Were Jesus and the New Testament Antisemitic? | Persecuted Ep. 2

Episode 2 moves into one of the most difficult and debated questions in Christian history

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Were Jesus and the New Testament writers antisemitic?

Drawing from The Persecuted: Jesus to Constantine by Mark Baker, we examine claims that Christian hostility toward Jewish communities can be traced back to interpretations of Jesus and the New Testament writings.

This discussion explores:

* Jewish perspectives on New Testament passages
* The historical separation between Christianity and Judaism
* Jesus’ conflicts with religious leadership
* The difference between criticizing religious authority and rejecting an entire people
* How interpretation shapes theology and history

This episode is not intended as condemnation, but as historical examination. Understanding where ideas came from matters because ideas shape actions, and actions shape generations.

Episode 1 asked:

“What worldview do you see through?”

Episode 2 asks:

“How do we read the story?”

Walk the Way — Modern Mind, Ancient Book
🌐 modernmindancientbook.org

Transcript

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Modern Mind, ancient book, walk away.

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Hello, and welcome to the second episode of The Persecuted from Jesus to Constantine. This is a book review. The book was written by Mark Baker from Focus on Israel. We are well aligned with their ministry and what they're doing. If you would like to learn more or become part of the mission, the Persecuted Project dot or G. There is more information available there. Again, the Persecuted Project.org. My name's Roger. I'll be your host. This is another Modern My Nature book where we're going back to move forward. We're finding a love for the law, the prophets, and the writings. We're attempting to meet Jesus in the world that he existed in and therefore know him more. In the last episode, we examined worldview, bias, and interpretive filters. Also, we talked about how the early church split off from the Jewish inclusion, from Jewish inclusion being called Judaism by a blessing called the Birkat Hamanim, which separated Judaism from the way of the Nazarene, from the Jesus movement. And then from there, how the early church fathers said that the church replaced Israel, it all just became very negative. It wasn't the promise of the Spirit that there would be love, joy, peace, patience, kindness. There wasn't unity, there was disunity because it's the ways of man. Just like the book of Judges shows how the Mosaic covenant turned into split, division, brokenness, that the people could not stay together and they couldn't actually keep the agreement. The church and Israel, the rabbinic folks, we did the exact same things. But luckily, God is gracious, He's good, He's wonderful, He gives grace, and He's kind. So Jesus says, Forgive them, for they know not what they do, and so does the Spirit in me. I just want to be united under the one King, King Jesus, the one who reigns and rules forevermore, the one who is now but not yet, whose kingdom is but is still coming. In this episode, we're gonna look at those ideas that we talked about, directly related to Jesus, the New Testament, and Christian history. The central question is, did Christianity help create antisemitism? The book approaches that through Jewish perspectives, scholarly criticism, and gospel analysis. The book opens with the story of Yitzhak. Sounds like a foreign name. That's Hebrew, but it's not foreign to you. Yitzhak. That's Isaac. We know that name. He's one of the patriarchs. But this is an emotional story. Yitzuk Isaac. He's a Jewish boy. He's waiting for a bus. A man approaches and calls him a filthy little Christ killer Jew. The boy, Yitzhak, he doesn't even understand the accusation. He's just a kid. He's 10 years old. But he becomes terrified, runs away, confused and ashamed after being spit on, made unclean by some man from the nations who just attacked him for something he doesn't even understand. This story shows us how theology affects ordinary life. And it demonstrates an inherited hostility across generations. It wasn't just the man that attacked the boy that was hostile. It was later the boy. When he learned about Jesus, what did he know? He knew that these people hated Jewish people. And you know what Jesus can't be? Jesus can't be one who doesn't teach Torah. If he's the Jewish king, if he's the Jewish Messiah, he teaches the law from the inside. It's in the heart of the one who follows him. The new covenant is found in Jeremiah. And it says that the law will be on your heart. Jewish people know this. And when we act this way, they know that Jesus could not be their Messiah. That's not what we're supposed to be. And it's wrong to hate to that degree. That's not loving your enemy. Even if you do consider Jewish people your enemy, that's not love. That's wrong. Ideas do not remain abstract, i.e., hidden, not tangible in the real world, they can become cultural violence. In section two, anti-Semitism before Christianity, the book clarifies hatred of Jews predates Christianity. For instance, and you can see this in your Bible, Egyptian oppression.

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Right?

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The Pharaoh turned against the people because they were becoming powerful. The Babylonians weren't too happy with the Jewish people. They went there and conquered them. Antiochus, Epiphanes, Alexander the Great first, they came through, they conquered the region. And then the Romans dominated and ultimately destroyed the second temple.

unknown 6:02

Mr.

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Baker, though, he argues that Christianity introduced something unique: theological hostility. The Egyptians, they were not very favorable to the Hebrews because ethnically the land belonged to Egyptians. They wanted to maintain their kingdom. The Babylonians, they weren't upset at their religion because their god Marduk overcame them. The Babylonians just wanted the tribute due to them as they were the orderers of the world and society. The Greeks, well, they came through because again, they were the orderers of the world and society, order, truth, justice, all those kinds of things. And the Romans, very similar. Jews were increasingly portrayed in Christian circles, not merely as outsiders, but as spiritually opposed to truth itself. You know, that statement makes me remember Pontius Pilate. What is truth? Looking at truth right in the face. The rejection of Jesus is being opposed to truth, but the rejection of Jesus should cause us to pray ever more fervently for those people and love them and reach out to them, just as Jesus Himself did. If we want to be like him, that's what we have to do. This book presents major scholarly criticisms. Gospel writers may not have been eyewitnesses to texts and that they were written much later. Authors may reflect post-apostolic tensions. The book references scholars who argue the New Testament contains anti-Jewish themes. These examples emphasize portrayals of Pharisees as being evil, repeated conflict narratives with the system in Judea, accusations toward Jewish leadership, and the synagogue of Satan language in Revelation. Mark also references Rosemary Ruther, Norman Beck, and Eliasar Berkowitz. There's a claim, a quote in the book, Christianity's New Testament has been the most dangerous anti-Semitic tract in history. The book presents these views as examples of how many Jewish scholars interpret Christian history. I mean, let me ask you a serious question. Just think for a moment. Do you believe honestly that Jesus, who came first to the Jew, then to the Gentile, would want the Jewish people to see his followers as people who hate him? Or hate them, I'm sorry? Would that be attractive to the people who Jesus came from? Man, that's not what Jesus wants from us. How did we land here? And are you willing to change? That's my question. Modern Mine Ancient Book as a Ministry exists to say to you, your king is the king of the Jews. He's the king of the world. And there's no difference. It's again, it's like if you're mad at skin color, you're mad at an organ, are you unwise enough to say, I hate that kind of liver? I'm really upset with that spleen, that gallbladder, that type of gallbladder. Are you that sort of person? God created all men. And Jesus opened the way to the world. He grafted us in with the history and tradition that also the Jewish people are grafted into. They're grafted into the covenant with Abraham who believed by faith. And all who believe by faith are called according to Jesus' name. We should be a people who have mercy, who see others as valuable, who see people as the image of God. And we should never hate. We should always seek to restore the covenant. Now, Jesus did stand against the religious authorities, and this is one of the largest sections. Jesus had a relationship with the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the scribes, and the religious elites. When you hear the Jews in the New Testament, what you should understand is that it's Judeans, authority figures over the temple process, over the religious structure, not the average person. The average person rejoiced to see Jesus riding in on a donkey. They said Hosanna. They were talking about the feast of Sukkot, where the king comes into Jerusalem to reign forevermore, to be with the people. Jewish people didn't reject Jesus. The authorities under Roman rule rejected Jesus for political experience, so the expedience, so they wouldn't be destroyed by Rome because there was a king in town. They knew that Rome wouldn't take kindly to that. But they also hated that he was too relaxed with their laws. Because they had added more. How much of the church is in addition to what Jesus actually did? Jesus didn't do anything that we celebrate because he had a form of Judaism in the first century. We too have departed from the ways of Jesus, and we've become separate from the very people that he came to tell the truth to. And we were blessed to hear the same truth. And while many of us have come to faith, many of us believe in a Jesus that isn't in the New Testament. It's our desire that you would want to be a true follower and spirit and truth and see Jesus for who he is and love as he loved. Jesus called the Jewish authorities the temple authorities, the religious authorities, a brood of vipers, a whitewashed tomb, children of the devil, the adversary, and accused them of hypocrisy.

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Mr.

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Baker argued that these confrontations become foundational to later Christian attitude toward Jews. But there's an important contextual point. Pharisees later became the foundation of rabbinic Judaism after AD seventy. Therefore, criticism of Pharisees later became associated with criticism of Judaism itself. Does criticism of leadership become criticism of an entire group over time? That's not the way. Yes, the religious authorities were wrong, and yes, they hated what Jesus was. But the people didn't. And all we did was make it worse when we began to attack people whom Jesus reached out to and tell them that they weren't worthy because they didn't look like a Gentile. We were never supposed to be two separate groups of people. We were supposed to be one new man with one king who shared a history and identity and the God who's gracious and kind and created us to be unified with Him and to find our identity in Him. Jesus clashed with the ritual purity and the holiness laws and the social boundaries that were present in his day. But he did it by touching lepers, by healing people. He did it by sitting with sinners, with people who were socially outcasts, with tax collectors and prostitutes. He did it by touching the dead and raising them. He did it by eating with outcasts. Critics interpret these actions as rejection of traditional Judaism, and it was because Jesus had a purified Judaism. He had a Judaism from heaven. He knew the truth and he walked in it. And that's what we're supposed to do. We're supposed to walk like him. The book presents the Jewish scholarly concerns of Christians often portray Judaism as oppressive, cold, and legalistic. But Mark, the author, focused on Israel. He's arguing that many Jewish scholars believe this must misunderstand Torah, that it understands it entirely. Purity laws were intended to preserve holiness, not create hatred or exclusion. That's what Jesus taught us about Judaism. The book talks about Paul. Paul does criticize Judaizers, and he emphasizes faith toward Christ. And Torah observance does become debated. Some scholars see Paul as redefining covenant identity and contributing to the separation between Christians and Jews. So how did theological disagreement become historical division? Well, it came by misunderstanding who Paul is. Paul was a Pharisee among Pharisees. He was taught by the greatest mind of the day to understand the Torah and to litigate and argue it. Paul, when he argued, he argued Torah. If you understand that he was arguing the law, then you understand he wasn't speaking against it. What the church was seeing in the church, meaning the practitioners of Judaism who followed Jesus, those who were the called out ones, mainly Jewish people. All Jewish people. What they saw is that God was calling people despite their heritage, despite what they practiced. And they gave grace and mercy to people, and they made a way that they didn't have to look exactly the same. Because God was doing it and they weren't going to stand in the way. That's what James and Peter said. That's how Paul litigated. That's how he taught Torah. Their intention wasn't that you would just disregard and throw away the wisdom of God, but that the wisdom of God was to bring you to Himself and teach you from the inside to be obedient, and that no man had to do it, because that's what the new covenant is. They weren't rejecting Torah. They were saying God will teach you Himself. And they gave you the freedom to come as you were. Because Jesus didn't come for the healthy, he came for the sick. And they were willing to have mercy and give grace and allow for the looks of things not to be the way that they judged, but they were judging by what God was doing and calling it good because God was doing it. We've lost that. We've lost that humility. Now we want you to look just like the church. I recently had a Passover dinner at the church over here, and it was great, it was wonderful. We had a good time. But there was one man in there who left early, by the way. He was so mad because there were Hebrew words. Because we were offering prayers in Hebrew, because we were noting the old ways, because we were talking about what Jesus actually did. In Passover is when we get the Eucharist. When he says, Do this, do this in remembrance of me when you do it. He meant every year when you go to celebrate Passover. Because Jesus celebrated Passover. So here we were in this little church up the road here. And a man was so mad he wouldn't even look at me. He walked out and refused to do what Jesus did. That's whom we've become. How did we get here? That's the division that is not of God. And it comes from our traditions, not from Jesus. Christian tradition frequently casts Pharisees and religious authorities and the Sanhedrin as villains. But from the Jewish perspective, these groups saw themselves as guardians of the wisdom of God and protectors of covenant faithfulness. Mark Baker argues that later Christian storytellers often simplified these conflicts. Let me try to put this into perspective. The Jewish authorities in Jesus' day were being ruled over by a brutally strong empire. The Romans carved out a little enclave, a little protected status for the Jewish people, that they didn't have to engage in emperor worship, and that they could have their religion mostly intact. And these religious authorities were fiercely protective of that. Because if they did wrong, Rome had no mercy. We saw later with the sacking of the temple, everybody was ruthlessly murdered. The religious authorities knew the political climate and the danger of it, and they were attempting to protect their people. Was it the right thing? No, it was not the right thing. But to them it was. And Jesus understood that. That's why on the cross he said, forgive them, for they know not what they do. Today, we would do the same thing. We would protect Christianity against Jesus. Just like that man could not celebrate a Passover, because that blasphemy should never happen inside of a church. Hebrew writing and signs, Hebrew prayers, those are literally what Jesus did. The man doesn't even know his rabbi. And that's our mission here in Modern Mind Ancient Book to say. Look, he's a Jewish sage of Galilee. That's how he lived his life. He never rejected it. He was a Pharisee. And he rose from the dead, the king of Israel, the Lion of Judah. He enacted the new covenant, which is to the Jewish people in Jeremiah. And we are blessed to be counted among them. And one day they will be restored to covenant. And we want to be brothers with our brothers. And we want to have mercy on all who would come. And we want to see them grow in faith and stature, knowledge and understanding. We want to see them walk in the way and love Jesus for who he truly was as the king and as the king of an empire. Most Jewish people have a view about Jesus in the New Testament. Many will point to themes of anti-Semitism, hatred, and persecution. They often see the text as containing hatred. These passages promote negative stereotypes, unjust accusations, and hostility toward Jewish people. For individuals like this young Yitzhak Isaac, which we talked about early, the notion of the New Testament as good news is difficult to accept, given their experience of discrimination that has frequently been justified through its interpretation. Antisemitism, though, did not begin with Christianity. Hostility toward Jewish people can be traced back to ancient times. The Old Testament itself recounts the oppression of the Jews, notably during the enslavement under the Egyptian Pharaoh around 1450 BC, at the time of Moses. The book of Exodus tells the dramatic story of their suffering in Egypt, their liberation through divine intervention, and the founding of Israel as a covenant nation under God. Now I want to ask you a question. When Israel was called out from Egypt, where they were enslaved, where they were hated because they were becoming strong, were they Torah observant? No! There was no Torah. Just like there was no testament when Jesus came, no New Testament. There was only the Old Testament, like we call it. But really, what it was was the story of a people being called out. Jesus called out a people. Did you know that Shavuot, the feast of Pentecost, the feast of 50, 50 weeks, that that's when Jewish people celebrate the giving of the Mosaic law, and then that's the time and the place in the temple when Jesus sent the Spirit, and the people spoke the good news to a bunch of Jews, all in their native languages. The Tower of Babel was undone, the Mosaic covenant was perfected in Jesus. The one new man was born of all nations, Jew, Gentile, proselyte. We have the victory, but we hate our brothers. I'm asking you to repent and see all who come in his name as one and the same. I'm asking us to throw apart, throw away all of our bad theology and just focus on the one King and start to live like him. Start to walk like him. Start to love the things that he loved. This is the call to repent, to practice tashuva, to understand that Jesus didn't teach us to hate Jewish people. And for Jewish people to understand that the Birchat Hamanim is nonsense. Jesus was a Jew among Jews. He was the greatest son of Jacob. And he does teach Gentiles the Torah. We just turned away from him. The wisdom of God is not a set of laws, it's a way of life. It's mercy and grace. It's love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. It's taking care of the orphan and the widow in their distress. It's honoring God above all things. It's being in constant communication with the creator of the universe and pure thankfulness. Not only for creation, but for recreating, for taking us out and calling us his own. For the promise of a king who's coming to rule over the nations with justice and mercy and hope. It's becoming united under the name above all names, the true king, the Lion of Judah. I pray you see that, and I pray you beginning to walk, that you begin to walk in his ways. I pray that we never, ever attack anybody here and say you synagogue of Satan again. But instead, if we disagree, we pray, we hope for restoration. And we're kind and compassionate to those who disagree with us. And that by doing this, we heap coals, burning coals on their forehead. They think about it. When they curse us, we bless them. When they harm us, we bless them. When they turn away from us, we pray for them and bless them. That we begin to look more like Jesus, that we begin to love the things that he loved, that you celebrate your first Passover in this next year, and that you really drink from the true cup, the third cup of redemption, and that you eat the Afikomin and understand that the bread of affliction is what he broke and said, This is my body. That you celebrate the Feast of Weeks, and that when you do, you celebrate that God intervened in history and gave a law to a people, that he called a people to be his, and from that people came the Messiah. That all of that history starts to become yours, and you identify with what God has done, not with what your nation has done or what your skin color tells you you are. Your skin is nothing but an organ. God is the one who created it, and he created all in his image. We are his and he is ours. I pray that's what you find. Antisemitism existed before Christianity because there's a seed war. There's an adversary that wishes to destroy all that God treasures. And he hijacked Christianity because our theologic, our theological underpinnings intensified anti-Semitism. But it's time to stop. The New Testament can be interpreted very differently by Jewish scholars and by you. If you would just let the people be ones who are protecting themselves, and because of that, they failed to see Jesus, but also see that Jesus loved them anyway. And that he was willing to go to the cross that they might live. Without Jesus' death, there's no way to life. He's the one who undid the curse at Eden, He's the one who undid the Tower of Babel, He's the one who comes back the Lion of Judah. Trust what he has done and stop hating. The gospel's portrayal of Jewish leaders should be seen in its historicity. That at the time they were doing something, it doesn't color forever. These interpretations should shape our memory. We can reinterpret this. Because these memories will shape the civilization to come. Can we please stop hating our brothers? Please. So are the conflicts in the New Testament examples of internal Jewish debate? Yes. Because Jewish people don't agree either about everything. They're scholars. Listen, Joseph of Arimathea gave his tomb to Jesus. He was a Pharisee. Nicodemus. These people, there were people that saw him. There were many Jewish people that came to faith. And they were the first ones. We were the second ones. Where we had to worry about Judaizers, now they have to worry about Gentilizers. Why can't we just meet in the middle and be like Jesus? Let's have a purified Judaism. One that focuses on Him and Him alone as the only authority who can interpret the scriptures with certainty. Then we can walk the way together. There's something much larger historically in front of us. It's the past, the present, and the coming future. Repent because Jesus is coming. If you would like to know more, visit Persecuted Project.org. My name's Roger. I've been your host. I'm very thankful for you spending your time here today. May the Lord bless you and keep you and make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you and turn his face towards you and bring you shalom. May God's peace be with you. If you'd like to reach out to us, modern my nature book.org, thank you. And bye for now.