Harrison Butker, “the Jews,” and the New American Bible

[who killed Jesus, and what it has to do with antisemitic perceptions among US Catholics—and the Bible translation used in English Masses in the US]

Crowd image courtesy the LUMO project via FreeBibleImages.com

I know, I know: Harrison Butker’s Benedictine College commencement address is so two weeks ago, and you’re over it. So say we all! This post is really about something else: a topic with implications going far beyond the opinions expressed by one football player at a Catholic college commencement. But Mr. Butker’s speech is what recently got some people both in the Catholic world and beyond briefly talking this topic, so it’s an obvious point of entry. I’m talking about assigning responsibility for Jesus’ death and its relationship to antisemitism historically and today.

Not that there’s been a lot of discussion about this particular topic! Most of the controversy surrounding Butker’s address, and specifically around how themes in the address relate to ideas and attitudes found in conservative or Traditionalist Catholic circles, has centered on Butker’s remarks about women and vocation, with side discussions on Natural Family Planning and the Traditional Latin Mass or TLM. But the implications of the following remark, while they have received some attention, deserve more than they have so far received:

We fear speaking truth, because now, unfortunately, truth is in the minority. Congress just passed a bill where stating something as basic as the biblical teaching of who killed Jesus could land you in jail.

Bracket, in passing, the paranoia about “landing in jail.” I have no brief here either for or against the Antisemitism Awareness Act (passed recently, not by Congress, but only by the House). Suffice to say, though, that a) it’s not a criminal law bill, and b) it’s aimed, not at actionable behavior of individuals, but at the disciplinary policies of universities. Even if it becomes law, no one will ever be jailed in enforcement of this bill. Hard as it may be for some American Christians to accept, there is no plausible near-future scenario that finds them doing time for professions of faith deemed offensive by the state! This is not to say that there are no challenges to religious liberty or free speech in the US, or that there are no valid concerns about this particular bill. Fears of criminal prosecution, though, reflect a popular conservative paranoia that deserves attention in its own right, though it’s not my topic here.

Had Butker limited himself to expressing concerns about the bill (or the definition of antisemitism it references) potentially stretching the idea of antisemitism to indict academic free speech, his comments would have been within the pale of reasonable debate. Invoking “the biblical teaching of who killed Jesus” in this context, though, not only implies the answer “the Jews,” it amounts to planting a flag on the necessity of bravely saying that “the Jews killed Jesus”—however unpopular or politically incorrect this “truth” may be deemed by the majority. In effect, for Butker and for many of his fans and other like-minded believers, “The Jews killed Jesus” is a Christian shibboleth or identity marker, and opposition to this shibboleth is opposition to the New Testament and persecution of Christians.

Who killed Jesus?

There are several problems here. First, taken as a whole, “the biblical teaching of who killed Jesus” is, of course, that Jesus was sentenced and executed by local Roman authority, acting at the instigation of certain Jewish leaders in Jerusalem. The formulation “The Jews killed Jesus,” under any reasonable construction of those English words in 2024, is both false and objectionable—and, while it may not be particularly brave, it is necessary in 2024 to say that these words are false and objectionable. A much-quoted passage from the 1965 Vatican II declaration Nostra Aetate offers still-important perspective here:

True, the Jewish authorities and those who followed their lead pressed for the death of Christ; still, what happened in his passion cannot be charged against all the Jews, without distinction, then alive, nor against the Jews of today.

The reason Nostra Aetate says this, of course, is that for much of Christian history many Christians did ascribe Jesus’ death to “the Jews” without qualification. The charge of Jewish deicide has a long history, from medieval anti-Jewish bias and harassment and persecution of Jews to modern antisemitism, up to and including the Holocaust and beyond. Throughout history Jews have been persecuted and oppressed as “Christ killers,” particularly around Holy Week in connection with ramped-up violence. Particularly in a time of rising antisemitism, making a shibboleth of “the Jews killed Jesus” is indefensible, and Jewish concern about and resistance to this language is reasonable and should be supported by Christians, not opposed.

In passing, as a TLM Traditionalist Butker represents a strand of Catholic identity and praxis different from my own. I am an orthodox Catholic deacon serving at what would widely be considered a conservative Catholic parish, but we are not Traditionalists and we celebrate the Mass according to the current liturgical books. Because of this, I should clarify, first, that the concerns of this post reflect my own experience in mainstream orthodox Catholic parishes, not the situation in Traditionalist Catholicism, with which I have very little experience.

In particular, I am not writing to diagnose antisemitism in Traditionalist Catholicism specifically, and certainly not to indict Butker personally of antisemitism. It is Butker’s language, not his heart or his beliefs, that I take issue with—and my subject here is the place of that language in mainstream Catholic parishes, not Traditionalist parishes. Antisemitic language and attitudes exist in non-TLM Catholic circles; I’ve heard “the Jews” (or, in one case, “the Hebes”) scapegoated over coffee after Mass, and worse. Catholics are called to reject and condemn antisemitism, and that includes rejecting the shibboleth “the Jews killed Jesus.”

For those who hesitate over this simple linguistic point, a simple thought experiment may be clarifying. Consider how the phrase “the Jews” functions in the following sentences:

1. The goal of the Nazi “final solution” was the extermination of the Jews.

2. God holds the Jews most dear for the sake of their Fathers; he does not repent of the gifts he makes or of the calls he issues. (Nostra Aetate)

3. The Jews of Jesus’ day were not monolithic, but included various factions or sects, notably Pharisees, Sadducees, and Essenes.

4. The Jews killed Jesus.

One of these things, obviously, is not like the others! Three of these sentences use “the Jews” in a straightforward, unqualified sense; the fourth does not. At best this sentence can be understood as using a form of figurative language called synecdoche, which substitutes a part for the whole or vice versa. Figurative language is perfectly normal and natural when and where it’s generally understood and causes no gross or harmful misunderstandings. A figure of speech deeply associated with centuries of bigotry, persecution, oppression, and violence ceases to be perfectly normal and natural, and more literal and precise language should be preferred. This is not hard to understand and should not be hard to accept.

The New Testament, anti-Jewish polemics, and antisemitism

It is important to be clear, at the same time, that unqualified “The Jews killed Jesus” language did not come from nowhere. The earliest roots of this language are present in the New Testament from its beginnings, in the Apostle Paul’s first letter to the Thessalonians, written about 20 years of Jesus’ death (circa A.D. 50). In this early letter Paul ascribes the killing of Jesus to “οἱ Ἰουδαῖοι” (hoi Ioudaioi), traditionally translated “the Jews”:

For you, brothers, have become imitators of the churches of God that are in Judea in Christ Jesus. For you suffer the same things from your compatriots as they did from the Jews, who killed both the Lord Jesus and the prophets and persecuted us… (1 Thessalonians 2:14–15)

(Unless otherwise noted, all quotations are from the New American Bible or NAB, the English translation used at English Latin-Rite Masses in the US. For what it’s worth, it is not widely used in Traditionalist circles.)

The same term is frequently used in later New Testament books, often in polemical contexts of conflict involving either Jesus himself (especially in the Gospel of John) or the early church (especially in the Acts of the Apostles). That line from 1 Thessalonians happens not to be included in the Mass readings in the Catholic Lectionary—but every year, particularly during Lent, Triduum, and the Easter season, Catholics hear, over and over, lines like these:

The disciples said to him, “Rabbi, the Jews were just trying to stone you, and you want to go back there?” (John 11:8)

“If my kingdom did belong to this world, my attendants would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jews.” (John 18:36)

Pilate tried to release him; but the Jews cried out, “If you release him, you are not a Friend of Caesar.” (John 19:12)

Joseph of Arimathea, secretly a disciple of Jesus for fear of the Jews, asked Pilate if he could remove the body of Jesus. (John 19:38)

On the evening of that first day of the week, when the doors were locked, where the disciples were, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood in their midst and said to them, “Peace be with you.” (John 20:19)

“We are witnesses of all that he did both in the country of the Jews and in Jerusalem. They put him to death by hanging him on a tree.” (Acts 10:39)

These and other New Testament motifs have led to debates in academic circles whether the New Testament books themselves are antisemitic. The controversy is understandable; Christians of all stripes can agree that the New Testament is a provocative collection of texts, shaped by dramatic claims in a polemical climate. Indeed, the polemics go back to the divisive figure of Jesus himself, whose critiques of the Pharisees and the Temple authorities stand in the tradition of the Old Testament prophets and their critique from within Israel.

After Jesus’ death, conflict continued between mainstream Judaism and the early Jesus movement, shaping the New Testament record in various ways. As the Church gained cultural and political ascendancy, those early tensions morphed into something much darker, leading to centuries of Christian antisemitism and oppression of Jewish people. Part of this ugly history includes antisemitic interpretations of various New Testament passages, from Matthew’s account of the Jewish crowd replying to Pilate “His blood be on us and our children” to references to “the synagogue of Satan” in the book of Revelation.

I take for granted here the orthodox Catholic view that while the Catholic Church may have many things to apologize for, the New Testament itself is not among them. Its anti-Jewish polemics, however pointed at times, are not antisemitic, and were written, needless to say, long before the ugly history of oppression and persecution in which they have been grotesquely implicated.

That said, the legacy of New Testament interpretation—and misinterpretation—necessarily weighs on how we read the New Testament today. For example, any homilist or writer who takes on Paul’s much-quoted epigram “I can do all things through him who strengthens me” (Philippians 4:3, New Revised Standard Version or NRSV) would do well to start by emphasizing that in context this is not a motivational sentiment along the lines of “You can accomplish anything you put your mind to (through Jesus)”! Rather, Paul is talking about being able to get by in all kinds of circumstances (“I have learned to be content with whatever I have,” etc.). I wince a little, too, every time I encounter Jesus’ declaration regarding the sinful woman who wept over his feet—“her sins, which were many, are forgiven, for she loved much” (Luke 7:47)—so often misunderstood to mean “Her great love is the reason her sins have been forgiven” rather than “Her great love is the evidence of the great forgiveness she has received.” (This misreading is so well-established that it even crops up in the Liturgy of the Hours, in the intercessions for the Common of Holy Women: “Lord Jesus, you forgave the sinful woman because she loved much; forgive us who have sinned much.”)

In that last case, significantly, the misinterpretation can be addressed by a clearer translation. Where the NAB reads, ambiguously, “Her sins, which were many, are forgiven, for she loved much,” the NRSV unequivocally states, “Her many sins have been forgiven; hence she has shown great love.” Whether “hence” is the best English word for a liturgical Bible like the NAB (meant to be read aloud in Mass for Americans of all educational levels) is another question; perhaps “therefore” or “so” might be better. Translation is a tricky balancing act involving many concerns!

What about the polemical New Testament passages indicting “the Jews” as Jesus’ mortal enemies and agents in his execution? Can translators bring any additional clarity here? Here’s where I tender my disclaimer: I write with great interest but no expertise; you could fill a thimble with what I know about New Testament Greek. What I can tell you is that a number of contemporary Bible translations have sought to bring clarity to a number of passages mentioning Ἰουδαῖοι, reflecting the findings of decades of New Testament scholarship that this term in the New Testament is complex, not simple, with a range of senses and emphases often at odds with what “the Jews” connotes in modern English.

Jewish leaders

For example, the very first time that Ἰουδαῖοι appears in John, we read that “the Jews from Jerusalem sent priests and Levites [to John the Baptist] to ask him, ‘Who are you?’” (John 1:19) Obviously priests and Levites are not being sent by random Jews! “The Jews from Jerusalem” here refers specifically to Temple authorities—and this is far from the only time that Ἰουδαῖοι in John denotes Jewish leaders. As the NAB states in a footnote on this first usage:

Throughout most of the gospel, the “Jews” does not refer to the Jewish people as such but to the hostile authorities, both Pharisees and Sadducees, particularly in Jerusalem, who refuse to believe in Jesus. The usage reflects the atmosphere, at the end of the first century, of polemics between church and synagogue, or possibly it refers to Jews as representative of a hostile world.

Offering a converging opinion, Joseph Ratzinger, Pope Benedict XVI, wrote in the second volume of Jesus of Nazareth:

Who exactly were Jesus’ accusers? Who insisted that he be condemned to death? We must take note of the different answers that the Gospels give to this question.  According to John it was simply “the Jews”. But John’s use of this expression does not in any way indicate—as the modern reader might suppose—the people of Israel in general, even less is it “racist” in character. After all, John himself was ethnically a Jew, as were Jesus and all his followers. The entire early Christian community was made up of Jews. In John’s Gospel this word has a precise and clearly defined meaning: he is referring to the Temple aristocracy. So the circle of accusers who instigate Jesus’ death is precisely indicated in the Fourth Gospel and clearly limited: it is the Temple aristocracy—and not without certain exceptions, as the reference to Nicodemus (7:50ff.) shows.

Support from the Holy See for this understanding of “the Jews” in John dates back at least a half century. The Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews, in a short 1974 document called “Guidelines and Suggestions for Implementing the Conciliar Document Nostra Aetate,” noted:

The formula “the Jews”, in St. John, sometimes according to the context means “the leaders of the Jews”, or “the adversaries of Jesus”, terms which express better the thought of the evangelist and avoid appearing to arraign the Jewish people as such.

Reflecting this thinking, many translations render οἱ Ἰουδαῖοι in John 1:19 not “the Jews” but “the Jewish leaders/authorities” (e.g., New International Version, International Standard Version, New Living Translation, Good News Bible, New Heart English Bible, New English Translation [NET Bible])—and similar renderings are used throughout the Gospel of John by these and other translations.

The NAB, on the other hand—despite that footnote acknowledging that “throughout much of the gospel” Ἰουδαῖοι “does not refer to the Jewish people as such”—consistently translates Ἰουδαῖοι as “Jews.” This has been the case for all four editions of the NAB to date, and it seems likely that a pending fifth edition will do the same. I’m told that official Catholic translations into other languages follow the same practice, in accordance, apparently, with Vatican guidelines. Why is this? Perhaps the reasons converge with reservations expressed by another pontifical commission, the Pontifical Biblical Commission (PBC), in their 2001 document The Jewish People and Their Sacred Scriptures in the Christian Bible:

In many Gospel passages “the Jews” referred to are the Jewish authorities (chief priests, members of the Sanhedrin) or sometimes the Pharisees.… In the passion narrative, John frequently mentions “the Jews” where the Synoptics speak of Jewish authorities. But this observation holds good only for a certain restricted number of passages and such precision cannot be introduced into a translation of the Gospel without being unfaithful to the text. These are echoes of opposition to Christian communities, not only on the part of the Jewish authorities, but from the vast majority of Jews, in solidarity with their leaders (cf. Ac 28:22). Historically, it can be said that only a minority of Jews contemporaneous with Jesus were hostile to him, that a smaller number were responsible for handing him over to the Roman authorities; and that fewer still wanted him killed, undoubtedly for religious reasons that seemed important to them. But these succeeded in provoking a general demonstration in favour of Barabbas and against Jesus, which permitted the evangelist to use a general expression, anticipating a later evolution.

It is true, as the PBC document states, that Ἰουδαῖοι in John cannot always be read (Ratzinger notwithstanding) as a “precise and clearly defined” term for Jewish leaders. Sometimes it just means “Jews”—most unambiguously (and positively) in Jesus’ declaration to the Samaritan woman that “Salvation is from the Jews” (John 4:22). Other times, as in John 6, it may have a definite connotation of Jews who are hostile to Jesus—and how that might be captured in translation is not easy to imagine. What is more, these are not the only possible renderings, as we will see!

It’s true, too, that efforts to render the term differently depending on context inevitably involve subjective judgment calls. There is something to be said for consistently translating a given term in the source language by the one most nearly exact term in the target language—a translational philosophy called formal correspondence. The contrasting philosophy, dynamic equivalence or functional equivalence, aims at rendering the intended sense of the source text as nearly as possible in the idiom of the target language readers.

In practice, there is no such thing as a pure “formal correspondence” or “dynamic equivalence” translation. Every translated text exists somewhere on a spectrum of the two principles, with tradeoffs at every point along the spectrum. For what it’s worth, my own biases and preferences lean strongly toward formal correspondence rather than dynamic equivalence; on the whole, I prefer a translation to be as literal as possible. But how literal is “as literal as possible”? There is no translation without interpretation, and the significance of the interpretive dimension varies from passage to passage. If a translation fails to convey to readers and hearers what the original writer was talking about—if it is misleading, or even harmful—is it successful as a translation?

Even the PBC document acknowledges the problem of rendering οἱ Ἰουδαῖοι in John as “the Jews”—both implicitly, by scare-quoting it (“Nonetheless, ‘the Jews’ are often hostile to Jesus”; “A more serious accusation made by Jesus against ‘the Jews’ is that of having the devil for a father”), and explicitly in the following admission:

These are often called “the Jews” without further precision, with the result that an unfavourable judgement is associated with that name. But there is no question here of anti-Jewish sentiment, since—as we have already noted—the Gospel recognises that “salvation comes from the Jews” (4:22). This manner of speaking only reflects the clear separation that existed between the Christian and Jewish communities.

Vindicating John of anti-Jewish sentiment in a scholarly document on the Vatican website is well and good. Yet how do you convey “no question of anti-Jewish sentiment” to the faithful hearing these readings year after year? Scare-quoting won’t do the trick. Nor will a footnote that doesn’t appear in missalettes, let alone the lectionary. A conscientious homilist can try to work in explanatory commentary from time to time, though there’s a fine line here: The preacher doesn’t want to leave parishioners confused (“It says ‘the Jews’ but it doesn’t mean ‘the Jews’”) or scandalized (“The Gospel translation we hear in Mass is misleading”). Even if one pulls it off perfectly, trying to instill in a congregation a habit of consistently mentally footnoting “the Jews” (only some of the time!) is a tall order—to say nothing of the vast majority of Catholics who will never hear such a homily in their life.

This, it would seem, is the tradeoff for declining to grapple in translation with the difficulties and ambiguities of trying to identify when John definitely means “Jews” and when “Jewish leaders” might be a better rendering: living with the reality that, for many hearers and readers of the text, “an unfavorable judgement is associated with” the name of “Jew.” If that NAB footnote is correct that οἱ Ἰουδαῖοι in John often “does not refer to the Jewish people as such” but refers instead to “the hostile authorities,” then consistently representing this term by an English word that never means anything like hostile authorities, that always means Jewish people as such, seems guaranteed to mislead most listeners much of the time. And this facilitates unconscious, and even conscious, antisemitic attitudes in Catholic circles.

Judeans

“Jewish leaders” is not the only special shade of meaning of Ἰουδαῖοι in John’s Gospel and elsewhere. Like the cognate English word “Jews,” Ἰουδαῖοι is a demonym derived from the name of the land of Judah or Judea; it literally means “people of Judea” or “Judeans.” Of course it also picks out the ethnos and ethos of the people of that region, making it, like “Jew” in English, an ethnoreligious label that can be used contextually in senses that are primarily ethnic (e.g., “How can you, a Jew, ask me, a Samaritan woman, for a drink?”; “The Jews were targeted for genocide by the Nazis”) or primarily religious (e.g., “Jews believe in one God”). The difference is that while for most English speakers the word “Jew” has effectively lost its geographical connotation, Ἰουδαῖοι in the New Testament is still very much connected to Judea—and sometimes the geographical sense is primary. For example:

After this, Jesus moved about within Galilee; but he did not wish to travel in Judea, because the Jews were trying to kill him. (John 7:1)

This translation, at face value, borders on incoherence: Jesus staying in Galilee because “the Jews” were trying to kill him seems to make sense only if the people of Galilee weren’t Jewish! They were, of course; in fact, John has just related how Jesus was rejected by “the Jews” at the synagogue at Capernaum in Galilee (John 6:41, 52) over his teaching about consuming his flesh and blood. When John then immediately goes on to say that, because “the Jews” were trying to kill him, Jesus stayed in Galilee (among Galilean Jews!) rather than traveling to Judea, there is a strong prima facie case here for rendering the word as “the Judeans”—a reflection of the Johannine pattern of depicting Jesus facing greater opposition in Judea than in Galilee or other Jewish areas. (Despite this, the only translation I know of that follows this translation of John 7:1 is David Bauscher’s “Plain English” rendering of the Aramaic text.)

Interestingly, while noting that this geographical schema is not absolute, the 2001 PBC document seems relatively open to this approach:

By translating “the Jews” as “the Judeans”, an attempt has been made to eliminate the tensions that the Fourth Gospel can provoke between Christians and Jews. The contrast then would not be between the Jews and Jesus' disciples, but between the inhabitants of Judea, presented as hostile to Jesus, and those of Galilee, presented as flocking to their prophet. Contempt by Judeans for Galileans is certainly expressed in the Gospel (7:52), but the evangelist did not draw the lines of demarcation between faith and refusal to believe along geographical lines, he distinguishes Galilean Jews who reject Jesus’ teaching as hoi Ioudaioi (6:41,52).

Notably, cases where locale is primary among non-Johannine usages of Ἰουδαῖοι include the two most notable Ἰουδαῖοι passages that mention Jesus’ death: Acts 10 and 1 Thessalonians 2. The first reads:

“We are witnesses of all that he did both in the country of the Jews and in Jerusalem. They put him to death by hanging him on a tree.” (Acts 10:39)

“The country of the Jews” is simply Judea, and several translations render it either “the Judean country” or “Judea” (e.g., NRSV, American Standard Version, Holman Christian Standard Bible). As for 1 Thessalonians, note how Paul explicitly establishes the setting:

For you, brothers, have become imitators of the churches of God that are in Judea in Christ Jesus. For you suffer the same things from your compatriots as they did from the Jews, who killed both the Lord Jesus and the prophets and persecuted us…

The antecedent for “they” in “you suffer the same things from your compatriots as they did from the Jews” is “the churches of God that are in Judea.” So “the Jews, who killed both the Lord Jesus and the prophets” are precisely the residents of Judea who are mistreating the churches of Judea (an oppressor population, notably, that at one time included Paul himself). Here, too, some translations (New King James Version and New Heart English Bible as well as Bauscher’s Aramaic translation) use “Judeans.” (Since, again, this was within 20 years of Jesus’ execution, some of the conspirators in Jesus’ death would likely still be alive, and still opposing the Jesus movement.)

Final thoughts

I write all of this to raise questions and highlight issues, not, obviously, to provide definitive answers. I am well aware that the complexities of the questions I’ve raised admit no clear or simple answers. The hodgepodge of translations I’ve cited above illustrates the reality that there is no consensus, or even consistency, among translators open to rendering Ἰουδαῖοι in ways other than “Jews.” Every translation cited here translates Ἰουδαῖοι as “Jews” in at least some of the passages discussed above. Clearly there’s plenty of room for disagreement and debate, and as noted above I’m no expert.

For what it’s worth, my stake in this issue, though not acute, is personal. As a deacon, I stand in front of the congregation at Mass and proclaim the Gospel. On the second Sunday of Easter, for example, the first Gospel words out of my mouth are “On the evening of that first day of the week, when the doors were locked, where the disciples were, for fear of the Jews…” I’m frankly uncomfortable with this. The number of times I have been aware of Jewish visitors in the pews of my church is low, but not zero—to say nothing of those with Jewish family or friends who are sensitive on this point. Then there are those who aren’t sensitive: those for whom the trope about “the biblical teaching of who killed Jesus” is taken for granted; those who assume that when they hear “the Jews,” it means, you know, “the Jews.” I preach at most once a month, and my ability to address a topic like this in a homily is sharply limited—and, again, trying to explain in an aside in a ten-minute homily that’s about something else why “the Jews” doesn’t necessarily mean “the Jews” is not the easiest or the most inspiring preaching move ever.

My non-expert opinion is that this is ultimately a translation issue, not a commentary issue. Do I wish I were standing up there reading “for fear of the Jewish/Judean leaders”? Yes. Yes I do.