Robert Peters wrote:

>Walter Meyer wrote:
>
>>Actually, in another post I mentioned that "Ruhet wohl" was one of my
>>favorite Bach passages.  To the extent, however, that the Passions purport
>>to retell the judicial lynching of a charismatic carpenter from Nazareth
>>and the use to which that tale has been put to justify hideous atrocities
>>over the following centuries, I find the texts offensive, in a way that
>>I don't find the Latin texts of the Mass and other Bach works.  How much
>>less inflammatory is "Crucifixus etiam pro nobis sub Pontio Pilato,
>>passus et sepultus est"!
>
>Well, the Passions don't defend the "judicial lynching" of Jesus,
>they are desperate about this, so that's not a reason to find them
>offensive.

I think you misunderstood me.  Of course the Passions don't defend the
judicial lynching.  Neither for that matter do I.  I find its retelling
offensive, however, because it continues the tradition of branding the
Jews, all of them and their descendants, as "Christ killers" down to the
time J.S. Bach lived, a tradition that continue in some parts of the
Christian world to this day.

>And the text is innocent of the atrocities of the following
>centuries - with one famous exception: "May his blood come over us
>and our children!" This is the only passage I find offensive.

It goes back to Matthew 27:25, and became a watchword for too many
Christians in the centuries that followed.  Bach did not create the
pronouncement but, doubtless in the interest of Biblical accuracy, he
helped perpetuate it.

Walter Meyer