Believe it or not, the crown of thorns was Pilate trying in vain to make the Jews be nice.

[cimorene]

The textbook series is Himmel och Jord, "en finlandssvensk läromedelsserie" for elementary school grades 1-6 (ages 7-13ish), published by Fontana.

Today I watched the lesson "Jesus hos Pilatus", whose objective is that the students understand that Pilate sentenced Jesus "and the reasons why he did so." I was startled (and nauseated and shaking with rage) to hear that:

• Pilate was a fair man who thought the Jews were being unfair to Jesus. He wanted to release him, but he didn't "dare" because he was afraid the Jews would use their influence in Rome against him. [Yes, because the oppressed religious minority no doubt had a lot of influence with the emperor.]



• Pilate actually had Jesus tortured because he hoped that the Jews would feel sorry for him and come to regret their decision so that he wouldn't have to be executed.



• When that didn't work, Pilate was like, what can I do? So as a last resort he decided to offer the Jews a choice between Jesus and a robber so he picked an infamous and cruel robber, thinking surely they would rather pardon Jesus, but the Jews were so angry about Jesus claiming to be the son of God that they yelled "Pardon Barnabas! Nail Jesus up!"



• It was the Jews who set armed guards on Jesus's tomb because they didn't want him to escape! [hollsh: Did a Jew shove him back in too? Really WTF...]

One of the pages in the teacher's book said "To Discuss" and one of the items underneath was why so many of the Jews were so happy to see Jesus arrive in Jerusalem that they donated their cloaks as a makeshift red carpet for his ass, but then became an angry mob demanding his death. The answer according to the textbook is that they felt betrayed because Jesus had not (in the intervening time which the lessons so far have represented as being like 3 days) led an uprising and freed the Jews from the Romans as expected.

Well, at first I was thinking I would wait until I could be alone in the room to snap some photos but then I got so upset during the course of the above lesson that I couldn't wait. I started by pacing around and trying to surreptitiously bite my lip, but finally I had to sidle up to the teacher's desk and pretend to glance casually over the book as she was still teaching, and take a few silent photos. I got the whole page of "Jesus hos Pilatus", but I was, er, a bit distracted, and the photo's so blurry that I wasn't able to transcribe it.

Meanwhile, I have a few questions for the Evangelical Lutheran Church's religious education department:

• You realize that the Roman empire no longer exists, right? If you say bad things about them, nothing bad will happen to you.



• Have you ever heard of something called 'historical context'? What about 'Bible scholars'? 'Anti-semitism'?

Comments

[anatsuno]

D: D: D:

[laughingrat]

That garbage mess is in the book of John, right? (I seriously have heard it all before, from the Bible books I read as a kid.) Did they just lift a bunch of anti-Semitic shit straight from early Christian writings without any consideration, and present it as fact? Is that basically the thing here? :-S

My overall answer would be "Yes, BUT!..."

[cimorene]

I gather that most of the EVENTS mentioned come from John, including, for example, Pilate's reference to kingship ("Behold your King!"), the identity of the priest at whose house Jesus was questioned, etc. However, I think they're editorializing when they take at face value actions whose motivations are (surely?) not completley laid out in the Bible (I'm assuming that Wikipedia or daegaer would have alluded to it if they were), and then elaborate on them ("But then he thought maybe if he did THIS...").

And not to quibble unnecessarily, but I'm pretty sure that it was not the Jewish priests who stationed Roman soldiers *anywhere*, and that's an error that just contributes to the overwhelming and FALSE impression that the Jews were the ones in power in this situation, when the POINT is that the systematic oppression of the Jews had already started hundreds of years before Jesus!

Changes that the clueless old white dudes at the Church probably just regard as harmless simplification are actually attributing to "the Jews" or all Jews the actions of specific individuals who represented a certain political faction of Jews. And that is both stupid and highly pernicious.

Sorry if I sound too strident, btw, I'm now at the "DESTROY DESTROY MAIM KILL" level of head-heat re: this.

Re: My overall answer would be "Yes, BUT!..."

[laughingrat]

Oh no, that's not an unnecessary quibble at all. I agree, Jewish priests would have had like zero political power, at least officially. Seriously. Anyone who thinks they stationed Roman soldiers anywhere is probably high on anti-Semitism smoking something. Not strident at all, this shit has been used to justify the persecution of Jewish people for almost 2000 years. It's ghastly BS.

Re: My overall answer would be "Yes, BUT!..."

[cimorene]

I think it's high on anti-Semitism. More specifically, she was indoctrinated using the exact same BS version of events and when she was speaking naturally from herself (explaining an art project, not reading from the book anymore) and composing her own sentences, it was her unconscious brain that substituted the agency/subject of the sentence about the positioning of the soldiers, and in her inside brain she believes the Jews were in charge because all this shit WORKED on her.

[laughingrat]

And that's proof right there (like we needed it, but still) that it is important to teach children the right stuff early, because look what happens when we don't. D:

[viggorlijah]

Have you asked the teacher if you can borrow the book? I think she would probably be happy to loan it to you. Either the teacher is working from notes supplied by an incredibly inaccurate and biased guide or department, or she's personally making it up. It's way more likely she is working from a guide - I don't know, I just try to assume the best of people, and that she's asked you to help indicates that she honestly doesn't know she's making mistakes. This is kinda awesome that you could end up helping not just this class, but lots and lots of classes across Sweden with your feedback.

[cimorene]

Oh, she is working from the books/notes! I mean, basically everything she said was spelled out or outlined in the book (on the page I photographed that's too blurry to transcribe). She lengthened it a TINY bit (like the Jews stationing the soldiers - that was her embroidery, but I don't think it was maliciousness, I think it was just a slip, an unconscious one, from being brought up on the same biased BS version these kids are getting. It's not an unnatural impression), but most of the points I related above came when she was actually holding a book and reading directly from it, although it might have been a different book... I think she has two sets of materials, not sure if they're both from the same publisher.

[phosfate]

"A subsidiary of Mel Gibson Educational Services."

[cimorene]

zzzziiiiing.