Is the Jewish Jesus a trend?

 David Flusser has an incredible amount of research pertaining to the historical Jesus. In the forward of his book “Jesus” and later version “The Sage From Galilee”, R. Steven Notley reminisces of Flusser’s characteristics regarding his passion: 

“As Israel’s foremost scholar on Jesus and nascent Christianity, he [Flusser] was often asked to give comment on ‘the Jewishness of Jesus’ or provide ‘the Jewish perspective.’ Few requests irritated him more. Flusser’s close attention to philology and textual analysis cut against the grain of New Testament scholarship’s penchant for ‘trendiness,’ in which Jesus is recreated in the mold of whichever psychological or political trend is in vogue. He reminded his students that his was not the study of ‘the Jewish Jesus’ but the Jesus of history. That Jesus was Jewish is a matter of historical record. His optimism that careful philological-historical research could produce fruitful results in the study of the historical Jesus will surprise some skeptics.”  

The fact that Jesus is Jewish is not a matter of some trend or whimsical “Jewish roots” phenomenon that could blow over in a decade. Some Christians misunderstand that the study of Jesus is not a certain perspective pertaining to Jesus, but is by nature a Jewish inquiry. The historical Jesus is Jewish; there are no other alternatives. The Jesus of the Christian tradition is mostly a fabrication, a hoax and distortion (when taken outside of his cultural, rabbinic, messianic, Davidic and first century constructs). This is not conjecture or opinion by some. Those who have trouble with the “Jewishness” of Jesus, take issue with the core of who he is, and ultimately what or who he represents.