Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 178:712 (Oct 2021)
Article: Anti-Semitism In The New Testament: New Scrutiny Of A Chronic Notion, Part 2
Author: S. David Mash

BSac 178:712 (October-December 2021) p. 455

Anti-Semitism In The New Testament: New Scrutiny Of A Chronic Notion, Part 2

S. David Mash

S. David Mash is Associate Director of Library Services, Lander University, Greenwood, South Carolina.

Abstract

At Jesus’s trial, the crowds chanted, “Crucify him” (Luke 23:20). Interpreters have traditionally taken this to be the same crowd that had earlier welcomed Jesus. This interpretation sees the Jews as fickle and primarily to blame for the death of Jesus, and has thus bred anti-Semitism. This article explores evidence that there was not one crowd but two and how this impacts culpability in Jesus’s death.

This study has laid out three lines of inquiry about Jewish reaction to the public ministry of Jesus. Part 1 asked whether there was general antipathy between Jesus and the Jews.1 The study found that the Gospels make a distinction between the leadership and the general population and that there was not in fact antipathy between Jesus and the Jewish population generally. Part 2 now takes up the remaining two questions.

Was The Crowd That Welcomed Jesus At The Start Of Passover Week The Same Crowd That Called For His Crucifixion At The End Of The Week?

Eklund notes, “It is often taken for granted that the same crowds who hail Jesus at his triumphal entry later turn against him and cry for his crucifixion.”2 This assumption can be seen among

BSac 178:712 (October-December 2021) p. 456

Protestants as far back as the sixteenth century English Reformer Miles Coverdale: “Those who earlier ran after Christ, wanting to make him king, crying joyfully, ‘Hosanna to the Lord!’ now cry, ‘Crucify him, crucify him!’ . . . Those who before said, ‘Praise to him who comes in the name of the Lord,’ now cry, ‘Away with him, crucify him.’ ”3 It is repeated in commentaries from the nineteenth century and continues in some today.4 Commenting on the healing of the blind man in Jericho (Luke 18:35–43), Osborne notes that the healing “enhances the messianic aura of the scene, especially as the people join in the refrain, with ‘all’ of them praising God. This is a harbinger of the triumphal entry, where again all the bystanders will join in the praise (19:37). This will be short-lived, however, for at the trial just a few days from now they will be calling for Jesus...