Issues of New Testament anti-Judaism

Examines various books of the New Testament (especially the Gospels and Acts) in an effort to explain the origins of the conflict between the followers of Jesus and the Jewish leaders of that time. Argues that it was Jesus' claim to be the Son of Man, and the claims of the New Testament that he was the Messiah or God, and the Savior of both Israel and the world which led to the charge of blasphemy on the part of Jewish religious leaders and caused the populace to avoid him or reject him. Most disastrous for future Christian-Jewish relations was the accusation of deicide, which appears in Acts and the Epistles. The authors of these later books disregarded the earlier theological view that Jesus' crucifixion and death were predetermined by God's will; moreover, they made the accusation of deicide against the entire Jewish people rather than against the Jewish leaders of that period or the Jews of Jerusalem. Since then, Christian theologians have succeeded in "globalizing" the crucifixion, presenting it as the most catastrophic event in human history. However, the authors of the New Testament themselves, and later exegetes, maintained that salvation is still possible for the Jews. (From the Bibliography of the Vidal Sassoon International Center for the Study of Antisemitism - The Hebrew University of Jerusalem)