[ashtanga]

The Jews saw Jesus as a gadfly at best, and so they betrayed him to Roman authorities, who would brook no itinerant preacher's claim to the throne of Caesar. In a word, both parties did as they saw fit. There was little insight into the subplots and historical shadings at play by either group. There were probably dozens of claimants to the Son of Man who were killed in the same manner, by the same players. I am not trying to be funny or sarcastic. To blame Jews for the death of Christ is as logical as blaming Greeks for killing Socrates. Shakespeare, on the other hand, was a great artist who wrote plays that didn't necessarily reflect his belief in the good of man as a group or as an individual. If Shakespeare were an essayist, we'd have a clearer picture of his feelings toward the Chosen. Again, I do not strive for sarcasm.

[Verginius Rufus]

The vast majority of the Jews who were alive at that time had no role whatever in handing Jesus over to Pilate, only a handful of the leaders and their rent-a-mob, and the procedure by which Jesus was condemned by the council seems to have been highly irregular.

In Socrates' case, he wasn't condemned by "the Greeks" but only by the Athenians, but he got a fair trial by Athenian standards, and if he had proposed exile as an alternative to the death penalty, probably would have been exiled rather than executed.