RESPONSE TO THE EASTER MESSAGES, Chapter 4 of Who Crucified Christ by Ogden K

RESPONSE TO THE EASTER MESSAGES,  Chapter 4 of Who Crucified Christ by Ogden Kraut 

It is tragic indeed that the birth pangs of Christianity were occasioned by an event in which Jews were directly implicated. (Ellis Rivkin, “What Crucified Christ?” p. 3)

As previously mentioned, in 1964 the Roman Pope decreed that “all of us” are guilty of the death of Christ. This was one of the first times in the “nearly two millennia” that guilt was shifted from the Jews to someone or something else.

Then even more recently, the Jewish scholar, Ellis Rivkin, tells us that the issue is not who but what killed Jesus, and he put the blame on the “imperial system.” But systems do not function independently all by themselves–people direct them. All governments, like machinery, are designed, built, and operated by human beings, including the Roman or Jewish system of government.

Naturally, Rivkin, a Jew himself, would tend to steer around the issue that “for nearly two millennia, Jews have been blamed for the death of Jesus.” We cannot blame him because it is natural for one to defend his own religion, race and politics. And certainly it is not correct to say that all Jews were guilty of the deed. Among the first “Christians” were Jews, and they had held great responsibilities until the time of Christ, as indicated in the great patriarchal blessing pronounced upon them by their forefather, Jacob.