The Trial of Jesus

Session 1 - The Sanhedrin


(The brief detour via Annas' house, recounted by John 18:19 - 24 John 18:19 - 24 (NIV)

19 Meanwhile, the high priest questioned Jesus about his disciples and his teaching.

20 "I have spoken openly to the world," Jesus replied. "I always taught in synagogues or at the temple, where all the Jews come together. I said nothing in secret.

21 Why question me? Ask those who heard me. Surely they know what I said."

22 When Jesus said this, one of the officials nearby struck him in the face. "Is this the way you answer the high priest?" he demanded.

23 "If I said something wrong," Jesus replied, "testify as to what is wrong. But if I spoke the truth, why did you strike me?"

24 Then Annas sent him, still bound, to Caiaphas the high priest.
alone, is irrelevant since no proceedings were conducted there to our knowledge, notwithstanding confident assertions of certain fine arts commentators and Bishop himself to that effect. John at 18, 19 & 24 is clearly in some confusion - although he appears to recount an exchange between Jesus and Annas, precedent to the trial proper before Caiaphas, he does, if so, erroneously refer to the former (at both 19 & 22) as 'high priest', contradicting the knowledge which he reveals at verse 13 John 18:13 (NIV)

13 and brought him first to Annas, who was the father-in-law of Caiaphas, the high priest that year.
 Moreover, in that he then proceeds immediately to Pilate's stage of the proceedings, this interpretation would leave the important hearing before the High Priest totally unreported. Not conceivable - manifestly v24 is misplaced and 18-represents John's summary of Session 1.)

The formal proceedings are prefaced by a gratuitous burst of insults and physical abuse.

The relative brevity of this chapter in the overall narrative should not be allowed to hide from us its importance as the substantive core of the entire proceedings. As we shall see in more detail, the submission to Pilate is not really a trial at all (in theory!), nor yet an appellate process. The Procurator's function is simply to confirm sentence. Jewish law was embodied within the Roman framework, not replaced by it. It is before the Great Sanhedrin that a crime is to be established or not. If no offence is proved here, the matter will go no farther, and the Procurator be uninvolved.

Short of any entirely separate process of arrest and trial by the Roman authorities on their own initiative, that is.

Bishop offers a very thorough examination of the technical deficiencies of these proceedings as a judicial session (in theory) of the Great Sanhedrin, in terms of the constitution and procedures of the court and its rules of evidence.

The larger part of this session is taken up with inconclusive matters. Only one piece of the evidence is regarded by the chroniclers collectively as worth itemizing - the claim that Jesus would miraculously rebuild the Temple in three days, if pulled down. Not much of a challenge at the time when aired, of course, in that the offer was one hardly likely to be taken up! What is actually surprising with regard to its mention here, however, is that the witnesses again failed to corroborate one another (Mark 14:59Mark 14:59 (NIV)

59 Yet even then their testimony did not agree.
) - notwithstanding that according to John the statement had actually been made ( John 2:18, 19 John 2:18, 19 (NIV)

18 Then the Jews demanded of him, "What miraculous sign can you show us to prove your authority to do all this?"

19 Jesus answered them, "Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days."
)!! If such a remark did incorporate any sort of offence, Jesus was guilty of it - except, of course, that an accused is innocent until proved guilty. But the evidence, in sum, amounts to an absolute blank. The want of preparation in all this speaks of the unexpectedness of the opportunity afforded by Judas. In spite of premeditation, the elders have clearly not been expecting him to supply them with an encounter in the middle of the night.

Frustrated, the High Priest asks Him to expound His teaching, hoping, of course, to hear some impeachable heresy. Jesus, true to His old instinct which once delivered the masterly rejoinder to the poser about paying tribute to Caesar, at first declines to compromise Himself.

"If the High Priest wishes to learn about that - "

Remember the man born blind? "Are you also after becoming his pupils?"

" - he can always ask those who heard it themselves. There's never been anything secret about it."

He, of course, like Caiaphas, is perfectly well aware of the limits of hearsay as evidence.

This reply earns Him a reproof and a cuff on the Head from one of Caiaphas' attendants.

"Is that any way to answer the High Priest?!"

"lf there was anything offensive in it, make that the subject of testimony. Otherwise, shouldn't you keep your fists to yourself?"

This abrupt physical intervention has disrupted any inquisitorial flow that Caiaphas might have been able to command, and at this point frustration turns to desperation.

The solemn adjuration that follows some commentators have classified as the formal invocation of a technical evidentiary process - any response will embody something close to what, in the English system of proof, would be termed an "irrebuttable presumption of fact". (In moderately irreligious England it is still only evidence under oath that is capable of forming the substance of an indictment of perjury.)

"By the living God, answer: are you or are you not an anointed child of God?" (Of "the Blessed"?)

Well, without going into the extensive disquisition required to assess the significance in that time and place of the use of the term "messiah", a matter canvassed in my article "He That Should Come", it is sufficient to say that pretensions to anointed "status" (?) could hardly have amounted to such offence as would in itself have justified any capital sentence. Indeed, they would have had more to do, ironically (though still little enough), with the allegations of sedition subsequently made in Pilate's presence. But as constituting blasphemy, they are a non-starter: any person so inspired might without offence set himself up as a prophet, and claim, or seek, anointing to reinforce it.

So there would have been absolutely nothing for the Council to get its teeth into, even had the reply been an outright affirmative. As it is:

"What's the point of telling you? Are you going to believe me if I do?"

But then they get an answer oblique to the question and much more committal.

"Those are your words. This I will say: that one day you will see the Son of Man sitting in power at the right Hand of God."

Note that even this is still ambiguous: it doesn't actually spell out Who it is that's actually being referred to. It could just about have meant: some individual still to come. That apart, however, it's pretty categorical.

Bishop is a little cagey about the significance of the accused's own unsubstantiated words in Sanhedrin procedure. Without going into all that detail, the salient point here is that he is seemingly incorrect in his statement that an accused could not be condemned on a count of blasphemy on the strength of his own utterance - at least, as he applies that rule. That cannot have been the case where the utterance itself constituted the offence, and certainly not where uttered in the presence of the court! Bishop is evidently confusing substance with evidence on this point.

So the adjudged offence is blasphemy, a stoning offence under Mosaic law (Lev. 24:16). The pronouncement of sentence of death follows as a matter of course. It requires confirmation by the Procurator. That is the dispensation of benevolent oversight under the Pax Romana. All that is necessary thereafter, en route to the praetorium, is a spot of routine ill-treatment such as we should like to think more characteristic of the occupying power than of the refined native culture. It tells us something not only of the anxiety instilled in the orthodox by unorthodoxy, but more pertinently for present purposes of the extent to which occupation invariably manages to brutalize those subject to it.

Next: Session 2 - The Procurator