Jesus was a Jew
A friendly reminder in time for Christmas
It’s that time of year again. Christmas music is the inescapable soundtrack, piped into public places as you get a head start on the holiday shopping or just this week’s groceries. The cold air finally feels like winter, at least here in New England. The festive lights are up (and probably have been since Halloween, at least on my street). Churches set up their giving trees, filled with paper ornaments for parishioners to take, each with a suggested gift to purchase for a local child who otherwise might not receive any gifts. Families and friends bake cookies, sing carols, and look forward to a season of quality time together.
And Jew-haters come out of the woodwork to try to convince you that Jesus wasn’t a Jew, but a Palestinian.
The latest iteration of this old bit of propaganda is a burst of outrage from too-online activists who object that the makers of the new Netflix film Mary would dare to cast an Israeli Jewish woman to play the Virgin Mary.
wrote a great piece about this, pointing out a lot of important context to the fake “controversy,” which is well worth reading.
But I’ll keep it simple. If you buy into the “actors must have the same heritage as the characters they are portraying” thing (which, for the record, I don’t), then only a Jew can portray Mary. Mary was a Jew, born to Jewish parents, living in the land of Israel. At the time the area was under Roman domination. Jesus was born in Bethlehem, in Judea. He spent most of his life and ministry in Galilee. He was born, lived, and died a Jew.
The Romans destroyed Jerusalem and razed the Second Temple (familiar to Christians who know their Bible) in the year 70 when they crushed the years-long Jewish Revolt. Many Jews were killed or driven into exile, but a remnant remained. In 132, the Jews rebelled again, led by Bar Kochba. When the Romans crushed this revolt too, as part of their punishment of the rebellious Jews, they renamed the Jewish homeland “Palestina,” a nod to the Jews’ ancient and hated enemy, the Philistines, an Aegean people who were by then extinct.
Attempts to recast Jesus and Mary as “Palestinian” are in all cases historically inaccurate. At best, they are ignorant. At worst, they are nefarious.
I’ve read or heard plenty of content by well-educated and presumably well-intentioned people who refer to Jesus as living in “Palestine.” I don’t doubt that in many or most cases, this is an innocent mistake. But it’s a mistake with consequences, and it cannot stand uncorrected.
Because there are plenty of bad actors who spread this lie not innocently but as part of a campaign to divorce Jesus from his Jewish roots in order to demonize Israel and its people to a Christian audience. Don’t let them get away with it.
As my friend
has written,“Jesus was born a Jew, lived as a Jew, died as a Jew, and according to authoritative Christian teaching, remains a Jew as he sits at the right hand of God. Under Christian doctrine, Jesus Christ has a human nature, which is Jewish, and a divine nature, which is universal and not connected to any one people group. The scandal of particularity, which offends so many, inheres in Jesus Christ himself.
Christians can either get over it or not.”
Since October 7, the Jewish state has been fighting a war it didn’t start. Around the world, the evil scourge of antisemitism has exploded, online and off. History is very clear about what happens when antisemitism is allowed to thrive unchecked. And it’s not a Jewish problem—it’s very much everyone’s problem.
There is no more important time than right now for Christians to connect or reconnect with the Jewish roots of their faith, and to stand with their Jewish brothers and sisters.