Helen Bond

I think that's one of the mistakes people make.

People think Jesus is the first Christian, but he wasn't by any means.

Even Paul, I think, you know, would say to his dying day, I'm Jewish.

I would get my son circumcised, you know.

The break between the two faiths, as they later became, was much later than people tend to think.

So yeah, in terms of blaming the Jews, I think this is a post-70 development.

And 70 is a big year because that's the year that Rome destroyed the temple in Jerusalem.

There was a revolt of the Jews in 66.

Rome came, of course, and put it down brutally, burnt the temple to the ground.

And then you get all of these people trying to work out, what does this mean?

Does this mean that the Roman gods are stronger than the Jewish gods?

How do we explain the fact that the temple has fallen?

This is incredible.

It had happened before, centuries earlier, but

but it had been rebuilt.

And the way that they explained it centuries before was to say that the people themselves had sinned.

They'd done bad things.

And because of that, God had come and destroyed the temple

And then, you know, as a punishment, and then things would be okay later on.

And so they use exactly the same explanation here.