Who killed Jesus?

There is a lot of discussion going on right now about who was ultimately responsible for the death of Jesus.

The discussions I've heard so far are all flawed. They have all fallen into one of three categories.

1) Those that place blame squarely with the Jews. This group likes to quote various sections of scripture. Most of it, even the church admits is anti-Semitic.

2) Those that blame the Romans with the same emotion as the first group. These people point out that Roman's would have been unlikely to take orders from the Jews and the traditional problems of the times during the holy day of Passover.

3) Those that dancing around the question giving concessions to both sides with out actually providing an answer.

The flaw in this argument is the very vocabulary used.

Only a miniscule number of Roman citizens knew Jesus was even a name, much less the name of a man, at the time of the crucifixion. Even with in Jerusalem, I'd be willing to bet that most Roman citizens knew who Jesus was.

Similarly, I'd be willing to bet that most Jews had not heard of the man at that point. His followers were not many, and would be prophets were not unordinary during this period. Even among the Jews in Jerusalem, I'd be willing to bet there may have been a lot of talk about the man who disrupted activities at the temple, but I imagine few had bothered to form an opinion at that point, with the possible exception of blind faith to those in charge of the temple.

And that is the crux. Jesus was not killed by the Jews or the Romans. He was killed by those in control. He had made it known that he meant to disrupt the status quo and as such was a potential threat to the power structure.

In this day in age where people confuse the false teachings of the Christian Right with the real teachings of Jesus, it is forgotten that this man was a revolutionary. That his teachings were in direct opposition to the power structure of the time.

And as every revolutionary knows, if you hit the system, the system hits back.

Jesus was killed by the same people who killed Malcolm, Martin, Bobby, Joe, and all the other martyred revolutionaries, those in control.