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Mark 12 As Israel As Christ-Killers : The Allegory Of The Wicked Tenants

Decent Essays

The understanding of Mark 12 as Israel’s rejection and replacement is a dangerous one. How might it affect the theological relationship between Jews and Christians? If the vineyard’s tenants are to be understood as representing Israel, how does that portray the Hebrew people if the tenants killed the landowner’s son representing Jesus as he is murdered and his body is displaced beyond the vineyard walls? “Matthew sees both Jesus’ mission and the mission of his messengers as having the purpose of exhibiting and bringing to completion the already existing guilt of Israel. Although this is not clearly articulated with respect to Jesus’ own mission, it is implied in the allegory of the Wicked Tenants, in which the sending of the Son serves only to demonstrate conclusively the guilt which has characterized the Tenants from the beginning,” (Eakin 36-7). The notion of Jews as Christ-killers has been a rampant cause of anti-semitism and theological anti-Jewish thought throughout history. Charges of the blood libel are related to this position. In 1144 England, the Jews of Norwich were accused of the murder of a small boy; the local church then fabricated that the Jews had crucified William. These conspiracies proliferated throughout Europe, leading to violence of great proportions against European Jewry. Again in 1255 a similar accusation arose in Lincoln, England, where local officials accused Jews of crucifying a child and executed a large number of the local population. In 1290,

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