I hear this question a lot lately: “Why do people keep hating and killing Jews?” I avoid answering but there are three people in history who are more responsible than most. Ironically, none appears to ever have directly killed a jew (“directly” being important) and, in fact, at least two were born Jewish.
Flavius Josephus is the name I will use for the writer of The Jewish War circa 76 AD (I am using the anachronistic Anno Domini for latin flair, don’t hate me). He chose to adopt the family name of the Roman General Flavius Vespasian to whom he surrendered as a rebel commander immediately after convincing his 38 subordinates to avoid crucifixion by killing each other in 67AD. Upon his surrender Josephus claimed to his captor that he saw a vision which said (who would have thunk it) that God had decided to "punish" the Jews, that "fortune" had been given to the Romans; and that God had chosen him "to announce the things that are to come" The future Emperor awarded this favor by not only not crucifying him but eventually elevating his newest slave from teacher (a very popular slave caste in that time) to Roman Citizen. Yosef Ben Matityahu was truly a Judah Ben Hur-like success story and possibly an inspiration for the immensely popular 19th century novel. However this transplanted Jew in Rome did not have any “come to Jesus” moments.
Serving as translator and consigliere to the now Emperors’ son Titus, Josephus aided in the siege and sack of Jerusalem that ended the Jewish revolt and begat the first diaspora. This six year war had been horribly cruel and bloody and upon the Emperor Vespasian’s death and Titus’ elevation, he decided the world needed a chronical Rome-splaining just why the Jews had it coming.
Unlike Hebrew texts, Roman histories read as clearly and comfortably as a modern novel with no parables or allegories. The genius of Julius Caesar’s The Gaelic Wars is that it reads like an officer’s notebook with no artifice to betray the river of guile it delivered. Heck, the ghost-writer even penned a postscript that was included in the book! Romans also had long loved a good page turner authored by victims detailing great Roman victories. Polybius’ contemporous chronicles of the Greek and Punic wars The Histories were the bedrock foundational tales of Roman Empire. While the Greek Polybius comes across like Mike Wallace narrating The World At War, Josephus reads rather unctuous and fawning. Methinks this betrays his generous capacity for pandering that may be a self-defense mechanism after witnessing a million of his brethren murdered, tortured and crucified. Understanding this mechanism is a key to separating the tremendous detail in his works from the obvious editorial bias overlaying it all.
The Jewish War gave the Roman world all of the background it needed to conclude the Jews could not be trusted with continued cohesive existence. It would continue to be mis-interpreted as such to this day by those who search for that justification, especially Christians. Interesting though, Josephus made only the most brief and tangential references to a cult of Jesus which was blooming under these troubled waters at the same time.
Trans-Jordan (I chose to use the British Empirical term as it is strictly geographical versus “Palestine” or “Israel”, which are loaded with cultural meaning) at the time of Christ was a bustling economic cross-roads between Egypt and the Fertile Crescent cultures. While Jerusalem was a fairly large city of about 50,000 souls largely reliant on trade and Jewish religion, Galilee was as much Greek as Jewish with Aramaic the common language. Likewise Jews were common throughout the Eastern Mediterranean, which was a melting pot of ethnicities and religions. Arguably the most influential evangelical of this original Jesus cult was the Apostle Paul, a Jew from Tyre, who never met Jesus until decades after his crucifixion.
Paul was a learned polyglot educated in language, mathematics and politics. This made him a perfect agent for the Roman Empire to send to Jerusalem to examine and eliminate a troublesome bunch of rabble-rousers known as the Essenes. While there he identified and prosecuted many who believed in a fellow allegedly crucified for heresy years before by the name of Jesus. Some of these believers felt that he was The Christ, as in the Redeemer who would elevate Jews from their eternal state of condemnation to a Kingdom of God on Earth. Paul was worried about this tiny sect and hastened to the Provincial capital of Damascus to report.
It was on the road to Damascus that Paul claims to had a vision in which he met the long dead Christ. Jesus proceeded to explained to this Roman bureaucrat in great detail all of the how, what and why’s that would become the western Christianity we know today. In a decision that would change history Paul never did report to the Roman Governor in Damascus but headed off to preach the word of God and write about it, a lot.
The Apostal Paul never did write a gospel but his Letters and Epistles, carried on by his acolyte Luke (not the Gospel Luke) and anonymous others originated the vast majority of the christian church’s DNA. While Paul writes about returning to Jerusalem to convene with the Apostle Peter in the 50s AD, there is no historical proof of Peter’s existence, let alone this meeting. In fact, Paul is the only “Apostal” who is historically verifiable. Thus it is conceivable that Paul made this all up, Jesus, Apostles and all, and planted seeds which would blow back and germinate as the original Gospel of Mark twenty years later. In fact, why didn’t anyone write a Gospel within 40 years of Jesus’ death? Possible they did and Paul snuffed them out with their authors as would have been his job. However, in absence of any proof otherwise let's take Paul and his desert visions at their words.
I will not endeavor to detail the works of Paul but instead look to their intent. Paul, like Jesus, preached to a diverse audience that included slaves, woman and gentiles more than Jews. He brought the “one God” message of the Jews with the mercy to the weak, meek and powerless message of Jesus. In the context of an overlording, merciless Empire this message was compelling and spread throughout the east. It was a liberation philosophy that resonated.
Paul’s christianity promised deliverance from evil not only in the hereafter but in real time. His churches would become influential in rebuking the sins of both the Roman Empire and the Jewish people who rejected Jesus as Christ. Like Josephus’ The Jewish War the writings of Paul and his followers would be resources for those looking to demonize Jews up until this day. For example his doctrines can be interpreted as liberating for women (chastity can be seen as reproductive rights in an ancient context) but they more often are used as justification for a misogynistic paradigm. The same can be said for his words regarding Jews. Those who would hate Jews can find ample arguments in the words of Paul.
The last wordsmith I will speak of clearly was influenced by Paul. John of Patmos (not the Apostle John) lived as a hermit on the barren Ionic island of Patmos. He was a prolific writer of letters to various Pauline christian churches focusing on how poorly they were worshipping Christ. He was clearly a cranky curmudgeon who found no use in any moderation of zealous dogma and he wrote a book of nonsensical rantings which few took seriously for hundreds of years but today it may be the most influential work in the western evangelical movement.
The Book of Revelations, written about 90 AD was one of many apocalyptic tomes common to the era. These tales of the end of the world were the zombie fiction of the day but John’s stuck around despite or due to it’s brutal, pornographic depictions of revenge and malice to any who would enjoy life in the mundane world. It clearly depicts Jesus the Christ as a vicious, old testament despot contradicting everything he is purported to have preached. Inexplicably by 330 AD it was largely included as the last book in the New Testament Canon despite almost universal understanding that it was in no way the product of Jesus or any apostle, real or imagined.
Unlike the works of Josephus or Paul, the Revelation of John has no redeeming interpretation and yet, since the late 19th century it has been ingrained and embraced by fundamentalist evangelical churches throughout Europe and America. Besides it’s graphic illustration of brutal torture, murder and rape, it also validates the notion that the reader is living in the End Times. Placed in any era it hypnotizes one into believing that they are at a special time and place in which it is not only okay to be judgmental and cruel but necessary to be so. For all of this magic to work and the reader to be delivered into a heaven of unfathomable luxury Jews must be delivered unto Israel and … annihilated. You, me and all who have ever lived without completely (and zealously) supplicating to the vicious wrath of Old Testament Jehovah and Mean Jesus will forever boil in an endless sea of burning sulfur. Literally.
You will note that none of these authors were Palestinians, Muslims or Arabs. Mohamed prescribed the same treatment of Jews as with all non-Islamics, primarily with coexistence and taxation. The countless pogroms and purges have been by Christians, usually for political or economic objectives and usually referring to these three authors for validation. “Zionism”, which is ubiquitously referred to as an excuse to drive Israel into the sea is actually a product of 19th British evangelicals looking to hasten the Rapture. After the Holocaust in which European “christians” murdered six million Jews, transplanting them to the sparsely populated historical homeland naively seemed like a good idea. There is no religious or moral excuse for the demonization of Jews in Trans-Jordan since 1948 but it seems to be a recent learned behavior.
Just humans being humans in the worst sense I guess.