(November 26, 2013 at 1:46 pm)BadWriterSparty Wrote: Thought about it. My answer is politics.
And war, of course.
On the Roman side I think that's very true. "By this symbol shall you conquer" I'm paraphrasing of course.
On the Jewish side I think it was out of desperation. The clock was ticking and they NEEDED a messiah. In life Yeshua failed at the task of Messiah. He was simply a failure when it came to what a messiah was supposed to do. So later jews, especially post temple destruction... needed to remake what is was to be messiah. And they chose Yeshua as their man to become their legend.