Was Jesus a Jewish Religious Bigot?

The most harden and reveling position Jesus takes in this context is over his love and protection of the exclusive truth of the faith of Israel and its God. As hinted at else where in the Gospels, we see a dark side of Jesus in his cruel and venomous attack on a mother simply requesting his mercy for her possessed daughter (Matt. 15: 21-28)... The Gospel of Mark simply calls her “…a Gentile, of Syrophoenician race.” (Mark 7:26). However, when this verse is redacted in Matt. 15:22, she is call “…a Canaanite woman…” a term used in the time of Jesus equivalent today to an African American being called a “Nigger”. Here Jesus is referenced to the “New Moses” (a theme used by the writer of Matthew) in confronting a non-Jew (Israelite) or a pagan Canaanite woman. His disciples know Jesus’ position on Gentiles; his basic hate for them, but are unable to get rid of her and are forced to file their complaint with Jesus himself who has, up until now ignored her. Now the Jewish Jesus must confront someone his faith and history requires him to hate. Matthew’s Jesus has some cruel fun with her and her sick daughter: “It is not proper to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.” Dogs (κυναριοις) is Jesus’ Jewish hate term for Gentiles ( Matt. 7:6 “κυσιν “). Finally Jesus heals her daughter, but only after he extracts from her a verbal confirmation before his disciples and the people watching that only the Jews have God’s blessing and she and her daughter are indeed dogs (notice the play on words here θυγατηρ (young girl) with κυναριοις (small dog)).

Although Jesus warns against adults harming any Jewish child’s faith (Matt. 18:1-6), he has (as expressed in the above pericope) no concern about Gentile children since any faith they may have is non-Jewish and pagan. In short, for Jesus, Gentile dogs have no true faith.