Danutz, you said: "It was the changes in social policy that Christians wanted which got them killed. Romans would not have cared about the deification of Jesus." But wouldn't it be fair to say that it is precisely the 'deification of Jesus' which led the early Christians to restructure their communities (I'm not 'changes in social policy' quite conveys what happened) in radical ways?

Romans clearly cared about the deification of Jesus because Christians pledged allegiance to Jesus (and worshipped him as God), and therefore refused allegiance to Caesar (because he wasn't god).

My comment about your views being 'synthetic' wasn't intended as a put-down.  It's a normal response to the biblical text to try and synthesize it all (this is what systematic theology is all about, and what Andrew's use of the 'coming of the son of man' motif is all about).  My point was simply that 'social justice' isn't, in my opinion, the most central theme of the biblical narrative.

I'm troubled by what looks like (though I know I must be wrong about this) 'chronological snobbery' at 'primitive' peoples and their gods in your posts: "A tribe’s 'god' was what united people and gave them identity. By speaking of YHWH or Elohim, these people were meaning to say 'us' or 'our community' or the force that gives us our identity."  I'm sorry, but to claim that when early Israel talked about YHWH, they really meant 'the force which gives us our identity'… … I think that is very condescending.  I think we can disagree with Israel's claim that YHWH alone is God, but I don't think it's fair to Israel's written witness to say that what they actually meant by 'YHWH' was in fact 'our community' (or the force which makes it cohere).

My dislike of 'social justice' (though I now realize you intend that in a very broad sense) as a summary of Christianity is a sense that your view assumes the same reductionism that you apply to a people group's claim to worship the one true God.  Israel really believed there was a YHWH beyond Israel (cf. Brueggemann on YHWH's sovereign indomitable freedom), and the early Church really believed that New Creation had come and YHWH had returned to Zion in the person of Jesus of Nazareth.  Because you can't agree with the ancient Jews or with the early Christians on their (what in the end are) ontological commitments, your Christianity filters out that which is distinctive to Christianity and which makes it not Buddhism and not Islam (etc.).  This isn't automatically 'bad', but I do think it's problematic if one's goal is to take the Scriptures seriously…

My eyes are starting to cross (this is what I get for looking at a computer screen all day) so I'll call it quits here.

Blessings,

-Daniel-