On the shores of the eastern Mediterranean lies the city of Antakya—Antioch in ancient times. Located in modern southeastern Turkey just where it curves down the coast toward Syria, this city was once the third largest city in the Roman Empire. Peter passed this way. So, too, did Paul and Barnabas, who spent a year here in what was then a thriving metropolis. Paul noted that it was in Antioch that he engaged in a dispute with Peter concerning dietary laws. From this city Paul set forth on several of his missionary journeys. Here, too, the followers of Christ were first called Christians (Acts 11:25—27).
It was probably in Antioch—or at least within the Roman province of Syria— that the document we call the Gospel of Matthew was composed, some fifty or so years after the death of Jesus and two decades after the death of Paul. An intriguing writing, Matthew is simultaneously the most “pro-Jewish” gospel we have, as well as the most “anti-Jewish” one. The former aspect was evident in Matthew’s portrayal of Jesus as the new Moses, standing on the mountain, teaching his followers the higher righteousness and promoting strict Torah observance. That message targeted Paul and the growing influence of his Torah-free message. The anti-Jewish side, however, comes out in his sustained attack on the Jewish leaders of his time, the Pharisaic sages who had survived the disaster of 70. This attack was partly personal, as he raked them over the coals for their behavior. But it was much more than that.
We don’t know who the author of the Gospel of Matthew was or if he knew the Jesus of history personally. It’s an anonymous document and only later tradition attributes it to a “Matthew.” We can imagine this writer, hard at work, using several prior documents—well before the age of computers, which would have made editing easier. He had the Gospel of Mark in front of him, for instance, a work that had been written only a few years before. Matthew quoted Mark extensively, changed details here and there, omitted some sayings and added others. Like many other gospel writers, he did not treat this text as “sacred scripture” that could not be altered.1
In addition to Mark, Matthew also used another source, as did Luke later on, one that scholars refer to as Q. He also had his own information found in no other writing.2 We do not know if this derived from firsthand knowledge of what Jesus said and did. Perhaps it came from others who had heard Jesus. Or it might have come from oral tradition, that is, from someone who had heard someone who had heard Jesus. Much of his unique material is to be found in the Sermon on the Mount.
Matthew clearly knew the Gospel of Mark, but yet he wrote another one. That’s a significant undertaking. Why another gospel? This intriguing question is rarely asked. Why do we need more than one gospel? What prompted Matthew, and later on, John and Luke, to write their accounts? What motivated others whose works are not included in the New Testament also to write theirs—gospels attributed to Thomas, Mary, Peter, Philip, or even Judas? If we already had Mark, why did we need another document? What was Matthew’s motive in writing? Did he perhaps think there was something wrong with Mark? Was his objective to “correct” Mark, to give a more authentic portrait of Jesus, as he saw him? Or was his intent even more radical, to bury the gospel of Mark and to replace it with his own?
Turn these questions around. Since we have a “rewritten” Mark in Matthew, why keep Mark around at all? Was it like a “first draft” of a gospel? Why was Mark even retained by early Christianity and not discarded? After all, at least 90 percent of Mark is preserved in Matthew.
How did Matthew think of himself? Anthony J. Saldarini cautions us not to think of him as someone who has broken from Judaism and who is criticizing his former religion.3 Unlike Paul, Matthew was not a convert to something else. His writing represented an internal debate, Saldarini contends, but given the vehemence with which he denounced the primary Jewish leaders, his community represents somewhat of a fringe group. Matthew’s community had only recently separated from the synagogue, likely after a bitter fight with its leaders over the future direction of Judaism. Should it be along the new lines the rabbis at Yavneh were beginning to suggest as they revamped Judaism after the destruction of the Temple? Or should Judaism, Matthew dared to assert, be reconstructed along the lines suggested by Rabbi Jesus? It was an audacious position, nothing less than a fresh perspective on Judaism in light of post-70 reality. In the heat of the moment, ripe from rejection by the Pharisaic leaders of the local congregation, Matthew addressed his gospel to them, to these local leaders as well as to the Pharisaic community at large. He tried to persuade them of the truth of his minority position.4
He was, of course, also writing for his own group of dissident Jews, anxious to hold on to them and to give them ammunition with which to counter the barrage they likely faced from former friends and, possibly, family members. The community was divided, and good people were caught on both sides of the divide.
Matthew’s people were a dissident, disaffected lot, thrown out of the main sanctuary. They were on their own and undoubtedly embittered by rejection. He and his followers continued to think of themselves as Jews, but their allegiance had shifted to Jesus as their rabbi and promised Messiah. Matthew was uncertain what to say about Jewish leaders who were very likely former friends and associates. On the one hand, he was exceptionally bitter. The wounds of confrontation, after all, were still fresh. On the other, he openly acknowledged their legitimate authority and the correctness of their teachings. When we set Matthew’s community in the context of his times, we see a fledgling group, still claiming to be Jewish, but not part of the mainstream synagogue.
Whether this writing ever reached the sages busily reconstructing Judaism at Yavneh farther south along the eastern Mediterranean coast or remained a purely local dispute in Antioch is unknown. Nor do we know if the Pharisees whom he vilified ever read this attack. What they would have made of it, had they heard it, is also not clear. Matthew’s proposal made no impact on Judaism as it developed along rabbinic lines, but it probably did encourage his band of followers.
So, when it was composed, the Gospel of Matthew represented a dissident Jewish document—not an external critique. Probably still reeling from recent hostile dealings with local leaders, Matthew cast strong accusations against Judaism’s leaders of the time, the Pharisees. He possessed a powerful weapon. He attacked them through the words of Jesus, by developing scenarios where Jesus confronted the Pharisees. We do not know, of course, whether these vignettes actually originated with the historical Jesus or whether this was just Matthew speaking through the words of Jesus. It is apparent, however, why Matthew would pick out the Pharisees for engagement with the historical Jesus. They were, after all, the Jewish leaders of Matthew’s own time, and they were the ones involved in reconstructing the religion. It would have made no sense for Matthew to portray Jesus disputing theology with representatives of the Zealot, Essene, or Sadducean factions. They no longer existed as recognizable groups within post-70 Jewish society, and his readers would probably not have known much about them.
Matthew’s agenda with the Pharisees was twofold. He stressed the need for members of his own community to uphold Torah observance in an even stricter sense than they affirmed. That constituted major one-upmanship. He also tried to position his movement as a viable alternative to mainstream Judaism. Perhaps he naively thought he could persuade the Pharisees to adopt his point of view, but his harsh language seems to belie this. The nasty tone of his denunciation—which he placed in the mouth of Jesus—did not lend itself to dialogue or good intercommunity relationships. It is unlikely that he expected the Pharisees to respond.
The Gospel of Matthew sheds light on one first-century community on the shores of the eastern Mediterranean. It’s a valuable window into their beliefs and provides a snapshot of a new group in the process of social formation. They are only a stone’s throw away from Judaism. Matthew’s gospel, however, raises some intriguing questions to which we do not know the answers. As we have seen, Matthew’s teaching, with respect to the higher righteousness, reflected the earlier position of James and the Jesus Movement. But did Matthew’s criticisms of the Pharisees also represent the position of the Jesus Movement in the 80s? Had they, too, like Matthew’s group, become antagonistic toward these leaders? How far removed had they become from mainstream Judaism?
Elaine Pagels places Matthew’s attack in perspective:
Matthew, proclaiming the message of Jesus the Messiah c.80 C.E., found himself in competition primarily with those Pharisaic teachers and rabbis, who were successfully establishing themselves throughout the Jewish world as authoritative interpreters of the Torah. The Pharisees wanted to place the Torah at the center of Jewish life as a replacement for the ruined Temple. Their aim was to teach a practical interpretation of Jewish law that would preserve Jewish groups throughout the world as a separate and holy people. Matthew saw the Pharisees as the chief rivals to his own teachings about Jesus.5
The issue for Jewish thought in the 80s and 90s changed to questions concerning the Temple, the Torah, and Jewish life. What, for instance, should replace the Temple now that it had been destroyed? Should it be family and synagogue, focusing on reading the law and prayer? That was the stance of the rabbis. But there were other suggestions as well. Perhaps it should be oriented around Jesus’ interpretation of the law. This was Matthew’s contribution as he attempted to think through the ramifications of his rabbi’s perspective. For all the antagonism expressed by Matthew toward the Pharisees, there still remained substantial common ground. Both groups agreed on the necessity for keeping the law, and in this they were closer than Matthew would have been to Paul’s Christ Movement. Matthew and the Pharisees parted company on how the law should be interpreted—but they may not have been all that far apart at the time.
In fact, the degree of commonality goes far deeper. In a remarkable passage, Matthew’s Jesus agreed that the Pharisees exercised legitimate leadership and teaching authority: “The scribes and Pharisees sit on Moses’ seat; therefore, do whatever they teach you and follow it; but do not do as they do, for they do not practice what they teach” (Matthew 23:2—3). Whatever the “seat of Moses” was, it would have been a symbol of authority. Matthew did not question their right to sit there, as authoritative leaders of the community. Even in Matthew’s angriest moments, he acknowledged that the Pharisees constituted the true leaders of Judaism. In fact, Matthew’s position was far more reaching than that. Amazingly, Matthew had Jesus acknowledging the legitimacy of Pharisaic leadership. That is truly astounding given subsequent history.
But there’s even more. Matthew’s Jesus told his followers to “do whatever they [the Pharisees] teach you.” Here Jesus recognized the validity of Pharisaic teachings. Surely this is one of the most overlooked passages in all of the New Testament, and it is powerful in its implications. A close bond exists between the teachings of Jesus and that of the Pharisees. For all their disagreements, their central teachings concur. The communities are also close—Matthew’s own community and the synagogue group from which they had sprung. True, they had their disputes, but they were still part of the same religion. That wasn’t the issue. On the other hand, what a huge chasm existed between Matthew’s Jesus and Paul. What a remarkable contrast. Paul could never have uttered the words that Jesus was alleged to have said. He would have choked on them.
For all his support of the Pharisees, Matthew’s Jesus also hurled seven vicious woes or curses at them. These reek of utter condemnation. Jesus’ followers, Matthew said, should observe Pharisaic teachings but not their practices. They are called “blind guides” (Matthew 23:16) and “hypocrites” (Matthew 23:13).
One criticism seems to be that the Pharisees failed to practice what they taught. But what does this mean? In what way did their actions fail to conform to their teachings? It is unfortunate that Matthew’s Jesus provided no examples to help us understand this searing indictment. Were there huge infractions, like stealing when they preached not stealing? Breaking the Sabbath when they taught strict Sabbath observance? Bearing false witness against other people? Being mean to people, perhaps even to the point of evicting them from synagogue fellowship? Or were the deeds relatively trivial? Some examples of how their behavior deviated from their teachings would have lent credibility to the attack.
Another criticism focused on their desire to be recognized by others. According to Matthew’s Jesus, they wanted their deeds to be seen by others, preferring places of honor in public, sitting in the best seats in the synagogue and demanding respect. The desire for recognition on the part of the Pharisaic survivors may have been a natural consequence of the post-70 reality. Authority was the issue. Who would speak for Judaism now that there were no high priests, priests, or political leader? As teachers and as the only faction that survived (other than the Jesus Movement), they exerted their rights to provide leadership at this extremely crucial time in Jewish history. It is to be expected that they would seek to occupy positions of authority within the synagogue and to use these as a base for disseminating their reinterpretations. Is Matthew’s gospel taking us inside synagogue politics of the late first century?
These accusations of usurping authority probably relate more to Matthew’s own time than to Jesus’. The indictment about occupying leadership positions may very well have reflected “sour grapes” on Matthew’s part. He had just lost a major power struggle within the synagogue. He had run afoul of the Pharisaic leaders in his community, and that hurt and rejection still smarted. His people probably rallied around him, cheering him on as he engaged in his denunciations of their former spiritual leaders. They must really have liked what he said, and they could picture in their own minds these rabbis sitting smugly at the head of the congregation. Matthew pulled them down a peg and they probably loved it.
Good rhetoric. The reality, however, was different. The rabbis were still there; Matthew and his entourage weren’t. The rabbis were still in authority; Matthew wasn’t. They were “in”; he and his community were “out.”
A fussy point then emerges having to do with religious attire. Matthew’s Jesus complained that the Pharisees were ostentatious in their observance of the Torah. They made “their phylacteries broad and their fringes long” (Matthew 23:5). This refers to the Jewish practice of wearing tefillin (straps and boxes containing scriptural passages on the forehead and arm of men) and a tallit or prayer shawl when praying. Note that neither Matthew nor Jesus objected to their wearing these badges of Jewish observance. They were, after all, commanded in the Torah. Right after the Shema—that the Lord is one and that people should love the Lord with all their heart, soul, and might—Deuteronomy said that the people should “Bind them as a sign on your hand, fix them as an emblem on your forehead” (Deuteronomy 6:8). Thus the phylacteries or tefillin reminded people of the central teachings of Torah. Matthew’s objection was to the size of these devices, not their use. It is likely that Matthew and his group also wore tefillin and a tallit when praying, as probably did Jesus, James, and their followers. At best, this is a criticism of fashion.
The concern with minutiae of the law rather than with “justice and mercy and faith” (Matthew 23:23) constituted yet another accusation. Tithing and purity laws are mentioned, and these were certainly under discussion in Jewish circles in the first century A.D. The Dead Sea Scroll society tackled some of these issues, for instance, being concerned with the purity of utensils and liquids. These were thorny questions at the time, for Hellenization had brought these to the fore. How were the utensils made, for instance? By whom? Did this include non-Jews as well as Jews? If so, was the manufacturing process “secure,” that is, were there assurances that the items had been produced without any contact with forbidden foods, either directly or indirectly through the hands of foreign workers? How were the utensils cleansed? How secure was this process in avoiding contamination with forbidden foods? So every step of the manufacturing, distribution, and cleansing process had to be carefully examined in light of ancient prohibitions concerning forbidden foods and the new modern environment in which foreigners might very well have produced and handled these commonplace household items in bringing these to market. These were important issues if Torah was to be observed faithfully.
But what is Matthew’s evidence—or Jesus’—for the charge that the Pharisees were ignoring the more important aspects of Torah? What did Matthew have in mind? Again, unfortunately, the charges were very general and vague. Matthew’s credibility would have been enhanced if he cited specific behaviors. The thrust of Matthew’s unsubstantiated accusations was clear, however. In his judgment, their religious priorities were skewed.
The curses conclude with a strong denunciation. According to Matthew, Jesus cursed them, saying, “You snakes, you brood of vipers. How can you escape from being sentenced to hell?” (Matthew 23:33). Commenting on this passage, Elaine Pagels observes:
Philosophers did not engage, as Matthew does here, in demonic vilification of their opponents. Within the ancient world, so far as I know, it is only Essenes and Christians who actually escalate conflict with their opponents to the level of cosmic war.6
Rather than engaging in debate, Matthew demonized his opponents. Through the words of Jesus, it was an exceptionally strong personal attack that positioned them as evil.
Matthew’s assault on the Pharisees was itself inconsistent, if not hypocritical. The curses against the Pharisees were laced with anger, and these sentiments Matthew attributed to the historical Jesus. This was the same person who is portrayed earlier in Matthew’s writing as having preached the higher righteousness, extending the commandment “do not murder” to include “do not give way to anger.” Matthew—or Jesus—seems to have forgotten this injunction in his raging attack on the Pharisees.
The attack itself also unfairly stereotyped the Pharisees. It represented a sweeping blanket condemnation covering all of them, with no exceptions. This simplistic approach just labeled “the other” as evil and demonic, just because they were “other.” We know of many exemplary sages, not only from rabbinical literature but also from the Book of Acts. This latter work mentions that some Pharisees had aligned themselves with the Jesus Movement, that one of their prominent leaders defended the movement from persecution by the Sadducees, and that they were probably the group of “reasonable” people who protested the unjust killing of James. This is hardly the picture presented in Matthew. It raises the question whether these are Matthew’s own words rather than those of Jesus.
Curiously inconsistent. That’s a legitimate impression of Matthew. We are told that Jesus approved the leadership of the Pharisees and their teachings. On the other hand, they are condemned as villains. Only the latter part seems to have been heard within Proto-Orthodoxy as it evolved over the second through fourth centuries. The good things that Jesus said about Pharisaic leaders were swamped by utter invective.
The Pharisees held that Torah consisted of two parts: a written law found within the biblical text, and an oral law that reflects the process of deciding what the written law means and how it applies to specific situations. This tradition, the Pharisees contended, provided the key for understanding scripture. It represented a powerful interpretive device, for with it, the Pharisees could claim that they, and only they, possessed the correct basis for understanding scripture. We observed earlier how oral law functioned with respect to interpreting the commandment to honor the Sabbath day and keep it holy, and the kind of creative work it forbade. Oral law constituted a powerful weapon, and, in the hands of the Pharisaic sages using it to reconstitute Judaism, it was a significant threat to the emerging early Christian community with its methods of interpretation.
Not surprisingly, we find that Matthew’s Jesus rejected oral law. Matthew had to have Jesus say this, and, again, this rejection probably relates more to Matthew’s own day, with its problems, than the time of Jesus fifty years earlier. If Jesus were to act as the new interpreter of Torah, as Matthew was proposing, then it couldn’t be left in the hands of oral law and its practitioners. Let’s see how Matthew made this work, for the reasoning in the following passage is somewhat convoluted. A bit of background is necessary: oral law was sometimes referred to as “the tradition of the elders.” We’ll see that terminology used in the quotation below.
The scenario is this: Pharisees had come to Jesus with a question: “Why do your disciples break the tradition of elders? For they do not wash their hands before they eat” (Matthew 15: 1—2). The issue has to do with purity regulations and holiness, not sanitary practice. Following oral law tradition, the Pharisees washed their hands prior to eating, just in case they had come into contact with anything impure. Oddly enough, Jesus’ followers didn’t wash their hands before eating. We don’t know why their practice deviated.
One approach would have been for Jesus to agree with the Pharisees and to move quickly to amend the lax practices of his followers. Instead, Jesus launched into a tirade. He didn’t address the immediate issue—namely, washing hands prior to eating. Instead he focused on the overall approach the Pharisees adopted toward scripture. He accused them of making exceptions, specifically to the commandment to honor thy father and mother. The Pharisees, Jesus contended, using their oral law principle, outlined circumstances in which it might be considered right to “weasel out” of obligations toward parents. For example, they might give donations to the Temple instead of helping to support their aged or infirm parents. That way, they might escape their obligations to honor their parents (one of the Ten Commandments) by giving their wealth to the Temple (also a righteous act). Jesus’ general point was this: the Pharisees use oral law to make exceptions. That, incidentally, provides evidence that the Pharisees interpreted Torah leniently. Some of these interpretations allowed people to escape their legitimate obligations. That’s fine, so far as it goes, but Jesus does not return to the question at hand. How does accusing the Pharisees of making exceptions clarify the issue under discussion? What is it about washing hands that constituted an exception? An exception to what? We are left dangling.
The issue appears to be that of impure hands defiling food entering the mouth. Although we are given few details, this might very well have been the Pharisees’ concern. This has nothing to do with modern concerns over viruses and bacteria. Unclean hands that had come into contact with, say, a dead body—not a rare possibility in ancient villages and towns—would defile food brought to the mouth in the act of eating. Jesus, however, disagreed. His point was that unclean hands do not necessarily render pure food impure:—“it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but it is what comes out of the mouth that defiles” (Matthew 15:11). His emphasis is placed on what one says, not how one eats. But that was all. He was not advocating total abandonment of the dietary laws. He was just affirming that we should not wash our hands prior to eating because, for him, what we say is more important than how we consume food. There is something of a false dilemma here, as perhaps the Pharisees, had they been given the opportunity to respond, might have pointed out. Could we not, for instance, both wash our hands prior to eating and also pay attention to what we say? The Dead Sea Scroll community had already made this point. They urged scrupulous hand washing prior to eating along with injunctions to be guarded in what they said as part of a larger community of righteousness. Dietary laws and considerate speech are not mutually exclusive.
Purity laws were very much debated among Jewish movements in the first century A.D. by Pharisees, Sadducees, and Essenes. And with good reason. These concerns were prompted by the practical implications of Hellenization and the presence of foreigners in their midst, with their different dietary and lifestyle habits. Jesus seems to have these debates in mind as thinkers of the time struggled to make sense of biblical injunctions. The Pharisees are portrayed as having settled these matters, in keeping with oral tradition. Jesus seems to be putting forward a different approach to interpretation. According to him, not washing the hands will not render impure the food that enters the body, even if the hands themselves might be ritually impure through prior contact with anything that might defile them.
Regardless of the merits of this particular case—the purity implications of not washing hands prior to eating—the major point was that Jesus’ response was regarded by Matthew as setting aside the whole oral law interpretation of scripture. Instead of oral law being the way the written law should be interpreted, Matthew suggested that Jesus himself should be the interpreter of scripture and arbiter of sound practice. For Matthew, Jesus, the new Moses, represented the alternative to oral law tradition.
This critique of oral law had far-reaching consequences. One effect was that it freed up Christians from taking seriously Jewish leaders who used this interpretive principle. Biblical interpretation for the new community, henceforth, would proceed along very different lines. While both might make reference to the same set of texts—the Hebrew Bible, or Old Testament—the meaning attributed to these writings would differ because of the varying perspectives of the interpreter. Each community would come in time to filter these ancient writings differently.
An example of the contemptuous attitude adopted by early Christian authors is to be found in the Epistle to Diognetus, a work of absolute propaganda that dates from sometime in the second century.7 This writer dismissed paganism and then moved to what he called the “follies of Judaism.” He ridiculed both paganism and Judaism for thinking that the creator of heaven and earth required sacrifices: “One party, it seems, makes its offerings to creatures which cannot partake of the gifts [paganism], and the other [Judaism] to One who needs none of them” (Epistle to Diognetus 3). This established the arrogant tone of his writing, which was well circulated among Gentile communities.
The author then dismissed Jewish practices: “As for their scrupulousness about meats, and their superstitions about the Sabbath, and their much-vaunted circumcision, and their pretentious festivals and new-moon-observances—all of these are too nonsensical to be worth discussing” (Epistle to Diognetus 4). Hence ridicule and sarcasm substituted for argument and biblical interpretation. There was no attempt here to examine passages from the Old Testament that supported these practices or to understand the underlying issues. Presumably the writer of the Epistle to Diognetus would also have considered much of the Old Testament “nonsensical,” since many of those writings addressed these matters.
For the writer of this letter, it was “impious” to suppose that some things that God has created are commendable but that others are useless. So, for him, there was no point to prohibitions against eating pork or shellfish. Gone were all the dietary laws. It was “profanity” to think that God would object to a good deed being done on a Sabbath day even if it meant engaging in creative work to do so. So there are to be no Sabbath observances and no pretense at honoring the Ten Commandments, one of which enjoins keeping the Sabbath. For this writer, a day of rest did not preclude righteous actions. And it should be “laughed out of court” that circumcision provides any basis for having some special claim on God’s love. So the covenant with Abraham was airily dismissed. Curiously, the letter criticized observances of festivals as the product of “a deranged intellect” (Epistle to Diognetus 4)—but it is difficult to imagine what he could have found wrong with the observances of Passover, Succoth, and Shavuot. What was wrong with honoring historical experiences of the community?
We see in the Epistle to Diognetus what the Proto-Orthodox were thinking and saying in the second century. This shows us how far they had come from Paul’s Letter to the Galatians. Everything Jewish was being swept aside, not by argument, however faulty, but by arrogant contempt. Gone was any respect for the tradition of oral law, and, with it, regard for its practitioners, the rabbis. No pretense at serious intellectual engagement. None whatsoever.
While affirming Jesus’ support for Pharisaic teachings but rejecting the rabbis’ leadership and oral law interpretive principle, Matthew had one more nasty salvo up his sleeve. It was one of the most powerful condemnations ever issued; its impact throughout history has been overwhelmingly negative. It’s one of the foundations of Christian anti-Semitism, and it is rooted in one of the most important New Testament writings.
Jesus was brought to trial before Pilate, the Roman procurator. After having interrogated him, asking him if he was the King of the Jews, Pilate took him outside, to the “crowd.” He asked them if they wanted him to release Jesus Barabbas or Jesus who was called the Messiah. The crowd—under the control of the chief priests (Sadducees)—screamed that they wanted a prisoner, Jesus Barabbas, released and that Jesus of Nazareth should be crucified. Seeing that a riot was about to ensue, Pilate washed his hands before the crowd and proclaimed that he was innocent of the blood of this man. Matthew then added one of the most influential statements of all time: “Then the people as a whole answered, ‘His blood be on us and on our children!’” (Matthew 27:25).
This is the nucleus of the charge that the Jews were responsible for the death of Jesus, not the Romans. “The Jews killed Jesus” is a phrase that has been uttered by Christians throughout the ages, authorizing some of the most horrendous pogroms and massacres as an integral part of ongoing anti-Semitism. It’s a phrase that has been responsible for countless Jewish deaths over the centuries up to the present time.
It is important for us to realize, however, that the people in question constituted only an exceptionally minute fraction of Jewish inhabitants of Jerusalem in A.D. 30, a mob whipped into a frenzy by leaders who wanted Jesus killed. They were agitators assembled by the Sadducees, not ordinary citizens of Jerusalem, or a cross-section of Jewish people of the time.
Jesus was then executed by Roman authority, the cohort of soldiers mocking him as King of the Jews and placing over his head on the cross “This is Jesus, the King of the Jews” (Matthew 27:37). The charge was political; the trial was political; and the crucifixion was political. The fear itself was political, that Jesus would lead an insurrection against Roman power, to help bring about the independent Jewish state as required by a Messiah. While the Zealots and Essenes would support that, the Sadducees, in cahoots with the Roman occupiers, would not. And they controlled the Temple. Matthew’s focus should rightfully have been on blaming the Romans and their puppets, the Sadducees.
Instead, Matthew blamed the mob who demanded the release of Barabbas instead of Jesus and placed upon them the culpability for his death, not only for their generation but for all ensuing generations. This misplaced blame— one single sentence—has caused enormous pain, suffering, and death for many subsequent generations of Jewish people. That passage, as traditionally interpreted, stands as a monument to hatred and causes enormous pain for Jews who hear it read or proclaimed, on the radio, on television, or in popular films over and over again each year during Easter. While contemporary Christians do not read this text as blaming Jews in perpetuity for the death of Jesus, many early and medieval Christians did, ignoring the plain sense of the passage that this was a small group of Jews, a riotous crowd, stirred up by the Sadducees.
For all its emphasis on Torah observance, higher righteousness, the marvelous beatitudes, and the whole Sermon on the Mount, there is a very dark side to the Gospel of Matthew. Perhaps too much of its message reflected the author’s undistilled anger and hostility, still fresh from an internal synagogue confrontation. Its negativity packed an exceptionally powerful punch. Its message was clear to his contemporaries. Do not listen to those Pharisaic leaders who were busily reconstructing Judaism. Do not accept their oral law approach to Torah. Do not listen to them. Put the blame for Jesus’ death on the Jewish people. These were truly deadly words and the Gospel of Matthew has been one of the most influential writings of all time. It was widely circulated. The pro-Jewish elements were certainly overlooked—the higher righteousness, Jesus’ affirming Pharisaic teachings—in favor of its anti-Jewish stance, demonizing Jewish leadership and blaming the Jewish people for the death of Jesus.
It’s a vindictive writing. Matthew certainly got even with those who had thrown him out of the synagogue.
But these attacks were only the beginning. Much more lay in store for the Jewish community.