Related articles and links |  1 of 4

In recent years, Americans have been bombarded by one sensational criminal trial after another—each one, it seemed, the "trial of the century." Ironically, this exposure may have given us new eyes for appreciating the details of what Christians believe to be the trial of all time: Jesus bar Joseph v. Sanhedrin.

How would today's legal analysts characterize this 2,000-year-old trial of a carpenter's son from the backwaters of Galilee? What would they single out as the highlights, the crucial turning points? How would they understand the charge brought against Jesus?

UNWELCOME REFORMER Using the last chapters of the Gospel of Mark as their legal brief, the analysts would probably begin with the end—with the blunt fact that the defendant loses the case andgets executed. Then they would zero in on a series of tactical blunders the defendant makes that ultimately cost him his life.

We know that Jesus, after having been betrayed by one of his own followers, was hustled under tight guard to stand before the Sanhedrin, an assembly of Jewish religious leaders whose chief priest at the time was Caiaphas. Fearing the worst, his disciples fled. Peter, however, ventured as far as the building where Jesus was taken for examination. While sitting around a fire with some soldiers in an outside courtyard, Peter feigned ignorance of the controversial teacher being interrogated inside. He knew all too well why his master had been arrested and did not wish to share the same fate.

Because Israel at this time was a puppet Jewish state under the jurisdiction of the Roman Empire, the Sanhedrin did not possess the legal power to sentence a person to death. Only the Roman magistrates could do this. So the assembled Jewish leaders on this Thursday night looked to find some basis for bringing Jesus before the governor—and they tried to do so swiftly since Pilate would be in Jerusalem only for the week of the Passover festival that was just beginning.

To appreciate the importance of this hearing, we must recall the controversy that had attached itself to Jesus' ministry over the preceding three years. Not only had his miracles and his claims to authority made the religious officials in Jerusalem nervous; Jesus' approach to Sabbath practice, healings, exorcisms, and sinners ended up challenging the existing religious structure of Judaism.

In short, Jesus was a reformer of Judaism, calling the nation of Israel to repentance. John the Baptist had done this before him, but there was a major difference: John prepared the way for the era of decisive reform, only calling for a heart ready to respond to the changes God might bring; Jesus claimed to bring that reform. If Jesus were left to lead the people in his unique way, Judaism would never be the same. An official examination before the religious leaders, it is now clear, was inevitable.

UNFAIR HEARING? It is often suggested that the Jews broke their own legal rules to bring Jesus before the Romans. Often those making this point have used it not to question the breaking of the rules but to show that Mark did not accurately understand Jewish history and blundered in writing his account of Jesus. Or worse yet, Mark and the early Christian community were skewing the facts—creating an anti-Semitic fiction—to slander the Jews by making them, and not the Roman Gentiles, responsible for Jesus' death.

The fact is that these rules, while not written down until about a.d. 170 in the Mishnah, did record an older oral tradition. One section of the Mishnah, titled "Sanhedrin," describes the legal process required in a Jewish trial where the defendant faces possible death. It states that the high priest should not participate in the questioning, the verdict cannot be given on the same day as the trial, blasphemy requires God's name be explicitly pronounced, and someone is required to speak on behalf of the defendant.

next page... |  1 of 4

April 6 1998, Vol. 42, No. 4