I find the whole "guilt" debate really funny. Though with backdrop of how Christains abused the story to persecute Jews later on its understsnable that jewish people are uncomfortable.
However it's not terribly hard to determine what actually happend. Lets get some fcats straight, nobody seriously disputes this.
Jesus did exist as a real person.
He was killed.
He was placed in a tomb.
His body dissapeared from the tomb.
I say dissapeared but I do not intend to make any ressurection interpretation, thats faith not fact.
The reason thats accepted as fact is based on the fact that even the historical jewish opponents of christianity in 1st century never disputed that the tomb was found empty, they simply said that christians stole the body one night. The second reason is that all gospel traditions state that women found the tomb empty. The reason this is very likely to be true is that in jewish law of the time when the gospels were written (60-100AD) held that women could not be legal witnesses. The gospels were propaganda meant to spread the word of jesus and get new converts by passing down the tradition. Why would they lie about it and put women as first witnesses when it was an obvious cultural mistake. And no the gospels were not written after this time because we have copies of parts of the new testament dating back to 135ad.
Anyway the point of all that is to establish that indeed jesus was real person who was killed. Not made up. it also illustrates that even the bible can be used as historacl refernce, religious propaganda that it is it is a hitorical dicument as well - it cant help but be.
Who killed Jesus and who is guilty. Answer joint responsibility of Jewish religiuys authorities and roman rule. Why?
After the romans conquered Israel in 63AD they instituted a dual form of government. The jews were in charge of religious laws while the romans controlled civil adminstration and defense. This also included control over all capital punishment decisions with one very minir exception not relevant to Jesus case.
Anyway Jesus historically became a threat, due to hitstiorical acxt of temple cleansing, to the Jewish religious authorities and thair highest body the sanhedrin. They had him arrested and tried him for false prophecy. His views and actions were an affront to their interpreatation of mosaic law and they badly wanted him out of the way and dead. However they could not execute him, as only the romans had capital punishment rights. So the roman authorities had ti agree to it as well. Remember now they arent concerned with jewish religious stuff, however if it begins to threaten civil unrest then they will act. Basically the romans agreed to kill jesus beacuse they were convinced, perhaps by evidence of his reputation or cleansing of temple and by persuasion of sanhedrin presists, he could start civil unrest and relvolution.
So they agreed to kill him. The point is neither side could really have been in a position to historically kill jesus. The jews couldnt becsuse they didnt have leagal autority. And the romans probably wouldnt have cared enough unless all the fuss with the sanhedrin and jesus being brought infront of them. So its joint responsibilty. Makes perfect sense too, after all politicians are polticians arent they no matter if its today ir almost 2000 years ago.
