{"id":7973,"date":"2004-02-08T12:59:30","date_gmt":"2004-02-08T12:59:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/viamedia\/2004\/02\/who_killed_jesus.html"},"modified":"2004-02-08T12:59:30","modified_gmt":"2004-02-08T12:59:30","slug":"who_killed_jesus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2004\/02\/who_killed_jesus.html","title":{"rendered":"Who Killed Jesus?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Is on the cover of this week’s Newsweek.
\nHere’s the story.<\/a>
\nIt’s a decent article that carefully lays out the balance of implied responsibility between Romans and Jewish authorities in the film, and critiques the film for not placing this event in the full context of Jewish-Roman relations during the period.
\nThe two points of contention, among several, that I have are:
\nMeacham (the author of the piece) diminishes the role of blashemy in the charges:<\/p>\n

The climax comes when Caiaphas asks Jesus: “Are you the Messiah?” and Jesus says, “I am…” and alludes to himself as “the Son of Man.” There is a gasp; the high priest rends his garments and declares Jesus a blasphemer.
\nThere is much here to give the thinking believer pause. “Son of God” and “Son of Man” were fairly common appellations for religious figures in the first century. The accusation about eating Jesus’ flesh and blood\u2014obviously a Christian image of the eucharist\u2014does not appear in any Gospel trial scene. And it was not “blasphemy” to think of yourself as the “Messiah,” which more than a few Jewish figures had claimed to be without meeting Jesus’ fate, except possibly at the hands of the Romans. The definition of blasphemy was a source of fierce Jewish argument, but it turned on taking God’s name in vain\u2014and nothing in the Gospel trial scenes supports the idea that Jesus crossed that line.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Well, that is simply not true.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

61Finally two came forward and declared, “This fellow said, ‘I am able to destroy the temple of God and rebuild it in three days.’ ”
\n62Then the high priest stood up and said to Jesus, “Are you not going to answer? What is this testimony that these men are bringing against you?” 63But Jesus remained silent.
\nThe high priest said to him, “I charge you under oath by the living God: Tell us if you are the Christ,[5] the Son of God.”
\n64″Yes, it is as you say,” Jesus replied. “But I say to all of you: In the future you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One and coming on the clouds of heaven.”
\n65Then the high priest tore his clothes and said, “He has spoken blasphemy! Why do we need any more witnesses? Look, now you have heard the blasphemy. 66What do you think?” <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

When you look at the totality of what Jesus says in this scene, coupled with the testimony of the witness, it is clear that what is going on is re-presentation of the traditional “Son of God” and “Son of Man” imagery. To come at the right hand of the Mighty One means to come in judgment – which is, of course, a divine prerogative. Hence, the blasphemy.
\nSecondly, he writes:<\/p>\n

Most of the early Christians were Jewish and saw themselves as such. Only later, beginning roughly at the end of the first century, did some Christians start to view and present themselves as a people entirely separate from other Jewish groups. And for centuries still\u2014even after Constantine’s conversion in the fourth century\u2014some Jewish people considered themselves Christians. It was as the church’s theology took shape, culminating in the Council of Nicaea in 325, that Jesus became the doctrinal Christ, the Son of God “who for us men and our salvation,” the council’s original creed declared, “descended, was incarnate, and was made man, suffered and rose again the third day, ascended into heaven and cometh to judge the living and the dead.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

He neglects to mention the presence and challenge of Gentiles within Christianity, a presence than is just as important in shaping Christian response to Judaism as its conflict with Jewish authority in the first century. Secondly, that last sentence is very poorly written and simply does not convey the truth, implying that belief in Jesus’ divinity was invented in 325 (“Jesus became”). It was certainly more philosophically and clearly articulated (in response to Arianism) at that point that it had been “officially” before (because there were no “official” doctrinal statements eminating from a persecuted church), but reading early Christian witnesses, from Paul through the Church fathers, gives us no doubt as to the fact that the early Christian kergyma was about Jesus as Lord.
\nBut I was also struck that the article written by a non-Catholic (I believe, although I am not sure. Meacham was Episcopal last time I heard) reporter makes statements like this:<\/p>\n

As the keeper of the apostolic faith, the Roman Catholic Church has long struggled with the issue of Jewish complicity in Jesus’ death. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And indeed, the entire article, as it discusses the issue, uses Roman Catholic thinking and statements as the starting point for discussion not, I believe, just because Gibson is a part of the Catholic milieu, but because, apparently, the thinking of an intentionally universal and apostolic church is a logical referent – we might even say – is normative, even?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Is on the cover of this week’s Newsweek. Here’s the story. It’s a decent article that carefully lays out the balance of implied responsibility between Romans and Jewish authorities in the film, and critiques the film for not placing this event in the full context of Jewish-Roman relations during the period. 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The Catholicism comes from her side. Amy grew up in a number of places - Indiana - Washington, DC - Lubbock Texas - Arlington, Virginia - DeKalb, Illinois - Lawrence, Kansas - and Knoxville, Tennessee, where the family settled in 1973. She attended Knoxville Catholic High School, then the University of Tennessee where she majored in history. She received an MA in Church History from Vanderbilt University, where she wrote a thesis on the changing role of women in 19th century American Protestantism, and the ways Scripture was used to justify those changes. She worked as as a teacher in Catholic high schools and a Parish Director of Religious Education and started writing for the diocesan press - the Florida Catholic - in 1988. Amy has written columns for Our Sunday Visitor and Catholic News Service at times over the past twenty years. Her articles have been published in venues ranging from Our Sunday Visitor to the New York Times to Commonweal. She has written 17 books. 18, if you included the as yet tragically unpublished novel. Amy has five children, ranging in age from 26 to 4 and was married to Michael Dubruiel, who died unexpectedly in February 2009. She lives in Birmingham, Alabama.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/author\/awelborn"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7973","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/180"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7973"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7973\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7973"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7973"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7973"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}