On the one hand:
Yehoshua bar Yosef is so dangerously popular that the Romans see fit to arrest him and crucify him as the “KIng of the Jews” yet he is seemingly so unpopular the he is universally condemned by the entire local population?
Ever seen Julius Caesar, Anthony’s speach at the cremationn? At first the mob won’t let him speak, and by the end they can’t contain themselves from avenging Caesar? There’s a reason why you shouldn’t let king Mob rule.
Look at California: they elect Ronald Reagan and Jerry Brown.
Btw, the Fathers interpret it as the soul ruled by the passions, how the crowds said “Hail King,” and then “Crucify Him!” Also, the “Messianic Secret,” why Christ asks “who you say I am?” rather than proclaiming Himself.
( Incidentally, in the part of the story concerning the condemnation by the Sanhedrin the person who wrote the story apparently didn’t know that under Jewish law you cannot condemn someone unless someone is willing to speak in his defense.)
He’s not condemned until He says “I AM.” In fact He keeps silent, a fact the Gospels dwell on and the Fathers.
I’ve heard the defense “the trial was against Jewish Law!” In the Talmud, there’s a report that for forty days before a herald stated He was going to be stoned, and that if any had any exculpatory evidence in His defense. When none was forthcoming, He was hung on Erev Pesach. (Sanh. 43a) And of course, the problem would be with some claim that Sepharad posted regarding the signs of the last 40 years of the Temple, that the Sanhedrin stopped capital cases. Not to mention the idea that miscarriges of justice never happen in courst of law
and legislative bodies opperate above reproach
. I worked in Congress a year, and been in divorce court 8; trust me, things don’t go according to theory.
And on the other hand:
A human being, a Jew no less. claiming that he is God incarnate come down to earth and that you should abandon Torah? What could be more antithetical to Judaism? How could any Jew who loves God and his religion have reacted in any other way?
I recall that in the Talmud, there is something to the effect if someone says such a thing (to my knowledge, that only leaves Jesus) say “He is the Mighty One of Sinai,” or some such thing.
That a Hebrew say such a thing, in the retrospect of the Talmud might seem odd, but then again, to look at it that way is to scew the evidence. Looking at other Hebrew litterature of the time (which includes the NT, Dead Sea Scrolls, etc) shows a different story. For instance the “Wisdom of Solomon,” which although evidently written in Greek by a Alexadrian Jew, was translated into Hebrew, as Nahmanides mentions in his preface to the Torah. It contains an early Haggadah (the earliest I believe to survive), and their is other influences on the Jewish Liturgy (as so with Sirach).
jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=211&letter=W&search=Wisdom
It’s second chapter is what we are concerned with:
1: For the ungodly said, reasoning with themselves, but not aright, Our life is short and tedious, and in the death of a man there is no remedy: neither was there any man known to have returned from the grave.
2: For we are born at all adventure: and we shall be hereafter as though we had never been: for the breath in our nostrils is as smoke, and a little spark in the moving of our heart:
3: Which being extinguished, our body shall be turned into ashes, and our spirit shall vanish as the soft air,
4: And our name shall be forgotten in time, and no man shall have our works in remembrance, and our life shall pass away as the trace of a cloud, and shall be dispersed as a mist, that is driven away with the beams of the sun, and overcome with the heat thereof.
5: For our time is a very shadow that passeth away; and after our end there is no returning: for it is fast sealed, so that no man cometh again.
6: Come on therefore, let us enjoy the good things that are present: and let us speedily use the creatures like as in youth.
7: Let us fill ourselves with costly wine and ointments: and let no flower of the spring pass by us:
8: Let us crown ourselves with rosebuds, before they be withered:
9: Let none of us go without his part of our voluptuousness: let us leave tokens of our joyfulness in every place: for this is our portion, and our lot is this.
10: Let us oppress the poor righteous man, let us not spare the widow, nor reverence the ancient gray hairs of the aged.
11: Let our strength be the law of justice: for that which is feeble [note: Greek *achrestos, a play on the title
Christos] is found to be nothing worth.
12: Therefore let us lie in wait for the righteous; because he is not for our turn, and he is clean contrary to our doings: he upbraideth us with our offending the law, and objecteth to our infamy the transgressings of our education.
13: **He professeth to have the knowledge of God: and he calleth himself the child of the Lord. **[note: child Greek *pais. The same word appears in Isaiah 52:13, i.e. the Suffering Servant. The Greek word means both. cf. Genesis 15:2]
14: He was made to reprove our thoughts.
15: He is grievous unto us even to behold: for his life is not like other men’s, his ways are of another fashion.
16: We are esteemed of him as counterfeits: he abstaineth from our ways as from filthiness: he pronounceth the end of the just to be blessed, and maketh his boast that God is his father.
17: Let us see if his words be true: and let us prove what shall happen in the end of him.
18: For if the just man be the son of God, he will help him, and deliver him from the hand of his enemies.
19: Let us examine him with despitefulness and torture, that we may know his meekness, and prove his patience.
20: Let us condemn him with a shameful death: for by his own saying he shall be respected.
21: Such things they did imagine, and were deceived: for their own wickedness hath blinded them.
22:
As for the mysteries of God, they knew them not: neither hoped they for the wages of righteousness, nor discerned a reward for blameless souls.
23: **For God created man to be immortal, and made him to be an image of his own eternity. **24: Nevertheless through envy of the devil came death into the world: and they that do hold of his side do find it.
That the early Christians were using this BC text against the rabbis is shown by the 2nd century AD “Epistile of Barnabas.” WS 9:17 is also interpreted as a reference to the Most Holy Trinity (and the source of St. Paul calling the Wisdom of God, Wisdom being Who St. John called the Word of God. So much for no influence of the DC on the NT).
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YES!! even our Catholic leader, Jesus, was Jewish!