Everything is relative.

Say that and people think you are talking about Einsteinian physics, or trying to make excuses for some ethical slipup somewhere. But for Luke, that expression meant something very different: it meant everything has a historical context.

Everything is relative.

The political reality of the day meant all of Palestine, including what was once Israel, was under the ruling thumb of the single largest unified power ever yet established — the Roman Empire. Yet the region in which Jesus was born was still small and isolated. The ruling classes intermarried and passed down power [hegemony is the best word here if you can get away with it] over entire regions of the country like we pass down Aunt Sally’s silver spoons.

Religious leadership was also an inherited posit…