To read the New Testament apart from the context of the Roman war against the Jews—as it almost always is—amounts to reading The Diary of a Young Girl without reference to the Holocaust.
~ James Carroll, Constantine's Sword: The Church and the Jews
I'm only a quarter of the way into this long, fascinating book, full of provocative & thought-provoking lines like this one. I know so little about the subject that I certainly have nothing to add, at least at this point.