The Canonical Gospels of the New Testament include some accounts of the rejection of Jesus in the course of his ministry. Judaism's view of Jesus, Jesus in Islam, and the view of the Historical Jesus all differ from Christian views of Jesus.
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In an account recorded in the Synoptic Gospels (Mark 6:1-6, Matthew 13:54-58, Luke 4:16-30) Jesus is strongly rejected by the people of his hometown, which Luke specifies as Nazareth. This incident takes place after the Temptation of Jesus in the Judean desert.
According to the Synoptics, shortly after Jesus has given his first set of teachings (and before John the Baptist is killed), Jesus returns to his hometown. On the sabbath, he is described as entering a synagogue and teaching. Luke states that Jesus performed a public reading of scripture, then claimed he was the fulfillment of a prophecy at Isaiah 61:1-2, although the other synoptics do not provide this detail. All the synoptics describe the crowd as negatively questioning the origin of his teachings (see also Mark 3), and criticising him for being a lowly carpenter's son (Matthew) or himself a carpenter (Mark).
In Matthew and Mark the crowd is also described as referring to Jesus as being the brother of James, Simon, Joseph, and Judas (in Mark they also mention, but do not name, Jesus's sisters) in a manner suggesting that the crowd regards them as just ordinary people, and criticising Jesus' quite different behaviour.
Jesus is described as rebuking them (in variations of the same wording in each gospel):
This saying is also mentioned in John 4:44.
Matthew states that Jesus didn't do many miracles there because of "their lack of faith". In a similar passage Mark says that Jesus was not able to do any miracles there except for healing a few sick people. Luke adds that Jesus recounted a stories about how, during the time of Elijah, only a Sidonian woman was saved, and how, during the time of Elisha, though there were many lepers in Israel, only a Syrian was cleansed. This, according to Luke, caused the people to attack Jesus and chase him to the top of a hill in order to try to throw Jesus off, though Jesus slips away. Some scholars conclude that the historical accuracy of Luke's version is questionable, in this particular case citing that there is no "cliff face" in Nazareth.[1]
The negative view of Jesus' family may be related to the conflict between Paul of Tarsus and Jewish Christians:
"Wilson (1992)[2] has hypothesized that the negative relationship between Jesus and his family was placed in the Gospels (especially in the Gospel of Mark) to dissuade early Christians from following the Jesus cult that was administered by Jesus’ family. Wilson says: “…it would not be surprising if other parts of the church, particularly the Gentiles, liked telling stories about Jesus as a man who had no sympathy or support from his family (p. 86).” Butz (2005)[3] is more succinct: “…by the time Mark was writing in the late 60s, the Gentile churches outside of Israel were beginning to resent the authority wielded by Jerusalem where James and the apostles were leaders, thus providing the motive for Mark’s antifamily stance… (p. 44).” Other prominent scholars agree (e.g., Crosson, 1973;[4] Mack, 1988;[5] Painter. 1999)."[6][7]
Matthew 21:42, Acts 4:11 and Mark 12:10 talk of Jesus as the stone which the builders (or "husbandmen") rejected. 1Peter 2:7 discusses this rejection of Jesus. Theologians suggest that rejection does not diminish Jesus but rather diminishes those who reject him.[8] "Rejection of the cornerstone" is also referenced in Psalms 118:22 which has similar wording and is referenced by Supersessionism.
According to the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, the Galilean villages of Chorazin, Bethsaida and Capernaum did not repent in response to Jesus's teaching so Jesus declared their damnation to Hades (Matthew 11:23,Luke 10:13-15).
According to Luke 9:51-56, when Jesus entered a Samaritan village, he was not welcomed, because he was going on to Jerusalem. (There was enmity between Judeans and their Temple in Jerusalem and Samaritans and their temple on Mount Gerizim) His disciples wanted to call down fire from heaven on the village but Jesus reprimanded them and they continued on to another village.[9]
John 6:60-6:66 records "many disciples" leaving Jesus after he said that those who eat his body and drink his blood will remain in him and have eternal life (John 6:48-59). In John 6:67-71 Jesus asks the Twelve Apostles if they also want to leave, but St. Peter responds that they have become believers.
After the incident with the money changers in the Temple, Jesus was arrested and sent to the Sanhedrin, who rejected his appeal and sent him to Pontius Pilate for final disposition.
Jesus was and continues to be rejected by many Jewish people as a failed Jewish Messiah claimant, converts to Christianity being the exceptions.
Belief in the divinity of any human being, messiah or otherwise, is incompatible with Judaism:
The accounts of Jewish rejection of Jesus are prominently featured in the New Testament, especially John's gospel. For example, in 7:1-9 Jesus moves around in Galilee but avoids Judea, because "the Jews/Judeans" were looking for a chance to kill him. In 7:12-13 some said "he is a good man" whereas others said he deceives the people, but these were all "whispers", no one would speak publicly for "fear of the Jews/Judeans". Jewish rejection is also recorded in 7:45-52, 8:39-59, 10:22-42 and 12:36-43. 12:42 says many did believe, but they kept it private, for fear the Pharisees would exclude them from the Synagogue, see also Council of Jamnia.
According to Jeremy Cohen,
"[e]ven before the Gospels appeared, the apostle Paul (or, more probably, one of his disciples) portrayed the Jews as Christ's killers[15] ... But though the New Testament clearly looks to the Jews as responsible for the death of Jesus, Paul and the evangelists did not yet condemn all Jews, by the very fact of their Jewishness, as murderers of God and his messiah. That condemnation, however, was soon to come."[16]
Emil Fackenheim wrote in 1987:
"... Except in relations with Christians, the Christ of Christianity is not a Jewish issue. There simply can be no dialogue worthy of the name unless Christians accept—nay, treasure—the fact that Jews through the two millennia of Christianity have had an agenda of their own. There can be no Jewish-Christian dialogue worthy of the name unless one Christian activity is abandoned, missions to the Jews. It must be abandoned, moreover, not as a temporary strategy but in principle, as a bimillennial theological mistake. The cost of that mistake in Christian love and Jewish blood one hesitates to contemplate."[17]
Islam rejects the Christian view that Jesus was God incarnate or God the Son, that he was ever crucified or resurrected, or that he ever atoned for the sins of mankind. The Qur'an says that Jesus himself never claimed any of these things, and it furthermore indicates that Jesus will deny having ever claimed divinity at the Islamic view of the Last Judgment, and God will vindicate him.[18]
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Life of Jesus: Ministry |
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Samaritan Woman at the Well |
Matthew 4:13-16 & Luke 4:16-31 |
Calling of Matthew |
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Daughter of Jairus |
Matthew 13:54-58 & Mark 6:1-6 |
John the Baptist Beheaded |