A LIFE THREATENING DISEASE - I
The Gospels were theology, not history. Evangelizing documents that laid the foundation of a new faith. A faith that, by the end of the first century, was in sharp conflict with the one from which it had sprung. The refusal of the Jews to accept Jesus as their savior was regarded as a mortal threat to the early Church, and there were many attacks on the Jews. Numerous critical biblical scholars and contemporary historians have concluded that the evangelists and their editors in the early Church consciously shifted the blame for Jesus’ death from the Romans to the Jews. This was in order to make Christianity more appealing to gentiles living under Roman rule, and less threatening to the Romans themselves. Within a few short years of the crucifixion, the Jesus movement was in grave danger of being reabsorbed by Judaism. There was nothing the Church Fathers could do to change the fact that Jesus died a Roman death at the hands of Roman troops. But if they could suggest that the Jews had f