Hi Rhonda.
I continue to read the WJR with interest and appreciation. It is full of thoughtful and newsy articles not easy to find otherwise, and your travelogues are always well-written and readable. I just read your piece on the garden tomb, and I should say that the photos are gorgeous and your tale of washroom-seeking strikes home to anyone who likes to travel casually.
That said, I think you would have done well to discuss the details of the interesting background you weave into your story with someone a bit more familiar with the Gospel stories; there are a number of glitches that I'm sure you would have changed had you known different.
I'll list a few.
First, while Mark is generally accepted as the first of the three synoptic gospels few scholars believe that it was the source used by Matthew and Luke (John doesn't appear to share a common source with the synoptics). It is believed that all three of these used another common source — now lost — as one resource, supplementing with their own materials, styles and insights.
Second, it is not believed that the crucifixion site and the burial site have any simple geographic relationship. Jesus is said to have been crucified at a site known in the day as Golgotha, outside the city gates. The body was later taken down, prepared for burial and taken, by Joseph and another Sanhedrin member named Nicodemus, to a tomb (elsewhere) in a garden area owned by Joseph of Arimathea. So if you were in a garden area believed by some to be connected to the burial of Jesus, there is no firm tradition identifying this with the site of the crucifixion, which did not traditionally take place in a garden.
The most one can draw on here is that the tomb of Joseph was said to be "nearby", but this is a pretty elastic term. It likely meant on the same side, or perhaps quarter, of the city. Is that garden inside the first-century gates? If so then the gospels would explicitly rule out identification of the two sites since Golgotha is placed outside the city gates.
Third, you mention the classical blood libel from the Pilate "trial" scene, and I'd like to devote a bit of space to this, as it's an important issue.
This was, indeed, at one time taught in some places to engender ill-will and violence against the Jews — a sad episode in Church history. However, it is hard to grasp nowadays how a Christian audience could have taken this teaching at face value. One must remember, however, that a few centuries ago Christians generally did not have the scriptures in their hands and could not cross-check such teachings against the gospel stories. Nowadays it is hard to find anyone who regards this view seriously, because anyone can read the Gospels for themselves and notice how incongruous the blood libel is with the Gospel narratives.
I daresay you could find a few ignorami these days who would still accept it, but any substantial probing would reveal that such folk are essentially biblically illiterate. I have never heard this teaching mouthed (favourably) in any church I've been in — and I have been an attender all my life in several different denominations, and an active participant in adult Sunday Schools all my adult life. Occasionally the teaching is mentioned — say, in a class on medieval christianity or the history of antisemitism — and always with appropriate derision.
Here are some of the reasons that particular blood libel is not credible as a teaching, and had the audiences of the day actually been biblically literate and free-thinking, it never would have gotten a foothold:
1. Everyone in the story — well except the few Romans whose roles in the story are largely irrelevant to the libel — is a Jew. Jesus was a Jew. His supporters and disciples were Jews. The Sanhedrin and Chief priests were Jews. The crowds accusing Jesus were Jews. The Gospel writers Mark, Matthew and John (but perhaps not Luke) were Jews. All the early believers were Jews. All the heros of the story (excepting a small number of bit part players) are Jews. This is so obvious it is remarkable that people overlook its importance in understanding what the story is conveying. Yes the "bad guys" in the story were largely Jews. But then so were the "good guys".
2. The phrase "the Jews" is used repeatedly in the gospels, most often referring to those opposing Jesus, in episodes in which everyone present is a Jew. So … one has to ask … what does the phrase mean? It's clear to anyone who reads the entire gospel (instead of pulling out a single verse at a time and trying to extract meaning word-by-word): The phrase was used to reference the Jewish leadership — very similar to what I hear some Jewish commentators do today, when they use the phrase "the official Jews" — whose intention is apparently to delineate some a group, within the Jewish community, as arrogating the mantle of spokesmen for Jewish society or the religion of Judaism. In the gospels, this phrase usually delineated those challenging Jesus "in the name of" Judaism — which would have meant the Scribes, The Pharisees, at times the Sadducees, Sanhedrin members, teachers of the law, chief priests and so on.
3. But even that use of the phrase is only a gloss — a collective noun that only loosely references a large, amorphous group that was by no means monolithic, and who were not uniformly taken as "bad guys". For example, in one instance in the Gospel of John you find Jesus siding with the Pharisees over the Sadducees in a dispute over the resurrection of the dead. In another place he mixes criticism of Jewish leaders with mitigating praise in a sermon he's giving.
Further, we find numerous "good guys" among those same leaders in the Gospel accounts. The two most obvious are Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus — both members of the Sanhedrin.They are credited with ensuring a proper Jewish burial for Jesus, and act of honour and homage. Not bad for "official Jews" in the narrative.
Even in the judgements and plots against Jesus and his disciples one finds dissenting voices.
At one point in the book of Acts even Gamaliel, the famous first-century Rabbi and contributor to the Mishna and reputed to be a leader in the Sanhedrin, is cited as speaking up in defence of Peter and his companions when they had been arrested for making a bit of mischief and a death sentence for blasphemy was under consideration.
Thus Gamaliel probably saved the lives of the most prominent Christians of that day — something for which Christians through the ages ought to be grateful to that particular "official Jew". At another point, Paul the Apostle is facing a trial before the Jewish leadership and creates a bit of a fuss in that proceedings by appealing to fellow Pharisees — again, on the question of the resurrection (a bit of a clever debating trick, that derailed the proceedings and only caused more trouble later, but it shows that there was some sympathy and kinship between the early christians and even many of the leaders of the Jews).
4. "The crowd" at this particular proceeding was clearly not representative of the Jewish community. It would be a mistake to conflate it with "the Jews", even in any casual normal sense. Jesus was arrested at night and the trial scene of which we read would have taken place early in the day, and with VERY short notice. Those in attendance would have been anyone involved in the earlier trial of Jesus before the chief priests. But that took place early in the morning, probably before the sun rose. It is believed that not even the whole leadership would have been there — probably only a bare quorum, and most likely hand-picked for the task at hand.
Here I should emphasize that it doesn't matter whether you believe any of this is an accurate history. Even if one believes it's complete fiction, the point is that one can only build doctrine upon the sacred traditions derived from the Gospels. So it matters what is implied by the narrative, not whether the narrative itself corresponds to history. It is the only reliable foundation for Christian teaching. The only possible conclusion from the Gospel narratives is that there was a largely hand-picked crowd in front of Pilate, who had been prepped like a modern day crowd of "professional protesters" who already know their script.
The point of this is that "the crowd" in that story has no identification with "the jews". It is a prepared crowd in an arranged proceedings. Most of the actual Jews of Jerusalem that day were probably still asleep and had no part in the matter.
So it would seem that the blood libel does not derive from the Gospel stories. What is true, however, is that it was generated by people who misused those stories speaking to an audience who clearly hadn't enough knowledge of them to understand the salient aspects of the gospel narratives that put the lie to the libel.
I'd be interested in whether you know of any Christians (other than low-information sorts who may identify as such) who still hold to this libel. I'd be happy to challenge them on this. But as far as I know the issue was put to rest ages ago among Christians who actually, you know, read the bible.
Peace, Rob
Dr. Robert Craigen
Mathematics, University of Manitoba
Winnipeg, MB Canada
204-474-7489 (Dept Fax 204-474-7611 )
craigenr@cc.umanitoba.ca
Editor's response: Unfortunately, the deocide charge that Jews killed Jesus is still believed by many. A recent poll just showed that 26% of Americans (not an insignificant number!) beleive Jews killed Jesus.