Experimental Blog # 189

Quotations from "And Man Created God" - A History of the World at the Time of Jesus by Selina O'Grady

"At the end of the first century BC, the world was full of gods. Thousands of them .."
"Galilee probably had more holy men, or Hasidim, living a life of poverty and performing miracles and healings than any other district of Palestine. < > As for miracles, people in the ancient world found nothing surprising in the idea of exceptional people performing exceptional deeds ..."

"Most Jews, including Jesus' family, thought they could juggle the demands of being both Jewish and Roman < > Some of Jesus' brothers had Greek names; some Jewish."
"Cults sprang up all over Galilee and Judaea, proclaiming their belief that the kingdom of God was at hand and that the Messiah would appear in their lifetime."
"About one or two years after he started preaching, Jesus and some of his followers joined the hundreds of thousands of Jews from all around the empire travelling to Jerusalem for Passover."

"Yet, according to the biblical historian Geza Vermes, Jesus would probably never have been executed if he had < > not made his religious pilgrimage to Jerusalem. It was in the already tense city of Jerusalem that his opposition to the Pharisees, his association with John the Baptist{his executed cousin}, and the claims made by some of his followers that he was the Messiah became such an incendiary combination to the authorities."

"Jesus was arrested by the Temple guard, which Paul had already or would soon join, and was charged with blasphemy. But blasphemy was a crime only under Jewish not Roman law < > So he was further charged with being a royal pretender, or political agitator, claiming to be the Messiah. This was an act of sedition, which was a crime under Roman law .."

"Pilate passed the buck for the final time and let the mob decide Jesus' fate."
"But why the Roman procurator Pontius Pilate and Caiphas, the Roman-appointed ruler of Jerusalem, and Antipas, Rome's client king, were so keen to escape responsibility for Jesus' execution is unclear. It may have been because Jesus had come to Jerusalem at a time when tensions between Jews and Romans were riding so high that the need to appease both 'sides' was particularly important and particularly difficult. It was unlikely to have been fear of Jesus' popularity, since the crowd standing in the courtyard of Pilate's fortress gave the thumbs down to Jesus."