Hello Robert, thanks for taking the time to respond.
You said:
"The question remains, was Jesus a sacrifice to a god who needed blood to propitiate our sins, or was he murdered for destroying cages that held animals the Jews intended to sacrifice and letting the animals escape? If the latter is so, he taught that claiming a loving God wanted blood sacrifices was a monstrous blasphemy and this attacked the center of ancient Jewish theology."
I'm assuming you're referring to how Jesus cleansed the Temple, driving out the money changers and those charging exorbitant fees for animals to be sacrificed.
Jesus cleansed the Temple twice. The first time launched His public ministry, as John 2 records. It made Jesus an overnight sensation throughout Israel, opening every door to Him wherever He went.
The Pharisees loved it, as Jesus was disrupting the Sadducees, who controlled the Temple.
But soon the Pharisees started to sour to Jesus, as He didn't uphold their line about keeping the thousands of extra commandments they added to the Law. The Sadducees loved this, as they had no love for the Pharisees and enjoyed seeing their power base weaken.
At this point, Jesus was welcomed into the Temple, and many of His teachings take place within its bounds. The middle chapters of John record many such moments.
Yet as Jesus' ministry continued, the Sadducees again soured to Jesus, because He spoke against them as well as the Pharisees. When Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, they concluded He had gone too far. They issued arrest-on-sight orders against Jesus, so Jesus and His disciples left for Samaritan territory for a few months, to avoid being arrested before Passover.
This all led to the second time Jesus cleansed the Temple -- immediately after the Triumphal Entry that began Passion Week. This was around three and a half years after the first cleansing.
The Sadducees certainly didn't like that Jesus took control of the Temple, but this moment was not the moment that sealed His death, in their eyes. That had already happened months before, when they issued the arrest-on-sight orders against Him.
Jesus was killed for claiming to be the Messiah, the Son of Man from the prophecy of Daniel, the Son of the Living God. This is what the High Priest asked of Him. When Jesus affirmed it, the High Priest sentenced Jesus to death for what they perceived to be blasphemy.
