I’ll move this one from GQ to Great Debates.
“The Way” was the first response I thought of. I think there may be a reference in Acts to them as “The Nazarenes”. but I’m not sure.
As to why- the Romans saw him as a political rebel, the Jewish authorities as a blasphemer & an instigator who might bring down Rome’s wrath upon them. Jesus saw himself as the Suffering Servant of Isaiah whose death would redeem humanity, hasten the completion the 70 Weeks Prophecy of Daniel 9, and inaugurate the Kingdom of God.
<Christopher Walken voice> Theh were a variety of chahges.
- Nobody knows what the original followers of Jesus called themselves because they left no writings or first and accounts of themselves. Paul called them apostles but it is not known if that’s how they referred to themselves. For that matter, it isn’t even known for sure that there really was a Jesus or followers at all.
The development of Christianity was mostly a Gentile phenomenon, especially Pauline Christianity, and the Gospels were written decades after the alleged events by people who never met Jesus. The authors are unknown but the traditional authors are derived from 2nd century attributions to anonymous works. For a variety of reasons, we can tell that (although they may contain a core authentic sayings tradition) they were not written by witnesses, nor were they based on the memoirs of witnesses. They were pious fictions created from OT passages, from the authors’ imaginations, from a shared sayings tradition and in some cases, from each other. This is not a radical or particularly speculative view of the Gospels. These are mainstream conclusions of contemporary Biblical scholarship.
- If Jesus was crucified, it was because he did something to piss off the Romans. The trial before the Sanhedrin is a polemic fiction as well as an apology designed to shift blame away from the Romans. Mark, who created the first Passion narrative, was writing for a Roman audience at a time immediately following the Roman sack of Jerusalem. He had to find a way to minimize Roman culpability and find some different patsies to blame for the crucifixion.
The fact is, though, that crucifixion was purely a Roman form of execution and it was used against Jews solely for crimes of sedition or rebellion against Rome. Pilate did not take orders from the high priests (who were hand picked collaborators of the Romans anyway. They were sycophants to Pilate, not intimidators) and would not have cared about an intermural Jewish religious squabble. Jesus’ trial and conviction contains a number of procedural errors which mark it as unhistorical but the main problem is that his conviction is for something (claiming to be the Messiah) which was not a crime under Jewish law. Ironically, though, it might have been seen as sedition by the Romans because it amounted to a claim to be the king of Judea, which was a direct challenge to the authority not only of Pilate but Caesar himself (and indeed, this is the ostensible reason given for Pilate’s motive in the Gospels).
The question is how seriously the Romans would have taken a statement like that and whether they would have believed he represented an authentic threat or if he was just some harmless, demented peasant. If he had a following, especially an armed following, they would take it very seriously indeed but the puzzling thing is that for wannna be Messiahs (and the Romans dealt with more than one) they usually crucified the followers along with the ring leader. In this case, they only killed Jesus. If they had thought that Jesus’ movement had any sort of revolutionary intent they should have killed the apostles as well. The fact that they didn’t makes the “king of the Jews” motive someone problematic.
That leaves the disturbance at the Temple. Since Jerusalem was always packed to the gills during Passover and the Romans were greatly outnumbered, they were paranoid about riots and tended to quickly squelch anything that looked like it might get out of hand. The Temple was a particular powder keg and source of Roman tension. So some nutcase knocking over tables in the courtyards and getting people riled would arouse Roman attention in a hurry and they would quickly make an example of the instigator in order to keep the peace.
As was stated earlier, the money changers were doing nothing wrong and were actually an essential component to the Temple’s ability to function. If Jesus attaced them, it was not because he was “cleansing” the Temple (they weren’t making it dirty) but because he was launching some sort of symbolic attack on the authority of the Temple itself. Bear in mind that the reason people went to the Temple was to sacrifice and be forgiven for their sins. They were forbidden to sacrifice anywhere else and the ONLY way they could be forgiven was to go to the Temple. If Jesus was trying to redefine the nature of forgiveness and communion with God then the entire instutution of the Temple would have been contrary to his message. Attacking the money changers was a symbolic spoke in the wheels. He wasn’t trying to purify the Temple, he was trying to shut it down (an intention I believe was concealed and redacted and whitewashed by the evangelists). If he had said something about wanting to destroy the Temple then that would have contributed even more to the ruckus in the courtyard.
So, while it can’t be established with certainty why Jesus was crucified, the most likely reason is that he was executed for disturbing the peace during Passover (perhaps with a claim to Messiahship being an aggravating factor).
I believe that part of the requirement for moneychanging was in the money itself. No graven images are allowed in places of worship - a shul has no portraits. If the Roman money had a picture of the emperor on it, it would be forbidden to carry in the temple. Could moneychangers have changed Roman money to local money without images?