Its complicated.

First of all, John 10:17-18......Jesus plainly said that no one could take his life, but that he would lay it down, and pick it up again. Men can't kill God. The crucifixion was part of God's plan of salvation and it came through the Jewish nation to fulfill prophecy....John 4:22. Far as I am concerned, we all had our part in driving the nails.

Secondly, you have to step back and see that the Bible is a Jewish book. Every single word of it was written by "the Jews". Jesus was a Jew. His disciples were Jews. His enemies were Jews. Jesus fulfilled both the Jewish law and the Jewish prophets. As a Christian, I feel that I have a Jewish heritage....a "grafted in branch" as Paul said. It is true that the Jewish leaders of the day, tagged by Indy as the "deep state" conspired with the Romans to kill Jesus but it is equally true that Jews spread his Gospel to the world. The first Christians were Jews. Damning all Jews as "Christ killers" don't make a whole hell of a lot of sense when you look at it objectively.

At the time of Jesus's days on earth, there was a great rift in Judaism. The Pharisees were going the route of Rabbinic or Talmudic Judaism, they were like "liberals", the Sadducees held more to the Torah, they were like "conservatives". When the Romans destroyed the temple in 70 AD, they had a problem. They got together (the sons and grandsons of the men who conspired against Jesus) a tried to figure out how they were going to hold the thing together. They went all the way with the Talmudic version which still exists to this day. Jewish believers in Jesus went the other.

When Constantine and the Romans took over Christianity, they introduced a lot of anti-Semitism into it, ignoring its Jewish roots. It goes on to this day. Like all forms of bigotry, I don't think it is particularly sophisticated. Early Gentile Christians, did not hate Jews, on the contrary, some of them in their zeal wanted to become Jews and Paul had to straighten them out....see the book of Galatians.

Anyway, I take Paul at his word and do not "boast against the branch". As I understand it, Messianic Judaism (Jews who accept Jesus as their Messiah) is growing rapidly, so we may be witnessing the infancy of Paul's vision in Romans 11 unfolding today.


"Men must be governed by God or they will be ruled by tyrants". --- William Penn