I think he is missing something very big here. Jesus wasn't a Jew 'like the others' if one says the others were limited to the Herodian installed Pharisaical priesthood. He was, however, in the mold of the Maccabee priests one finds in the Apocrypha & the Essene teachers (of whom it is argued, John the Baptist was one.)
Jesus was a Jew, but he wasn't a part of the political structure of Herodian Jews. He was bringing back the classical sense of bridging the gap of the people & God.
I guess, what I am saying is it wasn't Jesus who went against Jewish tradition, it was the Herodian Pharisaical sects who were in charge.
It is also of an interesting historical context to note that shortly after Jesus, the Jewish religion went through a similar upheaval when the Temple was destroyed and the Rabbinical form of Judaism came to fruition- again, based on a relationship w/ God versus going through the temple.
Correct! When Yeshua railed against the so called rulers of the Jews He was aiming at the Hellenized rulers, after all, Nicodemus is a Greek name. Read the Prodigal son (Luke 15) with this in mind, the older brother is Judaism, the younger Christianity. Ouch!
You're thinking of the Sadducee's who ran the Temple along Herodian guidelines. The Pharisees descended from the Hasidim, and bore the piousness of the Jewish masses as well as facilitating the ordination of rabbis, of whom Jesus was one. Moreover, phariseeism is most commonly traced to the origins of modern Judaism.
Hyam Maccoby, Revolution In Judaea: Jesus and the Jewish Resistance.