TedM

It was whatever the real offended group--the scribes and Pharasees--wanted it to be. Mark makes it clear that the Pharisees thought Jesus was going around doing unlawful things, and was criticizing their hypocracy, and that Jesus also was gaining points against the Sadducees, who didn't believe in the resurrection.

Maybe Jesus really was found guilty for the money-change scene. However, a blasphemy conviction would have been much more effective since they Pharisees and Sadduccees and scribes were envious and since Jesus was clearly a religious leader of sorts. We will have to agree to disagree on whether they could have pulled off a blasphemy conviction as presented. I think it isn't near as clear-cut as requiring him to do exactly as required from the Mishna over 200 years later.


The link I gave yesterday addresses these kinds of issues. Here are some snippets:


Addressed above, and the point remains that according to Josephus the Sanhedrin wasn't a bunch of law abiding goody 2 shoes, and were quite capable of disorder. The later-written Mishna doesn't seem to have been a guide to their behavior from which they never deviated. Not even close..

None of those are reported to have claimed they were the Messiah, and not in front of the Sanhedrins. The link I gave yesterday addressed this:

Ok, but interpreting Hebrew scripture from a Christian perspective is very different than accepting historical details that couldn't have happened in the culture he was familiar with. I thought Matthew demonstrates a desire to correct such 'errors' elsewhere, and if so I'd expect him to have done so here too if it was as inaccurate as you think. And not just Matthew, I'd expect it from John, Luke, and others if not the entire Christian tradition since the Passion Narrative appears to have been one of the earliest traditions in Christianity, and the early Christians were Jewish.

Yet, they were all perfect gentlemen in the Sanhedrin gatherings--which may not have even technically been a trial. I think of the Clarence Thomas fiasco, and the baseball-steroid hearings for modern-day examples of people in authority elevating their humanity above the higher calls of their office.


No, but the general way in which he is portrayed provides more than enough reasonable cause for the religious leaders to want to get rid of him.

ted

TedM

I'm not commenting on the tradition to free another, as I've never looked at it. But as far as crucifying Jesus you have yet to give a credible reason for him not to have done this given the situation as described in Mark. Why do you find it odd that he wanted to appease the crowd by killing one of its fellow Jews whom was a potential political trouble-maker?

You keep focusing on the absurdity of killing someone he thought was innocent, yet I don't see any justification for such a position toward Pilate, a man not known for being just. What is yours?

ted

TedM

Not doing something because of fear of getting caught is hardly a sign of a law-abiding mindset. It's the opposite.

ynquirer

The Greek language in both Mark 1:2 and the LXX for Exodus 23:20 and Malachi 3:1.

Mark 1:2
idou apostellô ton aggelon mou pro prosôpou sou hos kataskeuasei tên hodon sou

Malachi 3:1
idou egô exapostellô ton aggelon mou kai epiblepsetai hodon pro prosôpou mou

Exodus 23:20
kai idou egô apostellô ton aggelon mou pro prosôpou sou ina phylaze se en tê hodô

How these statements are translated into English by a particular modern version, or even by all, is absolutely irrelevant, since the gospel of Mark was written in Greek language, not in English. Therefore, please forget the English in the version of your choice and focus on the Greek.

Both the wording and the structure of Mark is closer to Exodus than to Malachi. The starting phrase of the statement – idou apostellô ton aggelon mou pro prosôpou sou – renders Mark almost an exact match of Exodus; there is only a slight difference, namely, Exodus does, while Mark does not, include the pronoun egô, which is unnecessary in Greek language – except for emphasis. (On the other hand, Malachi also includes egô; therefore, this difference is immaterial as regard a comparison of the similitude of Mark-Exodus with the similitude of Mark-Malachi.)

Yet the differences are much more considerable as regard Malachi. To begin with, the latter uses exapostellô instead of the simpler apostellô in both Exodus and Mark. Secondly, Malachi says pro prosôpou mou instead of pro prosôpou sou, which is the text in both Mark and Exodus. Thirdly, the phrase ton aggelon mou pro prosôpou sou/mou, which appears unbroken in both Mark and Exodus, is broken in Malachi to leave room for the phrase kai epiblepsetai hodon. Fourthly, the structure of the ending of Mark – hos kataskeuasei tên hodon sou is similar to that of Exodus – ina phylaze en tê hodô – while such an ending is entirely lacking in Malachi.

To end with, the meaning of the verb Mark uses (kataskeuazô =to prepare) is as far away from the verb Exodus uses (philassô) as from the verb Malachi uses (epiblepô), both these meaning roughly the same (=to guard, to wath, to protect).

On the other hand, The Greek NT (Aland, Aland, Black, Karavidopoulos, Martini and Metzger) reckons that Mark 1:2 quotes both Exodus 23:20 and Malachi 3:1 (4th Revised Ed., p. 29n). Yet while the quotation of Malachi has lost all its teeth, if it ever had any, Exodus is quite a different thing because of the subsequent verse (Ex 23:21), which discloses that the aggelon thereof bears the name of God.

Diogenes the Cynic

You started off by saying that the crowd was riotous because they believed that Jesus had claimed to be God (a claim which would be contradictory to a claim to Messiahship, incidentally). Are you now backing off that claim? Was the crowd "riotous" or wasn't it? If so, why? If it was because of a false accusation of a threat against the Temple, then what was the motivation for that false accusation?
The crux of your quoted apology is that the Mishnah was not written down until after the destruction of the Temple, therefore we may indulge in whatever arguments from absence we feel like. The Mishnah is based on oral laws from the 2nd Temple period and it is not contradicted in essence by any other documentation. There are also aspects of the trial procedures which are so closely bound to OT proscriptions that it's exceedingly unlikely that the Mishnah Sanhedrin is wrong about them. A trial on the sabbath, for instance, or on a High Holy day. I wonder if you can actually show any extra-Biblical support for any trials which did occur under those circumstances. The documentation which we do have says no way and the ball is in your court to prove that documentation is wrong.
I'm sure a few contempory judges are susceptable to corruption or bribes as well, but you would not find a case where an entire courtroom and bench full of judges would work in concert and in public to violate a laundry list of laws and render a verdict which no observer could possibly view as legitimate. Corruption works in secrecy, not in public.
Your link attempts to equivocate by saying that these people claimed to be "kings" rather than Messiahs, but that is a distinction absolutely without a difference. Claiming to be the king WAS claiming to be the Messiah. That was the very definition of the Messiah.
None of them bother to correct any number of other falsehoods about Jewish scripture and expectation so why would they bother to correct this? It served their anti-Jewish agendas, so why correct it?
There was nothing procedurally illegitimate or publicly corrupt about those hearings.
I see nothing in the sayings tradition to indicate that the authorities would be motivated to kill him or see him as a threat. However it is at least historically plausiblt that the Romans would want to eliminate a potential source of trouble during Passover and they wouldn't have needed any urging from the Sanhedrin to do it.

ynquirer

Thank you very much, but you can spare us the lecture on general background of tenth-century France, which is ostensibly off topic.

Mark of course wanted his readers to think that the whole gospel, as rule, was spoken in Aramaic – likewise Kubrick wanted us to think that Spartacus was spoken in Latin, while “really� spoken in English. But the question is whether Mark intended the reader to think that so specific a utterance as “I am� in 15:62 had been said also in Aramaic – as you contend – or in Hebrew – as I do.

And your argument is that a Galilean and etc could not know Hebrew, isn’t it?

Look at 15:34

34: And at the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, "E'lo-i, E'lo-i, la'ma sabach-tha'ni?" which means, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?"

Now, Cynic tell us whether the statement in bold type is Aramaic or Hebrew. Or else may you repeat for the thousandth time that fashionable theory that Mark was not a Hebrew but a Greek, blatantly ignorant of the Jewish customs and laws, and that his gospel is pure fiction, a novel written for Greeks that, against all odds in classic antiquity, happened to be fascinated by the first-century, flourishing Jewish civilization.

TedM

No, I'm not backing off that claim. Here's what I'm saying, and it agrees with Mark:

1. Jesus had a following
2. Jesus offended the Pharisees, scribes, and Sadduccees.
3. The offended parties made up all or part of the Sanhedrin, and thus the Sanhedrin had a motive to go after Jesus
4. The crowd in Jerusalem likely had many different opinions about him, and the offended authorities likely spread negative opinions
5. At the trial or pre-trial, the Sanhedrin found the charges and Jesus' answers to be sufficient grounds to claim blasphemy, regardless of whether it really was or not
6. In the heat of the moment, and with the encouragement of some religious authorities, the crowd at the trial or pre-trial, whatever it was, got worked up
7. The crowd influenced Pilate's decision to do away with Jesus for whatever reasons worked for him

As far as I can tell you have shown me nothing that can be considered strong evidence against any of the above claims.


No, it wasn't written down until 220AD.

No, he produced real evidence that the Mishnah wasn't followed during Jesus' day.

Can you?

What documentation do you have of any actual proceedings?

Too broad a statement. Doesn't address each issue, as the apology I linked to does.

You still have yet to show a trial that is comparable. Your examples don't fit the criteria necessary to say how a trial would have gone for them.

I don't know...it just seems unlikely that the earliest Christian tradition believed by the earliest Jewish Christians would have included events contrary to what any Jew could accept, and that Jews would have easily disputed as you are doing.


Lot's of political grandstanding though. Same as Mark portrays for the Sanhedrin... and Josephus does too.


We are disputing Mark's account, not the sayings traditions written down by Matthew. Still, the Q book I have is full of sayings that reflect an us vs them mentality. He references the following:

Q11: The gentle shall inherit the earth
Q13-16: People hate his followers, their enemies
Q26 Jesus says that others say he is a glutton, drunkard, friend of outcasts and tax collectors
Q28 They are like lambs among wolves
Q32 The truth is hidden from the wise and the clever
Q37 Some in the crowd said he was "in league with" Beelzebulb, the chief of the evil spirits
Q38 He who is not with me is against me
Q39 This generation is evil and will be condemned
Q43 Beware you who call yourselves perfect in your obedience to the law. You pay the tax on the mint, dill and cumin, but you ignore justice, mercy, and honesty. You should practice these things first. You wash the outside of your cups and plates, but inside you are filled with thoughts of greed and theft.
Q44 You who claim to be the most devout are hopeless! You love sitting in the front row of the synagogue and having people bow down to you in public....beware to those who load people down with the crushing burden of laws and regulations but do nothing to help them

Need I go on? It is OBVIOUS that even the sayings are VERY critical of the religious leaders in Jesus' society


The motivation to take him to court is no great mystery, and I honestly don't know why you think the Sanhedrin was so pure. Common sense and what little evidence we do have about the actual behavior of the religious leaders of the day is against any case that is made that the Sanhedrin followed the later laws of the Mishna to a T, and without leeway for acting beyond the letter of the law.

You could be right, but I see little reason to agree with your assertions and plenty of reasons why the portrayal in Mark is quite possible. I think that until you can provide evidences against my link's quotations of historians and scholars and works that reflect the practices in Jesus' day other than the Mishna and what current Jewish people you have spoken to say was the situation 2000 years ago, we are at an impasse.

ted

Diogenes the Cynic

It's not off topic, it's an analogy. Hebrew was to 1st century Galileans what Latin was to Medievel Europeans. It was a liturgical language, not a lingua franca. The analogy is right on point.
And Mark does not give the slightest indication that Ego Eimi was supposed to be read as a translation from Hebrew or that there was anything significant about it at all. I know you think the redundancy of prefacing eimi with ego indicates an allusion to the LXX translation of the Tetragrammaton but even if that's the case, it would be meaningful only to Mark, not to the Sanhedrin. Mark does not indicate that Jesus spoke in Hebrew. The reaction of the Sanhedrin in his story seems to be a direct response to his claim of Messiahship, not to the ego eimi. At least Mark makes no explicit claim in that direction.
I didn't say could not, I said probably not, but whatever.
Mark is quoting Psalms. So what?
Bingo.

Diogenes the Cynic

Ok.
How?
What did he do or say that would give them enough of a motive to want to kill him?
Sheer speculation based on a priori assumptions.
Implausible beyong belief. Also unnecessary if Jesus had threatened the Temple.
The same crowd that has welcomed Jesus into the city with palm leaves the day before? What changed?
Pilate never care what crowds thought. Personally, I don't think Pilate would have even had any involvement. I tend to favor Crossan's thesis that the arrest and cricifixion would have been an exceedingly casual and cursory affair with no public hearing and no need to involve Pilate. I don't even think that John's account is necessarily implausible. He has no formal trial before the Sanhedrin, just some informal questioning and then a hand off to the Romans. If Jesus had stirred up shit at the Temple during Passover, that's exactly the kind of scenario I would expect to see.
Not to put too fine a point on it but it's not my burden. It is your assertion that these claims are historically authentic. I have said why I find them implausible but I have no burden to disprove them outright. To be perfectly blunt, I think Mark discredits himself as a historian simply by making claims for miracles. This indicates that he is either lying, misinformed (and gullible) or that he did not intend to write factual history. I favor the last option and I think the evidence is very strong that Passion was constructed from the Hebrew Bible.
Which is after the destruction of the Temple. It existed in oral form during the 2nd Temple period, though.
Not really. He cited claims from Josehus that there was corruption and that rules vould be broken, but that's a specious argument.There is a world of difference between corruption and flagrantly public kangaroo courts.
Of course not. If I could then I wouldn't have an argument.
Argument from absence. You are the one who wants to assert that trials were ever conducted any differently than what is spelled out in the Mishnah. It's your burden to prove that, not mine to disprove it.
Which apology and which issues are you referring to? You've posted several and all contain variations on "you can't prove it DIDN'T happen." All I can do is say again that corruption operates in secret and that there is no point in staging a trial that every observer knows is illegitimate.
That's my point. There ARE no comparable trials. Messiahs didn't GET trials. It wasn't illegal.
What makes you think that Mark's trial played any role in the earliest Christian tradition? I see no reason to believe that Mark didn't invent it himself and Mark was not writing for Jews. I would contend that Pauline Christianity ) of which Mark was a part) was almost entirely a gentile movement.
So what? Political grandstanding is a far cry from absurdist and public illegitimacy.
That was also not illegal and not unusual. Why was Jesus singled out for making the same criticisms that many others made?
You're drawing a false dichotomy between "pure" and absurdly, flagrantly, farcically corrupt. The Sanhedrin had to at least pretend to legitimacy and a trial like the one in Mark's Gospel would have destroyed their own credibility.
Again, you are reversing your burden and relying on apologist rguments from absence. Tell me why the Sanhedrin trial with all its irregularities (do you really believe they would have convened on the Sabbath or on the Passover?) should be preferred as being historically more plausible than the Romans deciding on their own to execute a potential rabble rouser at Passover. Why do you think the Romans would have need urging to execute someone who was causing a scene at the Temple? Why would Jewish authorities have to get involved at all?

Ben C Smith

A little jest, I am sure.

As I said before, the desertion of the disciples is tricky, and this whole issue you are raising is of a similar stripe. I am not yet sure.

Ben.