God: “AcHtUaLlY…”
I never understood the Christians who hate the Jews “for killing Jesus.” My understanding is their whole faith is built upon the foundation that Jesus had to be tortured and die to forgive all the sins in the world. And that he knew he was going to die for those sins. In the same vein, why are they all mad at Judas, who Jesus obviously knew he would do what he did and sent him to to it, because it had to happen.
If Jesus was still alive and kickin 2000 years later Christianity and the whole world would be a completely different thing. By their own theology none of their sins would be forgiven.
Ever since I was a little kid growing up in a church, none of this shit ever made a lick of sense. Every time I asked about it I was given an explanation that made even less sense, or “you just gotta have faith.”
In the same vein, why are they all mad at Judas, who Jesus obviously knew he would do what he did and sent him to to it, because it had to happen.
Funny enough, if I remember my Catholic grandmother correctly, Judas’s real sin according to the Catholic Church was that he hanged himself, since suicide is a sin. The betrayal was no big deal in comparison, since it was all Part Of The Plan.
I think I recall that as well.
There is also “the gospel of Judas” rediscovered in the 1970s where if I remember right, Judas explains how Jesus told him to do it.
There’s an israeli flag in this meme, currently the most anti-semitic flag in the world. How can this meme not be anti-semitic.
Precisely. Equating all Jewish people with the modern state of Israel is the dominant form of antisemitism currently.
It also a bit weird that the map here accepts Israeli territorial claims over the Golan, West bank, Gaza strip etc.
Explanation: In Christian mythology, the Romans crucified the chief religious figure of Jesus Christ.
However, in that same narrative, the Roman official in charge, Pontius Pilate, formally and literally washes his hands of the guilt, instead blaming the crowd for demanding Christ’s death and threatening to riot if he did not accede.
… this would unfortunately contribute to antisemitism in later Christianity, with the Jews being blamed for Christ’s death by some Christian groups, despite Christ being… you know. A Jew himself.
And also that the whole thing was an elaborate method of absolution of mankind’s sins going exactly according to plan by Christ/God anyway.
I believe the theory that the writers of the gospels really wanted to stress that they weren’t mad at the Romans for killing their messiah so they wouldn’t be considered rebels needing to be stamped out. So they said that Pontius Pilate had his hands tied and that the jews should be blamed instead.
Really, it doesn’t make sense why he would go to bat for Jesus and try to convince the crowd not to kill him in the first place. And the whole idea of jews having a tradition of setting free 1 person on death row, and that the Romans would care to honor it, just seems bizarre. It also seems unlikely that the crowd would show mercy on someone convicted of murder instead of a miraculous, popular, compassionate guy who just said things that may have been considered vaguely heretical.
No strong opinions on the general historicity of the gospels here, but I would like to point out a few things:
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I don’t know that the purpose was really to brand themselves as not-rebels. I mean, hell, one of Christ’s disciplines is a Zealot. It certainly didn’t help them with the whole ‘Please don’t stamp us out’ thing, since Christians were intermittent scapegoats for local problems for 300 years.
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I think if we’re giving the gospels the benefit of the doubt with regards to at least attempting to record actual events, that it does make a certain amount of sense of a Roman perspective, especially from one as disinterested in Iudean customs as Pontius Pilate. To Pilate, what he hears is “Local guy has pissed off local rulers and now they want me to kill him? What, is this what a magistrate of Rome is supposed to do? Enforce local vendettas? Fuck off, I’ll bring this to the people, they’ll reject what is obviously a bullshit charge, and that humiliate you and reinforce ROMAN authority in this province.” But to the Iudeans, what they hear is “Dangerous heretic threatening to bring YHWH’s wrath on our heads for wrongthink, the priesthood said so!” So Pilate’s reaction is frustrated and confused throughout, as such a view simply would not have made sense in the context of Roman religio, but was core and intuitive to Jewish theology of the period. Especially since the Jewish priesthood was much more integrated into the core faith; Roman priests were literally elected, or appointed basically as sinecures. Hell, Cicero was a priest and an atheist. Didn’t stop him one bit.
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The supposed tradition is certainly one of the more questionable aspects of the gospels, as, to my memory, there is no such tradition recorded anywhere else before the gospels.
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Sectarian infighting was big amongst the Iudeans of the period. A few decades later, during the First Jewish Revolt, the sects would have a 3-way (at minimum) civil war… while under siege by the Romans in Jerusalem. That’s not counting the sectarian conflicts outside of the siege area.
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The alternative was that Jesus slipped in the shower and drowned for our sins. God was kind of pressed for options.
The Last Supper (because he choked to death on a piece of bread).
Would people wear bread on their necks if this would’ve been the case?
All I know is they won’t stop talking about the Second Crumbing of Jesus Crust.
Jesus H(eimlich) Christ
Not just “later” Christians.
Even the gospels and epistles are fairly antisemitic.
Which is strange considering that, if any of it was true then it was literally god’s plan from before creation.
yep, however this is antisemitic trop, not an antisionist one. The mem shall symbolize judaism accordingly with a hanoukkia, or a least with a golden maghen Dawid; the blue one in a nationalist symbol.
The antisemitism bit is just an additional detail; since Christians and Romans are depicted separately, I think it would be fair to regard the meme itself as discussing responsibility at-the-time.
I think menas was talking about using the country of israel to represent jews in the meme image.
I mean, it represents the provincial Iudeans Pilate accused of being responsible, many of whom were proto-ultranationalists who wanted a ‘pure’ Jewish country through ethnic cleansing and suppression of minority religions and heresies - like that of Christ. I don’t know that representing them as the Jews in general, who even at the time were widely dispersed across the Roman Empire, is more correct than representing them as more equated with modern Israel.
Like I said, the antisemitism bit in the explanation is just an additional detail.
Using the modern Israeli flag set over the borders of Palestine as a representation of the “Children of Israel” is just following along with their claim to be the sole representation of Judaism on an international level.
They’ve basically indoctrinated everyone into thinking that specific flag and those borders when they think of current Israel, but it isn’t historically accurate and you know it.
They’ve basically indoctrinated everyone into thinking that specific flag and those borders when they think of current Israel, but it isn’t historically accurate and you know it.
Next you’ll tell me that using any other national flag or borders in a meme about any period before the modern day isn’t kosher.
Symbolising Jews 2000 years ago with the flag of post-1948 Israel is a controversial take
I agree with you, but on the other hand, the Israeli government has no problem with making a claim on land that was promised to them waaay before 1948. You can’t claim ancestry only when it suits you :(
