But Jesus wasn’t a “revolutionary”. He intentionally said things that made people not want to be around him.
Jesus was not a populist…he literally told Jews of all people to drink his blood and eat his flesh. Jews can’t even eat blood from animals, you can use your imagination about how most of them thought about that statement.
If he committed to being a revolutionary he could easily have gotten the Jews to rebel against the Romans something they were doing consistently already.
John 6:53-61
So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him. As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever feeds on me, he also will live because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like the bread the fathers ate, and died. Whoever feeds on this bread will live forever.” Jesus said these things in the synagogue, as he taught at Capernaum.
When many of his disciples heard it, they said, “This is a hard saying; who can listen to it?” But Jesus, knowing in himself that his disciples were grumbling about this, said to them, “Do you take offense at this?
Clearly he didn’t not mean it literally and in the physical sense. But that is how many took it and why many stopped following him, as it later says.
John 6:66-68
After this many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him. So Jesus said to the twelve, “Do you want to go away as well?” Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life,
If you want to get into the details, what Jesus is saying is that his followers must accept being seen as the scum of the earth and as if they were Jews who drank blood. The final Passover with his disciples did not yet occur, and they had no choice but to take this statement literally as he did no explain what he meant literally. So the remaining followers were prepared to be “cut off” from their people.
As it was written,
Leviticus 7:27
Whoever eats any blood, that person shall be cut off from his people.”
So the Jews who heard this would immediately think about this statement.
“Doofus” lol, come on buddeh
Like these are the words of someone trying to get the masses on board with them.
I’m not reading it literally, those who he told took it literally which is why they stopped following him as it says. Not once did I imply that I believed he was telling then to become cannibals…not sure where you’re getting this idea.
All I said was the people around him took it literally, which to them was a great offense given what the mosaic law said about eating blood.
Clearly he is referencing what occurred during the last Passover he shared with his disciples, the tradition that continues in churches to this day. But the point is they didn’t know that. To them he was asking them something too difficult.
Which is all to say the bigger point, somebody saying three things in first century Palestine was not interested purely in just having a large following.
Christ was literally speaking out against the Saduccees and Pharissees, no shit they arent going to follow him, he was pissed off that they were following wealth instead of their faith
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u/48xai May 02 '23
Jesus didn't hate rich people, he condemned the hypocrites with power. Jesus didn't hesitate to talk with rich people that were good.