Actually, Jesus didn't turn away anyone himself. People turned away from him, sure. My point was, Christ, in the bible, was inclusive of everyone. He was a pretty big proponent of disliking the sin and not the sinner. He didn't discriminate agains the romans. How was he militant?
We are speaking about two different Jesuses. I'm a fan of both; they seem cool. Biblical Jesus tends to have a poetic turn of phrase. (Historical Jesus probably did not speak or read any of the languages in which the bible is written, if he was literate at all. But he was presumably a damn good orator if anyone felt like following him.) The historical Jesus likely would not have been big on Rome, given that it "systematically oppressed" its far-flung Jewish population for a hundred years, culminating in the sack of Jerusalem in 70 AD and the mass suicide at Masada a few years later.
The reason that we remember Christ at all as a character is because he wasn't historical Jesus. Meaning, his actions and philosophy ran counter to what conventional wisdom would have you think. This is why people like Martin Luther King will be remembered. The man had every reason to grab a baseball bat and want to beat the shit out of the white man, but he didn't. So, contextual historical clues don't mean much when you are considering someone if their ilk. Imagine if we didn't have the documentation we have of Martin Luther King Junior? Two centuries from now would people be debating the validity of his message? After his people were enslaved and tortured would people buy that he really was so peaceful and loving? "No way." Is what most would postulate.
This is really fascinating. I wonder. "No way" indeed seems like the initial horse to back. And yet the distance of time's passing often lends a certain romanticism -- look at how we remember the Trojan War, or the founding of Rome. We, the hypothetical people of 200 years hence, would probably rather remember Martin Luther King Jr as a brave man of peace, the embodiment of the pen being mightier than the sword, etc. All the things he in fact was. (It's likely, in fact, that we are already doing this to a small extent -- no one is perfect, something we've possibly learned with MLK.) Turn the other cheek, take the moral high ground; these are fundamental positive traits of western society. In short, this is one of the reasons the narrative of the Bible has been so appealing to so many. It speaks to our basic humanity. So -- maybe. Maybe "no way." But there's something deeply awe-inspiring about what MLK was, and that's something people will believe in no matter what.
Regarding MLK, forget about 200 years, try two millennia. Try two millennia without documentation and largely via word of mouth. People would, via context, determine that there was no way he was that tolerant and inclusive. There would be the "historical MLK."And yet the distance of time's passing often lends a certain romanticism -- look at how we remember the Trojan War, or the founding of Rome.
there's a big difference between movements, events and individuals. People tend to romanticize movements and realize individuals.