The controversy over Mel Gibson’s “The Passion of the Christ” highlights an enduring mystery for Christendom, the rejection by Jews of the divinity of Jesus. For over 2,000 years, Christians have been bewildered as to why the Jews, Christ’s own people, did not (or do not) accept him as the son of God.
In the medieval era, learned men debated the issue in “disputations,” which were often one-sided showcases for theological propaganda by the dominant Christian majority.
The religious and historical reasons for the rejection are explored by David Klinghoffer, an Orthodox rabbi and journalist, in his book “Why the Jews Rejected Jesus: The Turning Point in Western History.” The author’s narrative builds on the arguments advanced by historic rabbinic disputants, such as the celebrated Rabbi Moses ben Nachman at Barcelona in 1263, who appeared before King James I to argue that Jews were right to reject the divinity of Jesus.
After all, Christ was not unique, and his acolytes were not even the largest sect of messiah-followers. Under the Roman occupation there were numerous, often charismatic, would-be messiahs. Jewish listeners might be interested in his prophecies, but would likely take a wait-and-see attitude before committing to his authority. In fact, Jews never actually rejected Jesus personally, as claims for his incarnate nature were made by others, not principally by Jesus himself. It was Paul who promoted the divinity of Christ and who created the “Jesus Movement.”
If there was a target for rejection, it was Paul, for he promoted the substitution of Jesus for the Torah. Paul insisted that the requirements of Jewish law — circumcision, Shabbat, kashrut— be abandoned. But Jews were loath to surrender the mandate given to them as the chosen people. Jews reviled Paul for turning his back on the theological and mystical traditions of Sinai, the thought of which was anathema to most Jews, and certainly to the Jewish priests.
Thus the rejection was not so much of Jesus as it was of the effort by his followers to interpret the law on his own authority. In fact, Jewish tradition was specific about the conditions accompanying the arrival of the messiah, but none of these were fulfilled in Jesus’ time. It was left to Paul to make the fateful break with Jewish law. Had most Jews acted otherwise and accepted Paul’s argument, the entire course of Western history might have been different. If the Jesus Movement had remained Jewish, Christianity might not have swept wildly across the Roman Empire and Europe.
This is the rejection of the Jews depicted in Gibson’s film, and of the Jewish disputants. It is the rejection of martyrs who died in the Inquisition, and of countless other Jewish victims during the long and tortuous history of anti-Semitism. Had the Jews not rejected Jesus, had Paul not turned the church leadership to a new course, the nascent faith would likely have perished along with other heterodox Jewish sects that disappeared after the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 C.E., leaving only “rabbinic Judaism,” the tradition of Jews today.
Klinghoffer examines in detail the nature and scope of Judaism at the time of Jesus’ ministry, how some Jews of 28 C.E. reacted to Christ’s teachings, the role a few of them played in his death (perhaps the central emotional irritant of Gibson’s movie), the violent rejection of the apostle Paul, and how the debate over Jesus developed. In fact, the majority of Jews in Christ’s time are likely never to have heard of him. It was later generations of Jews who consciously rejected Jesus Christ as the son of God, and who frequently paid with their lives for their decisions.
The focal point of religious experience for the Jews of 28 C.E., as well as for the Jews of today, was and is the covenant at Sinai, not a man walking on Earth as God incarnate. As Klinghoffer puts it, “Secular and religious Jews alike feel the same reaction, the same refusal, the same instinctive turning away, in a word: No.”
“Why the Jews Rejected Jesus: The Turning Point in Western History” by David Klinghoffer (247 pages, Doubleday, $24.95).