The Scriptures, The Church and Anti-Semitism: Christianity's Original Sin

God inspired the New Testament authors to write, but not everything they wrote was inspired by God. The birth of Christianity as it issued forth from the womb of Judaism was painful and agonizing, as is reflected in many of the New Testament writings, especially those of the gospels. In their recounting of that birth, the evangelists were not immune from the limitations of the human condition as they put down in writing the Christian exodus from Mother Judaism. In codifying the strife, bitterness and persecutions visited by both sides on one another during the early days of Christianity's unfolding, the sacred writers often distorted the struggles between Jesus and the Jewish leaders of his own day by casting back into the time of his life and ministry what were, in fact, the end of the first century struggles between synagogues and churches. The resultant anti-Jewish texts which we read today in the Scriptures must be analyzed and explicated by Christian homilists in their proper historical context so as to counter the anti-Semitic thrust which can be garnered from a literalistic and fundamentalist reading or hearing of such text. This task is incumbent upon the Church, for she claims the role of guardian of the Scriptures.