Was Jesus of Nazareth a Reform Jew?

Answer 1

Um, calling Jesus a Reform Jew is like calling Jesus a Marxist. It's putting Jesus in a category that didn't exist for almost 2000 years in the future. And, there's another problem. It's not at all clear that Jesus was out on a limb as a reformer: In the context of 2000 years ago, the Jewish world was divided into several parties, the Zealots, rebels against Rome, the Saducees, collaborators with Rome, and the Pharisees, populists who tried to ignore Rome. Within the Pharisees, there were two dominant schools of thought, the school of Rabbi Hillel, who were relatively lenient, and the school of Rabbi Shamai, who was quite strict. Almost all of the teachings of Jesus in the Gospels are in line with the school of Hillel, and the harsh things Jesus says about the Pharisees are typical of what people in the school of Hillel said about Shamai. It's interesting to note that the school of Hillel won the debates, and most of the positions Jesus took on issues are now considered normative Jewish positions.