On 4/20/07, Shane Mage <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Yoshie wrote:>On 4/20/07, Doug Henwood <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >>On Apr 20, 2007, at 12:38 PM, Shane Mage wrote: >> >>> And what better demagogic stroke >>> has anyone ever invented than that phrase "Crucify Mankind On A >>> Cross Of Gold?" >> >>Yup - subtle way of invoking anti-Semitism in that phrase, because we >>all know who crucified Jesus. > >Michael Kazin, who should know a thing or two about populism and >William Jennings Bryan, says that Bryan, whatever his shortcomings, >was not prejudiced against Jews, let alone invoking anti-Semitism. > >Who crucified whom in the story? Jesus was not a Christian, but a >Jew, a carpenter by trade, a commoner. Those who crucified him were >the Roman Empire and its collaborators who were the elite of the >oppressed Jewish society of which Jesus was a rising reformer. That >is the way the empire usually gets rid of a populist, a demagogue, a >reformer who may become a revolutionary. A few comments: 1.) That Pilate pronounced the sentence, this is indisputable. But the Christian scriptures all but absolve Pilate--he supposedly acted under pressure from the Jews (that this is historically absurd matters not to devotees of a doctrine whose basic premise is "credo quia absurdam"). For Christians the *guilt* attaches to the Jews ("Let His blood be upon our heads...") And Bryan was absolutely the last person in the world to deny the Authority of Scripture.
Shane, about 2-4, what you put down is most likely the more accurate description of who historical Jesus was, but the question is how William Jennings Bryan and common people on the left in America thought of Jesus in the 19th century. About 1, Bryan actually had an anti-imperialist reading of Jesus's execution, and we know that from his closing statement in the infamous Scopes trial (available at <http://www.csudh.edu/oliver/smt310-handouts/wjb-last/wjb-last.htm>): It is again a choice between God and Baal; it is also a renewal of the issue in Pilate's court. In that historic trial - the greatest in history - force, impersonated by Pilate, occupied the throne. Behind it was the Roman Government, mistress of the world, and behind the Roman Government were the legions of Rome. Before Pilate stood Christ, the apostle of love. Force triumphed; they nailed Him to the tree and those who stood around mocked and jeered and said "He is dead." But from that day the power of Caesar waned and the power of Christ increased. In a few centuries the Roman Government was gone and its legions forgotten; while the crucified and risen Lord has become the greatest fact in history and the growing Figure of all time. Notice that Bryan places all the blame squarely upon the Roman Empire. Not a mention of the Jews. Bryan was wrong about Darwin*, but his heart was in the right place. * Even Bryan's opposition to Darwinism was motivated not only by his religion but also his opposition to social Darwinism which was inseparable from scientific Darwinism in scientific discourse -- including science text books like the one that John Scopes used -- of his times, as Stephen Jay Gould notes. -- Yoshie
