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Lucian of Samosata, How History Should Be Written

The Jewish Committal Hearing 1

The Committal Hearing
Jewish Charges
Claiming to be the Messiah, a God

Abstract

The Jewish “trial” of Jesus was really a committal hearing because Jesus’s crimes were not religious but political, and the punishment for such crimes in Roman law was death. Whether he blasphemed or not was irrelevant. Christians have written volumes about the illegality of the Jewish trial of Jesus. Yet few of them appreciate a gospel purpose was to concoct a Jewish trial to place the guilt of Jesus’s death on to the Jews not the Romans. Scenes of the trial before the Sanhedrin are to incriminate the Jews, though it had to turn the prisoner over to the Roman authorities, and put the manifest crimes of Jesus before Pilate irrespective of any blasphemy he had committed—which they did. How likely was a senior holy man of a fanatically pious sect, like Jesus, to blaspheme? He was crucified because in Roman law he was a traitor to the empire.

The Committal Hearing

In Palestine, the years in which Christianity was founded were totally anarchic. Uprisings or tumults were commonplace, Messiahs were commonplace and hatred of the Romans was almost universal among ordinary Jews. Most of the New Testament was written during or just after this chaotic period and the authors plainly knew the true circumstances. Yet the books of the New Testament try to give an impression of this rustic idyll inhabited by gormless yokels led by a mendicant pacifist for whom overthrowing a table is a violent act, where the Roman administrator is a just and competent judge and where the Jews are cowardly and treacherous.

”And so they were”, you might say. ”Perhaps Pilate was cruel, and perhaps Jesus was not quite as pacifist as the later Christians made out, but it was the Jews who betrayed him and set him before Pilate because Jesus taught a new religion which the Jews thought was blasphemous.”

The trouble is it is not true. All of it is concocted! Christians have written volumes about the illegality of the Jewish trial of Jesus. Yet few of them seem to think that the very purpose of the gospels was to concoct an illegal Jewish trial because the gospels had as an objective the placing of the guilt of Jesus’s death on to the Jews. From beginning to end they try to make it seem that Jesus was innocent and set-up by the Jews.

Since Jesus was about his Father’s business, as he saw it, of relieving the Roman usurpers of their possession of God’s Chosen Land and People, it is hardly surprising that many of the Jews who supported him in this venture saw him as innocent of any crime. His first followers obviously thought he was innocent. But it did not matter what any Jews thought, even those on the benches of the local Parliament—the Sanhedrin. The Roman law of Laesae Majestatis—a broad law of treason that forbade anyone from assuming civic power unlawfully or doing anything to undermine it—was paramount. Under this law—a Roman law not a Jewish one—Jesus was multiply guilty.

Christians like to believe Jesus had two trials, one by the Jews and by the Roman governor. John’s gospel refutes the idea, yet it is the most anti-Jewish of the gospels and a Jewish trial was essential to blame the death of the Son of God on the Jews. If a Jewish trial really occurred as the synoptic gospels say, then it should have been retained or magnified by John. So, though John’s gospel is late and often the least trustworthy, in this instance, it must be relating the original tradition and Mark must be elaborating it. Whenever we find fossilised passages like this contrary to expectation, it must be a relic of the original story before the editors got at it.

Why are such contradictory passages there at all? Why didn’t John make the Committal Hearing into a Jewish trial? The answer is that the earliest version of John’s gospel told this story because it was true. In the light of the synoptics, some bishops might have preferred to have had the versions harmonised but it was already too late. The books were already regarded by the faithful as holy so gospel editing had to be piecemeal. No one could alter the gospels wholesale but small alterations could be made each time the text was copied. And, although such editing was possible when the number of copies and the number of Christians were small, both grew quickly and there came a time when there too many people ready to question changes in texts that they already had. Thereafter changing the text got harder and eventually came impossible. There was not enough time or church unity to edit the gospels rationally and the result is that we have fossil passages that give us little glimpses of the real Jesus.

Imperial policy was to leave local matters in the hands of local chiefs—in Judaea, the Jewish Council of State, the council of 70 Jewish elders, the Sanhedrin. In the Sanhedrin’s handling of civil matters though not religious ones, Sadducees, who were collaborators, dominated and knew they had to denounce a man claiming kingship or be tried as traitors themselves. The earliest gospel, Mark’s, suggests that the Sanhedrin tries Jesus first on the false charge of blasphemy. Many respectable Christian commentators think this is a fiction. As usual in Mark and emphasised even more in later gospels, the evangelists’ aim is to denigrate the Jews and to paint Jesus as a pacifist innocent.

Three of his civic crimes cannot be denied even on the facts in Mark’s gospel:

he allowed his followers to carry swords in the streets and wound a man
he led a messianic demonstration in which he was hailed a king
he committed the crime of Laesae Majestatis by taking over the temple without permission.

The punishment for such crimes in Roman law was death. Whether he blasphemed or not was irrelevant and scenes of the trial before the Sanhedrin in the gospels are purely to incriminate the Jews. All the Sanhedrin could do was to turn the traitor over to the Roman authorities and to put the manifest crimes of Jesus before Pilate irrespective of any blasphemy he had committed—which they did. The supposed Jewish crime of blasphemy was quite irrelevant to the outcome. It is hard to believe that a senior holy man of a fanatically pious sect like Jesus would blaspheme, but even if he did, it had no bearing on his death. He was crucified because he was a traitor to the empire.

The Sanhedrin could have supported Jesus to a man but, unless they were happy to go to the cross with him, they had no choice but to hand him over. What the gospels show is that the Sanhedrin took a responsible position. They thought it better that Jesus should die than that angry Romans should take it out on the rest of the population. Doubtless some Jews would have liked the Sanhedrin protest Jesus’s innocence, but in the face of the evidence and ther likely consequences, it was asking too much.

What is possibly true is that the crime of blasphemy was to the Jewish authorities the same crime as Laesae Majestatis was to the Romans—treason. The Jewish state was a theocracy—notionally it was ruled by God through His agents, the priests. Thus defying God’s agents in their rule of the country was defying God Himself—was assuming God’s power—and was therefore blasphemy. This was the very basis of Jewish hatred of the Romans. They had taken God’s power as ruler of Judaea leaving the priests and the Sanhedrin as puppets.

The Jewish fighters for freedom thought they were doing God’s work in trying to free the country from the Romans and their puppets. The priests would have seen the rebels as trying to overthrough God’s rule of law, vested in them. Blasphemy therefore equated with the Roman law of Laesae Majestatis Divinae—treason against God! So, once again, it seems, the gentile Christian bishops had some truth in what they were saying but, as ever, they suitably obscured the real nature of the crime Jesus committed even under Jewish law.

In Mark 14:55, the first trial is apparently before the full Sanhedrin (”all the council”) but, the gospel maintains it was still the Passover and at night, so it could not have been—for religious reasons the Sanhedrin never met at night and most certainly would not meet during a festival or on a sabbath in any circumstances. The gospels try to make the committal hearing held at night before the High Priest into a meeting of the Sanhedrin when it could not have been—no Pharisee would have broken the Law to attend. If Jesus had seen the night of the Passover through, as seems likely from his final resigned attitude, then the hearing was in the day time which is Luke’s contention (Lk 22:66).

Furthermore the Sanhedrin met within the temple precincts yet, as Mark says (Mk 14:53-54), this hearing is held in the palace of the High Priest (according to Matthew and John, Joseph Caiaphas, who John admits was the High Priest ”that same year”—implying the position was changed annually). The insurgents of the Nazarene band were not taken back into the city. The palace of the Annas family of High Priests was outside the city walls, not far away from the scene of the arrest in the Garden of Gethsemane on the Mount of Olives, as we know from Josephus because later rebels burnt it down. Since the High Priest was also the local policeman and magistrate, he was responsible for public order. He had promised Pilate that he could capture Jesus by stealth to avoid excessive bloodshed of innocent pilgrims, and having done so he had to hold a committal hearing. He had to be seen to be doing his duty to satisfy the Romans, and the Romans, having set up a judicial system, would not gratuitously sidestep it.

So Jesus appeared before the High Priest in the equivalent of what in the UK used to call Police Courts. That is how John’s gospel records it, for Caiaphas simply passes Jesus straight on to Pilate for civil trial, omitting all pretence of a trial for blasphemy. The High Priest could do nothing other than refer Jesus to the Governor for sentencing. He had obviously committed capital offences.

The Jewish trial of the Synoptics looks like a copy of the Roman one. Mark wrote when Jews were rising against Romans and were disliked. He wanted to show the Jews as responsible for the death of a god, not the Romans. The Jewish authorities had no alternative but to commit Jesus for trial by Pilate but the evangelist took what he knew of the trial before Pilate and reconstructed a fictitious and plaionly irrelevant trial before the Sanhedrin.

Jewish Charges

In the fictional committal hearing in Mark, charges are brought, but witnesses did not agree—an essential criterion of Jewish justice. The pious aim here however is to realize prophecies from Psalms:

False witnesses are risen up against me.
Psalms 27:12

Unrighteous witnesses arise up.
Psalms 35:11

The mouth of the wicked and the mouth of deceit have they opened against me.
Psalms 109:2

The message was that the Christian God had done no wrong and the perfidious Jews were having difficulty setting him up.

Who were these ”Jews”? Jesus, himself a Jew, had such a following of Jews when he entered Jerusalem that the priests thought the whole world followed him. The New Testament distinguishes the ”Jews” because when it was written the Christians did not want to be associated with Jews. Gospel writers wanted to impress that their martyred god was hated by the Jews.

In some places the writers are more specific, referring to Pharisees rather than ”Jews”. The gospels portray the Pharisees as the main opponents of Jesus. He calls them hypocrites and oppressors. They try to trick him into blasphemous statements or into false teaching but Jesus always gets the better of them. The gospels imply that the Pharisees, aiming to rid themselves of his criticisms, brought various religious accusations against him. Yet an objective scrutiny shows that the Pharisees could not have brought these religious charges. They were not valid charges!

Claiming to be the Messiah, a God

In the synoptic gospels, the High Priest accused Jesus of blasphemy not the Pharisees, tying in with his roles, under the Romans, of magistrate and policeman because the title was a danger to his own position as well as his Roman masters. The gospel editors played down the political implications of Messiahship so as not to spoil their message—Romans, good—Jews, bad—Jesus, a divine innocent, yes—Jesus, a threat to Caesar, no.

The High Priest asked Jesus directly if he was the messiah, Son of God. Jesus seems to reply, “I am” apparently uttering the name of God. The Greek words actually mean, “as you say”, or, “so you say”. In view of his failure, the latter seems more likely. The High Priest takes this for blasphemy and he rents his clothes. If this was blasphemy, why was the trial not concluded and the death sentence by stoning pronounced, for stoning was the proper sentence for blasphemy. Now John’s gospel suggests that the Sanhedrin had no authority of its own to issue a capital sentence of any kind (Jn 18:31). Yet in the New Testament Jews seek to stone an adulterous woman and succeed in stoning the martyr, Stephen, to death. Later, according to Josephus, James, the brother of the Lord in Acts, is also stoned to death. Also in Acts the Sanhedrin threatened the apostles with death. It seems unlikely that the Jews under Roman justice had a right to condemn prisoners but the gospels, as always, try to have it all ends up.

The Sanhedrin might have had the power to declare a sentence of stoning for a religious offences but rarely used it because the legal requirements were so strict. Such action will have required the Governor’s approval, but the punishment would still have been stoning not crucifixion. The Romans could not have cared less what Jews did to each other as long as it did not effect themselves or their spies and collaborators, and so they are unlikely to have allowed a concession that might have given a sense of legality to the judicial murder of unpopular collaborators. The story of Jesus will therefore be accurate in showing the Jewish rulers as unable to condemn Jesus themselves.

But, if Jesus claimed to be the Messiah, was he committing a blasphemy? The answer is ”no” because only a claim to be God was blasphemous and, unlike Christians, the Jews did not regard the Messiah as an aspect or a title of God. It is no blasphemy in Judaism to claim to be a son of God who is merely a man not God. The expression “son of God” was common. Gad had made men, so all human beings were sons of God. All Jews, according to the Torah, were sons of God in a stronger sense and devout men like Nazarites and rabbis might be sons of God in a yet stronger sense. Princes, priests and kings were sons of God in an even stronger sense.

When Jesus admits to being the son of the Blessed, he is saying that he is a son of God in this strongest sense! He is saying he is a king. He is therefore admitting to treason against the Emperor. The Messiah was a king of Israel and a political threat to the Romans—the claim was a political crime not a religious one, especially in view of the Jews’ reputation as rebels constantly hankering after a warrior messiah to save them from their oppressors. Other claimants to messiahship—such as Bar Kosiba, a militant rebel, or Theudas, mentioned in the New Testament, who also expected a miracle—were not accused of blasphemy. The Messiah’s aim might have been to liberate Israel from foreign occupation or to inaugurate an era of peace for the whole world—perhaps both. But these were not blasphemous ideas.

Later, Christians thought “Christ”, supposedly Greek for “Messiah”, was a divine title and that Jesus was claiming divinity. That would have been blasphemous—but Jesus made no claim to divinity. That Jesus kept his claim to divinity secret, ”the Messianic Secret”, is a later idea. On the other hand, knowing what the Roman attitude was to royal claimants, Jesus must have preferred not to attract premature attention from the authorities by initially refusing to accept acclamation from the multitudes.

A messiah, though, is a king, so when Jesus apparently replies, “I am”, he is admitting to treason against the Emperor. That is the real crime. The messiah was a king of Israel and was, therefore, a political threat to the Romans—the claim was a political crime not a religious one, especially in view of the Jews’ reputation as rebels constantly hankering after a warrior messiah to save them from their oppressors. Other claimants to Messiahship were not accused of blasphemy whether Judas of Galilee, before Jesus, or Bar Kosiba, after Jesus, both militant rebels, or Theudas or ”the Egyptian” mentioned in the New Testament, who would save the Jews with a miracle from God.

Why then did the High Priest rend his clothes if no blasphemy had been spoken. There are only two other reasons for doing it besides blasphemy, tragedy to a close relative or friend and when the whole nation has sinned. It seems that either Jesus was a member of Caiaphas’s family or that Caiaphas considered that Jesus’s admission of treason incriminated the whole nation. The latter ties in with Caiaphas statement that it was better for one to suffer for all.

It is interesting to note how the High Priest framed his question to Jesus in Aramaic as to whether he was the “son of God”. To this day Jews follow an ancient superstition that knowing a name and uttering it at judicious moments gave power over something or someone. They must not utter the name of God, Yehouah. For this reason they were in the habit of using circumlocutions or euphemisms. They called God, Lord, most commonly, a convenience that helped Jesus to be deified also as “the Lord”. “Father” was another euphemism. In Aramaic, “Father” is abba and “son of God” would have been expressed “son of the Father” or “bar Abba”! Who then was the “Barabbas” who was offered in exchange for Jesus?

Mark has added that Jesus said,

Ye shall see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power.

God’s appointed time had passed. Jesus could not have said this. He no longer regarded himself as the messiah because God’s miracle had not occurred. Jesus was an Essene well versed in biblical interpretation. Since he was wrong he must now have been resigned to his punishment which, having failed also to sacrifice himself as the worthless shepherd, he must have seen as God’s will. His surviving followers must have been bemused, everything went wrong so quickly. God had not responded to the liberation of Jerusalem with the expected miracle, and they had been unable to bring themselves to despatch Jesus as a worthless shepherd, as he had ordered them, and now they realized he was to be crucified alongside the other rebels captured in the counter attack. Yet within a few years they were expounding in the New Testament books that it had been his intention all along to die as the suffering messiah.

The assault, in Mark 14:65, is in pure fulfilment of prophecy (Isa 50:6; 53:3-4) and since the allusions match the Greek versions of the scriptures better than the Hebrew versions it must be a gentile improvement. If the idea came for it from something in the original tradition then it must have been the temple guards after the arrest, as Luke 22:63-65 maintains. The High Priest, whatever his faults, was not a lout.

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Last uploaded: 19 April, 2008.