Amaleq13

If the charge is to make sense, I think your argument is conclusive but the offense seems to conflict with the rest of Mark's story where he consistently and repeatedly identifies Jesus as the "Son of God". Would the Jesus Mark depicts throughout the rest of his story claim to be God? Is there any indication elsewhere in the story that the author considered Jesus to be God?

Or did the author create the scene entirely (as opposed to creating it from knowledge/tradition that some sort of Jewish trial had taken place) simply to provide a way of placing some of the blame for Jesus' death on Jewish leaders?

Rick Sumner

I'd be rather surprised if Mark thought Jesus was God. It's the pun Vork noted (presuming the pun holds up. . .anyone with knowledge of Hebrew and Greek, I'd be delighted by some comments). Jesus wasn't guilty, the Sanhedrin had utterly misunderstood. But to the Sanhedrin, he had just blasphemed. The irony, known both to Mark's audience and his fictitious judges, is that they hadn't misunderstood at all. They just sought to convict.

Exactly.

Regards,
Rick Sumner

JohnHud

The forthcoming book by Joseph Atwill 'Caesar's Messiah; The Roman Conspiracy to Invent Jesus' (Ulysses Press, february 2005) shows in great detail that the accounts in the gospels were invented by the Romans as literary satires to deceive the Jews, and that events in the "career"of Jesus are actually modelled on events in the life of the Emperor Titus as described by Josephus.

JH

Vorkosigan

But Rick, isn't that the problem here? The court is a kangaroo court. So Mark isn't screwing up by having a blasphemy charge that isn't really blasphemy, but rather he is showing that Jesus was innocent of all charges and that Jesus was condemned out of envy (15:10) instead of criminality, a murdered innocent. In fact, the Crucifixion would less moving and certainly not redemptive if Jesus were really guilty of some crime.

Vorkosigan

Asha'man

The Roman one or the Jewish one?