Looking at these events, we understand just what the Romans were so afraid of in Jesus’s lifetime, and why they were especially nervous about rogue Galileans with religious pretensions – especially any with the slightest aspirations to kingship. And moreover, why they would be so justifiably paranoid around great feasts, such as Passover.This essay is a re-posting which I noted some years ago. I had forgotten about it, which means it's a good time to link to it again.The crisis of 4 BC offered a prequel, a draft script, of so many of the horrors of the coming century. And that was the world into which Jesus was born.
In my earlier posting, I express some skepticism about our being able to pinpoint the year of Jesus's birth. Check out the link there for discussion.
Whether or not Jesus was born in 4 BCE, this essay gives a good sense of the social and political world into which he was born.
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