The Ever-Thoughtful Deacon Steven Greydanus on “Harrison Butker, ‘the Jews’, and the New American Bible”

My friend Steven Greydanus is always worth reading and never more so than when he tells us he worked very, very hard on a particular essay, such as this one.

Below is just a taste. I urge you to read the whole thing. It is characteristically excellent, and badly needed in an hour when the undead stupidity and evil of Jew-hatred is again stirring in its unhallowed, shallow grave and threatening to walk abroad again:

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There are several problems here. First, taken as a whole, “the biblical teaching of who killed Jesus” is, of course, that Jesus was sentenced and executed by local Roman authority, acting at the instigation of certain Jewish leaders in Jerusalem. The formulation “The Jews killed Jesus,” under any reasonable construction of those English words in 2024, is both false and objectionable—and, while it may not be particularly brave, it is necessary in 2024 to say that these words are false and objectionable. A much-quoted passage from the 1965 Vatican II declaration Nostra Aetate offers still-important perspective here:

True, the Jewish authorities and those who followed their lead pressed for the death of Christ; still, what happened in his passion cannot be charged against all the Jews, without distinction, then alive, nor against the Jews of today.

The reason Nostra Aetate says this, of course, is that for much of Christian history many Christians did ascribe Jesus’ death to “the Jews” without qualification. The charge of Jewish deicide has a long history, from medieval anti-Jewish bias and harassment and persecution of Jews to modern antisemitism, up to and including the Holocaust and beyond. Throughout history Jews have been persecuted and oppressed as “Christ killers,” particularly around Holy Week in connection with ramped-up violence. Particularly in a time of rising antisemitism, making a shibboleth of “the Jews killed Jesus” is indefensible, and Jewish concern about and resistance to this language is reasonable and should be supported by Christians, not opposed.

In passing, as a TLM Traditionalist Butker represents a strand of Catholic identity and praxis different from my own. I am an orthodox Catholic deacon serving at what would widely be considered a conservative Catholic parish, but we are not Traditionalists and we celebrate the Mass according to the current liturgical books. Because of this, I should clarify, first, that the concerns of this post reflect my own experience in mainstream orthodox Catholic parishes, not the situation in Traditionalist Catholicism, with which I have very little experience.

In particular, I am not writing to diagnose antisemitism in Traditionalist Catholicism specifically, and certainly not to indict Butker personally of antisemitism. It is Butker’s language, not his heart or his beliefs, that I take issue with—and my subject here is the place of that language in mainstream Catholic parishes, not Traditionalist parishes. Antisemitic language and attitudes exist in non-TLM Catholic circles; I’ve heard “the Jews” (or, in one case, “the Hebes”) scapegoated over coffee after Mass, and worse. Catholics are called to reject and condemn antisemitism, and that includes rejecting the shibboleth “the Jews killed Jesus.”

For those who hesitate over this simple linguistic point, a simple thought experiment may be clarifying. Consider how the phrase “the Jews” functions in the following sentences:

1. The goal of the Nazi “final solution” was the extermination of the Jews.
2. God holds the Jews most dear for the sake of their Fathers; he does not repent of the gifts he makes or of the calls he issues. (Nostra Aetate)
3. The Jews of Jesus’ day were not monolithic, but included various factions or sects, notably Pharisees, Sadducees, and Essenes.
4. The Jews killed Jesus.

One of these things, obviously, is not like the others! Three of these sentences use “the Jews” in a straightforward, unqualified sense; the fourth does not. At best this sentence can be understood as using a form of figurative language called synecdoche, which substitutes a part for the whole or vice versa. Figurative language is perfectly normal and natural when and where it’s generally understood and causes no gross or harmful misunderstandings. A figure of speech deeply associated with centuries of bigotry, persecution, oppression, and violence ceases to be perfectly normal and natural, and more literal and precise language should be preferred. This is not hard to understand and should not be hard to accept.

The New Testament, anti-Jewish polemics, and antisemitism

It is important to be clear, at the same time, that unqualified “The Jews killed Jesus” language did not come from nowhere. The earliest roots of this language are present in the New Testament from its beginnings, in the Apostle Paul’s first letter to the Thessalonians, written about 20 years of Jesus’ death (circa A.D. 50). In this early letter Paul ascribes the killing of Jesus to “οἱ Ἰουδαῖοι” (hoi Ioudaioi), traditionally translated “the Jews”:

For you, brothers, have become imitators of the churches of God that are in Judea in Christ Jesus. For you suffer the same things from your compatriots as they did from the Jews, who killed both the Lord Jesus and the prophets and persecuted us… (1 Thessalonians 2:14–15)

(Unless otherwise noted, all quotations are from the New American Bible or NAB, the English translation used at English Latin-Rite Masses in the US. For what it’s worth, it is not widely used in Traditionalist circles.)

The same term is frequently used in later New Testament books, often in polemical contexts of conflict involving either Jesus himself (especially in the Gospel of John) or the early church (especially in the Acts of the Apostles). That line from 1 Thessalonians happens not to be included in the Mass readings in the Catholic Lectionary—but every year, particularly during Lent, Triduum, and the Easter season, Catholics hear, over and over, lines like these:

The disciples said to him, “Rabbi, the Jews were just trying to stone you, and you want to go back there?” (John 11:8)

“If my kingdom did belong to this world, my attendants would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jews.” (John 18:36)

Pilate tried to release him; but the Jews cried out, “If you release him, you are not a Friend of Caesar.” (John 19:12)

Joseph of Arimathea, secretly a disciple of Jesus for fear of the Jews, asked Pilate if he could remove the body of Jesus. (John 19:38)

On the evening of that first day of the week, when the doors were locked, where the disciples were, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood in their midst and said to them, “Peace be with you.” (John 20:19)

“We are witnesses of all that he did both in the country of the Jews and in Jerusalem. They put him to death by hanging him on a tree.” (Acts 10:39)

These and other New Testament motifs have led to debates in academic circles whether the New Testament books themselves are antisemitic. The controversy is understandable; Christians of all stripes can agree that the New Testament is a provocative collection of texts, shaped by dramatic claims in a polemical climate. Indeed, the polemics go back to the divisive figure of Jesus himself, whose critiques of the Pharisees and the Temple authorities stand in the tradition of the Old Testament prophets and their critique from within Israel.

After Jesus’ death, conflict continued between mainstream Judaism and the early Jesus movement, shaping the New Testament record in various ways. As the Church gained cultural and political ascendancy, those early tensions morphed into something much darker, leading to centuries of Christian antisemitism and oppression of Jewish people. Part of this ugly history includes antisemitic interpretations of various New Testament passages, from Matthew’s account of the Jewish crowd replying to Pilate “His blood be on us and our children” to references to “the synagogue of Satan” in the book of Revelation.

I take for granted here the orthodox Catholic view that while the Catholic Church may have many things to apologize for, the New Testament itself is not among them. Its anti-Jewish polemics, however pointed at times, are not antisemitic, and were written, needless to say, long before the ugly history of oppression and persecution in which they have been grotesquely implicated.

That said, the legacy of New Testament interpretation—and misinterpretation—necessarily weighs on how we read the New Testament today. For example, any homilist or writer who takes on Paul’s much-quoted epigram “I can do all things through him who strengthens me” (Philippians 4:3, New Revised Standard Version or NRSV) would do well to start by emphasizing that in context this is not a motivational sentiment along the lines of “You can accomplish anything you put your mind to (through Jesus)”! Rather, Paul is talking about being able to get by in all kinds of circumstances (“I have learned to be content with whatever I have,” etc.). I wince a little, too, every time I encounter Jesus’ declaration regarding the sinful woman who wept over his feet—“her sins, which were many, are forgiven, for she loved much” (Luke 7:47)—so often misunderstood to mean “Her great love is the reason her sins have been forgiven” rather than “Her great love is the evidence of the great forgiveness she has received.” (This misreading is so well-established that it even crops up in the Liturgy of the Hours, in the intercessions for the Common of Holy Women: “Lord Jesus, you forgave the sinful woman because she loved much; forgive us who have sinned much.”)

In that last case, significantly, the misinterpretation can be addressed by a clearer translation. Where the NAB reads, ambiguously, “Her sins, which were many, are forgiven, for she loved much,” the NRSV unequivocally states, “Her many sins have been forgiven; hence she has shown great love.” Whether “hence” is the best English word for a liturgical Bible like the NAB (meant to be read aloud in Mass for Americans of all educational levels) is another question; perhaps “therefore” or “so” might be better. Translation is a tricky balancing act involving many concerns!

What about the polemical New Testament passages indicting “the Jews” as Jesus’ mortal enemies and agents in his execution? Can translators bring any additional clarity here? Here’s where I tender my disclaimer: I write with great interest but no expertise; you could fill a thimble with what I know about New Testament Greek. What I can tell you is that a number of contemporary Bible translations have sought to bring clarity to a number of passages mentioning Ἰουδαῖοι, reflecting the findings of decades of New Testament scholarship that this term in the New Testament is complex, not simple, with a range of senses and emphases often at odds with what “the Jews” connotes in modern English.

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Much more here.