A snippet from "The Judas Brief"

The following paragraph is from The Judas Brief. It introduces the chapter on the arrest of Jesus

Poor Jesus! The Gospels say he went to Jerusalem to be rejected, arrested and executed. They tell us that he came into the city in messianic fashion to the cheers of the crowds and preached a new kingdom was coming to replace the Romans. He disrupted the Temple proceedings, chased people and cattle out of the Temple hall, interfered with the commercial sacrifice trade, overturned merchant tables, blocked movement across the building floor, caused chaos and angered the chief priests. He came back day after day, insulting everyone and their fathers and their father’s fathers. He accused the authorities of violating God’s will, murdering the prophets, insulting the memory of John the Baptist, hypocritical and unprofessional behavior, being mean to the poor, profaning the Temple, ignorance of the scriptures, foolish thinking, giving to Rome what belonged to God, and not recognizing the return of Elijah or the arrival of the Messiah. He even raised someone from the dead. But the guy can’t even get a traffic ticket for parking his donkey in a “No Prophet” zone. As he later complains, “Day after day I was with you in the temple teaching, and you did not arrest me.” By this time he had to be thinking, “What’s a prophet got to do to get busted in this town?”