Zealot - The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth

crucified by Rome,
     one would know practically all that was needed to uncover who he was, what he was,
     and why he endedup nailed to a cross. His offense, in the eyes of Rome, is self-evident. It was etched
     upon a plaque and placed above his head for all to see:
Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews
. His crime was daring to assume kingly ambitions.
    The gospels testify that Jesus was crucified alongside other
lestai
, or bandits: revolutionaries, just like him. Luke, obviously uncomfortable with the
     implications of the term, changes
lestai
to
kakourgoi
, or “evildoers.” But try as he might, Luke cannot avoid the most basic fact about
     his messiah: Jesus was executed by the Roman state for the crime of sedition. Everything
     else about the last days of Jesus of Nazareth must be interpreted through this singular,
     stubborn fact.
    So, then, one can dismiss the theatrical trial before Pilate as pure fantasy for all
     the reasons stated above. If Jesus did in fact appear before Pilate, it would have
     been brief and, for Pilate, utterly forgettable. The governor may not have bothered
     to look up from his logbook long enough to register Jesus’s face, let alone engage
     in a lengthy conversation with him about the meaning of truth.
    He would have asked his one question: “Are you the King of the Jews?” He would have
     registered Jesus’s answer. He would have logged the crime. And he would have sent
     Jesus on his way to join the countless others dying or already dead up on Golgotha.
    Even the earlier trial before the Sanhedrin must be reexamined in the light of the
     cross. The story of that trial, as it is presented in the gospels, is full of contradictions
     and inconsistencies, but the general outline is as follows: Jesus is arrested at night,
     on the eve of the Sabbath, during the festival of Passover. He is brought under cover
     of darkness to the courtyard of the high priest, where the members of the Sanhedrin
     await him. At once, a group of witnesses appear and testify that Jesus has made threats
     against the Temple of Jerusalem. When Jesus refuses to answer these accusations, the
     high priest asks him directly whether he is the messiah. Jesus’s answer varies in
     all four gospels, but it always includes a declaration of himself as the Son of Man.
     The declaration infuriatesthe high priest, who immediately charges Jesus with blasphemy, the punishment for
     which is death. The next morning, the Sanhedrin hands Jesus over to Pilate to be crucified.
    The problems with this scene are too numerous to count. The trial before the Sanhedrin
     violates nearly every requirement laid down by Jewish law for a legal proceeding.
     The Mishnah is adamant on this subject. The Sanhedrin is not permitted to meet at
     night. It is not permitted to meet during Passover. It is not permitted to meet on
     the eve of the Sabbath. It is certainly not permitted to meet so casually in the courtyard
     (
aule
) of the high priest, as Matthew and Mark claim. And it must begin with a detailed
     list of why the accused is innocent before any witnesses are allowed to come forth.
     The argument that the trial rules laid down by the rabbis in the Mishnah did not apply
     in the the thirties, when Jesus was tried, falls flat when one remembers that the
     gospels were also not written in the thirties. The social, religious, and political
     context for the narrative of Jesus’s trial before the Sanhedrin was post–70 C.E . rabbinic Judaism: the era of the Mishnah. At the very least, what these flagrant
     inaccuracies demonstrate is the evangelists’ extremely poor grasp of Jewish law and
     Sanhedrin practice. That alone should cast doubt on the historicity of the trial before
     Caiaphas.
    Even if one excuses all of the above violations, the most troublesome aspect of the
     Sanhedrin trial is its verdict. If the high priest did in fact question Jesus about
     his messianic ambitions, and if Jesus’s answer did signify blasphemy, then the Torah
     could not be clearer about the punishment: “The one who blasphemes the name of the
     Lord shall surely be put to death:
the congregation shall stone him to death
” (Leviticus 24:16). That is the punishment inflicted upon Stephen for his blasphemy
     when he calls Jesus the Son of Man (Acts 7:1–60). Stephen is not transferred to Roman
     authorities to answer for his crime; he is stoned to death on the spot. It may be
     true that under the Roman imperium, the Jews did not have the