Helen Bond

It assumes that the Roman gods are in charge.

What Jesus is saying is that, no, the Jewish God is going to come and he's going to smite the lot of you.

He's going to get rid of the Roman gods.

He's going to get rid of Rome and its emperor.

And God is going to be the one in charge.

So this is a political message.

And as we've been saying, you know, the whole subversive tone to everyone's coming out of their boxes is again something, you know, it's challenging the stability of society.

I think we need to be a little bit cautious about the Gospels here because they want to put a lot of blame on the Jewish leadership.

But of course, Jesus is crucified and this is a Roman penalty.

So I think we really need to look at who would have put him on a cross.

And this is Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor of Judea.

He normally lives out on the coast in a nice airy city over there, but he comes to Jerusalem for the Passover just to make sure that there's no

Yeah.

He sees Jesus coming into Jerusalem, riding on the back of a donkey.

That's a statement.

Everyone walks in.

This is a pilgrimage.

You walk in or you go on your knees to ride in on a donkey.

He's got a following, as we said.

He goes into the temple in Jerusalem and he does something.