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THE TRIAL OF JESUS

I. INTRODUCTION

One of the most significant events in history was the trial and punishment of Jesus. Yet, it remains shrouded in mystery. Jesus received the death penalty, but what was his crime? The most likely answer is found in the complex power relationship between the religious authorities and the occupying Roman power. Jesus posed a threat to the members of the Sanhedrin, both religious and political. The Sanhedrin saw a way to eliminate that threat by reporting Jesus to the Romans. If the Romans perceived a threat to order, there were probably standing orders that such a person be dispatched immediately.[1] This was no secret and it was beyond politics. It was a matter of policy, this was how the Romans handled troublemakers even if they did not intend to make trouble.[2] This was particularly the case with Pilate who had a terrible reputation for muscular crowd control during pilgrimage holidays in Jerusalem.[3] More importantly, Ca’iaphas and the other high priests knew this, having worked with him on just such issues for ten years.

II.        BACKGROUND:

The time was Passover, 30 C.E., a time for celebrating freedom from the imperial oppression of Egypt. Jews from all over the world were expected to make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem and the Temple at least once in their life, and thousands did just that at Passover. This combination of a large number of Jews in a concentrated area celebrating freedom under the thumb of a Roman imperial oppressor, with Roman soldiers standing guard near the colonnade of the Temple, was a very dangerous situation. [4] This danger was not speculative. In 4 C.E. Roman soldiers massacred 3,000 Jews as they celebrated the Passover in the Temple in Jerusalem.  The massacre followed an incident during which the Jews had pelted soldiers with stones. In 6 C.E., uprisings against Roman laws resulted in the crucifixion of over 2,000 Jewish insurgents and 20,000 more being sold into slavery.

III. BASIS FOR THE TRIAL

            There are two events that sealed the fate of Jesus; his arrival in Jerusalem and his appearance at the Temple.

A. Jerusalem:

Five days before the Passover feast day, Jesus rode on a donkey into this tinder box where he was met with wide popular acclaim and adulation. To the crowds, he was a king, a miracle worker and a prophet.  The Gospel writers tell a consistent story about the arrival of Jesus. As he rode along, the crowds spread their garments on the road before him, others spread leafy branches to mark his path and the whole multitude began to rejoice and praise God.[5] Many of the pilgrims in Jerusalem came out to meet Jesus because they had witnessed the raising of Laz’arus from the dead. When he entered Jerusalem “all the city was stirred” and the crowds proclaimed him the prophet Jesus, from Nazareth of Galilee.[6] It was the job of the Pharisees and the high priests to control the crowds, otherwise the Romans would do it for them. The Pharisees were amazed and fearful at the reaction of the city; the crowd and its new charismatic leader were out of their control. They even urged Jesus to rebuke his disciples for their enthusiasm, but Jesus said, “...if these were silent, the very stones would cry out.”[7]

B. The Temple:

            The second event that sealed the fate of Jesus was his appearance at the great Temple. The Temple was the focus of the Passover festivities, this was everyone’s’ destination. It was common for certain animals to be sold in the Temple because they were used for sacrifice during Passover; pilgrims traveling from afar could not be expected to bring such animals with them. Similarly, money changers were always present because purchases had to be made in the Roman coin of the realm. It is easy to imagine such trade getting out of hand and defiling the Temple grounds. The Gospels tell just that; Jesus found those who were selling oxen, sheep and pigeons and the money changers at their business, offensive. He became so enraged that God’s house of prayer had been turned into a den of robbers and a house of trade that he attacked the traders with a whip and overturned the tables of the money changers. The reaction of those present was apparently supportive because he was not arrested or restrained; rather, the blind and lame came to him for healing and he remained to teach others who were present. The ominous side was the reaction of the chief priests; just as they were upset at the reaction of the crowd when Jesus entered Jerusalem, they became indignant when they saw “…the wonderful things that he did, and the children crying out in the temple, ‘Hosanna to the Son of David!’”[8]

Jesus had embarrassed the high priests in the heart of their power and he had, again, demonstrated his appeal to the crowds. Not only had the priests allowed the House of Prayer to be turned into a house of trade, they had made the Temple the seat from which they collaborated with the Romans, a fact recognized by most pilgrims. No longer was it the House of God. Jesus was symbolically destroying the Temple and claiming that, with his death, he would build it anew.[9]

Here are the seeds of disaster. A huge crowd in a confined area; a charismatic Jesus who is capable of capturing a crowd; a powerful and entrenched religious establishment which Jesus has publicly castigated on the very grounds of the Temple; and a brutal and nervous regime bent on preventing disorder at any cost.

The high priests recognized the tinder-box situation and their own vulnerability. The acclamation afforded Jesus when he entered Jerusalem, his righteous indignation at the defilement of the house of God, his wondrous works of healing in the Temple and his popularity among the crowds compelled the high priests to a plan of action to remove Jesus.[10]

John 11

47.  So the chief priests and the Pharisees gathered the council, and said, "What are we to do? For this man performs many signs.
48 If we let him go on thus, every one will believe in him, and the Romans will come and destroy both our holy place and our nation."
49 But one of them, Ca'iaphas, who was high priest that year, said to them, "You know nothing at all;…
51 …but being high priest that year he prophesied that Jesus should die for the nation, …

53 So from that day on they took counsel how to put him to death…
57 Now the chief priests and the Pharisees had given orders that if any one knew where he was, he should let them know, so that they might arrest him.

IV. ARREST AND TRIAL BEFORE THE SANHEDRIN

Two events of great moment had passed, and in the process, Jesus had managed to bring himself to the attention of the high priests in so fearful a way that they were compelled to plot his death. The Gospels tell us that Judas Iscariot went to the chief priests and officers and offered to betray Jesus, “in the absence of the multitude”, for thirty pieces of silver.[11] In the evening when Jesus and his disciples traveled across the Kidron valley to the Garden of Gethsemane, Judas saw his chance. He and a “crowd with swords and clubs from the chief priests and the scribes and the elders” seized Jesus and took him before Ca’iaphas the high priest where the scribes and elders had assembled.[12]  The assembly was the Sanhedrin (literally “sitting together” from the Greek) composed of local elites, high priestly families, scribes (religious experts), and lay elders.[13] There is no question that Jesus was to be killed, Ca’iaphas himself had predicted it. But, Ca’iaphas sought a pretext trial; nothing about it was legitimate. Both Mark and Matthew write that Jesus was delivered to the Sanhedrin for trial at night; but Jewish law required capital trials to be conducted in the day time.[14] Ca’iaphas brought witnesses before the council to testify against Jesus but none could agree on the facts. Finally Ca’iaphas himself questioned Jesus.

Mark 14

61 …Again the high priest asked him, "Are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed?"
62 And Jesus said, "I am; and you will see the Son of man seated at the right hand of Power, and coming with the clouds of heaven."
63 And the high priest tore his garments, and said, "Why do we still need witnesses?
64 You have heard his blasphemy. What is your decision?" And they all condemned him as deserving death.

The capital crime of blasphemy consists “…of uttering the name of God.”[15] If that was indeed the crime of Jesus, the appropriate punishment was death by stoning.[16] But punishment by stoning was a very precise and very public procedure, well defined by Jewish law.[17] As we have seen, Ca’iaphas and the Sanhedrin were afraid to arrest Jesus in public and they would certainly not have wanted to engage in a public stoning on the eve of the Passover feast day. The solution was to turn Jesus over to the Roman authorities and claim that he was causing trouble among the people.

V. THE ROMAN TRIAL

It is important to understand the role of the high priest in order to understand how the Romans became involved. Since the time of Herod the Great, high priests were appointed by Rome. Their job was to keep the Jewish populace in line and for that reason they were both hated and feared. Ca’iaphas was President of the Sanhedrin and because he had been high priest for eighteen years, he must have pleased Roman authority. For the last ten years of his presidency, he served under Pontius Pilate, the Roman prefect (governor) of Judea. Pilate had little concern for Jewish sensibilities and he had a reputation for corruption and brutality. [18] After ten years, it is likely that Ca’iaphas and Pilate had a close working relationship which included standing arrangements for how to deal with lower class dissidents who might cause problems at Passover. An aristocrat would have been sent to Rome for judgment; he would not have been crucified. But, a peasant threatening to cause trouble would have been summarily crucified.[19] Ca’iaphas, however, had a problem; he was afraid of the popular support the Passover crowd had shown to Jesus; Pilate was the solution. “Pilate did not care about theological niceties, he did not care about legal niceties.”[20] His only concern was keeping order.

Luke describes four accusations made before Pilate; Jesus was perverting our nation, he forbade us to pay tribute to Caesar, he claimed to be king of the Jews and he stirred up the people.[21]The accounts of all four Gospel writers consistently mention two accusations made against Jesus: first, Jesus claims to be a king; second, Jesus is a troublemaker. Pilate would have been sensitive to someone claiming to be a king in opposition to Caesar, but that did not seem to be the case here. He first inquired and then taunted the crowd with the claim. “And Pilate asked him, ‘Are you king of the Jews?’ And he answered him, ‘You have said so.’”[22]  Then when the crowd demanded crucifixion, “Pilate said to them, ‘Shall I crucify your king?’ The chief priests answered, ‘We have no king but Caesar.’” [23] Pilate’s final insult to the priests was to order a sign put on the cross that read “Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews.”[24] The chief priests objected to the sign but Pilate ignored them.

The accusation of troublemaker was another thing. Pilate appeared to take that more seriously, if only because the crowd before him was stirred up. When he saw that a “riot was beginning” and when the crowd accused him of not being a friend to Caesar, Pilate “handed him over to them to be crucified.”[25]

VI. CONCLUSION

So what was the crime of Jesus? Members of the Sanhedrin were concerned about their own influence and power; and, to be fair, they feared that Jesus would bring Roman wrath down on their people. Their solution was to kill Jesus by turning him over to Pilate. Because of Pilate’s reputation for cruelty to the Jews and the close working relationship he had with Ca’iaphas, they expected Jesus would be quickly crucified.  The “excuse” they provided Pilate was twofold: first, Jesus claimed to be a king in opposition to Caesar; and, second, Jesus was stirring up the crowd. Crucifixion was a Roman punishment for a Roman crime and either of these charges was enough for the volatile Pilate to order crucifixion. Perhaps the answer is not so mysterious at all. Pilate himself ordered a sign to be tacked to the cross upon which Jesus hung: Jesus of Nazareth the King of the Jews.

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[1] All of the citations in this paper were taken from the website called Famous Trials, owned by Professor Douglas Linder (2005) at http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/ftrials.htm. I reached the reference site through Professor Tygiel’s On Line Archives, then to History Matters (at http://historymatters.gmu.edu/search.php?function=find&toplegal=1&wwwhist=1), then Legal History, then Famous Trials, then Trial of Jesus, 30 A.D., then On Line Texts and Links, then PBS Frontline (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/religion/), then Jesus’ Many Faces, then Testimony of New Testament Scholars, then Arrest and Execution, then John Dominic Crossan, Professor Emeritus of Religious Studies, DePaul University. All future citations will include the Trial of Jesus site or PBS Frontline with the appropriate URL.

[2] Professor Allen Callahan, Harvard Divinity School. PBS Frontline (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/religion/jesus/arrest.html) 2005.

[3]Professor Paula Fredriksen, William Goodwin Aurelio Professor of the Appreciation of the Scripture, Boston University , PBS Frontline, http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/religion/jesus/arrest.html

[4] Professor John Dominic Crossan, Professor Emeritus of Religious Studies, DePaul University. (PBS Frontline, http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/religion/jesus/arrest.html

[5] Mark 11, v. 7-8; Luke 19, v. 36-38 as cited in Trial of Jesus, Biblical Accounts. (http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/jesus/accountspilate-s.html. All future references to the Bible are from this site.

[6] John 12, v. 17-18; Matthew 21, v. 10-11. Trial of Jesus.

[7] Luke 19, v. 39-40; John 12, v. 19,42, Trial of Jesus

[8] John 2, v. 13-16; Matthew 21, v. 13-16, Mark 11, v. 15-18, Luke 19, v. 45-48; Trial of Jesus.

[9] [9] Professor John Dominic Crossan, Professor Emeritus of Religious Studies, DePaul University. (PBS Frontline, http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/religion/jesus/arrest.html

[10] Matthew 21, v.3-5, Luke 22, v. 1-2; Trial of Jesus.

[11] Matthew 26, v.14-16; Luke 22, v.3-6; Trial of Jesus.

[12] Mark 14, v.43-44; John 18, v.2-3; Matthew 26, v.57, Trial of Jesus.

[13] Trial of Jesus, then Sanhedrin (http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/jesus/sanhedrin.html

[14] Mishna Tractate Sanhedrin 4.1; Trial of Jesus, then Sanhedrin (http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/jesus/sanhedrin.html

[15] Mishna Tractate Sanhedrin 7.5; Trial of Jesus, then Sanhedrin (http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/jesus/sanhedrin.html

[16] Mishna Tractate Sanhedrin 7.4; Trial of Jesus, then Sanhedrin (http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/jesus/sanhedrin.html

[17] Mishna Tractate Sanhedrin 6.1-4; Trial of Jesus, then Sanhedrin (http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/jesus/sanhedrin.html

[18] Trial of Jesus, Key Trial Figures (http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/jesus/jesuskeyfigures.html

[19] Professor John Dominic Crossan, Professor Emeritus of Religious Studies, DePaul University. (PBS Frontline, http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/religion/jesus/arrest.html

[20] Professor Paula Fredriksen, William Goodwin Aurelio Professor of the Appreciation of the Scripture, Boston University , PBS Frontline, http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/religion/jesus/arrest.html

[21] Luke 23, v.1-5, Trial of Jesus.

[22] Mark 15, v.2; Trial of Jesus.

[23] John 18, v.15, Trial of Jesus.

[24] John 18, v.19, Trial of Jesus.

[25] Matthew 27, v.24 ; John 18, v. 12,16; Trial of Jesus