The Trial and Crucifixion of Jesus

The 9th Scientific Conference "Challenges to the Legal System" - University of East Sarajevo Faculty of Law and International Union of Lawyers, Moscow, Serbian Association for Criminal Legal Theory and Practice, Belgrade, 2020

What we read in Matthew, 26.59, relating to the probative instruction that the Sanhedrin conducted towards Jesus of Nazareth, it must be understood in an almost completely different sense compared to what Mark refers more widely in 14.55-56a. The Sanhedrin was looking for evidence against the suspect person in order to obtain an exemplary sentence but it could not find it: many testified falsehood, vitiating the depositions as contradictory. This means, therefore, that the College did not want to find false testimonies. In the text of the Evangelist the anxiety with which the judicial initiative is pursued is evident, but this does not justify the doubt that the acquisition of the evidence would ripen irritably if not even maliciously. On the other hand, the inquiry, become urgent in those days of Easter, had preceded almost the entire public life of the Nazarene, so that his preaching is already punctuated by lively debates with different opponents but all the representatives of authority from time to time (Pharisees and Herodians, Pharisees and Sadducees, Pharisees, priests and leaders of the people. From this point of view, also on the basis of a recent suggestion by Massimo Miglietta from Urbino, even innovating what was previously argued in other writings, it is inclined to the hypothesis that in the criminal trial exercised against Jesus of Nazareth the function of the Sanhedrin was aimed at an investigation focused on the evidence to be referred not only to the Jewish authorities but also to the Roman ones, with particular reference to the crime of laesa maiestas, the knowledge of which would certainly have affected the latter. In partial discrepancy with what expressed in the other writings already mentioned, where the charge ascertained by the Sanhedrin was irreconcilable with respect to the one that legitimized the sentence of Pontius Pilate, and starting from the state of the most recent historical research, especially for what concerns the rights of the ancient Mediterranean and of biblical and Semitic rhetorical analysis, the importance of the Sanhedrin phase must be reconsidered as no longer completely independent from the procuratory phase. Even behind the comfort of the content of John’s Gospel about the facts of the Passion but above all of the significant contribution increased by a greater interest in apocryphal sources, which lead to a different connotation of blasphemy, abstracting it from the contours of a simple messianic declaration, it is legitimate to argue that the Jewish protest may have assumed a plurioffensive significance such as to have been absorbed by the laesa maiestas. The Peter’s and Nicodemus’s Gospels (see especially the Gospels. Pt. 4,11; Gospels Nicod., Vers. Gr. A, 1,1), both written, originally, between the end of the first and the beginning of the second centuries. A.D., that is, significantly in the context of a temporal glimpse where the canonical Gospels are also placed, support such a review from several sources. The use of the verb κατηγορέω by Nicodemus leaves no room for interpretation to the intentions of the leading exponents of the Jewish nation, that can only be understood as a formal indictment, which follows, a fortiori the charge of a crime (blasphemy - laesa maiestas) in its plurioffensive structure. Asked the Prosecutor's question: what is it what they attest against you? (τί οὗτοί σου καταμαρτυροῦσιν) the response of the synhedrites (καταμαρτυρέω) is symptomatic of the solemn dimension of the accusation. Therefore, if not with the same peremptory nature as Miglietta, it can be concluded that after the Sanhedrin investigation based on the rigor of the Jewish procedure, the trial phase took place before the Roman Procurator in the usual form of the rhetorical freedoms of the late imperial inquisition which culminated in the issuance of a death sentence with an entirely Roman punishment. It is well established that the decision to arrest Jesus of Nazareth was by no means an extemporaneous act of the last moment due to how erroneously the communis opinio took root, indeed it cannot be silenced that already after some sensational demonstrations, especially after the first Passover in Jerusalem, when he drove the merchants out of the Temple arrogating messianic purposes, the Great Sanhedrin had begun to gather evidence against him in the course of an investigation conducted through the rigorous assumption provided not only by the Torah but, minutely, also by the Mishnah. Furthermore, it is clear from this that the synhedrites were thinking not only of a survey of the disputes before the Sanhedrin but, perhaps, even more, of a survey of the disputes that would have devolved to the authorities of Rome: their investigation o is not limited to the facts concerning only orthodoxy with respect to the conduct of the investigated but more generally to his heterodox attitude towards the Roman authorities of which the tribute to Caesar (Lk., 20, 20b) is the most eloquent expression. It is quite clear that the Sanhedrin mission has the first function of admonishing the suspect about his heterodox behavior as the Jewish procedure prescribed with formal value in wanting to prelude the preliminary experiment of the subsequent criminal action. If this had not been the case, the College could have raised the doubt that the leaders of the Nation had really recognized the Nazarene as the Christ, which is why Caiaphas well expressed when he said: it is better that just one man dies in order to save all the people rather than the whole nation perish. These are not informal conciliaboli but properly chrismatic meetings: the Sanhedrin does not conspire but deliberates, it issues a precise precautionary order banned for all Israel through the announcement to the crowd and behind the indication of a reward (Talmud of Babylon – Sanhedrin 43a). The arrest of Jesus of Nazareth is an exclusive initiative of the Jewish authorities whose power falls within their competences exercised to instruct a process that has been meditated for some time and devolved for the decision to the Roman authorities: nor could it be otherwise as John expresses lapidarily in 18.31b when faced with the Procurator's question as to why the Synedrites did not condemn the prejudiced according to their own law, they can only answer: we are not allowed to kill anyone.

The paper intends to suggest that there was not only violation of the Jewish Law in the process of His trial but that there also involved a violation of His rights as a Jew.

Bulletin for Biblical Research

A BBR review of David Chapman and Eckhard Schnabel's important work on the primary sources of Greco-Romand practices of trial and crucifixion. Beyond being simply a sourcebook, it also gives important commentary on the sources.

The prevailing opinion about crucifixions is that they were carried out in approximately the same way as the crucifixion of Jesus, i.e., that the condemned were attached by their limbs to crosses in order to be executed. In search of the historical background of this punishment, scholars often referred to ancient Greek texts containing the verb anastauroun or anaskolopizein. The present paper suggests that conclusions drawn from these texts may be unsatisfactory -if not erroneous. This suggestion is based on the fact that the absolute majority of the texts share the same weakness, which disqualifies them in such a study. In order to create a firm textual basis for the study of crucifixion, other intra-and extra-textual features are needed. The result of the reading proposed by the present paper is that it significantly reduces the number of relevant texts (the hitherto studied) and takes some new (hitherto neglected) texts into consideration.

Tyndale Bulletin, 1991

The reason for Pilate's presence in Jerusalem comes under little scrutiny from most commentators.2 I.H. Marshall is representative as he remarks, 'Jesus is taken before Pilate, who conveniently happens to be in Jerusalem ... '. 3 In a recent article dealing with Jesus' trial, Ernst Bammel states that the presence of the Roman prefect in Jerusalem was a 'rare occasion', only occurring at the Feasts. 4 In his landmark Sarum Lectures of 1960-61, A.N. Sherwin-White devotes considerable space to the historical details of the synoptic trial narratives when viewed in the light of Roman legal procedure; 5 nevertheless, he neither 1 1 would like to thank Dr. Bruce Winter and Professor John Crook for their criticism of and helpful advice on an earlier draft of this paper.

A common assumption about crucifixions is that they were generally carried out in approximately the same way as the crucifixion of Jesus, i.e., that the condemned was attached to some kind of vertical construction in order to be executed. In the search of historical knowledge about this punishment, ancient Greek texts containing the verb anastauroun or anaskolopizein are often referred to. The present paper suggests that the conclusions drawn from these texts may be unsatisfactory. This suggestion is based on the fact that the majority of the texts do not specify what kind of suspension they refer to. In order to create a firm textual basis for the study of crucifixion we need to take into account a broader terminology, and to find more intra-and extratextual indications about the nature of the punishment. The result of this critical view is that it significantly reduces the number of relevant texts and takes some new texts into consideration.

Journal of Early Christian Studies, 2019

Fortress Press, 2023

Historians of early Christianity unanimously agree that Jesus was executed by Roman soldiers. This consensus extends to members of the general population who have seen a Jesus movie or an Easter play and remember Roman soldiers hammering the nails. However, for early Christians, the detail that Jesus was crucified by Roman soldiers under the direction of a Roman governor threatened their desire for a stable existence in the Roman world. Beginning with the writings found in the New Testament, early Christians sought to rewrite their history and shift the blame for Jesus's crucifixion away from Pilate and his soldiers and onto Jews. During the second century, a narrative of the crucifixion with Jewish executioners predominated. During the fourth century, this narrative functioned to encourage anti-Judaism within the newly established Christian empire. Yet, in the modern world, there exists a significant degree of ignorance regarding the pervasiveness--or sometimes even the existence!--of the claim among ancient Christians that Jesus was executed by Jews. This ignorance is deeply problematic, because it leaves a gaping hole in our understanding of what for so long was the direct underpinning of Christian persecution of Jews. Moreover, it excuses from blame the venerated ancient Christian authors who constructed and perpetuated the claim that the Jews executed Jesus. And on an unconscious level, it may still influence Christians' understanding of Jews and Judaism.

Journal of Late Antiquity, 177-212, 2021

An article published in this journal in 2019 proposes to identify a fragmentary papyrus containing a Greek record of court proceedings from Roman Egypt (P.Mil.Vogl. VI 287) as the only known authentic transcript of a trial of Christians by a Roman governor. The present article reassesses the problem from the perspective of Christian sources and papyrological evidence and presents a revised text and new interpretation of the papyrus in question.

The Mediterranean, a View from the East Research workshop of the Israel Science Foundation, 2022

The Mediterranean, a View from the East Research workshop of the Israel Science Foundation