The Trial of Jesus - An Analysis


by Lance Haward

By synopsis of all four Gospels, we have a scheme in two parts, albeit the second is seemingly split into two by the third - hearings before Caiaphas and Pilate, interrupted by that before Herod Antipas. We shall see that that intermediate third session is primarily of significance regarding the divided second. There is also (as we learn from John 18:13 John 18:13 (NIV)

13 and brought him first to Annas, who was the father-in-law of Caiaphas, the high priest that year.
) a brief introductory detour via Caiaphas' father-in-law Annas, who himself had held the office of High Priest a quarter of a century earlier, but we have no record of what transpired there, and there is nothing to suppose any relevance of it to the judicial (or less than judicial) processes which followed.

For the sequence of these events, and the interweaving of the Evangelists' several components, Sparks' Synopsis of the Gospels supplies an invaluable vade mecum. I have also relied in part on Jim Bishop ('The Day Christ Died' is a unique classic and the one book other than the Bible which all Christians need to read.) who seems to be thoroughly researched, but in whom devotion occasionally outstrips analysis, and precipitates swathes of psychological conjecture. To explain the overall sequence which I have preferred it is generally possible to harmonize the four accounts and reconstruct a fairly coherent passage through the events severally recorded. However, John does depart, in one instance fairly materially, from the main-line sequence on two or three points.

(He also, of course, significantly differs from the others on such important surrounding circumstances as the date of the Sabbath of Pesach and consequently the nature of the Last Supper; and the timing of the Crucifixion, sentence having been passed at around mid-day (John 19:14 John 19:14 (NIV)

14 It was the day of Preparation of Passover Week, about the sixth hour. "Here is your king," Pilate said to the Jews.
 contra Mark 15:25Mark 15:25 (NIV)

25 It was the third hour when they crucified him.
) that the crucifixion started at 9 a.m.. I wonder, incidentally, that no one has apparently ever thought to check from astronomical records the actual date on which Passover began in the putative years of the Crucifixion between 29 and 33 A.D. It might assist with fixing dates in both directions, the year from the festival, the festival from the year.)

In John we may expect to come across some imaginative reconstructions of the essence of that which may not have been directly reported to him by eye-witnesses. We should not, however, in that belief, discount him as factual chronicler, and sometimes our only source, and may surely take at face value anything which is not contradicted by other testimony.

There is one point at which a fairly fundamental divide between John and the Synoptics, Luke in particular, has to be addressed. Short of discarding the relevant passages of John entirely as fallacious, we have to prefer either his sequence or Luke's. This difficulty is dealt with at the start of the relevant Session 2.

Next: Session 1 - The Sanhedrin