Skip to main content

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
  • Site
    • English home page
    • المصادر بالعربية
    • Πηγές στα Ελληνικά
    • Recursos en español
    • منابع موجود به زبان فارسی
    • Ressources en français
    • Gyűjtemény és tudástár magyar nyelven
    • Sumber Bahasa Indonesia
    • Materiali e risorse in italiano
    • 日本語のリソース
    • 한국어 자료
    • Recursos em Português (do Brasil)
    • Материалы на русском языке
    • Türkçe Kaynaklar
    • اُردو ری سورسز
    • 中文参考资料
  • Events
  • Plan Your Visit
  • Support the Museum
  • Connect
  • Donate
  • Learn About The Holocaust
  • Remember Survivors and Victims
  • Confront Genocide and Antisemitism

  • Home
  • Academic Research
  • About the Mandel Center
  • Initiatives
  • Ethics, Religion, and the Holocaust
  • Articles
  • Christian Persecution of Jews over the Centuries: Introduction

The Earliest Christians

  • Opportunities for Academics
  • Publications
  • About the Mandel Center
    • Initiatives
      • Campus Outreach
      • Ethics, Religion, and the Holocaust
        • Committee on Ethics, Religion, and the Holocaust
        • Articles
          • Kristallnacht: How Did Religious Leaders in the US Respond?
          • Christian Persecution of Jews over the Centuries: Introduction
          • Jews and Christians: The Unfolding Interfaith Relationship
          • Dietrich Bonhoeffer
        • Resources on Ethics, Religion, and the Holocaust
      • Global South
    • Our Staff and Scholars
    • All Fellows and Scholars
    • Current Mandel Center Fellows
    • Academic Committee
  • Tools for Research
  • Collections Search
  • Christian Persecution of Jews over the Centuries: Introduction
  • Christian Persecution of Jews over the Centuries
  • The Earliest Christians
  • Political Changes
  • Peaceful Coexistence and Papal Intervention
  • The Medieval Era
  • European anti-Semitism after 1800
  • Summary

Many of today’s Jews are convinced that the horror of Hitler’s days was simply the culmination of centuries of Judenhass ("Jew Hate"). But is this what happened? Were the baptized Christians of Europe ripe for the pagan nationalism of Hitler, Rosenberg, Göring, Himmler, and the rest?

  • The claim of Jesus’ followers that their Master was the sole authentic interpreter of Mosaic Law was not unusual. What set his followers apart was the claim that God had raised him up from the dead. Most Jews could hear this with amusement and, in the early days, without any violent reaction. As Pharisee-oriented Jews knew, the resurrection of the just would occur on the Last Day once it was heralded by Elijah’s return. There was no mention of the resurrection of one individual well before Elijah’s announcement. The Jesus Jews were convinced that their people’s scriptures had foretold it. Most Jews were not.
  • The sole written testimonies to the tensions over Jesus in various Jewish communities are the writings in Greek by ethnic Jews compiled around 135, later called the New Testament. They were written at a time when the language of the gentiles that had produced so much Jewish post-biblical writing was being disavowed by the newly authoritative Rabbis. The Christian writings were produced roughly between 50 and 125, and came to be called by what they were believed to have given witness to: namely, a "new" or, better, "renewed" covenant (in Latin, but a not quite accurate translation of B’rith: Novum Testamentum).
  • In two of his letters, Paul accuses his fellow Jews of substituting their own "justness," resulting from Mosaic observance, for the only true justness: the one that comes from faith in what God had done in Christ. By "faith" he means perfect trust in God as the One who raised Jesus from the dead. Paul in effect accuses of bad faith any Jews who have heard his message and not accepted it.
  • Similar and even harsher language is directed at "the Jews" in the Gospel according to John. This late first-century writing features bitter internal Jewish argumentation. Hard fighting and harsh words were no strangers to religious strife among post-70 Jews. There was about this exchange, however, one tragic detail. Within a century one of the two litigants ceased to be ethnically Jewish. That changed everything. The fact was that many Judean Jews knew little of Jesus; and most Jews in the diaspora never heard of the movement until more than one hundred years had passed. This did not keep the new, largely gentile proclaimers of the Gospel from assuming that they understood the Jewish lack of response as a failure to acknowledge what they should have known from their scriptures.

About the Museum

  • Plan Your Visit
  • Current Exhibitions
  • Calendar of Events
  • Support the Museum
  • Donate

Resources

  • Learn
  • Teach
  • Collections
  • Academic Research
  • Remember Survivors and Victims
  • Genocide Prevention
  • Antisemitism and Holocaust Denial
  • Outreach

Museum Websites

  • Holocaust Encyclopedia
  • Collections Search
  • Holocaust Survivors and Victims Resource Center
  • History Unfolded
  • Experiencing History
  • Early Warning Project
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

100 Raoul Wallenberg Place, SW
Washington, DC 20024-2126
Main telephone: 202.488.0400
TTY: 202.488.0406

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Youtube
  • Instagram
  • About the Museum
  • Contact the Museum
  • Terms of Use
  • Privacy
  • Accessibility
  • Legal