As the week-long Passover ceremony began in springtime, some 2,000 years ago in Israel, the people of Jerusalem waited at the city gates for the arrival of Jesus of Nazareth. Most Hebrews had, over the past year and a half, come to believe that this descendant from the house of David was their long-awaited Messiah, or Massach: A person of great skill, courage, and wisdom, personally chosen by their god Yahweh to end a long era of oppression. Inspired,...