'His Blood Be on Us': Mel Gibson and Matthew 27:25

Mel Gibson has reportedly dropped from his forthcoming film, The Passion of the Christ, what have been called the most inflammatory words in the New Testament. This cut has been hailed as a victory for Jews who worry about the impact of the film. Is it really something to celebrate?

Critics contend that the excised verse, Matthew 27:25, in which the Jews appear to assume upon themselves eternal guilt for Jesus' death, stirred up anti-Semitic bloodshed in previous centuries. Never mind that we don't live in previous centuries. Today it's not radical

who threaten Jewish safety around the world.

In fact, there are two good reasons, based in Jewish and Christian religious thinking, to regard the verse in a more positive light.

The scene: At his trial before Pilate, Jesus is confronted with a Jewish mob bent on seeing him killed (Matt. 27:20-25). The Roman governor capitulates, washing his hands and saying, "I am innocent of this man's blood." Then, "all the people answered, `His blood be on us and on our children!'"

As history, this happens to be implausible. The first-century historian Josephus makes clear in his account of the period that Pilate was a brutal tyrant unconcerned with mollifying the Jews on any point.

As Jewish theology, however, it's more creditable. Far from being a Christian invention to blacken the reputation of the Jews in future generations, the verse's whole idea of collective guilt is actually Jewish. This is unsurprising coming from Matthew, the most Jewish of the gospel writers.

From Genesis on, we find instance after instance of fathers changing the destiny of their descendants. When Adam and Eve sinned, God told Adam, "By the sweat of your brow shall you eat bread." As for Eve, "I will great increase your suffering and your childbearing; in pain shall you bear children" (Gen. 3:16-19). Every time a man trudges off to the office for another grueling day, every time a woman groans in labor, it is the legacy of our earliest ancestors.

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