The House of Representatives has passed bipartisan legislation requiring the Department of Education to use a controversial definition of anti-Semitism that conservatives claim makes the Bible illegal. Critics say the definition, which was adopted from the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA), would essentially make blaming Jews for the death of Jesus Christ, among other things, on par with a hate crime.
Conservatives are pointing to verses in the Bible that refer to the role Jewish authorities in Roman Judea played in having Christ executed. The historical Jesus Christ was considered by many authorities at the time to be a blasphemer and an “instigator” or even a “magician” making fantastical claims about being the messiah. Because of the role of these authorities in denouncing him to the Roman authorities, who executed Jesus, responsibility for Jesus’ death has often been ascribed to Jews by anti-Semites motivated by Christian doctrine.
And because the definition of anti-Semitism approved by the House includes the use of “symbols and images associated with classic antisemitism (e.g., claims of Jews killing Jesus or blood libel),” some conservatives believe that their religious doctrine is in danger.
“Did the House of Representatives just make parts of the Bible illegal?” asked Turning Point USA Founder & CEO Charlie Kirk in a tweet on X following the bill’s passage.
“Yes,” Tucker Carlson replied in a quote tweet. “The New Testament.”
Posters in the comments clarified what the conservative heavyweights were referring to by pointing to the IHRA definition and Bible verses that anti-Semites often point to ascribing culpability for Jesus’ death to the Jews in general, including Matthew 27:24-25 and 1 Thessalonians 2:14-15. In the first quote, Pontius Pilate, the Roman official who ordered Jesus’ execution, says he washes his hands of responsibility for the execution, placing it on those who denounced Jesus and demanded he be punished.
In Thessalonians, followers of Christ are described by St. Paul as being persecuted by the Jewish leadership in Judea, who are described as having killed Jesus, not “pleas[ing] … God,” and being “contrary to all men.”
Biblical justification for anti-Semitism has been a common theme over the past two millennia, with everybody from the Protestant leader Martin Luther to Adolf Hitler pointing to actions of the Jewish authorities in Roman Judea over 2,000 years ago as justification for the persecution of Jewish people.
And while the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism has been criticized by Israeli organizations and civil society groups for being overbroad and preventing legitimate criticism of the state of Israel, the debate surrounding Carlson and Kirk’s tweets centered mostly around traditional Christian and neo-Nazi style anti-Semitism.
“Pretty sure they are trying to make Christianity a crime,” posted @Magnus_Veritas in response to Kirk’s tweet. “The jews crucifying Jesus is the foundation of Christianity.”
Although the statement was quickly jumped on by posters clarifying that it was the resurrection and sacrifice of Christ that was the foundation of the religion, @Magnus_Veritas doubled down, posting an infographic pointing to a laundry list of Bible verses ascribing Jewish responsibility for the crucifixion.
Other posters crossed over into sharing explicit Nazi propaganda.
“Let’s hope for the best,” posted @consciousphilos in response to Carlson’s tweet over a picture of a quotation from the Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels.
Though there’s little evidence of the exact wording of the quote @consciousphilos posted, in 1943 Goebbels wrote in the Nazi newspaper Das Reich that “in the long run, it does the Jews no good to plead in parliament and the newspapers for tougher laws against anti-Semitism, or to haul out the highest secular and spiritual dignitaries, among them naturally the Archbishop of Canterbury, to say a good word for the poor innocent persecuted Jews. They did that in Germany before 1933 too, but the National Socialist revolution took place nonetheless.”
Posters also told people to call their Senators to vote against the bill before it becomes law, while others had a more old-fashioned solution to the problem.
“We need to restore the holy inquisition to stop this at once,” posted @CalimanYaro.
The bill also received condemnation from Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Georgia), who similarly argued that its wording went against Christianity.
“Antisemitism is wrong, but I will not be voting for the Antisemitism Awareness Act of 2023 (H.R. 6090) today that could convict Christians of antisemitism for believing the Gospel that says Jesus was handed over to Herod to be crucified by the Jews,” she said.
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