Jewish deicide is the notion that the Jews as a people will always be collectively responsible for the killing of Jesus, even through the successive generations following his death. A Biblical justification for the charge of Jewish deicide is derived from . Some rabbinical authorities, such as 12th-century scholar Maimonides and, more recently, ultranationalist Israeli rabbi, Zvi Yehuda Kook (1891–1982), have asserted that Jesus was indeed stoned and hanged after being sentenced to death in a rabbinical court.
The notion arose in early Christianity, the charge was made by Justin Martyr and Melito of Sardis as early as the 2nd century. The accusation that the Jews were Christ-killers fed Christian antisemitism and spurred on acts of violence against Jews such as pogroms, massacres of Jews during the Crusades, expulsions of the Jews from England, France, Spain, Portugal and other places, and torture during the Spanish and Portuguese Inquisitions.
In the catechism that was produced by the Council of Trent in the mid-16th century, the Catholic Church taught the belief that the collectivity of sinful humanity was responsible for the death of Jesus, not only the Jews. If one were to claim that only the Jews were responsible for Jesus’ death, the logical corollary to this would be that Jesus’ redemptive suffering, death and resurrection was for the sins of Jews alone and not all of humanity, as is taught by the Church. In the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965), the Catholic Church under Pope Paul VI issued the declaration Nostra aetate that repudiated the idea of a collective, multigenerational Jewish guilt for the crucifixion of Jesus. It declared that the accusation could not be made "against all the Jews, without distinction, then alive, nor against the Jews of today".
Most other churches do not have any binding position on the matter, but some Christian denominations have issued declarations against the accusation.
Sources
Matthew 27:24–25
A justification for the charge of Jewish deicide has been sought in Matthew 27:24–25:
The verse which reads: "And all the people answered, 'His blood be on us and on our children! is also referred to as the blood curse. In an essay regarding antisemitism, biblical scholar Amy-Jill Levine argues that this passage has caused more suffering throughout Jewish history than any other passage in the New Testament.
John 5:16–18
Many also point to the Gospel of John as evidence of Christian charges of deicide. As Samuel Sandmel writes, "John is widely regarded as either the most anti-Semitic or at least the most overtly anti-Semitic of the gospels." Support for this claim comes in several places throughout John, such as in :
Some scholars describe this passage as irrefutably referencing and implicating the Jews in deicide, although many, such as scholar Robert Kysar, also argue that part of the severity of this charge comes more from those who read and understand the text than the text itself. John uses the term , Ioudaioi, meaning "the Jews" or "the Judeans", as the subject of these sentences. However, the notion that the Jew is meant to represent all Jews is often disputed, with many English translations rendering the phrase more specifically as "Jewish leaders". While the New Testament is often more subtle or leveled in accusations of deicide, many scholars hold that these works cannot be held in isolation, and must be considered in the context of their interpretation by later Christian communities.
Historicity of Matthew 27:24–25
According to the gospel accounts, Jewish authorities in Roman Judea charged Jesus with blasphemy and sought his execution, but lacked the authority to have Jesus put to death (John 18:31), so they brought Jesus to Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor of the province, who authorized Jesus' execution (John 19:16). The Jesus Seminar's Scholars Version translation note for John 18:31 adds: "it's illegal for us: The accuracy of this claim is doubtful." It is noted, for example, that Jewish authorities were responsible for the stoning of Saint Stephen in Acts 7:54 and of James the Just in Antiquities of the Jews without the consent of the governor. Josephus however, notes that the execution of James happened while the newly appointed governor Lucceius Albinus "was but upon the road" to assume his office. Also Acts relates that the stoning happened in a lynching-like manner, in the course of Stephen's public criticism of Jews who refused to believe in Jesus.