Jesus often seems to be transgressing against the Torah and upsetting the experts in the Law, overthrowing their strictly rules-based religion in favour of a grace-filled one, yet is that really what is happening in the Gospels? Far from it. As we've discussed in this season, these inter-Jewish debates were actively being held in his day, and his viewpoints were shared by other rabbis. In many cases, Jesus held to an even stricter standard of Torah observance.
Fr Yuri and Fr Geoffrey examine how it was not the theology that Jesus proclaimed that led to his execution, rather it was the authority that he claimed, as Son of Man, Son of God, that the leaders (both Jewish and Roman) objected to. The fact that he was indeed at the heart of his Jewish tradition and made those claims, made it all the more objectionable. He was not some crazy marginal figure that could easily be ignored. He knew what he was about.
We also take a look at the Jewishness of his followers, a ragtag collection that represent the various types of Judaisms of the first century, and the symbolism of choosing twelve men in particular.
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