Mark 14.55-59,
Matthew 26.59-61,
Luke 22.66,
John 2.18-22.
All my life I’ve heard preachers claim Jesus’s trial wasn’t just irregular,
It’s because they interpret history wrong. They point to rulings in the second-century Mishna and the fifth-century Talmud. They assume the first-century
So when the Mishna declares trials shouldn’t take place at night (although Luke actually says it took place during daytime
Jesus’s trial convicted an innocent man, so of course we’re gonna agree with Pharisee teachings which claim this was an improper trial. But the teachings are from the wrong time and the wrong people. They don’t apply, much as we’d like ’em to. The Sadducees followed their own procedure properly.
Procedure is still no guarantee there won’t be miscarriages of justice just the same.
Well anyway. On to Jesus’s trial.
Luke 22.66 KWL - Once it becomes day, the people’s elders gathered
- with the head priests and scribes,
- and they lead Jesus into their senate.
Within the temple structure, on the western side, the Judean
For a trial, the Pharisees dictated two scribes should write everything down, though there’s no evidence the Sadducees did any such thing. Scribes and students sat on the floor. Plaintiffs and defendants stood. The Pharisees declared the defendant oughta go first, but in all the trials in Acts, it looks like the reverse happened.
Mark and Matthew relate that part of the trial.
Mark 14.55-59 KWL - 55 The head priests and the whole senate
- are seeking witnesses against Jesus to put him to death,
- and are finding no one,
- 56 for many are perjuring themselves about Jesus,
- and the testimonies aren’t alike.
- 57 Some who stand to perjure themselves about Jesus
- were saying 58 this:
- “We hear Jesus saying this:
- ‘I’ll destroy this shrine, made by hand,
- and in three days I’ll build another, not made by hand.’ ”
- 59 And not even this testimony is alike.
Matthew 26.59-61 KWL - 59 The head priests and the whole senate
- are seeking perjurers against Jesus so they might put him to death,
- 60 and they find nothing,
- though many perjurers come.
- Two finally come, 61 saying, “This Jesus says,
- ‘I’m able to destroy God’s shrine
- and within three days rebuild it.’ ”
Now you might recall Jesus did say something like this. Wasn’t told correctly, though.
John 2.18-22 KWL - 18 So in reply, the Judeans tell Jesus,
- “What sign are you showing us so you can do this?”
- 19 In reply Jesus tells them, “Break down this shrine.
- In three days I’ll re-raise it.”
- 20 So the Judeans say, “This shrine takes 46 years to build,
- and in three days you’ll re-raise it?”
- 21 Jesus is speaking about the shrine of his body,
- 22 so when Jesus is raised from the dead,
- his students remember he’s saying this,
- and believe the scriptures, and the word Jesus says.
We know it’s all the same story, ’cause in John Jesus used the word
The other gospels didn’t provide Jesus’s proper context. And if we didn’t have John, we might think the perjurers were wholly making up the story completely; that Jesus never said anything remotely like it… or they were twisting that bit he said about
But thanks to John, we know it was a misquote. Jesus did say something like it. Which the perjurers misinterpreted greatly.
Listening to perjurers.
Back to the preachers who claim Jesus’s trial was illegal. They like to point to the fact more than one
Thing is, it’s only the authors of the bible who called them perjurers. That’s because they knew it was false testimony. The senate, not so much. Maybe the people who found these witnesses knew they were frauds; maybe not. Lots of people had an axe to grind about Jesus, and plenty of ’em could’ve come forward with the claim, “I heard Jesus say
What the senate needed for conviction was for two of these witnesses to have independent, matching testimonies. What happened, however, was out of all the witnesses they brought in, only two sorta matched: The guys who said they heard Jesus threaten to knock a shrine over. Nothing else could be corroborated. So, according to the Law, nothing else could be admitted as evidence.
We don’t know how long Jesus’s trial was. We know it was still
And even though none of the testimonies were enough to get Jesus sentenced on their own, the fact many people were willing to stand up and denounce Jesus would still poison the mindset of the senators against him. That’s just human nature. If your mind isn’t yet made up, when we hear enough negativity, we start to get negative. Political pundits count on this. Hear enough accusations, and we start to wonder whether there is something to all these accusations. Jesus couldn’t be convicted of any of this stuff, but it’d still feel to them like he was a bad hombre, and maybe they oughta convict him on any evidence they could find, no matter how small. Maybe some odd comment about knocking down the shrine.
Jesus, who knows how people’s minds work,
Plus it’s no fun to get verbally ripped apart, especially when you know they’re lying—but even if it’s all true. If you’ve ever experienced that sort of bullying, you know how frustrating it can be. It likely took a lot for Jesus to keep his mouth shut. Yet he did.
