Jewish Trial of Jesus in Marks Gospel - Essay Example

Jewish Trial of Jesus in Mark's Gospel: Historical Problems I. Introduction Understanding and evaluation of any piece of literature depends a loton experience and background. This may explain why perspectives for everyone in this regard differ somewhat. The same with appraising any piece of writing. The background of recorded events must be considered in order to appreciate nuances of those events. Nevertheless, whatever criteria are used to gauge a recorded material does not and cannot change its truth. Literature in the Bible is no different where experiences and background matter in one's understanding and evaluation of these materials. Just like Maccoby1 said, "There are certain advantages in being Jewish when attempting to understand the Gospels, especially if one has been brought up in close contact with the Jewish liturgy, the ceremonials of the Jewish religious year, the rabbinical literature, and the general Jewish moral and cultural outlook. Many aspects of the Gospels ... are for the Jew as familiar as the air he breathes." The trial of Jesus in the Jewish court as written in the Gospel of Mark is an example of differing perspectives coming into play because of diverse criteria being applied. When viewed by historians applying principles in historicity at the outset, it is different from others who view the write-up from the perspective of a writer who has his best intentions for a bigger picture and fulfils it. Marks' account of the trial of Jesus also brings out differing perspectives because of time-bound conceptions, and also because of "template" mentality. Just because the Sanhedrin never holds court on certain days doesn't mean it will never, ever do it. Just because it never holds court at night doesn't mean it is not capable of doing it. Just because it gives out a sentence in less than 24 hours doesn't mean it is never inspired to do it. When passions are running high and when almost all sectors are all for eradicating one man except for a few powerless minority, everything is possible for a cooperation to cut short procedures and counter traditions and once and for all get rid of that man. II. The Trial of Jesus Marks' accounts. Immediately after Jesus was arrested at Gethsemane, Mark2 records the following - Mar 14:53 And they led Jesus away to the high priest: and with him were assembled all the chief priests and the elders and the scribes. Mar 14:54 And Peter followed him afar off, even into the palace of the high priest: and he sat with the servants, and warmed himself at the fire. Mar 14:55 And the chief priests and all the council sought for witness against Jesus to put him to death; and found none. Mar 14:56 For many bare false witness against him, but their witness agreed not together. Mar 14:57 And there arose certain, and bare false witness against him, saying, Mar 14:58 We heard him say, I will destroy this temple that is made with hands, and within three days I will build another made without hands. Mar 14:59 But neither so did their witness agree together. Mar 14:60 And the high priest stood up in the midst, and asked Jesus, saying, Answerest thou nothing what is it which these witness against thee Mar 14:61 But he held his peace, and answered nothing. Again the high priest asked him, and said unto him, Art thou the Christ, the Son of the Blessed Mar 14:62 And Jesus said, I am: and ye shall see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven. Mar 14:63 Then the high priest rent his clothes, and saith, What need we any further witnesses Mar 14:64 Ye have heard the blasphemy: what think ye And they all condemned him to be guilty of death. Mar 14:65 And some began to spit on him, and to cover his face, and to buffet him, and to say unto him, Prophesy: and the servants did strike him with the palms of their hands. III. Evaluation of Mark's accounts Procedural "errors". There are procedural errors in Mark's account of the trial of Jesus as seen by Tobin.3 The account said the Sanhedrin convened at the high priest's house. Then, they met at night, at a Passover yet, and finally pronounced the death sentence. But convening at a high priest's house is said to be contrary to other sources because the council only convenes in the Chamber of the Hewn Stone in the Temple.4 Also, the Sanhedrin avoided meeting at night, so Mark could not be correct. Further, no council meetings were held on the Sabbath, and on religious feast days, such as the Passover,5 therefore Mark is wrong on this. Capital cases also may not be judged on the eve of a Sabbath or on the eve of a festival, since all trials were forbidden on a Sabbath or a festival. The Sanhedrin, therefore, could not have met during this time. Mark implied also that the sentence was given in less than 24 hours as prescribed. This is impossible because it counters court rules. 6 Tobin7 then looks at the Sanhedrin and its procedures as a template and on this basis, denies the accounts of Mark because they break such supposed template. Using the writings of Historian Josephus and Jewish rabbinical literature,8 he describes the Sanhedrin as the Jewish nation Supreme Court of 71 members from priestly families and aristocrat lay families of racial purity. The high priest under the title of Nasi (prince), he said, chaired the assembly where the Sadducees and the Pharisees were influential during Jesus' time. Background of Court players. The Sadducees which composed the majority party in the Sanhedrin, were people enjoying a good life under the Romans and were the most to lose should there be any disturbance in the political system, and were therefore collaborators with the Romans and supporters of the status quo.9 Meanwhile, the Pharisees, another religious party, and with "unbridgeable theological differences" with the Sadducees, were the influential minority in the Sanhedrin. These two main Jewish parties arose from their attitude toward the oral law where the former believed that the Torah is to be supplemented by oral tradition. On the other hand, the Sadducees believed that the written law is a closed and final revelation, requiring no further interpretation and elaboration. 10 Templates. The procedures of the Sanhedrin were said to hold very strict rules.11 1) Just as in modern courts of law, the council has a special meeting place called the Gazith (Chamber of Hewn Stone), which is part of the Temple. They do not meet anywhere else. 2) Its sessions start at 9am in the morning and close at 4pm in the evening. 3) An interval of 24 hours must elapse before the conclusion of the testimony and the rendering of a verdict. 4) The Sanhedrin is never convened on Sabbaths, religious holidays and especially the Passover which was the most important feast in the Jewish calendar. This is clearly stated by the Misnah (Sanhedrin IV: 1) and Maimonides (Hilkot Sanhedrin XI: 2): "Trails involving capital punishment may not be held on the eve of the Sabbath or a festival." 12 Other "errors" of Mark. Other historical inaccuracies of the Markan account (Mark 14:61) include the following:13 Mark also had the high priest associate "messiah" to "Son of God" but no Jewish priest would have made that connection in the divine sense in the gospels as Christ is simply the Greek word for messiah.. Use of the phrase "Son of the Blessed" or "Son of God" was also not capital crime. Sitting at the right hand of power mentioned in Mark 14:62 is also just like King David' referring to himself as sitting at the right hand of God (Psalms 110:1), and is nowhere indicated as blasphemy. In Mark 14:65, members of the Sanhedrin spat and striked at Jesus, but this is absurd because the Sanhedrin was a highly dignified body. A Jewish scholar, Hyamm Maccoby, 14 noted - "As to the reports that members of the Sanhedrin spat on Jesus and stuck him, this is just as incredible in the proceedings of that highly dignified body as if it were reported of the high court of England or the supreme court of the United States." Differing perspectives. However, Tobin15 forgets that it was Jesus who was aggrieved here, had no representative to make the call if procedures were being followed so that he be accorded justice. Therefore, it is not impossible that procedures were broken to have Jesus tried. In fact, as things stood, any semblance of trial passed their designs just as long as he was done away with. Passions were high and people wanted him decimated in whatever way, so lack of procedures was not an issue. In fact people had been rioting and the Pharisees took many attempts to have him killed before Jesus was ever arrested. Jesus was a threat. To understand the underpinnings in those days, it is necessary to see that Jesus was first of all a threat as recorded -16 "There were then two principal threats from Jesus. The first was a threat to the political powers, in that anyone purporting (either by himself or by his followers) to be King of the Jews was a certain threat to both the Romans and the controlling Council of Temple Priests. If a man were to call himself the King of the Jews, then who would have authority over him Such a designation implied that the people of Judea, Galilee, and the other Jewish provinces would owe their loyalty not to the Council of Temple Priests or the Romans, but to their king." "The second threat was to the delicate balance of the acquisition of riches, both through taxes paid to the Romans, and to fees and religious tributes required of the Jews to the TemplePriests. For instance, the moneychangers were part of the collection system of the high priests. In order to purchase animals for sacrifice within the Temple (a serious obligation for Jews), Roman coins with the image of Caesar had to be changed into Jewish shekels, lest the Temple be desecrated by a gentile image." Consequence. Herod Antipas and Pilate then were the judges in the trial of Jesus as a consequence of this political and economic set-up. The prosecutors were Caiaphas, and the other Council members of the Sanhedrin. There was no formal defense17. All these make the template of Tobin (2002) fall flat on the face. Jesus, being a threat to the political forces, overrides any procedures in place. IV. Beyond history As literature piece. Juel 18 wrote a dissertation on the trial of Jesus and contributes a different perspective. He suggests looking at the writing of Mark as a piece of literature with a presumed set of literary characteristics-themes, structure, message, style, and the like and understand it. As what happens, most critics of Mark resort to redactionist criticism. "Rather than turning to source reconstruction as the best method of explaining the difficulty, we should first determine if this particular feature has some literary function in the story" 19 Theological intentions, not history. According to Nicholls, 20 the principal motive of each evangelist in producing a 'Gospel' was for the preaching of the early church and that the Gospels were not intended to be for general and public circulation and reading. It is clear then, he said, that they did write as theologians and not historians and therefore they cannot be viewed as reliable and accurate historians. Elsewhere, he said, the errors contained within Mark were 'corrected' by the authors of Matthew and Luke, and sometimes by later copyists, especially on those points involving theological implications.21 It is said, there are other factors which arise in Matthew and Luke that show that rather than be "historical documents" i.e., authentic reliable accounts of historical events, they are compositions where the theological purpose took priority.22 Oral tradition. Granting that the majority of accounts are correct, Jesus died in 30 AD, Paul's first letters were written about 51 AD, and Mark, considered the earliest of the Gospels, was written about 69 AD. Some ten to fifteen years after, Mark Luke and Matthew were written, and the towards the end of the first century about 95 AD, the gospel of John was written.23 One can find, therefore, great time gaps in these dates. Nevertheless, if the dates are correct, it is possible that Mark was an eyewitness. He would have been older than the life span of the time, but not impossibly old.24 Not inventions. Clearly then the Gospels must be based in large part on oral tradition from the time of Jesus, written and amplified some considerable time after Jesus' death. Some find the Gospels difficult to accept as valid, but there is nothing inherently invalid in oral history.25 From Crime Library (2005) - "The Gospels often contain small details that seem unlikely to have been inventions, or remnants of an oral tradition. John, for instance, mentions the name of the man who had his ear cut off at the time of the arrest of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, a detail that is pointless if it is not true.Whatever the problems of authorship, accuracy, and interpretation of the Gospels, it is clear that there was a first century teacher named Jesus who was tried, convicted, and executed. Despite the assertions of a very few that Jesus never existed, there is more than sufficient evidence to support the existence of such a man at such a time." To some degree, History remembered. In a question-answer format, Historian Linder26 was asked whether the accounts of the arrest, trial, and crucifixion of Jesus contained in the Bible is history remembered or prophecy historicized. Or, do the accounts strive to accurately describe history or do they seek to use the life of Jesus to advance religious movement Linder's answer was that the Biblical accounts of the arrest, trial, and crucifixion of Jesus "are to some degree history remembered and to some degree prophecy historicized." The disagreement among historians, Linder (2002) said, concerns the percentage of the account that might be attributed to each. Writing in the New York Times in 1994, for example, John Crossan, author of Who Killed Jesus is said to compare his conclusion to that of Ray Brown, author of The Death of the Messiah: "Ray Brown is 80 percent in the direction of history remembered. I'm 80 percent in the opposite direction." 27 Later, Linder (2002) would say that Jesus was an important leader of a first-century religious movement, that he was sentenced to death by Pontius Pilate, and that the movement he began survived his death." V. Conclusion In evaluating literature, we may miss the bigger picture if we base our criteria on pre-conceived notions (templates) of what is correct but discounting history. This is exactly what Tobin28 did in his enumerations of errors in the Markan account of the Jewish trial of Jesus. To judge the historicity of one thing, one must have a wider perspective than just templates of procedures and traditions in the past. This means procedures and traditions do not always go like scheduled routine or pattern as the sun rising and setting everyday without fail. For example, there is such a thing as oral literature that runs against the grain of our expectations of printed literature. During the time Jesus was being tried in the Jewish court, oral literature was the prevalent mode as against the immediacy and ocular strength of print that we know today. So it is possible, Mark's account did not see print immediately but all were in his head until later. As such, Mark's rendition of Jesus trial as partly history remembered may fail in the nitty-gritty of details but as partly prophecy historicized, it holds overall authenticity and may be appreciated for its value. This therefore means that Mark has not failed in his accounts. The frequent riots recorded in history during the time of Jesus was on account of him because as earlier pointed out, he was a threat to the powers that be. People saw him as one that would one day cause disequilibrium so that while he was preaching and healing and gathering people to himself, pressure was heating up with those who felt threatened from their political or religious positions. By the time events were leading up to his arrest and capture, people were ready to gamble their systems and procedures. This is not a surprising arrangement because as earlier stated, even irreconcilable political foes like Herod Antipas and Pilate suddenly became friends and turned judges in the trial of Jesus. Times were not normal then and systems were ready to give way to accommodate one possible death hastily done by crucifixion as evidenced by the lack of formal defense. In effect, recordings of Mark of the events leading to the trial of Jesus naturally recorded also beyond-normal happenings. There had been these riots again and again; there were these religious and political systems threatened. The world was turning upside down by a man who mouthed never-heard claims that people considered blasphemy. They wanted him dead, but he was not easy to be taken for lack of a charge; yet they just wanted him dead. With these as background, Mark's account of the trial of Jesus must be judged not apart from the social and political events happening during that time. History is not history if it is myopic and does not consider the background of events in the process of evaluation and interpretation. End Notes 1Maccoby, Hyam. "Jesus and the Jewish Resistance." (Abridged from Revolution in Judea: Jesus and the Jewish Resistance. 28 Oct 2005 . 2 "Mark," E-Sword, King James Revised Standard Version. 28 Oct 2005. 3Tobin. Paul N. 2000. "The Trial before the Sanhedrin." Rejection of Pascal's Wager. A Skeptic's guide to Christianity. 27 Oct 2005. . 4 Maccoby 5 Ibid. 6 Joseph Klausner, Jesus of Nazareth (New York 1925). In: "Biblical History" (Part Three of a Four-Part Series). Issue No. 49. January 1987 27 Oct 2005. . 7 Tobin, 2002 8 Ibid. 9"The Sadducees and Jesus' Trial." Shomrai HaBrit-Keepers of the Covenant. http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Prairie/1551/history/saducee1.htm. 10 Ibid. 11 Tobin 12 Jackson, Wayne. "The Theological Implications of the Trial of Jesus." Christian Courier: Archives. 2 Oct 2003 Wayne (2003) wrote - "In 1952 an important work issued from the press. The title is Hebrew Criminal Law and Procedure, Mishnah: Sanhedrin -Makkot. It was authored by Hyman E. Goldin, a prominent Jewish rabbi. This volume is an authoritative guide to the complex subject of Hebrew criminal jurisprudence, as such existed in the centuries before and after the Christian era. It is an important reference work in that it establishes the extent to which the Jewish code operated in ensuring that an accused person was provided a fair trial in capital cases. The evidence clearly reveals how perverted the proceedings were with reference to Jesus. 13 Tobin 14 Ibid 15 Ibid. 16 "The Trial of Jesus Christ and the Last supper. The Political Context." 27 Oct 2005 . 17 "The Trial of Jesus Christ and the Last supper. The Religious Context." Crime Library. 27 Oct 2005. . 18 Juel, Donald H. "Messiah and Temple: The Trial of Jesus in the Gospel of Mark" 27 Oct 2005. . 19 Ibid, p 119. 20Nicholls, David. The Accuracy of the Gospels (1). 27 Oct 2005. . 21 Ibid. 22 Ibid 23 "The Sources." The Trial of Jesus Christ and the Last Supper. 26 Oct 2005 . 24 Nicholls, 2005 25 "The Trial of Jesus Christ and the Last supper. The Political Context." 27 Oct 2005 . 26Linder, Douglas. 2002. "Questions and Answers." 27 Oct 2005. . 27 Ibid. Read More