Modern scholars of the Bible have little doubt that Jesus, or Yeshua, was a rabbi who was crucified by the Romans for sedition. But translators and editors have long obscured his Jewish identity, say Mr. Barnstone and others. Even in the earliest Greek texts that remain, when Jesus is called “rabbi” the word is sometimes followed with a parenthetical “which means, in Hebrew, teacher” — to try to explain away the religious title.
Distortions entered the Gospels’ narrative, too, because of mistranslations and ecclesiastical politics. “By the time these texts were finally accepted by religious councils in the fourth century,” Mr. Barnstone writes, “what had been a first-century controversy between Jewish groups, allegedly between Pharisees and messianics, was now seen ahistorically as a conflict between Jews and later Christians.”
Scholars agree that such distortions, and the de-emphasis on Jesus’ Jewishness have helped fuel anti-Semitism. For centuries, churchgoers “have been imbibing the sense that the Pharisees and scribes were the ones who were battling Jesus,” says Mr. Nickelsburg, adding that it would be “a healthy and stimulating thing” for Mr. Barnstone’s translation to be read in certain Christian churches.
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