Why was Jesus so intimidating to the religious leaders of his day? After all ....?

The religious leaders saw that Jesus was winning over the people. He treated them with compassion, love, and respect. He also taught them truth and only truth. Jesus wasn't looking to gain any political support from the people. He stayed away from them when they tried to make him king once. The pharisees and Sadducee's saw that the people were leaving them and their spiritual neglectfulness, and the people were turning to Jesus. They were intimidated because they did not want to loose their power and they did not want the Roman rulers to think that they didn't have control over the Jewish population that would've resulted in an up-rise. They wanted the Roman rulers to think that they had everything under control. What impresses me is that Jesus never threatened them or retaliated with the celestial armies that were at his beck and call. He remained peaceable. He just taught truth, exposed them for what they were, and gave credit for everything he did to his Father.

It's unlikely that a Christian who has not studied Judaism would understand the answer. There wasn't just one denomination of Jews. In fact, only the Pharisees were called the Jews. These were the militants who are today's Jews. They worked closely with Rome. Wealth and power was important to them.

It's unlikely that Jesus was a Jew of any denomination. Understand Judaism and you will understand that the philosophies of Jesus and the Jews were mutually exclusive. Jesus was teaching people to NOT respect wealth and power; to turn the other cheek when threatened, because peace is far more powerful than violence when it comes to self protection. No respectible Jew would have made that claim.

A people who do not fear cannot be controlled. Jesus was a threat to the fear that Rome and their Jewish supporters used to control the crowds.

Taking the philosophy of Jesus one step further, for those who have dared test Jesus' teachings, it just isn't possible that Jesus died on the cross.

Mainstream Christianity can agree that

Jesus was a Jewish teacher who was executed by the Roman occupationary authorities for the crime of sedition (rebel rousing)

Mainstream Christainity as well as secular scholarship agree that

the council of Nicea (a leadership body composed chiefly of Romans and Greeks) voted on which texts would become the official text of the New Testament aproximately 300 years after the events. This council eliminated a large number of texts and chose a small subset.

Only a few years after the council of Nicea did its work, the Christian controlled countries began passing anti-Jewish laws.

We don't know that he really was, and we don't know how many followers he really attracted. All we know is what the Bible tells us, and you may be sure that the Bible was heavily tweaked, edited, and added to over time.

Obviously, he was causing some trouble, and the religious authorities at the time were concerned about the safety of the Jewish community under the Roman occupation. They had every good reason to be. But the trouble he was causing may have been fairly minor -- just irritating enough to make it seem best to turn him over to the Roman authorities so they could deal with him as they did all troublemakers.

Because he was a threat to their power structure. They were afraid all would become believers and they'd be left out in the cold. This became especially apparent after he resurrected Lazarus. They sought to kill them both because of the threat knowledge of that miracle posed.

Truthfully we don't know why Jesus was killed and on top of that we don't even know if it was the Romans. Only one statement was made in the gospels mentioned Romans. No body recorded anything about Jesus. All accounts are here say and years after his death. Not enough reason to build an entire religion on.

Jesus challenged the authority of the religious leaders, called them names, and pointed out their many faults. He also had many thousands of followers, and more were choosing to follow him every day, so they viewed him as a threat.

Because Jesus had a silver tongue.

They didn't like it.

But the masses did.

Masses > Them.

Many > Few.

Therefore, Jesus > Them.

Obviously, they had problems with that equation.

Why? Because He had such new and radical ideas at that time. He had many followers, and many people who opposed Him. His new ideas divided the general population of the Jews. The religious leaders believed He was such a strong threat because He claimed to be the Son of God, which they thought was absolute heresy. They viewed Him as the prince of demons, as the devil. They wanted to punish Him by death, but they didn't want the many followers of Jesus to get upset and revolt against them. Jesus spoke with His own authority, as if He were God himself (which Christians believe He was). Other rabbis would say, "This is what rabbi so-and-so said to me". Jesus would say things like:

"27 You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ 28 BUT I SAY TO YOU that whoever looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart." (Matt 5:27-28)

He spoke with the authority of God, and challenged the religious leaders and their oral tradition. "If the Pharisees opposed Jesus because He made light of their oral traditions, the Sadducees opposed Jesus because He affirmed the supernatural world of angels and demons and appealed to a final judgment and resurrection." (NLT study bible, p. 1610, side note "The Sadducees") Pharisees believed in final judgment and resurrection, but they stuck rigidly to oral traditions and each and every single rule or statement ever written in the Old Testament. Jesus opposed their rigid enforcement of all these rules, and suggested the idea that their strict adherence to these rules that they forced on the Jews actually led people away from God (kind of like very strict Catholics who are so strict on people that those people get tired of the strictness and rigidness and turn away from their religion). Sadducees did not believe in resurrection or final judgment, nor did they believe in demons. Jesus exercised demons from people, preached final judgment, and was resurrected from the dead. While the Sadducees and Pharisees (different Jewish leaders) disagreed on many things, they had their authority and core beliefs challenged by Jesus and His followers. They united against Jesus. Jesus wasn't a physical threat with armies. He was a spiritual threat to them and their authority. It's funny how He never showed any acts of violence, yet He was seen as such a powerful threat to them. This is a great question that shows evidence to just how divine Jesus was. He was poor and had no army, yet He had such an amazing and profound impact on the Jewish society and the entire world. What an amazing man to have such determined followers willing to go to martyr's death for Him. What an amazing man to have so many followers to this very day who believe in Him, without such an act of violence to force people to believe in Him. Compare Him to Muhammad, which Muslims consider to be better than Jesus, who did have his own army. Compare Jesus to Buddha, who was the son of a king and was born into wealth and nobility. Jesus was born directly into poverty. He was the son of a king, but not an earthly king. He was the son of the Heavenly King, which is God our Heavenly Father. Praise Jesus.

he was gathering thousands of followers. Even if they were all poor, they had manpower behind them. It was the same reason why communism took over China, don't underestimate the poor!