DonMeixner wrote,

       Who then killed Christ. My understanding of history makes it a group effort.
       The Romans had no laws that would allow them to excecute so Pilate turned
       him over to the San Hedron. The San Hedron found him guilty of enough stuff
       to allow for his crucifiction.

       I realize this is beyond musicological. But who was it that drove the nails?

I think you have it exactly backwards. The Jewish courts, which hardly ever imposed
capital punishment anyway, had long since lost to the Romans all authority to do so.
The Romans, meanwhile, executed thousands, and crucifixion was a Roman, not a
Jewish, method.

frogprince wrote,

       "The holy people said it was a shame"
       Stop a minute and put the line in context. Jesus lived, and associated, primarily
       with other Jewish people; that was who he was, and where he was; there is no
       denigration of the general populace around him in the song. The song specifically
       contrasts how the "Holy" leaders rejected him, with his acceptance by his disciples
       and followers; the disciples, to a man, were Jews too.

Well, we've been through that, earlier in this thread. "Holy people" is used repeatedly
in Deuteronomy, in translations with which Sydney Carter would have been quite familiar,
to refer to the Jewish people in its entirety. But even on the point of view that the phrase
refers to some Jewish organization or faction of the time, the song accuses those Jews of
much more than just saying it was a shame; it accuses them of hanging Jesus on a cross
to die. That accusation is an anti-Jewish lie, and it offends me.