Originally posted by tabibito
View Post
Furthermore the views of one important but patrician Roman historian who grew up during the First Jewish War and who lived through another serious Jewish uprising across different provinces [the so-called Kitos War] it is understandable that he held somewhat unflattering views about the Jews. That his views may have been held by many others of his class [or indeed other classes] is not improbable. However, Tacitus was not writing on behalf of the state. There was no institutionalised enmity towards the Jews.
Did you actually read the extract I gave you from E Mary Smallwood?
Originally posted by tabibito
View Post
You might like to read this https://jcpa.org/article/the-origins...anti-semitism/
Later on, as is also made quite clear in the New Testament, gentile Christians began to claim that their communities were the true Israel.[2] They asserted that in neglecting many of the Torah’s commandments, they-and not the Jews-knew what God wanted from His people. The issues of the centrality and the remaining value and validity of the Torah were among the first reasons for tensions. Here one sees the beginnings of a split between Judaism and Christianity.
“With this came the beginning of anti-Jewish sentiments in Christianity. It was also aggravated by a second factor. In the same period, perhaps in the second and certainly in the third generation of Christians-by the end of the first century of the Common Era-they began to explicitly call Jesus God. He, as a Jew, had never done so. In the four chronologically latest books of the New Testament, Jesus is called God, though only incidentally. These documents are all from around the turn of the first to the second century: the Gospel of John, the Epistle of the Hebrews, the Second Epistle of Peter, and the so-called Epistle of Titus.
[...]
“Why then does Matthew exculpate the Romans from the death of Jesus? The text has to be understood in the context of his time, around the 80s of the first century. In the middle of the 60s CE, under the Emperor Nero, the first persecutions of Christians had begun. There are indications that after that period there were further minor persecutions on a local level. This frightened the Christians.
“For political reasons Matthew was keen that his writings should give the Romans the impression that Christians were not a danger to their empire. If a highly positioned person like Pilate says about Jesus ‘This man is completely innocent,’ it implies that Christianity is not something Romans have to fear. This in turn leads to the story of the Jews supposedly shouting ‘Let his blood come over us’-which means, ‘We take the responsibility for his death.’ Shifting the responsibility for Jesus’ death to the Jewish people is at odds with what Matthew says in the earlier parts of his Gospel to the effect that Jesus enjoyed immense popularity with the masses, that is, with the majority of the common Jewish people.”
“With this came the beginning of anti-Jewish sentiments in Christianity. It was also aggravated by a second factor. In the same period, perhaps in the second and certainly in the third generation of Christians-by the end of the first century of the Common Era-they began to explicitly call Jesus God. He, as a Jew, had never done so. In the four chronologically latest books of the New Testament, Jesus is called God, though only incidentally. These documents are all from around the turn of the first to the second century: the Gospel of John, the Epistle of the Hebrews, the Second Epistle of Peter, and the so-called Epistle of Titus.
[...]
“Why then does Matthew exculpate the Romans from the death of Jesus? The text has to be understood in the context of his time, around the 80s of the first century. In the middle of the 60s CE, under the Emperor Nero, the first persecutions of Christians had begun. There are indications that after that period there were further minor persecutions on a local level. This frightened the Christians.
“For political reasons Matthew was keen that his writings should give the Romans the impression that Christians were not a danger to their empire. If a highly positioned person like Pilate says about Jesus ‘This man is completely innocent,’ it implies that Christianity is not something Romans have to fear. This in turn leads to the story of the Jews supposedly shouting ‘Let his blood come over us’-which means, ‘We take the responsibility for his death.’ Shifting the responsibility for Jesus’ death to the Jewish people is at odds with what Matthew says in the earlier parts of his Gospel to the effect that Jesus enjoyed immense popularity with the masses, that is, with the majority of the common Jewish people.”
Comment