Teaching about Catholic–Jewish relationships: interpreting Jewish hostility to Jesus in the gospels

Abstract

A recent article in this journal, Teaching about Catholic–Jewish relations: some guidelines to assist the work of teachers in Catholic schools, by Clare Jardine (Volume 7, no 1, 46–60), includes a page on ‘A new approach to New Testament studies’. There the author points out that ‘The situations described in the Gospels as happening during Jesus’ lifetime often reflect a later situation … growing hostilities between the Jewish community and the emerging Church’ (54). This is entirely in line with the teaching of Vatican II in Nostra Aetate (the declaration on the relationship of the Church with non-Christian religions, passed by the Second Vatican Council in 1965. Originally formed as a document on the relationship of the Church to Judaism, it was later expanded to include other major religions. It transformed the relationship of the Roman Catholic Church to other religions, expressing a completely new attitude of welcome and fraternity. The full text is available online, s.v. Nostra Aetate) and particularly with the 2001 study of the Pontifical Biblical Commission. There is room for further investigation, firstly on the extent and nature of the Jewish opposition to Jesus during his lifetime, and secondly on the growth and nature of the hostility between the Jewish community and the emerging Church. This hostility is evident in frequent little touches and interpretations in the course of the Gospel narratives, such as interpretations which spring from the evangelist's own reading of the situation: ‘hoping for something with which to accuse him’ (Mark 3.2), ‘testing him’ (8.11), ‘trying him out’ (10.2), ‘they were seeking to destroy him’ (11.18), ‘to catch him out’ (12.2), they ‘were seeking to arrest him by stealth’ (14.1). Most of all, we must question the extent to which the apportionment of blame between Pilate and the Jewish authorities in the condemnation of Jesus depends on the later reading of the facts.