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Was Jesus a Jew? It's immaterial.

Have read the article. Here's more or less where I am coming from. Pardon if my language doesn't quite match standard terminology.

(Heavily dependent on Brown:)

Here's what Judaism and Christianity have in common:

a. monotheism
b. personhood of God
c. verbal revelation
d. God intervenes in human history
e. the coming judgement
f. ethical rigor
g. moral obligation

Here is where Judaism and Christianity diverge:

Judaism has moral obligation and the 600 odd commandments because God delivered them from captivity
Christianity has moral obligation because of the Resurrection

With Christianity comes quite an assemblage of dogma

The difference between Paganism and Christianity:

Pagan - what is truth? John 18:38
Christianity - I am the . . . truth . . . John 14:6

When we are dealing with Islam, let us not forget the Ressurection and the judgement (final and intermediate, world and personal), as well as God's intervention (which has happened and will happen again).

There might be some Pharisee attitude in this, as well as some of the rest of the Essenes, the Zealots, and the Sadducees. Whether we need an intermediary or can speak directly with God and what the nature of the intermediary (BVM, Christ, local functionary) might be seems to be a moot point among various flavors of monotheists.

There it is. Have fun.

Was Jesus a Jew? It's immaterial.

Sez you. I think the claim that Jesus was the messiah, and that Christians seek to prove this claim by (mis)using the Hebrew scriptures, prove rather conclusively that it is a material question. If Jesus isn't Jewish, then he sure as heck ain't the messiah. You can kiss the Christian grounding in Jewish scripture and prophecy goodbye.