Anti-Judaism and the Gospels

When and under what circumstances did the Gospel texts begin to serve anti-Jewish ends? Can it be said, accurately and fairly, that the evangelists were anti-Jewish? Are there tendencies in the Gospels that were originally intended by the evangelists to injure the Jewish people or their religion, or to work against the interests of the Jewish people and/or their religion? These and other issues were addressed in a three-year research project that culminated in a fall 1996 convocation, at which five major research papers were presented with two respondents to each paper. The papers and responses are now made available for the first time in this volume. William R. Farmer is Professor of New Testament at the University of Dallas and co-editor of Jesus and the Suffering Servant: Isaiah 53 and Christian Origins (Trinity 1998).