We begin, as Schweitzer rightly insisted, with Jesus’ Jewish context. What did it mean to be a first-century Palestinian Jew? It meant, first, a setting of social unrest. Josephus tells us of several incidents in the time of Jesus in which Roman soldiers acted violently towards the populace; no doubt there were plenty of localized incidents of which we know nothing. Taxation was high, breeding frustration and resentment. Tensions within the Jewish community—poor against rich,