Cutter

I just don't get Christian anti-Semitism because they killed JC. I mean, wasn't JC supposed to die? Wasn't that the whole point, to wash away mankind's sins with his blood (or whatever the hell it was supposed to be)? Shouldn't the people who killed him be heroes for fulfilling his purpose for existence?

yalla

I think we have run through the "Was it blasphemy?" argument previously.
According to whoever wrote the gospels JC committed blasphemy by making himself equal to god.
But that is not blasphemy, only speaking the tetragramatron qualifies as such.
So the gospel writers have "framed" the Jews.
I can't help but use as a reference the scene in "Life of Brian" where John Cleese gets stoned.

Steven Avery

Matthew 26:65
Then the high priest rent his clothes, saying, He hath spoken blasphemy; what further need have we of witnesses? behold, now ye have heard his blasphemy.

Mark 14:64
Ye have heard the blasphemy: what think ye? And they all condemned him to be guilty of death.

John 10:33
The Jews answered him, saying, For a good work we stone thee not; but for blasphemy; and because that thou, being a man, makest thyself God.

Hi Yalla, the browser dogs ate my homework while I was a-preparing. However I will leave what I did save, and then may go back for a more complete referencing study.

On a technical level the issue has a lot of counterpoints. One major mistake is only using one source (e.g. the Talmud ) and not coalescing it with others, (eg. the New Testament, Philo, Josephus).

One good starting resource is the book (used, inexpensive)
"Blasphemy - Verbal Offense against the Sacred, From Moses to Salman Rushdie" by Leonard W. Levy

However there is a lot on the web...

Most recommended is
http://baptistcenter.com/Journal%20A...st%20Jesus.pdf
A Consideration of the Gospel Accounts of the Jewish Charge of Blasphemy Against Jesus - Steven L. Cox

Risto Santala adds some of the Hebraic background
http://www.kolumbus.fi/hjussila/rsla/Nt/NT21.html
Jesus Before the Representatives of the Roman State

http://www.hebrew-streams.org/works/...sm/council.pdf
Visions of the Heavenly Council in the Hebrew Bible- by Paul Sumner
"Visions are given only to those invited. Incidentally, reporting the contents of a throne vision to the authorities can get you accused of blasphemy or even killedÑas the cases of Micaiah ben Imlah in the eighth century (1 Kgs 22) and those of Yeshua (Matt 26:63�68) and Stephen (Acts 7:55�60) in the first century all attest."

http://kratistostheophilos.blogspot....s_archive.html
According to Philo, blasphemy against God, which includes asserting that God is responsible for evil and not human beings, is one sin for which there is no
possibility of repentance.

http://orion.huji.ac.il/orion/programs/Mason00-2.shtml
What Josephus Says about the Essenes in his Judean War - Steve Mason
"Essenses ... practise a severe discipline, with capital punishment legislated for anyone who reviles either God or the lawgiver Moses. The word "lawgiver" (nomoqe/thj) is Josephus's characteristic term for Moses (e.g., Ant. 1.6, 15, 18; Apion 2.156, 161). The extraordinary rank that Josephus implies for Moses, in relation to God, such that defamation of his name amounts to blasphemy, is paralleled in Ant. 3.317-20."

And Fred Miller, looking at the DSS
http://www.ao.net/~fmoeller/qumcon2.htm
Part Two - The Dead Sea Scrolls and Christianity
Jesus' continual reference to himself as "the Son" prompted his opponents to accuse him of blasphemy (John 10:33,36). The high priest's question in Mark 14:61, "Are you the Christ, the son of the Blessed One?" makes sense against this background. He did not mean, "Are you claiming to be the Messiah, by royal status a son of God?" He meant, "Are you that messianic claimant who is reputed to call himself 'the' Son of God?" When Jesus responded, "I am," the priest considered this to be blasphemy worthy of death (Mark 16:64). Claiming to be the Messiah was not blasphemy. Claiming to be the Son of God was. Text 4Q246, in its negative portrayal of "the Son of God" typifies the mindset behind that attitude. (Edward M. Cook, Solving the Mysterious of the Dead Sea Scrolls, 1994, pp. 172-173)

Also from the Fred Miller page, related..

" Eisenman asserts, without evidence, that James was tried on blasphemy. "For his part, Josephus testifies that James was tried before a Pharisaic/Sadduccean Sanhedrin on a charge of blasphemy, ie. pronouncing or causing others to pronounce the forbidden name of God [as the high priest did on Yom Kippur]." There is nothing like that in Josephus' narrative. (Edward M. Cook, Solving the Mysterious of the Dead Sea Scrolls, 1994, p. 140)."

http://www.dougandmarsha.com/essays-..._the_cross.htm
"the charge in the Jewish trials is blasphemy; in the Roman trials it is treason. Since the Jews are not allowed to administer capital punishment, they turn to the Roman authorities, which explains why Jesus is crucified instead of stoned."

"Key Jewish Texts on Blasphemy and Exaltation and the Jewish Examination of Jesus." SBLSP 36 (1997) 115-160. - Darrell L. Bock

Earlier thread
http://www.iidb.org/vbb/archive/index.php/t-148269.html
Historical Accuracy of the Gospels

"The truth can never be blasphemy." - Alistair McLean

===================================
More to come..perhaps, especially vis a vis the Darrell Bock material

Shalom,
Steven Avery
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Messianic_Apologetic

Didymus

Do you really think that the Romans believed that a crazy man tossing tables in the Temple jeopardized their rule? Judea had been in an off-and-on state of insurgency since Roman rule began; the Romans knew a dangerous zealot when they saw one, and Jesus wasn't anything like one. For starters, he wasn't holed up in a cave or gathering an army. The messianic wish for a restoration of Jewish rule was commonplace; even if Jesus had stated a desire to establish a "kingdom," he was in no position to overthrow the Romans.

Did the Romans believe in the all-powerful god of the Hebrews? If they didn't, why would they have worried about a non-existent god establishing a kingdom in Judea?

If they even thought there might be such a god, did they really think that butchering his son Jesus would somehow dissuade him or thwart his ambitions? Romans, of all people, knew that gods don't operate that way. Do you really think they - or the Jewish establishment - would risk pissing off a super-duper powerful god like Jehovah?

It's hard to see how crucifying Jesus would have helped the Romans in any way, except to placate some annoyed Jewish authorities who were constantly at odds with Pilate anyway. But that would have been way out of character; Pilate didn't exactly have a conciliatory history. And even if Jesus' execution appeased the authorities, it risked the enmity of all those folks who were spreading palm fronds on the road when he triumphally entered Jerusalem.

Next to Jesus' unjustified annihilation of that pitiful fig tree, the Crucifixion is the most under-motivated event in a book filled with under-motivated events. Like the assault on the fig tree, it is a carefully wrought piece of fiction that can only be explained exegetically, not in human or historical terms.

(As to the Jews helping "capture" Jesus, you might recall that he had made several public appearances. There's no indication that he was trying to elude or resist capture. Given that context, Judas' "betrayal" makes no sense either.)

Didymus

Soul Invictus

If Jesus was any sort of the revolutionary that people tend to say that he was then he would pose a threat...invigorating the spirit of the people, and possibly inspiring them to revolt, which would not be a good thing. I believe there is a verse that corroborates this. Let me look.

No Robots

Pilate was threatened, according to John 19:12.

Execution of undesirables was standard procedure in the ancient world, under-motivated or not. In terms of making a sufficient nuisance of himself, Jesus is at least on a par with Socrates.

How is a trouble-maker's execution placed on the same plane of believability as one of the miracles attributed to him?

Didymus

What would John, writing in the second century, know about the workings of Pilate's mind? John, like other Christians of the time, was seeking reconciliation with the gentile world in general and with the Roman rulers in particular. So naturally he would make excuses for Pilate.

Jesus was annoying the Jews, not the Romans.

I didn't say anything about miracles. The Romans executed men who made trouble for THEM, not men who bothered the "priests and Scribes."

Hopefully, you'll soon get around to reading what I DID write and addressing the points I raised.

Didymus

mikem

The gospels are the primary evidence for the trial(s)and execution of Jesus, so in order to make any historical sense of what they tell us, we need to have some regard for what THEY tell us were the reasons for Jesus execution. Having done that it is then our choice whether we decide the accounts are credible.

Reading the accounts if the "trial" before the HP, it would seem that the main upset to the religious authorities was Jesus predicting the destruction of the temple. The false witnesses brought in to denounce Jesus testified that he had said that HE would destroy the temple, and build another not made with hands (Mt. 26:61, Mk. 14:57 - 59.). This was not what Jesus had said, and clearly this distortion could not be made to stand up. That was when the HP changed tack and went for a blasphemy charge. Even if Jesus did not technically blaspheme, and given the references in a previous post he might well, have, but even if he didn't, it would not be the first time that a court had bent the rules to obtain the result it wanted all along. According to John's gospel they could not carry out the death penalty themselves, (again this is disputed, but there may have been technical purity reasons to do with Passover observance) he was taken to Pilate.

We know all about Pilate's brutality from Josephus, as well as his dim view of his subjects, and he would not have taken kindly to the High Priest using him to despatch a troublesome, but harmless prophet. Matthew 27:18, Mark 15:10 make it clear that Pilate was no fool, and that he knew that he was being used, and he was having none of it. However, Caiaphas was smarter, (he managed to remain in power as HP for 16 years, as compared to Pilate's 10 as governor, during a period when HPs were demoted with monotonous regularity). Caipahas manouvered Pilate into a corner. Jesus was a rebel, a would be King, and if Pilate didn't deal with him, that would make Pilate a traitor. This was not a case of an erstwhile brute finding he had a conscience, as a careerist seeing his political survival threatened. (See John 19:12).

John's account seems to me to reflect a different tradition to the synoptics, and the account of the cat and mouse power game between Pilate and Caiphas has a gritty realism about it. Additionally, only John's account refers to the "Pavement", the seat of judgement "called in Hebrew Gab'ba-tha". Excavations have uncovered this, and while it would be going too far to say that this authenticates John's account, it does provide some support to those who argue that John was aware of an already existing oral tradition independent of the synoptics.

On the question of rent a mob. Caiphas could well have arranged this, and given the season, those who had welcomed Jesus, (as all pilgrims were traditionally welcomed with palm branches) would have been busy with their religious preparations.

As I noted earlier of course, whether one finds such a harmonisation credible depends upon one's prior assumptions about the whether the accounts are basically theological interpretations of historical events, or whether they are "theology all the way down".

Didymus

It will come as no surprise that my vote goes to "theology all the way down." Plus political agendas.

Motivations are highly nuanced. They don't travel well, and they aren't likely to have survived the rigors of oral transmission. The accounts of the Trial were written from afar - Alexandria, Damascus, Antioch - at least forty years after the purported "fact," and notably after a war that changed the character of Judaism. None of these accounts were attested to by eyewitness reports or even by interviews with eyewitnesses. None of the authors could make any claim to authority regarding Jewish customs in Jerusalem during the Second Temple Period; nor did any provide any concrete basis for their speculations regarding Pilate's motives or policies. Even if you think that the Trial narratives are based on an event of some kind rather than messianic hopes and fragments of scripture, the gospel accounts of the event itself, not to speak of Pilate's and Caiaphas' motives, are at best hearsay thrice removed. So we shouldn't put too much stock in the gospel authors' interpretation of acts that took place, from their perspective, long ago and and far way.

Even if there was such a trial, I doubt that MML&J's various interpretations tell us much about the events that might have transpired in 33 CE. They are good indicators, however, of the shifting sands of Jewish-Christian-Roman relations in the very late first and early second centuries.

Didymus

No Robots

Well, at least this is a long way from "it is a carefully wrought piece of fiction that can only be explained exegetically, not in human or historical terms". Good for you!