he answered her not a word. And his disciples came and
besought him, saying, Send her away; for she crieth after
us. But he answered and said, I am not sent but unto the
lost sheep of the house of Israel. Then came she and
worshipped him, saying, Lord, help me. But he answered
and said, It is not meet to take the children's bread,
and to cast it to dogs. And she said, Truth, Lord: yet
the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their master's
table. Matthew 15:23-27.
Only
when the woman likened herself to a dog snatching crumbs did
Jesus relent. Matthew 15:28, (also Mark 7:24-30).
No-one
else in the gospels had to struggle in this way to get Jesus
to relieve human suffering, but with one exception, all the
others appear to be Jewish. The exception was judged 'worthy'
as he loved the Jews and had built a synagogue for them.
(Luke 7:4-5). Despite comments of the like of Matthew
8:10-12, perhaps Jesus' fundamental attitude towards the
Gentiles was to be summed up in the Sermon on the Mount:
Give
not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your
pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet,
and turn again and rend you. Matthew 7:6.