I know you think it's some Onion piece I'm putting up here.
But no, seriously - it's what O'Reilly wrote:
In Killing Jesus: A History,
Bill O’Reilly and writing partner Martin Dugard bring us their
long-awaited “accurate account of not only how Jesus died, but also the
way he lived.” This should settle two millennia of Christian debate.
Although it lacks suspense (SPOILER ALERT: he dies), it’s a pretty good
read and it’s fleshed out with tidbits about the ancient world.
...
The basic argument of the book is
that Jesus died because he interfered with the taxation-heavy Roman
revenue stream. The reason the Jews eagerly anticipated the Messiah,
writes O’Reilly, is, “When that moment arrives, Rome will be defeated
and their lives will be free of taxation and want.”
It’s
true that the people did long for the Messiah, that the majority of
them were poor and oppressed, and that very few benefited from Roman
occupation. But even if the Romans had been overthrown the people would
have still been paying tithes to Jewish authorities to sustain the
Temple, as Biblical and Jewish laws demand.
O’Reilly argues that Temple taxes
and profits from the moneychangers were back-channeled to Rome. Thus
when Jesus overturned the tables of the moneychangers he “interrupted
the flow of funds from the Temple to Rome.”
He’s
right: the Temple incident led to Jesus’s arrest and execution and the
Romans were responsible for killing Jesus. But there is no evidence that
the Romans benefited from the financial affairs of the Temple during
Jesus’ lifetime. Pilate didn’t get dibs on the lamb shanks some used to
pay the priests. Jesus died because he was a rabble-rouser who disturbed
the peace and challenged the authorities. Jesus didn’t die for our W2s.
Even
if Jesus’s actions had been all about taxes, he died protesting a
skeletal taxation system that privileged the rich. Wealthy citizens were
exempt from most taxes altogether, non-citizens paid a flat-rate poll
tax regardless of income, the property tax was 1 percent, and the money
from taxes was used to build roads and fund the military. It's not like
the Romans did anything obscene like tend to the poor.
Making tax cuts holy and religious - that's Bill O'Reilly.
