Question: Who crucified Jesus, the Jews or Romans?

    Answer: Our question for this week recently came to me by means of email (you too can email me: dmartin5@concentric.net). It seems my answer to the question "Can you tell us about the Jewish Race"(1/20/99) has occasioned no small amount of response, some good. I also have experienced opposition - a threatened lawsuit, slander, and an organized effort to silence me by trying to force the Courier to cease publishing Bible Questions.

    The way to address religious differences. We read of numerous doctrinal differences in the New Testament (Mk. 7: 1-13, Matt. 19: 3-12, Acts 15: 1, 2, 6-29). Truth is essential; hence these differences were not ignored (Ibid.). In these mentioned cases, Jesus and the apostles appealed to scripture as their authority. We do not deflect from the issue by slandering our opponent. Also, we do not deny one's freedom of speech by threatening one with a lawsuit unless they say and do as we demand!

    The Jews crucified Jesus through the Romans. At the time of Jesus' crucifixion, the Romans had conquered all the area in which Jesus lived and taught. The Romans allowed the Jews to continue with their Sanhedrin (their government), but the Romans took away capital punishment from the Jews. In order to have Jesus crucified, the Jewish leaders had to manipulate Rome into doing it. First, the Jewish leaders had to lie - make up charges (Lk. 23: 2, 3). The Jewish leaders persisted in their demands for crucifixion (vss. 5-19). New Testament writers charged the Jews with having crucified Jesus (Acts 2: 36, 3: 13-17).

    Should "Jews" today be punished? In the first place, how do we go about establishing a pure Jew (all the records were destroyed in AD 70). All are sinners, Jews and Gentiles and in need of God's grace (Rom. 2, 3, Eph. 2: 8 ff).