Correlation and Causality

The Gospel According to Brian or The Damnation of Christ by Brian E Turner

Copyright © 2008 Brian E Turner This document remains the property of the author and may not be sold or distributed without his permission. The book will print in ‘readers spread’, that is landscape A4 format on one side of the page to give an easy read. there will be the occasional blank page at start and end of chapters.

Chapter One

Introduction

1. Introduction 1.1 The Author’s Apology In presenting, to the reading public, a book concerning the life and thought of Jesus Christ, the central figure in Western religious philosophy, I feel that it is necessary at the outset to state my credentials and point of view. This book is a story – some may say a tall tale – not an academic treatise. I have never been committed to a lifetime of study and involvement in Christianity and hence must be considered a dilettante in this field. This does give me the advantage of being objective. I have no axe to grind, only a desire to understand the truth in the matter and explain it in as clear a manner as possible. I do have some minor qualifications as a result of personal involvement in Christian religious practice. When I was a young child my grandmother taught me a prayer which I repeated religiously every night before I went to sleep. Gentle Jesus meek and mild, look upon a little child pity my simplicity and suffer me to come to thee. God bless Mummy and Daddy and Russell and Vivien and Aunt Con and Little Granny and Big Granny and Grandpa and make me a good boy for Jesus sake. Amen Sad to relate that my other grandfather, Little Granny’s husband, was omitted from this list. He died before I was came into the world, but then he was sixty years old when my father was born. After many years (and being a bad boy and not saying my prayers any more) I had forgotten the last two lines of the verse, however I did find the words on the net. They come from a very famous hymn. I remember now the problem I had with this prayer as a child. I did not understand what ‘simplicity’ meant. Also I could not understand why I should have to suffer to come to Jesus. It worried me that I might need to be crucified like he was. Of course I now know what ‘simplicity’ means and that ‘suffer’ is an archaic word for ‘permit’. It is significant that it was my grandmother that taught me this verse. She was a churchgoer and quite devout. In her house we always said grace before meals: For what we are about to receive may the Lord make us truly grateful. Amen. However in her son’s family we did not say grace. My father was more inclined to worship on the golf course or the tennis court. (In his younger days he had been New Zealand champion in the single sculls four times and in later years New Zealand veteran’s golf champion.) Thus we see the general tendency of 2

people to move away from the church. This has come as society, in ‘developed’ countries, has enabled people to hold and express views contrary to those of Church and State. Many people walk away from an establishment which no longer meets their emotional and spiritual needs. We must consider the time when everyone was required to adhere to religious dogma, when Galileo was forced to say that the sun moved around the Earth or face torture in the hands of the Inquisition, when dissent was met with imprisonment and execution, and countries were laid waste in holy crusades. Nowadays if someone tries to tell you that the sun moves around the Earth they might be thought a little odd, or uninformed. In those days everyone believed it, including the Pope. However I digress. As a child my first attendance at Sunday School was at the Gospel Hall. This was a large plain square building just across the railway lines from where I lived. It was the meeting place of the Brethren. I can’t remember exactly what variety of Brethren they were now, however they were an open group and well respected in the small town, where I was brought up, for their honesty and endeavour. The class was conducted by Geoffrey Kenderdine’s mother. Geoffrey was in my class at school. He was sitting next to me, on the hard wooden pew, and kept flicking my ear. He just wouldn’t stop. In frustration I hit him on the nose. Fresh blood on a clean white Sunday School shirt can be quite an attractive colour combination. Thereafter I went to the Presbyterian Sunday school. Our family was nominally Presbyterian. The story went that we were originally Methodists on my father’s side (my Little Granny’s family being Scottish) but there was some conflict with the minister so they changed to Presbyterian. I remember thinking, in my childlike way, that Christianity must be the Absolute Truth. After all so many people had believed in it for such a long time. Surely they couldn’t be fooled into believing a lie. As a youth I attended boarding school. All boarders were required to go to church on Sunday mornings. We would dress in our dark suits, white shirts and school ties and were given sixpence for the collection. It was here that I learnt to tie the Windsor knot. It wasn’t the real Windsor knot but a variation we invented ourselves. I don’t wear ties nowadays but when I was a serious business suit I did and I always used the special boarding school Windsor knot. It was a long hot trek to church. As we marched army style in a troop along the Marine Parade I had dreams that the ocean was made of cool lemonade. In church all the boarders sat in reserved pews down one side. I think we went to sleep during the sermons – I can’t remember any of them, but I do remember the sweet young girl with red hair in the choir, although I never had the chance to speak to her (and probably would have uttered embarrassed mumbles if given the opportunity.) There was only one of my contemporaries who ever became involved in Christianity and I always felt he did so for theatrical reasons. He became a disc jockey, a TV chef and, finally, a high profile minister. As for the rest of us, we were not particularly interested in joining the church. There was the general cynicism that young men 3

Chapter One

Introduction

have towards things that are foisted upon them by adults and a covert belief that it was all bullshit anyway. After all there were more pressing concerns, such as girls and how to get on in the world when we left school. Religion was not a precursor to ambition and did not seem relevant to normal living. As a young man I began questioning the values I had inherited from my upbringing. I began an enquiry into the nature of things, something which had both religion and science in its compass, something which has occupied my thought for much of my life and something I cannot expect to resolve fully. My examination of Christianity at this time led me to reject it entirely. It seemed to be a crazy set of beliefs. The virgin birth, the idea that Jesus was the Son of God, the necessity for Jesus to die a cruel death in order to remit mankind’s sins, the misbehaviour of the church in the inquisition and various holy wars as well as the outright hypocrisy of many of its leaders were things I could not accept. Wanting to understand my place in the cosmos (if any) I began a study of various alternative philosophies, the nature of which does not concern us here. Eventually I came to the conclusion that all religions contain a grain of truth and that a liberal study will eventually lead to some understanding. The centre of my study now is Vedanta, the ancient Hindu philosophy. I would say that I have quite carefully avoided joining up with any sect. The group I am loosely attached to is involved in a liberal study of a variety of religions. One other qualification I have is my creative writing endeavour. In middle age I decided to start writing drama (the mid-life crisis) and have had several performances, in back alley theatres, of my ‘experimental’ plays. In more recent times I have published three novels. This has given me the ability to understand and develop characters and how their actions and interactions impel the plot. This book is concerned with people, their motivation and how we might thread a story out of all that. It is written from the point of view of a fiction writer trying to make sense of an incompletely received story. This is the reason for me taking up so much space describing the characters and social ambience. Every good writer knows that the story comes from what the characters say and do and how they interact with each other and society. Their speech and actions and interactions come from what they think and what they think comes from what they are. This is the principle of dramatic unity and what I am doing here is to provide a story which follows these principles and the record of events as they have come down to us. There is, of necessity, invention. The important thing to keep in mind is that the invention does not conflict with the received reports and that it does shed light on things that were previously enigmatic.

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1.2 Why did I write this book? In the study group to which I belong, we did, at one stage, undertake a reading of the Matthew Gospel. One of the members made a somewhat disparaging remark about Christianity. That started a train of thought. Maybe I should study the subject in greater depth. The way I would approach it would be to write a play as the research necessary to do that would also provide me with understanding. At the beginning I had the somewhat naïve idea that all I had to do was convert the somewhat archaic and stilted language of the Bible into contemporary dialogue and a play would appear. I commenced the project in 1999, my millennium project. I read all the popular books in the local libraries and found a great deal of information on the internet. I obtained in electronic form; a Bible (the New American Bible), the Catholic Encyclopaedia, the complete works of Josephus, and many other items of interest. This research was a great deal of interest to me. Although I had an acquaintance with Christianity I had little knowledge of the social and political forces which surrounded its development. Also I did not have a clear understanding of the personalities who were involved. A large part of this book is taken up with descriptions of these elements, some in summary, some in depth. Much of this information will be common knowledge to scholars however as most was new to me I suspect it will be new to the general reader. You will understand that all this is just research notes developed into a presentable form and by no means complete. Quite soon I found I had problems with the project. Who or what Jesus actually was appeared to be hidden under reams of theological dialogue and distorted by incomplete reporting. A certain theory stated that the Jesus of History could never be uncovered and that most of what was recorded in the gospels was unreliable. What one had to rely upon was the Jesus of Faith, something which was an invention of the church and had to be accepted without being questioned, but somewhat different from the original Jesus. I found it very hard to develop a picture of Jesus and his message (and still do.) The images of love, reconciliation, compassion and repudiation of outward show as outlined in the canonical gospels are simple enough to understand. When I came to the non-canonical Gospel of Thomas I discovered a depth of thought and an enigma I had difficulty in comprehending. It is basically this lack of understanding that led me to put the project to one side for the time being. There was one other problem that beset me and it was this that captured my attention and led to the writing of this book. That is the problem with the passion narrative. It didn’t seem to make sense. Bishop John Shelby Spong, in one of his books, admitted the same and said that it probably didn’t happen, that it was all an invention of the gospel writers. Bishop Spong goes along with the certain species of theologists who assert that little of the record of what Jesus said or did is reliable. I couldn’t accept that. I believe people will report events as they see 5

Chapter One

Introduction

them and what we have is a fairly accurate account within the bounds of observational error and minor ‘corrections’ in the translation, although there appears to be another side to the story which has not been told. The big question was: what motivated Jesus to go to the Garden of Gethsemane expecting a prearranged rendezvous with a group of enemies who would arrest and crucify him? I couldn’t believe it was because God told him to do it, or that it was part of some Holy Plan. The only alternative I found was Hugh Sconefield’s suggestion, in The Passover Plot, that he was contriving a fake execution (gone wrong) in order to obtain renown and establish his movement. A suggestion I did not find convincing. Taking those factors out I had to find a logical reason for Jesus to willingly hand himself over to his executioners. After much thought it struck me that he might have sacrificed himself in order to save his friends from a similar fate, that the Authorities intended to crucify all central members of his group and that he negotiated with these Authorities to sacrifice himself for all. What other reason could there be? And what greater love? How else to save the order? The more I worked on this theme the more it seemed to make sense. The idea illuminated and elucidated certain passages in the New Testament which otherwise appeared irrelevant or enigmatic. Whether the story is correct or not cannot be ascertained with certainty. All I ask is for the reader to read the book and ask: – what else could there be?

1.3 What are the questions I attempt to answer? • How did Jesus know he was going to die? • Why did Jesus arrange to go willingly to the cross? • What part did Judas Iscariot play in the events? • What part did the Jewish heirarchy play in the events? • What part did the Roman army play in the events? • What part did Pontius Pilate play in the events? • What part did Nicodemus, Joseph from Arimathea and other members of the ‘Jerusalem Connection’ play in the events? • Who was Barabbas and why was he released? • What was the nature of the detail that arrested Jesus at Gethsemane? • Who were the two ‘thieves’ and why was Jesus executed in pride of place between them? • Why was Peter not slaughtered by Roman soldiers when he attacked one of their group with a sword and cut off his ear? • Why were the other disciples not captured and executed alongside Jesus? • Who was the ‘other disciple who knew the high priest’ who accompanied Peter to Annas’s house? 6

• Who was the young man in the linen garment mentioned in Mark and why was he in the garden of Gethsemane that night? • Why was Jesus permitted a proper burial when it was customary to throw the bodies of executed criminals to the dogs? • Was the Last Supper a Passover meal held one day early?

1.4 Who have I written this book for? A previous version of this book was offered to a publisher of religious works. He seemed quite interested in the thesis that I presented and thought that it might form a good basis for discussion (and perhaps healthy controversy.) He did point out that in order to be publishable in the field the author should have extensive academic qualifications in theology or extensive practice as a minister of the church. I have none of these. My original manuscript was evaluated by the bishop in the publisher’s church. In her opinion the book contained nothing new and hence there was no reason for it to be published. I was somewhat disappointed in this as the publisher himself had been quite positive. It seemed to me that the central thesis is something new. At least I have not come across it in extensive reading. If one is established in any field of knowledge it becomes difficult to accept any idea which contradicts the conservative logos, a phenomenon which is evident in other disciplines as well as religion. Jesus, himself, had something to say concerning those who hold the keys to knowledge. If you read ‘Ministers of Religion’ for ‘Pharisees and scribes’ you might have something akin to the situation which pertains today. The quotation is from the non-canonical Gospel of Thomas: The Pharisees and the scribes have taken the keys of Knowledge and hidden them. They themselves have not entered, nor have they allowed to enter those who wish to. You, however, be as wise as serpents and as innocent as doves. (Thomas 39. See also Luke 11:52 which contains the above minus the last sentence.) (I’m not putting footnotes or reference notes in this book so I quote fully and describe as I go. Reference to the canonical gospels is Matthew, Mark, Luke and John as is conventionally accepted. Thomas is the non canonical gospel of Thomas which was found in Egypt in recent times. I discuss all these gospels briefly in chapter 2.) Jesus is saying that you should not rely on the Establishment but should rely on your own independent thought. This is excellent advice for the genuine seeker of knowledge. There are so many members of the church who accept the dogma without a great deal of question because it forms a stable anchor in their life. Baigent, Leigh and Lincoln tell me, in The Messianic Legacy, that the conservative Christians in America, who block vote the Republican ticket, hold their beliefs 7

Chapter One

Introduction

because they want to get to Disneyland when they die. (About the only sensible thing in the book.) All this reminds me of a quotation from the Katha Upanishad: Fools dwelling in darkness, wise in their own conceit, and puffed up with vain knowledge, go round and round, staggering to and fro, like blind men led by the blind. (Katha 2:5) And Jesus himself tells us that: If a blind man leads a blind man, they will both fall into a ditch. (Thomas 34. See also Luke 6:39.) Recently I have been involved with some academic forums on the internet. I had hoped that the astute professors and doctors of divinity might be able to supply me with sure knowledge concerning the subject in question. Instead these experts assert a variety of opinions, each one saying that they are correct, and yet with a completely different theseis, one from another and, at times, unseemly arguments. It does appear that one cannot rely upon academic thought. But who have I written the book for? I have not written it for the theologist or the academic. Certain liberal Christians may find it of interest but basically it is written for the common (wo)man. Also I do not assert that I am correct. I just want to give the reader something to think about – maybe enjoy a good story.

Local Libraries Bishop John Shelby Spong, a retired Episcopalian Bishop in USA has written a number of books with the idea of reviving Christianity by beating a lot of the crap out of it. He does good work in excising the mythology but tends to be dogmatic and to deny too much of the New Testament with his midrashic approach. Ian Wilson has produced a number of objective and interesting books on a variety of subjects. His The Blood and the Shroud is the definitive book concerning the Turin shroud. I am also indebted to his excellent summary, Jesus, The Evidence. Hugh Schonfield, a Jewish historian, with The Passover Plot proposes that Yeshu engineered the crucifixion, (and failed in his intention of surviving it), out of desire for renown. I don’t find much merit in this theory, however it is an interesting and famous book. Barbara Theiring should be mentioned as something to avoid. She enters a fantasy land based on misuse of the midrash theory and various other wild assumptions. I don’t refer to her work in this book.. Also I have found useful information in a number of other sources which are mentioned in the text.

Bibles

1.5 The method. Firstly I state the axioms, the things I hold to be true in this study: • Jesus was not a Divinity, but a normal (though special) human being. • Jesus’ death on the cross was not some part of God’s Holy Plan. • Jesus’ knowledge of what was going to happen to him did not come directly from God but from his contacts in the mundane world. • Jesus was compassionate and a person who cared for people and was capable of great love. As for the method I must confess to being unsystematic in my habits. There is not a large bibliography. I will mention books and sources as I go. As well as references to written word I shall also give references to web sites. There is no guarantee that these sites are current. The following is an outline of the major sources I have used

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My Bible in volume form is The Key Bible – King James Study Bible from which I quote occasionally. I also have a modern English Version of the Gospels – The Gospels in Modern English tran J.B. Phillips. Electronic sources Most Bible quotations in this book are from an electronic version of the New American Bible. This is the official Bible of the American Roman Catholic Church. (Founded on the Dewey I think.) I chose it because it is a modern Bible, based on scholarship. It also has extensive footnotes which are very useful. Advantages of an electronic Bible are the search facility which is quick and accurate and the ability to copy and paste passages into the original electronic manuscript of this book. (Using the search facility I am able to discover that most references to the Kidron Valley are to its use as a rubbish tip. Archaeologists take note.) I have the Catholic Encyclopaedia in electronic form which is also available n the internet at http://www.knight.org/advent/cathen/. This has extensive notes on a large range of topics. The complete works of Josephus have been downloaded from the internet. See below.

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Chapter One Internet sources The Aramaic Bible at http://www.v-a.com/bible/ translated by Victor N. Alexander. The author claims to have access to original forms of the gospels which he avers were written in Aramaic and in possession of the Church of the East. I make no comment as to the truth or not of his claims. Visit the site. This translation has notes which give valuable insight into Aramaic idiom. Vic also kindly answered some questions in email correspondence. I am indebted to Remy Landau for much of the information concerning the current Jewish calendar. A precise technical description of its idiosyncrasies is to be found at his website: http://www.geocities.com/Athens/1584/ - Hebrew Calendar Science and Myths. Remy was also kind enough to provide me with further information via extensive email correspondence. Jewish/Gregorian date conversions were achieved by using an internet program developed by Alan D. Corré, Emeritus Professor of Hebrew Studies, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Site: http://www.uwm.edu/~corre/calendar.html - The Jewish/Civil Calendar Program. Professor Corre also communicated via email. The works of Josephus are to be found on the Flavius Josephus Home Page http://members.aol.com/FLJOSEPHUS/home.htm maintained by G.J. Goldberg. This contains all the works and several interesting articles. My electronic copy of Josephus has been downloaded from this site. Several interesting articles on ancient history by Jona Lendering are to be found at the Livius web site.http://www.livius.org/home.html. There are other sites, some redundant, which I mention as I go.

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2. Sources One problem that I have encountered in this study has been to decide exactly what is to be believed. There are certain indications and a multitude of contrary opinions. You have to take a stand and justify it. I have adopted a liberal stance as described in 2.1(b) below. Naturally it helps to be able to select the interpretation that fits in with one’s own theory, which is what many commentators do, however I have been pretty careful to try to avoid that. There has been a great deal of controversy concerning the validity of the sources, particularly among theologists. The fact is that there are errors in what we have received in the gospels and in the historical reports.It has been necessary to make a decision on what these errors are. If the gospels are God’s word then He did not express Himself very well. The historian, Josephus, has tried to be objective however much of his information came from sources which had a Jewish bias. I’ve had to take a stand on certain issues, and I state my reasons, either here or in later chapters, when I discuss a particular point. In some cases I am unable to decide whether a certain passage is true or not. I’m not the only one to have such difficulty. There are so many divergent professional (and unprofessional) opinions prevalent that a newcomer to the field has no reliable guideposts. I can be certain that there will be many people with a point of view that differs from my own. The first thing I do is to describe these various attitudes of ‘the believers’ towards the information we have received. These beliefs range from absolute disbelief to blind acceptance. The reader will also have to take a stand. All I ask is that prejudice be put aside and that the data be looked at objectively. No doubt the reader will be capable of making up her/his own mind as to what is true or not and as to whether my interpretation has validity. The remainder of the chapter summarises the sources of our knowledge; how they came into being (as far as we can tell) and their relationship to truth. I also introduce a theory concerning the ‘oratorical catchphrase’ which I have not seen elsewhere. This may give us a guide as to whether a particular saying actually came from the mouth of Jesus. The second chapter (The Fallibility of the Gospels) in Ian Wilson’s Jesus, The Evidence is an excellent summary which covers some of the ground in this chapter.

Chapter two

Sources

2.1 The believers. There are five broad measures of belief which I discuss in detail below: • a) The fundamentalist approach which takes the point of view that everything in the gospels is literally true and infallible. • b) The liberal approach which tends to the belief a that a fair bit, although not all, may be relied upon. This is my stance. • c) The theological approach. This expounds how people might fall into a ditch. A veritable can of worms. • d) The Rationalist approach. Points out the various inconsistencies in the gospels and discards everything. • e) The lunatic fringe, which is liable to believe anything.

a) The Fundamentalists A fundamentalist believes that everything in the Bible is ‘gospel truth’, the Holy Word of God, and not to be questioned. Of course the Church had so much power in Europe in the middle ages that you were liable to be burnt at the stake if you were not a fundamentalist and the state of mind has persisted somewhat. Official Church belief is a little more liberal now-a-days, with the Protestant Church being freer than the Catholic. In recent times certain of the clergy have pressed for an even more liberal approach. The concept of fundamentalism stems from the opinion that God is infallible and that the Bible is a direct record of His knowledge. In a world where there is great uncertainty - where things are not quite right – it is understandable that people should cling to such beliefs. I cannot accept this approach to knowledge. It’s proponents blinker their eyes to the truth and essentially deny understanding. What is more they are arch conservatives, vote Republican and believe that their rigid cast of thought will get them up to heaven when they die. It is unlikely that fundamentalists will wish to read this book anyway, although they may wish to burn it.

developing a concept of the characters, their personality and the society that motivates them. As time goes on it is hoped that a consistent picture of Jesus and his environment will develop in my mind in the same manner as does a fictional character in a play or novel. This is in many ways a subjective and intuitive picture, difficult to express in words. However from this a story can be written. Of course I wish to apply logic to the data as well. Here is a quotation from C. S. Lewis which I found in Ian Wilson’s, Jesus, The Evidence. (Wilson doesn’t give the source.) I have been reading poems, romances, vision literature, legends, myths all my life. I know what they are like. I know that none of them is like this. Of this text there are only two possible views. Either this is reportage – though it may no doubt contain errors – pretty close to the facts; nearly as close as Boswell. Or else, some unknown writer of the second century, without known predecessors or successors, suddenly anticipated the whole technique of modern, novelistic, realistic narrative. If it is untrue it must be narrative of that kind. The reader who doesn’t see this simply has not learned to read. Along with Lewis I believe that the story that we have is pretty close to the facts as the eyewitnesses saw them. After all, what we have has came from people (admirably via intermediate steps) who actually knew the man, and they would not have knowingly wanted to alter the facts. So this is the basis for my thoughts. However there are errors and inventions many of which can be clearly identified. Changes were also made by people with an agenda. There are also missing pieces in the jig-saw puzzle. I will discuss these matters in detail in subsequent analysis. One thing I should state quite clearly is that I am prepared to accept many of the miracle stories, particularly the healing miracles, and the prescience. Also there must be something in the resurrection, although I am not sure exactly what it is. (I tend towards the belief that he appeared as a ghost.) There is no doubt that Jesus was highly advanced in the spiritual sense. He said quite clearly that his kingdom was not of this world hence we should not expect it to obey the laws of this world. Everything that he is reported to have done has been emulated by saints in other religions and cultures. In fact it has often been reported to be a byproduct of advancement. Buddha noted that (although he thought it not particularly important, not something to aim for) you receive special powers when you approach enlightenment.

b) The liberal approach

d) The theological viewpoint

Any approach to the subject which does not permit a fair and objective analysis of the fact can not be considered successful. Hence I advocate a liberal approach. However it must be accepted by the reader that I am looking at this information from the point of view of a creative writer and a truth seeker not as someone committed to the church. I ask questions first and attempt to answer them by

I should say ‘viewpoints’ for, in fact, there are several, often divergent, levels of blindness in theological study. One would have hoped that the professionals would have been in a position to shed light on the subject. However there are often unseemly disputes on various points about which there is some doubt, each side asserting vehemently the certainty of their position and quoting copiously from

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Chapter two

Sources

other ‘authorities, who agree with their point of view. An example of this is the date of the crucifixion. Various experts will give a year for this event, citing their reasons at length, yet these experts are never in agreement. The professional theologists also have a sinecure on getting their books published. It is interesting to note that it was a professional theologist, D.F. Strauss, who in about 1835, first began to question the fundamentalist viewpoint by pointing out various inconsistencies between the gospels and asserting that the miracles never happened. Needless to say he soon lost his University post and found it difficult to obtain another one. At least he wasn’t burnt at the stake. However as time has gone on this approach has become more acceptable to Authorities and a good deal of work has been done culminating in the work of Rudolf Bultmann and his method of ‘form criticism’ A quotation from a redundant Internet source concerning the work of Bultmann, the originator of the Theological Process summarises this approach. Bultmann’s form criticism however proved to be even more devastating. Bultmann eliminated from historical consideration any miraculous passages on the grounds that they were inserted to establish Jesus’ divinity and any passages reflecting Old Testament sayings as an attempt to represent Jesus as fulfilling these prophecies. Likewise any statements which could alternatively be attributed to another contemporary such as Hillel in the case of ‘do unto others’ was eliminated as a derivative interpolation, and even Jesus’ claim to forgive sins as in Mark 2:5 was eliminated as citing a Christian claim in the gospels. This stripped away virtually all material leaving Bultmann saying “I do indeed think that we can now know almost nothing concerning the life and personality of Jesus, since the early Christian sources show no interest in either, are moreover fragmentary and often legendary” resorting himself simply to the ‘Christ of faith’. Bishop Spong is in this camp, which is a pity because his liberal ideas are valuable. He bought an expensive book on midrash theory, which he uses to prove that half the events in the New Testament never happenned. (For example he denies the existence of Iscariot, the entry into Jerusalem on a donkey and most of the Passion events apart from the crucifixion.) Another example is the Jesus Seminar, which was formed in 1985 by Robert W. Funk an American theologian. Basically the seminar consists of about a hundred scholars who meet twice a year and decide, by casting coloured beads into a jar, what is true or not true about the received record. The results are a consensus of the opinions of these august scholars. The gospels are then printed in various colours: red, it is certain to have veracity, pink it probably had veracity, grey it probably didn’t and black it certainly didn’t. I do not posses any exact records of the findings however I understand that merely 18% of the Word of God is in red or pink and that hardly anything of the Gospel of John is likewise coloured. I don’t believe this because I intuitively feel that there is so much in John that rings true. If I apply the ‘oratorical catchphrase’ 14

(see below) litmus test to John I can see that there is a great deal of content that can be believed. This is confirmed in my mind because there is so much in John that is consonant with my conception of Jesus’s character and motivation. (This, of course, is something that I have great difficulty in defining.) The seminar is liable to reject items for the same reasons as Bultmann. This rejection is something I don’t accept. In recent times the approach has been becoming less polular with many theologists being able to accept more of the gospel records as truth. There are, of course, whole libraries of scholarly theological books. I suppose the numbers exceed those on Shakespeare. Many of them are opinion. They will typically have a huge bibliography and many pages of notes and references, all to other books of opinion written by other scholars. It has become an industry in which the professors participate in order to gain renown and promotion. In general controversial issues are avoided. Even so there are a few gems and a few loose cannons ready to fire off salvos at the Establishment. One must add that there are also a number of books which deal in a scientific study of the historical record. There are valuable. I note also that there are one or two enlightened books.

d) The Rationalists There is plenty of information concerning this, both on the internet and elsewhere. Rationalism grew out of a reaction to fundamentalism and goes to the opposite extreme. Rationalism points out the errors in the gospels and says that because of this there is no truth in them at all. In extreme cases even the existence of Jesus as an historical figure is denied. This is an approach which is not used in this book.

e) The lunatic fringe. We hear stories of how Jesus came down in a flying saucer etc. One hopes that this book is not considered to be part of it.

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Chapter two

Sources

2.2 The New Testament and non-cannonical gospels First let me briefly define a couple of terms which will be elaborated on later. Synoptic is applied to the gospels Matthew, Mark and Luke. The synoptic theory asserts that these gospels are related. Mark was the first to be written. Matthew and Luke were written independently and both included Mark. Quelle (Q} is the term applied to a putative lost collection of sayings that Matthew and Luke also included. The New Testament contains the bulk of our information concerning Jesus. It consists of four gospels which describe his life and thought, Acts of the Apostles, which describes the activity of the Pauline church up to about 60 CE, various letters and Revelation (which I shall ignore.) I am including in this article some non-cannonical gospels which appear to be related to the New Testament books and have a certain validity. These include collections of ‘sayings’ which were recorded in Jesus’ lifetime, but have come down in indirect form. The official view of the church is that the material contained in the Testament is God’s Holy Writ and, as such, Infallible. An objective study of the facts reveals that this is far from the truth. The information is clearly the work of fallible men and contains errors and omissions that leave a great mystery surrounding the life and thought of Christ. It is perhaps valuable to give a brief summary of the history of the development of the church as relates to the received information. During his life certain of Jesus’ followers recorded, either in memory or in writing, his sayings and doings. It appears that there were collections of sayings which were written down in his own language (Aramaic) during his life or shortly after. I argue below that these collections still exist in an indirect form, and that they represent an accurate record of what he actually said. As far as the doings are concerned, they probably came from the memories of his disciples, with all the sometime fallibilities that memory has. I argue later in this book for the existence of a group of followers in Jerusalem (called the Jerusalem Connection) who were involved in the story of the Passion but whose record has been lost. After Jesus died his brother, James the Righteous, became head of the movement in Jerusalem. This function has been somewhat obscured by the Roman Catholic church because of the necessity to maintain Mary’s perpetual virgin status and because this movement diminished. (See the article on James in a later chapter.) The function of Jesus’ family in the the Jerusalem movement was fundamental with another of his brothers or cousins being appointed leader when James was killed. Not long after Jesus died, Paul of Tarsus had a vision and headed a parallel movement outside of Palestine among Jews of the diaspora and gentiles. Paul’s letters are the oldest documents in the New Testament with certain provenance. (I would argue that the collections of sayings are earlier.) There was some conflict between the two groups concerning the necessity for gentile Christians to observe Jewish law, however a compromise was reached. With time 16

Paul developed a variant version of Christianity. As he was concerned about the crucifixion he came up with the concept that Jesus’ death was God’s attonement for the original sin of Adam and Eve and the concept that Jesus was God’s son. The cannonical gospels were written for congregations in Paul’s church and reflect his views. The only thing of moment from the Jerusalem movement in the New Testament is a letter from James which reflects the thought of Jesus. (There is also a brief letter from Jesus’ brother Jude.) It is perhaps unfortunate that both Matthew and Luke included nativity stories which indicated that Mary, Jesus’ mother, conceived as a virgin and that Jesus was actually the son of God. These stories were never intended to be taken literally but as illustrations of Jesus’ sprituallity, however were regarded as gospel truth by subsequent theologans leading to the strange mythology imbedded in the Roman Catholic church. The Jerusalem branch, which may be considered closest to the teaching of Jesus, became diminished as a result of a wars between the Jews and the Romans and consequent Holocast. The Jerusalem branch did not die. Jesus had advised his followers to get out if a war did start, and they did, going to a place called Pella, east of the Jordan, however there were very few Jews left to convert, so efficient was the ethnic cleansing of the Romans. These followers were called Ebionites (Hebrew for ‘poor ones’.) One must remember that the gospels were written during a time when ‘Christians’ lived in a community dominated by Rome and that because of the wars the Jews were not very popular with the Romans. For this reason the facts concerning the ‘trials’ and death of Jesus appear to have been rewritten to place blame on the Jews in order to appease the Romans. It also appears that Paul spoke very negatively about the Jews, even though he was a Jew himself, (although I have read the opinion that he wasn’t) blaming them for Jesus’ death. The Pauline church continued and dominated in spite of persecutions. There were also various offshoots and groups which took on the teaching as part of their philosophy. (The Gnostics may be included as one of these.) About 300 CE the barbaric emperor Constantine sponsored the church for political and military reasons. He realised that the various factions that had developed needed to be brought into line.After some discussions in the council at Nicea in 325 various dogmas were set in place. Opposing conceptions were pronounced heresy and brutally suppressed. One such was the Arian belief which said that Jesus was just an ordinary man. The Ebionites were also pronounced as heretics, which lead to their final demise. It was in the Nicean Creed that the ‘Trinity’ was defined for the first time. The concept of ‘Holy Ghost’, which no-one can understand, appears to have been added as an afterthought. The modern church has developed from this.

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a) The oratorical catchphrase In this article I wish to present the idea that many of the sayings of Jesus, as recorded in the gospels, are reliable and exact records of what was actually said by Jesus. The litmus test I wish to apply is not that of Bultmann or the Jesus Seminar but of the presence of an ‘oratorical catchphrase’ or idiolect (being a way of speaking unique to Jesus.) I can identify two catchphrases which are repeated several times throughout the gospels. These phrases are mannerisms which mean nothing in themselves but are something uttered by an orator (or preacher) in order to draw the listeners attention to the message. They are not phrases that would be used by someone composing new work or editing existing work. I would argue that because these phrases are present the words of Jesus must have been recorded exactly as he uttered them. Consequently any verse which contains them, and verses close by, must be considered reliable. It is by no means certain exactly how the sayings came to be recorded. They could have been written down by literate followers, in which case we can assert that the scribes took care to record exactly what Jesus said. (The non-cannonical Gospel of Thomas has a preamble which says they were written down. See 2.2 c) below.) The other method of recording is by memory. One should not underestimate the possibility of this method of recording, a facility which would be developed by an illiterate person as compensation for not being able to write. Vast volumes of literature such as the Pauli Cannon (Buddhist teachings) and the Hindu Vedas have been preserved in the memories of monks at times when writing was not available. (I might add that after years of acting in amateur theatre I am now able to learn my lines with ease during the commercial breaks in television programs.) Once Jesus’ sayings were memorised they could be dictated to a scribe at leisure. I comment below that written collections of sayings in Aramaic were available and that these preceded the gospels. They may even have been extant during Jesus’ lifetime. The first of these phrases is easily recognisable and is rendered in the KJV (King James Version) as ‘I say unto you.’ This phrase occurs 150 times in the canonical gospels (see table below.) The Greek is ‘lego umin’ when speaking to a congregation and a less frequent variant, ‘lego soi’ when speaking to an individual. In about half of these the phrase is preceded by the word ‘amen’ either once, as in the synoptics, or twice as in John. ‘Amen’ is an Aramaic word which is almost universally incorporated into other languages. It means ‘in truth’ (or ‘verily’) when used at the start of a sentence. The phrase occurs without the preceeding amen 55 times, mostly in Luke, where we can see by comparing parallel verses from Q that he had the habit of omitting the amen and sometimes omitting the phrase altogether. There are 19 cases where the phrase is not preceeded by amen but is given some emphasis such as ‘I say unto you in truth’ or somesuch.

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There is another phrase of interest which occurs seven times in the canonical gospels. ‘Whoever has ears (to hear) ought to hear,’ (New American Bible). (Matthew omits the ‘to hear’ clause.) This phrase would probably pass you by, but when I read the Gospel of Thomas (described below) it stuck out like a sore toe. In my translation it is rendered as ‘Whoever has ears (to hear), let him hear’ and occurs six times in 114 verses. The following table lists the number of occurrences in the various gospels. This shows an interesting distribution which seems to require further study. (I can’t vouch for the accuracy of these figures due to lazy methodology, however they won’t be far from the mark.) Gospel / I say... alone / Variant /Amen / Amen amen/ Ears that hear/ Total Mark Matthew Luke John Thomas

3 12 40

Total

55

17 2

13 31 6

2 3 2 6

8 60 50 25 6

13

163

25

19

50

25

I believe this whole matter of oratorical catchphrases is something about which a great deal of research needs to be done. At this point I do not have the time, inclination or academic knowledge to undertake it. b) The Sayings I can identify with some certainty two sets of sayings and there may have been others. The first I deal with is in the recently found Gospel of Thomas and the second one which has been extracted from the canonical gospels and identified by scholars as Quelle. That there were collections of sayings written in Aramaic, which preceeded the gospels, can be seen from the following example. We assume that Matthew and Luke were both translating from a written edition of Q and compare the following parallel verses. MATT 23:25 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites. You cleanse the outside of cup and dish, but inside they are full of plunder and self-indulgence. 23:26 Blind Pharisee, cleanse first the inside of the cup, so that the outside also may be clean.

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LUKE 11:39 The Lord said to him, “Oh you Pharisees! Although you cleanse the outside of the cup and the dish, inside you are filled with plunder and evil. 11:40 You fools! Did not the maker of the outside also make the inside? 11:41 But as to what is within, give alms, and behold, everything will be clean for you. “Give alms” in Luke 11:41 appears to be nonsense. However it has been pointed out that in Aramaic ‘zakkau’ means ‘to give alms’ whilst ‘dakkau’ means ‘to cleanse’. There is obviously a copying error or a poorly written letter in the source document. It seems that Luke was taking care to render what he saw accurately without being too concerned as to what it actually meant. It is clear that the document (Quelle) preceded Luke.

c) The Gospel of Thomas A number of books were found in a buried earthenware jar at Nag Hammadi in Egypt (1946). These were Gnostic texts. (The Gnostics were a branch of Christians who were wiped out about 400 CE when Constantine’s brand of Christianity became official.) The texts were ‘gospels’ written in Coptic, an ancient Egyptian language that utilised the Greek alpahabet. Most of the gospels are clearly apocryphal, although two contain interesting references to a relationship between Jesus and Mary Magdaline. A website containing the text of these documents and further information is http://www.gnosis.org/naghamm/nhlcodex.html This is a site which probably won’t disappear. The Gospel of Thomas is the most important book found in the Nag Hammadi cashe. It consists of 114 sayings (logons) of Jesus. There is no narrative content. There were references to the existence of the gospel in antiquity and a few verses, written in Greek, had been found in an archaeological rubbish tip, also in Egypt. The gospel is preceded by the following preamble: These are the secret sayings which the living Jesus spoke and which Didymos Judas Thomas wrote down. What this tells us, if we are inclined to believe it, that the disciple (Doubting) Thomas wrote down the words of Jesus as he spoke them. The name Thomas is derived from the Aramaic for ‘twin’ and was a nickname. His given name was Judas (I discuss Thomas in detail later in the chapter on Juds Iscariot.) Didymos is the Greek word for twin. This tells me that the gospel was translated from Aramaic to Greek to Coptic. This is bourne out by the fact that the Greek fragments contain the preanble but the word ‘Didymos’ is not in it. If it can be believed that the gospel is authentic then we have a model for the other collections of sayings that I discuss below. According to one analysis, about twenty of these sayings have direct parallels in the synoptics, about forty have some relationship to sayings in the four gospels and about fifty are unique and present quite a different call on Jesus’ philosophy. These latter are well worth study. Because of this relationship to the canonical 20

gospels the professors have a number of theories as to how Thomas came to be assembled. Some say that there was a core of sayings and that others were added in from Mark or Q. Some say that the unique sayings were invented by the gnostics. There are endless discussions in academic circles as to whether parallel passages came from Q to Thomas or vise versa with no consensus. It is an occupation that keeps the professors off the streets. It is possible to believe that if two people were writing down sayings then they might be present at different times and hence would agree on some points and differ on others. One might expect Jesus to repeat his sermons to different audiences with the variations which may account for the differences and parallels between Q and Thomas. The scholars appear to be blind to this possibility. As mentioned above the oratorical catchphrase ‘Whoever has ears (to hear,) let him hear’ occurs six times (in logons 8, 21, 24, 63, 65, 96), and this tends to indicate that the sayings were written down verbatim. It is interesting to note that each of these sayings have parallel verses in the synoptics however none of the synoptic verses contain the catchphrase. Also five of the seven verses in the synoptics which contain the phrase have parallels in Thomas yet none of the Thomas verses contain the catchphrase. This indicates to me that different scribes might have made a decision as to whether to include the phrase or not or that scribes were at work at different times. Of particular interest is logon 9, the parable of sowing seeds on infertile and fertile ground, which has a parallel on all synoptics. The synoptics do contain the catchphrase whereas logon 9 does not. It is clear that Matthew and Luke based their record on a revision of Mark. Logon 9 contains variations which indicate it was not a revision. (Taking a handfull of seeds, worms eating the seeds and 120fold.) It may well be that Jesus repeated this popular parable on different occasions with variations. One point to note is that the preamble describes the sayings as being ‘secret’ indicating that they were sayings not intended for the general public. This is indicated by the unique sayings which present to me a greater depth of insight and philosophy than is found in Q. In many instances the meaning eludes me and I seek a Rosetta Stone for complete understanding. It is possible that Thomas had a special relationshuip with Jesus and hence access to the inner thought. Jesus did have a brother called Judas and this Judas Thomas may be that brother. There has even been the suggestion that Thomas was Jesus’ twin brother. The following is part of logon 13: And He took him and withdrew and told him three things. When Thomas returned to his companions, they asked him, “What did Jesus say to you?” Thomas said to them, “If I tell you one of the things which he told me, you will pick up stones and throw them at me; a fire will come out of the stones and burn you up.” There are numerous web sites devoted to the Gospel of Thomas, plus a few email correspondence groups.

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d) Quelle Quelle (Q) is the German word for source (and the French word for question.) The theory is that Q is a lost set of sayings of Jesus and that Matthew and Luke both had a copy of it and included it in their gospels. If we take everything that comes from Mark out of Matthew and Luke and compare the rest we find that they have a large collection of sayings in common and this is what the scholars call Q. The remainder of the material in Matthew and Luke (ie that which is unique) is often referred to as M (Matthew) and L (Luke). The Q material in Matthew comprises five clearly defined blocks of sayings which include the Sermon on the Mount. Luke spreads the sayings throughout his gospel in a different order from Matthew. My belief is that the above definition of Quelle is not exactly correct. It is clear that both authors omitted parts of Q and so some of M and L should be ascribed to Q, if we can work out exactly what. Firstly, looking at M we discover that most of it is stuff that Matthew invented apart from a small number of sayings from the Sermon on the Mount. I believe that these sayings should be ascribed to Q rather than M.They were just hings that Luke omitted. Again Luke contains a truncated version of Sermon on the Mount, called Sermon on the Plain, which has four verses not in M and which surely must be ascribed to Q, rather than L. Three of these verses are beatitudes in reverse and seem to belong with the Sermon on the Mount. LUKE 6:24 But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation. 6:25 But woe to you who are filled now, for you will be hungry. Woe to you who laugh now, for you will grieve and weep. 6:26 Woe to you when all speak well of you, for their ancestors treated the false prophets in this way. There are quite possibly verses which both Luke and Matthew omitted. I think it is possible to track down this Q document. There was a Gospel of Matthew known about in antiquity which is generally thought to be the cannonical gospel but may, in fact, be Q. I quote from The Roman Catholic Encyclopedia. (Eusebius was a fourth century church historian who quotes from a lost work of Papias who dates approx 70 to 140 CE.) According to Eusebius (Hist. eccl., 111, xxxix, 16), Papias said that Matthew collected (synetaxato; or, according to two manuscripts, synegraphato, composed) ta logia (the oracles or maxims of Jesus) in the Hebrew (Aramaic) language, and that each one translated them as best he could. In order to avoid confusion with the cannonical Matthew let us call this QMatthew. The first point to note is that this is a collection of sayings and may well be in the same style as Thomas. The word synegraphato can also be said to mean ‘written down’ hence we have a parallel with the preamble to Thomas which also says that the sayings were written. It is quite possible that Matthew wrote down verbatim to produce this collection of sayings. 22

We note that the RC dictionary says that the sayings were written in Hebrew (Aramaic). It is probable that Aramaic is to be preferred. Hebrew was a language confined to the synogogues and formal religious practice in Palestine. (There is in existence a Hebrew version of Matthew and some commentators equate this with the above (Q-Matthew). I do not believe that Q-Matthew and Hebrew Matthew were the same.) What I believe to be the case is that an unknown writer combined Mark and Q-Matthew and added a few inventions to produce canonnical Matthew, which got its name from the fact that Q-Matthew was included in it. This would explain why the ancients considered Matthew to be the first gospel written. It was actually Q-Matthew that came first. It would also explain why Q was lost. It would not be required once enshrined in Matthew. My understanding is that this theory has been accepted by a few scholars but rejected by many, although I don’t know the reasoning. e) Other Quelles It is somewhat difficult to find clear guidance regsrding the existence of other collections of sayings I will note the following possibilities. i) Q-Mark There are unique sayings in Mark (which also have been copied into Matthew and Luke.) Mark may have copied them from Q or obtained them from another source. ii) Q-Luke. Luke contains a large block of unique material between verses 9.51 and 18.14. I doubt if it was material from Q which Matthew omitted. It seems to be a separate collection. iii) Q-John. John contains a large bulk of unique saying attributed to Jesus. Of these some may be considered to have provenance because of the presence of an oratorical catchphrase. The bulk are in a different style and do not (generally) include the catchphrase. I’ll discuss this matter in detail in my article on John. f) The letters of Paul Paul’s letters to various dispara congregations are older than the gospels, dating from a few years after the death of Christ. They were written in excellent Greek and were intended to be read and copied. We can be sure that we have an accurate record of these documents. Scholars agree that some of the letters attributed to Paul are not genuine. There are some other letters from other disciples, many of which can be taken as genuine, however, apart from the letter of James, they are not particularly pertinent to this study.

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g) The four gospels.

c) Mark

The four canonical gospels (Mark, Matthew, Luke, and John) are virtually the whole source of our knowledge of Jesus. Mark, Matthew and Luke are called synoptic (a term I defined briefly above) and are related. The most widely accepted theory concerning the relationship between the synoptics is the Two Source theory. This states that Mark was the first to be written. Subsequently Matthew and Luke were written independently of each other. Matthew and Luke each had available editions of Mark and Q which both included in their gospels. (Because of a few differences between Matthew and Luke I believe that they had variant editions of Mark.) Matthew and Luke made editorial changes to their sources partly to improve Mark’s poor grammer and partly to express a changing theological climate. Both Matthew and Luke added inventions of their own which probably have little relationship to fact. The most obvious of these are the variant nativity stories. This theory has the majority of scholarly acceptance and is suitable enough for our purposes.however there are problems. One is that in a small number of cases Matthew and Luke altered the Marcian source in exactly the same way. This is capable of explanation on the assumption that later copyists made changes in order to produce a concordance between gospels. My electronic copy of the New American Bible points out various cases where older manuscripts do not have verses present in later manuscripts and asserts that these appear to have come from a different gospel. The oldest complete editions of the New Testament date circa 400 CE so there would be plenty of time for changes to occur. One of these editions, called the Codex Sinacticus, has a passage that asserts that Jesus got angry with someone whereas the later editions say ‘compassionate’. Hence it appears that changes for theological reasons were continuing even after 400 CE. so, although there are many theories and opinions, we don’t know exactly when, where, or exactly by whom the gospels were originally written. It is necessary to note that they were written for the Gentile Church founded by Paul and were hence one step away from the Jewish culture of Jesus. There are a number of variant systems to explain the relationship between the synoptics. The whole subject has created screeds and screeds of theological argument. One major point of dissent I have with all gospels is an anti-Jewish bias which appears to have been motivated by rivalry between two arms of the early Church and by the fact that the author’s were living in an environment dominated by Rome which was engaged in conflict with Israel. Because the Jewish arm of the original church was diminished by the war with the Romans there is perhaps a Jewish side to the story which has been lost. I discount the synoptic accounts of the trial of Jesus and much of the interview with Pilate. The picture of the Jews howling for Jesus blood and the incident with Barabbas appear to be gross distortions. (I discuss these points later.)

Like all the New Testament, Mark was written in a vernacular form of Greek called Koine, the common tongue of the diaspora. Indications as to the source of Mark come from antiquity. The church historian, Eusebius of Caesarea (mentioned above), quotes Papias who quotes from an unidentified source (a church elder) that: ‘Mark, being Peter’s interpreter, wrote down accurately, but not in order, that which he remembered of what was said and done by the Lord.’ (Peter here is Simon Peter, the disciple). It is fairly clear that Mark collected information from other sources, which were freely available at the time but have since been lost. Papias’s opinion was that Mark was the John Mark, cousin of Barnabas, mentioned in Acts. Modern scholarship tends to doubt the above authorship.I am not familiar with such scholarship. Eusebius’ simple account seems reasonable to me. I can accept that the narrative part of Mark could have been obtained in the manner suggested because it does appear to be a truncated version of events, giving a ministry of just one year. It can be compared with John which gives a three year ministry and a different order of events (e.g. the cleansing of the temple.) There are other theories as to who Mark was. One source suggests that he was a Jerusalem Jew (because an ancient manuscript of the gospel spelt a particular word in a variant way that was only current in Jerusalem). Another writer points out that Mark did not have a good knowledge of Palestine geography, hence his information is unlikely to have come from Peter. There are times when Mark seems to be explaining Jewish customs to a gentile audience and times where he displays an ignorance of Jewish law. These problems may be the results of editorial changes to the original manuscript and a miltiplicity of sources. Opinion is that the book was written in either Rome or Syria. Mark took on a very anti-Jew, proRoman stance in order to appease the Roman anti-Jew sentiments of the time and because of the conflict between the Gentile and Jewish arms of the early church. It is a simple, unadorned account which I find reasonably convincing except for the Jew bashing, the trial of Jesus and the record of Judas Iscariot. One aspect of Mark is that, stylistically and grammatically, it was poorly written, something which is not obvious to the readers of translations as the errors are usually silently corrected by the translator. In spite of the bad grammar Mark does have an immediacy and simple dramatic force. In many cases it appears closer to the unadorned truth than the later gospels and some simple and down to earth statements embarrass the dogma of the Church. (For example Jesus is described as having brothers and sisters, somewhat at variance with the church’s view that his mother was a perpetual virgin.)

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d) Matthew Scholarly opinion is that Matthew was the second gospel to be written. (It is probable that all gospels were written in the first century CE, however there is great dispute as to exactly when.) Matthew relies heavily on Mark and includes virtually all of it. Matthew being probably a more scholarly person takes steps to correct Mark’s grammar and to paraphrase in a more literary fashion. He also alters and expands certain passages in order to concur with the changing theological climate as initiated by Paul of Tarsus. The information we have from antiquity is that the disciple Matthew wrote the gospel, however modern scholarship rejects this and I agree. One would hardly expect the disciple to copy a narrative out of another book, but to tell his own story. I have discussed above my theories concerning Q-Matthew and how the gospel came to be named. Exactly whom it was that wrote the gospel has not been established. In addition to Q there are a number of passages unique to Matthew (not in Mark or Luke). These are sometimes designated the letter M. One should be careful about M because some of the unique passages are clearly inventions of the author. Apparently ‘Matthew’ wished to prove that Old Testament predictions had been fulfilled in Jesus so he inserted ‘midrashic’ OT events into the story he had received from Mark. The most notable of these are the nativity story and the death of Judas Iscariot..There is also a ludicrous, and frequently commented on, picture of Jesus riding into Jerusalem astride two donkeys, caused by Matthew’s misreading of the OT source.) (Many authors have pointed out the parallels between these stories and stories in the Old testament These inventions can be easily related back to episodes in the OT and are considered by most Biblical scholars to be inventions. See Spong – Born of a Woman.) Apart from the above two they are mostly short expansions, which can be easily identified. Matthew also tends to darken the crimes of Iscariot and the Jews. M also contains a few unique sayings from the Sermon on the Mount. As I mention above these are probably verses from Q which Luke omitted.

e) Luke Luke is considered to have been the third gospel written. Church tradition from antiquity attributes this gospel to “Luke, the beloved physician” (Colossians 4:14), one of the “fellow workers” (Philemon 1:24) mentioned by Saint Paul. The same tradition also attributes to Luke The Acts of the Apostles, which, is accepted by most modern scholars. It is not actually certain where it was written. The author had a very poor knowledge of the geography and customs of Palestine suggesting that he was a Gentile writing for a Gentile audience. 26

Like Matthew, Luke appears to be a combination of Mark and Q though arranged in a different order. There are good reasons for believing that Luke was not aware of the existence of Matthew, (which I believe) although some scholars would dispute this. There are also unique passages in Luke which appear to have validity, particularly in chapters 10 to 19 which contain a considerable amount of unique material including stories of the sending and return of the 70 disciples, of Martha and Mary, and of the rich tax collector Zacchaeus; and the parables of the good Samaritan, of the lost coin, of the prodigal son and the rich man and Lazarus. This material is often referred to as L. In general Luke is less inclined to alter his sources than Matthew. Luke does make changes to the Marcian source in instances where it is necessary to throw a bad light on Iscariot or the Jews. There are some minor differences between the Marcian parts of Matthew and Luke. It appears that Luke had a variant edition of Mark. The possibility of the existance of variant editions of Mark in antiquity would explain many of the problems of concordance between the synoptic gospels. f) John John presents an independent story from the synoptics. Ecclesiastical tradition from the second century says that the gospel was written by the disciple John. Modern scholarly opinion is divided on the authorship, some agreeing with received tradition, some asserting a variety of alternative authors. John is written in good Greek and has a literary flavour. It seems unlikely that it would come from the pen of a humble Galilean peasant. Nevertheless it contains some sharply observed scenes which have a ring of authenticity about them. Also the knowledge of geography and customs of Palestine are accurate. eg (JOHN 5:2 Now there is in Jerusalem at the Sheep (Gate) * a pool called in Hebrew Bethesda, with five porticoes. *NAB NOTE Five porticoes: a pool excavated in Jerusalem actually has five porticoes.) It is a strange combination of long treatises of philosophy, apparently from Jesus’s mouth, but written in a style quite different from his other sayings in the synoptics or the Gospel of Thomas, mixed in with intimate and apparently accurate episodes from Jesus’s life. Because the treatises have a Greek flavour the opinion has been expressed that it was written by a scholarly Greek who had access to eyewitness recollections from the disciple John. Since the discovery of the Death Sea Scrolls several writers have drawn attention to similarities between the content of those scrolls and the treatises. This indicates that the author may have been an Essene and further cements links we will note between Jesus and the sect. There are certain aspects of John at variance with the synoptics. a) a chronology of three years for the ministry with several visits to Jerusalem for festivals, 27

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b) the date of the occurrence of overturning the moneylenders tables at the temple, c) the events after the arrest at Gethsemane. In all these cases I find that John is preferable. To me there are four aspects to John: 1) Some keenly observed recounting of historical events, which must have come from the disciple. We note that John gives a more reasonable chronology than the synoptics, covering three years, including several visits to Jerusalem for religious festivals. There are various well reported incidents such as the wedding at Cana, conversations with Nicodemus and with the Samaritan woman at the well, as well as lectures in the temple, all of which have a ring of truth. 2) There is a good deal of philosophical pondering, often contained in long discourses. I note very sparse use of ‘oratorical catchphrases’ in these passages which indicates that they may not have been a record of what was actually said. As I mention above it has been suggested that the author of these passages was not John, but someone who had been influenced by Greek or Essene thought. Consideration of the above two points have lead to the suggestion that John was written by a scholarly person who had access to memorial reports from the Disciple John and this, I believe, to be closest to the truth. 3) While most of John is independent of the synoptics there are certain passages where their content is reflected. This pertains particularly to the treatment of Judas Iscariot and to reportage of the interview with Pilate and subsequent events. I don’t hold a lot of reliance on these particular passages and find it strange that they should follow the synoptics. I believe that it is quite possible that these are later editorial additions or alterations. (I discuss these points in detail in later chapters.) 4) Chapter 21 appears to be a postscript from another hand.

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2.3 Josephus and other historical sources. Flavius Josephus was a Jewish historian in the first century. His dates are 37 to about 100 CE. He was involved in the Jewish uprising CA 70 but believed it was a lost cause so went over to the Romans and wrote his histories under their patronage. His major works are The Antiquities and The War of the Jews. Antiquities covers the period from the creation to the term of the governor Florus, whose harsh measures instigated the revolution CA 70CE. The War… covers the period from the Maccabean revolution, about 170 BCE, to the capture of Masada in 73 CE. The period 170 BCE to 70 CE is covered by both histories giving variant reports of certain events. Josephus took the task of writing history seriously however concern has been expressed about bias and accuracy. In gathering information from Jewish sources he would have accepted reports which were biased against the Romans and this may influence his picture of Pontius Pilate. (More later.) I believe Josephus can be relied upon but has little to add to the Gospel reports concerning Jesus. I refer to the Testimonium Flavium (Antiquities 8.3.3) in the article on Pontius Pilate (article 4.2.) There is also a report concerning a mis-trial and stoning of James, the brother of Jesus and leader of the Jerusalem ‘church’. (Antiquities 20.9.1) Josephus, while his mentions of Jesus are brief, provides a good deal of historical and social background and information concerning some of the central characters in our drama There are other historical sources, which I mention in the body of the text, however these are somewhat distant from the events they describe and a query must be placed on their reliability. In particular I refer to The Embassy to Caligula by the philosopher, Philo of Alexandria. The Talmud, post Old Testament Jewish religious literature, has references to Jesus which are believed to be authentic. These add little to our knowledge except to confirm the miracles and the John chronology of the last supper. (Jesus is also referred to as the bastard son of a Roman soldier, Pantera, which possibility need not concern us here.)

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3 – The Society. In this chapter I give a very brief and incomplete summary of the historical, political, religious and social forces which surrounded Jesus’s life. Naturally every article in this chapter would deserve a book in itself, and in fact there are several thousand books already written. I hope that I have been able to isolate the important points. I believe that it is essential to place Jesus correctly in his native time and place. There is a modern conception that Jesus was not a Jew, that he lost his nationality when the religion he started did. I am mindful of the (true) story of the Southern (USA) dignitary who said that he spoke English and if that was good enough for Jesus, it was good enough for him. It is important to remember that Jesus was a devout and patriotic Jew and that his thought derived from the Jewish culture of the second temple era.

3.1 A brief history of the Jews. Jews are members of a group of peoples called Semites, generally the peoples of the Middle East, with affinities to the Arabs and other races of that area. The main source of their history is recorded in the Old Testament of the Bible. We can assume that this approximates a factual record. The myths, recorded in Genesis, concerning the creation of the universe, Adam and Eve, Noah’s flood and theTower of Babel are too well known to be repeated here. They probably have some basis on history. The Jews count time from the creation and extrapolate using the geneologies in the Old Testament, which makes the year zero about 5000 years ago. The first piece of real history concerning the Israelites in early times concerns the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob who appear to have come from Syria and settled in Canaan (now called Israel) about 2300 BCE. (A variant of Jacob’s name, ‘Israel’ gives ‘Israelites’.) Abraham is said to have founded the race of the Jews as the result of God’s benison, however in practice it was probably not as simple as this. At this time there were several nomadic tribes in Canaan who had family and social affiliations with the patriarchs. Abraham also had contacts with Egypt. About 200 years after his death the tribe he founded went there as the result of a famine and settled peaceably in the district of Gessen, east of the Delta. About 500 years later the political climate in Egypt changed and the Israelites became severely oppressed, were treated as slaves and subject to population control by means of infanticide. Eventually a charismatic leader, Moses, arose and lead his people out of Egypt. I have read an interesting book by Ian Wilson, The Exodus Enigma, which relates the plagues, parting of the waters and pillars of cloud and fire to a huge volcanic eruption in the Mediterranean. 30

After forty years of wandering in the Sinai desert the Israelites, now lead by Joshua, entered Canaan, the Promised Land, and began a process of conquest and integration. After the death of Joshua came the period of Judges where the various tribes went their own ways. There were intertribal conflicts between Jewish tribes and with the independent Canaanites. This period ended with King David who united the kingdom and conquered the remaining territories. David also took Jerusalem and set it up as the capital city. David’s son Solomon built the first temple in Jerusalem and entered an era of prosperity, however, because of his attachment to worldly things this disintegrated and after his death Israel reverted to intertribal dissidence. The time here about 1000 BCE. There were various degrees of success in uniting the country and dealing with external incursions over the next four hundred years until, about 600 BCE, the Babylonians, under King Nebuchadnezzar, took Jerusalem after a siege, razed it and destroyed the temple. Many Israelites were deported to Babylon and wept by the waters there. (This, known as the ‘Babylonian Exile’, is the start of the Diaspora which continued subsequently as a result of various conquests and emigrations.) About forty years later Babylon was conquered by Persia and the new ruler, Cyrus the Great, allowed the Jews (as they were now called) back home. Work began rebuilding the temple and repairing the city defences. This is actually the Second Temple although the term is used to refer also to the rebuilding undertaken by Herod. The next ‘conquest’ was that of Alexander the Great, about 300 BCE, although this was relatively benign, more or less a take over as a result of defeating the Persian empire. This did result in contact with Greek thought and custom, which was readily accepted by many in the upper class but rejected by the masses. On the death of Alexander the situation was confused and Israel became a bone of contention between the Egyptian and Syrian Kings. Eventually Antilochus, the Syrian king, tried to enforce Greek customs on the Jews, which resulted in the popular Maccabean uprising and liberation of Israel. About 165 BCE. This independence lasted until about 60 BCE when infighting between Maccabean leaders gave the Romans the chance to conquer the country. Eventually Antipater and his son Herod the Great ingratiated themselves with the Romans and Herod was appointed King. Herod was not a true Jew and was a cruel, insane and ambitious person. He was hated by his subjects. He embarked on many building projects including grandiose reconstruction of the temple. When he died (4 BCE) there was civil unrest and the Romans replaced his rule by Roman governors, or Prefects, in the South and Herod’s son Antipas in Galilee. Jesus was crucified about 30 to 35 CE by the army under governor Pontius Pilate. About 65 CE an unpopular governor, Florus, oppressed the people which lead to a revolution. This was put down ruthlessly by the Romans and in 70 CE Jerusalem was taken, the temple destroyed and most of the population of Judaea wiped out. According to the gospels Jesus foresaw these events. Of course Jewish history continued but this need not concern us here. 31

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3.2 The Jewish religion. Jews are credited with developing the concept of one single God, (although the Hindu concept of Brahmin is, to me, a more satisfactory realisation, and may well have come earlier.) Originally Semitic beliefs would have involved the standard primitive pantheon and how the concept of One God evolved out of the pantheon is unclear. Even so God, in His singular form, has gone through many changes which are evident from reading the bible. Refer to the humorous story Little Black Girl in Search of God by G.B. Shaw and A Biography of God by Jack Miles (Touchstone) for a detailed exposition of this evolution. All I can give here is a brief description of the Jewish concept of God. Although God was the creator of the whole of heaven and earth he had a soft spot for the Jewish race. When we first meet Abraham (or Abram as he was initially called) in Genesis, he had a special relationship with God, who would come and talk to him, tell him what to do and lay down certain Laws, such as circumcision God made a covenant with Abraham and set him up as the father of a nation, even though he was ninety-nine, childless and had a ninety year old wife. From that time God treated the race with special care. They became His chosen people. It was during the Exodus from Egypt, under the influence of Moses that the special place of the One God was established. Other races might grovel in idolatry but the Jews were punished for it in order to keep alive the revealed religion which represented God as the true object of their devotion. Hence any misfortunes that befell them were regarded as God’s punishment for their sins and His desire to recall His people to the observance of the Law. To a large degree God was peculiar to the Jews, however there was always the hope that, one day, all people would come to recognise Jewish law and the Jewish God. It was by devotion to this principle, and the strict compliance with the ritual prescriptions of the Law, that the Jewish people have retained their identity for so long – over four thousand years. On many occasions conquerors have respected their beliefs and permitted religious freedom, however on those occasions when the beliefs were challenged Jews were prepared to undergo severe persecution rather than abandon them. It was this patriotic fervour which gave rise to the popular Maccabean revolution and later to the disastrous war of 70 CE. These fierce persecutions confirmed instead of destroyed their belief in the true God. The Jews, of course, believed that the Law had been delivered direct from God to Abraham and Moses. My belief is that it was invented by Moses, and other lawmakers, and presented to the people as having come from God. This Law, in order to be effective, had to be strictly enforced. The Law was originally developed to maintain the morality and integrity of the race, a necessity for survival, however by the time of Jesus it was the letter, rather than the spirit, that had become enforced with a rigour which gave rise to a narrow “legalism”. The mere external compliance with ritual observances gradually superseded the higher claims 32

of conscience; the Prophet was replaced by the “scribe” , the dry interpreter of the Law. When Jesus came along he protested against this approach. This is epitomised, for example, in his succinct statement: “The Sabbath is made for man, not man for the Sabbath,” something which got him into trouble with the authorities. It is also responsible for his many statements against the ‘Scribes and Pharisees’ who were the source of this inflexible interpretation.

3.3 The Sanhedrin. One should understand that in the society of the time religious and civil law were not differentiated and were administered by the one body, the Sanhedrin. The Sanhedrin, which met in the temple in Jerusalem, was a kind of combination of Parliament and law court. It was responsible for passing laws, however in order to do so it required popular approval. It was also responsible for criminal trials. Many administrative decisions were also made by the Sanhedrin, such as for public projects etc. The Jews did not have a party political system however the members of the Sanhedrin were of various ‘political/religious’ persuasions, It is not known exactly how it arose and certain details of its functioning have been lost. There were various councils throughout Jewish history, starting with the Council of the seventy Elders founded by Moses. (NUMBERS. 11:16 Then the LORD said to Moses, “Assemble for me seventy of the elders of Israel, men you know for true elders and authorities among the people, and bring them to the meeting tent.”) The first certain reference to the Council, as it existed in Jesus’s time, is in Josephus. The Sanhedrin ceased to exist after the war of 70 CE. A full council of seventy-one was made up of priests (Sadducces and Pharisees), lawyers (scribes) and prominent citizens. It is not known how members were elected, however in the time of Jesus the president (called high priest) was appointed by the Roman governor. The high priest was usually selected from an extended family of the priestly class who were Sadduces (see below). There was a smaller sub-council of twenty-three selected members for criminal trials. There was no jury and guilt or innocence was determined by majority vote of members, with a majority of two required for a guilty verdict. The council operated according to fairly clearly defined procedures although specific details of these are not always available to us. As far as legal jurisdiction is concerned I believe the Romans gave the Sanhedrin almost complete control over civil matters, however reserved the right to crucify political offenders and those involved in civil disobedience. There is some dispute as to whether the council was able to execute capital offenders and most references indicate that they were. This is countered by one statement in John, which seems to me to be an invention to explain something he did not understand - why the Jews brought Jesus to Pilate in the morning for execution. Executions prosecuted under Jewish 33

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law were normally carried out by stoning, burning and other methods but not generally by crucifixion (although this did occur.)

3.4 The Scribes At the time of Jesus the scribes were the professional interpreters of the Law. Lawyers in fact. They operated in the synagogues, in the temple and on the Sanhedrin. Their origin dates from the return from the Babylon Exile. The profession subsequently grew as a result of the formal and legalistic trend of Jewish piety. The Law was revered as the precise expression of God’s will, and by its prescriptions the daily life of every Jew was regulated in minute detail. But the rules were numerous, complex, and often obscure hence scribes came into being whose special occupation was to study and expound the Law. As time went on they neglected the deeper and more spiritual aspects of the Law, and reduced it with didactic pedantry, devoting their attention to quibbles and points of law. Their teaching was characterised by a slavish literalism with an ever-accumulating mass of legal traditions and legal decisions . Things don’t seem to have changed much.

3.5 Pharisees Josephus, in Antiquities 18.2.3, gives a description of the Pharisees. As the wording is somewhat tortuous so I have paraphrased it as follows: They live a simple life, follow reason, attempt to put it into practice and do what they think is the good. They care for, and respect the opinions of, the aged. When they see events that are the result of fate they do not stop men from intervening. They see this fate as God’s will but that does not prevent men from acting independently. They believe that souls are immortal and, after death are treated, under the ground, according to their deeds on earth. The evil are retained permanently in prison but the good revive and live again. (This seems to infer reincarnation and is somewhat similar to Hindu beliefs.) Because of these beliefs they are able to influence the people as to their religious practice. They are respected for their virtuous conduct in life and discourse. The sect grew from the influence of the ideas of Ezra, the holy priest and doctor of the law, who returned to Jerusalem after the Babylonian Exile and found it necessary to re-establish order and proper adherence to religious principles. You might say that Ezra was the first scribe. In order to keep the Jewish race pure he caused inter-racial marriages to be dissolved. Among the Jews there then began to arise the sense that they were a race superior to their idolatrous, heathen 34

neighbours and should maintain their separateness from them, hence the name, which means ‘separation from heathens’. The movement grew with the reaction to the newly introduced Hellenism, as a result of the ‘conquest’ by Alexander, which was threatening Judaism. (About 300 BCE ). Pharisees came into still greater prominence during the popular Maccabean uprising .They were called “pious men”, sometimes the Jewish Puritans. Their actions in maintaining the Jewish culture were important and there were many martyrs to the cause. Eventually, because of their popular support, they became the most potent political force in Israel. However when the Romans took power, about 60 BCE, the reason for their existence diminished because the Romans had a policy of not interfering with local customs. As we know power corrupts and in time the high ideals mentioned by Josephus above became undermined. Also we might expect that people with a love of wealth and power might infiltrate into the movement because it was the source of power and that the standards of behaviour of such individuals would not be as lofty as the originators. In time many Pharisees became attached to worldly pleasures and paid mere lip service to sacred rites. In addition most of the scribes were also Pharisees and their rigid devotion to the letter of the law also became associated with the sect. Jesus’s was very scathing in his criticism of the Scribes and Pharisees because of their rigorous adherence to form and their falling away from high ideals. You may wish to read Matthew 23 or its equivalent in Luke 11:37-54 where he gives a ranting, fire and brimstone sermon denouncing this aspect of their conduct. For example: Woe to you Pharisees! You pay tithes of mint and of rue and of every garden herb, but you pay no attention to judgment and to love for God. These you should have done, without overlooking the others. (Luke 11:42) Even so he is shown as having good relations with certain individual members of the sect and no doubt appreciated that not all members were corrupt. For example the time when Herod Antipas was seeking to arrest him. At that time some Pharisees came to him and said, “Go away, leave this area because Herod wants to kill you.” ( Luke13:31)

3.6 Sadducees To quote directly from Josephus. Antiquities 18.1.4. But the doctrine of the Sadducees is this: That souls die with the bodies; nor do they regard the observation of any thing besides what the law enjoins them; for they think it an instance of virtue to dispute with those teachers of philosophy whom they frequent: but this doctrine is received but by a few, yet by those still of the greatest dignity. But they are able to do almost nothing 35

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of themselves; for when they become magistrates, as they are unwillingly and by force sometimes obliged to be, they addict themselves to the notions of the Pharisees, because the multitude would not otherwise bear them. The Sadducees were the priestly aristocratic party, centred in Jerusalem. They were said to be the decendents of Zardok (from which the name may have derived), the high priest to King David. They accepted as scripture only the first five books of the Old Testament (Pentateuch), followed only the letter of the law, rejected the oral legal traditions, and were opposed to teachings not found in the Pentateuch, such as the resurrection of the dead. The Sadducees were in possession of considerable wealth and power, and this was a position they sought to maintain. They were in direct contrast to the Pharisees, however, as they sought to maintain this power by collaboration with the various occupying powers even to the point of accepting foreign customs. While they would have been respected for their prestige as priests they were disliked by the majority of fervent patriots who said that their collaboration was in order to maintain their position of authority. While this may be true to some degree it is not to say that the Sadducees were not patriotic. There is an advantage in going to bed with the enemy because it minimises the possibility of conflict. And in any conflict it would be the Jews that would be likely to suffer most. (This is a position which is voiced by the high priest, Joseph Caiaphas, in the gospel of John, as I shall discuss later.) Sadducees were somewhat akin to politicians today. They held the power, but they had to obey the law and could be vulnerable to concerted displays of civil disobedience. Like our current politicians they were never fully trusted by the people.

abhorred contact with oil, which they considered impure. They were always dressed in white. It is also noted that they wore linen on certain occasions. One point of importance is that they kept a different calendar from orthodox Jews and because of this their festivals were often held on different days. They came into being about 200 BCE. It is thought that their philosophy was influenced by outside ideas and that, perhaps, they spoke Greek. Because they became involved in the Jewish war of 66-70 CE the settlement at Qumran was wiped out by the Romans in 68 CE. (The Dead Sea Scrolls have revealed that there was a warlike side to their nature.) This was virtually the end of the Essenes (although a modern day sect has emerged which uses that name.) They are not mentioned in the New Testament. Recent studies of the Dead Sea Scrolls, ancient documents found in caves near Qumran, have shed new light on the Essenes and a possible link with Jesus. This is a matter of some dispute among scholars, depending on their religious affiliation. However it has been suggested that there was concordance between Jesus’s teaching and that of the Essenes. Firstly there are some aspects of Essene philosophy that Jesus promotes. Secondly there are other aspects that Jesus is diametrically opposed to. These oppositions are always in the direction of greater felicity. It reads as though Jesus studied Essene thought at one stage and subsequently left the group to go his own way. The issue is somewhat clouded and there have been books and articles written on the subject. It is an interesting study, however I do not have space to elaborate further here. A book entitled ‘Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls’ by Professor James H. Charlesworth gives a excellent comparison between the views of Jesus and those of the Essenes.

3.7 Essenes

3.8 Nazarene.

There are a number of ancient sources describing the Essenes, which I summarise briefly here. They were a monastic all male sect, of about four thousand, who lived mainly an austere celibate religious life. The main settlement has been located at Qumran, not far from the Dead Sea, although there were members who lived in the wider community and were permitted to marry. They believed that God created everything and that souls were immortal. They didn’t believe in burnt temple offerings but sent gifts there instead. Because of this they were not permitted to enter the temple area. Their religious practice appeared to revolve around study, ritual and baptism. They lived a communal life with common ownership of property. Certain ‘stewards’ (members I assume) were appointed to handle finances and to prepare food for the group. Generally all members worked from dawn to dusk at their trade or prescribed occupation, with set intervals for ritual meals. They had very strict rules and regulations and infractions incurred excommunication on a temporary or permanent basis. They were vegetarian and

There is a difference of opinion among scholars concerning the meaning of this term. The gospels note quite clearly that Jesus came from Nazareth, a small town in Galilee and the word Nazareth is used specifically in respect of the town. At other points Jesus is referred to as Nazarene. In translation this term is usually rendered as ‘from Nazareth’, which according to the Catholic Encyclopedia is the only reasonable meaning. Some writers have asserted that the term referred to a sect to which Jesus belonged and that Jesus and his followers were all termed Nazarenes. A similarity with the word ‘Essene’, and common roots in Hebrew have also been pointed out. Proponents of this also infer that Jesus could not have come from Nazareth anyway as it did not exist in his time. It was not included in a contemporary census, performed by Josephus, however archaeological evidence for its existence has recently been unearthed and, as we have noted above, Nazareth is specifically mentioned as a town in the Gospels.

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In the apocryphal Gnostic Gospel of Phillip, from the Nag Hammadi cashe, the word ‘nazarene’ is defined with respect to Jesus as one who reveals what is hidden. It says later that “Nazara” is “the Truth”. “The Nazarene” then, is “the Truth”. This indicates a quality in Jesus rather than membership of a particular sect. This is just one of those unanswered questions which plague the study.

was regarded as the centre of these groups. It was the policy of the Romans to put down any rebellion with extreme measures and these usually involved crucifixion of the revolutionaries involved .The matter is not completely clear but I believe that the Romans did not crucify ordinary criminals but left administration of local law to local authorities. (The two ‘thieves’ crucified with Jesus were mistranslations, they were revolutionaries.)

3.9 Nazarites

3.11 The Temple

One should be aware of the similarity to the term Nazarene. However a Nazarite is not member of a particular sect but is a person of any advocation who, either temporarily or permanently, is specially consecrated to God. The requirements for a Nazarite are set out clearly in Numbers 6:1-21. A Nazarite may have no contact with vineyard products, nor the razor, nor cadavers. It is fairly obvious that Jesus was not a Nazarite because of frequent references to his consumption of wine and his habit of reviving the dead. Even so some members of his following took Nazarite vows after the crucifixion.

Books have been written on the temple in Jerusalem and any public library should be able to provide more complete information than I have space for here. The purpose of the temple was to house the Ark of the Covenant, a large box containing the letters of the Law which Moses had (allegedly) obtained from God. Prior to this it had been housed in a large tent and on one occasion had actually been lost and then found again. At this point in time it appears to be permanently lost. The first temple was built by Solomon on a high point in the city, which was also the place where Abraham was reputed to have intendeded to sacrifice his son Jacob. It was destroyed during the Babylonian conquest and subsequently rebuilt after the return from Exile. The temple which existed at the time of Jesus was this temple substantially rebuilt by Herod the Great. The first thing he did was to build a huge wall of blocks of stone around the temple mount and fill it with earth to create a flat surface. This wall is still in place and part of it, near where the temple was actually sited, is revered by modern Jews as the Wailing Wall. The temple was housed in an enclosure on the temple mount and Gentiles were not allowed within it on pain of death. At the entrance to this enclosure was the court of women, which was as far as women were allowed to go. You then ascended some steps to another court before the temple proper, which contained a huge altar on which the sacrifices were burned. The temple itself was a magnificent edifice, but I won’t go into details of its construction here. Surrounding the temple enclosure and the women’s court was a large court, taking up the majority of the space of the temple mount, called the Court of Gentiles. Along the eastern length of the court, close by the wall, was a colonnade of pillars supporting a roof. This is referred to in the New Testament as Solomon’s Porch and Jesus is reported as teaching there. Apparently this was the Hyde Park of Jerusalem. Along the south wall was a larger colonnade with administrative offices on the roof, called the Royal Porch. This was the place where the money changers and sellers of sacrifice had their stands. There were broad steps up to this area which was also a place of discourse. There was a large complex of water cisterns, stables and caverns under the mount.

3.10 Local politics At the time of Jesus’s life and death, Israel was a Province of the Roman Empire. It was divided into three parts. The northern part, Galilee, was the place where Jesus was (probably) born and (certainly) raised. Galilee was a fertile area and agricultural products and fish were the source of its prosperity. It had its own ethnic peculiarities. The people were swarthy and spoke with a pronounced local accent which set them apart from other Jews. Galilee was semi independent and was ruled by Herod Antipas, a son of Herod the Great, who had been appointed by the Romans. The central area, Samaria, was governed by the Roman Prefect. Samaritans had their own customs and centre of worship, but were nevertheless Jewish. There was considerable enmity between Samaritans and other Jews. You might describe the relationship as similar to that between modern Jews and Palistinians. This enmity is the point of Jesus’s story of the Good Samaritan, this being that relationships should not be affected by the differences between parochial groups. Judea, to the south, contained Jerusalem, the capital city and centre of religion. This was also governed by the Roman Prefect, who was Pontius Pilate at the time of Jesus’s death. Civil matters in Judea were normally under the control of the Sanhedrin. Jerusalem would be regarded as the centre of sophistication and the inhabitants would look upon Galileans as country yokels. The Jews (naturally) resented the Roman presence and there were a number of patriotic guerilla groups engaged in opposing the Roman occupation. Galilee 38

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3.12 Messiah. At the time the Jews had the expectation that a Messiah would arise in their midst. This was based on Old Testament prophesies. There were many ideas prevalent as to actually what the Messiah would be but the general consensus was that he would lead the Jewish people to a bright future. I believe the concept was based on the personality and achievements of King David who was a warrior and religious leader. Some thought that the Messiah might be a warrior general, some a wise king, some an enlightened religious leader. There was also, buried in the Old Testament, the concept of a suffering servant, someone who would die to save the people. All the prophesies stated that the Messiah would be of the line of King David and would be born in Bethlehem (David’s city). John states that Jesus was neither of these. Matthew and Luke have genealogies and nativity narratives which state the opposite, but appear to be fabricated. The modern idea of Messiah as applied by the Church differs from the original Jewish concept. One particular prophesy which may concern Jesus is found in Daniel: 9:24 Seventy weeks are decreed for your people and for your holy city: Then transgression will stop and sin will end, guilt will be expiated. Everlasting justice will be introduced, vision and prophecy ratified, and a most holy will be anointed. The seventy weeks mentioned here is actually seventy times seven, or 490, years and is dated approximately from the time of the return from the Babylonian exile. If one takes as the starting point the year when Ezra returned (457 BCE) then this prophesy will be fulfilled in 33 CE, which may well be the year of the Passion. It is speculated in The Jesus Dynasty by James D. Tabor that Jesus may have believed that he was fulfilling this prophesy (pp143-4.) The NAB adds the following note to the above verse: The Fathers of the Church almost unanimously understood the reference to be to Christ, the final realization of the prophecy. It is also speculated that the uprising of 66-70 CE was also motivated in part by this prophesy. In neither case did God come to the aid of his chosen people. In the former the Messiah was crucified and things went on much the same as usual, in the latter the Jewish people in Israel were virtually wiped out.

3.13 Languages. Aramaic was the language of Syria, widely used as a lingua franca by the Jews. This was the language Jesus and his followers generally spoke. The official language, used in religious practice, was Hebrew. Greek was also spoken as a lingua franca and was used by the Romans and in the Disparia. Educated Jews would also speak Greek and it is thought that Jesus might have also. This form of Greek was termed Koine - the common tongue. As the gospels and epistles in the 40

New Testament were for the Diaspora they were written in Koine although it is quite clear that the gospel writers translated source material in Aramaic. Latin would no doubt have been the ‘official’ language of the occupying Roman forces but not widely spoken by the general populace. Hebrew, Greek and Latin were all used on the placard affixed to the Cross, indicating the multi-lingual nature of the society. (It is somewhat surprising that Aramaic was not employed.)

3.13 Map of Jerusalem A study of the typography of Jerusalem is useful in understanding the events surrounding the Passion. The exact location of many features on the map is uncertain, and often based on ‘tradition’. Even so the features can be considered near enough to give reality to the story. The city was enclosed in defensive walls in approximately the locations shown. Various named suburbs are shown, Bezitha and ‘Suburb’ to the north, Upper City to the south-west and Lower City to the south-east. It is thought that Bezitha was outside the city at the time of Jesus and that Calvary was located here. The map contains the following references: a) Gethsemane, the Hebrew word for oil-press, is shown as opposite the temple, close to the Bethany Road. Today this area is clearly located with a planting of trees and a hedge. Nearby is a cave in which Jesus and his followers may have slept overnight. Jesus would have passed by this area every day when coming to the city from Bethany. It would have been a convenient meeting place and rendezvous point. b) Mount of Olives. A large hilly area to the east of the city, which extended as far south as Bethany. No doubt the name came from Olive trees which grew there. Gethsemane is in the Mount of Olives. c) Bethany Road. This road, which extended around the city ran at the foot of and then up over the Mount of Olives. Bethany is a few kilometres to the south. d) Kidron Valley. A dry watercourse which ran to the east of the city, between it and the Mount of Olives. It has water only during winter rains. e) Heifer Bridge. A narrow bridge crossing the Kidron Valley to the temple near Gethsemane. This was used by human and animal traffic and was no doubt on the route that Jesus took on his daily visits to the temple. f) Kidron path. It is doubtful if this is particularly accurate, however some sort of path must have existed in this general area. This is the route that Jesus would have taken from the House of the Last Supper on the way to Gethsemane. g) The Temple. As described above. h) Antonia Castle. Shown to the north-west of the temple area. This was the Roman garrison and possibly the place where Pilate resided when in Jerusalem. 41

Chapter Three i) Golgotha Calvary. The Church of the Holy Sepulchre exists on this site which is allegedly where Jesus was crucified. j) Palace of Herod. An alternative possibility for Pilate’s residences. k) House of Caiaphas and l) House of Last Supper. Traditional locations in the Upper City. Note the closeness of these two residents. They appear to be located in the best part of town. I believe that it is quite possible that the house of Annas was nearby.

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4. The personalities and groups involved in the story There are a large number of people and groups involved in this story and I am covering them in four chapters. This chapter describes most of them. I have devoted chapter 5 to a group of followers based in Jerusalem (the Jerusalem Connection), a complete chapter (6) to Judas Iscariot and a complete chapter (7) giving a somewhat truncated picture of Jesus.

4.1 God I intend to be brief concerning this large subject. The reader may wish to consult A History of God – Karen Armstrong, A biography of God by Jack Miles or the humorous story Little Black Girl in Search of God by George Bernard Shaw among a large number of books devoted to this subject. The Jewish God evolved from a pantheon into a single God with a special relationship to the Jewish race. He also evolved from a despotic warlord into a benevolent father figure in the concept of Jesus. Of course God does not change, but man’s conception does. One cannot stress too strongly the religious fervour of the Jews towards their religion and the dominating part it played in their lives at the time of Christ. The Jewish concept of God is termed ‘dualistic’ – God and man are different. (Compared to the non-dual concept that God and man are the same.) God is pictured as a human male with incredible powers who is directly involved in the affairs of men. When a disaster occurs it is accepted as God’s will in retribution for not obeying His commands. There is also a strong belief that God will lead his chosen people out of trouble. Jesus (possibly in line with contemporary thought) modified this view of God and turned Him into a benevolent father figure. My personal view is that we need to move on from this concept of God. I prefer the Hindu view of Brahman, a more remote, less personalised idea. Everyone is aware of a higher power in our lives, an eternal reality, and strives to understand it. And when we find it we might suddenly realise that we knew what it was all the time.

4.2 Pontius Pilate Most commentators will assert that Pilate was a nasty and despicable person. This is based essentially on comments made by the Jewish philosopher Philo in a treatise entitled ‘Embassy to Gaius’. Among other things, Philo refers to: …his never ending, and gratuitous, and most grievous inhumanity. (XXXVIII. (303)) Also the reports of Josephus are not very positive, accusing Pilate of attempting 42

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Chapter Four to undermine Jewish culture. Again Luke mentions the case where: 13:1 At that time some people who were present there told him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with the blood of their sacrifices. The only place where Pilate is presented in a positive light is in the gospel reports of his interview with Jesus prior to the crucifixion. There is some comment as to the disparity of these reports however I believe it is possible to explain all the negativity by taking into account the bias of the sources. Pontius Pilate was the fifth governor of the Roman province of Judaea. His rule began in 26 CE and lasted until early in 37 CE. Judaea was at the time was a third class imperial province. These provinces, which were few in number, tended to be those which were least important in terms of size and revenue. Often they were territories in which the indigenous population presented particular problems. The governors of these provinces were equestrian rank, the Roman equivalent of middle class, and commanded only auxiliary troops. (Auxiliary troops were those fit for occupation but not battle.) It is uncertain as to how Pilate obtained his posting, however he must have had an influential patron, quite possibly Sejanus. (Sejanus was a well known Roman senator. Ben Johnson wrote a play about him which everyone thought was boring.) Pilate’s wife, Claudia Procula, is mentioned in Matthew as having dream about Jesus. The passage is of dubious reliability. Virtually nothing is known about Pilate outside the period he spent as governor of Judaea and had it not been for his involvement with the crucifixion of Jesus his name would have been forgotten. His conduct should be measured in relationship to the political ambience at the time. The Roman Imperial Empire is counted as having commenced in 27 BCE when Augustus was appointed Emperor. Augustus’ reign was a period of peace and good governance. When he died in 14 CE he was succeeded by Tiberius who followed in Augustus’ footsteps. Although Tiberius preferred a life not directly involved in administration he delegated his authority wisely and always kept his finger on the pulse. Tiberius died in 37 CE hence his reign covered the tenure of Pilate and the ministry of Jesus. A wise Emperor would always ensure that his provincial administrators acted wisely. Pilate lasted eleven years in Judea and I cannot believe that Tiberius would have tolerated him had he committed the offenses he was accused of by Philo and, to a lesser degree, Josephus. It is notable that, although there were two incidents resulting in deaths (which I describe below) Pilate’s time in Judea was generally peaceful. The three Emperors following Tiberius were a bad lot culminating in Nero who was cruel and capricious, and generally regarded as being the worst ever Emperor. It is notable that the governors of Judea during that time were also of a lower standard, culminating in Gessius Florus (AD 64–66). Florus, who had been appointed directly by Nero as a favour to his wife, stole money from the temple. When the Jews objected to this he had 3,600 of them slaughtered and/or crucified, more or less taken from the market at random. This included women, children 44

and members of the middle class. As a result the Jews broke out in open rebellion against the Romans, culminating their in utter defeat and the destruction of the temple in 70 CE. I feel that Pilate has been unjustly tarred with the brush of Florus and other procurators. I am indebted to an internet article by Jona Lendering at http://www.livius.org/ pi-pm/pilate/pilate01.htm which posits that Pilate was not such a bad fellow after all. Lendering is a Dutch historian and maintains a one man ‘Livius’ website dealing with many historical subjects. Subsequent to preparing much of the work below I came across a similar treatment in an archive website called ‘The Ecole Initiative’ in an article by Helen Bond at ecole.evansville.edu/articles/pilate.html. It appears that Lendering has followed Bond very closely and has based his work on hers. The Ecole website has considerable academic stature. While I follow this approach I have checked everything out with my own research and developed the thesis in my own way.

The Reports of Josephus. Josephus describes four incidents involving Pilate; the introduction of army standards into Jerusalem, the construction of an aqueduct for the city, the execution of Jesus and an incident involving Samaritans which may have led to his removal from the province. a. The Standards This incident is told in both ‘The war of the Jews’ (2.9.2-3) and in the ‘Antiquities’. Both are essentially the same so I shall quote only from Antiquities (18.3.1) BUT now Pilate, the procurator of Judea, removed the army from Cesarea to Jerusalem, to take their winter quarters there, in order to abolish the Jewish laws. So he introduced Caesar’s effigies, which were upon the standards, and brought them into the city; whereas our law forbids us the very making of images; on which account the former procurators were wont to make their entry into the city with such standards as had not those ornaments. Pilate was the first who brought those images to Jerusalem, and set them up there; which was done without the knowledge of the people, because it was done in the night time; but as soon as they knew it, they came in multitudes to Cesarea, and interceded with Pilate many days that he would remove the images; and when he would not grant their requests, because it would tend to the injury of Caesar, while yet they persevered in their request, on the sixth day he ordered his soldiers to have their weapons privately, while he came and sat upon his judgment-seat, which seat was so prepared in the open place of the city, that it concealed the army that lay ready to oppress them; and when the Jews petitioned him again, he gave a signal to the soldiers to encompass them routed, and threatened that their punishment should 45

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Chapter Four be no less than immediate death, unless they would leave off disturbing him, and go their ways home. But they threw themselves upon the ground, and laid their necks bare, and said they would take their death very willingly, rather than the wisdom of their laws should be transgressed; upon which Pilate was deeply affected with their firm resolution to keep their laws inviolable, and presently commanded the images to be carried back from Jerusalem to Cesarea. One must notice a certain inconsistency in this passage. In the beginning Pilate is accused of deliberately introducing effigies of Caesar on army standards in order to undermine the Jewish religion. When the people visit him in Cesarea to protest he prevaricates for six days (sufficient time for a messenger to travel to Jerusalem and back) and then after posturing a bit with death threats is amazed at the fanatic response of the Jews and relents. Surely, if Pilate was as inhumane as he is pictured, he would have known of the effect the effigies would have had and would have immediately slaughtered the protestors. We might note that there is one assumption in this story, the motivation of Pilate, and it seems likely that this is what the Jews would assume when they saw the images suddenly appear one morning. In fact it was Roman policy not to interfere with local customs and Pilate would surely be aware of this. What I want to investigate is the more likely case that the introduction of the effigies was an error, based on ignorance. To do this we need to understand the nature of the ensigns or standards. They were tall poles topped with various insignia and symbols, including many types of animals.

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The inserted figures show examples of typical standards. Every platoon in the Roman army possessed its own unique standard. (I use the modern term ‘platoon’ for the Roman ‘maniple’ which comprised two centuries or 200 men when fully commissioned.) The standard served to identify the platoon and could not be detached from it. It was the rallying point in battle and was defended to the last man. It was always proudly displayed outside barracks. The examples above do not have human images on them. It is reported that there were wooden statues of the previous Emperor, Augustus, on some standards. (I found an example on the net, however too low in resolution to include here.) I would expect them to appear on the standards of elite platoons, such as an Imperial Guard. There are records of a company (I use the English word ‘company’ for ‘cohort’, a division which comprised three platoons) entitled Cohors Prima Augusta (The First Company of Augustus) present in Judea at the time. It is quite likely that the platoons in this company had effigies of Augustus on their standards. There is a thought that this event occurred early in Pilate’s tenure and that he brought this company with him from Rome, hence it would not be surprising that this was the first time such standards appeared in Jerusalem. They would not have caused comment in Caesarea (where Pilate was stationed) as this was a Romanised city. Certainly a Roman, ignorant of Jewish custom, would have no reason to expect the commotion that eventuated. The event was probably a standard rotation of troops. There were two companies stationed in Jerusalem, one in the Antonia castle, next door to the temple, and the other in Herod’s old palace. The new troops would be expected to arrive by night. It was a good three day route march from Caesarea and on the third day troops would press on into the darkness with expectation of comfortable quarters. If we can concede that this was an honest mistake made early in Pilate’s tenure we can derive a lot about Pilate’s character. First we can see that he did not do his homework. Had he made an in depth study of the customs of the Jews he would have not have made such a fundamental mistake. This indicates a certain degree of incompetence or lack of care. Second we can see that, when the truth was brought home to him he acted astutely in order to avoid conflict. This indicates a certain flexibility and an understanding that conciliation would lead to peace. Thirdly we might note that he was prepared to speak directly to the people which indicated a certain honesty and directness. One might add that, as a result of this incident, Pilate would lose face with the army. The companies would have to be rotated back to where they were before with consequent inconvenience to the troops. Although nominally in charge of the army Pilate must have appeared to them to be a bumbling idiot civilian.

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Chapter Four b. The Aqueduct Quoting from Josephus WAR 2.9.4: After this he raised another disturbance, by expending that sacred treasure which is called Corban upon aqueducts, whereby he brought water from the distance of four hundred furlongs. At this the multitude had indignation; and when Pilate was come to Jerusalem, they came about his tribunal, and made a clamor at it. Now when he was apprized aforehand of this disturbance, he mixed his own soldiers in their armor with the multitude, and ordered them to conceal themselves under the habits of private men, and not indeed to use their swords, but with their staves to beat those that made the clamor. He then gave the signal from his tribunal [to do as he had bidden them]. Now the Jews were so sadly beaten, that many of them perished by the stripes they received, and many of them perished as trodden to death by themselves; by which means the multitude was astonished at the calamity of those that were slain, and held their peace. From ANTIQ 18.3.2: When the Jews were in full torrent of abuse he gave his soldiers the prearranged signal. They, however, inflicted much harder blows than Pilate had ordered, punishing alike both those who were rioting and those who were not. But the Jews showed no faint-heartedness; and so, caught unarmed, as they were, by men delivering a prepared attack, many of them actually were slain on the spot, while some withdrew disabled by blows. Thus ended the uprising. This may well be the incident from Luke 13:1 which I quoted above. As with the previous incident, Josephus’ bias is evident, particularly in his description of Pilate’s motivations. The building of an aqueduct for the city was surely a commendable undertaking, one which would have benefited the inhabitants enormously and would not have benefited Pilate at all. It was an ongoing project which had been initiated by a previous governor and was eventually completed by Herod Agrippa. The point of the protest march seems to have been around the use of temple money (or corbonas) for the project. However it was valid to use temple funds for civic projects such as this so the excuse for protest may have been political in nature. It may be pointed out that both the Roman Occupation and the temple hierarchy were not very popular with the masses. It appears that the method of crowd control was not well considered. It would have been far better to have armed troops surrounding the crowd. Quoting from two reports in Josephus it would appear that, though many were killed in the riot, Pilate took steps to keep bloodshed to a minimum. Firstly he commanded the soldiers to use cudgels, not swords, and then asked them not to inflict hard blows. However his intentions were thwarted when the Roman Army disobeyed his orders. What do we learn from this? First we see a measure of incompetence on the part of Pilate. If he did not determine the method of crowd control he would have approved it. Second we see Pilate working with the High Priest, Caiaphas, who must have been the person responsible for temple funds. Third we see his relationship with the Roman army. For the soldiers to disobey the orders of their 48

titular commander in this way indicates a lack of respect. Perhaps they thought he was too soft. We also see the ongoing tendency for commentators to blame Pilate for the excesses of the army. c. The Execution of Jesus. ANTIQ 18.3.3: Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man; for he was a doer of wonderful works, a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him both many of the Jews and many of the Gentiles. He was [the] Christ. And when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men amongst us, had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him; for he appeared to them alive again the third day; as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him. And the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct at this day. This passage, recorded only in the Antiquities, is generally referred to as the Testimonium Flavianum. (The Testimony of Flavius [Josephus].) It has been thought to have been a later addition to Josephus by Christian copyists or perhaps a significant modification. This however is not a proposition that I find particularly favourable. Recently I read a scholarly article (http://members.aol.com/ FLJOSEPHUS/home.htm#testimonium) suggesting that the passage originated with Josephus. The passage illustrates Pilate’s willingness to confer and negotiate with the Jewish hierarchy. Quoting from an internet source: He is shown working closely with the Jewish hierarchy to eliminate a common threat. It may also be significant that he has only the messianic leader executed and not his followers, a fact which may show a dislike for excessive violence.... The passage is an interesting comment on the stature of Jesus at the time Josephus was writing. His comments on John the Baptist are much more comprehensive. d. The Samaritan Uprising and Pilate’s Return to Rome Antiquities 18.4 1. BUT the nation of the Samaritans did not escape without tumults. The man who excited them to it was one who thought lying a thing of little consequence, and who contrived every thing so that the multitude might be pleased; so he bid them to get together upon Mount Gerizzim, which is by them looked upon as the most holy of all mountains, and assured them, that when they were come thither, he would show them those sacred vessels which were laid under that place, because Moses put them there. So they came thither armed, and thought the discourse of the man probable; and as they abode at a certain village, which was called Tirathaba, they got the rest together to them, and desired to go up the mountain in a great multitude together; but Pilate prevented their going up, by seizing 49

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Chapter Four upon file roads with a great band of horsemen and foot-men, who fell upon those that were gotten together in the village; and when it came to an action, some of them they slew, and others of them they put to flight, and took a great many alive, the principal of which, and also the most potent of those that fled away, Pilate ordered to be slain. 2. But when this tumult was appeased, the Samaritan senate sent an embassy to Vitellius, a man that had been consul, and who was now president of Syria, and accused Pilate of the murder of those that were killed; for that they did not go to Tirathaba in order to revolt from the Romans, but to escape the violence of Pilate. So Vitellius sent Marcellus, a friend of his, to take care of the affairs of Judea, and ordered Pilate to go to Rome, to answer before the emperor to the accusations of the Jews. So Pilate, when he had tarried ten years in Judea, made haste to Rome, and this in obedience to the orders of Vitellius, which he durst not contradict; but before he could get to Rome Tiberius was dead. To quote from Lendering: (My additions in brackets.) “The sect of the Samaritans had its origins in a doctrinal conflict in Jerusalem in the age of Alexander the Great. One group of priests had left the city and started a new sect in the city of Samaria. One of their beliefs was that the prophet whose coming Moses had predicted in Deuteronomy 18.14-18, would reveal his identity by showing Moses’ sacred vessels. (Deuteronomy 18:15 “A prophet like me will the LORD, your God, raise up for you from among your own kinsmen; to him you shall listen).This (Messianic?) belief was shared by the members of the Sect of Qumran, who knew that a treasure could be found on top of this mountain (Copper Scroll, 12.4). (Sixty talents of silver and vessels are in a chest that is under the stairs of the upper tunnel on Mount Garizim)” According to the quotation, a dishonest messianic figure stirred up the Samaritans to climb Mount Gerizim with him. No doubt some sacred vessels would have been planted for him to ‘discover’. It appears that a large group of men assembled, over a period of days, in a nearby village, carrying weapons. The plan must have been to ascend the mountain, prove the unnamed Messiah’s credentials and start a revolution. Pilate, or his General, would have been astute enough to have spies in the area who would report what was going on. Before the Samaritans could get very far on their trek up the mountain, however, Pilate had his men block their route. The operation would have been under the control of the army General who would have been asked by Pilate to manage the situation. There was apparently a pitched battle in which, no doubt, the Romans prevailed. There were probably casualties on both sides. Many prisoners were taken. It is notable that only the ring-leaders were put to death and the rest probably disarmed and allowed to go home. In view of the fact that the Samaritans appear to have been armed as they undertook their trek up Mt. Gerizim, Pilate’s actions do not appear to be unnecessarily severe. Any Roman prefect neglecting to deal with such an uprising would surely have been failing in his duty. 50

Later, the council of the Samaritans complained to Vitellius, the legate of Syria, about Pilate’s harsh treatment. It is notable that they were not exactly honest concerning the motivations for returning to the village and they probably forgot to mention that the ‘pilgrims’ were armed. According to the Jewish sources, accepted by Josephus, Vitellius sent his friend Marcellus to take charge of Judaea and ordered Pilate to Rome. However, in fact Vitellius did not have the authority to order Pilate away. The motivation may be another assumption of the Jewish sources. Pilate did return to Rome but reached the city after Tiberius’ death (March 37 CE), suggesting that he left the province early in 37 CE. What happened to Pilate in Rome is unknown. The fact that the new emperor, Gaius, did not reappoint him does not necessarily indicate an unfavourable outcome to his trial (if, indeed, there was one.) After eleven years in Judaea and with a healthy bank balance, Pilate may have retired to his vineyards in the south. e. Philo of Alexandria, The Embassy to Caligula 299-305 XXXVIII. (299) “Moreover, I have it in my power to relate one act of ambition on his part, though I suffered an infinite number of evils when he was alive; but nevertheless the truth is considered dear, and much to be honoured by you. Pilate was one of the emperor’s lieutenants, having been appointed governor of Judaea. He, not more with the object of doing honour to Tiberius than with that of vexing the multitude, dedicated some gilt shields in the palace of Herod, in the holy city; which had no form nor any other forbidden thing represented on them except some necessary inscription, which mentioned these two facts, the name of the person who had placed them there, and the person in whose honour they were so placed there. (300) But when the multitude heard what had been done, and when the circumstance became notorious, then the people, putting forward the four sons of the king, who were in no respect inferior to the kings themselves, in fortune or in rank, and his other descendants, and those magistrates who were among them at the time, entreated him to alter and to rectify the innovation which he had committed in respect of the shields; and not to make any alteration in their national customs, which had hitherto been preserved without any interruption, without being in the least degree changed by any king of emperor. (301) “But when he steadfastly refused this petition (for he was a man of a very inflexible disposition, and very merciless as well as very obstinate), they cried out: ‘Do not cause a sedition; do not make war upon us; do not destroy the peace which exists. The honour of the emperor is not identical with dishonour to the ancient laws; let it not be to you a pretence for heaping insult on our nation. Tiberius is not desirous that any of our laws or customs shall be destroyed. And if you yourself say that he is, show us either some command from him, or some 51

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Chapter Four letter, or something of the kind, that we, who have been sent to you as ambassadors, may cease to trouble you, and may address our supplications to your master.’ (302) “But this last sentence exasperated him in the greatest possible degree, as he feared least they might in reality go on an embassy to the emperor, and might impeach him with respect to other particulars of his government, in respect of his corruption, and his acts of insolence, and his rapine, and his habit of insulting people, and his cruelty, and his continual murders of people untried and uncondemned, and his never ending, and gratuitous, and most grievous inhumanity. (303) Therefore, being exceedingly angry, and being at all times a man of most ferocious passions, he was in great perplexity, neither venturing to take down what he had once set up, nor wishing to do any thing which could be acceptable to his subjects, and at the same time being sufficiently acquainted with the firmness of Tiberius on these points. And those who were in power in our nation, seeing this, and perceiving that he was inclined to change his mind as to what he had done, but that he was not willing to be thought to do so, wrote a most supplicatory letter to Tiberius. (304) And he, when he had read it, what did he say of Pilate, and what threats did he utter against him! But it is beside our purpose at present to relate to you how very angry he was, although he was not very liable to sudden anger; since the facts speak for themselves;

that Agrippa wanted to become king of Judaea; a negative portrait of Roman government could convince the emperor that there was a real need for his accession. (The letter served both purposes; Caligula backed down and Herod Agrippa was made king of Judaea.) Summing up, we may conclude that the gospels do not represent the historical truth when they show us a well meaning but weak Pilate. On the other hand, the two Jewish sources have their own agendas. If we want to reconstruct the historical truth, we will have to be extremely careful. Lendering believes that this is a garbled version of the standards incident (a. above). I do not agree with this, but read his comments based on this assumption: Whatever their differences, Philo and Flavius Josephus have one thing in common. They do not tell the story from Pilate’s point of view, but tell a Jewish story, which is extremely hostile to the governor. But it is unlikely that Pilate deliberately provoked the Jews. Only an anti-Semite would have done so, and the emperor Tiberius was far too clever to send an anti-Semite to Judaea. The Romans could be harsh masters, but they were not stupid. Besides, we have already seen that Pilate accepted Judaism and paganism as equals.It must have been an accident. I would also like to quote from Helen Brown’s article in the Ecole website (op cit) as this corresponds very much to my views on the matter.

(305) for immediately, without putting any thing off till the next day, he wrote a letter, reproaching and reviling him in the most bitter manner for his act of unprecedented audacity and wickedness, and commanding him immediately to take down the shields and to convey them away from the metropolis of Judaea to Caesarea, on the sea which had been named Caesarea Augusta, after his grandfather, in order that they might be set up in the temple of Augustus. And accordingly, they were set up in that edifice. And in this way he provided for two matters: both for the honour due to the emperor, and for the preservation of the ancient customs of the city.

A fifth incident from Pilate’s term of office is described in Philo’s Legatio ad Gaium, an incident in which Pilate set up gilded shields in Jerusalem (Legatio 299-305). Although written only a few years after Pilate’s departure from Judaea, this work is highly polemical in nature. The story is part of a letter, supposedly from Agrippa I to Gaius Caligula, in which the Jewish king attempts to persuade the emperor not to set up his statue in the Jerusalem temple. Philo uses all the drama and rhetoric at his disposal to cast Pilate in a particularly brutal light and to contrast him with the virtuous Tiberius, an emperor who (unlike Gaius) was intent upon preserving the Jewish law.

A couple of internet sources deserve to be quoted. First Lendering (op. cit.)

Pilate is described as corrupt, violent, abusive and cruel (§§ 301, 302). He is accused of intentionally annoying the Jewish people by setting up gilded shields in Herod’s palace in Jerusalem. These shields contained no picture but only an inscription stating the name of the dedicator and the name of the person to whom they were dedicated. When the significance of this inscription was widely known, the people chose four Herodian princes to appeal to Pilate on their behalf and ask for the removal of the shields. When Pilate refused, they threatened to send an embassy to Tiberius. According to Philo, this worried Pilate enormously because of the atrocities committed throughout his governorship. The embassy

In the text known as the Embassy to Caligula, Philo of Alexandria includes a letter by the Jewish prince Herod Agrippa to the emperor Caligula, in which the latter’s attempt to have his statue erected in the Temple at Jerusalem is compared to Pilate’s attempt to have shields with pagan inscriptions placed in his Jerusalem palace. According to the author of this letter, Pilate was corrected by the emperor Tiberius, whose behaviour is presented as exemplary. To present Tiberius as a virtuous ruler, Pilate had to be presented as a despot. Besides, it should be noted 52

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Chapter Four went ahead and Tiberius upheld the Herodian complaints, ordering Pilate to remove the shields to the temple of Augustus at Caesarea. Although Philo’s picture of the ruthless Pilate is obviously over-exaggerated in accordance with his rhetorical aims, there is clearly some basis to the story. The most important starting point for any reconstruction is the shields themselves. Such honorific shields were common in the ancient world; generally they would contain both a portrait and an inscription (Pliny, Natural History 35; Tacitus, Annals 2.83; Res Gestae Divi Augusti 34). Pilate’s shields were of this type, but even Philo has to admit that they differed by the fact that they contained no images. This suggests that, rather than deliberately acting against the Jewish law, Pilate took steps to avoid offending the people. Furthermore, they were set up inside the Roman governor’s praetorium in Jerusalem, surely the most appropriate place in the city for such shields. If this event occurred after the commotion caused by the introduction of iconic standards narrated by Josephus, then Pilate’s behaviour was both understandable and prudent. He wanted to honour the emperor without antagonising the people. Where he went wrong, however, was in the wording of the inscription. This would have contained both Pilate’s name and that of Tiberius. In official inscriptions the emperor was referred to as: Ti. Caesari divi Augusti f. (divi Iuli nepoti) Augusto pontifici Maximo. The reference to the divine Augustus could have been seen as offensive by some Jews, particularly when it was situated in the holy city. That not everyone found this immediately offensive is suggested by Philo’s description of the Jewish reaction which is rather oddly put in § 300; it seems to give the impression that the wording of the inscription was generally known before its significance was realised. This reconstruction fits in well with the final part of the story. If Pilate had set out to be deliberately provocative, it is extraordinary that he would allow an embassy to go to Tiberius and inform the emperor of his atrocities. If, however, the shields were designed to honour the emperor and Pilate had deliberately tried to avoid offence by omitting images, his decision to allow Tiberius to adjudicate makes perfect sense. The date of this incident is uncertain, but it probably occurred after the incident with the standards. While I find Josephus to be a tolerably honest journeyman I cannot say the same about Philo. (But understand I cannot be considered an expert on the matter as it is not an area of study that attracts me.) What little I have read of his work I find somewhat tedious and lacking in spiritual insight. He was a Hellenised Jew who studied the Greek philosophers and may have added something to Paul’s warped take on Jesus’ teachings. One aspect that must be bourn in mind is that he was connected to Herod Agrippa, someone who might well be described in the terms that Philo applies to Pilate. Many commentators accept Philo’s comments without question and quote them as ineluctable fact. Hence there arises a picture of Pilate as being a despot. 54

This is the problem. It is notable that all the sources information concerning Pilate are Jewish and liable to be biased. It is also noted that the Jews were naturally opposed to the Roman occupation in general and their ire would naturally be directed to all agents of that occupation. As Lendering comments above we have to be very careful when taking these historical reports at face value. To comment on this particular incident we can see that Pilate has made the same mistakes that he made on previous occasions. If Brown’s speculation that the inscriptions referred to Tiberius as a God is correct we can see that Pilate was careless. He had learnt from his mistake with the standards that he should not put human images on the shields, however his understanding did not go deep enough, leading to another embarrassing situation. f. The Gospel Reports All of the four canonical gospels record an interview with Pilate immediately prior to his execution. I do not consider these reports to be very useful in providing information concerning the character of Pilate because the truth has been tampered with. I will develop my theories as to what actually happened in later chapters in this book. (Briefly; that the execution of Christ was collaboration between the priesthood and the Romans, that the baying of the Jews was a falsehood and that Jesus Barabbas was an innocent man arrested by mistake and subsequently released when the error was discovered.) There is a passage in John which has a ring of truth: 18:33 So Pilate went back into the praetorium and summoned Jesus and said to him, “Are you the King of the Jews?”18:34 Jesus answered, “Do you say this on your own or have others told you about me?”18:35 Pilate answered, “I am not a Jew, am I? …. What have you done?”18:36 Jesus answered, “My kingdom does not belong to this world. If my kingdom did belong to this world, my attendants (would) be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jews. But as it is, my kingdom is not here.”18:37 So Pilate said to him, “Then you are a king?” Jesus answered, “You say I am a king. For this I was born and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.” 18:38 Pilate said to him, “What is truth?”

To summarise: Pilate was a competent administrator who had the confidence of his superiors. This is shown by the fact that his tenure lasted much longer than was generally the case. Also, although there were some incidents, there were no major uprisings during his term of office. (I will suggest later that it was his astute handling of the

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Chapter Four execution of Jesus that prevented a revolution.) I believe that he did his best to get on with the Jewish hierarchy and that he had confidence in the High Priest, Joseph Caiaphas. As a symbol of Roman authority he was profoundly disliked by the mass of Jewish citizens. He may have had a dislike of violence, including a dislike for the cruel act of crucifixion which may have lead to lack of respect from the Roman Army. He made mistakes at times caused by not fully understanding Jewish customs and the practicality of crowd control. There appears to have been a philosophical side to his nature, as is shown by the response “What is truth?” when interviewing Jesus.

4.3 Herod Antipas (the Tetrarch) Antipas was a son of Herod the Great. At the time of his father’s death there was great civil unrest which was put down by the Romans. As a result a Roman governor was appointed to control Judaea and Sumaria. (That was after another of Herod’s sons failed to govern satisfactorily.) Antipas was given control over Galilee, hence governed the area where Jesus lived and worked. It would appear that he inherited a deal of nastiness and mental instability from his father. It is difficult to say if he actually played any part in the Passion Drama. There is only one reference to it in the gospels. LUKE 23:6 On hearing this Pilate asked if the man was a Galilean; 23:7 and upon learning that he was under Herod’s jurisdiction, he sent him to Herod who was in Jerusalem at that time. 23:8 Herod was very glad to see Jesus; he had been wanting to see him for a long time, for he had heard about him and had been hoping to see him perform some sign. 23:9 He questioned him at length, but he gave him no answer. 23:10 The chief priests and scribes, meanwhile, stood by accusing him harshly. 23:11 (Even) Herod and his soldiers treated him contemptuously and mocked him, and after clothing him in resplendent garb, he sent him back to Pilate. 23:12 Herod and Pilate became friends that very day, even though they had been enemies formerly. This passage is of dubious reliability. In particular we are told in another passage from Luke that Herod wanted to kill Jesus because he thought he was John the Baptist come back to life. Luke seemed to have an interest in Herod for some reason. I can believe that there would have been antagonism between Pilate and Antipas as they were both different characters. It is unlikely that the meeting described above would heal that antagonism. We can note the contradiction. LUKE 13:31 At that time some Pharisees came to him and said, “Go away, leave this area because Herod wants to kill you.” 13:32 He replied, “Go and tell that fox, ‘Behold, I cast out demons and I perform healings today and tomorrow, and on the third day I accomplish my purpose.

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Jesus’s description of Antipas as a fox is probably quite apposite. Some details of his biography tell their story. He married first the daughter of Aretas, King of Arabia, probably for political reasons. He later put her aside in favour of Herodias, the wife of his own halfbrother Philip. This union with Herodias involved him in a war with Aretas in which he lost his army, a calamity that Josephus regarded “as a punishment for what he did against John that was called the Baptist; for Herod slew him, who was a good man, and commanded the Jews to exercise virtue, both as to righteousness towards one another, and piety towards God, and so to come to baptism…” (Antiq., 18.5.2). Josephus states that Herod killed the Baptist from jealousy because he had his influence over the people. The New Testament gives the well known story of the dance of the seven veils of Salome, Herodias’s daughter by Phillip, and her subsequent request for the Baptist’s head on a plate at her mother’s instigation. The reason being that John had complained about the adulterous nature of her relationship with Antipas. In the end Antipas suffered a calamitous downfall as the result of false pride, the desire for a riches and a title. This information is in Josephus, Book 18, Chapter 7. Herodias’s brother, Agrippa, petitioned Caesar and had been crowned King and given great wealth. She urged Antipas to go and obtain the royal title also. The title that he had, Tetrarch, means subordinate ruler, literally, one of four, not really a king. Apparently he was reluctant but eventually, at Herodias’s insistence he went. However Agrippa didn’t like his brother-in-law for some reason. He sent word to the Emperor, Caius, accusing him of conspiracy against the Romans. So much for family support. Antipas’s assets were stripped, and given to Agrippa, and he was banished to Lyons in Gaul (France) in 39 CE. Herodias did not wish to follow her husband into poverty but when Caius heard of this he got angry and banished and dispossessed her also. The year of his death is not known.

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4.4 The Roman Army Some information concerning the makeup of the Roman army has been obtained from Scudders Second Year Latin. The web site has now disappeared however there are a number of sites available and, no doubt, books on the subject I will summarise it here. Structure An army consisted of several legions. The full strength of a legion was 6000 men, but losses in battle, sickness, and desertion usually reduced the number to about 60% of that. . The structure of the Legion is as follows. 1 century (centuria) = about 60 men in practice. 2 centuries = 1 maniple (manipulus), 120 men. (I refer to it as a platoon.) 3 maniples = 1 cohort (cohors), 360 men. (I refer to it as a company.) 10 cohorts = 1 legion, 3600 men. The Infantry The foot soldiers were mainly Roman citizens although there were foreign troops in auxiliary units. There were conscripts however many were volunteers. They were paid about $45 a year and shared in the booty. At the end of their term of enlistment they were retired with a sum of money or land. Joining the army was one way of obtaining citizenship.

career. Their duties were of minor importance, such as the command of small detachments, the providing of supplies, and the levying or discharge of soldiers. (I quote this definition from Scudder in full as it was a tribune who lead the detachment that arrested Jesus. These tribunes were also given an ironic title - ‘leader of a thousand’, the term used in John. ) The Prefects who commanded the auxiliaries and the cavalry squadrons. The Centurions, non-commissioned officers of plebeian origin, who were promoted from the ranks. There was one centurion for each century. There was ranking among centurions. The first centurion in the legion was the first centurion of the first cohort, and similarly among maniples and cohorts. The Standards One of the most striking visual aspects of the Roman army were the standards, tall poles topped with various insignia and symbols, including many types of animals. During the Empire, the image of the emperor

was also added to many standards.

There

The Cavalry.Cavalry was attached to a legion however as there was no cavalry in Judaea, hence I won’t describe it here. The Auxiliaries, Foreign soldiers commanded by Roman Officers.

was one standard for the legion called Aquila:. Refer to the image on the left. It was a silver eagle on a wooden staff with the letters SPQR beneath. It was

The Non-combatants Camp servants and slaves did the menial work, acted as batmen etc. Muleteers drove the pack animals and had charge of the heavy baggage. There were traders also who accompanied the army. The Officers These were: The Commander-in-chief of the entire army was called dux, until he had won his first important victory, after which he received the title of imperator The Lieutenant generals (legati). They were the commander’s staff officers. In battle they were assigned by the commander to command whatever legion he saw fit. The Quartermaster general The Military tribunes, tribuni militum , six to each legion. They were usually young men of equestrian families, without any military experience, who served only a short time and then returned to Rome to take up a political 58

carried by the aquilifer .

Every maniple

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Chapter Four also had its own distinct standard, called Signa, carried by the signiferi There were a multitude of designs for these standards. Some examples are shown on the left. I assume that the standards with images of human beings on them were relatively rare. The standard bearers wore wolf or bear skin over their head and shoulders. see http://www.roman-empire.net/army/leg-standards.html There were also standards for the cavalry and the infantry auxiliaries. The army in Judea The occupying army in Judea at the time was termed an auxiliary army. That is an army fit for pacification of civilian populations but not for going into battle. It would contain veterans who were getting too old for service or were recovering from stress or wounds in battle. It would probably contain a leavening of young and inexperienced troops. There were foreign troops and there may have been troops who had not distinguished themselves on active service. One expects the officers in this army to be competent, but the ranks basically second class. The army would have had an overall commander, either a Commander in Chief (Imperator) or Lieutenant General (legati or legate), as described above. I haven’t been able to locate any specific information concerning this person in Palestine at the time. One should understand the nature of the army. Like all armies it was in the business of meting out death and cruel punishments. It was its nature to be indifferent to the suffering it caused and received. The Roman army was brutal in the extreme, more so than the army of Hitler and other modern armies. If there was a revolution it would tend to be excessive in its efforts to put it down and punish the perpetrators. The crucifixion of thousands of recalcitrant’s was not an uncommon event. Again it can be noted than when a city was taken there was often wholesale slaughter of the inhabitants, including women and children. Even Herod (the Great) was concerned about the excesses of Roman soldiers when they took Jerusalem in the battle that put him into power. Relationships To Pilate The army was at Pilate’s disposal to use as he wished. He was in overall command, but he was a civilian and did not get involved in its day to day running. He gave his orders to the commander and expected them to be obeyed. One can imagine the attitude of a hard bitten Roman general towards a civilian boss who had no professional knowledge of military matters. He would obey his orders of course, but perhaps with some resentment. And if the Roman army felt it could get away with being punitive it probably would. The passage from Josephus, that I quoted above, is pertinent:

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When the Jews were in full torrent of abuse he gave his soldiers the prearranged signal. They, however, inflicted much harder blows than Pilate had ordered, punishing alike both those who were rioting and those who were not. Of course the weight of the blow is a very subjective thing and a soldier might consider something light that Pilate would consider heavy. This, I think epitomises the relationship between Pilate and the army. It would seek the ‘heavy’ solution whilst he would seek the light. It could well be that Pilate abhorred cruel methods of judicial punishment but as Governor he would be obliged to prosecute the laws of the realm.

4.5 The High Priests The High Priest was the term applied to the president of the Sanhedrin. It was the most influential position in the Jewish political and religious hierarchy, apart from King. At the time of Jesus there was. of course, no king. The last king was Herod, and when he died the position devolved to a Roman Governor and Herod’s various sons (as we have explained before.) Originally High Priests were appointed as a result of family succession, however Herod started the custom of appointing his favourites and this was continued by subsequent Roman Governors. High Priests were in control of the Temple, the Sanhedrin and much in the way of civil administration. It was a position of great power and wealth. There are two high priests that concern us, Annas and Caiaphas. Please note that Caiaphas was technically the High Priest at the time of Jesus. Annas was a previous occupier of that position, however his influence was so great that he was also referred to as High Priest. In Acts Annas is actually given precedence over Caiaphas in this regard. ACTS 4:5 On the next day, their leaders, elders, and scribes were assembled in Jerusalem, 4:6 with Annas the high priest, Caiaphas, John, Alexander, and all who were of the high-priestly class.

4.5.1 Annas Annas, son of Seth, was high priest from 6 to 15 CE. After his deposition the high-priests followed upon one another in rapid succession. These all appeared to be members of his family. Finally his son-in-law, Joseph Caiaphas, was appointed in 18 CE (see below). Annas may have displeased the Roman authorities in some way. They may have thought that he was exerting too much influence. Even so his influence did remain strong in local affairs as is seen by the appointments of his relatives. New Testament references support this where he is referred to as ‘high priest’ when in fact he was not officially appointed. 61

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Chapter Four The picture I have of Annas is of an ambitious strong willed politician, who loved power and control, who, by the strength of his personality grasped the reins of power even though he did not have the title to it. John describes how Jesus was interviewed by Annas shortly after the arrest at Gethsemane. JOHN: 18:19 The high priest questioned Jesus about his disciples and about his doctrine. 18:20 Jesus answered him, “I have spoken publicly to the world. I have always taught in a synagogue or in the temple area where all the Jews gather, and in secret I have said nothing. 18:21 Why ask me? Ask those who heard me what I said to them. They know what I said.” 18:22 When he had said this, one of the temple guards standing there struck Jesus and said, “Is this the way you answer the high priest?” 18:23 Jesus answered him, “If I have spoken wrongly, testify to the wrong; but if I have spoken rightly, why do you strike me?” 18:24 Then Annas sent him bound to Caiaphas the high priest. Unfortunately none of the actual words of Annas are recorded here. The attitude of the guard may well reflect the attitude of Annas, not being prepared to take nonsense from the hoi polloi. That is a certain arrogance, something not uncommon among men in power. We can also note that it was late at night and that everyone was tired and scratchy. Josephus, who calls him Ananus, gives the various appointments and depositions of the high priests of the era in Antiquities, chapter 18.

4.5.2 Joseph Caiaphas According to Josephus, Caiaphas was appointed High-Priest of the Jews by Valerius Gratus, the predecessor of Pontius Pilate, about 18 CE and was removed from that office by the procurator Vitellius, shortly after he took charge of affairs in Palestine in 37 CE. He was in office for the entirety of Pilate’s tenure. This indicates to me that Pilate trusted him, possibly as an adviser and someone who had prestige among the people. The official Church view is that Caiaphas was a bit of a ratbag, as he did plot to crucify Jesus, and that he only held his position on account of his excessive fawning up to Pilate. I do not accept that fawning was a necessary reason for Caiaphas’s continued appointment. To quote from The Catholic Encyclopedia: In the measures taken by the Jewish authorities to do away with Jesus, Caiaphas certainly had the most discreditable part. The Encyclopedia is naturally biased against Caiaphas as he was, apparently, the prime mover of Jesus’s crucifixion. The following passage in the Encyclopedia quotes John which seems to indicate that Caiaphas was acting for patriotic reasons. (Though he would have realised that if the Jewish race were to perish then he would perish also, or at least lose his position of power and wealth.) 62

After the raising of Lazarus, the priests and Pharisees held council to determine what was to be done in view of the manifest signs of the Prophet of Nazarus and what they were pleased to consider the danger resulting to the country. The words of Caiaphas, the high-priest of that year, are reported by St. John: “You know nothing. Neither do you consider that it is expedient to you that one man should die for the people, and that the whole nation perish not” (xi, 49-50). This statement in John is one of the few reportages concerning the dealings of the Sanhedrin that I am inclined to believe. It must have come from Nicodemus or Arimathea who perhaps reported to Jesus in John’s hearing. The Encyclopaedia goes on to say how perfidious it was of Caiaphas to make this suggestion. Consider for a moment that Caiaphas might be a patriotic person who cared for the good of his country. He would know that there were a number of guerrilla groups who would wish to rise up against the Romans. He would understand that the Roman army would be a superior force, capable of inflicting heavy losses on the Jewish people. In the circumstances the statement was perfectly reasonable. If he could do away with one man who might start an uprising then the nation would be saved. Of course Caiaphas did not have any inkling that the ‘one man’ was someone special, that in future years he would become the founder of a world-wide religion and be elevated to the status of Son of God. Imagine that if Jesus were a non-entity, then you would think that Caiaphas’s proposition would be perfectly reasonable. (Of course it has often been pointed out that the Church has no right to denigrate Caiaphas and the ‘Jews’. After all they were instrumental in causing Jesus to be crucified, which saved the world from sin according to God’s Holy Plan.) One might that Caiaphas was astute enough to recognise the reason for Jesus’ danger to the Jewish race (A point to be elaborated later) and that he did not ‘suffer fools…”. The Encyclopaedia continues: After the death of Jesus, Caiaphas continued to persecute his followers... This refers to Acts, chapter 4. In fact Caiaphas and the Sanhedrin attempted to curtail the activities of Jesus’ followers after the crucifixion, however, because of public opinion, nothing was done, apart from giving out a stern warning. I am sure that Caiaphas’s main concern was that Jesus’ disciples might stir up trouble and generate Roman wrath. At a time when high-priests were made and unmade by officials of Rome, and when the principal quality required seems to have been subserviency, it is no credit to the character of Caiaphas to have enjoyed their favour so long. I don’t think it is fair to say that the principle quality required of a high priest would be subserviency. It is difficult to see why Pontius Pilate should consider that to be a valuable attribute unless he was the sort of person that loved having people fawn all over him. There could have been other attributes that appealed. 63

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Chapter Four We have seen from the above that Caiaphas was inclined to keep the peace and my analysis of Pilate’s character indicates that he was of a like mind. It could well have been that the two men got on well and found their association of mutual benefit. Caiaphas, if he was an astute politician, would see the advantage of getting into bed with the enemy. We have seen in our discussion of the standards that Pilate may not have had a full understanding of Jewish custom. He may have found Caiaphas to be a useful adviser. We can note that temple money was being used by Pilate to build an aqueduct to the city. This would imply a colaboration between Caiaphas and Pilate. This is summarised by an anonymous quote from an internet source: A second distinctive feature of Pilate’s governorship is that, unlike his predecessor Gratus who changed the High Priest four times in his eleven years, Pilate made no change to the incumbent of the High Priesthood. This was presumably not out of any wish to respect Jewish sensitivities but rather because he found in Gratus’ last appointee, Caiaphas, a man who could be relied on to support Roman interests and who could command some respect amongst the people. While Annas was quite clearly the power behind the throne there is no reason to believe that Caiaphas was not his own man. The gospels report him as being someone who had influence and control in council matters. I doubt if there was any ongoing conflict between the two men. With a long time in politics and being ambitious they would have established boundaries and a working relationship. Annas, after all, was grandfather to Caiaphas’s children..

4.6 John the Baptist There is quite a long story which could be written about John the Baptist however I will give a brief summary here. Although he could be considered an instigator, he was not directly involved in the events of the Passion. Luke puts the Baptist into the nativity narrative and makes him a relative of Jesus and born about the same time. However I don’t trust the nativity narratives. There is record in some Syrian versions of Josephus (which I have been unable to track down) that John was preaching about the time Jesus was born, which would make him about thirty years older. His appearance is described in Matthew: 3:4 * John wore clothing made of camel’s hair and had a leather belt around his waist. His food was locusts and wild honey. NAB NOTE * The clothing of John recalls the austere dress of the prophet Elijah (2 Kings 1:8). The expectation of the return of Elijah from heaven to prepare Israel for the final manifestation of God’s kingdom was widespread, and according to Matthew this expectation was fulfilled in the Baptist’s ministry 64

It is clear that John was an ascetic and modelled himself on the prophet Elijah. He also talked about the coming Kingdom of God and the necessity to prepare for it. Apart from the gospels he is also mentioned in Josephus: Antiq 18.5.2. Now some of the Jews thought that the destruction of Herod’s army came from God, and that very justly, as a punishment of what he did against John, that was called the Baptist: for Herod slew him, who was a good man, and commanded the Jews to exercise virtue, both as to righteousness towards one another, and piety towards God, and so to come to baptism; for that the washing [with water] would be acceptable to him, if they made use of it, not in order to the putting away [or the remission] of some sins [only], but for the purification of the body; supposing still that the soul was thoroughly purified beforehand by righteousness… There is some discrepancy between the gospels and Josephus as to the exact manner of John’s death. …Herod, who feared lest the great influence John had over the people might put it into his power and inclination to raise a rebellion, thought it best, by putting him to death, to prevent any mischief he might cause… Accordingly he was sent a prisoner,… to Macherus… and was there put to death. The Jews had a ritual of purification by bathing in water, however John’s system was different. Firstly the novice had to purify himself (herself?) of all sins. The process of doing this is not fully explained, however it was only after it was achieved that baptism took place. It appears that novices were only ever baptised once. A sort of ritual entry into the Kingdom of Heaven. The gospels are a little cute about this where Jesus is concerned. He, of course, was the Son of God, and therefore born sinless. Jesus and John must have had a great friendship. John would have recognised the power in Jesus. Apparently Jesus worked with him for a while and then went his own way. Both were strong willed men and had a path to follow. I believe that Jesus did not believe that he had to be an ascetic in order to achieve his aims. There may have been differences in matter of doctrine. It is also notable that Jesus was able to perform miracles while there is no record of John ever having done so.

4.7 The Disciples. The synoptics formally list twelve disciples. This may or may not have been based on fact. John does not have a list of twelve and does not mention all of those named in the synoptics. What is clear is that Jesus had many devotees including women and citizens of various towns and cities. The disciples who made up the twelve were from Galilee (apart from Iscariot) and followed him as he moved around the countryside. The gospels will give the impression that Simon the Rock was the chief disciple however it was Jesus’ brother, James the Just, 65

Chapter Four who took over leadership of the church after the crucifixion. (The church has difficulty in admitting that Jesus had brothers and sisters as this would extend the number of parthenogenetic births necessary to retain Mary’s perpetual virgin status.) The synoptics indicate three favourite disciples; Simon the Rock, James Senior and John. John’s gospel never refers to James and John except once as the ‘sons of Zebedee’. John does, however, have several references to a ‘beloved disciple’ and this is often taken to be John himself. I’m not so sure about this, it’s a mystery to me who exactly the beloved disciple was. There is also reference to an ‘other disciple’ in John which I cover later as I believe him to be a member of the Jerusalem Connection. The disciples form a background to the events of the passion and no doubt reported what they saw. However it seems to me that there were many things going on that they were kept in the dark about. There is one important thing which must have motivated Jesus’ actions. The simple fact that he loved them.

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5. The Jerusalem Connection. The synoptics truncate Jesus’ ministry to a period of no longer than one year and do not mention any visits to Jerusalem until the time of the Passion (That is apart from one visit with his family at the age of twelve as recorded in Luke.). Hence, if the synoptic chronology is to be believed, it would appear unlikely that Jesus would have developed a substantial following in Jerusalem. However even the synoptics imply that there was a following which is just another reason for not wishing to accept the synoptic chronology. We have already noted that there is evidence from antiquity also. John, on the other hand, gives a ministry of about three years and describes many trips to Jerusalem during that period for the Passover and other religious festivals. I believe that John is to be accepted in this regard. By the time of the last visit to Jerusalem it is apparent that Jesus did have quite a following, including two wealthy and influential citizens; Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea (referred to as ‘Arimathea’ below). Nicodemus is mentioned several times in John (but never in the synoptics.) Apart from Nicodemus the Jerusalem disciples (as I loosely call any devotee of Jesus) have only fleeting and enigmatic references. It does appear that the reason for this is that there was little communication between the Jerusalem group and the ‘Galilean’ disciples. The majority of our witness appears to have come from the Galilean source. Perhaps Jesus had his reasons for keeping then apart. There were also class differences. The Jerusalem Connection comprised people from a different world, the sophistication of the city, a set apart from the ‘country yokels’ of Galilee. Nicodemus and Arimathea were wealthy and influential citizens and members of the Sanhedrin. It is apparent that little or no witness from the Jerusalem Connection has survived and this has left a mystifying gap in the records. The reason for this lack of witness is also mystifying. It appears that certain key players may have departed from Jerusalem shortly after the crucifixion leaving behind no record of their doings. There are references in the gospels, particularly John, to minutes of meetings of the Sanhedrin and these could only have originated from Nicodemus or Arimathea. It is fairly clear that Jesus had a line through to the Jewish council via these two members, if not others. Also the witness to the interview of Jesus with Annas could only have only have come from ‘the other disciple who knew the high priest’ who may also have been witness to the conversation with Pilate next morning. I speculate below that this disciple may have been a member of the Jerusalem connection. The following, somewhat enigmatic, passage from John indicates how the Jerusalem following began to form: 2:23 While he was in Jerusalem for the feast of Passover, many began to believe in his name when they saw the signs he was doing. 2:24 But Jesus would

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Chapter Five not trust himself to them because he knew them all, 2:25 and did not need anyone to testify about human nature. He himself understood it well. Another passage in John describes how he confronted a crowd in the temple during the feast of Dedication. Some of the crowd were in opposition but there were some that believed. 10:39 (Then) they tried again to arrest him; but he escaped from their power. 10:40 He went back across the Jordan to the place where John first baptized, and there he remained. 10:41 Many came to him and said, “John performed no sign, but everything John said about this man was true.” 10:42 And many there began to believe in him. I have read very little concerning the Connection as a whole so will now delineate all the characters involved.

5.1 Nicodemus. Some information is given in the Catholic Encyclopedia: A prominent Jew of the time of Christ, mentioned only in the Fourth Gospel. The name is of Greek origin, but at that epoch such names were occasionally borrowed by the Jews, and according to Josephus (Ant. of the Jews, XIV, iii, 2) Nicodemus was the name of one of the ambassadors sent by Aristobulus to Pompey. A Hebrew form of the name (Naqdimon) is found in the Talmud. Nicodemus was a Pharisee, and in his capacity of sanhedrist, (John, vii, 50) was a leader of the Jews. Christ, in the interview when Nicodemus came to him by night, calls him a master in Israel. Judging from John xix, 39, Nicodemus must have been a man of means, and it is probable that he wielded a certain influence in the Sanhedrim. Some writers conjecture from his question: “How can a man be born when he is old?”, that he was already advanced in years, but the words are too general to warrant such a conclusion. He appears in this interview as a learned and intelligent believer, but timid and not easily initiated into the mysteries of the new faith. He next appears (John, vii, 50, 51) in the Sanhedrim offering a word in defence of the accused Galilean; and we may infer from this passage that he embraced the truth as soon as it was fully made known to him. He is mentioned finally in John, xix, 39, where he is shown co-operating with Joseph of Arimathea in the embalming and burial of Jesus. The Encyclopaedia does not mention a second reference in Josephus which I note below. The reference cited above could not refer to the Nicodemus of the gospels as it refers to an event which occured about 60 BCE. I agree with most of the encyclopaedia report except for the word timid. Perhaps ‘careful’ or ‘conservative’ might be a better word. He is the one person who is reported upon reasonably extensively and a real character emerges. It is this consistency of character which leads me to believe that he may have been an historical figure. As to the witness who recorded these events concerning Nicodemus, it must have been the disciple John. 68

a) Firstly, during a Passover, earlier than that of the Passion, he comes to Jesus secretly at night seeking instruction. The passage in chapter 3 of John gives insight into Nicodemus’s personality. 3:1 Now there was a Pharisee named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews.* (* NAB NOTE: A ruler of the Jews: most likely a member of the Jewish council, the Sanhedrin. ) 3:2 He came to Jesus at night and said to him, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God, for no one can do these signs that you are doing unless God is with him.” To call Nicodemus a Pharisee would imply that he was closely involved with the movement, possibly some sort of lay preacher in fact. The statement that he came by night would indicate that it was a clandestine meeting. It implies that Nicodemus would not wish other Pharisees to know that he had come. (There are indications in the Gospels of doctrinal conflict between Jesus and Pharisees.) Nicodemus is shown here as someone of an enquiring mind who is prepared to investigate an alternative philosophy but wishes to be fully informed before he makes any decision to embrace it fully. 3:3 Jesus answered and said to him, “Amen, amen, I say to you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born * from above.” (NAB NOTE: From above: the Greek adverb anothen means both “from above” and “again.” Jesus means “from above” (see John 3:31) but Nicodemus misunderstands it as “again.” This misunderstanding serves as a springboard for further instruction.) 3:4 Nicodemus said to him, “How can a person once grown old be born again? Surely he cannot reenter his mother’s womb and be born again, can he?” I do not know if the confusion over the Greek word would exist in Aramaic. However it is (just) possible that they were speaking in Greek. Nicodemus is shown here as being a little obtuse and obviously influenced by the restrictive thinking of the Pharisees. It is quite possible that this obtuseness and punning was an invention of the author of John. (Called ‘Johnine irony’.) 3:5 Jesus answered, “Amen, amen, I say to you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit. 3:6 What is born of flesh is flesh and what is born of spirit is spirit. 3:7 Do not be amazed that I told you, ‘You must be born from above.’ 3:8 The wind blows where it wills, and you can hear the sound it makes, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes; so it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” This passage sounds like authentic Jesus’ philosophy and this is supported by the presence of the oratorical catchphrase. The word used in the text for ‘wind’ is synonymous with ‘spirit’ in both the original Greek and its Hebrew equivalent.. 3:9 Nicodemus answered and said to him, “How can this happen?” 3:10 Jesus answered and said to him, “You are the teacher of Israel and you do not understand this? 3:11 Amen, amen, I say to you, we speak of what we know and we testify to what we have seen, but you people do not accept our testimony.

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Chapter Five Jesus’ reply to Nicodemus’ question shows his ironic sense of humour (not all that well realised in this translation.). Verse 11 seems to be authentic and contains the oratorical catchphrase however from this point on the passage the pronoun changes from singular to plural. (The ‘royal’ we.) These ensuing verses (which I don’t copy) I believe to perhaps have come from the original witness, (the disciple John), but to have been subsequently re-worked considerably by the author of John (who was not the disciple.) Much of this reworking has had a fundamental effect on Church dogma. b) On a later occasion, during the feast of the Tabernacles, Nicodemus is portrayed as supporting Jesus in a meeting of ‘Pharisees’. (This may have been the Sanhedrin.) 7:50 Nicodemus, one of their members who had come to him earlier, said to them, 7:51 “Does our law condemn a person before it first hears him and finds out what he is doing?” Again this shows Nicodemus’s liberal views and his courage in supporting Jesus in spite of establishment opposition. It appears that by this stage Nicodemus has become a committed follower of Jesus. c) He is mentioned finally as assisting Arimathea in Jesus’ burial rites. I’ll discuss this passage in detail in following chapters. 19:38 * After this, Joseph of Arimathea, secretly a disciple of Jesus for fear of the Jews, asked Pilate if he could remove the body of Jesus. And Pilate permitted it. So he came and took his body. 19:39 Nicodemus, the one who had first come to him at night, also came bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes weighing about one hundred pounds. 19:40 They took the body of Jesus and bound it with burial cloths along with the spices, according to the Jewish burial custom. d) A Nicodemus is mentioned twice in Josephus. The earliest reference, cited by the Catholic Encyclopaedia above, could not be the Nicodemus of the Gospels. The later reference is in The War of the Jews 2.17.10. The time is in the early stages of the war, about 65 CE. The passage describes a situation where Gorion, the son of Nicodemus and some others are sent to negotiate with a group of captured Roman soldiers. Nothing is said about Nicodemus himself, however the implication is that he was an important citizen or his son was. It is quite possible that this Nicodemus is the Nicodemus of John. The age seems about right and the reference implies that he was a person of some influence, which agrees with the reportage in the Gospels. 10. And, as I said, so far truly the people assisted them, while they hoped this might afford some amendment to the seditious practices; but the others were not in haste to put an end to the war, but hoped to prosecute it with less danger, now they had slain Manahem. It is true, that when the people earnestly desired that

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they would leave off besieging the soldiers, they were the more earnest in pressing it forward, and this till Metilius, who was the Roman general, sent to Eleazar, and desired that they would. give them security to spare their lives only; but agreed to deliver up their arms, and what else they had with them. The others readily complied with their petition, sent to them Gorion, the son of Nicodemus, and Ananias, the son of Sadduk, and Judas, the son of Jonathan, that they might give them the security However the petition was not successful, the Roman soldiers were attacked and some were killed.

5.2 The owner of the ass’s colt. I discuss in ensuing chapters the entry of Jesus into Jerusalem, riding on the back of a colt of an ass and how this was his way of announcing that he was Messiah. The event occurred about a week before the Passover of the Passion. It is not known who the owners of the colt were. What is known is that Jesus knew that a colt would be in a certain place and would be delivered to the person who gave an agreed upon password phrase. The disciples apparently did not have any knowledge of dealings Jesus may have had with the owners. The passage is presented in a way that implies that Jesus may have had Divine Knowledge concerning this colt, and this may have been the effect he was intending to promote. It is possible that the owners of the colt were not from Jerusalem, however they were certainly persons unknown to the Galilean disciples. The episode implies very careful planning. The synoptics say that the colt was found at a village that they came upon as they were drawing near to Jerusalem from Galilee. This is improbable. It is likely that Jesus was at Bethany before the ride into Jerusalem, as John says. The story is only in the synoptics, which are pretty much in agreement. I quote from Luke. 19:29 As he drew near to Bethphage and Bethany at the place called the Mount of Olives, he sent two of his disciples. 19:30 He said, “Go into the village opposite you, and as you enter it you will find a colt tethered on which no one has ever sat. Untie it and bring it here. 19:31 And if anyone should ask you, ‘Why are you untying it?’ you will answer, ‘The Master has need of it.’” 19:32 So those who had been sent went off and found everything just as he had told them. 19:33 And as they were untying the colt, its owners said to them, “Why are you untying this colt?” 19:34 They answered, “The Master has need of it.”

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Chapter Five

5.3 The Owner of the Upper Room. I quote from Mark, which is generally followed by the other synoptics: 14:12 On the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, when they sacrificed the Passover lamb, his disciples said to him, “Where do you want us to go and prepare for you to eat the Passover?” 14:13 He sent two of his disciples and said to them, “Go into the city and a man will meet you, carrying a jar of water. * Follow him. 14:14 Wherever he enters, say to the master of the house, ‘The Teacher says, “Where is my guest room where I may eat the Passover with my disciples?”’ 14:15 Then he will show you a large upper room furnished and ready. Make the preparations for us there.” 14:16 The disciples then went off, entered the city, and found it just as he had told them; and they prepared the Passover. * NAB NOTE: A man . . . carrying a jar of water: perhaps a prearranged signal, for only women ordinarily carried water in jars. The Greek word used here, however, implies simply a person and not necessarily a male. As a digression; there has been a lot of comment concerning this man with the jar of water (including comparisons with the zodiacal sign of Aquarius.) Fairly obviously, for someone to stand out and be recognised, amongst a multitude of female water carriers, it would have to be a male. I also note that in certain communities comprising solely males, such as the Roman army or the Essenes, the males would have to carry the water. I mention the Essenes because an Essene tradition would solve certain problems with the dating of Passover in the year of the Passion. (I discuss the dating of the Passion in chapter 10.) There are other indications of Essene involvement, although nothing is ever mentioned about Essenes in the gospels. I do have a few concerns concerning the nature of the meal however. I discuss this later. We can be certain that it was the last meal shared with the disciples while Jesus was alive in his mundane body. It appears that the unidentified owner was probably quite affluent. This house is located by tradition in the Upper City, a suburb in the south-west corner of Jerusalem. (Refer to the map.) This was the best part of town. Caiaphas and probably Annas lived close by. Although information is somewhat sketchy it is possible to draw up a picture of these wealthy men’s houses. They were quadrangular blocks of two stories with a courtyard in the centre. Apparently they were not set in grounds so adjacent houses would abut against each other. Entrance to the courtyard and thence the house would be via an archway or alley which passed through the body of the building. According to John in his description of the High Priest’s house to which Jesus was taken after his arrest, there was a gate here which was guarded by a gatekeeper. The large guest room mentioned above was probably a common feature of such houses, being commonly used for

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entertaining and dinner parties. These houses were probably quite large, having to accommodate numerous servants. Just as with the ass’s colt we see that Jesus has been making elaborate arrangements and keeping the disciples in the dark. One cannot really understand the reason for the trick with the water carrier. Jesus could perhaps have told them the address. Even if the disciples were liable to have got lost in a strange town he could have made more direct arrangements for them to be shown to the house.

5.4 The young man in the garden. This is one of those seemingly irrelevant incidents which have no apparent significance or obvious midrashic underlay. Because of this I am liable to believe that it actually happened. The reference appears only in Mark. It is interesting that Matthew does not include it his gospel as he omits very little from Mark. On the face of it the incident appears to be meaningless and inexplicable. This may be the reason for its omission. It occurs as Jesus is being led off after being arrested in the Garden of Gethsemane. 14:51 Now a young man followed him wearing nothing but a linen cloth about his body. They seized him, 14:52 but he left the cloth behind and ran off naked. There is an interesting, but unlikely, theory that the young man went there to indulge in some secret mystic rites. This is based on fragments from a putative ‘Secret Gospel of Mark’ where Jesus spends the night indulging in ‘secret rites’ with a young man in a linen cloth whom he has formerly raised from the dead. (One may, no doubt, consider the implications attendant on Jesus spending a night with a young man in a linen cloth.) This young man is not named, but is naturally identified as Lazarus. I think we can put the idea of someone wanting to indulge in secret rites to one side. It would be a strange to want to do in the circumstances. (The fragment concerning ‘Lazarus’ is not authenticated, however does have some points in its favour.) I feel that we can link this youth to the Jerusalem connection, and explain why he was there. If it were just a young man who happened to be in the garden that night nothing could be gleaned. However the fact is that he followed so closely behind Jesus that the guards managed to seize him and he only escaped by wriggling out of his clothes. This indicates to me that he must have had some interest in what was happening to Jesus. The conjecture that has come to mind is that he was a member of the Jerusalem Connection who had been sent to the garden that night to observe and report back. (I believe that the Connection knew something about what was going on, a matter I discuss more fully in chapter 9.) The linen costume is another link. Linen was (and still is) very expensive and this indicates that the young man might have been from an affluent family. Wealth 73

The Jerusalem Connection

Chapter Five does seem to be one of the attributes of members of the Connection. We have noted above that Nicodemus and Arimathea were responsible for the burial of Jesus’ body in the tomb after the crucifixion. The gospels all state that there were young men or ‘angels’ in or around the tomb at the time of the ‘resurrection’ who were dressed in white which indicates linen. I have read somewhere the suggestion that this dress was some sort of uniform of a secret order however this is a doubtful proposition. Linen is also a very good insulator which would explain the ‘nothing but’ phrase in the quotation above. The disciples commonly wore clothes made of wool, probably in double layers as it was a cold night and no doubt were not affluent enough to have experienced the insulating properties of linen.

5.5 The disciple who was known to the high priest. According to John, when Jesus was arrested he was taken to the high priest Annas. 18:15 Simon Peter and another disciple followed Jesus. Now the other disciple was known to the high priest, and he entered the courtyard of the high priest with Jesus. 18:16 But Peter stood at the gate outside. So the other disciple, the acquaintance of the high priest, went out and spoke to the gatekeeper and brought Peter in. I have no idea what the name of this person is so, for convenience, will call him Fred. John does not have the complement of twelve disciples that the synoptics have. The more important ones are there but there are cases of un-named disciples who I believe to be different people. There is the well known ‘beloved disciple’ who is generally thought to be John although a number of people have theories that he or she may be someone else. John 21 also indicates another unnamed disciple. I do not know why John kept the names of certain disciples anonymous. My only conjecture is that they were not members of the ‘twelve’ and the author of John, having read the synoptics, did not wish to contradict them. It is generally considered that this disciple was John, (or the beloved disciple if that wasn’t John), however I cannot accept that. John was a Galilean disciple and would not have the time or opportunity to get to know the high priest. He would not be the sort of person a high priest would hobnob with, being a somewhat uncultured fisherman and member of the lower classes. Fred on the other hand had obviously visited the house on previous occasions as the gatekeeper knew him and granted entry. It may be that Fred went into the house and discussed the matter of Peter’s entry with Annas. I get this from the phrase ‘went out’ in 18:16. Whatever the case he was well known enough to allow Peter safe passage through the gate.

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Fred appeared out of the blue after all the other disciples had supposedly fled. It is not explained exactly where he came from. While the above logic suggests that he came from Jerusalem there is nothing here that associates him with the Jerusalem Connection. I speculate in chapter 9 concerning a possible association.

5.6 Joseph of Arimathea. Arimathea is mentioned in one context in all gospels as claiming the body of Jesus from the cross and then being responsible for the burial. (I have quoted from John above. John adds the presence of Nicodemus and the anointing spices to the synoptics reports.) The following from Mark is typical of the synoptics. 15:43 Joseph of Arimathea, a distinguished member of the council, who was himself awaiting the kingdom of God, came and courageously went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus. 15:44 Pilate was amazed that he was already dead. He summoned the centurion and asked him if Jesus had already died. 15:45 And when he learned of it from the centurion, he gave the body to Joseph. 15:46 Having bought a linen cloth, he took him down, wrapped him in the linen cloth and laid him in a tomb that had been hewn out of the rock. Then he rolled a stone against the entrance to the tomb. It is certainly somewhat remarkable that such a distinguished person should take control of the interment procedures, that he should have audience with Pilate, that he should have a tomb and burial cerements readily available. He was an eminent person, a member of the Sanhedrin and a follower of Jesus. Luke adds that he came originally from the town of Arimathea. 23:50 Now there was a virtuous and righteous man named Joseph who, though he was a member of the council, 23:51 had not consented to their plan of action. He came from the Jewish town of Arimathea and was awaiting the kingdom of God. The town, Arimathea, has not been positively identified. It is thought that it might be Ramatha, the birthplace of the Prophet Samuel, although several scholars prefer to identify it with the town of Ramleh. We have the picture of a man coming to the big city from a small town and making good. There is a good reason for the surname as it was needed to distinguish him from another Joseph on the Sanhedrin, Joseph Caiaphas, the high priest and leader of the council. I have read the theory (in Spong) that Arimathea did not, in fact, exist and was merely a midrashic invention based on a prediction in Isaiah that the Messiah would be buried with a rich man. (The complete passage in Isaiah chapter 53, which is used to great effect in Handel’s sacred oratorio, seems to presage the death of Jesus and may well have added fuel to certain myths which have been fostered by the Church.)

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Chapter Five ISAIAH: 53:9 A grave was assigned him among the wicked and a burial place with evildoers, Though he had done no wrong nor spoken any falsehood. We can note that the phrase ‘rich man’ in the King James Version has been replaced by the word ‘evildoers’ in the NAB translation. I do not know why this is. I do not accept that Arimathea was a midrashic invention. If he was he would have been buried in the tomb together with Jesus. Also I note the reality of the surname, which would hardly have been invented by a gospel writer. There are certain legends prevalent about Arimathea, namely that he went to Gaul in 63 CE and thence to Great Britain, where he is supposed to have founded the earliest Christian oratory at Glastonbury. Various books have been written suggesting that, after the crucifixion, he accompanied Mary Magdaline, who was pregnant with Jesus’ child to Egypt and thence to France. While these theories are interesting, and may have some basis in fact, they do not impinge seriously on this book except to provide explanation for the disappearance of Arimathea from the record.

light in the evening. (Jewish Monday started after sunset on the Saturday.) It is quite clear that something happened in the tomb between sunset and sunrise on the Monday. Whatever it was you can be pretty certain that Nicodemus, Arimathea and their followers were involved. Whatever actually did occur is one of the great mysteries, however it is not the purpose of this book to go into that. It is quite possible that the body was removed during the night. Jewish custom would not orevent this. When the women arrived to anoint the body the stone over the mouth of the tomb had been rolled away. The burial cloths were removed carefully from the body and the body itself was gone. There were either one or two young men or ‘angels’ present as we have discussed.

5.7 The ‘angels’ in the tomb. Mark 16:5 On entering the tomb they saw a young man sitting on the right side, clothed in a white robe, and they were utterly amazed. Matthew 28:2 And behold, there was a great earthquake; for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven, approached, rolled back the stone, and sat upon it. 28:3 His appearance was like lightning and his clothing was white as snow. Luke 24:2 They found the stone rolled away from the tomb; 24:3 but when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. 24:4 While they were puzzling over this, behold, two men in dazzling garments appeared to them. John 20:11 But Mary stayed outside the tomb weeping. And as she wept, she bent over into the tomb 20:12 and saw two angels in white sitting there, one at the head and one at the feet where the body of Jesus had been. The records are inconsistent however all reports state that the young men in the tomb wore white. This indicates that the fabric of their clothes may have been linen, which relates to the young man in the garden (above.) We can also note that Essenes always wore white. Some of the reports refer to the young men as ‘angels’, however the most likely explanation is that they were associates of Nicodemus and Arimathea . Jesus was placed in the tomb on the eve of the Sabbath (Saturday). We note that the Sabbath would have commenced, as was Jewish custom, at sunset on Friday evening and would have extended to sunset on Saturday evening. During this time custom dictated that it was not permissible to attend to the body. The women could have come after sunset on the Saturday to anoint the body but instead waited until early morning, probably because there would have been no 76

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Chapter six

Judas Iscariot

6. - Judas Iscariot Most authors, when writing about the events in Jesus’ life, will take the stand that Judas Iscariot was a traitor of the worst kind. The concept of his unmitigated evil pervades our society to such a degree that the name Judas has become automatically synonymous for ‘traitor’. A sheep who leads other sheep on to the slaughter is ritually termed a ‘Judas sheep’. Even so there is something not quite right about the betrayal stories in the gospels. The more general books comment on this occasionally. Now there is arising quite a school opinion which sets forth the idea that Judas was actually innocent and, in fact, was a friend and helper of Jesus. I give three major sources below, which probably cover the field, however there is quite a volume of work on the subject which I have not read. The implications of the concept that Iscariot may not have been a betrayer are far reaching and central to the subject of this book. (One should mention the recently translated Gospel of Judas. This also presents Judas as a friend and helper, however I do not discuss it here because of its uncertain provenance.) 1) William Klassen presents a scholarly work, Judas, Betrayer or Friend of Jesus. This book is a seminal work on the subject and I go along with most of it. It makes a strong case for the idea that the Greek word usually translated as ‘betrayal’ actually means ‘handed over’. Professor Klassen also elaborates on meanings for the surname, which I find interesting. He covers many points I have found elsewhere. In my opinion he falls short of definitive truth because he dies not supply a motivation for Iscariot. Klassen, a committed Christian, bases his thought on the concept that Jesus willingly went to the cross as part of God’s Holy Plan and posits that Iscariot was helping him achieve this. This is a very common explanation among scholars who wish to present Judas as a hero. Of course I cannot accept that Jesus dying on the cross was part of God’s Holy Plan. 2) An article The Narrative Necessity of Judas Iscariot in the New Testament? by Derek Nelson was found on the Wabash College website. The web page has now disappeared and I did not retain all of the material. This is a summary article, which represents a majority opinion of those scholars who admit to Iscariot’s innocence. It excludes comment on the Gospel of John. It points out that Judas is never mentioned in the earliest documents, the Epistles of Paul, and notes an increasing denigration of his character with time through the synoptics. Nelson points out that Judas’ actual given name was Judah and has become Judas in English via various translations. As we know Judah is another name for the Jewish race. Nelson posits that the betrayal stories were developed by the Pauline (or Gentile) branch of the early Church in a conflict of power with the Jewish (or Ebionite) branch, the purpose being to paint the Jews in a bad light. He does not mention the other motivation, the necessity to appease Roman public opinion. Nelson poses some interesting questions:

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How could Jesus knowingly choose a traitor to be one of his disciples? How could Judas do what he did? What motive(s) did he have? If his deed of handing Jesus over was so evil, how could he have been so impervious to Jesus’ good influences? To what extent has Judas served as a scapegoat requisite for an oppressively anti-Semitic theology? 3) Bishop John Shelby Spong in Liberating the Gospels presents a good deal of material in chapter 16, Judas Iscariot: A Christian Invention? Spong, however, goes one step further and presents the idea that an historical Iscariot never existed. Spong, in his many books, has the bad habit of throwing out the baby with the bathwater. I discuss this point below. These and other sources point out many of the flaws in the concept that Iscariot was a betrayer. Apart from the discussion of the dipping procedure at the Last Supper, very little of my work in this chapter is original. My approach has been to inspect each and every reference to Iscariot in the gospels and to perform a careful analysis on each passage for logical consistency. This has brought to light some interesting points and does indicate that the betrayal stories are not to be relied upon. Removing these from the gospel reports I have left a slim list of facts which I consider to be either true or probable. The only fact of ‘betrayal’ that I accept is that Iscariot accompanied the arresting detail at Gethsemane. The question must be asked: if he was not a traitor, what was he doing there? Nothing of what I have read has have given an answer which satisfies me. (Of course Spong says he wasn’t really there, because he didn’t exist, and probably the events at Gethsemane didn’t happen anyway.) The point has been made that betrayal stories were invented for various political reasons. I would like to add the thought that the original Galilean disciples, who observed Iscariot with the arresting detail, might have jumped to the conclusion that he was a betrayer because they were kept in the dark as to exactly what was going on. But then there is always the niggling thought, from the lack of blame in the early reports, that his role in the proceedings was originally fully known and understood. (See article 6.6 below.) The question is: Was this an act of betrayal or was Iscariot acting under secret instructions from Jesus? The thing that has always perplexed me is that the meeting at Gethsemane appears to have been a pre-arranged rendezvous. Not only pre-arranged – Jesus appeared to know exactly what was going to happen to him. These matters are discussed in detail in chapter 8.

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Chapter six

Judas Iscariot

6.1 The Greek word paradidomi I am indebted to Klassen (p 47 et seq) for his analysis of this point, which I summarise here. (Klassen believes he was the first to point this out however there was someone else who preceded him – the reference is in a book by Professor Charlesworth about the Beloved Disciple.) In most modern translations of the New Testament (including the NAB) Iscariot is invariably described as the person who ‘betrayed’ Jesus. The Greek word which is translated as betrayed is paradidomi. When this word is used in the New Testament in a context which does not include Iscariot the word is invariably translated as ‘handed over’. This is also apparently the case when the word is used in surviving ancient Greek literature. Klassen refers to his edition of Liddell and Scott, the standard Greek/ English Lexicon, which defines paradidomi as ‘handed over’ but with a collateral meaning of betrayal. Klassen has the complete edition of this lexicon, which gives a reference to all usages of the word in extant pre New Testament Greek literature. (My personal edition of Liddell and Scott is an abridged one, which does not contain these references.) Klassen has then inspected the source of all the classical references mentioned by Liddell and Scott and concluded that ‘handed over’ is the only possible meaning in these contexts. (He quotes them all.) He then accuses Liddell and Scott of being biased by current Christian beliefs by including ‘betrayal’ in their definition. What this means is that the concept of betrayal was largely absent in the gospel reports and has been generated by later thought. The only case where Iscariot is described with a Greek word which has a negative connotation is in the listing of disciples in Luke 7.16 where he is called a traitor. (LUKE 6:17... and Judas the son of James, and Judas Iscariot, who became a traitor.) We may note that Luke came last of the synoptics and exhibits the continuing tendency to blacken Iscariot’s name.

6.2 The Other Judas’s Judas was a common name at the time and is the Greek form of the Hebrew name Judah which means ‘praised’. Judah is still popular given name among contemporary Jews. It was the name given to an ancient patriarch, the leader of one of the twelve tribes and hence becomes associated with Jewry. We can note also that Judah might be considered to be synonymous with the Jewish race. This similarity has given rise to the thought, in the minds of some scholars, that when the early gospel writers were blackening the name Judas they were also blackening the Jews. Personally I think this is an overstatement. Judah was a very common name at the time. 80

There was at least one other member in the group of disciples with the given name of Judas. This is the reason for the surname Iscariot. As I’ve explained before, people were given one name at birth. Subsequently if there were two people with the same given name in a group or context a surname or nickname was allocated in order to distinguish between them. First to note is Judas, son of James, a somewhat shadowy figure who is mentioned only by Luke and then only in the list of the twelve disciples. (See Luke 6:16 quoted above.) Mark and Matthew list Thaddeus, another shadowy figure, in the place of this Judas. Second to note is the eminent disciple, (Doubting) Thomas. JOHN 11:16 So Thomas, called Didymus*, said to his fellow disciples, “Let us also go to die with him.” * NAB NOTE Called Didymus: Didymus is the Greek word for twin. Thomas is derived from the Aramaic word for twin; in an ancient Syriac version and in the Gospel of Thomas (80:11-12) his given name, Judas, is supplied. I’m not familiar with the Gospel of Thomas mentioned by the NAB however there is another Gospel of Thomas, a Gnostic text in Coptic found at Nag Hammadi in Egypt, which is not accepted by the church but thought to be genuine by scholars (and myself). This has a short preamble which also indicates that Thomas’s given name was Judas. These are the secret sayings that the living Jesus spoke and Didymos Judas Thomas recorded. So Doubting Thomas should really be called Judas the Twin. No doubt the given name has been lost sight of because of the ignominy associated with Iscariot. Another point to note is that Jesus had a brother called Judas (or Jude) and that Judas the Twin may be this brother. There has been speculation (and, I believe ‘tradition’) that he might have been Jesus’ twin. I think this unlikely. He may have been the twin of one of Jesus’ brothers or sisters. He was certainly somebody’s twin. We can also refer to the canonical Epistle of Jude (Jude and Judas are synonymous) which was written by someone who claimed to be James’s brother. (1:1 Jude, a slave of Jesus Christ and brother of James, to those who are called, beloved in God the Father and kept safe for Jesus Christ: 1:2 may mercy, peace, and love be yours in abundance.) James (the Just) was Jesus’ brother and was leader of the Jerusalem branch of the congregation in the early days. It seems unlikely that this Judas was Judas the Twin (Thomas), however it seems that he was Jesus’ brother. Even so there is a bit of a mystery here, if Jesus, James and Judas were all brothers I find it strange that Judas did not claim to be Jesus’ brother in his gospel. Many commentators consider the Jude Epistle to be a falsely named work dating from the end of the first century or even later. There is also another enigmatic Judas mentioned in John.

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JOHN 14:22 Judas, not the Iscariot, * said to him, “Master, (then) what happened that you will reveal yourself to us and not to the world?” NAB NOTE Judas, not the Iscariot: probably not the brother of Jesus in Mark 6:3 // Matthew 13:55 or the apostle named Jude in Luke 6:16 but Thomas (see the note on John 11:16), although other readings have “Judas the Cananean.” As the NAB notes this Judas could be any of the Judas’s mentioned above. It may be Thomas, however I am doubtful as Thomas is referred to by that name several times in John. Even so the thought struck me that the questioner may indeed have been Iscariot, for it is a question that might be asked by a devoted disciple, and John or subsequent editors may not have wished to ascribe such a question to a traitor. What if the original Iscariot was changed to Cananean which is another term for a revolutionary, (see article 6.3, point 4) then subsequently to ‘not Iscariot’ as no Judas the Cananean was known? Fanciful perhaps?

be the city in question. Klassen quotes G. Swartz, Judas and Jesus, 6-12 (p 49) but does not include the book in his bibliography. 4. Another theory is that he was a sicarious, a political revolutionary of the serious kind. They were generally in cahoots with the Zealots. They would use daggers to assassinate their political enemies, or those who promoted a policy of appeasement with the Romans. In John it states that Judas inherited the title from his father so Judas himself may have been none of these. (JOHN 6:71 He was referring to Judas, son of Simon the Iscariot; it was he who would betray him, one of the Twelve.) As far as my thesis is concerned it doesn’t matter particularly. However there is some important fact hidden in the name which somehow eludes us and it is a pity that the meaning is so uncertain. I prefer the Man about Town version, for want of anything better. We can note that this might imply that he had contact with the Jerusalem Connection, something which fits in with my theories in chapter 9.

6.3 The Surname.

6.4 What was his crime and how serious was it?

Judas Iscariot was given a surname in order to distinguish him from the other Judases in the group. No-one is exactly sure what Iscariot means and there is a good deal of scholarly discussion on the matter. 1. Certain arguments relate the surname to Aramaic words for betrayal. These are somewhat tenuous and must assume the name was allocated subsequent to the putative betrayal. This goes against the sure knowledge that the surname was allocated because of another Judas in the group of disciples. I don’t accept this as a source for the surname. 2. One theory is that the name is taken from the Hebrew Ish Kerioth, which means “a man from Kerioth”, the Hebrew being somewhat obscured by its Greek equivalent. Kerioth no longer exists and its exact location is unsure, except that it is mentioned in the Old Testament as being in Judea. If so, Iscariot would be the odd man out among the other disciples, who all came from Galilee. The Catholic Encyclopaedia is sure that this is the source of the name however other commentators point out that it is a Hebrew term where an Aramaic one would be preferable among Galilean disciples. Even so Hebrew would have been learnt by the Galileans for religious study. It could also indicate that Iscariot was a scholarly or priestly person. 3. Initially I noted that kerioth is also a name for ‘town’ hence the surname could possibly be rendered as ‘Man about Town’ perhaps implying that he came from Jerusalem. I put a question mark beside this until I came across Klassen who notes a source (p 33) which indicates that the meaning ‘the man from the city’ could be derived from Aramaic. Klassen is quite happy that Jerusalem might

I can note cynically that if Iscariot betrayed Jesus then he was, at least in part, responsible for Jesus’ death on the cross and so must have been included in God’s holy plan to save the world from sin, and hence should be praised. This argument is actually used in the defence of Iscariot. The only eyewitness evidence that Iscariot was a traitor was that he was with the detail of soldiers and police that arrested Jesus. There are also accusations, allegedly made by Jesus during the last supper, but these are doubtful, as I shall explain later. Various other statements are made for which there could not be a witness or about which there is some doubt. I believe that it was true that Iscariot was with the arresting detail, but in fact Jesus could have been arrested at any time. He made no attempt to hide his whereabouts. He was a well known itinerant preacher and healer who had made a triumphant entry into Jerusalem a few days previously. Perhaps the priests were afraid of arresting him when there were crowds around for fear of a riot but certainly not the Romans, who would have had enough soldiers present to quell any riot. But if they were afraid of arresting him in a public place they could have certainly arrested him in a quiet place. I don’t think Jesus made any secret of the fact that he was going back to Bethany most evenings. This is something commonly assumed in many of my sources. It may be true although it is possible he occasionally slept out on the Mount of Olives. Both places were quiet and relatively uncrowded. Certainly he could have been tailed when he left the temple and followed home, or even arrested on the road. And there were no qualms about making Jesus carry his cross through the town where there were crowds around. So why were there qualms about arresting him?

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The fact is the authorities didn’t have any need of Iscariot to finger Jesus. If the crime was pointing out where Jesus was on a certain quiet night then it is not much of a crime.

6.5 Did Iscariot actually exist? Most readers probably wouldn’t bother to ask such a question however Spong (op. cit.) has drawn the conclusion that Iscariot never really existed, that he, and the betrayal stories, were invented by the gospel writers (or later editors) in order to blacken the Jews. I do not find the argument particularly appealing. My thesis is that it is the betrayal stories, not the historical character, that were the invention. There are so many details about Iscariot, including the name itself, which are very convincing. Also I do not believe that the gospel writers would be capable of such invention because they really were not that competent at creative writing. Moreover, why would they choose a person with a name which means ‘praised’ as a villain? This leads me to believe that he was an historical character. You must read Spong’s book for yourself. · Consistent mention in all gospels. I note that the synoptics list twelve disciples and in each Iscariot is named as betrayer. (Or should we say hander-over?) John does not provide a list of disciples but does name Iscariot. · Judas was a common name at that time. Moreover it was the given name of heroes and eminent people in Jewish history. Why would an invented evil personality be modelled on a hero? · The fact that it was necessary to give Judas the Twin a surname and that surname has been subsequently lost sight of. The gospel writers would not have any reason to invent a surname for Iscariot and then hide the reason for doing so. If Iscariot was a pure invention he would have had no surname. Why would someone invent a name the same as an existing disciple (Judas the Twin) and then go to strange lengths to suppress the name of that disciple?

6.6 Lack of blame in the early reports.

I COR 11:23 For I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you, that the Lord Jesus, on the night he was handed over, took bread... Although the phrase ‘handed over’ is often rendered as ‘betrayed’ in other translations it is clear (from Nelson op. cit.) that the NAB has rendered the original Greek word correctly. So, even the concept of betrayal is not present at all in Paul, just that Jesus was handed over. I assume here that Paul is referring to the idea that the Jews handed Jesus over to the Romans. So even here Iscariot is not in the frame. All this is in spite of several references to the crucifixion and the subsequent resurrection. The question is: that if Iscariot was a traitor why did Saint Paul not make full use of this fact in his political squabble with the Jewish church? It appears possible that Paul either did not know of him or was unaware of any villainy associated with the name. In another passage in Corinthians, Paul refers to the disciples as ‘the Twelve’, referring to a time shortly after the crucifixion when there were only eleven due to the defection of Iscariot. I COR 15:3 For I handed on to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures; 15:4 that he was buried; that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures; 15:5 that he appeared to Kephas, then to the Twelve. Does this indicate that Iscariot never left the Twelve? Luke, in Acts, recounts the election of Matthias to make up the numbers. This was subsequent to the appearance of Jesus to Peter (Kephas) referred to above. Matthias is never mentioned again, either in Acts or elsewhere in the New Testament. Is it possible that the election in Acts was a later invention to make it appear that Judas did defect? Of course it is possible that when Paul used the term ‘the Twelve’ he was being careless or was not mindful of the historical facts or was using it as a generic for disciples. We can note a statement made by Jesus during the last supper which appears to be accurate because of the presence of an oratorical catchphrase MATT 19:28 Jesus said to them, “Amen, I say to you that you who have followed me, in the new age, when the Son of Man is seated on his throne of glory, will yourselves sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. It is obvious from this that Jesus wished to include Iscariot among these kings of heaven. Even if Jesus did not make the above statement it is clear that Matthew thought so, even though he reviled Iscariot in other parts of his gospel.

The earliest Christian documents are the epistles of Paul. By doing a search on all New Testament books except the first five I have noted that the names ‘Judas’ and ‘Iscariot’ never occur. Moreover there are no references to a betrayal, although there is one to a handing over in the First Epistle of Paul to the Corinthians, (during a description of the institution of the Eucharist.)

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6.7 Gospel attempts to change the script to blacken Iscariot’s name. MARK (The Anointing at Bethany.) 14:3 * When he was in Bethany reclining at table in the house of Simon the leper, a woman came with an alabaster jar of perfumed oil, costly genuine spikenard. She broke the alabaster jar and poured it on his head. 14:4 There were some who were indignant. “Why has there been this waste of perfumed oil? 14:5 It could have been sold for more than three hundred days’ wages and the money given to the poor.” They were infuriated with her. 14:6 Jesus said, “Let her alone. Why do you make trouble for her? She has done a good thing for me. 14:7 The poor you will always have with you, and whenever you wish you can do good to them, but you will not always have me. Matthew (26:6-13) is much the same but the uncharitable comments are attributed to disciples. Luke (7:36-50) has a parallel but apparently unrelated incident. JOHN 12:3 Mary took a liter of costly perfumed oil made from genuine aromatic nard and anointed the feet of Jesus and dried them with her hair; the house was filled with the fragrance of the oil. 12:4 Then Judas the Iscariot, one (of) his disciples, and the one who would betray him, said, 12:5 “Why was this oil not sold for three hundred days’ wages and given to the poor?” 12:6 He said this not because he cared about the poor but because he was a thief and held the money bag and used to steal the contributions. 12:7 So Jesus said, “Leave her alone. Let her keep this for the day of my burial. 12:8 You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me.” We should note that there is much detail that is common between the two passages, and in particular a repetition of certain phrases. This would indicate that John has based his passage on Mark, Matthew or a source common to both. The significant difference is that John has passed responsibility for the uncharitable comments from general bystanders or disciples to Iscariot. Here we have a case where a gospel writer deliberately changes a passage in order to express his prejudice. We shall see more examples of this as we continue. I would note, in passing, that John generally presents an account which is pretty much independent from the synoptics. The above passage, the reports on Iscariot and the anti-Jew sentiments expressed in the interview with Pilate all follow similar passages in the synoptics, even to the point of reflecting the wording. This suggests to me the possibility of a later editor making changes to the original manuscript of John with reference to the synoptics in order to present some antiJew political agenda. In addition John makes a comment that Iscariot holds the communal purse and steals money from it. He makes this statement about theft in order to denigrate Iscariot’s charitable comment about giving to the poor. The charge of stealing money is unsubstantiated. If it was known that he was stealing money from the 86

purse he would not have been allowed to hold it. Yet he did so, right up until the last supper. If Iscariot had no contact with the disciples after the events at Gethsemane then he would not have returned the purse. This may be the source of the statement concerning theft. Again we should consider the theories presented by Nelson and Klassen (op cit) that, with a progression of time, the synoptic gospels presented an ever darker picture of Iscariot. This could be ascribed to a changing theological climate. Nelson has many details in his argument, which he summarises as follows: ... the earliest Judas narratives did not paint Iscariot as an evil villain, but as a necessary and tragic figure. As time progressed, animosity between Jewish and Gentile Christians increased, leading to a literary tendency to depict Judas as the archetypal Jew, epitomizing evil and guilty of the greatest sin of all: slaying Jesus. Careful textual analysis shows that the earliest written sources are the most sympathetic toward Jesus, and with each additional text comes a inclination to ascribe more and more evil, guilt and scorn to Judas Iscariot. (I copy exactly, but I think ‘Jesus’ is a typo for Judas.) Of course we have noted previously that Matthew, at least, changes his Marcian sources apparently because of a differing theological viewpoint. This matter will be elaborated in ensuing articles as I compare the veracity of parallel passages in Mark, Matthew and Luke.

6.8 In charge of the money JOHN 12:6 He said this not because he cared about the poor but because he was a thief and held the money bag and used to steal the contributions. 13:29 Some thought that since Judas kept the money bag, Jesus had told him, “Buy what we need for the feast,” or to give something to the poor. Although this matter of holding the purse is only mentioned in John I can believe it because it is such an irrelevant and apparently trivial matter. It was Jesus’ policy to run the group as a sharing commune, hence the existence of a common purse is likely. Reading between the lines, the fact that Iscariot held the purse seems to indicate that Jesus trusted him. There is an OT reference to a communal purse: PROVERBS 1:14 Cast in your lot with us, we shall all have one purse!”— This is in mentioned in the context of an outsider being invited to join a group of high moral stature. Hence the idea of having communal property in a group of the type that Jesus headed has a firm basis on tradition. We have also seen that this was how the Essenes operated. I do not see this as a midrashic invention based on the verse cited above. It is also possible to argue that it was where Jesus got the idea of having a communal purse from. 87

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6.9 The conspiracy with the Jews. In the synoptics it is stated that Iscariot had decided to betray Jesus a few days before the event. In Matthew and Mark the passage describing it has included within it the anointing incident quoted above. In this article and subsequent articles I will follow through the gospels in the order Mark, Matthew, Luke and John, the probable order of composition. Mark MARK 14:1 The Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread were to take place in two days’ time. So the chief priests and the scribes were seeking a way to arrest him by treachery and put him to death. 14:2 They said, “Not during the festival, for fear that there may be a riot among the people.” <snip anointing incident> 14:10 Then Judas Iscariot, one of the Twelve, went off to the chief priests to hand him over to them. 14:11 When they heard him they were pleased and promised to pay him money. Then he looked for an opportunity to hand him over. The term ‘chief priests and scribes’ is somewhat vague and may indicate the author’s ignorance of local custom. It appears to indicate an informal subset of conservative members of the Sanhedrin. The first question to ask is: how did this information come to the disciples, who must have been the source for the gospel reports. It is quite an important point in my thesis that Jesus did know about what was going on in priestly circles so I shall discuss it here. Nicodemus and Arimathea, eminent members of the Jerusalem Connection and followers of Jesus, were both on the Council of the Sanhedrin and would have been close to the members of it. Nicodemus was quite open about his connection to Jesus and may not have been trusted with as many confidences as Arimathea, who had kept his faith secret. (See the relevant articles in chapter 5.) They would be in a position to report deliberations back to Jesus, and there is plenty of evidence that they did so. My quotation from John: 11:47-53 later in this article indicates that minutes of the Sanhedrin meetings were somehow getting to Jesus who, in this case, took note of them and acted accordingly. The question here though is: was the above an accurate report? I can believe that there might have been a witness to MARK 14: 1-2 (or something similar). Security during the festival was difficult due to the influx of people into the city. I cannot believe the bit about the council wishing to act out of treachery. It sounds like an attempt to blacken the high-priestly caste who were allegedly responsible for Jesus’ death. As I discuss below the Sanhedrin was bound to act in accordance with the law. However I cannot believe that there would be witness to MARK 14:10-11. If this were heard by Nicodemus or Arimathea and reported back to Jesus then 88

Iscariot would be in deep trouble and the whole plot would be revealed. This is the main reason I have for not believing that it ever happened. It is probable that Iscariot went off by himself from time to time, particularly since he had the purse. He may well have been undertaking other errands on Jesus’ behalf and I speculate on the nature of these in chapter 9. (There is also speculation that, as he held the purse, he went to the priests to pay the half shekel temple tax, which was levied on all Jews.) The disciples may have observed this and, after the event, speculated about what he was up to. I have read the opinion that no reason for the chief priests’ desire to arrest Jesus is given in the above passage, and this is true. It is clear that there were doctrinal differences between Jesus and the hierarchy however these would not be justification for an arrest. One must understand the Sanhedrin’s position in this issue. The priestly caste were the upper class and expected to rule. They were also supported by the Roman occupiers. However they did not always have the full support of the people. If they transgressed the law and arrested a popular figure (as Jesus had become in certain circles) there was bound to be a reaction from the populace which would cause them embarrassment. The only way open to them was to convict him on a charge of blasphemy or to convince the Romans that he was a revolutionary. In neither case would there be any reaction from the people. I am sure that there would be no grounds for a charge of blasphemy (in spite of the synoptic ‘trial’.). Jesus knew the rules in this regard and was intelligent enough not to transgress them. Also if there was evidence of any revolutionary activity the matter would be easily handled by the Romans, who were experienced in crowd control. There is a problem with motivation for Iscariot also here. Mark states that he was promised money however not that he asked for it. This seems to imply that it was offered by the priests after the event. But then betraying one’s master for money does not seem to be a strong motivation. I have also encountered the idea that Iscariot, being a revolutionary (as one possible meaning for the surname would imply) had become disappointed when Jesus revealed himself as a peaceful type of Messiah. This doesn’t have much merit. Iscariot would have been exposed to Jesus’ teaching for a number of years and should have known that he was not a revolutionary. If Iscariot had the money bag and there had had a falling out then the sensible thing to do would have been to leave the group and take the money with him. I have to conclude that the statement about Judas conferring with church leaders is without foundation. However it may indicate that Iscariot was in some sort of negotiation with outsiders a few days before the crucifixion. Matthew MATTHEW 26:3 Then the chief priests and the elders of the people assembled in the palace of the high priest, who was called Caiaphas, 26:4 and they consulted 89

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together to arrest Jesus by treachery and put him to death. 26:5 But they said, “Not during the festival, that there may not be a riot among the people.” <snip anointing incident> 26:14 Then one of the Twelve, who was called Judas Iscariot, went to the chief priests 26:15 * and said, “What are you willing to give me if I hand him over to you?” They paid him thirty pieces of silver, 26:16 and from that time on he looked for an opportunity to hand him over. * NAB NOTE The motive of avarice is introduced by Judas’s question about the price for betrayal, which is absent in the Marcan source. Thirty pieces of silver: the price of the betrayal is found only in Matthew. It is derived from Zech 11:12 where it is the wages paid to the rejected shepherd, a cheap price (Zech 11:13). That amount is also the compensation paid to one whose slave has been gored by an ox (Exodus 21:32). It is fairly clear that Matthew’s source is Mark and that the elaborations are pure invention. It has been commented by many authors that Matthew added many tags, based on passages in the Old Testament, in order to ‘prove’ that OT prophecies were fulfilled. Firstly, the idea in 27.3 that there was a meeting of chief priests and elders in Caiaphas’s palace is probably incorrect. Caiaphas has a substantial house, no doubt, but certainly not a palace. Formal meetings of the Sanhedrin were usually in special rooms in the temple. This point reveals Matthew’s lack of knowledge of Jewish custom. Matthew introduces the motivation of avarice which is certainly typical of his midrashic inventions and designed to further blacken Iscariot’s name. The NAB note correctly supplies the OT source for this. (Spong also has extensive comments.) The error is shown up by the fact that silver coins were not current in Judea at the time. The concept of thirty pieces of silver is engrained into our consciousness as the price of betrayal. I have seen several different estimates of its value in present day terms but it certainly was not a huge amount. Iscariot possibly had as much in the communal purse. Luke LUKE 22:1 Now the feast of Unleavened Bread, called the Passover, was drawing near, 22:2 and the chief priests and the scribes were seeking a way to put him to death, for they were afraid of the people. 22:3 Then Satan entered into Judas, the one surnamed Iscariot, who was counted among the Twelve, 22:4 and he went to the chief priests and temple guards to discuss a plan for handing him over to them. 22:5 They were pleased and agreed to pay him money. 22:6 He accepted their offer and sought a favorable opportunity to hand him over to them in the absence of a crowd. Luke does not include the anointing scene within his narrative but places a modified version elsewhere in his gospel. 90

We can see that Luke has taken the Marcan source and changed it in a manner independent of Matthew, but also in the direction of putting more personal blame on Iscariot. Luke notes that Mark has not provided a satisfactory motivation for the chief priests and so adds that they were afraid of the people. I believe this to be an invention as it is not at all convincing. He seems to be implying that the council was afraid that Jesus would stir up the people against them. Luke follows Mark in that the priests offer money after Iscariot’s initiative. But Luke is not wholly convinced by the motivation of avarice and adds the comment that the devil entered Iscariot. This has to be an invention. No-one can actually see the devil. (Can they?) What he is saying is that Iscariot suddenly, for no apparent reason, became evil. As I see it this is a pretty crude attempt to blacken Iscariot’s name. One should also comment on the doctrinal difficulties raised here. One is told that Jesus died on the cross as part of God’s Holy Plan to save mankind from Satan. Yet God is enlisting Satan here to assist Him in this work. Naturally all that Matthew and Luke are achieving here is to add inventions on top of what was already an invention in Mark. John JOHN 11:47 So the chief priests and the Pharisees convened the Sanhedrin and said, “What are we going to do? This man is performing many signs. 11:48 If we leave him alone, all will believe in him, and the Romans will come and take away both our land and our nation.” 11:49 But one of them, Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, said to them, “You know nothing, 11:50 nor do you consider that it is better for you that one man should die instead of the people, so that the whole nation may not perish.” <snip> 11:53 So from that day on they planned to kill him. 11:54 So Jesus no longer walked about in public among the Jews, but he left for the region near the desert, to a town called Ephraim, and there he remained with his disciples. I place this passage as parallel to the quotations from the synoptics above because it contains a plan to kill Jesus. To me it has the ring of truth. Perhaps the Marcan version is a vague echo of this confused by Peter’s failing memory. John places this episode much earlier in time than the equivalent in the synoptics and does not describe any interview with Iscariot. This passage explains many things which are not explained in the synoptics. First we should note that this occurred during a meeting of the Sanhedrin. Jesus’ ‘disciples’ (Nicodemus, Arimathea) would have been present and would have informed him of the council’s decision, which would explain why he left the area. Second, the Sanhedrin’s motivation is very clear and believable. They were afraid that Jesus would stir up a revolution against the Romans and that in the bloody conflict the Jewish nation would perish. It would be fairly obvious to 91

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them that irregular groups of guerilla fighters would be no match for a well disciplined army. Even though the army in Judea was an auxiliary one, a battle ready one could be easily deployed. This is what actually happened about forty years later in a war which almost did destroy the Jewish race. I should add that Caiaphas’s suggestion that they sacrifice one man to save many is reasonable and responsible. Of course if this one man is the most important man in history.... The council may well have had other reasons for wanting Jesus out of the way. They were a conservative body and were used to the old ways. Jesus was very radical in his teaching and had a growing following. They may have thought that there were threats to their position. However you would expect that they were honourable men, bound to prosecute Jewish law and custom, according to the rules and regulations laid down in the Torah. If Jesus were found to transgress it would be their duty to punish him and the penalty for blasphemy was death by stoning. However the crime of blasphemy was fairly closely defined and Jesus would have been aware of the definition. He was an intelligent man and would have been careful to keep to the law. I think that we can put the trials, as recorded in the synoptics, to one side and accept that the Sanhedrin would be hard pressed to find charges that would stick. JOHN 13:2 The devil had already induced Judas, son of Simon the Iscariot, to hand him over. So, during supper... The only indication of Jesus’ motivation in John, which echoes Luke’s statement. John does not record any interview with chief priests. My feeling is that this piece is an addition by a later hand as it does not display John’s usual independence of the synoptics. In summary, what we can believe is that the Sanhedrin, or at least a significant majority, did want Jesus out of the way because they were afraid that he might start a revolution. The idea, presented in the synoptics, that Iscariot approached the council in order to betray Jesus is seen to be a fabrication.

6.10. Jesus’ statements at the Last Supper. I discuss the Last Supper in the appendix. I state there my reasons for believing that this was held one day before Passover (Pesach) but was actually a Passover meal. The modern Passover meal follows a standard format, called a Seder, of which there are 15 items. I believe that the Seder current in Jesus’ time was not significantly different from the modern Seder. All of the gospels report that Jesus stated, during the Last Supper, that one of the disciples would hand him over. (‘Betray him’ is how it is usually expressed.) In each case this accusation is linked to a custom of dipping which is traditionally associated with the Passover meal. The story originates with Mark and is repeated with variations, even in John. There are various problems with this story which I 92

point out in the ensuing. The subject is intriguing and seems to be a misrepresentation of something that actually occurred during the Supper, although what that was I can only speculate. Firstly we can note the Old Testament source of an occasion where a friend at table betrays the host. Although quoted in John it is the sort of ‘midrashic’ invention you would expect Matthew to add. PSALM 41 41:8 My foes all whisper against me; they imagine the worst about me: 41:9 I have a deadly disease, they say; I will never rise from my sickbed. 41:10 * Even the friend who had my trust, who shared my table, has scorned me. 41:11 But you, LORD, have mercy and raise me up that I may repay them as they deserve.” NAB NOTE Even the friend . . . has scorned me: John 13:18 cites this verse to characterize Judas as a false friend. Scorned me: an interpretation of the unclear Hebrew, “made great the heel against me.” JOHN 13:18 I am not speaking of all of you. I know those whom I have chosen. But so that the scripture might be fulfilled, ‘The one who ate my food has raised his heel against me. (The phrase “made great the heal against me”, which appears to be idiomatic, has been rendered differently in each version, but was probably the same in the original, although one in Hebrew, the other in Greek.) Mark. MARK 14:17 When it was evening, he came with the Twelve. 14:18 And as they reclined at table and were eating, Jesus said, “Amen, I say to you, one of you will betray me, one who is eating with me.” 14:19 They began to be distressed and to say to him, one by one, “Surely it is not I?” 14:20 He said to them, “One of the Twelve, the one who dips with me into the dish. 14:21 For the Son of Man indeed goes, as it is written of him, but woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed. It would be better for that man if he had never been born.” 14:22 While they were eating, he took bread, said the blessing, broke it, and gave it to them, and said, “Take it; this is my body.” Many commentators have made the point that as soon as the announcement that he was to be handed over was made the disciples forget about it and go on to the next topic of conversation (which was the first Eucharist) as though nothing had happened. Surely there should be a greater reaction to such a momentous pronouncement. Even the gospel report was probably a truncated version of what happened and we can expect that, if this accusation was actually made, there may have been more consternation than was actually reported. We can note quite clearly that Judas is not identified as being the traitor but just ‘that man’.

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There is something very strange about the accusation which makes me think that it was based on a real event which was altered after the event. Firstly note that Jesus’ statement in 14:18 appears to be reliable as it contains an oratorical catchphrase. Although I would not expect that the disciples would be taking notes on such an occasion the phrase is so striking that it well may have been remembered verbatim. This statement does appear to relate to Psalms 41:10 quoted above. It is possible to say that the whole passage from Mark is a midrashic invention and therefore unreliable. It is also possible to say that Jesus had the Psalm in mind because he thought that the situation was appropriate. The fact that the practice of dipping is mentioned next is significant and must be based on something that actually occurred. There are two dipping procedures associated with the Seder: Item 3 is called Karpas. A salad green, symbolic of spring, is dipped in a bowl of salt water, symbolic of the tears shed by the Jews when in bondage in Egypt. Item 9 is Maror. Here bitter herbs (often a horseradish root) are dipped in a sweet mixture of nuts and fruit (charoset) and eaten. The herbs are a reminder of the pain suffered by the Jews while slaves in Egypt. Both procedures are very similar symbolically so that it doesn’t really matter which one is being referred to. The point to note is that everyone present is involved in the dipping and they dip into a communal bowl. This simple fact casts a different light over the significance of the dipping. One must also note the parallel between the time when the Jews were in bondage in Egypt and the current time when the Jews were in bondage to the Romans. This is something which would be on the mind of every Jew when they celebrated Pesach and something which must have been discussed during the Last Supper. I suspect that we do not have an accurate record of what was actually said. I came across this matter of the Pesach Seder when the library ghost thrust a Jewish cookbook into my hands. It is strange but I have never read of this in any book about Jesus. The scholars, in their ivory towers, are clearly not Jewish, or have no interest in fine cuisine. Normally I would have expected Jesus, as leader, to be the first to have dipped into the bowl which case the statement must have been made as he was dipping or had just dipped. According to ritual all of the disciples will then dip into the bowl. This means that any of those present might have been regarded as suspect, as their response indicates. There is no indication as to who dipped into the bowl. Certainly Iscariot is not specifically identified. The problem that Mark has is that if someone had been identified as traitor at the Last Supper then he would have immediately been torn limb from limb. Obviously, from the ensuing story, nobody ever was, hence any attempt to identify Iscariot as a betrayer must be considered to be a fiction. Because everyone would dip then Jesus seems to be saying that one of those present would hand him over, but he does not indicate who. But was there a slight editorial change and did Jesus say that all those present were responsible for him 94

being handed over. This is a possibility fraught with many implications, which will be discussed later. There is another thought. At the time all Jews were weeping under or suffering the pain of, bondage. Hence when Jesus says ‘that man’ he could be referring to any member of the Jewish race. If we look at the practice of dipping we might see that Jesus might have seen the Karpas as a symbol for himself, about to be plunged into those tears. So what was the hand that was dipping Jesus into those salt tears? Was it the hand of one identified person present at the last supper, or was it the hand of his fellow Jews who were about to hand him over to the Romans? Did Jesus merely say at this point that he was about to be handed over, that he was the fresh greens about to be immersed in the grief of the Jews? I believe that there was some discussion about dipping and betrayal at the Last Supper but that it has been altered subsequently in Mark in order to cast blame on an individual. This alteration has subsequently affected the reports in the ensuing gospels. Matthew MATTHEW 26:21 And while they were eating, he said, “Amen, I say to you, one of you will betray me.” 26:22 Deeply distressed at this, they began to say to him one after another, “Surely it is not I, Lord?” 26:23 He said in reply, “He who has dipped his hand into the dish with me is the one who will betray me. 26:24 The Son of Man indeed goes, as it is written of him, but woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed. It would be better for that man if he had never been born.” 26:25 Then Judas, his betrayer, said in reply, “Surely it is not I, Rabbi?” He answered, “You have said so.” 26:26 While they were eating, Jesus took bread, said the blessing, broke it, and giving it to his disciples said, “Take and eat; this is my body.” Matthew here has followed Mark and modified it as was his custom. It appears that he has noticed some of the problems that I have already outlined and tries to make them more believable. Noticing that the disciples are only (mildly) distressed, he makes them more deeply so. But they still drop it. He notices that the disciples will not dip if they know that that will identify them as a traitor so he puts it in the past, implying that he was not the first to dip. However this is not very smart. If just one of the disciples had already dipped he would be known and, if so, why was he not identified? This points up a clumsy piece of narrative writing, something which is common when the story goes wrong. Then, in verse 27.25, he enigmatically identifies Iscariot as the guilty one but still the disciples do nothing about it. Of course Matthew knows that Iscariot could not possibly have been identified, yet he invents a verse to cast blame.

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Luke LUKE 22:21 “And yet behold, the hand of the one who is to betray me is with me on the table; 22:22 for the Son of Man indeed goes as it has been determined; but woe to that man by whom he is betrayed.” 22:23 And they began to debate among themselves who among them would do such a deed. 22:24 Then an argument broke out among them about which of them should be regarded as the greatest. It appears that Luke has noticed the problems with Mark and decides to bale out and omit the difficult areas. Iscariot is not identified. Note how quickly the subject is dropped in favour of the petty argument about priority in heaven. John 1) JOHN 13:18 I am not speaking of all of you. I know those whom I have chosen. But so that the scripture might be fulfilled, ‘The one who ate my food has raised his heel against me. ‘13:19 From now on I am telling you before it happens, so that when it happens you may believe that I AM. 13:20 Amen, amen, I say to you, whoever receives the one I send receives me, and whoever receives me receives the one who sent me.” 2) 13:21 When he had said this, Jesus was deeply troubled and testified, “Amen, amen, I say to you, one of you will betray me. “13:22 The disciples looked at one another, at a loss as to whom he meant. 13:23 One of his disciples, the one whom Jesus loved, was reclining at Jesus’ side. 13:24 So Simon Peter nodded to him to find out whom he meant. 13:25 He leaned back against Jesus’ chest and said to him, “Master, who is it?” 13:26 Jesus answered, “It is the one to whom I hand the morsel after I have dipped it.” So he dipped the morsel and (took it and) handed it to Judas, son of Simon the Iscariot. 13:27 After he took the morsel, Satan entered him. 3) So Jesus said to him, “What you are going to do, do quickly. 13:28 (Now) none of those reclining at table realized why he said this to him. 13:29 Some thought that since Judas kept the money bag, Jesus had told him, “Buy what we need for the feast,” or to give something to the poor. 13:30 So he took the morsel and left at once. And it was night. This is one case where John appears to be following, and modifying, the synoptics. This is unusual for John who is usually independent. This is one of the things which leads me to believe that the passage above contains a tampering added by a later editorial hand which was familiar with the synoptics. I also note, in the above passage, a certain non sequitur which quite clearly points up the boundary of the insertion. If this was so it was done very clumsily as it leaves an irreconcilable problem. I can break the passage into three parts, 1) 13:18-20 These three verses of introduction are typically Johnine and are not reflected in the synoptics. They are not particularly relevant to the argument.

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We can note the reference to the verse in Psalm 41 which may be a midrashic invention or may be something Jesus said, as I have discussed above. 2) 13:21-27 I only include the first sentence of verse 27 here. This does not affect my argument that this section may have been a later insertion as the original manuscripts did not have verse numbers. This follows the dipping scene in Mark however here John specifically identifies Iscariot as the traitor. As I pointed out above this presents a problem as the disciples do not take immediate and violent action against him. For this reason I believe this scene to be a fabrication designed to blacken Iscariot’s name. The reference to Satan is similar to that of Luke. I imagine that Satan might have been interested in attending the Last Supper as it was apparently part of a process designed to seriously curtail his operation. (Although we can note, cynically, that Satan was actually assisting God here.) We cannot expect Satan to have appeared in visible form hence the witness to his entry into Iscariot must have been particularly acute. 3) 13:27-30. (Including only the latter part of 13:27) This is quite incredible really. A traitor is identified. He is sent on an errand which appears to be clearly something to do with the betrayal and yet John says that no-one present knows why he is sent. Perhaps you can now see why I consider the two previous passages to be independent. It appears to me that passage 2) is a clumsy insertion made without reference to the following passage 3). I can believe 3) to have veracity. Iscariot would have had to have left the Supper some time in the evening in order to be in company with the arresting detail at Gethsemane. It is stated that the other disciples did not know what the errand was and most commentators assume that Jesus took Iscariot aside, or whispered instructions to him. The more fundamentalist opinion is that Jesus knew that Judas was about to betray him and was telling him to go about that business. However the point is that some of the conversation was overheard × to go about it quickly × so why not the rest? The idea occurs to me that the details of the mission may have been discussed between the two of them before the supper commenced and that Iscariot was merely acting in accordance with his master’s detailed instructions. From all of the above we can see that the betrayal statements, reputedly made by Jesus at the last supper must be considered suspect. The main reason being, that if Iscariot had been identified he would have been prevented from doing his work. Klassen makes a point concerning the giving of the morsel which I don’t know whether to believe or not. Apparently is was/is a custom that if a host gave a guest a morsel of food from his own hands it creates a special bond of trust between them. He sees this as Jesus making a covenant with Iscariot to help him in his work of self sacrifice. This covenant would last for three days, as long as the salt in the morsel remained in the mouth. (Klassen is apparently unaware that the morsel might have been dipped in salt water.)

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7.10 The arrest in the garden. MARK 14:43 Then, while he was still speaking, Judas, one of the Twelve, arrived, accompanied by a crowd with swords and clubs who had come from the chief priests, the scribes, and the elders. 14:44 His betrayer had arranged a signal with them, saying, “The man I shall kiss is the one; arrest him and lead him away securely.” 14:45 He came and immediately went over to him and said, “Rabbi.” And he kissed him. 14:46 At this they laid hands on him and arrested him. Firstly all gospels (and Acts) state that Judas accompanied the arresting detail. This simple fact must be accepted. Naturally the disciples present at the time could not possibly know what arrangements had been made between Iscariot and the leader of the detail concerning the identifying kiss. I do speculate in chapter 8 that a member of the Jerusalem Connection may have accompanied this detail. If this were so the kiss could not be one of betrayal because it would have been done with the compliance of this person. The kiss could well have been a kiss of affection. Why was a kiss necessary anyway. If it was a clear moonlight night the Iscariot could have just pointed him out. It is interesting to note that Judas calls Jesus ‘Rabbi’ (teacher). Why would he use such a term of affection if the devil had entered into him or if he was betraying out of avarice? This slip is so striking that I believe it might be based on fact. Furthermore there was no reason for identification. The troop could have arrested everyone and sorted out who they were later. I note that Jesus made no attempt to evade capture. (One should note that Spong considers the kiss to be a midrashic invention based on an incident in the old testament where Joab, King David’s captain kills a rival by treachery. 2SAM 20:9 And Joab asked Amasa, “How are you, my brother?” With his right hand Joab held Amasa’s beard as if to kiss him. 2SAM 20:10 And since Amasa was not on his guard against the sword in Joab’s other hand, Joab stabbed him in the abdomen with it, so that his entrails burst forth to the ground, and he died without receiving a second thrust... Personally I don’t think this tracks in very well with the kiss in the garden. I’ve been able to locate 35 kisses in the Old Testament but no other kisses of treachery. Joab does a similar trick in 2SAM 3:27 without the kiss. The image of entrails bursting out has a similarity to Luke’s invented version of Iscariot’s death, however that death story does not contain a kiss.) One might well expect that the disciples would jump to the conclusion that Iscariot was a betrayer if he was present with this ‘crowd’ who had come to arrest Jesus. MATTHEW 26:47 While he was still speaking, Judas, one of the Twelve, arrived, accompanied by a large crowd, with swords and clubs, who had come from the 98

chief priests and the elders of the people. 26:48 His betrayer had arranged a sign with them, saying, “The man I shall kiss is the one; arrest him.” 26:49 Immediately he went over to Jesus and said, “Hail, Rabbi!” and he kissed him. 26:50 Jesus answered him, “Friend, do what you have come for.” Then stepping forward they laid hands on Jesus and arrested him. In addition to my comments on Mark we note that Jesus refers to Judas as ‘Friend’ and tells him to complete his mission. I have noted previously that Matthew added little midrashic tags to his accounts based on Mark. However this verse (26:50) is quite different from the normal run of these additions. Also everywhere else in Matthew Iscariot is treated as a traitor. Why would he allow Jesus to call Iscariot a friend here? We have to accept the principle that when additions to Mark by Matthew and Luke are different (as they are here) then they are inventions. Yet this is so untypical of Matthew I wonder if it not some passage from some manuscript that was allowed to slip into the cannon by mistake. Perhaps there were words in Mark which were subsequently deleted from it or that Matthew had a variant. I can’t imagine that Matthew would have invented such words if he wanted to blacken the character of Judas. Also I can quote from Nelson: Judas was called “friend” (hetairos) by Jesus. A word for friend indicating partnership, comrade, companion as opposed to “philos” indicating endearment. In other words, there was a partnership of some sort involved in this “betrayal.” LUKE 22:47 While he was still speaking, a crowd approached and in front was one of the Twelve, a man named Judas. He went up to Jesus to kiss him. 22:48 Jesus said to him, “Judas, are you betraying the Son of Man with a kiss?” Luke does not mention swords and clubs but apart from that comments above apply. We can note that Luke carries on the custom of deepening Iscariot’s guilt. The first alteration is to put him to the forefront of the group, something that is not mentioned in any other gospel. A major difference is verse 22:48, which is a famous and dramatic statement, but also without a parallel. This is another example of the theory that Matthew and Luke were independently written. (I would point out that the Greek word translated here as ‘betraying’ should perhaps be more properly rendered as ‘handing over’.) I believe it to be an attempt to change the record in order to blacken the character of Judas, such as we have seen before. (I have wondered that if the disciples assumed that the kiss was one of betrayal and in their subsequent discussions they expressed such an idea which was subsequently put into the mouth of Jesus.) JOHN: 18:1 When he had said this, Jesus went out with his disciples across the Kidron valley to where there was a garden, into which he and his disciples entered. 18:2 Judas his betrayer also knew the place, because Jesus had often met there with his disciples. 18:3 So, Judas got a band of soldiers and guards from the 99

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chief priests and the Pharisees and went there with lanterns, torches, and weapons. 18:4 Jesus, knowing everything that was going to happen to him, went out and said to them, “Whom are you looking for?” 18:5 They answered him, “Jesus the Nazorean.” He said to them, “I AM.” Judas his betrayer was also with them. It is clear that Iscariot did know about Gethsemane. It was a spot just off the Bethany Road opposite the temple and would have been a convenient rendezvous place. But how did Iscariot know that Jesus would be there on that particular night, at that particular time? Jesus merely stands forward, approaches the group and identifies himself. He, in fact, complies with the arrest. We must remember that it was night and a woody place. It would surely not have been very difficult for Jesus to escape, along with the other disciples. There are other instances where he escaped from unruly mobs in broad daylight, while preaching in the temple. The “I AM” business has been given deep theological significance (which I won’t go into) but I think that all that happened is that he said: “Here I am.” I expand, in chapter 8, on the whys and wherefores of Jesus waiting to be arrested. If he was then where is the betrayal? The kiss is not mentioned in John, however there is no reason for it not happening after the arrest.

3) He was in charge of the communal purse. (Probable) 4) He was sent by Jesus from the Last Supper on an unspecified errand. (Probable) 5) Knowing exactly where Jesus would be, he was with the detachment of guards and soldiers which arrested Jesus, to that place. (True) 6) He greeted Jesus then with affection. (Probable) The possibility remains that Iscariot was Jesus’ trusted and beloved servant.

7.11 The death of Iscariot. There are two unlikely and completely different stories concerning the death of Iscariot. The New American Bible comments extensively on the problems with these stories and on their relationship to OT precedent, as does Spong. The general theological opinion is that both these stories are midrashic inventions. I will not repeat this material here. Nothing can be said with confidence concerning the death of Judas Iscariot.

7.12 William of Occam’s Razor It is possible to review what we have been told about Iscariot and pare away the obvious inventions, all of which were designed to blacken his character. What we are left with is a story quite different. I list below various propositions which I have marked as true or probable. 1) Iscariot was an historical figure and one of the disciples. (True) 2) He either a) came from Kerioth or was a man about town or b) was a sicarius (assassin) or both a) and b) or neither. (True) 100

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7. Who was Jesus? To answer this question one might read an excellent book – The Human Christ – The search for the historical Jesus by Charlotte Allen. Tracing the history of the various concepts of who Jesus was throughout the ages we find that he might have been hundreds of different people, according to the whim of the person describing him. According to the church He is an unstained Son of God, perfect in every respect, who came down from Heaven to save mankind for its sins. Others have seen him as a warlord, a gutless wimp, an androgynous feminist, an eternal mystery, a humble philosopher. The fact is that Jesus started to become a theological entity with the advent of Paul. Paul actually used Jesus as a figurehead for his own set of beliefs, the centrepiece of a religion that he himself had invented. This was a divergence from the original teaching and spread throughout the world outside of Palestine. There was a movement (hardly a church), closer to the teaching, based in Jerusalem and headed by Jesus’ brother, James. There is evidence of conflict between the two groups. Unfortunately the Jerusalem group lost a lot of its influence as the result of a war with Rome in CE 70 and subsequent genocide of the Jewish people living in Palestine. Since the time of Paul there has been considerable theological discussion, nay dispute concerning the nature of Jesus. Much theological dogma was set in concrete at the council at Nicea about 300 years after Jesus’ death. The tricky question here was whether Jesus was a man or a god. The emperor Constantine, who was a pagan and supported Christianity for political reasons, swung it in the direction of Jesus being a god, and so it has remained. (Constantine liked to think that he himself was the son of the sun god who was the main focus of his worship.) The results of these deliberations were published as the Nicean Creed which had become the foundation of the Roman Catholic religion. (As an afterthought they came up with the idea of the Trinity – Father, Son and Holy Ghost, something no one has ever been able to understand.) Hence the official take on Jesus is what has resulted from three hindered years of theological dispute and, in my opinion, is a serious pile of garbage which needs to be chucked on the heap and left to compost.

7.1 Was Jesus the son of God? Quite clearly the answer is ‘yes’. There is an interesting passage in the Gospel of Thomas: THOMAS 3: …When you come to know yourselves, then you will become known, and you will realize that it is you who are the sons of the living Father… So the disciples are also sons of God and become more so as they begin to realise themselves. It seems fairly clear to me that if God created everything then 102

everything and everybody are ‘His’ sons. (Or even daughters.) However the point is that Jesus did not refer to himself as ‘Son of God’ in the synoptics; he referred to himself a ‘son of man’, a phrase similar in meaning to ‘son of a gun’ and one which reflected his humanity. Jesus is referred to as ‘Son of God’ in John however this book seems to be influenced by the theological philosophy which came later. The concept of Jesus as the unique son of God should not be discarded completely. It should be taken as a symbol of the fact that Jesus had an understanding of God, was close to ‘Him’ and was a highly evolved spiritual being.

7.2 Is it possible to understand Jesus? The answer is certainly ‘yes’. There are many saints in the church who are devoted to Jesus with a deep and abiding passion and as a result have come closer to a realisation of themselves and their relationship to a higher reality. The strange thing is that, although they are garbage, the symbols of the church focus the thought on that reality. The other thing is that much of what Jesus said was accurately recorded (I believe) and the effect of his thought is easily understood and highly relevant to the human condition. What we have in existence is both the Jesus of faith and the Jesus of history and both are accessible to the common man (or woman), in spite of what Messrs Strauss and Bultmann have to say. Looking at the sources I can locate two books of sayings which were written down by disciples at the time they were uttered. There may well have been others. The first was scribed by Matthew and formed a book called the Gospel of Matthew in antiquity. Although the book was lost the contents have been preserved in Matthew and Luke and have been recovered in what scholars call Q. (Described previously.) Matthew was a tax gatherer and as a result would have been literate. The other book is the Gospel of Thomas. This was also known about in antiquity and was only discovered in 1947 in a cache of documents secreted by a Gnostic sect about 400 CE. In a preamble to this document is clearly stated that the author was the (Doubting) Thomas of the gospels and that the sayings were written down from what the living Jesus said. Who this Thomas was is not certain. His real name was Judas the Twin (as I discuss in the chapter on Judas) and he may have been Jesus’ brother. This book contains many of the saying in Q and in Mark but also some unique sayings which are of a deeper and somewhat enigmatic nature. The secret teaching one might say, such as might be given to a serious votary. There are other sayings, put into the mouth of Jesus, in John, in particular a long lecture delivered during the last supper. There are few oratorical catchphrases in this lecture so it cannot have been written down verbatim.

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7.3 The history The nativity stories in Matthew and Luke are clearly independent inventions in the midrash tradition, based on episodes in the Old Testament, with perhaps some input from received tradition. At the time when they were written they would not be taken as absolute truth but as illustrations of a life. This was the style of writing in those days. Jesus was probably born in Nazareth, a small village in Galilee. There are commentators that state that Nazareth did not exist during the lifetime of Jesus because it was not included in a census taken in the first century by Josephus. However pre-Christian remnants have been found in an archaeological site and the name is specifically mentioned as his birthplace in the gospels. The year of birth is unsure (Refer to chapter 10, the appendices.) Certainly close to the turn of the millennium. His mother was named Mary, (Miriam in Hebrew.) There are hints that his conception was irregular. There is a possibility that he was a bastard son of a Roman soldier called Pantera. (There are rumours, however they may have been politically motivated. There is also an indication in John where a crowd state that they were not born of fornication, implying that he was.) He may have had a father or stepfather called Joseph. The matter of his parentage is clouded in confusion. (Some folks believe God was also involved.) He had four brothers and plural sisters. We do not know if this family had one or several fathers. I think Mary may have been a bit of a shrew and it was easy for men to obtain a divorce in those days. He was brought up as a Jew in a Jewish society and studied the Jewish religion. He had the dark hair and features typical of Galileans. (That is unless modified by an irregular parentage.) He may well have plied the family trade of carpenter. Whether the Turin Shroud is valid or not I would accept that image - a strong, well-built man with long hair, a beard, and the features of a rabbi. Apart from one reference in the gospels to him discoursing with priests in the temple at an early age, after a family visit to Jerusalem for Passover, nothing is known about him until the age of about thirty when he was baptised by John the Baptist in the Jordan River. He does not appear to have been married at this time, which would be a strange thing for a good Jewish boy. As his teaching appears to have been influenced by Essene philosophy as revealed in the Dead Sea Scrolls his celibacy could be explained if he had been a member of the Essene community at Qumran, also situated near the Jordan. I believe myself that he had been involved in serious religious studies in the early years and that his philosophy may have evolved from this study and his evaluation of it. (Some folks say that his philosophy came direct from God, and is holy and immaculate. The baptism appears to have been a seminal experience. The description in the gospels is, no doubt, symbolic but does represent a spiritual event. He is said to have fasted in the wilderness shortly afterwards. This was also important. Expressed in terms of temptations

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by the devil, we see that the essence of his philosophy was of non attachment (such as is defined in Vedanta), devotion to God (bhakti yoga) and love. John must have recognised a special genius in Jesus. Jesus appears to have been his disciple for a while. It seems that Jesus was well thought of in the community and attracted some of John’s disciples to himself. Eventually he went his own way. From an ironic comment about being a glutton and a winebibber, it appears that he preferred moderation to John’s asceticism. His way was the middle path that the Gautama Buddha recommended. He spoke in the synagogues, worked miracles and gained a following. He regularly went to Jerusalem for festivals, where he also obtained a following in spite of the fact that his teaching provoked controversy. The bulk of his activity occurred in Galilee. (I go along with John in that the period of his ministry was about three years.) In the meantime John was arrested by Herod Antipas and eventually beheaded. We all know the story of Salome and the dance of the seven veils. It’s a good story whether it is true or not. It was at this point that the seed of the Passion germinated. John was dead and had not brought the Kingdom of God to the Jews. It was now up to Jesus to do that. At the next Passover he went to Jerusalem and proclaimed his Messiahship by riding a donkey into town. It was this act that eventually led to him being executed by the Romans as a political revolutionary. The story continues in chapter 9 where we discuss the events of the Passion.

7.4 The teaching It is not the place here to write a treatise on what Jesus taught. For most of my life it has been a subject that I have ignored because I could not accept certain tenets held by the church. But the truth is there in the gospels and is available for study. What do you accept if you wish to understand the thought of Jesus? The sermon on the mount. The parables. The gospel of Thomas. Much of what Jesus is reported to have said. Ignore the nativity stories, the obvious inventions, the long treatises in John. Reflect on the Passion story as I have explained it. Try to understand the mystery of the resurrection (which is still a mystery to me.) The truth is out there. No, I haven’t done enough study to enable me to write a dissertation on the thought of Jesus. It needs to be done though. Something to reflect the truth, without the obfuscation of Church dogma. Bishop Spong, by working from inside an established Church, has attempted to remove this obscuration. He believes that this is the only way to save the Church yet meets with objections from fundamentalist elements within. And the liberals will not join because they disagree with those fundamentalist tendencies. What is needed is a new start from scratch. A new church where the engrained suppressions are discarded, where Jesus is a human being with much to teach,

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Chapter seven where Mary is a good old Jewish housewife and where everyone is a son (or daughter) of God.

7.5 The personality. As a writer of fiction it is necessary to have a clear picture of one’s characters before a word is placed on paper. Often this is intuitive. Generally characters are considered to be well developed in the author’s mind when they start to become independent and boss the author around. It is necessary for the author to develop all the symptoms of a split personality. As far as this study is concerned the script is already written and when I read it I have to work out if the character I have conceived would actually say these things. What is consistent with this incomplete vision I have of Jesus? I have to say, a lot of it, but then the study has not really started. I am able to think of Jesus as a normal living human being with normal failings, strengths, passions and insights. In this I have the advantage over those savants who are required to consider him to be a stainless divinity, someone who cannot sin, or be angry, or fail. Even so everyone is touched by divinity to some degree. I do not see why Jesus should not have a personality. I think we need to put aside the thought that Jesus was meek and mild. The idea of a meek suffering saviour is quite alien to my concept of his character. He was a decisive person, not necessarily aggressive but certainly able to make decisions when it came to the crunch. We have to consider his compassion, capability for great love and humanity. He was able to cross social and racial boundaries. He considered women as social equals, and had many in his company, which was at odds with the custom of the time. We must also consider his concern with practical matters, his political astuteness in having followers in the court of Herod and on the Sanhedrin. (It is been hinted also in the Roman army.) He was a gregarious person yet there were times when he required solitude. He had a great humility, did not really seek power, did not even charge for medical services. He was generous. He was brave, even in the face of death. He respected the bonds of friendship. He had a wicked sense of humour. This is not always well realised. The Church naturally is of the opinion that the Son of God should be duly reverent. Anyway here’s a good one from the Gospel of Thomas: 34. Jesus said, “If a blind person leads a blind person, both of them will fall into a ditch.” Above all these he wore a cloak of spiritual power. The qualities which impinge on this story: his connections in high places, his bravery, his love for his friends.

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8. Jesus Barabbas and the two thieves. 8.1 Jesus Barabbas We are talking about two people with the same given name as we shall see below. These are Jesus Barabbas and Jesus Anointed, the latter being ‘our Jesus’, the subject of this book. The Barabbas story is very odd. It assumes that the Romans had a custom of releasing one political prisoner as an amnesty at Passover. When Pilate interviews Jesus (Anointed) and finds no fault he offers this amnesty, however the ‘Jews’ present howl for the release of Barabbas, a dangerous revolutionary, in his place. Pilate accedes reluctantly to this request in order to placate the crowd of the Jews, and hands Jesus over for crucifixion. Apart from painting the Jews in a bad light and Pilate in a good light, this episode adds little to the Passion story. The question must be asked as to whether the story was a complete invention designed for political purposes. The idea that such a customs existed is extremely unlikely as is the concept that Pilate would be likely to placate a crowd of howling Jews out of fear. I believe that the following analysis indicates that the Barabbas story was based on an actual incident which was possibly subsequently altered and expanded upon because of an agenda to blacken the Jews.

8.2 What does the name ‘Jesus Barabbas’ mean? MATTHEW 27:16 * And at that time they had a notorious prisoner called (Jesus) Barabbas. 27:17 So when they had assembled, Pilate said to them, “Which one do you want me to release to you, (Jesus) Barabbas, or Jesus called Messiah?” NAB NOTE [16-17] [Jesus] Barabbas: it is possible that the double name is the original reading; Jesus was a common Jewish name. This reading is found in only a few textual witnesses, although its absence in the majority can be explained as an omission of Jesus made for reverential reasons. That name is bracketed because of its uncertain textual attestation. The Aramaic name Barabbas means “son of the father”; the irony of the choice offered between him and Jesus, the true son of the Father, would be evident to those addressees of Matthew who knew that. This tells us that Barabbas did have the same given name as Jesus (Anointed), and a surname which meant ‘son of the father’. We can note, as I have explained before, that when two people with the same given name appear in the same group, or context, a surname (or nickname) is allocated in order to distinguish between 106

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them. This is pointed up in 27:17. As the NAB says, there is an ironic significance to the name, Barabbas, in theological terms. Other commentators have made the same, or similar, point. However Matthew was addressing gentile Christians at a later date and they spoke Greek, not Aramaic and hence would not understand the meaning of the name. (Although it is assumed in the note above that a proportion of the congregation were familiar with Aramaic, and this may have been the case.) I can note that such theological significance would not be apparent to the Jews present during this interview with Pilate. They considered Jesus to be a ratbag and troublemaker, rather than a Son of God. We can put to one side the NAB theological implications of this surname and discover the true meaning in a note on the name in the Aramaic Bible. Comment on: JOHN 18:40 Lit. Aramaic idiom: “Bar Aba” means: “Son of the father.” In old tradition, a common nickname for someone who had no known father, or someone whose family name was not prominent or well known. There is some doubt in my mind concerning the validity of an Aramaic Bible as I believe that the New Testament was written originally in vernacular Greek (Koine). However I think we can rely on the scholarship in this matter as the author has impeccable credentials concerning Aramaic and we are talking about the idiomatic meaning of an Aramaic word. You can see that the surname is a little Jewish joke. Everyone is the son of a father. (I am uncertain whether the article in the original is actual or implied or whether the general form (a) is to be preferred to the particular (the).) I requested further information concerning the meaning of the name from Vic Alexander, the translator of the Bible and committed Christian. I received the following response: Barabbas probably meant that this person would never become a father. This is a derogatory reference to a person. I don’t believe this was an actual name. Barabbas is a nickname for an absolute nobody, and I think that’s where the irony lies, they freed a nobody instead of Jesus. Which was destined. Of course what this means is that nobody knew much about Barabbas. In order to allocate a surname (or nickname) to somebody you would need to have some information as to where he or she came from, who his/her parents were etc. Apparently this was not the case with Barabbas, so he was allocated a ‘nothing’ surname in order to distinguish him from Jesus (Anointed) in this context. A John Doe in fact (or should I say ‘Jesus Doe’?) This discussion, to my mind, indicates that Barabbas did actually exist. The authenticity of the surname and its explanation in Aramaic terms, tells me that he was likely to be an historical personality, and not a complete invention of the gospel writers. It would be very unlikely for them to invent a person with a given name of Jesus in this situation. In fact, if the name ‘Jesus’ had been lost sight of for ‘reverential reasons’ then, for the same reasons, it would have been unlikely to have been invented. This is an important point to keep in mind, as I am prepared to reject much of the gospel story concerning the release of Barabbas and yet accept that there was an historical personality who was somehow involved. 108

While this discussion of the surname has a point, there is another important factor to bear in mind; that the given names were the same. This may have been a coincidence, as Jesus was a common name. However I would like to suggest the possibility that there may be another reason for the similarity.

8.3 Why was Barabbas in Jail? Barabbas is introduced in Mark with the following verse. MK 15:7 A man called Barabbas was then in prison along with the rebels who had committed murder in a rebellion We should be quite clear that, in this translation, Mark does not say whether Barabbas had committed any crime or not. Another important piece of information is given, the fact that there had been a rebellion and murder and that some of the rebels involved had been caught and imprisoned. We are not told exactly how many or who they were, nor the circumstances of the ‘rebellion’. It does appear to be a relatively minor incident. We will come to these rebels later. Mark does not say that Barabbas was in any way involved with the rebels, just that he was in prison with them. I should note here that the translation of this verse in the King James Version does state that Barabbas was involved in the rebellion, however several other translations that I have read concur with the NAB. I have to go with NAB on this issue as it is a more recent translation and benefits from advances in scholarship. This is a point where it would be nice to have a definitive translation of the verse. It is interesting and enlightening to compare the equivalent introductory verse, from each of the four gospels, in the order in which they are believed to have been written. MK 15:7 A man called Barabbas was then in prison along with the rebels who had committed murder in a rebellion MT 27:16 And at that time they had a notorious prisoner called (Jesus) Barabbas. LK 23:19 (Now Barabbas had been imprisoned for a rebellion that had taken place in the city and for murder.) JN 18:40 .... Now Barabbas was a revolutionary. This looks like a story which grows with the telling. The guilt of the rebels is gradually transferred to Barabbas. In Mark it is stated that Barabbas was in prison together with revolutionaries. Nothing is said about whether he is guilty of anything. Matthew notes that he was a prisoner and adds that he was ‘notorious’. If Matthew was copying from Mark then it is possible to speculate that the additional word was an invention, designed to pass off Barabbas as a guilty person. In Luke the guilt of the revolutionaries is transferred to Barabbas. No reason is given by the NAB for the verse being in brackets but it may have been because it 109

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was thought to be a gloss added later, ie not in the earlier texts .The verse has the appearance of being an assumption based on an incorrect reading of MK 15.8. Similarly with John, although John does not go on to give the elaborate Barabbas story, as is recorded in the synoptics. With each retelling of the Barabbas story, his character becomes blacker. If we assume that the gospel writers had an anti-Jewish bias (something the even the NAB agrees with) then we can see that they would have a motivation to do this. The more evil that Jesus Barabbas is made out to be the more heinous would be the crime of the Jews in demanding his release in place of the innocent Jesus Anointed. What I am saying here is that we must be prepared to entertain the possibility that Barabbas was not guilty of any crime and that the story of the Jews howling for his release may be a fiction.

I am not conversant with the scholarly debate on the matter. I’m sure I would find it uninteresting. However I would come down on the side of there being no such custom. I do not believe that the Roman authorities would be prepared to let loose a dangerous political revolutionary because of some Jewish festival. The Romans were very punitive towards revolutionaries. In fact the time of the Passover was a time of ferment, when political revolutions would be more likely to occur because of the large influx of visitors into Jerusalem. The Roman authorities would be even less likely to release prisoners at that time. Moreover John (who puts the words into Pilate’s mouth) states that the Romans are acceding to a Jewish custom in this regard. That is even less believable. The Romans might accede to some Jewish customs but not to a custom such as this. I am inclined to believe that this ‘custom’ is a complete invention.

8.5 The Jews demand the release of Barabbas 8.4 The custom of releasing a prisoner at Passover MATTHEW 27:15 * Now on the occasion of the feast the governor was accustomed to release to the crowd one prisoner whom they wished. NAB NOTE * The choice that Pilate offers the crowd between Barabbas and Jesus is said to be in accordance with a custom of releasing at the Passover feast one prisoner chosen by the crowd. This custom is mentioned also in Mark 15:6 and John 18:39 but not in Lk. Outside of the gospels there is no direct attestation of it, and scholars are divided in their judgment of the historical reliability of the claim that there was such a practice. Matthew is virtually a word for word copy of the equivalent verse in Mark. Luke has also a copy in some translations, however the NAB notes that the verse is not in the older texts and asserts that it was probably added by a copyist. John has a variation on this theme: JOHN 18:39 But you have a custom that I release one prisoner to you at Passover. Do you want me to release to you the King of the Jews?” It is to be expected that there would be a division of opinion as to whether such a custom did actually exist. On the one hand there are the devoted Christians who wish to believe that everything in the gospels is true. On the other hand are the cynics who do not believe that such a custom would be likely. The problem in ascertaining the absolute truth of such a matter lies in the fact that records pertaining to the time are scanty, due to the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans in 70 CE. Mark, who may well have been the originator of this story, was quite possibly a Jerusalem Jew, but he was writing for gentiles (probably in Rome) who would not be in a position to question such a statement. I also suspect the interference of a later editorial hand. If there never was such a custom then the consequences are interesting, as we shall see. 110

If the custom of releasing prisoners at Passover is a fiction then it follows that this whole story concerning the Jews demanding the release of Barabbas because of it should also be considered to be a fiction. MARK 15:8 The crowd came forward and began to ask him to do for them as he was accustomed. 15:9 Pilate answered, “Do you want me to release to you the king of the Jews?” 15:10 For he knew that it was out of envy that the chief priests had handed him over. 15:11 But the chief priests stirred up the crowd to have him release Barabbas for them instead. 15:12 Pilate again said to them in reply, “Then what (do you want) me to do with (the man you call) the king of the Jews?” 15:13 They shouted again, “Crucify him. “15:14 Pilate said to them, “Why? What evil has he done?” They only shouted the louder, “Crucify him.” 15:15 So Pilate, wishing to satisfy the crowd, released Barabbas to them and, after he had Jesus scourged, handed him over to be crucified. This passage and the elaborations in Matthew and Luke (see below), have caused the Jews endless trouble and heartbreak, including centuries of persecution by Religious Authority and culminating in the Holocaust. Of course many cynical commentators have pointed out that the Jews should be praised for crucifying Jesus as that led to the salvation of the world. But the story (even apart from the unlikelihood of the ‘custom’) does appear to be a rather clumsy invention. Here we have Pilate in his palace, guarded by at least a full cohort of Roman soldiers (about 360 men) and yet is said to be harassed and intimidated by an unruly crowd of Jews. There was no doubt that the Romans crucified Jesus and that it was the Romans who were responsible for the salvation of mankind. It does seem likely (as I elaborate in chapter 9) that Jesus was executed as the result of collaboration between the Romans and the Jewish hierarchy.

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There are some variations in Matthew and Luke which enlarge the theme and some NAB notes which are relevant. MATTHEW 27:18 NAB NOTE: Cf Mark 15:10. This is an example of the tendency, found in varying degree in all the gospels, to present Pilate in a relatively favorable light and emphasize the hostility of the Jewish authorities and eventually of the people. 27:22 * Pilate said to them, “Then what shall I do with Jesus called Messiah?” They all said, “Let him be crucified!” NAB NOTE: Let him be crucified: incited by the chief priests and elders, the crowds demand that Jesus be executed by crucifixion, a peculiarly horrible form of Roman capital punishment. The Marcan parallel, “Crucify him” (Mark 15:13), addressed to Pilate, is changed by Matthew to the passive, probably to emphasize the responsibility of the crowds. The NAB note points out a simple alteration designed to make worse this crime of the Jews. MATTHEW 27:24 * When Pilate saw that he was not succeeding at all, but that a riot was breaking out instead, he took water and washed his hands in the sight of the crowd, saying, “I am innocent of this man’s blood. Look to it yourselves.” 27:25 And the whole people said in reply, “His blood be upon us and upon our children.” NAB NOTE: [24-25] Peculiar to Matthew. Took water . . . blood: cf Deut 21:18, the hand washing prescribed in the case of a murder when the killer is unknown. The elders of the city nearest to where the corpse is found must wash their hands, declaring, “Our hands did not shed this blood.” Look to it yourselves: cf Matthew 27:4. The whole people: Matthew sees in those who speak these words the entire people (Greek laos) of Israel. His blood . . . and upon our children: cf Jer 26:15. The responsibility for Jesus’ death is accepted by the nation that was God’s special possession (Exodus 19:5), his own people (Hosea 2:23), and they thereby lose that high privilege; see Matthew 21:43 and the note on that verse. The controversy between Matthew’s church and Pharisaic Judaism about which was the true people of God is reflected here. As the Second Vatican Council has pointed out, guilt for Jesus’ death is not attributable to all the Jews of his time or to any Jews of later times. In the above Matthew embellishes and deepens the crime. It is the passage which, most of all, blames the Jews for Jesus’ death. It appears to be a typical Matthew-style midrashic invention. The NAB note points out the Old Testament source for the washing of hands. Also refer: ISIAH 1:15,16, PSALMS 26:6, 73:13. The whole of the NAB note requires close reading here. LUKE: 23:18 But all together they shouted out, “Away with this man! Release Barabbas to us.” 23:19 (Now Barabbas had been imprisoned for a rebellion 112

that had taken place in the city and for murder.) 23:20 Again Pilate addressed them, still wishing to release Jesus, 23:21 but they continued their shouting, “Crucify him! Crucify him!” 23:22 Pilate addressed them a third time, “What evil has this man done? I found him guilty of no capital crime. Therefore I shall have him flogged and then release him.” 23:23 With loud shouts, however, they persisted in calling for his crucifixion, and their voices prevailed. 23:24 The verdict of Pilate was that their demand should be granted. 23:25 So he released the man who had been imprisoned for rebellion and murder, for whom they asked, and he handed Jesus over to them to deal with as they wished. I would point out here that Luke has completely re-written the Marcan source in order to cast aspersions on the Jews. It is absolutely certain that the statement that Jesus was handed to the Jews for execution is false. The Jews did not, in general, carry out crucifixions. (Although there are assertions that they may have done they certainly would not have in this situation.) Even the NAB asserts that it was the Romans that carried it out, as will any source that you can name. Therefore Luke was inventing an untruth in order to blacken the Jews.

8.6 What role did Jesus Barabbas play? Did they get the wrong man? If we take Mark at face value in that there is no suggestion that Barabbas was guilty of a crime and if you remove the Jew baiting and the ‘custom’ from Mark then you are left with an interesting result. I think we have proved above that Jesus Barabbas did exist and so the story was not a complete invention. The other things we know are that he was arrested and imprisoned with some revolutionaries, and that he was released shortly after Jesus Anointed was brought before Pilate. It was necessary to develop a scenario to explain the above. What is odd about all this is the fact that once one Jesus (Anointed) is arrested and brought before Pilate another Jesus is released. The thought that runs through my mind is that when they arrested Jesus Barabbas they arrested the wrong Jesus, and that once the right Jesus was found the mistake was revealed and corrected. If Jesus Barabbas was picked up because he had the same name it would seem that the soldiers or police were on the lookout for Jesus Anointed and this must have been because they had an idea that his presence in Jerusalem might motivate a rebellion. It would mean that Jesus was a marked man even before the arrest at Gethsemane. Naturally the authorities would not wish to arrest every person with the name of Jesus. They would probably have circulated a description along with the name. It would not have been exact. As well as a physical description it might have included such things as that he was outspoken, that he had a band of followers, that he was a Galilean. Barabbas may have been any of these. He may have drawn attention to himself in some way. He may even have been an innocent witness to the ‘rebellion’. 113

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8.7 Consequences. If one looks at the story concerning Jesus Barabbas one sees a fairly incompetent piece of writing. It is clearly an invention and one must add that the crowd of howling Jews is also an invention. What I am suggesting is that Jesus was actually brought to Pilate by some temple police in an orderly manner. While the impact between Jews and Pilate has a dramatic impact I don’t believe it ever happened. My theories, that infer close collaboration between the Jews and the Romans, require this undramatic transfer. As for the record of what was said between Jesus and Pilate I am inclined to believe that there is some truth in it. I accept the tradition that the Gospel of Mark consisted (at least in part) of the recollections of Simon Peter as written down by Mark. I do not believe that an honest and basically simple man such as Simon would have invented such a story. It must have come from Mark or even some other hand at a later date.

8.8 The two ‘thieves’. It was noted above that rebels had been arrested for a murder and rebellion in the city. It is fairly clear that this was a relatively minor incident, nothing is mentioned in the history books and apparently only one person was killed. It was probably the sort of thing that happened from time to time, however in this case it may have represented some arising unrest which may have lead to the necessity to arrest Jesus promptly. The experience of any occupying force can attest to such incidents. A Jew involved in a rebellion and murder and subsequently captured by the Romans could expect summary execution by crucifixion. It is patiently obvious that the two men, crucified with Jesus, were these revolutionaries. The King James Version of the Bible calls these men ‘thieves’ and this is the image embedded in the human psyche. However the following quotations from the NAB indicates the mistranslation. MATTHEW 27:38 Two revolutionaries * were crucified with him, one on his right and the other on his left. NAB NOTE Revolutionaries: see the note on John 18:40 where the same Greek word as that found here is used for Barabbas. JOHN 18:40 They cried out again, “Not this one but Barabbas!” * Now Barabbas was a revolutionary. NAB NOTE. Revolutionary: a guerrilla warrior fighting for nationalistic aims, though the term can also denote a robber. My belief is that it was the Romans that crucified revolutionaries. Other criminal matters, regarding Jews, were dealt with by the Jews according to Jewish law. There is a contrary statement in John.

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JOHN 18:31 At this, Pilate said to them, “Take him yourselves, and judge him according to your law.” The Jews answered him, “We do not have the right to execute anyone,” NAB NOTE: We do not have the right to execute anyone: only John gives this reason for their bringing Jesus to Pilate. Jewish sources are not clear on the competence of the Sanhedrin at this period to sentence and to execute for political crimes. The point is that it was Roman policy to permit subject countries to operate their own criminal justice system. John says that the Sanhedrin did not have the power to execute criminals by stoning in direct contradiction to actual examples. The Woman taken in Adultery, St. Stephen, and James (the brother of Jesus and leader of the church in Jerusalem after his death) were all put to death by either stoning or being thrown from a height. I have been wondering if there was any connection between Jesus and the revolutionaries. This is something for which the evidence is unsure. His namesake (Barabbas) was held in prison with them. It is interesting that Jesus was crucified between the two, as though he was a more important villain than they were. There is a passage in Luke which describes a conversation between Jesus and the revolutionaries on the cross. The penitent one seems to know something about him - that he was innocent of any crime. Jesus is very amenable towards him, offering him a place in paradise. This passage must be considered suspect because of the lack of witness and the midrashic implications. I note however that Jesus’s conversation contains an oratorical catchphrase, something that I assert indicates authenticity.

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Chapter nine

9. The Gospel according to Brian. 9.1 The start of the road to the cross. In the synoptic version of the gospels this road began with the death of John the Baptist. John had been Jesus’ mentor and teacher. Jesus had decided to go his own way, nevertheless he respected John. I believe that there had been discussion between the two men as to who would lead the people out of bondage. Who would be the Messiah in fact. When John had sent disciples to Jesus asking if he was the Messiah, Jesus had replied that he was healing the sick and performing good deeds, referring to an Old Testament prophecy that a Messiah might do such things. Nevertheless he held back out of respect for his teacher. But then John was executed in dramatic circumstances, and had not achieved the goal. It was now up to Jesus to take on the task. MARK 8:27 * Now Jesus and his disciples set out for the villages of Caesarea Philippi. Along the way he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that I am?” 8:28 They said in reply, “John the Baptist, others Elijah, still others one of the prophets.” 8:29 And he asked them, “But who do you say that I am?” Peter said to him in reply, “You are the Messiah. “8:30 Then he warned them not to tell anyone about him. NAB NOTE * This episode is the turning point in Mark’s account of Jesus in his public ministry. Popular opinions concur in regarding him as a prophet. The disciples by contrast believe him to be the Messiah. Jesus acknowledges this identification but prohibits them from making his messianic office known to avoid confusing it with ambiguous contemporary ideas on the nature of that office. Luke copies Mark fairly accurately. Matthew follows the thread but adds elaborations which may well be inventions. John does not record this incident but hints at a similar attitude. The NAB note gives a reason for Jesus not wanting to make known this fact of Messiahship however there no evidence as to what he believed in this regard. There are other possibilities: Perhaps he wanted to think it over and make sure. I also believe that he felt that this was something that could only be announced in Jerusalem. Also, possibly, at Passover as that was the most important festival. The point that the NAB makes about ‘ambiguous contemporary ideas’ is important and has also affected contemporary thought two thousand years later. A note on a verse in Luke clarifies what these ambiguities are. NAB NOTE ON LUKE 2:11 As savior, Jesus is looked upon by Luke as the one who rescues humanity from sin and delivers humanity from the condition of alienation from God. The title christos, “Christ,” is the Greek equivalent of the Hebrew masiah, “Messiah,” “anointed one.” Among certain groups in first-

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century Palestinian Judaism, the title was applied to an expected royal leader from the line of David who would restore the kingdom to Israel. It is clear that there are two definitions of Messiah. The first was that of a religious teacher, who would create a Kingdom of Heaven on earth, where people would live in peace and harmony as a result of the enlightenment of their souls. The second concept was of a warrior king, in the mould of King David, who would unite his people and conquer the enemies of the State of Israel. There were probably many subtleties and shades of compromise between these two extremes. The Essenes believed there would be two Messiahs. One will be a high priestly Messiah from the house of Aaron, and the other, a royal Messiah from the house of David. I believe that Jesus considered himself to be a Messiah of the first type, a Messiah of Salvation. His goal would be to bring all people close to God and thus solve strife and conflict - become the Saviour of the World. In other words the Kingdom of Judea would be restored by man’s benevolence rather than conflict. Many modern commentators regard Jesus as being a Messiah of the Davidic type in order to explain why he was such a threat to the Jewish race. This is at variance with his philosophy of love and reconciliation and the statement to Pilate that his kingdom was not of this world and that he did not have bands of followers fighting to save him (which may have some provenance.) I do not think that Jesus intended to start a bloody revolution. However it does not matter particularly what type of messiah he was. It was how the populace in general and the revolutionary groups in particular, would react to the presence of someone who announced himself as Messiah. More on this later. MARK 8:31 He began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer greatly and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and rise after three days. 8:32 He spoke this openly. Then Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. 8:33 At this he turned around and, looking at his disciples, rebuked Peter and said, “Get behind me, Satan. You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do.” Mark here reports that Jesus did foresee his Passion. (There are further references to this prediction, reported in the synoptics, between this time and the arrival in Jerusalem.) The NAB, in a note on the equivalent verse in Matthew, casts doubt on the reliability of this passage. This is one case when it is not possible to be sure. Jesus would have been able to work out that the path he had decided to take could well lead to the cross. If he was aware of this as an inevitable conclusion then he would, no doubt, have believed that it was God’s will that it be so. I consider that it is quite possible that Mark has dressed up this passage by putting the blame on the Jews and adding the prediction of rising after three days, which is in fact slightly inaccurate. In his rebuke to Peter Jesus is saying that God has a path for him even though, as a man, he would not wish to take it. I also believe that Jesus was prescient and that this gift may have told him something about what was going to happen. Even so I do not believe that Jesus had any 117

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Chapter nine certain knowledge of any details concerning the circumstances of his death. He may have thought that the situation demanded that he face death in order to achieve God’s work I do not believe that he had a direct line through to God. I believe that his knowledge at the Last Supper and at Gethsemane came from reports of real events in the world of people.

9.2 The situation according to John John does not give the episode described above. In chapter 10 of the Gospel an incident is reported which occurred a few months before the Passion during a visit to Jerusalem for the feast of dedication. Here Jesus addressed a crowd assembled in Solomon’s Porch, a colonnade along the Eastern side of the temple mount, apparently the Hyde Park of ancient Jerusalem. When asked if he is the Messiah, Jesus gave veiled answer which seemed to indicate that he was. JOHN 10:24 So the Jews gathered around him and said to him, “How long are you going to keep us in suspense? If you are the Messiah, tell us plainly.” 10:25 Jesus answered them, “I told you and you do not believe. The works I do in my Father’s name testify to me. Because he did not deny that he was Messiah certain elements in the audience, probably employees of the Authorities, attempted to arrest him and he was forced to flee the city. He went to the Jordan River and it was there that many followers from Jerusalem came to meet him. Although I see some evidence of editorial tampering in this report I believe the details of events to be essentially correct. It is clear that Jesus had radical ideas and that this had offended the more conservative members of the Establishment. Even so, from what I have read, there was a good deal of tolerance towards a variety of religious thought and this incident in itself would not have placed Jesus in danger. The real problem lay in the implication that he might be Messiah. I’ll discuss this in full below. It is clear that the Sanhedrin wished to arrest him and try him for heresy, the punishment for which would be stoning to death. (It is interesting to note that John does mention stoning, at variance with his later statement that the Jews brought Jesus to Pilate for execution because they were not permitted to perform capital punishment, something I do not believe. In fact there are reports of executions by stoning at the instigation in both the OT and Josephus around that time.) John then describes Jesus’ visit to Bethany (a town close to Jerusalem) for the raising of Lazarus, an incident not mentioned in the synoptics. Of course raising the dead is ‘impossible’ and there are some that doubt that it ever occurred. I am taking it that it did occur, whether by divine or mundane means. There was considerable public interest over this incident and probably a bit of gossip which got back to the Sanhedrin.

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JOHN 11:45 Now many of the Jews who had come to Mary and seen what he had done began to believe in him. 11:46 But some of them went to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done. 11:47 So the chief priests and the Pharisees convened the Sanhedrin and said, “What are we going to do? This man is performing many signs. 11:48 If we leave him alone, all will believe in him, and the Romans will come and take away both our land and our nation.” 11:49 But one of them, Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, said to them, “You know nothing, 11:50 nor do you consider that it is better for you that one man should die instead of the people, so that the whole nation may not perish.” <snip> 11:53 So from that day on they planned to kill him. 11:54 So Jesus no longer walked about in public among the Jews, but he left for the region near the desert, to a town called Ephraim, and there he remained with his disciples. This appears to be a formal meeting, although there were, no doubt, informal meetings from time to time. I can believe this report of the internal proceedings of the Sanhedrin to be accurate. The two followers of Jesus on the council, Nicodemus and Arimathea, would have been witness and would have sent a messenger to warn him of any danger he might have been in. While I believe this report to be true such is not the case with all gospel reports emanating from the council. Each has to be treated on its own merits. The question must be asked: why were the council so concerned that the Romans would destroy the Jewish nation and why was it so necessary to have Jesus put down? The question perplexed me for some time however once you look at the political ambience combined with the nature of the Jewish race, the picture becomes clear. The Jews had great pride in their identity and believed they were somewhat special, being selected by a superior being, their God, for special attention. They had a strong belief that God determined their destiny, punished them for their faults and rewarded them for their good deeds. God had a presence among them. Hence it was quite possible for them to do something rash if they believed that it was God’s will. They also believed that Palestine was the land reserved for them by God. Unfortunately there were few times when they wholly owned it and currently they were occupied by the Romans. There were a number of revolutionary groups in existence and there was considerable ‘Messianic fervour’ among the populace. All it needed was for a charismatic leader to come forth and announce himself and the powder-keg would ignite. We can see what happened forty years later when there was a serious uprising. The results were devastating for the Jews and the Jewish culture. The position of the council was quite clear from the quotation above. They were afraid that Jesus would inflame these revolutionary tendencies and were quite clear what the results would be. Caiaphas went a step further by saying that Jesus should be taken out in order to save the race. In saying this he betrays his 119

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Chapter nine astuteness and willingness to bow to necessity. I believe that it would have been the council’s intention to try Jesus for religious transgression and execute him according to Jewish law. Jesus must have been aware that he was facing danger if he returned to Jerusalem for Passover. Yet he did so. He must have felt that it was his destiny.

9.3 The announcement. All of the gospels give the story of Jesus riding into Jerusalem on an ass on the Sunday before Passover. All stories are basically the same, although there are differences in detail. The opinion has been expressed by some professional theologians (including Spong) that this event never occurred and is merely a midrashic invention of the gospel writers. There is no doubt that an Old Testament source can be readily identified as Zechariah 9.9. (Ref Handel - Messiah No 16.) ZECH 9:9 * Rejoice heartily, O daughter Zion, shout for joy, O daughter Jerusalem! See, your king shall come to you; a just savior is he, Meek, and riding on an ass, on a colt, the foal of an ass. NAB NOTE * The Messiah will come, not as a conquering warrior, but in lowliness and peace. Not like the last kings of Judah, who rode in chariots and on horses (Jer 17:25; 22:4), but like the princes of old (Genesis 49:11; Jdgs 5:10; 10:4), the Messiah will ride on an ass. The Evangelists see a literal fulfillment of this prophecy in the Savior’s triumphant entry into Jerusalem (Matthew 21:4-5; John 12:14-15). There is another school of thought here which believes that this is not a midrashic invention but Jesus deliberately chose to re-enact a piece of scripture. It would take a whole chapter to present the arguments for and against in full and I do not intend to burden the reader with such a discussion. As with all scholarly discourse on subjects such as this there are reasons for and against and no definitive resolution. My belief here is that such an event did occur and that it was a typically Jesus-like solution to the situation. It was so much in keeping with Jesus’ character. Mark describes the entry as follows: MARK 11:1 * When they drew near to Jerusalem, to Bethphage and Bethany at the Mount of Olives, he sent two of his disciples 11:2 and said to them, “Go into the village opposite you, and immediately on entering it, you will find a colt tethered on which no one has ever sat. Untie it and bring it here. 11:3 If anyone should say to you, ‘Why are you doing this?’ reply, ‘The Master has need of it and will send it back here at once.’” 11:4 So they went off and found a colt tethered at a gate outside on the street, and they untied it. 11:5 Some of the bystanders said to them, “What are you doing, untying the colt?” 11:6 They answered them just as Jesus had told them to, and they permitted them to do it. 11:7 So they brought the colt to Jesus and put their cloaks over it. And he sat on 120

it. 11:8 Many people spread their cloaks on the road, and others spread leafy branches that they had cut from the fields. 11:9 Those preceding him as well as those following kept crying out: “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! 11:10 Blessed is the kingdom of our father David that is to come! Hosanna in the highest!” 11:11 He entered Jerusalem and went into the temple area. He looked around at everything and, since it was already late, went out to Bethany with the Twelve. It is easy to understand Jesus’ motivation for his actions. He had a problem. How was he going to announce his new status as Messiah? He could hardly stand up in the temple and make a bald statement. He’d almost done that once before and barely escaped with his life. He knew he couldn’t be specific, he had to make this announcement in a more subtle way. He had to say it obliquely. Say it without actually saying it. Also he had to make sure that the message got across that he was a Messiah of peace. He achieved this by acting out a piece of Old Testament prophecy which he was, no doubt, perfectly familiar with and with which he knew many Jews would also be familiar. (‘The stones will cry out’ as Luke says.) As I see it, the event fits in perfectly with my conception of the personality of Jesus and with the situation at the time. It is something he would have thought up. The NAB note on Zechariah also makes an important point. By entering on an ass rather than a charger Jesus was saying that he was a Salvation Messiah not a Davidic Messiah. He would be aware of the concerns of the Sanhedrin concerning a Davidic Messiah and would wish to allay these fears. The chanted verse specifically uses the word ‘meek’ which underlines this. It was a message that was misunderstood. LUKE 19:38 They proclaimed: “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord. * Peace in heaven and glory in the highest.” NAB NOTE * ‘Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord’: only in Luke is Jesus explicitly given the title king when he enters Jerusalem in triumph. Luke has inserted this title into the words of Psalm 118:26 that heralded the arrival of the pilgrims coming to the holy city and to the temple. 19:39 Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, rebuke your disciples.”* 19:40 He said in reply, “I tell you, if they keep silent, the stones will cry out!” NAB NOTE * Rebuke your disciples: this command, found only in Lk, was given so that the Roman authorities would not interpret the acclamation of Jesus as king as an uprising against them. All gospels refer to this proclamation of Psalm 118:26 (Blessed is he who comes in the name of the LORD. We bless you from the LORD’S house.) by those accompanying the procession. Whether it was just the disciples or a ‘crowd’ who had assembled at Bethany (for whatever reason) it is fairly obvious that they were put up to it by Jesus. We cannot be sure if the word ‘king’ was actually used. Even if it wasn’t, the action of riding in on the ass would make the intention clear. 121

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Chapter nine Verses 39-40 are unique to Luke. It may be an invention but it is such a nonmidrashic apparent triviality that it may be true. Jesus is saying that it doesn’t matter whether the disciples chant out or not, the intention is abundantly clear. The statement in 19:39 makes it clear that the message is getting across but that it is capable of misinterpretation..

9.4 Here is the matter of our exegamination. In all detective stories there comes a time when it is necessary to recapitulate on the given material and ask the question: whodunit? Firstly I have given character to the people involved and, rightly or wrongly, I will stick to these descriptions. I have described as well as I am able the political and social situation of the time. Secondly I state my opinion that the gospel reports contain elements of bad reporting. I regard as unreliable any passage which casts bad light on Iscariot or the Jewish hierarchy and give reasons for believing or disbelieving a certain passage as I go. Thirdly we discard the aura of superstitious nonsense which has surrounded the subject for centuries as a result of the church logos. So for you detectives; here are the questions we require answers to. If you know the answers then read no further. · How did Jesus know he was going to die? · Why did Jesus arrange to go willingly to the cross? · What part did Judas Iscariot play in the events? · What part did the Jewish hierarchy play in the events? · What part did the Roman army play in the events? · What part did Pontius Pilate play in the events? · What part did Nicodemus, Joseph from Arimathea and other members of the ‘Jerusalem Connection’ play in the events? · Who was Barabbas and why was he released? · What was the nature of the detail that arrested Jesus at Gethsemane? · Who were the two ‘thieves’ and why was Jesus executed in pride of place between them? · Why was Peter not slaughtered by Roman soldiers when he attacked one of their group with a sword and cut off his ear? · Why were the other disciples not captured and executed alongside Jesus? · Who was the ‘other disciple who knew the high priest’ who accompanied Peter to Annas’ house? · Who was the young man in the linen garment mentioned in Mark and why was he in the garden of Gethsemane that night? · Why was Jesus permitted a proper burial when it was customary to throw the bodies of executed criminals to the dogs? 122

9.5 The attitude of the ‘Authorities’. When Jesus rode into town on the donkey news of the event would come to the attention of the powers that be. The Romans would initially think nothing of it, not being familiar with the books of Psalms and Zechariah. The church leaders, particularly Caiaphas and his clique, would view the matter with concern. It is already clear that they were worried, as was discussed above. Pilate always came to Jerusalem with extra troops for the festivals I do not know if he would actually be there by this stage. I am sure that Caiaphas would discuss the matter of Jesus with him when he arrived, among the many other things they would have to discuss. I am riding with my assumption, discussed previously, that the two men were bosom buddies. All the evidence indicates that there was a close relationship between the two. Also, as we shall see below, the detail that arrested Jesus at Gethsemane comprised temple guards and Roman soldiers. Even the NAB comments on the possibility of collusion in their note on the passage in John concerning the arrest at Gethsemane (below). Not doubt Caiaphas would explain the implications of Messiahship and that Pilate would take note concerning the possibility of an uprising. I am sure that both men wanted peace. The question was how to deal with it. If the Jews were to act the only possibility would be a trial before the Sanhedrin for some religious or civil offense and subsequent stoning (with Pilate’s approval if, in fact, that was necessary.) This was a process that would take time. (We all know about ‘the law’s delay’.) (The synoptics describe an impossible trial before the Sanhedrin, at night or in the morning, after Jesus’ arrest. I don’t believe this ever happened and give my reasons below. It may reflect some ‘evidence’ the Sanhedrin had gathered to be used in a real trial, if, and when, that could be arranged.) Pilate, if I read his character correctly, would not wish to arrest Jesus without further evidence. Even he could not crucify someone for riding into town on a donkey. However I am sure that he would have wanted to keep tabs on Jesus’ activities, particularly while in Jerusalem. Perhaps a tail was appointed, who could have easily picked him up as he arrived at the temple each day. Certainly his activities in the temple would be under scrutiny - there is ample evidence in the gospels that there were a number of undercover agents in his audience from time to time. He would also have consulted the general of the army who, no doubt, expressed his confidence in being able to round up this fellow and his associates. All this presents a conundrum which has worried Christian commentators for centuries. If the two parties were working together why was Jesus taken into Jewish custody after the arrest? And then why did the Jews have to howl out their demands that Pilate execute him the following morning, apparently against the wishes of Pilate. However we are getting ahead of ourselves. It is necessary to speculate as to why Jesus was arrested in the first place.

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9.5 How to be appointed ‘King of the Jews’. Jesus was crucified by the Romans as a revolutionary leader. This is evident from the method of execution and the sarcastic sign. ‘King of the Jews’ which was affixed to his cross. The question is: how did such a gentle and compassionate man come to be so regarded? The substantial reason must be because of the fact that his presence was inspiring the resistance groups to start a revolution. We need to consider what effect Jesus’ entry (and the various ‘signs’ he was doing) had on the many guerrilla groups in the city, who wished to overthrow the Roman occupiers. (In fact there would be certain groups who came up from Galilee, the hotbed of revolutionaries.) Surely at least one of these groups would come to the conclusion that Jesus was a Davidic Messiah who was sent by God to lead them to victory. They would believe that such a leader would be invincible and the defeat of the Romans inevitable. After all he was performing miracles. The question is: was there any contact between Jesus and the revolutionary groups? Some would say that there was and that it was Jesus’ intention to start a revolution. My personal belief is that he did not realise that his actions would provoke a revolt. That his message of reconciliation would, with God’s help, be realised by all parties and lead to a world of love and peace, such as existed in heaven. (Hopeful.) This matter is very much a grey area. If the underground wanted to contact him directly it would first have to be done through one of the disciples. (There are other examples of this method of approach in the gospels.) I consider that Iscariot would be a very likely person to approach, particularly if he was a revolutionary himself or a revolutionary’s son. (Simon the Zealot would also be a candidate.) The possibility that Iscariot came from a town in Judea (Keroith) or was a ‘man about town’ might have indicated that he was known to them, assuming they were a Jerusalem based group. Now if Iscariot was the one who was approached then we can see that he might have been involved in the affair right from the start. It leads me to the speculation that, in the beginning, Iscariot may have been employed as a messenger between Jesus and a group of rebels. If this is accepted a natural meaning for his role in the affair is established. I note now that Jesus was not particularly a wanted man two days before the Passover. Something must have happened to change that. MARK 14:1 The Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread were to take place in two days’ time. So the chief priests and the scribes were seeking a way to arrest him by treachery and put him to death. 14:2 They said, “Not during the festival, for fear that there may be a riot among the people.” If this were reported to Jesus by his followers on the council he may have felt safe, at least for the time being. However sometime during those next two days (or less) he suddenly did become a wanted man. The arrest of Jesus Barabbas (if my analysis is correct) is something that confirms this. As I explain the gospel writers weave a story around Barabbas which appears to be an invention designed 124

to denigrate the Jews. If you remove this, all that remains is that a person with the given name of Jesus (surname unknown) was arrested and subsequently released. In article 8.7 I suggest that this Jesus Barabbas was arrested merely because of his given name. One cannot speculate too much on how he came to the attention of the police or army. Perhaps he was an innocent bystander to the ‘rebellion’. Perhaps he gave his name at a checkpoint and there was a superficial similarity between himself and Jesus Anointed. It is probable that he had a Galilean accent. What it points to is that soldiers and police had been instructed to be on the lookout for a Jesus (and perhaps given some sort of description) and to arrest him on sight. This is the only explanation I can think of for the presence of Barabbas in the story. Of course once it was realised that Barabbas was not the guilty party he would be released.

9.6 The committee. If Jesus was not a wanted man two days before Passover and the Last Supper was one day before Passover (which was quite certainly the case) then things must have moved quickly during the course of one day. Certainly there was an event of some sort which branded Jesus as a dangerous revolutionary and convinced Pilate and/or Caiaphas that action needed to be taken. It may have been that the ‘revolution and murder’ discussed in chapter 8 was the event which promoted the urgency. If there was collusion between the Romans and the Jews then there would have been a group (or ‘committee’) of people who were involved in making decisions on the matter. This would be comprised as follows: · Pontius Pilate. · The senior Roman Army officer. I expect this would be the General in charge of the army. (Legati or Dux was the Roman title.). There may also have been other elements from the army who were involved in the matter. We have to note that the normal chain of command would be in force. Pilate would never order a solder to carry out a particular action, he would give orders to the General and so on down the chain. Pilate, if astute, would always ascertain the General’s opinion before making a decision. · Caiaphas. · Annas. I consider this a possibility because Jesus was taken to his house after the arrest. It is not essential to my argument as both high priests would represent a similar point of view. · Herod Antipas. I mention this as an unlikely possibility. · Joseph of Arimathea (and/or Nicodemus?) The presence of Arimathea, or even another secret follower close to Caiaphas, is quite possible. By accepting it a lot of things are explained. We are told that Arimathea was a member of the 125

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Chapter nine Sanhedrin and was a secret follower of Jesus. As such he could well have been trusted by Caiaphas. (I don’t think that Nicodemus would have been directly involved. Although a member of the Sanhedrin he had made his relationship with Jesus abundantly clear, hence would not have been invited to any confidential discussions.) Even if Arimathea was not initially involved he may have found out that something was going on and made an approach. Having him on the committee explains how Jesus knew all about what was going to happen to him. If this link is accepted there is no reason to believe that Jesus received his information from God. We have already noted occasions where Jesus was receiving confidential information concerning meetings of the Sanhedrin and this most likely came from Arimathea or Nicodemus. · Iscariot. I have already indicated that Iscariot might have been acting as messenger between Jesus and the rebels. There is no reason why he might not have then taken on the role of messenger between Jesus and the committee. This proposition explains many things, including why he was sent from the Last Supper on a confidential errand and why he was present with the arresting detail at Gethsemane. As I continue, further evidence will emerge to support this. The members of this committee would have differing points of view concerning the fate of Jesus. It is also important to bear in mind that they would also have to consider the fate of his followers including the Galilean disciples and members of the Jerusalem Connection. This can be summarised as follows: · Arimathea would argue that Jesus was a man of God, that there was no, or little, direct involvement with rebel groups and that neither he nor his followers should be punished. It is stated clearly in the gospels that he was a secret follower of Jesus, however he must have had to come out into the open at this stage. · Annas and Caiaphas. We have seen that Caiaphas would be prepared to sacrifice one man to save the nation. He would have gone along with the execution of Jesus. In fact, he may have wished to promote the idea to the Romans because the Sanhedrin did not have sufficient evidence for a capital charge. He might have been indifferent to the fate of the Galilean disciples but would wish to save his colleagues on the council if they were implicated at all. He might have been prepared to be held responsible for the good behaviour of any spared followers. (His proscription on the preaching of the ‘twelve’, as reported in Acts, is an indication that he was.) · Pilate would be the person responsible for making the decision to execute. If I read his character correctly he would wish execute the minimum number of rebels commensurate with keeping the peace. He would need assurances that any followers would not start up a revolution on their own account. He would be likely to be influenced by the opinions of Caiaphas but would have to respect the opinion of the army. 126

· The General of the Roman Army would want to round up Jesus, all his followers (both Galilean and local) and crucify the lot. They would have a good argument. Why leave a few possible revolutionaries around to stir up trouble? Also it would be standard army practice if some damned milksop Governor didn’t say otherwise. · Herod Antipas may have been involved as he is mentioned in Luke as having interviewed Jesus. I don’t imagine that his contribution would be decisive. He would have supported the execution of Jesus for the same reasons that he executed John the Baptist. · Iscariot would not have been involved directly in committee discussions, but would have consulted with Arimathea and Jesus. If all these views were expressed and passed on to Jesus then the obvious thing to do would be to collect his disciples together and depart from the area promptly. We have seen that he did this, on two previous occasions, when he received reports that Antipas and the Sanhedrin wanted to kill him. But this time he went into the city to celebrate a final meal with his friends at a time when he must have known that there would be soldiers and guards on the lookout for him. Other commentators have made the point that he could have escaped into the desert very easily and explained that Jesus stayed to carry out God’s Holy Plan of dying on the cross to save us from our sins. Personally I don’t believe in God’s Holy Plan and have to find other reasons. And there is another, more compelling reason, for which there is some support in the gospels. If you look at the situation, escape was not really a satisfactory option. Perhaps they could get away from Antipas and the Sanhedrin, but add the Roman army to that and capture would be much more likely. If not capture he would have to hide away, perhaps among the rebels in caves around the Sea of Galilee. He would not be able to preach in public and his ministry would come to an end. And if he ran away and was recaptured then the disciples would surely all be executed as well. To do this would be to put them in danger. But if he stayed and offered his life for that of his disciples then he might have a solution. Perhaps the disciples could be trusted to carry on with his ministry. (And we see that they did.) Again the lives of certain Jerusalem followers may have been in jeopardy. Perhaps some of the known followers were already in custody. (Was the custody of Barabbas an issue?) I believe that Jesus made an offer to the committee to give himself up for crucifixion providing his followers were allowed to go free. If Jesus did make this offer to sacrifice himself it can be seen that it was not finally agreed upon until quite late in the piece. All I can say it was the action of a brave and enlightened man who loved his friends. It was a great gift of love and compassion in a world of cruelty and, as such, speaks across the centuries, a message to all mankind. JOHN 13:1 .... He loved his own in the world and he loved them to the end.

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Chapter nine JOHN 15:13 No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. Going ahead in the story for a moment it can be seen that he had this sacrifice in mind at Gethsemane. There were even doubts that his bargaining might not have succeeded: MARK 14:37 When he returned he found them asleep. He said to Peter, “Simon, are you asleep? Could you not keep watch for one hour? 14:38 Watch and pray that you may not undergo the test... This clearly indicates that Jesus was concerned that Peter might be a candidate for crucifixion also. JOHN 18:8 Jesus answered, “I told you that I AM. So if you are looking for me, let these men go.” He stands forth and identifies himself and ensures that the agreement is to be adhered to. I believe that a compromise was reached. My reading of Pilate’s character is that he would be prepared to. Perhaps the present existence of the Christian religion can be owed to this trait of character. I deduct, from the ensuing events which I will adumbrate in ensuing articles, that the compromise was as follows: Jesus would sacrifice himself to Roman justice with certain conditions · The disciples (including those ‘disciple’s in the Jerusalem Connection) would be spared. (However some curb might be placed on their activities.) · I believe that it is probable that certain members of the Jerusalem Connection and, quite probably, Iscariot were to be banished. This would explain why we hear nothing of them subsequently and why their side of the story has never been told. There are a number of doubtful, though believable, stories concerning travels to foreign lands of Arimathea and Mary Magdaline, including the story that Magdaline bore Jesus a posthumous daughter. · Jesus would agree to be in a quiet spot where he could be arrested without any fuss, the exact locality to be revealed once all points were agreed to. · After execution the body would be given to Arimathea and a proper Jewish burial would be permitted. (Executed criminals were not generally given a proper burial.) In the normal course of events there might have been several meetings. In fact it is these meetings which might have given rise to the thought that Iscariot had gone to the priests to betray Jesus. If all the points above had been fully agreed to on the Thursday afternoon then there is no reason why Jesus could not have gone to the authorities and given himself up. The events of the evening can only be explained if there were unresolved points still outstanding. I believe that this was the case and that Iscariot was sent from the last supper with Jesus’ instructions concerning the resolution of these points. Jesus must have told Iscariot that he intended to go to Gethsemane after the supper and that Iscariot was not to reveal his whereabouts until all conditions were met. This is speculation of course, but 128

it is the only explanation I can think of. Jesus could have gone in the morning of course but I think the Romans would have wanted the whole affair completed promptly because of the imminent Sabbath (whether that was Passover or not.) Jesus no doubt, wanted to have one last meal with his friends. The above scenario, or something similar, is the only one which explains how Jesus knew what was going to happen to him. It explains the presence of Iscariot in the arresting detail and how Iscariot knew exactly where Jesus would be. Why did Jesus not tell his disciples exactly what was going on? It appears that he did tell them that he was going to be executed, but not exactly the details of how. I think that if he had told them more they would have acted in an ‘unpredictable’ manner which would have caused more harm than good. The fact that he did not tell them everything means that they never knew and hence Iscariot was ever after branded a traitor. (There’s a little more to this, which I’ll cover later.) We are a little ahead of ourselves here. I shall now follow through the events that lead to these conclusions.

9.7 The last supper. I am making the assumption that the Last Supper was a meal which followed the Passover Seder but occurred one day before actual Passover. I justify this in chapter 10. There is some confusion in the gospels which I put down to Simon Peter’s failing memory when he recounted the events to Mark. Taking into account the fact that a Jewish day commences at sunset, the events of the Passion took place during the course of one day. All gospels state that this was ‘Preparation Day’ which was the Jewish name for Friday (being the day on which you prepared for the Sabbath.). It is fairly clear that, at the last supper, Jesus knew what was going to happen to him, (although I think Matthew was subject to Midrashic alteration.) MATTHEW: 26:21 And while they were eating, he said, “Amen, I say to you, one of you will betray me.” LUKE: 22:15 He said to them, “I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer, JOHN 13:1 Before the feast of Passover, Jesus knew that his hour had come to pass from this world to the Father. … I have discussed and dismissed the Iscariot betrayal narratives in chapter 6. I pointed out the errors in these stories and also gave reasons for accepting John’s statement that Jesus sent Iscariot out on an errand, the nature of which was not revealed to the disciples. JOHN 13:27 .... So Jesus said to him, “What you are going to do, do quickly.”

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Chapter nine 13:28 (Now) none of those reclining at table realized why he said this to him. 13:29 Some thought that since Judas kept the money bag, Jesus had told him, “Buy what we need for the feast,” or to give something to the poor. The commonly accepted explanation is that Jesus knew that Iscariot was about to betray him and so told him to go about it quickly. As I discussed above I believe that they had talked about the nature of this errand previously and that Iscariot had been dispatched to discuss details of Jesus’ subsequent arrest with the Committee.

9.8 After the supper

It might be an idea, at this stage, to review the map of Jerusalem One can see the temple mount in the north east part of the city. The house of Caiaphas and the house of the Last Supper are both located ‘by tradition’ in the Upper City, a suburb in the south west. Tradition can be accepted in this case as the Upper City was known to have been occupied by affluent citizens. I expect that the house of Annas might also have been close by. (In this exposition it is the general location that is important, and this is clearly established.) The Kidron Valley runs along to the east side of the city. It is a deep valley, a dry watercourse with flowing water only during the rainy season. To the east of the Kidron is an extensive hilly area called the Mount of Olives, which extends some miles to the south. There is a road at the foot of the Mount of Olives (where it and the Kidron ‘meet’.) I’ll call this the ‘Bethany Road’. It goes south to Bethany and north around the city. The Garden of Gethsemane is just off the road at a point opposite the temple. At this point there was a bridge across the Kidron to the temple, called the heifer bridge. No doubt the bridge was built to facilitate the entry of pilgrims and sacrificial animals. It can be seen that Gethsemane is very close to the route which would be taken by Jesus and his disciples on their daily trips to and from the temple. It would be a perfect rendezvous point, well known to all, and may well have been a place where they slept out if they were not returning to Bethany for the night. Also I imagine that after a hard morning preaching they might have gone back there for lunch and ablutions. Another detail on the map is a path which leaves the city to the south of the temple and goes across the Kidron Valley to the Bethany road. Apparently this ‘South Path’ follows the contour of the land.

After supper Jesus went to the Garden of Gethsemane. (It is fairly clear where they went from Mark and Matthew. Luke says ‘Mount of Olives’ thinking that it 130

is a closely defined area and John merely says ‘garden’.) He would have walked through the city streets, across the Kidron via the South Path to the Bethany Road. One can imagine that it was a cold, still, moonlit night. The Jewish calendar always ensured that it was full moon for Passover. He would then have gone north about three hundred yards along the road to Gethsemane, a total distance of about a mile. We have to question why he would have gone there at this time if it were not for the rendezvous arrangement that we have posited above. They could have slept in the upper room or even gone south to Bethany, where it appears they usually spent the night. (An interesting digression on over-enthusiastic use of midrash. John says that Jesus went across the Kidron. JN 18:1 When he had said this, Jesus went out with his disciples across the Kidron valley to where there was a garden, into which he and his disciples entered. We can see clearly, from the geography, that he would have had to have crossed the Kidron {by the South Path} to get where he was going. {He would not have gone via the heifer bridge because it was forbidden to take short cuts through the temple area.} Yet I have seen writers comment on the Significance of this crossing, citing Old Testament occasions where certain Prophets crossed. For example: 1KGS 2:37 For if you leave, and cross the Kidron Valley, be certain you shall die without fail. You shall be responsible for your own blood.” {This actually referred to someone forbidden from leaving Jerusalem under pain of death. There are ten references to the Kidron in the Old Testament, mostly referring to its use as a rubbish tip.} Another point to note is that we know that the fact that he crossed the Kidron is the simple truth because he would have had to have taken that path to get to Gethsemane. It is the sort of unimportant detail mentioned in only one gospel which can be relied upon, as I have asserted above. A question: Why did John bother to mention it? Answer: Because it was not the route normally taken. Normally they would have left the temple via the heifer bridge.) When Jesus arrived at Gethsemane the first thing he did was post a lookout, obviously distressed and waiting for something terrible to happen. MARK 14:34 Then he said to them, “My soul is sorrowful even to death. Remain here and keep watch.” There is ample reportage of this agony in the garden in the other gospels. Luke reported that Jesus sweated blood and whether true or not it indicates the depth of his trauma. John’s comment that Jesus knew everything that was going to happen to him is also pertinent. I have suggested above that the reason for this distress was that he knew that a painful death awaited him. We can note that Jesus, in his prayers, petitioned God to take the bitter cup of sorrow from him. This does not necessarily imply that Jesus had a direct line through to God. People are quite accustomed to ascribe tragic, and even happy, events in their lives to God.

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Chapter nine

9.9 The arrest Eventually, after the ‘agony in the garden’ Iscariot arrived with the arresting detail. MARK 14:43 Then, while he was still speaking, Judas, one of the Twelve, arrived, accompanied by a crowd with swords and clubs who had come from the chief priests, the scribes, and the elders. 14:44 His betrayer had arranged a signal with them, saying, “The man I shall kiss is the one; arrest him and lead him away securely.” 14:45 He came and immediately went over to him and said, “Rabbi.” And he kissed him. 14:46 At this they laid hands on him and arrested him. The motivation for the kiss has been discussed in chapter 6. The composition of the arresting detail is interesting as it appears to have been composed of both Jewish police (temple guards) and Roman soldiers. This is an important point and implies the collusion between Jews and Romans which I have taken as a basic assumption above. Although more specific in John the synoptics also indicate this composition. The Greek word translated as ‘crowd’ in the quotation above is okhlos, defined by Liddell and Scott as: “okhlos: throng of people, an irregular crowd, mob, multitude.” (This word is common to the synoptics.) This seems to indicate that there was something irregular about the group and supports the idea that it may have been composite. The fact that they came from chief priests etc. seems to indicate that temple guards were present. The presence of swords may indicate that Roman soldiers were also present. (I have not been able to locate any information on the matter but do not think it likely that temple guards would be permitted, by the Romans, to carry swords. They would have been the club bearers.) There is no indication of exactly how large this group was. Matthew follows Mark. Luke does not mention swords and clubs, but apart from that, the comments above apply. JOHN: 18:3 So Judas got a band of soldiers * and guards from the chief priests and the Pharisees and went there with lanterns, torches, and weapons. * NAB NOTE: Band of soldiers: seems to refer to Roman troops, either the full cohort of 600 men (1/10 of a legion), or more likely the maniple of 200 under their tribune (John 18:12). In this case, John is hinting at Roman collusion in the action against Jesus before he was brought to Pilate. The Greek word translated as ‘band of soldiers’ here is the important clue and is subject to some misunderstanding. This word is speira, defined by Liddell and Scott as “a body of soldiers, the Roman manipulus (=2 centuries); but also a cohort.” (Note that, because of depletions, a century usually consisted of about 60 men in fact.) Firstly we note that the word does imply Roman soldiers as there were no (official) Jewish soldiers. It is fairly clear that, of the three variations in the definition, a body of soldiers is to be preferred. (Liddell and Scott review all 132

extant ancient Greek manuscripts for meanings and would have encountered all three in their research. The word seems somewhat like the word ‘company’ in the modern army, which can also have several meanings.) A maniple or a cohort would be far too large for the simple arrest of one man and a dozen followers. In the Vulgate Bible the actual word selected by the translator was ‘cohort’ which appears to be a poor translation. The author’s of the NAB would like to support the idea as the Vulgate was translated by their Saint Jerome. Another indication that it was not a maniple or cohort is that both would be commanded by a centurion whereas the commander of the group was clearly a tribune (see below). (Note the NAB’s error in this regard. A tribune would not command a maniple or a cohort. ) It is more likely that it was an irregular detachment, probably twenty or thirty men. Those commentators who wish to paint Jesus as a revolutionary make a lot of the full cohort being necessary to arrest him. JOHN 8:12 So the band of soldiers, the tribune, and the Jewish guards seized Jesus, bound him... The NAB says that the group was lead by a tribune, although some other translations say ‘captain’. The Greek word in the original means literally ‘leader of a thousand’, which was an ironic honorary title applied to a tribune. (On can hardly expect that a thousand men would have been necessary to arrest Jesus.) Tribunes in the Roman army were young men from the middle class who required a short service record to enhance a subsequent career in politics. (See article 4.4.) They were normally only given administrative duties and command of ad hoc detachments, such as this one appears to be. Just another indication of the presence of the Roman army in the arresting detail. JOHN : 18:4 Jesus, knowing everything that was going to happen to him, went out and said to them, “Whom are you looking for?” 18:5 They answered him, “Jesus the Nazorean.” He said to them, “I AM.” <snip> So if you are looking for me, let these men go.” 18:9 This was to fulfill what he had said, “I have not lost any of those you gave me.” Jesus knew what was going to happen and did not attempt to evade arrest. According to the synoptics he was greeted with a kiss by Iscariot and then gave himself over. I have expressed my reasons for thinking that this might have been a kiss of affection. (Chapter 6) According to John there is no kiss. Jesus just stands forth and says: ‘here I am, arrest me’, (several times in fact.) We note that Jesus asks the soldiers to let his disciples go. He has to reinforce that condition and indicates that he was not absolutely certain that this condition had been fully agreed to. As I have discussed above this supports my idea that Jesus had decided to sacrifice himself for the good of his friends. I note that none of the disciples were arrested, not even Peter who attacked the high priests servant (Malchus) with a sword and cut off his ear, which is described in all gospels. JOHN 18:10 Then Simon Peter, who had a sword, drew it, struck the high priest’s slave, and cut off his right ear. The slave’s name was Malchus.* 133

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Chapter nine (NAB NOTE * Only John gives the names of the two antagonists; both John and Luke mention the right ear.) 18:11 Jesus said to Peter, “Put your sword into its scabbard. Shall I not drink the cup that the Father gave me?” Jews were permitted to carry swords for defence against brigands on the highway, so there are no problems in this regard. Jewish swords were a lot smaller and lighter than Roman swords. The Jews generally fought their battles with bows and arrows and spears, the swords being reserved for the dispatching of the women and children once the city was taken. I assume that Malchus would be the leader of the temple guard component of the contingent. He may well have been in the process of detaining Jesus when Peter approached him. The question I have to ask is why did the Roman soldiers not get extremely nasty, if not terminal, towards Peter? True, if my speculations are correct, they would be under orders to spare the disciples, but a direct attack on any member of the party would surely be met with prompt dispatch. The gospels say that Jesus did intervene but he was a captive and hardly in a position to influence the soldier’s actions to any marked degree. What I am thinking is that there was a member of the Jerusalem Connection accompanying the arresting detail. It seems to be reasonable that such a person would be permitted to be present. If my speculations above are correct he would be the person to intervene and save Peter’s life. I mention this possibility because of the sudden appearance of an enigmatic ‘other disciple’ which I discuss in a moment. The young boy clad in a sheet of linen is another enigma. I discussed this fully in article 4.4. MARK 14:51 Now a young man followed him wearing nothing but a linen cloth about his body. They seized him, 14:52 but he left the cloth behind and ran off naked. He was unlikely to have been an innocent bystander. The interest that he showed in getting close to Jesus indicates that there must have been some association. The fact that he wore linen is one possible link to the Jerusalem Connection. He may have been a devoted closet follower who somehow heard about what was going on or he may have been sent there to observe and report back. Another indication of the involvement of the Jerusalem Connection - the fact that they knew something was going to happen at Gethsemane that night, that it was the agreed place for rendezvous. Let us now return to discuss the events concerning the ‘Other Disciple’. JOHN: 18:12 So the band of soldiers, the tribune, and the Jewish guards seized Jesus, bound him, 18:13 and brought him to Annas first. He was the father-in-law of Caiaphas, who was high priest that year…18:15 Simon Peter and another disciple followed Jesus. Now the other disciple was known to the high priest, and he entered the courtyard of the high priest with Jesus. 18:16 But Peter stood at the gate outside. So the other disciple, the acquaintance of the 134

high priest, went out and spoke to the gatekeeper and brought Peter in. 18:17 Then the maid who was the gatekeeper said to Peter, “You are not one of this man’s disciples, are you?” He said, “I am not.” The group would have retraced the steps taken by Jesus earlier in the evening, back to a house probably not too far from the house of the last supper. (Although it does imply that Roman soldiers accompanied Jesus to Annas it is possible they may have detached themselves from this group after the arrest and returned to Antonia castle.) The Other Disciple is usually identified as being John, however the reasons given are not at all convincing. The first reason is that John, by tradition, was related to Zachariah, the priest in the Luke nativity story, and hence may have had an introduction into the priestly class. The problems I have are first that Zachariah may well have been a midrashic invention. The second is that John was a fisherman from Galilee, just not the sort of person to hobnob with high priests in Jerusalem even though he may have had priestly connections in Galilee. It is important to note that the gatekeeper admitted the Other Disciple first and later Peter at his request. This indicates that the Other Disciple was known to the gatekeeper and may have visited the house on previous occasions. Again it is clear that the gatekeeper identified Peter as a Galilean disciple because of his accent. It appears that the other Disciple did not have such an accent. The second reason given is that in John chapter 20 an ‘other disciple’ is mentioned who is subsequently identified as being the beloved disciple. However I don’t see any reason for believing that both ‘other disciples’ are the same disciples. They may have been different ‘other disciples’. I speculate that the Other Disciple was the member of the Jerusalem Connection who was with the arresting detail. After his intervention in the matter of the cutting off of Malchus’ ear he may have decided to stay with Peter to make sure he didn’t get into any more trouble. Of course the disciple may have been present at the Last Supper. Even if he was I suggest that it is unlikely that he was one of the standard Galilean disciples.

9.10 The ‘trial’ in the synoptics I need to pause a moment in the series of events, I am following through, to demolish the idea that there ever was a trial as described in the synoptics. There are so many errors in the stories that they must have been concocted by Gentiles, ignorant of Jewish law and tradition. Here are the problems: · The synoptics talk about an overnight or morning trial before the full Sanhedrin which doesn’t really track with the traditional function of the council. The judicial 135

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Chapter nine procedures are prescribed in the Mishnah, the Jewish code of law that dates in written form from ca. 20 CE. The gospel reports were contrary to these regulations in respect of; a trial on a feast day, a night session of the court, and pronouncement of a verdict of condemnation at the same session at which testimony was received. · The gospels say that the full Sanhedrin, of seventy-one members, was present, however trials required a special subset of twenty-three members and a vote from members was required for a decision. · The problems in assembling twenty-three members plus a number of witnesses at short notice present another difficulty. · Moreover the synoptics imply that the trial was held at the high priest’s residence whereas such trials were usually held in special rooms in the temple area. · If the Jews really wanted to try Jesus they could have held him in custody until Passover was over. It was the Romans who the capacity to hold summary executions and the events are in line with this. · Referring to Jesus, the Evidence by Ian Wilson it is claimed that modern Jewish scholarship has revealed that the charges brought against Jesus were not blasphemy according to Jewish law. · Any half way decent author of fiction will tell you that people speak differently at different times of the day. For me, if the trial did indeed occur, it must have been sometime in the early afternoon. · The synoptics do not provide any witness to the events. . The idea of a trial probably arose from the fact that the witnesses saw Jesus taken to the high priest’s house immediately after the arrest, plus a little of the anti-Jew bias we have commented on previously. They would have forgotten that he had been arrested by a detail lead by a Roman soldier. One cannot imagine the Roman’s arresting a person and then handing him over to the Jews for a trial on a charge of blasphemy against God. The whole concept of the Jews having the Romans execute a Jew for offence against Jewish law doesn’t make sense either and this is obviously an anti-Jew bias fabrication. No other cases have ever been reported. The Romans were always very careful to leave local custom and law alone. They were only interested in pursuing their own law with their own people and in executing revolutionaries, and these latter were generally summary executions on order of the Governor. The fact that Jesus was executed as a revolutionary is proven by the sign affixed to the cross - “King of the Jews”.

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9.11 The interviews with Annas and Pilate All the gospels state, or imply, that Jesus was taken to the high priest’s house after the arrest. That high priest was almost certainly Annas. John says so and the synoptics do not really deny it. Mark and Luke both say ‘high priest’ and I have noted in article 5.4 that the term could well apply to Annas. Matthew says that the high priest was Caiaphas, however Matthew was copying from Mark and merely assumed that the particular high priest was Caiaphas. All gospels give the story that Jesus was followed by Simon Peter to the high priest’s house, was admitted to the courtyard, sat before the fire together with guards and domestics and denied Jesus three times. All this has the ring of truth and also a reliable witness in Peter. There is a simple explanation for why Jesus was taken into Jewish custody and I am sure the reader has guessed by now. Annas and Caiaphas, out of interest, would have wished to have a chat with Jesus. They would have raised the matter during committee discussions. Pilate would have agreed to the Jews conducting their interviews overnight providing they brought him to the praetorian first thing in the morning. (Pilate would not have wished to lose beauty sleep by interviewing at night, and he was the boss.) It makes sense that Jesus went to Annas first and then Caiaphas. Annas was top of the pecking order and would have had priority. The fact that the Romans did not immediately take Jesus into custody has led to great confusion in the record. It has led to the belief that it was the Jews who arrested Jesus and then handed him over to the Romans for execution in the morning after an invented overnight trial. In fact the execution had been planned and agreed to by Jews and Romans the evening before. It is important to realise that the ‘other disciple’ who accompanied Peter could also have been a witness for the interviews with Annas and Pilate. If I look at the interview with Annas in John, it does make sense. Also it is in line with my suggestion that Annas had wanted to have a chat with Jesus to see what made him tick. It is quite a dramatic interlude in fact, and I can believe that the words could come from Jesus’ mouth. Another thing that verifies the truth of the episode is that, to my mind, it conveys the sense of a night-time scene, particularly late at night. Many commentators state that there were a number of other priests present but note clearly that John only mentions Annas, Jesus and temple guards. JOHN: 18:19 The high priest questioned Jesus about his disciples and about his doctrine. 18:20 Jesus answered him, “I have spoken publicly to the world. I have always taught in a synagogue or in the temple area where all the Jews gather, and in secret I have said nothing. 18:21 Why ask me? Ask those who heard me what I said to them. They know what I said.” 18:22 When he had said this, one of the temple guards standing there struck Jesus and said, “Is this the way you answer the high priest?” 18:23 Jesus answered him, “If I have spoken

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Chapter nine wrongly, testify to the wrong; but if I have spoken rightly, why do you strike me? “18:24 Then Annas sent him bound to Caiaphas the high priest. There is a reflection of verse 18:20 in a statement made by Jesus immediately after his arrest which is reported in all the synoptics. MARK 14:49 Day after day I was with you teaching in the temple area, yet you did not arrest me; but that the scriptures may be fulfilled.” So what if the interview recorded in John was originally in Mark, or available to the author, and subsequently moved to another place when it was decided to replace it with an invented trial? The interview with Caiaphas is not recorded. I find the interview with Pilate interesting and I believe it contains elements of fact. In the following I have snipped out references to the Jews, which I believe to be inventions of the gospel author or a later editor. JOHN 18:33 So Pilate went back into the praetorium and summoned Jesus and said to him, “Are you the King of the Jews?” 18:34 Jesus answered, “Do you say this on your own or have others told you about me?” 18:35 Pilate answered, “I am not a Jew, am I? ... 18:36 Jesus answered, “My kingdom does not belong to this world. If my kingdom did belong to this world, my attendants (would) be fighting to keep me from being handed over.... But as it is, my kingdom is not here. “18:37 So Pilate said to him, “Then you are a king?” Jesus answered, “You say I am a king. For this I was born and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice. “18:38 Pilate said to him, “What is truth?” This is a very moving passage and I can believe that something like this might well have been said. There is a truncated version in the synoptics which I don’t know what to make of. MARK 15:2 Pilate questioned him, “Are you the king of the Jews?” He said to him in reply, “You say so.” ....15:4 Again Pilate questioned him, “Have you no answer? ...” 15:5 Jesus gave him no further answer, so that Pilate was amazed. As for the crucifixion and after, there are confusing reports, and I do not feel that I am in a position to comment on that. Some say that it was a put-up job, that he survived, some say that the body came back to life. I don’t believe either of these options however I believe that, somehow, Jesus rose above death. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.

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9.12 What happened to Iscariot and why was the truth not revealed? Matthew and Luke (in Acts) give stories concerning the death of Iscariot, but both of these are obviously midrashic inventions. Both stories are quite different, irreconcilable, and in both Old Testament sources can be clearly recognised. I won’t go into these stories here as they have been dealt with in other publications. (See Spong Liberating the Gospels.) We are told nothing of what happened to Iscariot after the meeting in the garden. If he was innocent of any crime then one would have thought that he would have attempted to contact the disciples and explain the events of the evening. Apparently this did not happen. The fact that he disappeared along with the purse may be the source of the story in John that he was dishonest. Also it is easy to see how the disciples might believe that he was a traitor given the limited information at their disposal. And from here stories would develop. Then again there is always the nagging possibility that Iscariot’s role was understood at the time and that he rejoined the disciples. The other problem is the disappearance of members of the Jerusalem Connection from the story. They were witness to the key events in the saga and no reports of their activities have come through to the record. The last we see of them is on the Sunday morning and then only one or two young men in the empty tomb. It seems fairly clear that sometime between sunset on the Saturday and first light next morning the burial cerements were removed from the body and the body removed from the tomb. It’s as though the Jerusalem Connection and the body all packed up and left. Or did Jesus’ body arise from the dead, or did he actually survive the crucifixion? The report that the funeral cloths were removed is strange. Surely that would only have been done if Jesus were alive either by surviving the crucifixion or by resurrection. I am somewhat confused by the reports at this point. The only reasonable explanation I can think of is that they all were banished, including Iscariot. There are numerous stories of doubtful authenticity of Arimathea leaving Jerusalem shortly after the crucifixion, carrying with him the Holy Grail, a receptacle for the blood shed by Jesus on the cross. Perhaps they all decided to up and leave. Perhaps they were all rounded up and quietly put down. Who knows? At this point the reader should refer back to article 9.4. Have all the questions been answered in a satisfactory manner? It has been an interesting journey for me, to track through the bad reporting and put together a logical scheme which may explain more clearly the events of the Passion. Whether I am correct or not it is impossible to be absolutely sure. Even so, for me, it has been a journey from agnosticism to faith. At the very least I have found a Jesus I can believe in and perhaps learn from. And perhaps we should all ask the Church: why have our eyes been shrouded by mystery and superstition for so long? 139

Appendicies

10. Appendices 10.1. The Jewish Calendar Main Sources I am indebted to Remy Landau for much of the information concerning the current Jewish calendar. A precise technical description of its idiosyncrasies is to be found at his website: http://www.geocities.com/Athens/1584/ - Hebrew Calendar Science and Myths. Remy was also kind enough to provide me with further information via email correspondence. Jewish/Gregorian date conversions were achieved by using an internet program developed by Alan D. Corré, Emeritus Professor of Hebrew Studies, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Site: http://www.uwm.edu/~corre/calendar.html - The Jewish/Civil Calendar Program. Professor Corré also communicated via email. Also I have found useful information in a cookbook for Jewish festivals; In the Jewish Tradition, by Judith B Fellner. Summary of the Jewish Calendar The first year of the Jewish calendar is approximately 3,762 years BCE. (I say ‘approximately’ because of certain conventions concerning calendars, which I won’t go into here.) This date is based on the date of the creation of the world, as described in Genesis, and extrapolated using Biblical information. Hence the Jews do not have a Jewish BCE, although some of their cosmologists might have other ideas. The Jewish month and its relationship to the year is quite a complex matter. The month is a lunar month, precisely defined as starting at new moon. New moon is an exact and easily determined astronomical phenomenon. (It’s when the crescent flips from one side of the moon to the other. Of course it’s not so easy to observe during cloudy weather.) Originally the date of the start of the month was determined by observations at Jerusalem and the results were promulgated to surrounding regions. This was necessary to decide the exact date of festivals which usually occurred two weeks later on the 15th of the month. Two weeks would give plenty of time to advise Jews in Palestine however those in the Diaspora were permitted a day’s leeway because of the extra time taken to advise them, and this is a situation which pertains to this day. My observation, from reading the Bible, is that the months are given numbers from one to twelve (in Hebrew) rather that specific names. The first month is actually called ‘Nisan’ which is derived from the Babylonian name for ‘first’ and

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Chapter ten dates from the Babylonian exile. (Nisan is about March which is in Spring-time in the northern hemisphere.) The lunar month is 29 1/2 days plus about 45 minutes in length. The original Jewish astronomers, when they began observing lunations, would deduce that months alternated 29 and 30 days with an occasional occurrence of two consecutive 30 day months. Hence they would mostly be able to predict the start of the month by calculation rather than observation. The tricky part would be to determine where the two 30 day months occurred. Another problem they had was in relating lunar months to the solar year so that festivals and harvest could be held in the proper season. Twelve lunar months is about eleven days short of a solar year hence if you took twelve months to a year you would cycle through the seasons approximately once every thirty-three years. In order to compensate for this an extra month was added to the year at (roughly) three year intervals. This was a repetition of the month of Adar. It is not exactly certain how this was done originally. The Passover festival, as defined in Leviticus, was related to a Spring festival. On the first day after Pesach was the festival of First Fruits where sheaves of barley were waved before the altar. (Barley was harvested in Spring.) (LEVITICUS: 23:10 “Speak to the Israelites and tell them: When you come into the land which I am giving you, and reap your harvest, you shall bring a sheaf of the first fruits of your harvest to the priest, 23:11 who shall wave the sheaf before the LORD that it may be acceptable for you. On the day after the sabbath the priest shall do this.) This indicates that there must have been some method of adjusting the calendar to the seasons as far back as the time of Moses. It is possible that this may have been a usage of the principles of Egyptian astronomy. The current Jewish calendar was developed over a period of time by Jewish mathematicians and first published in 356 CE. It is important to note that it is not known precisely what system was in use at the time of Jesus, although it is thought that most elements of the modern calendar were in place. Professor Corré described the situation in personal correspondence. It is entirely possible that at the period which interests you the Jews were using an ad hoc calendar, i.e. when the new moon was sighted it was the beginning of the month, and if there were no signs of spring in the month of Adar, a second Adar was intercalated. We cannot be sure just what the decisions may have been in particular years; the moon may have been covered by clouds, or bad weather may have delayed the spring. In addition, the calculated calendar contains “delays” to avoid certain conjunctions of festivals with certain days in order to avoid some religious problems. I don’t think we know when this delaying tactic started. The upshot is that although my calendar correctly, so far as I know, equates the two calendars I mentioned, we cannot be entirely sure what the situation was on the ground, so to speak.

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It is quite possible that the two calendars coincided, one being based on observation, the other on calculation. This is something we will never know with certainty. The system is based on the ‘nineteen year cycle’. This is an astronomical oddity discovered, by a Greek astronomer, about 400 BCE. To quote Remy’s website: “The ancient Greek astronomer Meton (c. 4th cent. b.c.e.) observed that 235 lunation periods brought back the solar year into very close synchronisation with the lunar years. Thus, our scholars created a calendar cycle of 19 years consisting of 12 years of 12 lunar months each and 7 years of 13 lunar months each for a total of 235 lunar months.” By inserting the extra month in specific years in the cycle, and by adding an odd day to certain months under certain conditions, the system ensures that each month starts at a new moon. Another necessity was that, for doctrinal reasons, certain festivals could only occur on specific days of the week. There was a certain amount of adjustment necessary in order to make this happen. At first glance it may seem difficult to understand how a system could be devised to synchronise both the start of the month and the day of festivals, however it can be done. It all depends on where the extra month is placed within the year and within the nineteen year cycle and on variations in the length of certain months. (The ‘delays’ mentioned by Professor Corré above.) All this complexity of mathematics designed to emulate nature. I note that, if the current calendar were in force at the time of Jesus, Passover (or ‘Pesach’) could not possibly occur on a Friday. (We’ll come to that later.) There are (and always were) seven days to the week, in line with the system in force throughout the world. The first day of the Jewish week is Sunday (as it is indeed elsewhere.) The days were generally referred to by their number i.e. ‘first’, ‘second’ etc up to ‘seventh’ (in Hebrew of course.) Two of the days were given specific names in addition to their numbers. The seventh day (Saturday), which was set aside for rest and religious observance, was also called ‘Sabbath’ (or ‘Shabbat’ in Jewish usage), the name being derived from the Hebrew word for ‘rest’. The sixth day (Friday) was also called ‘Preparation Day’ (I am unaware of the Hebrew equivalent) because this was the day on which you prepared for the Sabbath. The Jewish day commences at sunset, although for formal calendrical calculations this has been regularised to six PM. Thus we can note that all the events of the Passion, from last supper to crucifixion, took place during the course of one (Jewish) day.

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Chapter ten

10.2. The Dates of the events in Jesus’ life. Date of Birth. Nothing can be said with certainty concerning the date of birth. There are inconsistent nativity narratives in Matthew and Luke which place the birth of Jesus during the reign of Herod the Great. These are considered by many New Testament scholars to be fabrications. Apparently these are mostly a midrashic re-working of Old Testament stories, although there may be some influence from a lost oral tradition. Even the lineage to David and the birth in Bethlehem are discounted by one passage in John: 7:40 Some in the crowd who heard these words said, “This is truly the Prophet.” 7:41 Others said, “This is the Messiah.” But others said, “The Messiah will not come from Galilee, will he? 7:42 Does not scripture say that the Messiah will be of David’s family and come from Bethlehem, the village where David lived?” Both infancy narratives place the birth of Jesus in the time of Herod (the Great) who died in 4 BCE. As a consequence the year 4 BCE is often taken as being the year of Jesus’ birth. (The reason for Jesus being born four years ‘BC’ is because of a simple mathematical error perpetrated by one Dionysius Exiguus, the person who first performed the calculations.) As for the day and month of birth nothing is certain. Our celebration of Christmas on 25th December is based on a Pagan rite which was taken over by the early church. Start of Ministry Some indication is given by two passages in Luke: 3:1 * In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, and Herod was tetrarch of Galilee, and his brother Philip tetrarch of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias was tetrarch of Abilene, 3:2 during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, * the word of God came to John the son of Zechariah in the desert. (Follows some indication of the teaching of John.) NAB NOTE Tiberius Caesar: Tiberius succeeded Augustus as emperor in A.D. 14 and reigned until A.D. 37. The fifteenth year of his reign, depending on the method of calculating his first regnal year, would have fallen between A.D. 27 and 29. This gives us the start of the ministry of John. Whether it also indicates the date of the baptism of Jesus or whether John’s ministry lasted for a few years before this is impossible to tell. I feel that it is justifiable to take this date as

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approximately the start of Jesus’ ministry although there will always be a question over it. 3:23 When Jesus began his ministry he was about thirty years of age. He was the son, as was thought, of Joseph, the son of Heli, (Then follows the genealogy.) If Jesus was thirty in 29 CE he would have been born after the death of Herod the Great which is in contradiction to the nativity stories in Mark and Luke. Herod’s death occurred in 4 BCE and accepting this as the birth date gives us a year of about 27 CE for the start of the ministry. (That is correct. The Gregorian calendar does not have a year zero.) If we accept 29 CE as being the more likely date then Jesus would have been born about 2 BCE. However if he was thirty-two or three when he commenced his ministry he would have been born within the reign of Herod. The date of the Passion. The one certain fact we have is that it occurred during the tenure of Pontius Pilate. Pilate was the fifth governor of the Roman province of Judaea. His rule began in 26 CE and lasted until early in 37 CE. Thus the Passion must have occurred between the years 26 to 36 CE. (Pilate actually left before Nisan in 37 CE.) I think that we can accept the implication from the gospel of John that Jesus’ ministry lasted for about three years. (The synoptics truncate this to about one year.) Also, we have noted above that information in Luke that the ministry commenced in 29 CE. Accepting John’s chronology of three years for the ministry this gives us 32 CE for the passion. Another estimate can be obtained by inspecting calendrical information and assuming that the current calendar was in force at the time of Jesus. The calendar is so devised that Passover can only occur on a Sunday, Tuesday, Thursday or Saturday (Sabbath). For reasons which I discuss below, I believe that Passover occurred on the Saturday in the year of the Passion. According to Professor Corré’s calendar conversions there were three years during the period 26 to 36 where this happened - 26, 33 and 36. I would discount 26 completely. It is not even certain if Pilate was in Judea by Nisan of that year. In any case the gospels show him as a man in charge (in spite of their misrepresentations) which he would not be so if he had just started in the job. Also the date seems too early according to our approximations above. 33 and 36 are both within the realms of possibility with a preference for 33 CE as it is closer to the estimate of 32 above, based on date of birth etc. The above treatment is all based on assumptions, none of which can be substantiated. Every book on the subject of the Passion will give it a different date and every esteemed professor will be certain that he or she is right. All I can 145

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Chapter ten do here is state the facts as I know them and my conclusion that nothing with certainty can be said concerning the exact year of the Passion, or indeed of any other year in Jesus’ chronology.

10.3 The Last Supper There is some confusion, particularly in the synoptics, concerning the events surrounding the Last Supper. This confusion is made worse by the blind beliefs of the Church. As the Catholic Encyclopedia says: Since Christians, accepting the inspiration of the Scriptures, cannot admit contradictions in the sacred writers, various attempts have been made to reconcile the statements. One should read the article in the Encyclopedia on The Last Supper. It is quite instructive. The Encyclopedia is further confused by not fully understanding that the Jewish day commenced at sunset, not at midnight. My belief is that this confusion was caused by Simon Peter’s failing memory when he told the story to Mark. I can resolve this confusion by assuming that the Last Supper was a meal which followed the Pesach tradition but was held one day early. I have compared the events of the Supper with the modern Pesach Seder to reach this conclusion. See article 10.4 below. My dates are: Nissan 13 Thursday. (Day 5) The disciples prepare for the Last Supper. Nissan 14 Friday. (Day 6 Preparation Day) The Passion. After sunset Jesus and the disciples celebrate the last supper, Jesus is arrested, executed and placed in a temporary grave. Nissan 15 Saturday. (Day 7 Sabbath.) Pesach is celebrated. Jesus body remains in the tomb. Nissan 16 Sunday. (Day 1) Sometime between sunset and early morning Jesus body is removed from the tomb. The tomb is found empty in the morning. The synoptic chronology MARK: 14:12 On the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, when they sacrificed the Passover lamb, * his disciples said to him, “Where do you want us to go and prepare for you to eat the Passover?” 14:13 He sent two of his disciples and said to them, “Go into the city and a man will meet you, carrying a jar of water. Follow him. 14:14 Wherever he enters, say to the master of the house, ‘The Teacher says, “Where is my guest room where I may eat the Passover with my disciples?”’ 14:15 Then he will show you a large upper room furnished and ready. Make the preparations for us there.” 14:16 The disciples then went off, entered the city, and found it just as he had told them; and they prepared the Passover. 146

* NAB NOTE: The first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread . . . the Passover lamb: a less precise designation of the day for sacrificing the Passover lamb as evidenced by some rabbinical literature. .... It was actually Nisan 14. The Passover lambs were slaughtered in the Temple on the day before Passover, which was Nisan 14. Nisan 15, the date of the first day of the Passover period (Pesach) would then commence after sunset. However there is a problem with this chronology. MARK 15:42 When it was already evening, since it was the day of preparation, the day before the sabbath,15:43 Joseph of Arimathea, a distinguished member of the council, who was himself awaiting the kingdom of God, came and courageously went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus. The difficulty is that Mark is saying that the celebration of Pesach also occurs on preparation day. But you cannot prepare on a day that is even more holy than the Sabbath. The other objection is that the events of the Passion could not occur on a feast day. The only conclusion is that Peter made an error when thinking back to the past. If the Supper followed the Pesach Seder but was held one day early Peter could be excused for equating it with a Passover supper held in the normal course of events and for drawing in the image of the Paschal lambs being sacrificed which usually happened on the day before Pesach. Why would Jesus celebrate one day early? Perhaps he was following an Essene tradition which had a different calendar. Perhaps he knew he would never see the Jewish Passover. No doubt the owner of the house with the upper room would reserve its use on the holy day for his own family.

The date of the Last Supper according to John. John states quite clearly that the last supper was taken before Passover but does not describe the meal as following the Seder. JOHN 13:1 * Before the feast of Passover, Jesus knew that his hour had come to pass from this world to the Father. He loved his own in the world and he loved them to the end. (Following is a description of the Last Supper.) NAB NOTE * Before the feast of Passover: this would be Thursday evening, before the day of preparation; in the synoptics, the Last Supper is a Passover meal taking place, in John’s chronology, on Friday evening. The New American Bible note is very confusing to a gentile because it assumes the gentile custom of starting the day at midnight. ‘Thursday evening’ is in fact now Friday as the sun has gone down. ‘Friday evening’ was in fact the start of the day. All gospels state that the Passion took place on Preparation Day, which was Friday. The Jewish Friday commenced after sunset on the Gentile Thursday evening and ended at sunset on the Friday afternoon. What John is implying

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Chapter ten above is that the Friday was not Passover but that it was the Saturday that was. This is a scenario which resolves the objections to the synoptic version. There is clear indication in John that the passion was on Friday and that Passover and Sabbath coincided in the year of the passion: JOHN 9:31 Now since it was preparation day, in order that the bodies might not remain on the cross on the sabbath, for the sabbath day of that week was a solemn one, the Jews asked Pilate that their legs be broken and they be taken down. 19:32 So the soldiers came and broke the legs of the first and then of the other one who was crucified with Jesus. 19:33 But when they came to Jesus and saw that he was already dead, they did not break his legs, 19:34 but one soldier thrust his lance into his side, and immediately blood and water flowed out. The reason for the Sabbath being especially solemn would be because it coincided with Pesach.

10.4 Was the Last Supper a Passover meal? I wish to investigate whether the Last Supper followed the tradition of a Passover meal by comparing the modern Passover ritual with descriptions of the Supper from the gospels. The ‘Seder’ (ritual, the word means ‘order’) has changed over the years, and is flexible enough to allow local variations, however the ritual derived from a time before Christ and many of the elements must have been in place. There are fifteen items in the Passover Seder which I will consider one at a time. My sources for this are a cookbook “In the Jewish Tradition” by Judith B. Fellner. Married to a rabbi, who assisted with the book, Mrs. Fellner provides a description of all the festivals plus suitable recipes for their celebration. Also a website which contains a description of the Passover Seder: http://judaism.about.com/library/holidays/passover/bl_passover_Seder.htm 1. Kiddush. A blessing of the wine, the festival and a praise of God. The first toast is drunk. There is no indication of kiddush in the gospels however I wish to note here the importance of wine in the Seder. There are four toasts and the possibility of a fifth which is in rabbinical dispute. Wine was drunk at the Last Supper: MARK 14:23 Then he took a cup, gave thanks, and gave it to them, and they all drank from it. 14:24 He said to them, “This is my blood of the covenant, which will be shed for many. 14:25 Amen, I say to you, I shall not drink again the fruit of the vine until the day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God.” This is not a decisive indication as wine may be drunk at normal meals. 148

2. Urchatz A ritual washing of hands. There is no indication of washing of hands in the gospels however there was water and a basin available for this purpose. Jesus used it in a different way. JOHN 13:5 Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and dry them with the towel around his waist. Not a decisive indication as washing of hands may be common with other meals. 3. Karpas A salad green, symbolic of spring, is dipped in a bowl of salt water, symbolic of the tears shed by the Jews when in bondage in Egypt. There was a dipping procedure described in Mark, Matthew and John: MARK 14:20 He said to them, “One of the Twelve, the one who dips with me into the dish. This is a decisive indication as dipping is not part of a normal meal. (See item 5.) I would add that the bowl of brine is a communal bowl although there may be more than one bowl if the company is large. Refer also to item 9. 4. Yachatz There are three loaves of unleavened bread on the Seder table. Here the middle one is split and the larger part hidden for later. I won’t go into the details of this ritual here. Bread did play a part in the Supper however there is a more decisive indication which I discuss below. 5. Maggid. The doctrinal part of the Seder revolving around the story of the Exodus. I find no reference in the gospels although John devoted four chapters to a lecture by Jesus which may have been delivered at this point. One part of this ritual is that the youngest person present asks four questions, one of which is: “On all other nights we don’t dip even once. Why on this night do we dip twice?” This tells me that dipping (see 3 and 9) is unique to Passover (although any devout Jew would tell you that.) 6. Rachatzah - Washing the Hands Everyone washes their hands in preparation for the festive meal. Refer 2.

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Chapter ten 7&8. Motzi and Matzah Here the leader (most senior person present) blesses the bread, breaks it (the top and bottom loaves) and gives pieces to other participants to eat. This is replicated in the gospels: MARK 14:22 While they were eating, he took bread, said the blessing, broke it, and gave it to them, and said, “Take it; this is my body.” This is an exact copy of the ritual and a very strong indication for a Passover meal. 9. Maror. Bitter herbs (often a horseradish root) are dipped in a sweet mixture of nuts and fruit (charoset) and eaten. The herbs are a reminder of the pain suffered by the Jews while slaves in Egypt. The second dipping process in the Seder. This may be the dipping referred to in 3. In either case the symbolism of the dipping is very pertinent to the situation at the Last Supper. Again this is a process unique to Passover.

15. Nirtzah. The final event of the Seder is the singing of a hymn advocating the continued welfare of the Jews. (“Next Year in Jerusalem”.) This is replicated in the gospels. MARK 14:26 Then, after singing a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives. I take this to be a very strong indication that the Last Supper was a Passover meal. Conclusion. There are very strong reasons to believe that the Last Supper followed a Seder tradition not too far distant from the modern Seder. (There is some indication that Jesus made changes to the standard ritual – which I see as being in character.)

10. Korekh. Eating bitter herbs between bread. This originated with Hillel, a contemporary of Jesus, and was probably not in place until a later date. 11. Schulchan Orech. A sumptuous banquet for which Mrs. Fellner has provided several kosher recipes. In ancient times it was the sacred roast lamb that was eaten at this point. There is no indication of food, other than bread and wine, in the gospels. 12. Tzafoon – afikomen Here the piece of bread hidden in 4. is found and eaten as a symbol of the sacred lamb eaten by the forebears. This may be a late addition. No indication in the gospels. 13. Barech. The blessing after meals. Another wine toast and the door is opened for Elijah. This is a matter in doctrinal dispute. Apart from wine no indication in the gospels. 14. Hallel. Another wine toast and the singing of lively songs designed to interest the children.

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