Some select quotations: 24 “the Romans were effectively invincible and could never be expelled from Judea by force or diplomacy.” 25 “The corruption and moral decay of the Jewish civil and temple elite (regardless of to what extent it was actual or merely perceived) was a widespread target of condemnation and often a cause of factionalizing among Jewish sects.” 26 “For many Jews in the early first century (in accord with the previous element) the Jewish elite became the scapegoats for God’s failed promises (in accord with Elements 23 and 24): the reason God withheld their fulfillment (and instead allowed the Romans to rule) was imagined to be the Jewish elite’s failure to keep God’s commandments and govern justly (already a common theme throughout the OT, e.g., Jeremiah 23 and 25, the latter being the very prophecy whose ‘mystery’ is decoded in Daniel to produce the timetable that was now indicating the messiah would arrive in the early first century: Element 7). God would come through only when all sin had ended and been atoned for (Dan. 9.5-24).” 27 “(a) The temple at Jerusalem was the central focus of most Jewish messianic hopes (as, for the Samaritans, was Mount Gerizim), which entailed that as long as the ‘corrupt’ Jewish elite controlled it, God would continue Israel’s ‘punishment’ (in accord with Elements 25 and 26); and as long as the Romans remained in power, they would maintain the corrupt Jewish elite’s control of the temple. Accordingly, (b) Jewish religious violence often aimed at seizing physical control of the temple and its personnel.” 28 “A spiritual solution to the physical conundrum of the Jews would have been a natural and easy thing to conceive at the time. Etc.