Jesus was a Jew. That seems obvious enough but most people who call
themselves Christians are not mindful of this or how it came to be that the
religion of Jesus the Jew became a religion that has spawned, in the name of
Jesus, hatred for the Jewish people. How did that happen?
I remember hearing Marcus Borg lecture once and he told about another
lecture he had once given. He was talking about the Jewishness of Jesus and
about how important it was to understand the social and cultural context in which
Jesus lived and taught. When he was done a woman came up to Borg and said,
"Are you certain about what you said tonight?" "About what?" replied Borg. "That
Jesus was a Jew. Are you certain about that?" "Yes," said Borg. "I'm certain
about that." To which the offended woman replied, "Well, certainly his mother
wasn't!"