The Jesus Conundrum
A few thoughts while talking to myself
Jesus was not a Christian.
Oh, c’mon. Of course he was a Christian. The first one and the most perfect one.
No, he wasn’t. Jesus was a Jew. The theological foundations for Christianity were formulated after the death and resurrection of Jesus, mostly by the apostle Paul, who was Jewish, along with a few other Jewish writers of the New Testament.
But the Jews killed Jesus.
Well, let’s not generalize. Jesus was quite popular with many Jews, but Jewish religious leaders such as the Pharisees were upset with him precisely because he was so popular and because he was so critical of their elitist ways. His teachings were radical for his time, and the religious elites were not going to have any messiah which didn’t fit their idea of the messiah. So after getting a crowd worked up calling for his crucifixion those Jewish elites outsourced the job to the Romans. Crucifixion wasn’t a Jewish thing anyway; it was the Romans who crucified people.
So Jews killed a Jew. Jewish elites killed a Jew by having the Romans do it?
Yes.
Which means that the whole situation was an internal Jewish affair.
Yes, but the Romans got involved because Judea was an occupied country.
