The whole area during the time of Jesus and the Roman
occupation was deemed “Jewish territory”, but did the inevitable expansion of
the state of Israel inevitably engendered a so-called “Palestinian Jesus”?
By: Ringo Bones
Most Biblical scholars blame the 1967 Arab-Israeli War – aka
the Six Day War – and the 1973 Arab-Israeli war – aka the Yom Kippur War – and the
resulting inevitable territorial expansion of the state of Israel for the rise
of the so-called “Palestinian Jesus”. But was Jesus Christ actually a
Palestinian citizen?
Jesus came from the town of Nazareth in Galilee, given the
present geopolitical situation of the region, this places Jesus’ hometown in
the northern territory of Palestine. While some more conservative scholars say
that a Palestinian Jesus is nothing more than a part of a larger milieu of the
ongoing cultural appropriation of the history of Jesus. The same conservative “palaver”
was also aimed at the so-called Gay Jesus series at Netflix. While some
conservative scholars just conclude that Palestinian Jesus is nothing more than
an anti-Semitic retelling of the Messiah.
But given that the last high-profile Jesus movie was accused
as being too anti-Semitic – i.e. Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ – which
inevitably became a runaway blockbuster success back in 2004, does this mean
that accusing Palestinian Jesus as anti-Semitic is rather an intellectually
moot point? Maybe Jesus Christ was a lot of things to a lot of people and he
said a lot of things to a lot of people while evangelicize the people of a
Roman Empire occupied Galilee.
