andrewcriddle

According to the Gospels Jesus was accused of claiming that as Messiah he was the rightful king of Judea. Again, according to the Gospels Pilate did not take Jesus seriously as a revolutionary threat but once the charge had been formally made and the accused had refused to enter an adequate defense it would have been difficult to acquit Jesus.

Andrew Criddle

aa5874

The very Gospels contradict you Pilate found NO fault with Jesus in the Gospels.

Luke 23:4 KJVIn the Gospels, Jesus of Nazareth, the transfiguring sea-water walker, born of a Ghost and a Virgin commanded his own disciples NOT to tell anyone he was the Christ.

In the earliest Gospels, the Synoptics, Jesus was not known as a Messiah by the populace and did NOT tell the populace he was a Messianic ruler.

Mark 8 Matthew 16:20 KJV Luke 9:21 KJV

PhilosopherJay

Hi Grog,

Yes the parallel structure with Jesus, son of Ananus, in Josephus and Jesus, son of God, in the Roman Christian Gospels is quite striking.

Josphus "Jewish Wars" 6:5.3
The Jewish rulers do not like the warnings of the prophet Jesus. They beat him, but find him divine. They turn him over to the Roman procurator, Albinus. He whips him, but also can't get any answers out of him and concludes that he is divine (as all madmen were thought to be divine - possessed by a spirit - in those days. He is released and meets his fate only four yeas later.

We can easily see the gospel parallel of Jewish leaders turning over a prophet with bad news for the Jews to the Roman procurator during a holiday in Jerusalem. However, there is an important development in the gospel story that makes it different from the story in Josephus:
Mark:
Matthew:
Luke:
John:
In the Jesus of Ananus story, the Jewish leaders simply find the prophet to be divine and turn him over to the Roman governor to get his opinion. The Roman governor agrees with the Jewish leaders that he is divine. The prophet is released.

In the gospel stories, at least in Matthew, Luke and John, the Jewish leaders are turning over the prophet in order to have him executed. What is being added to the story by the writers is the malice of Jewish leaders towards the prophet. It is meant to illustrate the idea that Jews or Jewish leaders turn over prophets to the Romans to do their dirty work of having them killed.

It seems probable that in handling trouble-makers or those whom they considered trouble-makers, the Jewish priests would have limited options. The Romans would not just let them execute whomever they wanted. They would turn them over to Roman authority to deal with. The Roman authority, would ultimately decide the case.

We can well imagine that a Messianic sect would suffer such persecution under the Jews in the Second century, after the defeat of the Bar Kokhba, the Christ (King) movement. One can also well imagine, that such a messianic Christian sect, in creating a foundation myth, would portray the Jewish leaders as doing such a thing to their Mythological Hero-Founder.

From Wikipedia on Myth of Origins:

As Stephen Carr points out in the OP, as history, the story has all kinds of problems. As a foundation myth of Origins for a Christian sect, it works exquisitely.

Warmly,

Jay Raskin

stephan huller

but you know i was looking at the two conflicting accounts of that Navy Seals operation against Bin Laden. Is it really that different? And it happened yesterday

outhouse

In the gospels he also claimed "his kingdom was not of this earth"


I doubt he ever thought he was a messiah.


Not to sure about that one. It was a smart move by Jesus to cause trouble and try and start trouble at passover when the crowds were already uneasy.

If he would have been successful, it could have turned really ugly really fast, as had happened at a different passover that flat leveled the temple with Jesus own kind of people.

This would have been bad on Pilate who only wanted peace some peasant was screwing up.

Going in at night for a arrest was smart for Pilate to avoid a large riot or war.






Roman law was based on money, the rich were seen as more credible then the poor who would have had more reason to lie.

But what we have is not a Roman citizen who had legal rights, we had a peasant Jewish teacher causing trouble, who probably didnt even have a trial.


Maybe someone wants to claim, "Hey! go get the Jew in the cover of darkness and make a example out of him!" was a trial.

arcadia

Whatever Pilate may have thought about Jesus, one might think that this would have disturbed him considerably.

Mat 27:50 Jesus, when he had cried again with a loud voice, yielded up the ghost.
Mat 27:51 And, behold, the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom; and the earth did quake, and the rocks rent;
Mat 27:52 And the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints which slept arose,
Mat 27:53 And came out of the graves after his resurrection, and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many.
Mat 27:54 Now when the centurion, and they that were with him, watching Jesus, saw the earthquake, and those things that were done, they feared greatly, saying, Truly this was the Son of God.

The suggestion above that the death of Jesus was just a trifling event to Pilate is belied by this biblical claim that hundreds (or thousands) of Zombies immediately arose from graves, walked around the city and caused some consternation for the Roman centurions. Not to mention the earthquake the same day....

The sheer drama of these events, assuming they occurred, makes the essential absence of any contemporaneous mention of the crucifiixion or its sequelae in Roman (or even proto-Christian) records pretty dramatic evidence that neither the crucifixion or its sequelae ever occurred. Of course then there were the events of the next few days, which also seem to have mysteriously escaped notice.

Grog

In those conflicting accounts, do the witnesses derive their descriptions from already existing writings (e.g. Psalm 22)?

outhouse

Probably find influence from a military handbook