Unheard of Murder

I had this conversation. What else is there to talk about these days except hate, or the virus. And, if you’re talking about the virus, it usually gets to how much you hate Donald Trump who thinks the only reason we have so many cases is because we do so much testing. He definitely has overdosed on clorox. Meanwhile, I have continued to do what I do, mostly “sheltered in” owing more to professional lifestyle than medical motivation, writing about the historical Jesus. What’s that got to do with hate? Aside from the grotesque horrors of predatory police murder, trimming the “colored herd” to preserve white America (my POV), we Jews aren’t historically the world’s favorite people, either.

So, a church-going guy who is a genuine close friend, starts to talk about how “interesting” it is that I, a Jew, have been so enamored of Jesus as to write a few books about him. The old axiom, that friends best avoid talking about politics and religion guided me to ask how his playwriting was doing, and to my amazement he said he was writing a true story…based on me.

Aware we were crossing a line which might lead to resentment or misgivings, I mused aloud, “but what background about me is it based on?” (This query was suggesting I had never opened up any recessed secrets about my failed romances, academic cataclysms, or degenerate fantasies…)

“I know you have done the right thing,” he said, as if I was sure to know what he was talking about.

“Great!” I replied. “I’m off the hook. And what was it again that I did that’s worth a play?”

“Not really you. But you know, a member of your family.”

“My family has gotten parking tickets. I know my brother auctioned a fake painting. But he didn’t realize it…”

“We’re talking about the murder.”

If somebody in my family had committed a murder and everybody but me knew about it, I had really been too out of touch.

“So is he in jail? And could you just humor me with his name?”

My friend just looked at me with such obvious compassion I could only mumble, 

“Did they execute him?”

“Abram, here’s what I want you to understand. A lot of people hold it against you for what happened. I don’t. Of course murder is wrong. But if  that man wasn’t killed, millions of people would never have been saved. We owe our lives to your family for killing him.”

At this point in the conversation I was pretty sure the crime had nothing to do with my brother selling a fake painting.

My confounded, open-mouthed expression must have catalyzed his explanation: “I’m talking about your Jewish family, your People, killing Jesus. I just want you to know, Lutherans like me don’t just forgive you, we love you. You were the agents of God’s plan to save us. He chose you, like it says, to save us. And soon you will be saved too.”

Our ZOOM time was up and I thanked him for the reprieve promising to send him a courtesy copy of my forthcoming book. It has taken thirty-five years in the pressure cooker of academic research and evolving insights to complete “Responsio Iudaeorum Nostrae Aetatis–The Case Against the Gospels’ False Accusation of the Jews.” (Coming soon)

Whether a Jew is more assuaged by the balm of Catholic “forgiveness” extended for pressing for the death of their Christ (the language of the church Nostra Aetate, 1965), or an appreciation as complicit in God’s grim agenda, pursuant to Lutheran doctrine, I find requires a new awareness.

The reality is that the Canonized texts describing Jews as satanic murderers of the Christian messiah, read and sung at every major mass and church service, are a wellspring of historic anti-Semitism nurturing the persecution of Jews through the ages until the present. 

The Jews who supposedly conspired to kill Jesus and are portrayed as bloodthirsty ghouls in the Gospels actually had no role whatsoever in any of the events depicting them as perpetrators. Technical critical deconstruction of all the passages involved, now enabled by new linguistic analysis, shows the texts to be a complete and total defamatory fabrication.  

Ps. If you’re wondering what my friend will say when I assert we did not do it, so am I. But with his salvation depending on my being wrong, I guess he would call himself crazy before believing Jesus himself.

For a pre-publication copy of the “Forward” to the treatise, send your email to:

HistoricalTorah@aol.com with the subject: Send “Forward” to “Case Against the Gospels”