VATICAN CITY (CNS): Using New Testament condemnations of some Jews to support contempt for Judaism as a whole violates the teaching of the New Testament, says a new Vatican document.
Nowhere in the New Testament can one find passages reflecting “an attitude of scorn, hostility or persecution of Jews as Jews”, says the new document from the Pontifical Biblical Commission.
The document, “The Jewish People and their Sacred Scriptures in the Christian Bible”, was released earlier this month.
Commission members said their document was meant to contribute to Jewish-Christian understanding by explaining the importance of the Jewish Scriptures for Christian faith and providing a context for Christians reading references to Jews in the New Testament.
In an introduction to the 207-page document, president of the commission, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, said the text had to take into account “the context of present history in which the drama of the Shoah”, the Nazi Holocaust, placed the relationship between Christians and Jews in a new light.
