Who killed Jesus?

In Jon Meacham's Newsweek articleWho killed Jesus? there is a review of Mel Gibson's The Passion of The Christ and a rather even handed discussion of Christ's Passion as a source event for anti-semitism. As a believer in the Christ of the bible and from what my studies and experiences have taught me the Christ of history, the high points and low points of Meacham's article are found in one paragraph.

"But the Bible can be a problematic source. Though countless believers take it as the immutable word of God, Scripture is not always a faithful record of historical events; the Bible is the product of human authors who were writing in particular times and places with particular points to make and visions to advance. And the roots of Christian anti-Semitism lie in overly literal readings—which are, in fact, misreadings—of many New Testament texts. When the Gospel authors implicated "the Jews" in Jesus' passion, they did not mean all Jewish people then alive, much less those then unborn. The writers had a very specific group in mind: the Temple elite that believed Jesus might provoke Pilate"

Meacham accurately points out that only a cursory and careless reading of the New testament could lead one to an anti-semitic position. He carries this thought throughout the article. I realize the point of the artice was to highlight the movie's controversial interpretation of scripture and how it might rekindle "explosive debates" that have long been quiet. It was a pleasant surprise though, to see something in a national publication not come down in an anti-christian stance, which seems to be so in vogue.

His view of the bible, and his implicit views of history however, become troubling. The thread throughout the article is that the bible is an opinion piece written by men with an agenda. And that agenda, in turn shaped by their inidividual or group experiences or desired effects upon their readers. This is all well and good but not to look at the rest of history through the same lense of suspicion as the bible is duplicitous.

Meacham puts forth a characterization of Pontius Pilate, "Pilate was not the humane figure Gibson depicts. According to Philo of Alexandria, the prefect was of "inflexible, stubborn, and cruel disposition," and known to execute troublemakers without trial." To say that Philo or any other historian of antiquity was not a "...human author who was writing in a particular time and place with particular points to make and visions to advance" is subjective at best. Several times throughout the article Meacham corrects the movie's representation of Pilate but based upon what? Who's to say that Philo didn't have an axe to grind in his writings or have a desired impact on his readers?

Read everything carefully, question everything. Just because one document is called history and another the bible does not automatically make one more historically accurate than the other.

Regardless of what you think of the movie or Meacham's articel most would agree, as I would, with Meacham's parting comments "Amid the clash over Gibson's film and the debates about the nature of God, wheth-er you believe Jesus to be the savior of mankind or to have been an interesting first-century figure who left behind an inspiring moral philosophy, perhaps we can at least agree on this image of Jesus of Nazareth: confronted by violence, he chose peace; by hate, love; by sin, forgiveness—a powerful example for us all, whoever our gods may be.