Is the NT Anti-Semitic? (1 Thess 2:14–15)

In 1 Thess 2:14 b–15a, Paul writes, “You suffered from your own people the same things those churches suffered from the Jews who killed the Lord Jesus and the prophets and also drove us out” (NIV).  There is no comma after “Jews” (also the CSB), making the adjectival clause restrictive. It was not all the Jews but some of the Jews who killed Jesus.

Compare this to the NASB’s use of a comma: “the Jews, who both killed the Lord Jesus and the prophets.” A comma is also used by the ESV, NRSV, and NET, making it a non-restrictive clause. It was all the Jews who were responsible for killing Jesus.

To repeat. The lack of a comma does not implicate the entire Jewish nation. The comma says that the Jews as a whole killed the Lord Jesus. We know that Jesus was primarily killed by the Jewish leaders, although they did manage to stir up a crowd of Jews.

The Sunday after Dr. Moo's lecture, I was asked by a Jewish Christian why Bible translators are anti-Semitic because Bibles refer to “the Jews” when in fact most of the passages are speaking of what the Jewish leaders did. I forgot that the NIV does say "Jewish leaders". What I did tell them is that John does say “the Jews,” and it's an added level of interpretation to determine if it was a subgroup of the Jews.

In the current culture, this is something that we must be sensitive toward. The entire Jewish nation did not kill Jesus. The Jewish leaders and some of the Jews did. Punctuation should reflect this.