Killing Jesus: A History

that blasphemous talk about being the Son of God will lead to a very public execution. The Jews would stone Jesus for such language, and the Romans might kill him for suggesting he is their divine emperor’s equal. Stoning would seem a tame way to die in comparison with the evils of which the Romans are capable—evils Jesus has seen with his own eyes.
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    It was just a year earlier that Judas of Gamala 4 was likely crucified in Sepphoris. Jesus and every other Galilean bore witness to that horror. Judas was a learned man, and also a husband and father, who longed to raise his children in a better world—a Galilee ruled by Israelites instead of Roman puppets who crippled the people with unbearable taxes. Judas traveled through the farming villages and fishing ports of Galilee preaching a message of sedition to the impoverished peasants, urging them not to pay taxes to Rome or to tithe to the Temple in Jerusalem. He even founded a new sect of the Jewish faith, one that espoused a radical new theology of unwavering devotion to the Israelites’ one true Lord. Bowing down to Caesar Augustus and Rome is sinful, Judas told all who would listen.
    The Romans might have overlooked Judas as an overzealous religious crank if he had not raised an army of displaced peasants to attempt a violent overthrow of the Roman-sponsored government in Galilee. That action brought an immediate response: Judas must die.
    It was on the order of Herod Antipas, the fifth-born son of Herod the Great, who himself had once hunted the baby Jesus. Both father and son had done everything in their power to brutalize and fleece the good people of Galilee.
    Of course, Caesar Augustus got the first cut of all tax proceeds. He had mellowed since his younger days. Absolute power became him, and the vainglorious heir of Julius Caesar who was jeered for cowardice at Philippi was now a seventy-year-old monarch renowned for erecting opulent buildings and temples throughout his empire. He even had an admiration for the Jews and their reverent adherence to their teachings. Caesar Augustus lived in splendor, though not overt decadence. That fondness for the abundant and perverse was preferred by Tiberius, his adopted son and heir.
    But it was Caesar Augustus who had allowed Herod the Great to remain on the throne of Judea for almost four decades, just as it was he who had personally divided the kingdom after that tyrant’s death and granted control of Galilee to Herod Antipas.
    The soldiers of Antipas quickly captured Judas of Gamala and began the crucifixion process by stripping him naked in the palace courtyard.
    A crowd had been let in to watch and could clearly see the agony of Judas. Among them were Judas’s sons, Jacob and Simon. Little did the boys know then, but they were destined one day to be crucified themselves for trying to avenge their father’s death.
    The soldiers of Antipas forced Judas of Gamala to his knees, facing a low post. He was tied to the wooden shaft with his hands above his head. Two soldiers retrieved short-handled whips, whose three leather tendrils were tipped with lead balls and mutton bones. The soldiers stood ready to take turns laying the leather across Judas’s back, leaning into each blow with all their might. As each lash was inflicted, the leather thongs tore open the skin and muscles, even as the lead and bone created deep bruising. This, in turn, led to profuse internal bleeding. As with all aspects of Roman execution, the stripping and lashing had a specific purpose: the public nudity humiliated, while the whip broke Judas’s will so that he would offer no resistance when hurled to the ground and nailed to the cross. Crucifixion, Roman-style, was not just a barbarous way to kill, but also a process of mentally and physically destroying the victim—whether it be man, woman, or child. Judas would be nothing but an empty husk by the time he hung from the cross.
    Jewish law says that a man can be lashed only thirty-nine times—“forty minus one,” as it is written. Not so with the Romans—or, in Herod Antipas’s case, Gentile mercenaries behaving like Roman soldiers. These non-Jews could lash a man as long as they liked. The only requirement was that their victim be able to carry his crossbeam to the site of crucifixion. So even as a soldier counted each and every time the flagrum was brought down upon Judas’s back, upper legs, and head, it was understood he would receive far more than thirty-nine