Why "the Crowd who welcomed Jesus on Sunday" weren't "the same as those who rejected him on Friday"

There's a sermon that you often hear at this time of year on Palm Sunday that goes something like this: "The people who cheered and welcomed Jesus on Palm Sunday were the same ones who jeered and called for his death on Good Friday". It's hugely popular and also hugely problematic. Why? Well there are three main reasons...

Unlikelihood
Firstly, because it's inaccurate. Jerusalem in the week leading up to Passover was a very busy place. Josephus, prone to wildly exaggerate, suggests the figure is around three 3 million.¹ Writing more recently, Sanders offers his calculation that "the Temple area could accommodate about 300,000 to 400,000 pilgrims, which is a more reasonable figure".² With such huge figures in play the chances of even a good proportion of the Good Friday crowd being part of those welcoming Jesus on the Sunday is fairly small. The Golden Gate through which Jesus entered was relatively small, and it was located close to his destination, the Temple. Factor in the narrow streets and the packed-ness of the city and the numbers couldn't have been that large. The Bible doesn't tell us how many turned up for Jesus' Triumphal entry, but the biggest recorded attendance at one of his events was 5,000. He'd grown in popularity since then, but even if he drew five times the size of that crowd, he would still be well below a tenth of the numbers that would be in Jerusalem by the time the festival hit its peak.

Now factor in the logistics of Good Friday. The Bible doesn't tell us much about the space at Pilate's palace in which the crowd gathered. Jesus films love to portray a huge courtyard, packed out with an angry mob, but even in one of the most extreme examples of this - Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ (2004), there are only around 300 (yes, I counted them once). But the space could have been significantly smaller, and quite a bit less full and still qualify as a crowd. A crowded room at a party can almost be single figures. I'm not suggesting the figure is as low as that, but let's bear in mind that any idea of size we have is at best a guess, and at worst just adopting the casual assumptions of Christian art, which has a historical link to ant-Semitism.

So let's do the maths.

Let's say Sanders' lowest number is correct, and that six times the numbers of those that fed on Jesus' loaves and fish turned up for his triumphal entry. That would be around a tenth (10%) of the population of Jerusalem who turned up. And let's say that Gibson's vast, cinematically impressive, crowd is coincidentally close to the actual numbers, then, at a very generous estimate, that tenth equates to only around 30 people would have been at both events.

Now lets look at the other extreme. Let's say Josephus is correct about the numbers in Jerusalem, and also assume that the number turning up om the Sunday was only 3,000, now we're only talking about a thousandth (0.1% i.e. a tenth of 1%) of those present on Good Friday. And if the number in the crowd was only 50, then it's hugely unlikely that even one person was at both events.

Of course, we know some people were at both events (Jesus for one) and presumably some of his enemies and followers, but the reality is that in terms of the neutral (and this is who the sermon is talking about) perhaps fewer than 10 would have been at both events.

But were they neutral? well this leads me onto my second point....

The Crowd were not neutral
The sermon assumes that the second crown was neutral, or perhaps only nominally in favour. After all, this is what the sermon addresses. That the same fickle observers who joined in the hype of Sunday, changed their minds over the course of the week.

Those lobbying against Jesus didn't like what they saw on Sunday. Conversely, we're told Jesus' most dedicated supporters either slunk off (in the case of the men) or (in the case of some of the women) were still committed enough to turn up for his death. The only real defector was Judas.

But it turns out that "the crowd" were not at all neutral. The account is covered at length in all four gospels, and with a great deal of repetition. The problem with this volume of material is that we tend to take in the big picture and skim over the minor details. But they matter, not least because they tell us a great deal about the crowd.

Mark's gospel is generally considered the oldest and therefore the most reliable when it comes to small details and there's a vital detail in Mark 15:6-8. These are the verses that tells us about Pilate's custom of releasing a prisoner, and they tell us that one of those prisoner's was Barabbas. And then the passage says "So the crowd came and began to ask Pilate to do for them according to his custom" (NRSV). In other words the crown weren't just picked randomly from the street. They certainly weren't there because the wanted Jesus to be killed. (Many have made the point that whilst there was, at times, heated disagreement between the various Jewish factions, the last thing most people wanted was to see another of their own strung up the hated Romans).

No, Mark is clear that the crowd come because they wanted to persuade Pilate to free Barabbas. This suggests they were probably amongst Barabbas' followers. Jesus was just collateral for them. Better Jesus die than their leader.

Anti-Semitism and "the crowd"
There has been a lot of discussion about anti-Semitism is the last year or two. In my experience, Christians, at least in the UK and other westerns English-speaking countries, tend to be horrified by it, but simultaneously somewhat naive about its role in their history. The reality is, though, that anti-Semitism is so wrapped up in Christian history - Passion Plays leading to pogroms; slandering Jewish people as Christ killers; and the reinforcement of these ideas in more creative approaches to telling the story (e.g. Christian art) - that most people don't realise the anti-Semitic traditions that they accept unquestioned at face value.

Perhaps the most dominant element of anti-Semitism has been the blaming of Jews for Jesus' death. Whilst the majority would probably view it as ridiculous to blame Jewish people today for the acts of the Jews from the first century, they fail to see that this is precisely what has happened again and again throughout Christian history. If each generation is to avoid failing as horrifically as those in Nazi Germany, then each nation and generation need to take a stand against any elements of those myths that have a history of turning into anti-Semitic violence.

So let me put it plainly. The Jews of Jesus' day did not think as one. They did not act as one. It's not implausible that the majority of them never heard his name during his lifetime. Crucifixion was a Roman act. The New Testament suggest a very small proportion of Jewish people (150 out of 300,000?) had some role in Jesus' death. It's is neither biblically or historically accurate to say that the majority of Jewish people in that era wanted Jesus to die, or that those who may have had some role in it were in anyway representative of their nation for their own generation, let alone their descendants 2000 years later.

Perpetuating this sermon, that somehow a huge crowd welcomed Jesus on the Sunday and then condemned him on the Friday, does precisely this. Rather than being individuals, or a series of movements or sects, the sermon lumps all the Jewish people of Jesus' day all together and then blames them for Jesus' death. Accept that premise and you are already several steps along the path that can lead to blaming today's Jews and a repeat of the horrific violence of the not too distant past.

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I know this sermon is usually well intended. I know it's meant to cause us to look at ourselves and address our own weaknesses; to encourage Christians to be loyal to their Lord, to stick with him through difficult times; to reflect on the frailties of humanity. But there are other ways to do that. Sadly this sermon rests on a whole range of assumptions that have their origins in anti-Semitism (and bad maths), and have been allowed to grow up unchallenged. It's time for it to stop.

1 - Sanders, E.P. (1991) The Historical Figure of Jesus, London: Penguin Allen. p.249, (though see Sanders' Judaism: Practice and Belief, 63 BCE-66 CE, London and Philadelphia, 1992 pp.125-8 for a more detailed explanation.)
2 - Josephus The Jewish War 6.9.3, cross reference with the numbers he cites at an arguably less popular festival in The Jewish War 2.14.3