JESUS, THE MAN AND THE MYTH

The author’s “first encounter with Jesus” occurred when he was a young child in a public park and a group of Catholic students taunted his small group of Jewish friends, chanting “Christ killers!” as their chaperone, a priest, “smiled broadly.” And while more than half a century has passed and the “image of Jews as Christ-killers does seem to be fading,” per the author, there remains a persistent theme in the “Jesus story [that] naturally puts the Jews and Judaism in a bad light.” Despite a 1965 papal declaration that reversed traditional Catholic doctrine about Jewish responsibility for Christ’s death, Mel Gibson’s 2004 film The Passion of the Christ which Seager calls “openly anti-Semitic,” proved to be extremely popular with Catholic and evangelical Protestant audiences. Even among more moderate Christians, the book argues, there remains a consensus that the teachings of Jesus are “superior to Judaism.” This notion has even impacted the beliefs of prominent atheists, such as Richard Dawkins, who often contrast the alleged pacifism and compassion of Christ with the “cruel ogre” God of the Old Testament. Lamentably (to the author), many contemporary Jews regard Jesus as a “sadly misunderstood” yet pious Jew. Central to Seager’s argument, however, is the fact that “the Jews who actually knew Jesus overwhelmingly rejected his message.” By offering a “Jewish reading” of the Gospels (which he describes as a “remarkable work of anti-Jewish propaganda”), the author argues that Jesus failed to understand Judaism. Seager further charges that Jesus openly pitted himself against Pharisees and the leading Jewish thinkers of the day and often misquoted Hebrew Scripture to spin Jewish teachings in a negative light; while Jews recognized the maxim “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth” as a call for moderation and restraint when seeking justice, Jesus quoted it “as if it sanctioned vengeance or reprisal.” Seager reports that Jesus also misquotes Leviticus, telling his followers “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbour and hate your enemy,’ ” yet the phrase “hate your enemy” is absent from the Hebrew text. To the author, this deliberate mistranslation suggests that Jesus “either was dishonest or simply did not understand the Bible.”

A retired professor of history from the University of Montreal, Seager has published multiple monographs on antisemitism and Jewish history. Featuring a 20-page bibliographic essay that demonstrates a firm command over both Jewish and Christian doctrine—in addition to nearly 450 endnotes—the book is clearly the product of a skilled researcher. Most impressive, however, is the text’s careful balance of nuanced historical analysis and an accessible, grounded writing style designed for Jewish laity. Its concise narrative is less than 165 pages and deliberately avoids academic jargon while also providing surgically precise analyses of Jewish and Christian teachings and history. While the book is often harsh in its descriptions of Christ and Christian theology, Christian readers have much to learn from this work about the ways in which their own rhetoric and traditions have marginalized and maligned Judaism.