Is the New Testament Anti-Semitic?

Tom:

This segment is called “Understanding the Scriptures,” and we’re continuing with the Gospel of John, and in particular we’re looking at salvation verses from the Gospel of John.  Dave, we’re beginning with chapter 7.  I know a lot of people thought, are they ever going to get there?

Dave:

Amazing.

Tom:

But, seriously, this has been a treat for me because we’re going through God’s word verse by verse.  And, I’m hoping that some of the things that we have to say bless people.  Because I know that God’s word blesses but I just hope we don’t muddle it up too much.  John:7:1After these things Jesus walked in Galilee: for he would not walk in Jewry, because the Jews sought to kill him.
See All..., “After these things Jesus walked in Galilee: for He would not walk in Jewry, because the Jews sought to kill him.”  Now “Jewry,” that just means Judea.  Right?

Dave:

Well, it was the area where the Jews dominated and the Rabbis were pretty much in control under the Romans—

Tom:

Yes, but wait, Jesus was Jewish.  The disciples were Jewish.

Dave:

Right.  And Galilee is called Galilee of the Gentiles.  It was more a Gentile area.  And the Jews, that is, the rabbis, really, they’re the ones that put a price on Jesus’ head.

Tom:

The religious leaders.

Dave:

Right.  They sought to kill him.  That’s interesting.  I’ve been thinking a great deal recently about the anti-Semitism in the world.  Anti-Semitism not just of the Nazis, but the Arabs.  The Arabs were on the side of Hitler during the war.  You remember Haj Amin al-Husayni.  This was Arafat’s great uncle, his mentor, and model, who was a terrorist, the Grand Mufti, but a terrorist.  A friend of Hitler went to Germany during the war, broadcast over the radio, “Arabs rise as one man, and kill the Jews where ever you find them.”  After the war he said, “We have the honor of finishing what Hitler was not able to finish.”  I could quote you so many people —Anwar Sadat — nice guy, we thought—went to Jerusalem, tried to make peace, but he had a different idea of peace.  But, anyway, Anwar Sadat even wrote an open letter to Hitler after Hitler’s death, saying he hoped Hitler was alive and that Hitler had the right idea.  Well, I’m relating that to this, the Jews have suffered.  But here they want to kill someone.  They want to kill their Messiah, in fact, and they are going to fulfill the Scriptures that they don’t even believe.  And, when you get over to—

Tom:

From their prophets.

Dave:

That’s right.  Their Scriptures.  And, when you get to Acts 13, for example, Paul is preaching to the Jews, and he says, our leaders, because they didn’t believe what our prophets said, they fulfilled what the prophets had said in killing the Messiah.  Peter, on the day of Pentecost, says to the Jews, “You have taken by wicked hands, you and crucified and slain the Lord of Glory.  This is the one who came to redeem you.  This is the Messiah you’ve been looking forward to.  But you did exactly what Isaiah 53, your great prophet, said.  ‘He’s despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief,” etc., “we hid our faces from Him.’”  So—

Tom:

Now, Dave, you’re opening a big can of worms here.  I remember, not too long ago, the Catholic cardinal came out and said, “These verses,” just as you quoted, “ought to be expurgated from the Bible because they’re anti-Semitic.”  And, some people say, well— 

Dave:

What verses ought to be taken out?

Tom:

Peter.  Just as you quoted.  Peter addressing the crowds, saying that you, speaking to the Jews.  Paul.  Some of the things he had to say.

Dave:

What Stephen said.

Tom:

Right.  So my point is that now people are confused.  They’re saying, well, wait a minute, you can’t be anti-Semitic.  How could the writers of the New Testament, they were Jews themselves.  But they’d say, no, it was the Romans as well, not just the Jews.

Dave:

Tom, we have to face the facts.  The Bible says “all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.”  So whether you’re a Muslim, a Jew, a Gentile, whoever you are, we’re all sinners.  But, anyway, these are the facts, and this is history.  The rabbis had a price on the head of Jesus. Why?  Because He did miracles, because He spoke, as we’ll find out in this chapter, He spoke with authority.  He had an authority about Him that the rabbis didn’t have, and He was really showing them up.  Not that He intended to, but He challenged them.  These people had had it their own way.  If you went to Matthew 23, Jesus says to the rabbis something like this, putting it in our modern language, “you scoundrels, not only don’t you enter into heaven, but you stand in the way of those who would.  You set up a system of religion so complicated it would take a Philadelphia lawyer to unravel this thing.  You make the rules.  The people have to go through you to get to heaven and they’re at your mercy because you have made the rules.”  And the rabbis have done exactly that, and Jesus challenged them as John the Baptist challenged them.  John the Baptist said, “you generation of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?”  So, they didn’t like that.  And, we get a little farther down the line, and in chapter 11 we’ll find Ananias, the high priest saying, I think it’s better that one man die, than the whole nation perish, because Jesus is undermining our authority and the Romans are going to take away our authority.”  So, anyway, that was the situation.  It’s history.  A Jewish person who wants to argue with this — I don’t think he can because we have other sources besides the Bible.  Josephus for example, confirms this.  So, it says, verse 2, “Now the Jews feast,” well Jesus was staying away from there.  Often it says, “His time is not yet come.”  He was going to be crucified and He knew when He’d be crucified.  But, they had a price on His head, so He’s staying away.  But, now the Jews’ Feast of Tabernacles was at hand that’s interesting, somehow it’s no longer God’s Feast of Tabernacles, but it’s the Jews, and when it says Jews it really means the religious leaders. The religious leaders have changed this.  Jesus said, “You have made void God’s word by your tradition.”  You have changed things around so now it had deteriorated to be the Jews’ Feast of Tabernacles.

Tom:

But it was still large, very popular.

Dave:

That’s right.

Tom:

Many, many came.

Dave:

Yeah, it came from the Old Testament.  It was commanded in the Old Testament, but they had perverted it, but still, sincere people were coming to Jerusalem—

Tom:

Tabernacles.  To explain that a little bit.  They actually—God directing them—

Dave:

??? it was called.

Tom:

Yes.  They put together huts, as it were, which they live in as— 

Dave:

Well, it was remembrance of the time through the wilderness that they had traveled through the wilderness.  Well, verse 3—

Tom:

A celebration of harvest as well.

Dave:

Right.  Verse 3.  His brethren, now, again we have a little problem with the Catholics because Jesus did have brothers and sisters.  They are named for us, some of them.  James, for example, is called the Lord’s brother, half-brother.  It’s very clear.  In Matthew 1 it says, Joseph, he was going to just quietly renounce his engagement to Mary because she was pregnant, and an angel had to appear to him and tell him, don’t be afraid to take Mary, your espoused one, to be your wife, she is with child of the Holy Spirit.  She’s still a virgin.  And, so, it says in Matthew 1, that he took her as his wife, but it says, “he knew her not,” in other words, did not have sex with her, until she brought forth her first-born son.  First-born—then there must have been others, and that he “knew her not until,” means he did not have sex with her until she brought forth Jesus, a virgin birth.  But, subsequently, this was a normal marriage between husband and wife and there were half-brothers and half-sisters.  So, here we have the brethren of Jesus—

Tom:

Well, Dave, yeah, I looked this up.  As you know, I’m a former Catholic, and this was a concern for me becoming an evangelical.  And, you say you don’t know anything about Greek, well, I’m the same way.  But, I can look up something in Strong’s Concordance and I find that the term here, ahthelphous it means “brother.”  And there’s another term in the Greek, sogeneus and that means “kinsmen” or “cousin.”  Because, I’ve always heard, oh, well, this only means his “cousins,” or, you know, “relatives” in some way.  But, the specific term “brother” is used here.

Dave:

Right.  There’s no doubt about it.  But, the tragic thing here is, “His brethren therefore said unto him, Depart hence, and go into Judea, that thy disciples also may see the works that thou doest.  For there is no man that doeth any thing in secret, and he himself seeketh to be known openly.  If thou do these things, shew thyself to the world.  For neither did his brethren believe in him,”  John:7:3-5 [3] His brethren therefore said unto him, Depart hence, and go into Judaea, that thy disciples also may see the works that thou doest. [4] For there is no man that doeth any thing in secret, and he himself seeketh to be known openly. If thou do these things, shew thyself to the world. [5] For neither did his brethren believe in him.
See All....  Now that’s—

Tom:

So, these weren’t his brothers in the faith.  These were his physical brothers.

Dave:

Right.  Tom, we could think a lot about that.  Remember when Mary and Joseph sought Jesus when He stayed behind?  Well, we’ll have to come back and talk about this, but He lived a normal life in the home.  When Mary, as He was a little boy, said, “go get some water at the well,” He didn’t say, “Wait a minute, who do you think you are ordering around?  I mean, I’m the creator of this universe.  I just can’t—no, He lived a normal life as a boy, as a man, and his brothers had a tough time believing that this is really the Messiah until He began to do some miracles.