PhilosopherJay

In all four gospels, both the Jewish and Roman trials of Jesus are designed for clear rhetorical purposes. The Jewish trial is designed to show that Jewish religious leaders betrayed Jesus to the Romans, while the Roman trial conveys the idea that Pilate and the Romans were innocent of Jesus' death and the Jewish religious leaders and the Jewish people were responsible for Jesus' death. These are the major points that the trial text is trying to prove: 1) The Jewish religious leaders betrayed Jesus, 2) Pilate and the Romans were innocent of Jesus' death and 3) Jewish leaders and the Jewish people were responsible for the death of Jesus

There are interesting differences between the Gospels. The simplest expression of these three ideas are in Mark:

Matthew adds the dramatic theatrical touch of Pilate washing his hands to demonstrate his innocence:

Luke wants to emphasize the innocence of Jesus and Pilate. He has Herod also pronounce Jesus innocent and Herod pronounce Jesus innocent no less than three times:
John also has Pilate declare his innocent three times and even seeking to release him until the Jewish religious leaders personally threaten him:

We may assume that the Gospel writers are arguing these points because they wanted to attack the Jewish religious leadership and exonerate the Romans in the death of Jesus. This would suggest that prior to these Gospel writings, it was not known that the Jewish religious leadership had turned over Jesus to the Romans. Likewise, the innocence of Pilate and the Romans and the guilt of the Jewish leaders and people in his death are also concoctions of the Gospel writers. Before the gospel writings, there was most likely text indicating that Pilate had arrested and crucified Jesus. The gospel writers are shifting the responsibility for the death away from the Pilate and the Romans and onto the Jews.

The theme of betrayal also fits in very much here. Judas betrays Jesus, Peter betrays Jesus, the Jewish leaders betray Jesus and finally at the trial of Barabbas, the Jewish people betray Jesus.

The concept of betrayal should be kept separate from the concept of responsibility for the death. We can see the development of the ideas being gradual.

1. Pilate responsible for Jesus' death
2. Betrayal of Jesus, but Pilate still held responsible for Jesus' death
3. Betrayal of Jesus and Pilate exonerated and Jewish leaders held responsible.
4. The story of Barabbas changes the responsibility to the whole Jewish people.

The story of Barabbas may have originally been presented to show the cruelty of Pilate or some other leader. He made the Jews choose between executing a Jewish King figure or his son (Barabbas - Son of the Father). In this way, the judge involved the Jews themselves in the death of a popular and beloved figure and made it seem as if it was their choice.

The Gospel writers used this story to shift blame, the way that Pilate in the story shifted blame onto the Jews.

Warmly,

Jay Raskin

aa5874

Your claim is wholly unsubstantiated. You cannot present a single source of antiquity--a single story from antiquity--in or out the Gospels where Pilate and the Romans were initially accused of killing Jesus when Jesus most likely did NOT even exist.

Pilate was probably dead long before stories of Jesus were fabricated.

The earliest stories about Jesus are AFTER the Fall of the Temple c 70 CE.

The Jesus story was fabricated to shift the blame for the Fall of the Temple from the Romans to the Jews.

It was the Fall of the Temple c 70 CE that required an explanation.

The Jews killed the Son of their own God was the invented explanation.

Aristides' Apology[/u]Justin's Dialogue with Trypho
[Hippolytus' Treatise Against the Jews[u] The Jesus cult of Christians started AFTER the Fall of the Temple c 70 CE and AFTER the story that the Jews killed the Son of their own God was fabricated.

It would appear that mere anti-Jewish propaganda is the basis the start of the Jesus cult of Christians.

Ironically, those who fabricated the propaganda duped the Romans instead.

stephan huller

why does aa hate everything that everyone says at this forum?

outhouse

Nothing wrong with that Jay.


I don't think there was as much a defined evolution, the movement was simply taking a Jewish legend and making it palatable to Romans

Chili

You don't have to hate him as he is just "the Cry-er" here who can see smoke but not the fire itself.

PhilosopherJay

Hi aa5874,

The claim that originally there was a text blaming Pilate exclusively for the death is unsubstantiated in that we do not have such a text. I base it on the direction of the texts that we do have. I simply reverse the direction of the text in regards to their exoneration of Pilate.

Perhaps the final text in the movement towards the exoneration of Pilate is the Gospel of Peter. It seems to move the execution decision entirely out of the hands of Pilate and puts it on Herod. The Jews are literally the executioners of Jesus here:

We can run the film in reverse so to speak and see this last version as the opposite of an original first version where Pilate alone is involved in the decision and is the cause of the execution of Jesus.

This would not entail an historical Jesus, merely that the creators of the Jesus myths were devoted Jews claiming that their founder had been killed by Romans. As the extreme Roman-hating Christians-Jews were deemed persona non grata by the more moderate Jews, the Christian Jews turned their wrath from the Romans to the Jewish leadership and the Jews themselves. They found themselves in the position of having to ally themselves with the Romans against the Jewish leadership.

What we can read from the text is this shifting radical political re-alignment. These political re-alignments are always interesting.



Looking at the history of the last century, one may also focus on the growth of fascism. While one associates it with anti-semitism, that is not part of its deepest roots. Fascism actually starts with Mussolini in Italy and it is not anti-Semitic at its beginning. In fact there were a number of Jewish members of the Italian fascist party and Mussolini had a Jewish mistress.

Mussolini begins as a dedicated extreme socialist who breaks with the Socialist Party leadership because he finds that they are too pacifistic and won't take the extreme road of violence to gain power against the capitalists. Ironically, after the break with the socialist leadership, Mussolini finds that he can make an alliance with the capitalists against the socialist leadership. The capitalists feel that they can use Mussolini to destroy the socialist leadership and Mussolini believes he can use the capitalists (or at least their money) to destroy the socialist leadership and take power. Just as Mussolini went from blaming the capitalists for the problems of Italy to an exoneration of them and blaming the socialist leadership and the workers themselves, the early Christians, perhaps, went from blaming the Romans for the Jews' problems to blaming the Jewish leadership and finally blaming the Jew's themselves.

As far as the origination of the Jesus story with the destruction of the Jewish Temple, I agree, that seems to me also to be the best explanation.

Warmly,

Jay Raskin

Chili

You must be careful when you read this and notice the distinction made in the Gospels between 'him' and 'man' in Pilate's response to the accusation made by the Jews.

Where in Matthew and Mark Pilate looked a 'him' [as Jew] and in Luke and John he looked at 'the man' as the man beneath the Jew for whom the Jew must die to set free the man that they called Bar-abbas (unless your translation warped this too).

Notice that in Matthew they put a scarlet cloak on him, milllitant even to show resistance while in Mark they took the scarlet of and put his camelhair coat back on. (as in 'you deserve no more').

Then in Luke the dialogue removed the color red wherein Herod was extremely pleased to see Jesus come this far and became friends even to show that it is a comedy we are reading here with no tragic element and no need for red at all.

And in John they put a purple cloak on him for show to identify the suffering Jew from the man that Pilate was looking at with "Look at the man" [instead]," is what Pilate said, and hence in victory Jesus could rightfully say "It is finished" when they crucified him as the final words he spoke.

Minimalist

By 140 AD...when the Romans really seem to start to notice xtians...there had been 3 serious Jewish revolts in the Roman Empire. The Jews were about as unpopular as anyone could get.

They made excellent villains for this little fairy-tale morality play that xtians concocted.

aa5874

Why do you persist in making blatant erroneous statements?

aa5874

Well, what is the point in developing an argument knowing in advance that it is not suported.

You are knowingly going in the wrong direction.

It is completely unnecessay to invent stories about Pilate.