The Pope’s ‘Passion of the Christ’
That’s what CNS’s eminence grise (well, sort of gray) John Thavis aptly calls Benedict’s take on the narrative of the trial and death of Jesus, according to excerpts released today from the second volume of the pope’s “Jesus of Nazareth” series. (He may need another volume to cover the rest of the Gospels, I think.) The book itself will be released March 10.
My report at Politics Daily is here, which includes a link to the entirety of one excerpted passage that Austen Ivereigh posted at America. The sections dealing with Benedict’s “exoneration” of the Jewish people for culpability in the death of Jesus is garnering most of the attention, which is understandable and was likely the Vatican’s aim, given the contents of the sections they released and, perhaps, given the pontiff’s problematic track record with the Jewish community during his reign.
Benedict is convincing and eloquent and very accessible, as he was in the first Jesus book (I thought), and while he seems to me to be expanding on Nostra Aetate, that’s always a good thing. And he does it using the latest scholarship, especially as regards (I believe) the growing acceptance of the historical reliability of John.
Check it out for yourselves. Mel Gibson it ain’t.
I’d add that the passages near the end of the main excerpt, on Pilate and his role, and Benedict’s observations on what they say about the relationship of truth and justice and peace, are fascinating to me — if a bit recondite to my initial reading. But I think they reflect Benedict’s “takeaway” in terms of the passage’s applicability to the modern world, and reflect consistent tropes in his thinking, and may have a “longer tail” than the passages regarding Judaism.
I haven’t read, but can anybody comment on how this compares with Raymond Brown’s “Death of the Messiah” ?
David
I have just read your piece and I am, in the main, impressed by Benedict’s historical sense as evidenced in the excerpts you offer. One thing I found odd. Is he saying that those who shouted “His blood be upon us” were really saying that they too wanted to be redeemed? Or was he saying that their words had beyond what they intended a fuller sense so that they, so to speak, did not know what they were asking for?
A review by Professor J.H.H. Weiler of the NYU Law School would be fascinating. He’s studied the topic for years, has given talks to Christian and Jewish audiences and has a thoughtful interpretation.
http://www.nyutikvah.org/events/trial.html
I haven’t read, but can anybody comment on how this compares with Raymond Brown’s “Death of the Messiah” ?
It’s 1280 pages shorter.
God bless you David. I agree with you, but there has to be somebody out there in thsi vast world of learning who can handle these things, and make the comparison, or maybe your saying there just books on two different levels.
Benedict exhonerated the Jews ?!?!? Well, isn’t THAT so very special. I’m sure Jews all over the world are celebrating this little bit of Catholic arrogance and are restinhg easier tonight.
Brown was an exegete, while Benedict is a theologian. While there is some overlap, I would look to Brown for an historically accurate description of the Passion Narrative and its meaning in its various contexts, modern, ancient, Catholic, Jewish, etc. I would look for Benedict to have a sense of that information, but applied toward understanding God in relation to those same contexts. And as Pope, I expect him to have a pastoral sense that addresses various constituencies, eg the Mel Gibsons of the world, Lefebvrists and others denying V2, Jews, etc. Benedict is probably dependent on Brown for a lot of the exegetical work that lies beneath his theology.
The lines between these things are not bright, so this is at best tendencies, and I welcome correction from anyone who understands these things better than I do.
“Is he saying that those who shouted “His blood be upon us” were really saying that they too wanted to be redeemed?”
Only Matthew has that notorious utterance; its historicity is unlikely.
I see that the Pope does indeed put forward an ingenious argument. The phrase in Matthew is not historical fact nor was it intended to be. It is instead a meditation on the more recent fate of the Jews, and it involves a gracious double entendre — the blood of Christ will sprinkle the people redemptively. But as with his identification of the “Jews” in John with the Temple aristocracy, this may be a wishful reading of a painful and embarrassing text.
But as with his identification of the “Jews” in John with the Temple aristocracy, this may be a wishful reading of a painful and embarrassing text.
Embarrassing text for both religious communities within the ambit of then Judaism. My understanding is that the blanket use of “Jews” in the gospel of John nonetheless reflects a historical fact in terms of the polemics that eventually arose from BOTH messianic Jews who saw Jesus as the fullfillment of the prophets (i.e. Christians) and the consensus among practicing Jews of the time that such a belief was not consistent with being part of the synagogue and that this belief was not to be permitted.
As a result of being cast out of the synagogue, Christians no longer had the same kind of relationship as far as religious freedom with the Roman emperor as Jews had. This put them in a vulnerable position which….truth be told….some Jews used as leverage to persecute Christians.
Obviously the tables turned as we moved to the medieval period.
Nonetheless, I think that Benedict is correct in his reading that it was really, historically, the temple aristocrats who were responsible. I read a similar argument in a book by a New Testament female scholar who was also I believe Jewish. she also made the point that the gopsel of John was likely historically accurate regarding his itinerary.
It is important to attend to the exact wording of Matt. 27:25, Then the people as a whole answered, “His blood be on us and on our children!” The saying is most probably not historical and it has a limited scope only to the next generation, “and on our children”. It has in view the synagogue authorities in Matthew’s day with whom the Matthean community was in conflict. It was not mean to apply to Jews for all time. Similarly with the community of the fourth Gospel, who were also in conflict with synagogue authorities (see John 9). The term “Jews” in John refers to synagogue authorities in John’s day. John tells the story of the johannine community and their conflict with authorities by telling the story of Jesus and his conflict with authorities (see R. E. Brown, The Community of the Beloved Disciple).
These Gospels were written when there was not yet a “parting of the ways”between “Christians” and “Jews.” The controversy stories and conflicts with Jewish authorities may reflect the process of messianist Jews defining themselves over and against other Jewish groups in their day. Judaism was diversified and not monolithic in the first century CE. A comparison with how the Jerusalem Jewish authorities are described in the Qumran scrolls is very instructive here. They witness to the fact that two groups of Jews disagreed about the forms of Judaism they practiced. The failure to understand these historical circumstances contributed to the development of supersessionism in Christianity, the doctrine that Christianity had replaced Judaism.
George D
Are you thinking of Amy Jill Levine’s The Misunderstood Jew?
The failure to understand these historical circumstances contributed to the development of supersessionism in Christianity, the doctrine that Christianity had replaced Judaism.
Alan,
You mean like this, from the Baltimore Catechism, which is what I was taught in Catholic school?
My thumbnail summary used to be that the Jews missed the boat, and the Protestants jumped ship.
Joseph:
I checked my bookcase and the book is Jesus of Nazareth: King of the Jews by Paula Fredriksen
“Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” -Christ
For anyone still checking in, Mark Silk has a good post on this:
http://www.spiritual-politics.org/2011/03/pope_benedict_lets_the_jews_off_the_hook.html
Which links to a Raymond Brown excerpt that seems to take a different tack from that of Benedict:
http://www.beliefnet.com/Faiths/2004/01/Jesus-Versus-The-Jews.aspx?p=1
David Nickol
You put your finger on it. Remarkable that something like that was not only put into print, but was drummed into us as substantive catechesis.
“Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” -Christ
Nancy,
There’s an interesting footnote in the New American Bible
David N.
The opinion of the Editorial Committee of the United Bible Society’s Greek New Testament is as follows. It is highly improbable that these words occurred in the original Gospel of Luke, because they are absent from too many early and diverse witnesses to the text. Nonetheless the Committee retained them in the text–within double square brackets indicating that they constitute an interpolation–on the grounds that they bear “self-evident tokens of dominical origin.” I take this to mean that, while they are not part of the Gospel of Luke, striclty speaking, neither are they an invention.
My source is Bruce Metzger, A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament.