loading . . . The legality of Jesus’s trial. When you read the gospel of _John_ , but skip the other three synoptic gospels, y’might get the idea Jesus never even _had_ a trial. In _John_ :
* Jesus gets arrested.
* He’s taken right to the former head priest Annas’s house for an unofficial trial.
* From there, to Joseph Caiaphas’s house for interrogation.
* Then to Pontius Pilate’s prætorium for interrogation.
* Then to Golgotha for crucifixion.
No conviction, no sentence; just interviews followed by execution. Same as would be done in any country with no formal judicial system: They catch you, they interrogate you, they free or shoot you.
But both Judea and Rome _did_ have a formal system. _John_ doesn’t show it because the other gospels do. _John_ was written to fill in the gaps in the other gospels’ stories—which include Jesus’s formal trials. There were two: The one before the Judean senate, and the other before the Roman prætor. The senate, presided over by head priest Caiaphas, found Jesus guilty of blasphemy and sedition. In contrast Pilate publicly stated he didn’t find Jesus guilty of anything—but he didn’t care enough to free him, and sent Jesus to his death all the same.
_Is_ Jesus guilty of blasphemy? Only if he isn’t actually the Son of Man, and of course the senate absolutely refused to believe that’s who he is.
But Jesus actually _is_ guilty of sedition.
I know, I know: Christians wanna insist Jesus is absolutely innocent. He never sinned y’know. But this “sedition” has nothing to do with sin against God and the Law of Moses. It has to do with human laws, Roman laws. Jesus is the legitimate Messiah, the king of Israel and Judea, anointed by God to rule that nation and the world. He’s Lord; he’s the Lord of lords. And that’s a threat to everyone who figures _they’re_ lord—particularly the lords of Israel at that time. To Caiaphas, Herod, and Cæsar Tiberius, “Jesus is Lord” is sedition.
To leadership today it still is. Many of them don’t realize this, ’cause they don’t think of Jesus as any threat to their power. Especially after they neuter him, by convincing his supporters he’d _totally_ vote for them and their party—and his so-called followers buy it, and follow their parties instead of Jesus. So it stands to reason our leadership isn’t worried about Jesus. Yet.
But in the year 33, Jesus was tangibly standing on the earth, in a real position to upend the status quo. He was therefore a real threat to the lords of Israel at the time—whether we’re talking emperors, prefects, tetrarchs, senators, synagogue presidents, or scribes who were used to everyone following _their_ spins on the scriptures. To all these folks, Jesus was competition who needed to be crushed.
Following Jesus instead of these other lords: Sedition. Totally sedition. Flagrant, indefensible sedition. But it’s _not_ against God’s Law. It’s only against human customs, so Jesus isn’t guilty of sin in God’s eyes; still totally sinless. Relax.
Thing is, Christians don’t wanna think of Jesus as guilty of _anything_. We wanna defend him against everything. We don’t wanna think of his conviction and trials as valid. We don’t wanna imagine his execution was a function of a corrupt system; worse, that perhaps our own existing systems are _just as corrupt_ , and if his first coming had taken place today, we’d’ve killed him too. Nor do we wanna recognize sentencing him to death is in any way parallel to the way _we_ depose him as the master of our lives, and prioritize other things over him. We don’t wanna think of his trial as a miscarriage of justice; we’d rather imagine it as _illegal_.
This is why, every Easter, you’re gonna hear various Christians claim Jesus’s trial _wasn’t_ legal. That the Judeans had broken all their own laws in order to arrest him and hold his trial at night, get him to testify against himself, and get him killed before anyone might find out what they were up to. It certainly _feels_ illegal: If you ever heard of a suspect arrested at midnight, tried and convicted at 2AM, and hastily executed by noon, doesn’t the whole thing smell mighty fishy?
#### Jesus’s claim to the throne.
First of all, Christians make a big to-do about Jesus’s lineage. We have his family trees, y’know. They contradict one another, but where they _do_ line up, they agree Jesus is a direct descendant of David ben Jesse, the third king of Israel. Therefore Jesus is the “son of David,” the legitimate heir to David’s throne, the _rightful_ king of Israel. Not the Hasmoneans, not the Herods; _definitely_ not the Cæsars, who weren’t even Hebrew.
Okay. First of all, all this stuff about heredity is nonsense.
If you’ve ever read the Old Testament, you’ll remember David ben Jesse wasn’t the descendant of kings; he was the descendant of whores and foreigners. Same with his predecessor Saul ben Kish, the descendant of rapists. The throne of Israel was _new_. There were no dynasties to draw royalty from, so these guys became king because _the L ORD chose them_. And later in the bible he chose other kings who likewise had no hereditary claim to the throne: Jeroboam ben Nabat, and Jehu ben Nimshi. It’s only _human custom_ (and the claims of kings and nobles, obviously) which insists heredity makes one a king. The scriptures teach otherwise: _God_ anoints leaders.
So Jesus didn’t have to be descended from _anybody_ to be king. Simon Maccabee wasn’t. Herod Antipater wasn’t. Cæsar Augustus (even though he called himself _divi filius_ , “son of God” because the Roman senate had declared his adoptive father Julius Cæsar a god) wasn’t. And debatably even Jesus wasn’t. Go look at his two genealogies again, and notice both of them link Jesus to David through his adoptive father Joseph. (I realize popular Christian culture insists one of these genealogies belongs to Jesus’s mother, but the _scriptures_ say no such thing. Go ahead, read ’em again. I’ll wait.) The genealogies actually _don’t_ prove Jesus’s heredity. They prove the heredity of his _earthly father_ —and since Jesus was adopted into that family, it totally counts the same as if he were born into it. Still: Some people are _way_ too hung up on bloodlines. So I figured I’d deal with them first.
Secondly even _if_ Jesus is the scion of the house of David, that house was _overthrown_. Nabúkhudurriuchur binu Nabúaplauchur of Babylon deposed the last Davidite king nearly six centuries before. Other than Zerubbabel ben Shealtiel, the Davidites hadn’t ruled since. When the monarchy was reestablished, it was by the Hasmonean head priests, not the Davidites. And _they_ were overthrown by Herod; and the Herods were overthrown by Cæsar while Jesus was still a little boy.
So. Imagine the current, most direct descendant of Louis 17 declaring _he_ should be ruling France instead of the Fifth Republic. We’d laugh it off. Yet the Bourbons were ruling France far more recently than the Davidites had ruled Jerusalem in Jesus’s day. The people of Jesus’s day would laugh off any such claim too.
So why’d they take all the “son of David” statements so seriously? Because according to Pharisee interpretations of the End Times, a son of David would take over the world—and if people really believed Jesus to be this son of David person, he could easily lead an insurrection. It was more about stopping zealots from running amok, than any real fears Jesus would take over Judea.
#### “Chapter and verse, please.”
All my life I’ve heard this claim: “It was illegal to try cases at night.” Supposedly the Judeans had a law which forbade any legal activity, any binding decisions, from being made at any time other than in the daylight, when members of the public could come in, observe the proceedings, and keep leadership accountable.
Okay. Where in the bible does it state this?
See, if the Judeans had any law, any _actual_ law, they’d’ve got it from _bible_. Same bible we have. It’s the only legal code they were permitted: The commands handed down from the LORD to Moses in Torah. The Judeans weren’t permitted to create new ones. Unlike _our_ senates, the Judean senate wasn’t a lawmaking body, and never dared presume they could create laws; only the LORD can make laws. All they might do was rule whether something was consistent with God’s Law, or not. They weren’t a legislative body. Properly they were a _judicial_ one.
Now yeah, our judges don’t make laws, but they do interpret ’em in all sorts of imaginative ways, and sometimes their rulings have all the effect of new laws. The Judeans could do the very same—and absolutely did. They could twist the Law, warp it, and create loopholes in it. Pharisees totally did. To a degree, they could also enforce their interpretations of the Law. But what they weren’t permitted to do was invent _new_ laws. And “Thou shalt not try cases at night” is absolutely a new law. Can’t extrapolate it from bible.
So no, it’s not in the bible. There’s no proof text for it. Can’t extrapolate it from any other verse in the Old Testament either. The proper response to anyone who claims, “It was illegal for them to…” is “Where do we find that law in the bible? Chapter and verse please.”
Some preachers will totally admit it’s not bible, but claim there were certain nonbiblical “laws” which Pharisees followed same as the Law: The “oral Law,” passed down from Pharisee to Pharisee _orally_ , instead of written down in the scriptures. “True, it’s not found chapter-and-verse in the bible, but it’s definitely part of Pharisee tradition.” And yes, such oral traditions totally did exist; we have a copy of them in the Talmud, called the Mishna.
But okay, that’s Pharisee custom. Who ran the Judean senate? Wasn’t Pharisees.
The head priest was president of the senate. He ran the meetings, appointed the officers (usually choosing his family members), and made the final rulings. Was the head priest a Pharisee? Nope; he was Sadducee. Same as all the head priests since King John Hyrcanus quit the Pharisees in the second century BC. Sadducees didn’t follow Pharisee traditions at _all_. Heck, Sadducee bibles have only five books in them, same as Samaritans; our first five. And since Sadducees didn’t believe in angels, Ac 23.8 we’re not really talking about people who _believed_ their bibles. So even if the bible _did_ forbid nighttime cases, which it doesn’t, the head priest might ignore it if it suited him. And he certainly wouldn’t acknowledge Pharisee “oral Laws” as valid— _especially_ when they got in his way.
Yep, you can find passages in the Mishna which forbid nighttime trials. But the Mishna ain’t Law. It’s a second-century Pharisee collection of traditions and “oral Laws.” It’s nothing a Sadducee would follow if he didn’t care to. Its passages might not even have been written in Jesus’s day. They might’ve originated a century after his trial, after someone whom Pharisees _didn’t_ want dead, was convicted in a nighttime trial before they could put a stop to it. It’s not even proof Jesus’s trial was _uncustomary_ : We don’t ban actions unless people have already done it! And possibly done it a _lot_.
So these preachers who claim Jesus’s nighttime trial was illegal: They’re just quoting _other_ preachers who claim Jesus’s nighttime trial was illegal. They never investigated whether the other preachers were correct. It _feels_ correct, so that’ll do them.
#### Other “illegal” behaviors.
Here are some other claims preachers like to make—and nope, they’re neither biblical nor historical.
“It was illegal to sentence a convict on the same day as the trial.” Again, there’s no such law in the bible. In fact, if a man wanted to invalidate his woman’s oath, he didn’t _get_ a day to think about it; if he waited, it meant her oath stood. Nu 30.5-14 Pharisee custom might’ve given their judges a day to deliberate, but I remind you the head priest was no Pharisee.
“It was illegal to try someone the day before sabbath.” This claim is based on the previous claim: If you can’t sentence a convict till the day after the trial, and that next day is sabbath, supposedly this rules out any Friday trials. (What, you can’t skip a day and sentence ’em Sunday?) But again: This is Pharisee custom. Not Law.
“It was illegal to recruit witnesses.” Well, it’s illegal to _invent_ witnesses, instead of calling upon people who actually did witness something. But that’s not what happened in Jesus’s trial. It looks like the witnesses actually did see Jesus do and say stuff, ’cause he totally _did_ say something about knocking the temple down. The problem is their stories contradicted one another. Mk 14.56 If the witnesses had been properly coached, this shouldn’t have happened. (Hastily coached, maybe. But lots of people are quick studies.)
“It was illegal to accept the testimony of false witnesses.” Okay yes; if your witnesses commit perjury, the Law declares their testimony invalid, and says they need to suffer the same penalty as they were trying to inflict on the defendant. Dt 19.19 If they were trying to get Jesus killed, it meant _they_ should be killed. But once the witnesses to Jesus contradicted one another, there’s no evidence the senate accepted their testimonies; there’s every indication they couldn’t and didn’t. They didn’t convict Jesus on any testimony but his own.
“It was illegal to make Jesus testify against himself.” It’s illegal in the United States, but it wasn’t in ancient Israel. The bible has a number of instances of self-incrimination. Joshua obligated Achan ben Kharmi to testify against himself, Js 7.19 and Eli squeezed Samuel into sharing everything the LORD told him. 1Sa 3.17 The right against self-incrimination is an American invention, not a biblical one.
“It was illegal to convict on only one witness’s testimony; Jesus _and_ someone else had to testify.” This is a warping of the Law’s ban against convicting on a single testimony. Dt 19.15 Obviously when a person confesses, that’s plenty enough to convict. Achan was executed for what he confessed, Js 7.20-25 as was the Amalekite who claimed to kill Saul ben Kish. 2Sa 1.15-16 Self-incrimination is still incrimination.
“It was illegal for the judges to be biased against the defendant.” Not only does the Law never make such a requirement, it’s kinda _impossible_ to make such a requirement. Everybody’s biased. (Even God; he’s totally anti-sin.) Certainly if you were the judge in a trial against a mass murderer, and he killed lots of your friends, you’re gonna personally want him dead. But the LORD did require judges to be _just_ , Dt 16.18 and biased or not, their rulings had to reflect a truthful understanding of the Law, the circumstances, and guilt. Whether this happened in Jesus’s trial is _debatable_ —and if we think it’s not, that’s only proof of _our_ bias.
“It was illegal to convict on anything but a unanimous verdict.” Because _Luke_ comments Joseph of Arimathea didn’t agree to convict Jesus, Lk 23.50-51 we know this wasn’t a unanimous vote. It may sound that way in other passages, Lk 22.71 but ’tain’t so. The popular claim that it _had_ to be a unanimous vote comes from _American_ custom: Our murder trials require a unanimous vote. But ancient middle easterners didn’t do jury trials; that’s a western thing. The Judean senate wasn’t the jury in Jesus’s trial; they were witnesses to the trial and nothing more. The judge ruled. That’d be the head priest: His decision functioned as the official senate decision. The Mishna changed this procedure centuries later, and even retroactively claimed the chief Pharisee in the senate was _really_ ancient Judea’s senate president. But it doesn’t accurately describe the procedure of Jesus’s day—as shown in the gospels.
#### Totally legal trial. Not all that ethical, though.
So yeah, Jesus’s trial fulfilled the letter of the Law… but it killed a righteous man, who never violated God’s Law, and was only guilty of declaring who he really is to a roomful of unbelievers. It’s a textbook miscarriage of justice.
That’s not good enough for many Christians. They much prefer the idea this was an illegal trial; that “the Pharisees” hated Jesus so much, they thought nothing of tossing aside their own rules to get him killed. It makes ’em look like massive hypocrites, who claimed to be all about law-’n-order yet were really about power. They’re already perceived to be the bad guys in the Jesus story, so this makes ’em exceptionally bad.
But that’s not historically accurate. The Judeans didn’t break any rules to convict Jesus. They _followed_ the rules—knowing _just_ how to manipulate ’em in ways which got them what they wanted. They’d been jumping through loopholes all their lives. And we do the very same things with our own procedures and standards. We know how to violate the spirit of every institution; we do it all the time. Corrupt humanity can corrupt anything. We do it every time we quote bible out of context. We even corrupt the LORD’s commands, Jesus’s teachings, and the Holy Spirit’s guidance.
That’s why we have to follow the spirit of the Law _more so_ than its letter; to follow God’s intent instead of merely his words. To produce his fruit. To settle for nothing less. https://www.christalmighty.net/2020/03/trial.html
