ARTICLES

Most Anti-Semite of All

Jewish-Christian Dialogue on the Passion

BY STEPHEN FRANKINI

Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ and the Gospel narratives: are they historically reliable?" was the theme of the panel discussion held on May 1 at Blackford High School in San Jose. The discussion was sponsored by Una Voce of Palo Alto, St. Joseph's Men's Society, and the St. Aloysius Retreat Camp (affiliated with the Society of St. Pius X). The participants included Catholic Bible scholar Gerry Matatics, president of Biblical Foundations International; Dr. Brian David Goldberg, executive director of the Jewish Federation of Greater San Jose and former executive director for the Anti-Defamation League; and Dr. Stan Dundon, professor of ethics at California State University of Sacramento.

In addition to discussing the various reasons for the different responses to Mel Gibson's movie, the panel discussed themes related to Jewish-Christian relations. Should Christians attempt to convert Jews? Can proselytizing Christians peacefully co-exist with Jews?

Dr. Goldberg explained that since the Jewish community is diverse, running from secular atheists to the ultra-religious, no one could actually speak for all the Jewish people. Goldberg said he would give the mainstream Jewish perspective.

So, why is the mainstream Jewish community so upset? "We believe that the Passion in its current form tells its story in a way that presents Jews in a derogatory light," said Goldberg. Gibson's choice of material "is not warranted by official and scholarly contemporary readings of the Gospels." Goldberg objected to Gibson's depiction of Pontius Pilate as being "a weak victim of the mob" and asserted that the governor alone was responsible for Jesus' death. Death by crucifixion, he pointed out, was a Roman penalty. Pilate, after all, was the only one specifically mentioned in the Nicene Creed in relation to the death of Jesus.

But Goldberg was pleased that no increase in anti-Semitism has been apparent since the movie's release -- despite the fact it looks like some medieval passion plays (especially in the movie's original scripts), which did result in anti-Semitic acts. While praising Vatican II, Goldberg said any movie that denigrates other religions is unacceptable in this era of ecumenism. Freedom of expression, Goldberg argued, is not an issue. Jews, he said, reserve the right to criticize the movie, just as Gibson has the right to make the movie. Goldberg claimed that the Jewish community opposes boycotts. He was emphatic that Jews did not want to tell Christians what to believe.

Goldberg also felt the movie glossed over the Jewishness of Jesus and His followers while emphasizing the Jewishness of Jesus' opponents as well as their corruption and obsession with blood money. "To present them this way is to imply an insidious Jewish plot behind the Roman decision," he said.

Then Goldberg touched upon questions related to Christian beliefs, saying he would have preferred Jesus portrayed as a faithful Jew not opposed to the Torah. The Hebrew Bible should not be seen as outmoded or replaced by the New Testament. "Judaism must not be pitted as a stereotype against Christianity in a battle between a static, overly-legalistic religion and a religion of love and compassion -- because we don't view Judaism in that light." Rather, said Goldberg, "Jesus and the Pharisees share the majority of their religious beliefs and practices." Not all the Jews, particularly the Pharisees, were against Jesus.

Dr. Dundon, who spoke next, emphasized that people with no intellectual and spiritual background who see the Passion do not understand why in the movie the Jews plot against Christ. Dundon argued that, understanding the context, understanding why the Jewish leaders wanted to put Jesus to death, was essential. For Dundon, the Bible is accurate only in its "essentials," which to him, it seemed, are social justice and love of neighbor.

Gerry Matatics spoke next. He pointed out that racial bigotry against Jews is incompatible with Christianity because "there are not different races in the Bible. We all come from Adam and Eve." Matatics suggested that maybe the Jewish-Christian problem is religious rather than racial, and therefore the term "anti-Judaic" would be more appropriate than anti-Semitic.

Matatics then explained why Christians proselytize and attempted to demonstrate that proselytism is not anti-Semitic. First, he distinguished between the Jewish religion of the first century and the religion that was practiced by Hebrews after the destruction of the Temple in 70 A.D. Since, due to historical circumstances, the old religion could no longer be practiced in the same way, there is a fundamental discontinuity between Judaism today and the Judaism practiced in the time of Christ.

Addressing the reluctance of Catholics to preach their religion, Matatics stated, "we need to make sure that our love for man never overturns or undermines our love for God and God's Word. A Christian is someone who believes Jesus is God in the flesh.... His New Covenant does not oppose the old, it doesn't get rid of the old, but it completes and consummates it and therefore renders the observance of the Old Covenant feasible under the New Covenant. That is, one cannot say that the New Covenant has not come, we can go on observing our current relations with God under the Old. That is the Christian message in a nutshell. And the truth of God's Word is that all of us are sinners in need of a savior, that all of us are guilty and responsible for Christ's death."

Matatics expressed concern that some Jewish intellectuals engage in a double standard -- decrying those who want to revise the history of the Holocaust while, at the same time, demanding the rewriting of the Gospels.

Addressing Dr. Goldberg's fears of an anti-Semitic reaction with a question, Matatics said, "was there in fact a desire to put Our Lord to death? That doesn't translate into pogroms against Jewish people today." Pointing out that Jewish leaders often encourage Pope John Paul II to apologize for past anti-Semitic acts perpetrated by Christians, Matatics said, "if there is legitimacy to that, then I think the principle needs to be emulated by people on both sides. Wouldn't it be legitimate for an apology to be made for the attitudes and actions of those people that resulted in the death of the Lord?"

But Goldberg denied Jewish leaders of the Anti-Defamation League have asked the Church for an apology for individual Christians, but rather "to take responsibility for fomenting and for supporting anti-Semitism, the tax against Jews, and the killing of Jews.... I think that that is a distinction worth noting," he said.

Dr. Dundon continued with his theme of how people construct a Jesus to their own liking: "The Jesus Seminar [a group of modernist biblical scholars] and others across the ages who have more or less totally lost their faith, know that its very difficult to make Jesus anything other than an attractive character.... [These scholars] end up making them [Jewish leaders] look less guilty but rather stupid. And that is, here is this perfectly wonderful, sweet guy, walking around saying things like 'a stitch in time saves nine,' and 'pennywise, pound foolish' -- and in return for that, by some mistake, they had him crucified. That just doesn't make any sense."

The fundamental issue, Matatics pointed out, is the person of Jesus. "It seems to me that until people have a consensus on the person and the figure of Jesus there is going to be inevitable conflict.... I realize that when I as a Christian refer to Jesus of Nazareth as Jesus Christ, that is, the Messiah, that I run the risk of offending my Jewish friends. I want to be as sensitive as possible, but at the end of the day, I can't yield on that issue, because that is at the heart of the Christian faith. And with the greatest respect to Dr. Dundon, who referred to our 'Judeo-Christian religion,' [in the] singular -- it seems to me that, while we hold in common about God and creation and man made in the image of God, and so forth, that on this issue [of who Jesus is] there is a fundamental cleavage."

Regarding the widespread complaints that the Passion is "polarizing," Matatics stated, "that polarizing goes right back to Christ Himself, to the Gospels. The movie was polarizing because the message of Christ is polarizing. The Gospel of John says, 'and there was a division among the people because of Him,' pointing out that the Jews attempted to stone Him when He said, 'before Abraham was, I AM.'

"We need to be sensitive, loving and compassionate," Matatics said. "But we can't sweep the issue of Jesus under the rug and say, 'well, we agree on so many other issues of social concern that this really doesn't matter.' This is the issue that needs to be wrestled with. Jesus' statements recorded in the Gospels were offensive when He said things like, 'you do not believe in Moses, because if you did you would believe in me, for he wrote of me....' Our Lord is constantly making the point that those who practice the faith of the Hebrew Scriptures see in Him the consummation, the fulfillment of that faith, and embrace Him. The very offensive thing in the teaching of Jesus of Nazareth is that He does not allow people, Jew or Gentile, to live with the delusion or the pretense that, if they reject Him, they still hold a legitimate continuity with the Faith of Abraham and Moses. That's what I think provoked this hostility, the ineradicable offense of the Christian message."

Matatics admitted that "Christians have been deplorably delinquent in not learning how to effectively, sensitively, meaningfully, and intelligibly communicate" the Christian message "to our Jewish friends. We've made it seem like a Gentile faith that somehow betrays one's Jewish heritage." To refuse to invite Jews to find in Christ "the fulfillment of all your Jewish heritage," said Matatics, "is the most anti-Semitic action" one can do.

"I have too much respect for the Jewish people," Matatics continued, "to say I'm going to allow many of my leaders who have been quite unfaithful to classic Catholic Christian teaching to say that there is an Old Covenant and a New Covenant that exist in sort of parallel tracks; that one can reject the Messianic divinity of Jesus Christ and still have a meaninful, coherent, salvifically efficacious covenant that can be practiced in our day."

Dr Goldberg closed by inviting Catholics to debate with Jews: "If you feel you need to proselytize to Jews, to convert Jews, then bring it on. I say bring it on in a good way. I don't want to see pogroms and holocausts. That's not a good way."

Matatics reiterated his opposition to anti-Semitism. But, he stated, " because I'm opposed to the mistreatment of anyone, especially the Jewish people, the greatest mistreatment of all was the mistreatment of Jesus Himself.... If we are going to oppose mistreatment, we must always include that in the equation. That was the greatest act of anti-Semitism of all."

Matatics said "we need to love another enough to come to the table and look at the evidence there." Matatics then proposed a debate between Catholics and Jews, as to whether or not Jesus fulfilled Old Testament Messianic prophecy. "If what I believe is untrue, then I want to be dissuaded by whatever rabbis [that] can demolish the idea that Jesus was the Messiah. That I think would be an exercise well worth all of our time. Let's have this debate. Let's 'bring it on.'"

For a recording of the debate, e-mail tapeguy@sbcglobal.net.

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