Jesus Christ: A Pagan Myth
Trial of Jesus by Jewish
Authorities: Mk 14.53-65
In Mark, the “whole” Sanhedrin (all 71 members apparently)
is “looking for testimony against Jesus to put him to death” (Mk
14.55).
Matthew has the trial take place at the high priest’s house, but the
Sanhedrin
was not convened there, nor did the high priest preside over the Sanhedrin at this time.
Against Luke and John, Mark and Matthew relate that some witnesses
falsely
charge that Jesus had said he would destroy the Temple, but their
testimony is
not in agreement and is dismissed (Mk 14.56-59; Mt 24.60-61). According
to the
Scriptures, at least two witnesses are required for a verdict in a
criminal trial
(Num 35.30; Dt 17.6, 19.15). Mark has no valid witnesses. Matthew adds
the two
witnesses.
The council finds no evidence against Jesus (Mk 14.55).
Again, the Jewish Scriptures provide material for
Mark’s fictional
portrait of Jesus, “the governors and satraps sought... to find...
occasion
against Daniel; but they found against him... no occasion” (cf. Dan 6.4
LXX).
In Mark and Matthew at the end of the trial Jesus is
convicted of blasphemy, but claiming to be Messiah was not a crime.
Could other
charges have been leveled against Jesus? Some have suggested that
Jesus’ death
could have been brought about because of his conflict with the
Pharisees and
scribes over ritual law, i.e., healing on the Sabbath, ritual washing
of hands,
etc. In Mark and Matthew, no such charges are raised, even though Jesus
was
tried in Jerusalem, the seat of what power the Pharisees had.
Also, criminal charges could have been brought by the
Sanhedrin against Jesus since he attributed to himself divine
characteristics
by allowing himself to be called Lord and claiming
the authority to
forgive sins and regulate the Sabbath, etc. If Jesus claimed to be the
“only”
Son of God in a literal, not metaphorical sense, this would be
non-Jewish and
perhaps a criminal offense.
At the trial, the high priest asks Jesus if he will defend
himself, but he is “silent and [does] not answer,” fulfilling Isa 53.7.
The
high priest asks, “Are you the Messiah, the Son of the Blessed One?”
But how
does the high priest know that any of the titles, Messiah
(Christ), Son
of the Blessed, Son of Man, Son
of God, apply to Jesus? Jesus
is called the “Son of God” by demons, but they are silenced at his
command, and
none of the people even suspect that these titles apply to him; at
most, the
people think Jesus is a prophet (Mk 8.28) or maybe one who cures
illnesses or
exorcises demons.
Asked if he is the Messiah, Jesus answers, “I am; and you
will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of Power, and coming
with the
clouds of heaven” (Mk 14.61-62), a union of Dan 7.13 and probably Ps
110.1.
Hearing Jesus’ admission, the high priest tears his garments and judges
that
Jesus is guilty of blasphemy. The priest asks the Sanhedrin for its
decision
and “All of them [condemn] him as deserving death” (Mk 14.64). S. Lachs
points
out that the high priest “was not allowed to tear his clothes in
mourning for
the dead”
and probably he would not do so here either. He also points out that
the
rabbinic writers held that blasphemy could not be punished by a court,
but only
by God.
Some members of the Sanhedrin and some of the guards spit on Jesus and
beat him
(Mk 14.65), behavior hardly likely to occur during a meeting of this
distinguished court.
The historical inconsistencies and implausibilities
contained in the accounts of the arrest of Jesus and his trial before
the
council force us to agree with Burton L. Mack, John Dominic Crossan,
and others
that these events are fiction, a good deal of which has been
constructed from
passages in the Jewish Scriptures.
Mark does not tell us why Pilate is in Jerusalem. The
elders, scribes and the whole council who brought Jesus to Pilate
apparently
stay, and yet Mark does not relate that anyone other than Pilate
witnesses
Jesus’ trial (Mk 15.2-5). The prefect asks Jesus, “Are you the King of
the
Jews?” Jesus answers ambiguously, “You have said so.” Mark says that
the chief
priests accuse Jesus of many things, but Jesus makes no response.
Pilate is
amazed at Jesus’ silence, but he needn’t have been astonished. Mark is
again
borrowing from the Jewish Scriptures. Isaiah 53.7
says, “He was
oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; like
the lamb
that is led to the slaughter....”
Suddenly a crowd pops up and asks Pilate to release a
prisoner on the festival day as was his custom (Mk 15.8). (There was no
such
pagan or Jewish custom.) Pilate, based on Jesus’ ambiguous answer and
his
silence, concludes that Jesus is innocent and offers to release Jesus,
“the
King of the Jews.” But stirred up by the chief priests, the crowd
demands that
Barabbas, an insurrectionist and murderer, be freed instead and yells,
“Crucify
him!” Why is a murdering rebel freed? To keep the peace one assumes!
In Matthew, Mrs. Pilate needs even less evidence of Jesus’
innocence than her husband. She has had a dream that Jesus is innocent,
and
sends word to her husband that he should have nothing to do with the
death of
this “innocent man” (Mt 27.19). Pilate washes his hands saying, “I am
innocent
of this man’s blood...” (Mt 27.24). This is based on Deuteronomy
21.6-8, where
the elders of the town wash their hands saying, “Our hands did not shed
this
blood.” This practice is also found among the Greeks and Romans (cf.
Virgil, Aeneid
2.719). The powerful prefect, Pilate, is portrayed as a strong and
cruel
official in the works of both Philo and Josephus. They know nothing of
the weak
and vacillating Pilate offered in the gospels of Mark, Matthew, and
Luke.
In a passage that has caused much bloodshed, Matthew
intensifies the guilt of all Jews throughout all time when he has the
Jewish
crowd cry out, “his blood be on us and on our children” (Mt 27.25).
Compare
this with Sam 1.16 where an Amalekite killed Saul at his own request
and David says
to the killer, “Your blood be on your head; for your own mouth has
testified
against you, saying ‘I have killed the LORD’s anointed [messiah].’”
Did the Sanhedrin have the power to try Jesus for a
capital
offense? The first-century Jewish historian, Josephus (Ant
20.202-203),
relates that a high priest convened the Sanhedrin and tried and
executed some
of his enemies. This was done between procurators. When the new one
arrived in
Jerusalem, the high priest was removed from office. Luke and John know
that the
council could not try capital cases, which is why the third and fourth
gospels
omit the formal trial of Jesus by the Sanhedrin. In John, “the Jews”
tell
Pilate that Jesus is a criminal, and the prefect tells the chief
priests to
“judge him by your own law” (Jn 18.29-32). “The Jews said to him, ‘It
is not
lawful for us to put any man to death’” (Jn 18.31). Did not the
powerful Roman
official know that under Roman law, only he could try and execute
someone for a
capital crime?
According to Mark after the murderer, Barabbas, is
released,the Roman soldiers take Jesus away, mock and spit on him and
strike
him on the head (Mk 15.19,20; cf. Isa 50.6).
But a Roma n governor would never have executed a man after publicly
announcing
his innocence. After the scourging by the Roman soldiers, Jesus is led
away to
be crucified, carrying his cross (Mk 15.20). In Mark, Matthew and Luke,
a
stranger, Simon of Cyrene, carries Jesus’ cross part of the way to the
place of
execution.
It is unlikely that it was a Roman custom for the victim
to
carry his own cross. The condemned, especially one who had been
flogged, would
not have been physically able to carry a large and heavy cross, the
vertical
beam alone being about nine feet long. The upright beam of the cross
was probably
permanently embedded at the place of crucifixion, the cross beam being
supplied
at the time of execution.
Why does John contradict the Synoptics by flatly saying
that Jesus carries the cross by himself? Perhaps R. Helms is correct
when he
says that John may be attempting to counter the Gnostic claim that
Jesus was
not crucified, that instead Simon took his place on the cross.
Mark uses cross in a metaphorical
sense when he has
Jesus say, “whoever wishes to follow me, let him deny himself, let him
bear his
cross and let him follow me” (Mk 8.34). Luke takes this saying of the
early
church too literally, and has Simon actually follow behind Jesus while
carrying
the cross(Lk 23.26).
To “bear your cross” is an ancient metaphor. The idea that
a divinely inspired man or a demigod could be unjustly convicted and
die on the
cross was not alien to the Greco-Roman world. Martin Hengel in his book
Crucifixion,
concedes that in Stoic thought “... an ethical and symbolic
interpretation of
the crucifixion was still possible.” A staple of the ancient novel was
the hero
who barely escapes crucifixion.
(For more on this see Chapter 9.)
The issue of who was present during the crucifixion again
illustrates the confusion of the passion accounts in Mark and the other
gospels.
In addition to the centurion’s presence at the crucifixion, Mark
includes
women, among whom Mark names Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James
the
younger and of Joses, and Salome (Mk 15.39-40). (Marks says these are
the women
who ministered to Jesus out of their own funds in Galilee, though up to
15.41
he has not mentioned any such women.) The disciples are not present.