Not only was the city of Jerusalem destroyed, but the waves of violence, then reactions to the violence, and then further violent reactions to violent reactions continued into the next generation. What little data we have shows the region did not recover for at least half a millennium. In some sense, it did not really recover its economic preeminence until now, two millennia later. Jerry Bowyer

First dry morning for a while,so I went out on the bike. It started to look threatening over the mountains, so I was glad to get home before the rain.

Non-elite Israel was longing for a Messiah who would ensure debts were forgiven in accordance with the law and the prophets. Only then would they see the end of Israel’s exile as a vassal of Rome. Jerry Bowyer

The financial crisis that spread from the Middle East to the rest of the empire, and which helped trigger the crucifixion, ended when Rome embraced a bail-out strategy. Archeological data show that shortly after this bailout, Roman currency underwent a series of debasements, and political crises occurred within a generation of the crisis and the crucifixion. Jerry Bowyer

Jesus was a threat to the legitimacy of the rule of the corrupt interest groups at the center of the Judean economy. He was genuinely exposing the machinations of wealth extractors such as tax collectors and moneychangers. Elites had a good thing going (for themselves, not for the nation). They could live off forcibly extracted wealth in the form of taxes, which included tithes recently taken on the force of law, making them a kind of religious tax. Jerry Bowyer

Israel’s elites were the ungrateful servants who, having been tentatively forgiven for not paying the King (God) what they owed Him—honoring the sabbatical year system as a condition of residency in the holy land—nevertheless turned around and sought to coerce every cent owed to them by the poor. Jerry Bowyer

Northerly breeze this morning, building up for rain later in the week.

It is important to notice Jesus declared the salvation of Zacchaeus’s house only after he offered four-fold restitution to the defrauded poor. Repentance was necessary, because Zacchaeus was guilty. He defrauded. That’s why Zacchaeus knew which sin to repent. Jerry Bowyer

A beautiful morning for riding again.

Both Joseph and Jesus are referred to as “carpenters,” but the word translated that way implies a far broader set of responsibilities and involves a high level of skill and a fairly high level of income and social influence. Jerry Bowyer