Caiaphas was the High Priest, and leader of the Sadducees. He was responsible for the accusation of JC. (It is true that the Death Penalty had to be ratified by Pilate, but Pilate did not know JC, and would not have ordered his Death without the accusation).
Now, there are some who say that C. HAD to do that, otherwise: no execution, no martyrdom, no resurrection, ect-
but let us leave that aside.
Did he arrange the death of JC because: 1.He was sure JC was a heretic, and thus deserved to die, or 2. He thought any “Messiah” would soon start a revolt, which the Romans would crush completely (ie like that in 70AD), so he figured- “better him than us”, or 3. He was jealous of JC’s popularity, and quick wit? Ie: was C: A religous xealot, a realist, or jealous?
A probable reason (and probably THE reason) that a lot of Jews didn’t accept Jesus as the Messiah was that he was prophesied to come and destroy the enemies of Israel, or something like that. Not the exact wording, of course, but the general idea that was in a lot of Jews’ minds at the time was that the messiah was going to be a military general, “from the lineage of David”, so therefore, a noble, or someone already of note. (Again, only glazing over the details, might get something wrong, or a lot of things wrong… but this isn’t the important part of my explanantion)
(THIS is the important part of the explanation) Caiaphas, being a supposedly devout Jew (supposedly), would have taken the word “messiah” and thought “big guy, general, sword, destroy the Romans”… NOT “humble little dude, hangs out with fishermen, feeds people”. So, like the hapless Brian, Jesus was branded as just another crazy heretic claiming to be the messiah (the prophecy of a messiah just about ensures that some nutsos would claim the position, given enough time).
So was Caiaphas wrong? Who knows, it was two thousand years ago (give or take a few decades). But at least he had a pretty darn good explanation… namely, “Hell, he didn’t fit the profile, AND we’ve had hundreds of wackos claiming to be what he claimed to be! What was I SUPPOSED to do?!?” Then, realizing that none of that would stand up in Divine Court, he’d blame the whole thing on Pilate… and succeed.
Why does it make Caiaphas a zealot to order the execution of a blasphemer? Would you call him a zealot if he had had Jesus stoned to death, rather than crucified?
ben: yes, I feel killing someone who has not committed a “crime against humanity” (ie murder, etc) for religous reasons, makes you a zealot. In my mind the death penalty is just barely justified for people like Dahlmer & those nazis who ran the death camps. It certainly is not justifed for someone you disagree with religously.
Note that the Pharisees, who also felt JC was a “false Messiah”, were strongly against the persecution of the Christians, and the execution of JC.
Why would he arrange it at all? Contrary to what the Gospels state, the Sanhedrin did have the authority to execute him. Or so I have been led to believe.
Perhaps the whole story is an attempt to clean the messianic blood from the hands of the Romans. After all these Romans were the audience the Gospels were written for.
2sense: As far as I know, the Sanhedrin had to appeal to the Roman authorities to approve ant executions. Of course, there were mobs that stoned people, at times, without any authority at all.
And it reads like Matthew was more an attempt to reach out to the Jewish, than the Romans.
I was always taught that Jesus was usurping the power of the religious leaders in the minds and hearts of the people. He had many run-ins with the Pharisees and Sadducees, and always told them, in effect, “You think you’re doing just fine, but in the sight of God, you’re not.”
They questioned his authority to try to trip him up and make him look foolish. They also did it because, by having Jesus repeatedly say things that only God had authority to say, they were able to have blasphemy charges they could level at him.
So I think the answer to your question is 4) Caiaphas was a leader whose authority was legitimately being questioned, and he needed to stop it before it dragged him down.
No, many preached & practiced mercy also. Note I use a small case “zealot” to differ from the “Zealots”, a early AD Jewish “political party”. I define 'zealot" as: an uncompromising or extreme partisan". The Pharisees preached mercy, also.
Daniel, a couple of things I’ve read have stated that the Sanhedrin had to get their sentence confirmed by the Roman procurator but even so, I thought the usual method of execution for blasphemy (the Sanhedrin’s charge) was stoning.
Doesn’t crucifiction suggest a criminal sentence by Rome rather than a “canon law” sentence by the Jewish authorities?
Daniel, don’t try to apply your modern standards to people living in a less enlightened age. You think that only a “crime against humanity” is reasonable grounds for a death sentence, but there were not more than a handful of people a thousand years ago (let alone two thousand years ago) who would have agreed with that sentiment.
The death penalty in Roman times could be imposed for almost anything, for speaking ill of the Emperor to being in the way when a senator’s wife wanted to cross the street. Under Jewish law, the death penalty was imposed only for a few specified crimes, and after some sort of trial, not merely at the whim of the governor.
Crucifixtion was a Roman sport, not a Jewish one. Jewish methods of inflicting the death penalty were all relatively quick, and intended to kill, not to torture. (Remember, they didn’t have lethal injection or electrocution.) Stoning may have taken ten or fifteen minutes, but that was reasonably quick. Crucifixion was a torture that took many hours.
I take issue with the idea that stoning was intended as a quick or merciful death. While it is true that it is far quicker than crucifixion, it is by no means swift death. The Jews might easily have used beheading or even a single crushing blow to end a person’s life swiftly. Stoning was far more cruel and seems mainly to be chosen to let the community in on the act. Sport indeed.
The Talmud explains (I’ll need some time for a source) exactly what the process of “stoning” is - it is very different from what you and I think of.
I believe that when the Jewish people stone a person, the process involves either a fall from a high cliff, a “single crushing blow (sic)” or both.
When the Jewish people stoned someone (which didn’t really happen very often anyway) it was not a crowd of people hurling small rocks at someone (a la Shirley Jackson).
I believe my memory is correct when I say that some Biblical historians find the crucifixtion story as told in the gospels to be a little suspect. Knowing the power that Rome held over Israel at the time it is not likely that Jewish leaders would have as much influence over Roman policy as the gospels describe. If I remember correctly these historians believe that the crucifixtion of Jesus was completely up to the Romans. Crucifixtion was used only on the lower classes as a means of control through fear. It would not have been hard for a simple Jewish peasant to do something stupid enough to get crucified. It was feast time at the temple with large crowds of Jews and others from the area arriving in the city daily. Rome undoubtedly had all of their army on alert and any unrest would have been dealt with post haste. Jesus brought attention to himself and was dealt with like any unruly Jew would have been dealt with in those times.
Let’s put this into historic perspective. It’s Passover in Jerusalem. You have a couple more thousand Jews in town than usual, celebrating the distruction of the oppressors of the Jews by God. (Egyptians historically, but it doesn’t take a big stretch to substitute the Romans in the Passover story, and my guess is the Jews were doing just that)Because Pilate wasn’t a complete moron, he has likely increased the number of guards around the city, in case the Jews decide to riot. And, as we all know, an angry mob of people with revolution on their mind is rarely calmed down by the site of increased police. On top of that, you have this skinny kid from Nazareth, speaking in parables that are thinly veiled threats to Romans, about reigning in the Kingdom of God. Jews refered to Israel as the Kingdom of God. You have Pilate leaning heavily on Harod to keep the Jews in check, and Harod, in turn, leaning heavily on Caiaphas and fellows to keep the Passover celebrations peaceful. When word gets out that this Nazarian kid is creating a bit of a hub-bub, Caiaphas decides that it is better to get rid of him than to risk the entire mass rising up against the increased Roman guards. If that had happened, thousands of Jews would have died. This way, it was only one guy. Plus, Judas sees Jesus moving away from what he thinks are Jesus’s previous lessons, and thinks he’s becoming slightly hypocrytical, what with Mary Magdalene hanging on him, and the oil and such. So Caiaphas has Judas, one of Jesus’s own followers, telling him that Jesus is becoming dangerous, the Romans are making it very clear that any uprising will end violently, the atmosphere in Jerusalem is tense anyway, and he had to do something.
Depending on your faith, he may not have done the best thing spiritually, but I sure as hell think he did the right thing politically. It’s not the first time a revolutionary was exectued, and it sure wasn’t the last.
CKDext: You are right, I am commiting my own sin of “presentism”, in judgeing those of the past by todays standards. I should know better. However, on the other hand, the High Priest certainly might meet a definition of “zealous”, as opposed to a “Zealot”. Being a Sadducee, in itself, was pretty tough.
Swimming riddles makes a good point. Pilate was leaning on Herod, who was leaning on the Sanhedrin. Nobody wanted any “trouble”. And, yes, I know that crucifixion is a Roman penalty, not a Jewish one. But, there is evidence that the Pharisees would not concur with a charge of “heresy”, Gamamiel himself defending the early Christians against that charge, and Paul getting off being stoned as a heretic by appealing to (and claiming he was) a Pharisee. From verses in the Gospels, it looks like the charge levied against JC was not “heresy”, but “treason”, ie claiming he was a “king”. Thus he had to be crucified, not stoned. True, the final burden rests on Pilate, but Pilate would never had known anything about JC and his “crimes”, if the High Priest had not charged JC with those crimes.
Oddly, JC and his apostles were the last ones to cause “trouble”, as they were pacifists. Trouble was going to come from the true “Zealots”.
I don’t have my sources handy either, but have been doing a little “light” research, and there were 2 forms of punishment carried out in Jewish society (actually 4, but the first two, “death by the hand of God/heaven” and “cutting off” were reserved to God Himself and had no corresponding sacrifice/offering for atonement). The first was the 40 lashes minus one, which was purposely NOT a death sentence, and could only be administered after a properly convened trial. This may be where folks get the impression that the Sanhedren could not impose the death penalty.
The second was the “rebel’s beating,” or something like that, which could be administered by any group of people without trial (provided the offense was sustained by the proper number of witnesses, although a public act of profanity (e.g.) could merit the punishment of the mob on the spot). This was often a death sentence, either by stoning or the aforementioned hurling over a cliff.
The New Testament gives us examples of this type of “rebel’s beating,” when Jesus is nearly pushed over a cliff by the inhabitants of his home town, where the woman caught in adultry (John 8) is threatened with stoning, where Stephen is stoned to death by a crowd (though after a trial before the Sanhedren), or where Paul is nearly killed for purportedly allowing a gentile into the inner temple courts. So this may have happened more often than we think.
Also, if the method for stoning as described in the New Testament is accurate (for that time), it appears to have involved a crowd pelting an individual offender with rocks.
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