Where, according to the Gospels, does it say that the Sanhedrin convicted him to be sentenced? I only see that Jesus was sentenced because:
The crowd requested Jesus to be crucified
Pilate (for some odd reason) had a duty to release one or the other to them (Jesus or Barabbas… why these were the only choices is beyond me).
I would like to see where you are going with this… I suppose the obvious answer is that he said “Thou sayest” when Pilate asked him if he was King of the Jews, Matt. 27:11, Mark 15:2 . (That is what you want me to say right?!) But, I see no actual conviction for this blaspheme. Like I said, Jesus seems to have been sentenced not because of blaspheme but because of the Roman people and Pilate’s duty.
Before Jesus was turned over to Pilate he was taken for a trial before the Sanhedrin:
Why did the high priest accuse Jesus of blasphemy? What did Jesus say that was blasphemous?
(Btw, Pilate didn’t “have” to release anybody. Mark states that it was his “custom” to do so. No corroborating exists that Pilate had such a custom and it was certainly not a normative practice for the Romans.)
Jesus answered “Yes, it is as you say” to the statement “Tell us if you are the Christ, the Son of God.”
Isn’t he admitting blasphemy here? He goes on to say that he will be sitting at the right hand of God. Isn’t this obvious? Surely you must be meaning something else or I am missing something?
“Christ” is Greek for “Messiah” which means “Annointed One” in Hebrew.
Jesus is claiming to be the Messiah, but that was not blasphemy under Jewish law. The Jewish Messiah is a human king. He is not divine.
The phrase “son of God” was not a claim to divinity either. A son of God in Jewish tradition was anyone who was especially righteous, favored or “chosen” by God. Claiming to be a son of God was not blasphemy.
The “Son of Man” quotation is from Daniel which describes the Messiah as “One like a son of Adam (Adam means “man” in Hebrew)” who will appear on the clouds at the right side of God. The phrase “Son of Man” (ben Adam) in Hebrew idiom was a generic expression for human beings. The Daniel quotation was stating that the messiah would be one “like a human being.” that is, not divine.
When Jesus quotes from Daniel he again seems to be claiming to be the Messiah, but the Messiah was not God (in Jewish tradition) and claiming to be the Messiah was not blasphemous or against any other Jewish law.
Just a question to keep this running in interesting directions, since I’m starting to like this thread again. I am not well read in the Gospels, so I apologize for not citing… perhaps if I can drag Punha around, he could aid me with some of this.
In one of the Gospels, during the “trial” that Pilate holds, he offers to release one prisoner as a show of his good will for Passover, and he offers either “this man” (Jesus) or Barabbas, a notorious thief and murderer. As he was in a Roman prison, the fact that he was called a “murderer” probably meant he was a Jewish freedom fighter (having murdered Caesar’s infantrymen). However, in one book I read (again sorry… don’t have it for the cite) I learned that “Barabbas” actually means “(Son) Of the Father”… “Bar” being an offshoot of “Ben”. So who really was this Barabbas, and whose son was he?
Then why did the high priest tear his clothes? The high priest was even quoted saying that he acknowledged Jesus’ statement as blasphemous. Are you suggesting that the account in Matthew and Mark is inaccurate on the words of the priest?
So, you don’t believe it possible that Jesus slipped through the cracks of the judicial system and was crucified without a conviction? It is obvious that Pilate was not acting in a normal procedural manner when he washed his hands of the case. Maybe he allowed an injustice to happen?
…Or was the high priest being unfair saying Jesus was being blasphemous when it technically wasn’t? I am not familiar with Jewish Law, so all I can do here is analyze the Gospels.
An Aside: How are you so familiar with the Jewish law and the Bible and all this history? Are you just a history buff or did you used to be religious or…? Just curious because you are not religious now yet you know so much about this religion. Not to get too personal, just curious.
Actually, Fuel, That’s exactly what I think happened… the allowing of a murder. Jesus caused too much trouble for the Sanhedrin and the only way they could legitimately get rid of him (Remember: Thou Shalt Not Murder) would be to get the Romans to take care of it. Pilate, however, wanted no part in the sham, and washed his hands of the entire thing. I also, however, have no problem accepting that this was entirely a political issue and that whether or not Matthew and Mark were accurate or not… one must remember that by the time of the writing of the Gospels, Rome had a firm hand in control and if the writings had portrayed Rome in a bad light, they would never have existed this long.
In Diogenes’ case, I don’t know. Personally, I am a former Roman Catholic… ::backs himself into a corner so as not to be flamed from behind:: who found himself dissatisfied with the RCC and left to persue other faiths after my Confirmation… because my parents made me stay there that long.
I’m suggesting that the trial before the Sanhedrin is a fiction. It never happened. There are numerous procedural errors with Matthew’s account. The Sanhedrin could not have met at night, they could not have met away from the temple, they could not have met on the Sabbath (especially not on Passover) and they could not have passed judgement on Jesus without waiting 24 hours. All of this would have been against Jewish law. The false blasphemy charge just clinches the argument that the author of Matthew didn’t know anything about Jewish law. Why would the high priest accuse Jesus of committing a crime that didn’t exist under Jewish law?
Crucifixion was a method of execution used only by the Romans and forbidden for Jews to practice. If the Sanhedrin had really wanted to execute Jesus they did not need the Romans to do it. They could have stoned him any time they wanted (remember the adulterous woman?). They would have had no reason to hand Jesus to the Romans and they were violating their own religious law by turning over a Jew for crucifixion.
Furthermore, Jesus had done nothing wrong under Jewish law. He may have participated in some public debates with Pharisees but the Pharisees didn’t kill people who disagreed with them.
The authors of the gospels were preaching to a largely Roman audience and they wanted to shift the blame for the crucifixion from the Romans to the Jewish authorities to better facilitate their message.
Matthew’s trial cannot be historical because it gets all of its details wrong. Most importantly it mistakenly seems to believe that claiming to be the Messiah was a claim to divinity under Jewish law. The Sanhedrin never would have made that association any more than we would think that a man claiming to be the “next president” was claiming to be God. It was a (and is) a non sequitor in Jewish tradition.
I have a BA in Religious Studies with minors in Classical Languages and History. I’ve also done a ton of independent study and research. I’m fascinated by the origins of the great religions and the founders in particular. It’s a passion of mine.
I suspect, then, that you are not reading the actual scholars or theologians who have waded in on this issue, but second-hand popularizers who have both the information and the attitude wrong. I have never encountered one of the actual scholars (even those who tend toward the a-religious) who expressed contempt for the beliefs of people.
I wonder who the heck you’ve read, since I do not know a single New Testament scholar after the first half of the 20th century who does not recognize Q. And I have never heard any scholar claim that Q argued against the validity of Scripture.
I am not angry with you, but I do find it frustrating to have you continually repeat a false claim and fail to even supply a source for it.
I agree with your arguments for the Gospels’ motivation to depict the Romans in a good light. But as you know, motivation is not proof, only evidence. Just wanted to keep that out in the open.
Let me think: You know what else might fit into this story? Correct me if I’m wrong here: Could it be possible that this whole Sanhedrin thing was an “under the table” thing? They met at night away from the temple (sneaking around), they met on the Sabbath (when no one would wonder why they weren’t at work in the temple) and shoved Jesus over to the other authorities privately, because of their hatred for him.
Keep in mind, the same people who conspired with Judas and wanted to kill Jesus are the ones that led the Sanhedrin “trial”, if I understand correctly. These guys were already scheming and machinating against Jesus all throughout the Gospels, this could just be the final episode. Their happy ending to Jesus’ winning arguments outside the temple and questioning of their faith in public.
To answer your second paragraph: Maybe your theory about how Jesus never did anything wrong is right and that’s why the priests didn’t have Jesus publicly stoned. You sort of used your own words against yourself, didn’t you?
Fuel, I wanted to tell you that you sound EXACTLY like my roommate Lance when he first was trying to reason out the whole Sanhedrin thing. I am more inclined to agree with Diogenes about this. Not because of your views, but because what happened would qualify as “work”… specifically FORBIDDEN on the Sabbath (and we have Christian evidence of this, too). That was part of the excuse of Joseph of Aramathea to remove Christ’s body from the cross, since it had to be buried before the Sabbath or had to wait until afterwards.
The Sanhedrin was not a collection of psychopaths that would secretly conspire to execute people for embarrasing them in adebate. Public debate has always been a cornerstone of Jewish faith and it was no great scandal to argue with priests.
The trial, as described in Matthew, is impossible. The Sanhedrin was composed of 70 or more people, all of them observant Jews who would never have violated a holy day so egregiously as Matthew suggests. Matthew’s description of the procedure is also wrong and his statement that the Sanhedrin cursed and spit on him is as absurd as if the US Supreme Court were used a such a thing.
More importantly, they convicted Jesus of a crime that didn’t exist. It wasn’t a false accusation of something that was illegal. They “convicted” him of something that wasn’t a crime.
What do you believe was the Sanhedrin’s motivation for conspiring to murder a man who had done nothing very remarkable or offensive under Jewish law?
Why didn’t they stone him themselves if they wanted him dead?
Also, it coudn’t have been a very secret trial since several witnesses were called and since a crowd of people was outside in the courtyard awaiting the verdict.
I’ll give you two: Scott Hahn and Father Most. If Q is what scholars say then the Gospels are basically a bunch of invented stories, ergo, they can’t be inspired,
The Challenged has been met.
I went to the horse’s mouth Mr Jesus Seminar himself, Robert Funk.
“It is time for us [scholars] to quit the library and study and speak up…The Jesus Seminar is a clarion call to enlightenment. It is for those who prefer facts to fancies, history to histrionics, science to superstition.” Robert Funk, The Gospel of Mark, Red Letter Edition (Sonoma, CA: Polebridge Press, 1991), pp. xvi- xvii.
“[Jesus is a] secular sage who satirized the pious and championed the poor.” He then adds, “Jesus was perhaps the first stand-up Jewish comic. Starting a new religion would have been the farthest thing from his mind.” [2] Los Angeles Times , March 11, 1995
“The Gospels are now assumed to be narratives in which the memory of Jesus is embellished by mythic elements that express the church’s faith in him, and by plausible fictions that enhance the telling of the gospel story for first-century listeners…”[3] [emphasis added] Robert Funk, Roy Hoover, and the Jesus Seminar, The Five Gospels: What Did Jesus Really Say? (New York: Macmillan, 1993), p. 5, quoted in Moreland and Wilkins, Jesus Under Fire (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1995), p. 4.
Criteria used by the Jesus Seminar (Funk, et al., 1993, p. 19-32). [I’ve omitted some]
A. Words borrowed from the fund of common lore or the Greek scriptures are often put on the lips of Jesus.
B. The evangelist frequently attribute their own statements to Jesus.
C. The Christian community develops apologetic statements to defend it’s claims and sometimes attributes such statements to Jesus.
D. Sayings and narratives that reflect knowledge of events that took place after Jesus’ death are the creation of the evangelist or the oral tradition before them.
F. The oral memory best retains sayings and anecdotes that are short, provocative, memorable—and oft’ repeated.
G. The most frequently recorded words of Jesus in the surviving gospels take the form of aphorisms and parables.
H. The earliest layer of the gospel tradition is made up of single aphorisms and parables that circulated by word of mouth prior to the written gospels.
I. Jesus’ characteristic talk is distinctive—it can usually be distinguished from common lore. Otherwise it is futile to search for the authentic words of Jesus.
M. Jesus rarely makes pronouncements or speaks about himself in the first person.
N. Jesus makes no claim to be the Anointed, the messiah.
[With these pre-conceptions no one can state they accept Divine inspiration, the gosples become a bunch of lies].
No passage of John makes “the red”, ONE makes “the pink” and only TWO make “the gray”. [It’s clear they don’t think John is reliable and only logical conclusion is that God couldn’t’ve written it]
If this doesn’t convince you that the JS ain´t that big on Inspiration, nothing will.