Did the Jews Kill (or Hate) Jesus? Learn the Truth!

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily match my own. - Dr. Bart D. Ehrman

Did the Jews kill Jesus? Few questions in Christian history have been as fraught with misunderstanding — and as devastating in their consequences — as that accusation. For centuries, this claim has fueled antisemitism, violence, and deep divisions between Christianity and Judaism. But does the New Testament discuss a Jewish deicide? If so, was it the murder of God? Who were “the Jews” in the Gospel narratives, and how should we understand that term today? The answer lies not just in theology or tradition, but in language, context, and history.

In this article, I’ll explore what the Gospels really meant when they referred to the Jews, how these texts have been interpreted (and misinterpreted), and, ultimately, who was truly responsible for Jesus’ death.

The deicide definition from Merriam-Webster is an event that kills a divine being or symbolic substitute of that being. However, even that descriptor is complicated since individuals and groups attribute different characteristics to Jesus depending on if they view him as a divine being, merely a historical figure, or neither.

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Etymology: Who Are “the Jews” in the Gospels?

The Greek word translated into English as “Jews” in the New Testament is Ioudaioi. The problem with translating this word properly is that there are two distinct possibilities. For example, while “Jews” is one overarching option, the word technically meant “a person who resides in or is from the region of Judea,” the region in Palestine where Jerusalem was located. This would mean, of course, that Jesus — who came from the region of Galilee — might not have been classified as one of the Ioudaioi, but rather as a Galilean (Greek: Galilaios).

However, Adele Reinhartz points out that the issue of whether to translate Ioudaioi as “Jews” or “Judeans” is quite complicated. She notes that some scholars prefer “Judeans” because translating the word as “Jews” can fuel anti-Jewish biases. On the other hand, we have ancient references to some people called Ioudaioi who had no direct association with Judea, thus signaling a group identity outside of regionalism. Reinhartz finally concludes that

For this reason, most scholars and Bible translations still translate the word as “Jews.”

While there are certainly some positive references to the Ioudaioi  in the New Testament — see John 4:22, for instance, where Jesus says salvation originates with them — there are an overwhelming number of negative allusions to them as well. Let’s look at some of these examples.

References to the Jews in the New Testament

In the Gospel of Mark, there is really only one explicit reference to “the Jews” (if we leave out the multiple times Jesus is accused of saying he was “King of the Jews”). It appears in Mark 7:3, in which the Pharisees reproach Jesus’ disciples for eating without washing their hands for the purpose of ritual purity. The author then explains that “the Pharisees, and all the Jews, do not eat unless they wash their hands, thus observing the tradition of the elders…”

This is a mildly negative reference, since Jesus’ next words scold the Pharisees for caring more about outward purity than inward purification. Finally in Mark 15, we see that Jesus, having been arrested by the Jewish leaders known as the Sanhedrin, is handed over to Pilate to be killed.

However, it’s in Matthew’s Gospel that we begin to see the most damaging portraits of “the Jews.” This is odd, in a way, since Matthew is generally considered the most Jewish of the four Gospels.

Like Mark, Matthew’s explicit use of the word Ioudaioi is basically limited to the charge “King of the Jews” which accusers say Jesus has claimed for himself. However, in a scene just before his crucifixion, the Roman governor Pontius Pilate, about to hand Jesus over to be crucified, washes his hands, symbolically claiming to be innocent of Jesus’ blood. The crowd, who in Jerusalem must have been mostly Jews, says “His blood be on us and on our children!” This line has been used for centuries to justify all forms of antisemitism. Not only do the Jewish leaders hand Jesus over in Matthew, but even the Jewish laypeople demand his blood.

Even worse are the references to the Jews in the Gospel of John. We see them persecuting Jesus in 5:16 and plotting to kill him in 5:18. In 8:44, Jesus describes them as the children of the devil, while in John 7:12-14, we see that the people (who, again, are predominantly Jewish themselves) are afraid of the Jews:

As in the other Gospels, Pilate is reluctant to kill Jesus in John, but when the Jews insist on his execution, Pilate acquiesces. I’ve written before about how unlikely this scenario is, based on our knowledge of the ruthlessness of Pilate and how little he cared about Jewish opinions, despite what the Gospel of John says.

Since the authors of Matthew and John (and possibly the author of Mark) were Jews themselves, what is going on here?

The Intended Meaning of Ioudaioi

In The Jews and the World in the Fourth Gospel: Parallelism, Function, and Context, Lars Kierspel notes that the scholarly consensus is that all the references to “the Jews” in the Gospels refer only to the Jewish religious leaders. Furthermore, in The Gospel and Letters of John, Alan Culpepper notes that in some cases, translating Ioudaioi merely as “the Jews,” indicating all Jews, doesn’t entirely make sense:

As for the disturbing line in Matthew attributing guilt collectively to the Jews for Jesus’ death, there was something else going on there (this is not to deny the horrible effects of the misinterpretation of that line throughout history). In the Jewish Annotated New Testament, Aaron Gale writes that since the author of Matthew was writing years after the destruction of the Temple and the devastation of Jerusalem by the Romans in 70 CE, he was likely indicating that this destruction was a punishment for the Jewish people’s later refusal to accept that Jesus was the Messiah.

Now that we’ve looked at the literary aspects of whether the Jews killed Jesus, let’s look at the historical aspect. Was Jesus hated by the Jews, and if so, were they responsible for his death?

Did the Jews Hate Jesus?

Having clarified the meanings of Ioudaioi (Jews, residents of Judea, or Jewish religious leaders) in the Gospels, can we answer the question of whether the Jews hated Jesus during his lifetime? If we follow the Gospel narratives here, it seems there was a mixed reaction.

When it comes to the Pharisees and other religious leaders, we definitely see examples of hatred for Jesus in the Gospels, to the point of wanting to kill him (see John 11:53, for example). However, crowds of Jewish people seem to have loved Jesus. When he entered Jerusalem, for instance, Matthew 21:9  says he received a king’s reception:

Moreover, in Mark 2:1-12, it’s clear that huge crowds followed him adoringly, both to be healed and to hear his message. The question of whether ALL Jews hated Jesus is overly broad, and the answer is clearly no. So, did the Jews kill Jesus?

Who Killed Jesus and Why?

Why was Jesus killed? Many people throughout Christian history have tried to answer this question. Was he executed because he committed blasphemy, offending the Jewish leaders? Was he killed because he created a ruckus in the Temple? What was the real reason he was hung on a cross?

First, who, in Jesus’ time, regularly used crucifixion as a method of capital punishment? John Granger Cook notes that while the Persians and Carthaginians did, the people best known for it in the ancient world were the Romans. For this reason, Kaufman Kohler and Emil Hirsch write that  “The mode and manner of Jesus' death undoubtedly point to Roman customs and laws as the directive power.” So did the Romans kill Jesus?

Furthermore, Kohler and Hirsch note that “Among the modes of capital punishment known to the Jewish penal law, crucifixion is not found.” In other words, the only possible answer for who crucified Jesus was the Romans, not the Jews.

However, this leaves us the question of why the Romans would have executed Jesus. Why would they have considered him dangerous enough to kill?

In all four Gospels, the charge put on the cross over Jesus’ head to indicate his crime says one thing: “King of the Jews.” What this likely means is that Jesus had indeed claimed to be the true King of the Jews. As Bart Ehrman writes, “Anyone else who claimed to be king was usurping Roman prerogatives and was seen as a threat, or if not a threat, at least a public nuisance.  Romans had ways of dealing with lower-class peasants who were troublemakers and public nuisances.” This claim was a political crime, a form of sedition against Rome, for which the punishment would always be crucifixion.

Rome didn’t care about Jewish conceptions of blasphemy or conflicts between different Jewish groups. They only cared about threats to Roman rule.

The Jews, however defined, didn’t kill Jesus. The Romans did.

Conclusion

For millennia, Jews have been mistreated by Christians who believed they were justified in their behavior since “the Bible said that the Jews killed Jesus.” Despite the obvious horrors this interpretation caused, accurate readings of biblical texts rule that possibility out.

Ioudaioi, the Greek term usually translated as “Jews,” could also mean residents or natives of the region of Judea in southern Palestine. However, it’s clear that, in the Gospels, there are plenty of negative references to Ioudaioi that need explanation.

The Gospel of Mark characterizes the Jews as those who care more about the outward purity while Jesus and his followers prioritize inward, moral purity. In Matthew, a crowd of Jews scream for Jesus’ death while voluntarily taking responsibility for it. This line has caused more antisemitic reactions than any other in the Bible. In John, meanwhile, the Jews persecute Jesus and plot to kill him. But there is more here than meets the eye.

It's clear to most scholars that most of the references to “the Jews” in these writings refer only to the Jewish religious leaders. Translating every reference as “the Jews” is also nonsensical in some passages, such as when a crowd of Jews is afraid of “the Jews.” This is not to negate the centuries of suffering perpetrated upon Jews by misinterpretations of the texts.

Finally, it’s clear, both from the method of execution and the political charge, that Jesus was killed by the Romans. Although he never says it explicitly in the Gospels, he probably did call himself “King of the Jews,” a title which smacked of sedition to Rome, and likely brought the force of the occupying Roman powers down on his head.

Did the Jews kill Jesus? No. Jesus was definitely killed by the Romans.