I understand Cindy's point and will say that, like much of the Bible, I accept it in an allegorical sense. I know form personal experience and others I trust totally, that each of us may be infused with something higher and the results can, unsurprisingly, be rather astonishing, to say the least to others.
As for the point about Jews.
I appreciate that many, Jews and Christians have been struggling, especially for the last 400 or so years, to find a theological justification for the Jews rejection of Jesus and the subsequent negative reaction.
The sad reality is, there is none. What has emerged has been little more than a confusing mish mash of compromise and fabrications. The reason is quite simple, the truth is so much more prosaic and the evidence is right there.
The Romans had occupied that part of the ME, occupied by a notoriously independent people, principally traders and merchants, who dominated most of the trading ports on the E Mediterranean. It's difficult for us, today especially, to fully appreciate the importance of the ME in the ancient world. The world was beating a door to India. Because India produced, in huge quantities, spices which flavoured food. The major economic power houses, at that time were China, which had almost direct access, N Africa and Southern Europe, which didn't. They needed to rely upon the peoples of the ME and especially the ports, to transport those spices.
Now much like their essentially direct descendants today, who are known as Palestinians, many among those people simply refused to submit themselves to Roman occupation. Their history records previous occupations, even whole scale abductions. They had come to believe they were special and chosen. Most uniting under a single god, which was remarkable itself, for the time.
The occupiers, Romans, had little compunction is applying some of the most horrible methods of retribution. Crucifixion was, sadly, a rather common place method.
Now, there seems to be evidence, from Josephus and some Roman commentators, of a number of uprising, by Jews, at that time. Like now, most claimed to be action on behalf of or under instruction from god. Like now, most were silly, expreem and brutally suppressed.
The problem with commentators at that time is, like the latter half of the 20th century up to the present, information tends to be produced, as much to create impressions, as record hisorical fact. But since both Josephus and Roman commentators, both make not dissimilar claims, we can accept these to an extent.
From the perspective of the people of Palestine, at that time, Jesus would have been just another rebel leader. But what seems to have made him so different is that he refuted the teachings of resistance, conflict and taught people, if a robber takes your cloak, give him your coat as well. Love your enemies. Do not judge. Do not kill. Do not fight and most crucially, pray in a locked closet, because clergy have no authority.
Now the evidence seems to indicate that the only substantive Jewish leadership remaining, was the local clergy. We know the Romans took great pains, usually, to integrate local religions and religious leaders from most territories, into the Romans empire, in part indicated by their enormous number of personal gods. The resistance among the Jews, in Palestine, was led by the clergy. The majority of the people would have looked to them for their guidance and deliverance. It would be the clergy who would tend to hand over trouble makers and such, to the Romans for punishment. Presumably hoping for realistic opportunities themselves.
The gospels record that the clergy were openly hostile to the teachings of Jesus, even before the Sermon on the Mount. But what Jesus said, in that Sermon would have been enough for those clergy to finally decide he needed to be disposed of. Not only was he creating enormous trouble for the local people, he was also openly telling people to defy the authority of the local clergy.
That is why they would have handed Jesus over to the Romans.
Any claims about his divinity would have meant no more to them than that of a child goddess in Nepal means to many in the west. (With deepest respect to Buddhists in Nepal).
It's sad that reality has given way to disputed belief. But we live in an age when seemingly intelligent people are claiming the world was created in 6 days, so things remain quite silly.
