Well, I guess I should have anticipated this. Yes, Matthew 27:25 has the infamous passage in which the Jewish crowd declares “His blood be upon us.” I did know that. What I didn’t know is that the entire argument hinges on this one passage. Or at least that’s what people are telling me. Again, surely not every Jew was in that crowd, right? Anyway, here’s an interesting essay a reader tipped me off to. And here’s an email from a friend of mine:
Hey, Jonah. I’m sure you’re getting a million emails answering this, but the reason the stigma of having killed Jesus is thought to carry onto Jews of every generation is the point in Matthew (I think it’s like 27:25) where the Jews apparently called out “Let his [Jesus’s] blood be upon us and on our children.” This quatation is also largely behind the medieval blood libel (that Jews drank the blood of young Christian children) and the accusation that Jews desecrated the Host, and is a large part of why so many anti-semitic incidents in Europe (pogroms in the East, massacres and forced conversions of Jews in small towns in the West) took place around Easter.
Hope you’re having a great morning!