The passion of Jesus has held the attention of the Christians throughout the ages. So, too, has Christian piety, art and theology throughout the centuries probed the meaning of the passion.
Contemporary scholarship is no exception.
The unspeakable horror of the holocaust and the devastation of the Second World War gave new impetus to studies of the passion. Those who encouraged anti-Semitism and paved the way for genocide often appealed to Jewish responsibility for the death of Jesus as a spurious justification for their evil. Too often other Christians were mute when the gospels were used for such a demonic purpose. It was time for Christian scholars to examine their consciences and to see to what extent their portrayals of Jews at the time of Jesus and their ways of interpreting the death of Jesus had contributed to this toxic atmosphere. In the past half century there has been a remarkable and constructive reappraisal of the Jewish roots of Christianity by Christian and Jewish scholars alike, and this has had an impact as well on the study of the gospels and the passion narrative.