The Romans made secular law. Jesus didn't care about secular law (give unto Caesar...). He cared about the Pharisees. The priests of the temple whom he felt were false. He railed against the wealth of the cohanim (again, the priests of the Temple) and their distance from the poor, the sick, the lame. THAT was his dispute with the priests. why do you think Caiphas and Annas sent him packing? It was a POLITICAL dispute. I'm not sure where you're getting the concept that he only cared about whether gentiles could get to heaven. That's untrue. Jesus was a jew until he died and while it may be true that he felt the righteous could get to heaven even if they weren't jewish he certainly never encouraged anyone to not be a jew, nor did he stop observing (hence the Last Supper being a passover sedar). The irony, to me is that some people who profess to be Christian don't think Jews can get to heaven. He did say that G-d's laws had to be followed... but what WERE those laws? They were the laws of the Old Testament.
And you're right. He saw the money lenders as an offense to G-d. But who allowed them at the Temple Mount? That's right... the priests.
One does not have to incite new laws in order to be a radical. One only has to fight for the change of those at the top of the hierarchy...and Jesus did that. If you get rid of all the deity stuff, he actually had it down right.
*Edit* One last thing. The Jewish G-d has ALWAYS been a personal G-d. The rules you talk about were to allow one to be worthy of that relationship. Don't forget, in Judaism, G-d spoke to his flock... he spoke to Abraham, Isaac, Moses. etc. ... and to the Jews through them. There isn't any intermediary between Jews and their G-d, unlike Christianity. It's a one-to-one thing. Especially at that time, when the Temple still stood. It was a Jew, his animal sacrifice and his G-d on the place where Abraham took Isaac to slay him.
I think you and I are probably in agreement on most points while not expressing ourselves clearly to each other. I find it difficult to see Jesus as a social revolutionary when His teachings aren't really about that unless you think His exhortations to people to do the right thing by each other and encouraging them to understand their salvation was an individual choice are some kind of social revolutionary thought. The part about salvation being the choice of individuals was certainly a religiously revolutionary thought -but not the part about doing the right by each other. That has always been part of Jewish tradition and teachings. So I just can't see it as a "social" revolution. Even you agree that His concern was not with secular law, even though that law contributed to much of the inequity He saw.
In nearly all ways, Jesus remained a conservative Jew and did not deviate from the most basic Judaic teachings, law, tradition and ritual. His message was not primarily regarding the Pharisees by any means, although He certainly directed quite a few that direction. But in fact, most of His teachings harkened BACK to the practice of Judaism as He believed it should be practiced -with the exception about His teachings that salvation was attainable for anyone and their choice. But most of His teachings were not with regard to the religious hierarchy. It was directed at, to and for individuals -bypassing the religious hierarchy.
As for God speaking to specific people like Moses, Abraham, etc. -I agree and with those individuals He certainly had a personal relationship. But Jewish teachings do not emphasize that each and every Jew can also have such a relationship with God. No religion teaches that if a person tries hard enough, they can get God to appear as a burning bush or some other object that actually talks out loud to them. The kind of personal relationship that is emphasized in Christianity is not emphasized in Jewish teachings for obvious reasons. Jews already KNOW God, come from a long lineage that already established a relationship with God. Gentiles don't have that history, so the Christian religion places more emphasis on the fact a personal relationship with God is possible than does Judaism.
Because you wrote G-d which is a sign of respect among Jews so that others cannot misuse the name for their own purposes, I suspect you are Jewish? If so, then you certainly understand and know your own religion far better than I do and I apologize if I have misstated anything that is in disagreement with your own understanding of it. But I also know my own better than you do and Christians are never going to agree that the primary message of Jesus was with regard to Pharisees or that his verbal attacks regarding their wealth, distance from those who most needed their aid etc. is what disturbed the religious hierarchy the most. Christianity teaches and believes that what disturbed the religious hierarchy the most was the fact Jesus was teaching that salvation was not the sole domain of Jews alone.
As for whether Jesus remained a devoted Jew -of course He did. Most Christian religions know that Jesus was a devout Jew and He died a devout Jew. His followers were all Jews for the next couple of centuries and it wasn't for nearly 400 years that the majority of Christians had not been born Jewish. Christianity was considered a Jewish sect for several centuries because of that fact and it was not seen as a religion separate from Judaism until the majority of its followers were not Jewish.
BTW -only Catholicism involves an intermediary between the individual and God, not the others. And the majority of Christians are not Catholic.
