Was Jesus Palestinian?

Netflix’s upcoming biblical biopic, Mary, has been attacked on social media because the title character and her husband Joseph are being played by Israeli actors.

The criticisms are based on the argument that Mary and Joseph, and their son Jesus, a Jewish man born in Bethlehem, were, in fact, Palestinian. Some critics of the Netflix casting are concerned about the inappropriateness of Israeli actors playing historical people they believe are Palestinians, while contemporary Palestinians are being killed by Israeli bombs.

Film-maker D J Caruso has explained the casting of Israeli actors as a deliberate choice: “It was important to us that Mary, along with most of our primary cast, be selected from Israel to ensure authenticity.”

So, were Jesus and his parents Palestinian?

Bethlehem is now a city located in the Israeli-occupied West Bank of the Palestinian Territories, about ten kilometers south of Jerusalem. So the short answer is: yes, Jesus was a Palestinian, according to modern geopolitics at least.

But one could also argue that he was not, because, as a Jewish man, he was born at a time when Palestine did not exist as a political entity.

Paula Fredriksen, a historian of ancient Christianity, made this point in March. In the Washington Post, she called claims Jesus was Palestinian “an act of cultural and political appropriation.”

A Jewish man from Bethlehem

According to the New Testament, Jesus was born somewhere around 4-6 BCE during the reign of Herod the Great, in Bethlehem. Bethlehem’s location was in an area then known by the Romans as Judea – the land of Judah, then occupied by the Jewish people (the Judeans).

The Roman historian Tacitus was the first to mention the existence of Jesus as a Judean, outside of the