Jesus a Leftist?

John Ray asks, "Was Jesus a Leftist?"

I think I might give the trinity a rest for a little while, though defences of it will still be received with interest. I think I might have a quick look at whether Jesus was a Leftist or a conservative. It's an old chestnut, I know, but the Leftist invasion of the senescent mainstream churches does tend to raise the question of what Christ's Gospel really was. Are the current teachings of such "liberal" churches Christian or not? The churches concerned would of course normally claim that they are but don't really push the claim. As Leftists are traditionally anti-religious the argument has usually gone by default to the conservatives. Leftists have usually not wanted anything to do with any religious figure so conservatives can claim Jesus as one of their own with little opposition.

I e-mailed him about it but I want to reproduce part of that e-mail here:

Jesus was a conservative in as much as he was trying to restore the temple (much as many American conservatives decry activist judges that are distorting the Constitution). The Herodians that occupied the Temple were intermarried with gentiles which, therefore, polluted the Temple. They also engaged in cousin marriage, hence the charge of fornication.

As for the "church" being leftist, I've mentioned before that Paul was a Herodian [he was a member of King Herod's family-ed.] and a Roman citizen (his "get out of jail free card") as well as a gentile Christian and he certainly had an agenda of accommodation with the powers that be, doing everything in his power to destroy the family of Jesus (James, Thomas) and disciples that may have known Jesus (Peter) or otherwise make them look foolish. Jewish Christianity died with James and the destruction of the Temple, leaving only Paul's version of events. We are left with Gentile Christianity. So the leftists won.

For those that don't know where this view comes from, I refer you to my post here in which I have reproduced the introduction to Robert Eisenman's book, James the Brother of Jesus. Eisenman takes a controversial view of the origins of Christianity (one which I subscribe to) based on his interpretation of certain Dead Sea Scroll texts.