The Christian Scholars Group on Christian-Jewish Relations

 

RESOURCES TO HELP IN EVALUATING PORTRAYALS OF THE PASSION

 

General

Criteria for the Evaluation of Dramatizations of the Passion. Bishops’ Committee for Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs, [US] National Conference of Catholic Bishops, 1988.  

Townsend , John T. “A Liturgical Interpretation in Narrative Form of the Passion of Jesus Christ.” Israel Study Group – Occasional papers, Number One.  NY: National Conference of Christians and Jews 1977; Second Edition With a Dramatic Arrangement for Congregational Use, 1985.

Brown, Raymond.  The Death of the Messiah.  NY: Doubleday 1994.

Crossan, John Dominic.  Who Killed Jesus? Exposing the Anti-Semitism in the Gospel Story of The Death of Jesus.  NY: HarperSanFrancisco 1995.

Rivkin, Ellis.  What Crucified Jesus? The Political Execution of a Charismatic. Nashville : Abingdon Press 1984.

Sloyan, Gerard S.  The Crucifixion of Jesus: History, Myth, Faith.  Minneapolis : Fortress Press 1995.

Witherup, Ronald D. "The Passion of Jesus" in Scripture from Scratch. St. Anthony Messenger Press, Feb. 2001.

 

Historical Background on the First Century ce

Boys, Mary.  Has God Only One Blessing? Judaism as a Source of Christian Self-Understanding.  NY & Mahwah: Paulist Press 2000.

Fredriksen, Paula and Adele Reinhartz, eds.  Jesus, Judaism & Christian Anti-Judaism: Reading the New Testament after the Holocaust.  Louisville : Westminster John Knox Press 2002.

Segal, Alan F. Rebecca’s Children: Judaism and Christianity in the Roman World. Cambridge and London : Harvard University Press 1986.

 

The Heritage of Christian Anti-Judaism and Its Connection to Passion Portrayals

Flannery, Edward.  The Anguish of the Jews: Twenty-three Centuries of Antisemitism.  NY/Mahwah: Paulist Press 1985.

Friedman, Saul.  The Oberammergau Passion Play: A Lance Against Civilization. Carbondale and Edwardsville: Southerm Illinois University Press 1984.

Fisher, Eugene J. and Rabbi Leon Klenicki. On the Death of Jesus: Jewish and Christian Interpretations.  NY: ADL 2001.

Klenicki , Leon , ed.  Passion Plays and Judaism.  NY: ADL n.d. (includes both the Bishops’ Criteria and Townsend’s first edition, listed above).