This comes in an argument where Hitchens is attempting to show that Luke’s account of the birth of Jesus is “quite evidently garbled.” But what Hitchens says is not true. In the 
Why Did Jesus Have to Die?
Roman, Jewish, and Christian Perspectives
Click here for an updated and complete version of this series.
by Rev. Dr. Mark D. Roberts
Copyright © 2010 by Mark D. Roberts and Beliefnet
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Introduction
As we approach the season of Lent, and then Holy Week and Easter, I propose to consider the question: “Why did Jesus have to die?” At the outset, I must say that this isn’t an easy question to answer for several reasons. Let me mention three.
First, when it comes to the death of Jesus, we’re dealing with an historical event concerning which we have limited historical sources. We don’t have some of the sources that would make our task much easier, the diary of Pontius Pilate, for example, or notes from the proceedings of the Jewish council that examined Jesus prior to his crucifixion. Therefore, when I try to explain why Pilate or certain Jewish leaders believed that Jesus had to die, I’ll have to extrapolate from the evidence that is available to us. I do believe, however, that this evidence, both in the New Testament Gospels and in other ancient sources, is strong enough to allow us to formulate likely hypotheses concerning Roman and Jewish motivations for the crucifixion of Jesus.
Second, the question of why Jesus was put to death is a matter of considerable scholarly disagreement. For centuries it was common to put all the blame on “the Jews.” But the horror of the Holocaust combined with new historical insights has led scholars in almost completely the opposite direction. Many claim that “the Jews,” even Jewish leaders, had little or nothing to do with the death of Jesus. In my opinion, as you’ll see, the pendulum that had once swung way too far in the direction of “the Jews” has now swung too far back in the opposite “Romans only” direction. I’ll have more to say about this later.
I should add at this point that I am aware of the shameful history of anti-Semitism and the danger of anti-Semitism that is very much alive today. This does make it tricky to deal with the historical evidence in a straightforward way, because if one concludes that some Jews were somewhat responsible for the death of Jesus, this might fuel anti-Semitic attitudes and actions. So, I will say at the outset that nothing in the historical record justifies hatred of or mistreat of Jews, or any other people, for that matter.
Third, there is not one, simple, obvious answer to the question of why Jesus had to die. From a historical point of view, we have to deal with at least two perspectives, Roman and Jewish. In fact, I’ll show that there was more than one Jewish point of view on Jesus’ death. So it is really too simple to speak of “the Jewish perspective” on the necessity of Jesus’ death.
Furthermore, historical explanation doesn’t exhaust the realm of discourse when it comes to the reason for Jesus’ death. We also need to deal with the whole area of theology. We’ll want to know why, in light of his understanding of God, Jesus himself believed that he needed to die. Moreover, we must also examine early Christian thinking concerning why Jesus’ death was necessary for the salvation of the world. In the end, therefore, the answer to the simple question “Why did Jesus have to die?” will be anything but simple. It will have multiple layers and nuances.
Nevertheless, this is a task well worth the effort, both in the writing and in the reading. No matter what you think about Jesus, you will help yourself and your world if you’re able to discuss his death intelligently. This is especially true given the tendency of this conversation to become terribly anti-Semitic. In a world where hatred of Jews is on the increase, all thoughtful, compassionate human beings need to be informed about just who was responsible for the death of Jesus and why.
Finally, if, like me, you believe that the crucifixion of Jesus stands at the very center of history, then knowing why Jesus had to die is just about the most important bit of knowledge you can have.
In my next post I’ll lay out some basic parameters for the rest of this series: how I’m going to structure the series and some of the foundational facts upon which I’ll build the structure.
Where Do We Start When Considering the Death of Jesus? Some Basic Facts
Where should we start in our effort to discover why Jesus had to die? I propose to begin with some basic historical facts, facts that are affirmed by almost every historian and biblical scholar, even those who approach this question from a highly critical and skeptical starting point. So what are these facts:
Jesus was crucified. There were many ways in the first-century for a criminal to be put to death, including stoning, beheading, being torn apart by beasts, etc. Yet all the earliest sources attest to the crucifixion of Jesus. These sources include, in addition to the New Testament writings, the Jewish historian Josephus (Antiquities 18.3.3, A.D. 95) and the Roman historian Tacitus (Annals 15.44, A.D. 109)(Photo: Painting by El Greco, “The Crucifixion,” 1596-1600)Jesus was crucified during the governorship and under the authority of Pontius Pilate. Once again, this basic fact is confirmed in Josephus and Tacitus in addition to the New Testament.
Pilate placed a sign on Jesus’ cross that read “The King of the Jews.” This fact is found in all four New Testament Gospels and in some later non-canonical gospels as well. This “title” helps to explain the nature of the charges against Jesus.
Jesus was crucified in Jerusalem on or near the Jewish feast of Passover. Again, all New Testament Gospels agree on these basic facts, and there is every reason to believe that they are accurate (though the precise timing of Jesus’ death in relationship to Passover is hard to pin down).
These basic facts, though apparently obvious and unspectacular, will actually prove to be very helpful as we try to figure out the reasons for Jesus’ death.
As I mentioned in my previous post, the question “Why did Jesus have to die?” doesn’t have a simple answer. I propose to address this question from four different perspectives:
• Roman: Why did Pontius Pilate think Jesus had to die?• Jewish: Why did some Jewish leaders think Jesus had to die?
• Jesus: Why did Jesus himself think that he had to die?
• Early Christian: Why did early Christians think Jesus had to die?
In my next post I’ll begin with the Roman perspective.
Click here for an updated and complete version of this series.
The fact that Jesus was crucified rather than stoned, hanged, or killed in some other way means that the Romans were ultimately responsible for his death. Of course this is clear in the biblical gospels. But even if we lacked such primary sources, the simple fact that a man was crucified in Jerusalem around A.D. 30 implies that, for some reason or other, he was condemned by Roman authorities. Jews in the first-century A.D. didn’t crucify people. This horrible means of execution was the prerogative of the Romans, who used it with chilling effect.
The Roman Practice of Crucifixion
If we want to know why a Roman authority, in this case, the prefect Pontius Pilate, would choose to crucify someone, we might look first at the Roman practice of crucifixion in general. Although Rome didn’t invent this means of execution, the nation perfected it as one of the most horrible means of putting criminals to death. In fact, not all Roman convicts sentenced to death were crucified. Crucifixion was reserved for the lowest of the low, and most of all for those who openly opposed Roman power. Commit a serious crime and Rome might cut off your head; rebel against Roman rule or upset Roman peace and you might be headed to a cross. I say “might be” because Roman citizens were protected from crucifixion, unless they happened to be treasonous soldiers. (Photo: The Via Appia in Rome. When the slave Spartacus led a rebellion against Rome in 73-71 B.C., the Romans finally prevailed. They crucified 6,000 men, stringing them along the Via Appia for 120 miles, from Rome to Capua.)
Why was crucifixion so horrible? For one thing, the victim experienced some of the most extreme pain that a person can experience and the duration of suffering often lasted several days. But, even beyond personal suffering, the crucified person experienced extreme shame in a world that valued honor supremely. Contrary to most portrayals of Jesus’ death, those sentenced to crucifixion were naked when attached to the cross, in full view of the masses.
The Romans made every effort to crucify people in public places, such as along major thoroughfares. The point was to augment the dishonor and suffering of the one being killed, not to mention his family and colleagues. (It seems, by the way, that the Romans did not crucify women.) As the Roman rhetorician Quintilian explained, “Whenever we crucify the guilty, the most crowded roads are chosen, where most people can see and be moved by this fear. For penalties relate not so much to retribution as to their exemplary effect” (Quintilian, Declamations 274). Thus the point of crucifixion was not only punishment, but also deterrence.
Not surprisingly, the Romans crucified Jews when they rebelled against imperial rule. I’ll examine a couple of telling instances in my next post.
In my last post I began to examine the Roman practice of crucifixion, arguing that if we want to understand why a Roman governor had Jesus crucified, we should first understand why Rome used crucifixion in general. What we discovered was that crucifixion, in addition to being an extremely horrific punishment of criminals, was thought to be an effective deterrent against sedition. “Watch someone get crucified for challenging our authority,” the Romans believed, “and you’ll be unlikely to challenge our authority yourself.” If you’ve seen The Passion of the Christ, you can certainly understand Roman logic here. Crucifixion was cruel beyond cruel.
Roman Crucifixion Among the Jews
Even the threat of crucifixion didn’t completely squelch attempts to overthrow Roman rule, however, least of all among the Jews. Shortly after the death of Herod the Great in 4 B.C., thousands of Jews sought to toss the Romans out of Judea. Of course the Romans didn’t take kindly to this, sending an army to squash the rebellion. When the rebels fled into the country, the Roman general Varus pursued them. The first-century Jewish historian Josephus describes what happened next:
Upon this, Varus sent a part of his army into the country, to seek out those that had been the authors of the revolt; and when they were discovered, he punished some of them that were most guilty, and some he dismissed: now the number of those that were crucified on this account were two thousand. (Antiquities 17.10.10)
Two thousand rebels crucified at one time! Now that would surely give restless Jews second thoughts before challenging Roman tyranny again. (Photo: The Arch of Titus in Rome, which celebrates the Roman victory over the Jews in A.D. 70.)
Seven decades later, thousands upon thousands of Jews revolted against Roman rule. For a short time they appeared to have prevailed. But, once again, Rome sent a superior military force to Judea. Soon the Jews were trapped in Jerusalem, surrounded by the Roman army besieging the city. Recognizing their hopeless condition, some Jews actually tried to escape, but to no avail. According to Josephus, when they were caught, “they were first whipped, and then tormented with all sorts of tortures before they died, and were then crucified before the wall of the city” (Jewish War, 5.11.1). This happened to at least 500 people daily, according to Josephus. So disgusting was the mass torture of Jewish prisoners that even the Roman General Titus felt pity on them. But he let the brutality continue. Why? Josephus explains: “The main reason why he did not forbid that cruelty was this, that he hoped the Jews might perhaps yield at that sight, out of fear lest they might themselves afterwards be liable to the same cruel treatment” (Jewish War, 5.11.1).
To conclude what we have learned about Romans and crucifixion, Rome reserved crucifixion for the worst of criminals, especially for those who stirred up rebellion against the state. Because the point of crucifixion, beyond punishment, was deterrence, crosses were placed in public places so people would learn to fear the wrath of Rome. When Jews challenged Roman authority, they, like others rebels against Rome, were crucified if caught.
But is this relevant of the case of Jesus? Did Jesus challenge Roman authority such that Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor of Judea in the time of Jesus, believed he must be crucified? Does what we have learned about Roman crucifixion help to explain Jesus’ own death? To these questions I’ll turn in my next post.
Introduction to Pontius Pilate
If we’re going to understand the Roman perspective on the death of Jesus, we need to know something of the Roman man who was legally responsible for his crucifixion: Pontius Pilate. Traditionally, Pilate has been seen by Christians in relatively positive terms, as one who really didn’t want to crucify Jesus but who did so because he was compelled to by the Jewish leaders and crowds. This image of Pilate, that seems to emerge from the New Testament gospels, doesn’t fit with what we know about Pontius Pilate from historical sources, including the gospels themselves. Let me survey this evidence briefly.
Pontius Pilate was the governor of Judea from 26-37 A.D. An inscription discovered in the ruins of a Roman theater in Caesarea reveals that Pilate’s official Roman title was “prefect” (Latin, praefectus). In this role he was ultimately responsible for all matters in Judea, including judicial and financial affairs. Pilate governed from the provincial capital of Judea, Caesarea (Maratima), a city on the Mediterranean coast, about 75 miles northwest of Jerusalem. He would make the trip to Jerusalem only when necessary. Pilate was accountable to the governor of Syria, through whom he was ultimately subservient to the Roman Emperor. (Photo: This inscription identifies Pontius Pilate as the [Praef]ectus Iuda[eae]).
Pilate does not figure prominently in first-century Roman histories, a fact that suggests that he was a relatively insignificant leader. Moreover, the assignment to govern Judea was no plum, and some of those who served in Pilate’s position were known to complain about it. Not only was it potentially a dead-end job, but also it was fraught with complications.
The complications had largely to do with what the Romans would see as the peculiarities and propensities of the Jews. The peculiarities were, by and large, Jewish religious sensibilities that put them at odds with Roman norms. Jews, for example, did not follow the Roman model in welcoming all sorts of gods into their pantheon. On the contrary, Jews would die for their belief in one and only one God. Jewish propensities had to do with general unrest and fairly regular attempts by some Jews to rebel against Roman rule. When one became prefect of Judea, one could expect trouble.
Pilate’s inability (or unwillingness) to respect Jewish sensibilities is seen in an event recorded by the Jewish historian Josephus (Antiquities 18.3.1). Unlike previous governors, when Pilate took charge, he brought images of Caesar into Jerusalem in order to display them. This enraged the Jewish population, who took this as a violation of their law and as an insult. Multitudes of people traveled to Caesarea in order to ask Pilate to remove the images. At first he refused and, when the petitioners persisted, he was prepared to kill them. But when they showed themselves willing to die rather than have their laws violated, Pilate finally relented. In another instance when he offended Jewish sensibilities, Pilate did not show mercy, and those who protested were slaughtered by soldiers under Pilate’s command (Antiquities, 18.3.2).
The New Testament actually confirms this picture of a cruel Pilate. In Luke 13:1 we read, “At that very time there were some present who told him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices.” We don’t know anything else about this incident. But it appears that, for some reason, Pilate killed some Galileans who had come to the Jerusalem temple in order to offer sacrifices to God. Yet, not only did Pilate have them killed, he also had their own blood mingled with the blood of the animals they had sacrificed. Talk about adding insult to injury!
The first-century Jewish philosopher Philo of Alexandria once wrote a letter to Caesar, in which, among other things, he complained about the harshness of Pontius Pilate. Philo blames Pilate explicitly for: “briberies, insults, robberies, outrages, wanton injustices, constantly repeated executions without trial, and ceaseless and grievous cruelty.” (Legatio ad Gaium, 301-302). Even granting Philo’s bias against Pilate, this text doesn’t reflect well upon Pilate’s governorship. In the end, he was removed from office by the Syrian governor, Vitellius, though we don’t know exactly why.
But what about the image of Pilate as the reflective leader who is reticent to kill Jesus, and who even converses with Jesus about the nature of truth? I’ll address this picture in greater detail later. But for now, I’d simply observe that the gospel accounts of Jesus’ trial can be read as confirming the negative image of Pilate.
Pilate’s ultimate responsibility was to oversee Judean affairs, to squash outright rebellion, to keep the tax money flowing to Rome, and, in general, to preserve the fragile peace of the region. And it is this, which, above all, seemed to be at risk when Jesus came to Jerusalem around the feast of Passover. In my next post in this series I’ll examine the peculiar dynamics of Jerusalem in the time of the festival.
The Roman Perspective, Part 4
As I explained in my last post, Pontius Pilate, the prefect of Judea during the time of Jesus, governed his territory from Caesarea, a city on the Mediterranean sea about 75 miles northwest of Jerusalem. Immediate authority over Jerusalem itself he had delegated to Caiaphas, whom Pilate had appointed high priest of the Jewish temple.
Pilate and the Danger of Passover
But, each year during his tenure in Judea, Pilate journeyed to Jerusalem in the spring. He wanted to be in this city during the Jewish celebration of Passover. It’s not that he had any fondness for the Jews and their rituals. Rather, Pilate needed to be in Jerusalem at this time to preserve order. He didn’t trust Caiaphas with such an important task at such a volatile time.
The Passover was, after all, a festival in which Jews remembered how God had delivered them from foreign domination. During the celebration of the Passover meal they not only thanked God for his deliverance in the past, but also prayed for him to do so again. Thus the Passover itself could easily inspire anti-Roman feelings, if not outright rebellion.
Moreover, the population of Jerusalem swelled greatly during the festival. Though it’s difficult to determine precisely the population of Jerusalem during the time of Roman rule, 35,000 wouldn’t be too far off base. During the Passover, however, this number swelled by a figure of ten or more. Josephus reports that 2,000,000 to 3,000,000 people gathered in the city for the festival (Jewish War, 2.14.3, 6.9.3). While most scholars believe that Josephus exaggerated, his estimates testify to the large number of pilgrims who came to Jerusalem for Passover. A more conservative estimate would be in the 300,000-400,000 range. Pilate knew that crowds of Jews jammed together in a small area was a formula for disaster. (Photo: A picture of a crowd in Jerusalem, gathered by the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in 1989.)
Given the themes of Passover and the massive temporary population of Jerusalem, it’s easy to see why Pilate felt it necessary to come to the city and why he would have done so with trepidation. Pilate was well aware of the fact that Jerusalem was a powder keg ready to blow during Passover. In fact, Josephus, talking about an earlier ruler who had tyrannized the Jews, mentions that “the nation of the Jews made an insurrection against him at a festival; for at those feasts seditions are generally begun” (Jewish War, 1.4.3, emphasis added).
Pilate didn’t come to Jerusalem unprepared. To help keep the peace, he brought with him a few thousand Roman soldiers from Syria. But, even then, the odds would not be in his favor if the Jews decided to stir up rebellion, since the soldiers were outnumbered by a factor of at least one hundred to one.
Given the tenuous peace of Jerusalem, Pilate must have been greatly distressed by early reports about Jesus’ actions in Jerusalem. This popular prophet from Nazareth had been welcomed into the city by a crowd of his followers who hailed him as a conquering king. Then, Jesus created a ruckus in the Jewish temple, even prohibiting sacrifices from being offered for several hours. So, while Pilate might have smirked to think of the distress this had given Caiaphas, nevertheless he’d be worried. What was Jesus’ agenda? What had he come to Jerusalem to do? Was he seditious? Was he fomenting rebellion against Rome? Pilate’s initial strategy was to watch and wait. Maybe, just maybe, he’d be lucky, and the Passover would conclude without incident. Then Jesus would go back to Galilee where he came from, and Pilate would return to Caesarea, where he could govern Judea a safe distance away from the time bomb of Jerusalem.
Pilate’s hopes for an uneventful Passover were dashed when, early on Friday morning, the problem posed by Jesus of Nazareth exploded in his face. In my next post, I’ll examine more closely Pilate’s interaction with Jesus and his accusers.
In my last two posts in this series on the death of Jesus, I offered a picture of Pontius Pilate and described the unique dangers he faced in Jerusalem during the Jewish celebration of Passover. In light of this background, today I’ll examine the biblical account of Pilate’s interaction with Jewish leaders.
Pilate’s Encounter with Jesus and the Jewish Leaders
Early on Friday morning, after Jesus of Nazareth had entered Jerusalem, Pontius Pilate was awakened by a group of Jewish leaders who had brought Jesus to him with the intention of having Jesus crucified. They accused Jesus of “perverting our nation, forbidding us to pay taxes to the emperor, and saying that he himself is the Messiah, a king” (Luke 23:2). When Pilate questioned Jesus, the accused was strangely quiet. Finally the governor cut to the chase. “Are you the king of the Jews?” he asked. “You say so,” was all Jesus said in reply (Luke 23:3). When Pilate mentioned to the Jewish leaders that their charges against Jesus weren’t persuasive, they added, “He stirs up the people by teaching throughout all Judea, from Galilee where he began even to this place” (Luke 23:5). It’s likely that this was not news to Pilate, who had probably been following the unusual exploits of Jesus for some time. Roman governors kept an eye out for Jewish prophets who announced the coming of God’s kingdom. (Photo: Mihály Munkácsy, Christ in front of Pilate, 1881.)
Once the Jewish leaders had brought Jesus to Pilate, the question of his fate lay in the governor’s hands. Certainly he could follow the recommendation of the leaders, including the high priest, Caiaphas, whom he had appointed. But killing Jesus had a considerable downside. Pilate was surely aware of Jesus’ popularity among the people. He might even have known before Friday that the Jewish leaders were trying to do away with Jesus, but were reticent to do so because he was so popular with the people. Killing Jesus might well have incited the people to riot (Mark 14:2), something neither the Jewish officials nor Pilate would have wanted. If Pilate were perceived by the people as the one responsible for the death of their popular prophet, then he might end up causing a ruckus or even a revolt that could very well lead to his own downfall.
Yet Pilate would surely have preferred to get Jesus out of the way somehow. Though he was not seditious in the ordinary sense – Jesus carried no weapons, organized no army, and had not assaulted any Roman authorities – nevertheless the Nazarene was clearly a rabble-rouser from Pilate’s point of view. And even if he didn’t explicitly espouse the overthrow of Rome, he certainly flirted with the seditious language of kingship.
Two other factors contributed to Pilate’s reticence to execute Jesus. First, his interaction with Jesus convinced him that the Galilean was no ordinary insurrectionist. It’s hard to reconstruct from the Gospel accounts exactly what Pilate thought of Jesus. If he truly believed him to be innocent and no threat to Rome, then it’s unlikely that he would have had Jesus crucified. But, Pilate must have seen that Jesus was in a completely different league from the others he had crucified. (Of course I’m aware that Christian tradition paints Pilate as a truth-seeker who genuinely believes in Jesus’ innocence. But this image doesn’t fit what we know about Pilate from history, not to mention the indisputable fact that Pilate himself was, in the end, responsible for Jesus’ death. It’s very hard to imagine that Pilate was bullied, either by Jewish leaders or by the mob, into doing something that he really didn’t want to do. I believe that many of the statements in the gospels that seem to reflect the “noble Pilate” were in fact originally spoken by the governor in order to incite the Jews to accept greater responsibility for Jesus’ death, thus exonerating Pilate in the eyes of the people. Or, in other cases, I believe Pilate’s tone was ironic or sarcastic. When he asked Jesus, “What is truth?” Pilate wasn’t beginning a philosophical dialogue, but simply mocking Jesus, who had just spoken of “belonging to the truth” (John 18:37-38).
The second factor that contributed to Pilate’s reticence to execute Jesus was a recommendation from his wife that he should “have nothing to do with” Jesus. Pilate’s wife claimed to have “suffered a great deal because of a dream about him” (Matthew 27:19). Pilate, like most pagans, was in all likelihood quite superstitious, and his wife’s nightmare would have spooked him as well.
From Pilate’s perspective, what would have been the best outcome of this whole mess? Somehow get Jesus to stop causing trouble, but without inciting the people to riot. If silencing Jesus required his death, then so be it, but let it be someone else’s fault other than Pilate’s. If Jesus could be shut down by some other means – like flogging – then this would also be an acceptable option.
In my next post I’ll finish explaining the necessity of Jesus’ death from the Roman perspective of Pontius Pilate.
The Roman Perspective, Part 6
In my last post I began to describe Pontius Pilate’s predicament on the Friday morning after Jesus had entered Jerusalem. The problematic prophet had been brought to Pilate by several Jewish leaders who demanded that he be crucified. But, for reasons I outlined previously, Pilate was reticent. Most of all, he didn’t want to incite the crowds who had gathered in Jerusalem for Passover. Silencing Jesus was a fine idea, but, from Pilate’s perspective, it had to be done in a why that protected him from the wrath of the Jewish people.
Pilate’s Decision to Have Jesus Crucified
Pilate tried passing the buck. He told the Jewish leaders to judge Jesus themselves, but they averred that they couldn’t execute him (John 18:31-32). He said, perhaps sarcastically, that they should go ahead and crucify him themselves (John 19:6-7), even though Pilate knew that crucifixion was legal only under Roman authority. At one point during the “trial” of Jesus, Pilate tried to pass the buck to Herod Antipas, who, as Tetrarch over Galilee, had the legal right to put Jesus to death. But Herod didn’t grab the bait. Instead, he used his meeting with Jesus as an occasion to mock him (Luke 23:6-12). (Photo: Nicolaes Maes, “Christ Before Pilate,” c. 1670.)
When the responsibility for Jesus’ fate fell back upon Pilate’s shoulders, he preferred to take the course of least resistance: have Jesus flogged, which would surely silence him for a while, and which, Pilate hoped, would keep the people from going on a rampage. But many of the Jewish leaders, combined with a mob that gathered outside of Pilate’s headquarters, pressed for Jesus’ crucifixion. Three factors seemed to have persuaded Pilate that executing Jesus was the best course of action. First, his reticence to kill Jesus appeared to put his loyalty to the emperor in doubt (John 19:12). Even the slightest appearance of imperial disloyalty could have terminal implications for Pilate. Second, the Jews who had gathered in his courtyard, although a tiny percentage of the current population of Jerusalem, were fervent enough in their desire for Jesus’ death that Pilate believed he could convincingly lay the blame on them. Third, his reticence to crucify Jesus was itself starting to cause a riot, which was the very thing Pilate was attempting to avoid by not executing Jesus (Matt 27:24). So his primary motivation for keeping Jesus alive – maintenance of order – was no longer valid. Jesus had to die.
In sentencing Jesus to death, Pilate revealed himself to be devious, if not spineless. He sent Jesus to the cross. The responsibility for this decision was his – at least from a legal-historical point of view. Yet when announcing Jesus’ fate, Pilate tried to avoid taking responsibility for his action. Symbolically washing his hands in front of the crowd, he said, “I am innocent of this man’s blood” (Matthew 27:24). Of course this wasn’t true. No matter now much others might have urged Pilate to take Jesus’ life, in the end, he and he alone had the authority to make that fateful decision.
The fact that Pilate had Jesus crucified strongly suggests that he saw Jesus as a threat to Roman order. Though not your ordinary brigand or revolutionary, Jesus proclaimed the kingdom of God (not Caesar) and accepted adulation as a messianic (kingly) figure. Moreover, even if his answers to Pilate were minimal, Jesus didn’t reject the charge that he claimed to be king of the Jews. So, even though Jesus wasn’t your run-of-the-mill Zealot, he was still the sort of person who was dangerous to Rome, and was therefore worthy of death, at least from the Roman point of view.
Pilate’s legal justification for crucifying Jesus appeared on the sign attached to Jesus’ cross: “The King of the Jews.” The wording and placement of this sign tells us much about Pilate’s ultimate motivation for killing Jesus. On the one hand, Jesus was being crucified because he dared to make a claim to kingship. On the other, by identifying the crucified Jesus as “King of the Jews,” Pilate was mocking Jesus, the Jewish people, and their kingdom aspirations – all in one ironic statement. In a manner consistent with what we know about Pilate from other sources, he was saying, “Here you go, you Jews. Here is your king – beaten to a pulp, powerless, a victim of superior Roman power.” Furthermore, by crucifying Jesus, Pilate also held him up as a persuasive deterrent: “Next time you think about having someone other than Caesar as your king, remember the crucifixion of Jesus, the King of the Jews.”
Why Did Jesus Have to Die? The Roman Perspective: Conclusion
From a Roman perspective, why did Jesus have to die?
• Because he disturbed Roman order.
• Because he spoke seditiously of a coming kingdom other than that of Caesar.
• Because he allowed himself to be called “King of the Jews.”
• Because he made a nuisance of himself at the wrong time (Passover), in the wrong
place (Jerusalem), in the presence of the wrong people (Pilate and the temple
leadership under his command).
• Because his crucifixion would be a powerful deterrent that might keep other Jews from
following in his footsteps.
In my next post I’ll begin to look at the death of Jesus from one Jewish perspective.
One Jewish Perspective, Part 1
Placing This Conversation in Context
Before I proceed to discuss one Jewish perspective on the necessity of Jesus’ death, I must say a bit about the contemporary context for this conversation. For centuries, many Christians hated Jews. Part of the Christians’ justification for their hatred was their belief that “the Jews killed Christ.” Even though Jesus himself had called his followers to love their enemies, somehow the belief that “the Jews killed Christ” justified a very un-Christ-like hatred of all Jews. This sort of twisted reasoning contributed to the unspeakable horror of the Holocaust, in which over six million Jews were murdered by the Nazis.
The ugly history of anti-Semitism makes it difficult to talk objectively about Jewish involvement in the death of Jesus. If one suggests that some Jews were in some way responsible for Jesus’ death, this person runs the risk of being labeled anti-Semitic. When I was in graduate school, I was encouraged to ask all sorts of creative and critical questions about early Christian history. But when it came to the death of Jesus, there was an unspoken rule that prohibited even discussing the possibility of some Jewish responsibility for the death of Jesus. The party line was that the Romans killed Jesus for their own reasons and that the early Christians made up the parts of the passion narrative that implicate Jews. The Christians did so, we were told, partly because they weren’t getting along with Jews during the latter half of the first-century A.D., and partly because they wanted to improve their relationship with the Roman Empire. This theory – filled with more holes than Swiss cheese – was something my colleagues and I were not welcome to examine critically. It was simply off limits. The painful history of anti-Semitism required that the history of early Christianity be told in a certain way, whether it actually happened that way or not. (Photo: Anti-Semitic graffiti in Lithuania in 2005.)
Therefore, before I discuss Jewish involvement in the death of Jesus, I must say three things quite clearly:
1. Anti-Semitism is wrong. From a Christian perspective, it is a sin. No matter who was actually responsible for the death of Jesus, there is no excuse for anti-Semitism. It’s something that Christians and all sensible people should oppose.
2. Even if “the Jews” were completely responsible for Jesus’ death (which I’ve already shown to be false, given the involvement of Pontius Pilate), this would in no way justify anti-Semitism today.
3. Even if a Christian considered “the Jews” to be his or her enemies, that Christian would be compelled by the very words of Jesus to love the Jews, not to hate them.
4. Anti-Semitism is alive and well today (or, alive and sick, perhaps). All moral people, including Christians, should reject and oppose it. Anti-Semitism is morally wrong, unjustifiable, and unchristian.
As you can infer from this introduction, I am going to argue that some Jews were involved in the crucifixion of Jesus, and that they believed that Jesus had to die. But, I think it’s historically incorrect to speak of “The Jewish Perspective” on the necessity of Jesus’ death. If we wish to be accurate, we must talk in terms of “One Jewish Perspective” on the question: “Why did Jesus have to die?” I’ll explain what I mean in my next post.
One Jewish Perspective, Part 2
Why “One” Jewish Perspective?
As a young Christian, I had a clear picture of what happened to Jesus in the last week of his life. This picture resulted from my knowledge of the Gospels, and, to a great extent, from images I had seen in Sunday School booklets and filmstrips. My mind had been impressed with scenes of Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, of his “trial” before Pilate, and of his being assaulted by Jewish leaders. These images led me to believe that Jerusalem in the time of Jesus was a relatively small town inhabited by a relatively small number of Jews, and that the same Jews who had welcomed Jesus into town as a king on Sunday had turned against him on Friday. From my juvenile viewpoint, “the Jews” of Jerusalem had, as a single group, both hailed Jesus and then condemned him. Since only a few close disciples supported Jesus until the bitter end, it would have seemed appropriate to me to speak of “the” Jewish perspective on why Jesus had to die. (Photo: Jesus on Palm Sunday in a classic film version of his life. For the other side of the story, check out this video from Vintage 21 Church.)
I no longer believe that my youthful picture of Jesus’ last week was historically accurate, though I do believe that the New Testament Gospels provide historically reliable viewpoints on what really happened that week. For one thing, the actual scale of life in Jerusalem was far greater than anything I had imagined. As I explained earlier in this series, it’s likely that the normal population of Jerusalem in the time of Jesus was around 35,000. But during the festival of Passover the population swelled to eight or ten times that number, perhaps even more.
This means, among other things, that a tiny percentage of the overall population of Jerusalem actually welcomed Jesus into the city on Palm Sunday or called for his crucifixion early on Good Friday. Since scholars cannot agree on the precise location of Pilate’s headquarters, we cannot say definitively how many people might have gathered in his courtyard to call for Jesus’ death. This number is probably less than 500, possibly quite a bit less. What this means, therefore, is that something like .2% of the Jews in Jerusalem were demonstrably eager to have Jesus crucified.
But, one might object, perhaps this tiny percentage represented the majority. This objection is unlikely for three reasons:
First, we know from the Gospels that Jesus was, for the most part, very popular among the masses (for example, Matt 4:25; 8:1; 9:8; 12:15; 13:2; 14:14; 15:30; 20:29; 21:8).Second, we also know that the Jewish leaders in Jerusalem who wanted to have Jesus killed hesitated precisely because Jesus was so popular among the masses there (Matt 21:46). Nothing in the Gospel records suggests that this popularity ended magically by Good Friday.
Third, in fact the Gospel records suggest that large numbers of Jews were deeply distressed by the death of Jesus. For example, as Jesus was walking along the Via Dolorosa, Luke tells us that “A great number of the people followed him, and among them were women who were beating their breasts and wailing for him” (Luke 23:27). Then, after Jesus was crucified, the crowds who “saw what had taken place, . . . returned home, beating their breasts” (Luke 24:48). In other words, vast numbers of Jews were horrified by the death of Jesus.
Thus it’s historically accurate to speak, not of “the” Jewish perspective on the necessity of Jesus’ death, but of several diverse Jewish perspectives. It’s quite likely that the majority of Jews in Jerusalem did not want Jesus killed at all. But the perspective that had greatest impact on the fate of Jesus was that of Caiaphas and other principal leaders of Jerusalem. This is the “one” perspective I’ll begin to examine in my next post.
One Jewish Perspective, Part 3
The Perspective of Jewish Leaders in Jerusalem
Although the majority of Jews in Jerusalem may not have wanted Jesus to die, or may have had no opinion either way, some of the most influential Jews did see Jesus’ death as necessary. All four New Testament Gospels testify to the key role of the “chief priests” and other Jewish leaders in the effort to have Jesus crucified. The chief priests included the high priest Caiaphas, who was appointed by Pilate, and other priests who provided leadership, not only for the temple, but also for all religious and civic affairs in Jerusalem. Some other learned and powerful Jewish leaders joined with the chief priests in the effort to silence Jesus once and for all.
Although not providing specific names or titles, the first-century Jewish historian Josephus concurs with what we find in the New Testament. In his Jewish Antiquities, Josephus devotes a short section to the antics of Pontius Pilate. In this context the historian writes that Pilate, “at the suggestion of the principal men amongst us,” had Jesus “condemned to the cross” (Antiquities 18.3.3). Unfortunately Josephus does not explain why these “principal men,” presumably the chief priests and other leaders, had it in for Jesus.
Why did leading Jews in Jerusalem believe it was necessary for Jesus to die? Part of the answer to this question comes from the Gospel of John, in a scene where a group of Jewish leaders was debating the problem of Jesus’ problematic popularity. “If we let him go on like this,” they said, “everyone will believe in him, and the Romans will come and destroy both our holy place and our nation” (John 11:48). Jesus was stirring up the people with his message of God’s kingdom and with his mighty deeds, and he wasn’t the first to walk down this perilous road. Others had done so before him and the result hadn’t been good for the Jews. Inevitably the Romans swept into Judea with their armies, slaughtering some, crucifying others, and taking still others into slavery. They had no hesitation about destroying an entire city if only some its residents had challenged Roman authority. So it would be logical for Jewish leaders to fear that Jesus might indeed bring down Roman wrath upon both the temple and the nation. (Photo: The ruins of a theatre in Sepphoris in Galilee. Shortly after Jesus was born, a man named Judas led a makeshift militia in a successful assault against the royal palace. Of course Rome didn’t wink at Judas and his gang. Ultimately the Roman army recaptured Sepphoris, taking all of its residents as slaves and burning the city to the ground. (See my book Jesus Revealed, p. 104)
Ruins of the coliseum at Sepphoris
In the midst of this debate about the problem of Jesus, John records the counsel of the high priest, Caiaphas: “You know nothing at all! You do not understand that it is better for you to have one man die for the people than to have the whole nation destroyed” (John 11:50). Since Caiaphas did not believe that Jesus fit the job description of God’s messiah, and since he shared with his colleagues the fear of Roman reprisals against the Jews, his argument made sense. Better that Jesus should die than the whole nation be destroyed.
When Caiaphas and his cohort finally captured Jesus and brought him to Pilate so that he might be crucified, their accusations touched upon several ways he was endangering the Jewish people. “We found this man perverting our nation,” they said, “forbidding us to pay taxes to the emperor, and saying that he himself is the Messiah, a king” (Luke 23:2). When Pilate was underwhelmed, they added, “He stirs up the people by teaching throughout all Judea, from Galilee where he began even to this place” (Luke 23:5). In other words, Jesus was both undermining orderly Roman rule (forbidding taxes, claiming to be king, stirring up the people) and seducing the Jewish people to abandon their religious commitments (keeping the Sabbath, offering sacrifices in the temple, separating themselves from “sinners”).
Although we Christians may want to argue that these accusations were false, it’s easy to see how, from the perspective of the Jewish leaders, they appeared to be true, dangerously true. Moreover, we find in Jewish sources basic confirmation of what Luke puts upon the lips of the leaders. In the Babylonian Talmud (a fifth-century collection of earlier Jewish oral traditions), we read the following:
There is a tradition: They hanged Yeshu on the Sabbath of the Passover. But for forty days before that a herald went in front of him (crying), “Yeshu is to be stoned because he practiced sorcery and seduced Israel and led them astray from God”. (b. Sanhedrin 43a)
Although the details don’t fit perfectly with the New Testament accounts, the charges against Jesus confirm what we have already seen. Jesus was said to “practice sorcery,” which is how his miracles would have appeared to his opponents, and which explains his ability to arouse the people. He also “seduced Israel and led them astray from God.” How similar this is to the charges in Luke 23, where Jesus was said to have perverted the nation and stirred up the people.
The concerns of Jewish leaders and their desire to get rid of him would probably not have come to fruition except for something Jesus did to provoke their concerted effort to have him crucified. I’ll examine this action in my next post.
One Jewish Perspective, Part 4
The “Crime” of Jesus
My last post in this series focused on the reasons why some Jewish leaders in Jerusalem believed that it was necessary for Jesus to die. The bottom line? He was a threat to their conception of faith and national life, indeed, to the very existence of the Jewish people. If left unchecked, Jesus would either pervert the Jewish nation with his peculiar notions of the kingdom of God, or he would bring down the wrath of Rome upon Judea, leading to its destruction. Either way, Jesus needed to be taken out of the game – permanently.
The concerns of the Jewish leaders, however pressing they might have been, would probably not have been enough to bring about Jesus’ execution except for something Jesus himself did, something shocking, unexpected, and utterly unacceptable from the perspective of the Jewish leaders. I’m speaking of his activity in the temple, that which Christians call “the cleansing of the temple.” Here’s Mark’s account of this scandalous action:
Then they came to Jerusalem. And he entered the temple and began to drive out those who were selling and those who were buying in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the moneychangers and the seats of those who sold doves; and he would not allow anyone to carry anything through the temple. He was teaching and saying, “Is it not written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations’? But you have made it a den of robbers.” (Mark 11:15-17)
How did the Jewish leaders respond to Jesus’ action? “And when the chief priests and the scribes heard it, they kept looking for a way to kill him” (Mark 11:18).
Why was Jesus’ behavior in the temple worthy of death?
First of all, he was suggesting that the current state of the temple was unacceptable and that the temple leadership – the chief priests – were unworthy of respect. They were like a bunch of robbers.
Model of the temple in Jerusalem. Photo with permission of holylandphotos.org.
Second, Jesus actually prohibited the crucial function of the temple: the offering of sacrifices. From the point of view of the priests, he was keeping the Jewish people from worshipping God in the way God had prescribed – a serious if not a capital offense.
Third, Jesus’ activity in the temple was consistent with his earlier actions, whereby he implied that the temple was no longer necessary. If Jesus himself could forgive sins (Mark 2:1-12), then why bother with the temple? Thus Jesus was saying to a temple-centered religion: The very center of your relationship with God is wrong. Such a critique would not be taken lightly by those who embraced a temple-centered Judaism.
But it wasn’t only what Jesus did in the temple that provoked a negative response from the leaders, but also what he said. You see, by referring to the temple as a “den of robbers,” Jesus was doing far more than insulting the chief priests. He was actually quoting from the prophet Jeremiah. In Jeremiah 7, the prophet condemned the tendency of Israel to put their faith in the existence of the temple. Many in Jeremiah’s day believed that they could do all sorts of evil deeds without fear of punishment because God’s temple was in their midst. The temple was their spiritual safety net, so to speak. But God was neither fooled nor pleased. So, through Jeremiah the Lord prophesied,
Here you are, trusting in deceptive words to no avail. Will you steal, murder, commit adultery, swear falsely, make offerings to Baal, and go after other gods that you have not known, and then come and stand before me in this house, which is called by my name, and say, “We are safe!” – only to go on doing all these abominations? Has this house, which is called by my name, become a den of robbers in your sight? . . . And now, because you have done all these things, says the LORD, . . . therefore I will do to the house that is called by my name . . . just what I did to Shiloh. (Jer 7:8-14)
And what did the Lord do to Shiloh? He destroyed it and the tabernacle it once housed (Psalm 78:60).
In the day of Jeremiah, the people had turned the temple into a “den of robbers,” a place of supposed safety for those who did evil deeds out in the world. For this reason, God promised to destroy the temple, which he did in 586 B.C. Similarly, by quoting from Jeremiah 7 as he overturned the tables in the temple, Jesus implied that the same judgment applied in his day. Those who took refuge in the temple could not presume to be safe. God was about to destroy the temple because of the sin of the people, even as he had done to Shiloh and to the first temple in Jerusalem.
Thus Jesus’ action in the temple, combined with his words, not only insulted and upset the chief priests, but also conveyed God’s judgment upon the temple itself. This crime against the temple could not be tolerated, as far as its leaders were concerned. Jesus, the blasphemous criminal, deserved, not only to be silenced, but also to die. In my next post I’ll examine two fascinating parallels that will help us to see that the Jewish leaders who condemned Jesus were acting in ways fully consistent with their predecessors and successors. Right or wrong, they were doing exactly what Jewish leaders in their position had done and would do again. They thought they were defending God’s temple and, indeed, God himself.
One Jewish Perspective, Part 5
Jewish Leaders Respond to Offenses Against the Temple
In my last post, I suggested that one of the major causes of Jesus’ death was his “cleansing” of the temple. By interrupting the sacrificial system and by quoting Jeremiah’s own condemnation of the temple, Jesus was threatening the very core of Judaism in his day. In the perspective of the Jewish leaders, this would have been blasphemy – speaking against God himself.
For those whose experience and viewpoint is far removed from that of the Jewish leaders in Jerusalem, it may seem that their intended punishment simply doesn’t fit the crime. But, if we look for historical parallels, we find two incidents in which other leaders acted much as did Caiaphas and his associates when dealing with Jesus.
Rembrandt van Rijn, "Jeremiah Lamenting the Destruction of Jerusalam," 1630
The first example comes from the ministry of Jeremiah, some 600 years before Jesus. The Lord told Jeremiah to stand in the Jerusalem temple and speak the following:
“If you will not listen to me, to walk in my law that I have set before you, and to heed the words of my servants the prophets whom I send to you urgently – though you have not heeded – then I will make this house like Shiloh, and I will make this city a curse for all the nations of the earth” (Jeremiah 26:4-6).
What response did this prophecy spark in the Jewish leaders and others? Sorrow? Repentance? Hardly! In fact, here’s what happened:
And when Jeremiah had finished speaking all that the LORD had commanded him to speak to all the people, then the priests and the prophets and all the people laid hold of him, saying, “You shall die!” (Jeremiah 26:8)
There it is, the same pattern we see in the last days of Jesus: Speak judgment on the temple and the leaders will believe that you need to die. In the case of Jeremiah, however, he insisted that he was only passing on God’s own message, so the people spared his life (Jer 26:12-16).
Now jump forward in history more than six centuries, to an incident that occurred about thirty years after the death of Jesus. Curiously enough, this incident involved another man named Jesus, son of Ananus (Hananiah), who came to Jerusalem during a feast an began to cry out “against Jerusalem and the holy house.” According to the Jewish historian Josephus, Jesus’ persistent proclamation of judgment on the temple and city offended “certain of the most eminent among the populace,” which is to say, the leaders of Jerusalem. So, at first they beat Jesus severely. But when this didn’t shut him up, they brought Jesus to the Roman procurator “where he was whipped [flogged] till his bones were laid bare.” When even this didn’t silence Jesus, the procurator dismissed this Jesus as a madman and a nuisance. (The story of this Jesus can be found in Josephus’s Jewish War, 6.5.3.)
In this case of Jesus ben Hananiah, the Jewish leaders seem not to have pressed for his crucifixion. Of course, this Jesus didn’t pose the same threat as Jesus of Nazareth once did, nor did he do anything resembling the cleansing of the temple. Yet, merely by proclaiming God’s judgment on the temple, Jesus son of Ananus earned several beatings, including what must have been an almost fatal Roman flogging. And, like Jesus of Nazareth, the Jewish leaders dealt with him, first on their own and then by handing him over to the Roman governor.
The experiences of Jeremiah and Jesus ben Hananiah, though different in detail and time period, nevertheless illustrate how Jewish leaders were apt to deal with those who spoke against the temple. They were worthy of severe punishment, if not death. And when the Jewish leaders no longer had the authority to execute someone, they would turn him over to the Roman governor. Thus the actions of Caiaphas and his associates in response to the problem of Jesus of Nazareth reflect the same commitments and tendencies of similar leaders in similar positions. This greatly increases the likelihood that the historical scenario I have been proposing with respect to Jesus of Nazareth is, in fact, accurate.
In my next post I’ll sum up what we have learned about “one” Jewish perspective on the necessity of Jesus’ death.
One Jewish Perspective, Part 6
Summing Up One Jewish Perspective
In the last five posts I’ve been examining “one” Jewish perspective on the necessity of Jesus’ death. Let me briefly summarize my findings, adding some observations along the way.
1. It’s more accurate to speak of “one” Jewish perspective on the necessity of Jesus’ death than to speak of “the” Jewish perspective because not all Jews agreed with the viewpoint of those who conspired to have Jesus crucified. Only a tiny percentage of Jews in Jerusalem were actually involved in the effort to persuade Pilate to execute Jesus. Moreover, the New Testament Gospels attest to the widespread popularity of Jesus among his Jewish contemporaries. “A great number” of those in Jerusalem at the time of Jesus’ death were horrified by what had happened to him (Luke 23:27). Thus, if anything, the numerically dominant Jewish perspective would have supported Jesus. But those who held power in Jerusalem we able to do what the masses would not have wanted.
2. Some of the leading Jews in Jerusalem, including Caiaphas, the High Priest, sought to have Jesus crucified. Evidence for this comes not only from all four New Testament Gospels, but also from the Jewish historian Josephus.
3. The Jewish leaders who sought to have Jesus crucified believed that his death was necessary for the following reasons:
a. By stirring up the people, Jesus was threatening the peace and life of the Jewish people, thus increasing the likelihood that Rome would destroy both Jerusalem and the temple. The death of Jesus would be preferable to the destruction of the nation.
b. Jesus “seduced Israel and led them astray from God” (Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin 43a). His message and ministry lessened the people’s commitment to living out their Judaism in the way approved of by the Jewish leaders (priests, Pharisees).
c. Jesus interrupted the orderly system of sacrifices in the Jerusalem temple, speaking against the temple and its leaders, thus opposing not only the core of Judaism, but God himself. Jesus’ quotation from Jeremiah 7 (“den of robbers”) combined with other things he had said during his ministry clarified his condemnation of the temple – a blasphemous offense. Moreover, he insisted that God was on his side, thus adding blasphemy to blasphemy.
d. Jesus presented himself as the Messiah, the one anointed by God to bring divine salvation to Israel. But he failed to do what the Messiah was supposed to do, notably, lead a successful revolt against Rome. Instead, Jesus turned his judgment against God’s own temple. Thus Jesus was a false messiah. This fact alone might not have warranted his crucifixion. But, when combined with his other offenses, his false claim to messiahship increased further the chances that his actions would bring devastation upon Judea.
4. The efforts of Jewish leaders to silence Jesus by physical violence were consistent with what other Jewish leaders did in similar situations (vs. the prophet Jeremiah in Jer 26 and vs. Jesus ben Hananiah in Josephus, Jewish War, 6.5.3). This consistency greatly increases the probability that the Gospel accounts accurately portray the role of Jewish leaders. Caiaphas and company did exactly what Jewish leaders in their position thought they had to do when someone insulted or threatened the temple.
Implications for the Current Debate
Given this picture of “one” Jewish perspective on the necessity of Jesus’ death, I want to draw out two implications.
First, it is historically irresponsible to say, “The Jews killed Christ.” Yes, I’m aware that the Gospel of John uses “the Jews” in a way that seems to lay blame for Jesus’ death upon “the Jews.” But, when read in context, “the Jews” means “some Jewish leaders.” Ultimate and legal blame for Jesus’ death fell upon the shoulders of Pontius Pilate, no matter how he might have tried to wriggle out of it. Moreover, many, and quite probably the vast majority of Jews in the time of Jesus, did not want him killed, and were horrified when it happened. Given the tragic history of Christian anti-Semitism, we Christians must speak carefully and accurately about Jewish involvement in his death. The truth: some influential Jews believed Jesus had to die and sought to convince Pilate to crucify him.
Second, it is historically irresponsible to deny all Jewish involvement in the death of Jesus. Some scholars, no doubt responding to the horrors of anti-Semitism, have applied their critical scalpels to the New Testament records, cutting from them any implication of Jewish complicity in the death of Jesus. In their surgery, however, they bleed historical probability to death. In fact two ancient Jewish sources, Josephus and the Talmud, indicate that some Jews were involved in the death of Jesus and help us to understand why they would have been. Plus, the picture of Caiaphas and his associates in the Gospels makes historical and logical sense. These leaders were protecting that which they believed to be essential, including both the temple and their own civic/religious position. The actions of other leaders in similar situations confirm the conclusion that the New Testament Gospels paint an historical reliable picture of Jewish involvement in the death of Jesus.
Finally, there was another Jewish perspective on the necessity of Jesus’ death, a perspective I haven’t yet mentioned. It was the most important Jewish perspective of all, that of Jesus himself. To the question of why Jesus believed he had to die I’ll turn in my next post in this series.
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posted June 11, 2007 at 4:47 am
I did a little fact-checking of my own.
I read the three accounts of Peter’s denial which you cited, in Matthew, Mark, and Luke. And then I read John’s account in chapter 18, from about John 18:15 to John 18:27.
While there are great similarities among all four accounts, there are also several divergences.
I would not characterize the greatest discrepancy to be the cock crowing once or twice. I would say the greatest discrepancy is the way John places Peter’s three denials at different parts of the narrative from Matthew (and the other two evangelists as well).
Since John’s story is the most divergent of the four, I would say you committed a significant error by not even mentioning John’s version in your post today.
Mr. Hitchens’ error is, at most, one of misinterpretation. He is asserting the existence of “wild” disagreement where one could dispute such a characterization. Your error of omission regarding John’s account of Peter’s denial would appear prima facie to be more serious than Hitchens’. You left out the most divergent version of the episode out of all four versions.
Moreover, using your standard of courtroom testimony as a reflection of eyewitness accuracy and reliability, there are in fact significant and irreconciliable differences among the four gospel accounts of Peter’s denial of Jesus. Certainly enough to reject the mutual coherence of the gospels on the level of eyewitness testimony: someone is wrong about Peter’s sequence of actions that evening, they can’t all be correct.
Indeed, it actually looks like, from simple logical analysis, at least two or three of the gospel writers have to be wrong about some of the details of Peter’s words and whereabouts.
Inasmuch as you make a big deal out of the fifteen errors in 6% of the pages of Hitchens’ book, I imagine you are probably chagrined and disappointed that you appear to have committed at least as serious an error yourself.
I don’t know if your error rate is closer to 1 out of 15 or 15 out of 15 in your series on Hitchens’ mistakes, because I only checked this one item. But since your error seems to be greater than the one Hitchens himself made, and since you are the one putting yourself forward as meeting a higher standard, even a 1 in 15 error rate seems hard to justify.
Please note that I am not saying the discrepancies in the gospel accounts of Peter denials are material in the sense of contradicting the main point: Peter denies knowing Jesus three times before the cock crows once or a couple of times. There is perfect agreement on this main point.
The only discrepancies are on the level of eyewitness testimony: who, what, where, when, how, and in what order. For the purposes of religious faith and understanding, this lack of eyewitness consistency is not very meaningful perhaps. It is not an indictment per se of the reliability of the gospels.
But the discrepancies are real and would seem to contradict the points you are making about Hitchens: that he makes mistakes that you would not countenance in your own work; and that his alleged exaggerations are not only open to dispute, but are tendentious to the point of being unreasonable.
posted June 11, 2007 at 6:08 am
Dr. Roberts:
Could you please explain to us why that ALL of the disciples of Jesus were martyred, as well as Paul. If they really made the whole thing up, as Mr. Hitchins has asserted, then why didn’t they save themselves and simply apostasize? Why die for a cause you know is a sham since you created the sham. I know this is not an argument for the authenticity of the Gospels, but it does seem very persuasive nevetheless.
posted June 11, 2007 at 8:18 am
To David Kleykamp
James the brother of John, Peter, and James the brother of Jesus (who was also a witness to Jesus’s resurrection according to Paul) were certainly martyred. John the brother of James, was almost certainly not martyred but died of old age in the reign of Trajan. As to the other disciples, the stories of their martyrdom are ancient but not close enough to their deaths for us to be certain that they are true. Many of these stories tell of executions outside the Roman Empire (in India for Thomas, for example). Not knowing the circumstances, we can’t be sure that apostasy would have saved their lives.
So your point is a good one, but overstated.
posted June 11, 2007 at 10:49 am
I think by “mythical,” Hitchens refers not to the mystical or supernatural events (miracles, etc.), but rather the major elements of the “Jesus myth.” In this context, “myth” does not mean a story that is untrue, so much as a story which may or may not be true, but carries a larger spiritual significance for believers.
Thus, while the question of what Jesus did throughout his teens and twenties might be of interest, it does not form a part of the “mythology.”
posted June 11, 2007 at 11:36 am
David makes a good point. Why die for a sham? In the modern day world something like 200 million Christians are at risk of losing their lives for the Gospel. Why do they risk it all, if the Gospel is a sham?
Hitchens is just so full of himself. I can’t take him seriously anymore.
posted June 11, 2007 at 11:53 am
Thoroughly enjoyed the intellectual and spiritual standing.
Why not a regular debate with Christopher Hitchens, Hugh Hewitt as moderator, on his radio program?
posted June 11, 2007 at 12:05 pm
Dying as martyrs for a sham is not unknown, even in modern times. Think Nazism and Communism as two horrible examples.
Also, I believe that your estimate of the amount of Christians in the modern-day world is off by an order of magnitude.
Those quibbles aside, I think it of interest to note that both Christianity and Judaism survived more rocky times than most.
posted June 11, 2007 at 12:24 pm
“Dying as martyrs for a sham is not unknown, even in modern times. Think Nazism and Communism as two horrible examples.”
But… Dying for a sham that you KNOW is a sham is unkown.
In the case of the Nazi’s and Communist, they were true believers in the cause.
In the case of the early Apostles, they would know it was a shame and choose to be crucified upside down anyway.
posted June 11, 2007 at 12:56 pm
When the dust has all settled, Hitchens’ complaint against “religion” need to be broken into two parts: Non-Christian “Religion” and Christian “religion.”
The reason for that is that whenever some institutional evil is laid at the feet of Christianity, the actors in question had to trample over the express teachings of Jesus in order to do it. Jesus never once called for his followers to kill or even harm others, for the sake of the faith or any other particular reason. I won’t try to answer for other religions, but that is Right Out with Christianity. Jesus continually affirmed to His followers that He had come to save, not to condemn, and that His goal was that everyone would attain everlasting life.
Specific to Christianity, Hitchens’ charges can likewise be broken into two general groupings: 1) Complaints that an “Almighty” diety has not acted in accordance with Hitchens’ expectations of what an “Almighty” diety should/could do and 2) Opinions or other contested data or theories expressed as irrefutable fact.
In the first group falls things such as Hitchens sneering that the “Q” document is lost to history, which is “careless” on the part of “the god who is claimed to have ‘inspired’ it.” In other words, an “Almighty” diety would never have let that happen, ergo, clearly there is no “God.” He is certainly not alone in this, but it begs the question in order to be dispositive. It assumes that human beings have sufficient 1) data and 2) mental facilities to completely comprehend and analyze an infinite being, and that if something does not fit with our analysis, it excludes the possibility of such a being. The converse, however, would be that it is quite possible that given our limitations, a particular action by a being unlimited by time, space and a mere five senses might not be comprehensible to us, even as our actions might befuddle a lizard. But here is the point: I don’t beg the question in the other direction and claim that all matters are irrefutably settled. ie, we can’t understand diety, so push your child into the volcano and stop asking questions. Hitchens’ objections in this regard are not invalid, but they are simply not so dispositive as to refute any contrary thought.
In the second category, Hitchens will assert that “many a life was horribly lost on the proposition” as to which of the Gospels should be regarded as divinely inspired. How does one disprove a false assertion like that? The scope of history shows no conflict resulting in the loss of life regarding this issue. So the “debate” comes down to “Yes, there was,” “No, there wasn’t,” “Yes, there was” with no letup in sight. So if I say, “Thousands of people lost their lives as a result of the Teapot Dome Scandal,” only a student of American history would know the silliness of the assertion off the top of their heads. For anyone else, how to “prove” there wasn’t amounts to making them read volumes of history to note it is NOT there.
Many of Hitchens’ assertions are certainly evidence for his viewpoint, but they simply don’t cut off debate by being “irrefutable.” Let
me give an example in the other direction. IF Jesus indeed rose from the dead, then that would give credence to His divinity and His teachings. But would it be irrefutable? Some might disagree even there. But if I started with the assertion that Jesus HAS risen from the dead as an irrefutable historic fact and proceeded to argue based on that “irrefutable” proposition, I would be commiting the same error that Hitchens does in so many instances. Reasonable minds can differ over many things, but as I have said before, it comes down to formulating a theory that cannot be scientifically or mathematically “proven” beyond doubt. It is “Faith” one direction or another. Hitchens has viewed the evidence he has and has Faith in “non-Faith.” It is not beyond dispute any more than my belief that Jesus did indeed rise from the dead. I accept this, but Hitchens wants to act as though there is no dispute possible to his worldview, which is silly.
I might add a related note that Hitchens raises the bar for historic attestation regarding Biblical events to heights I do not think he requires for other historic events that he does not contest. For example, on the radio he scoffed at the Gospel account of an earthquake at the Crucifixion and the resurrection of some folks from their graves and being seen in Jerusalem subsequently. Since there is no extra-Biblical attestion to these events, Hitchens rather huffily dismissed any possibility of their being true. Which is fine until attestation of Shakespeare entered the scene, and then such stringent standards went by the boards. Hitchens sees no doubt that all the works of Shakespeare were “written by the same person, whoever that may be,” but did not seem to really have a problem with attributing the works to Shakespeare. Juxtaposed with Hitchens’ assertion (paraphrasing) that the evidence for the historic person of Jesus to be virtually non-existent so as to call Jesus’ existence into serious doubt, it is clear that Hitchens is imposing a far higher standard of history. He justifies this by insisting that the stakes are higher with a claim to diety, which seems logical until you realize that you can continue raising the bar until you are requiring personal appearances and miracles by God before you will accept anything “since the stakes are so high.” At that point you are simply unhappy that Faith is Faith as opposed to Irrefutable Continuing Evidence. That is certainly an objection, but it is quite far afield from the “no historic evidence” that Hitchens reached by re-defining what constitutes evidence whenever the topic is Jesus.
Hitchens has really hurt his “cause” when he cites non-existent events as “fact” or contested issues as being no contest in his favor. One can certainly view the evidence Hitchens has and come to his conclusions, but it is just silly to assert that no other conclusions are even possible, which is the nub of his end of the “debate.”
posted June 11, 2007 at 1:24 pm
This is great stuff!! I wonder if anyone is debating the positives and negatives of Mohammed and Islam anywhere in the middle east or Westen Europe right now.
Maybe that should be Mr. Hitchens’ next book…oh wait, I forgot. He’d be decapitated by the practitioners of Islam wouldn’t he? Hmmm….my guess is he won’t be writing any critical analyses about Islam then.
posted June 11, 2007 at 2:05 pm
Natrium, the point is not that people can die for something that is ultimately untrue but rather why would so many die for something the knew to be untrue because they had made it up.
This is entirely different from simply not knowing any “better” and greatly undermines the modernist notion that the early Christians invented Christianity simply as a means to achieve power.
posted June 11, 2007 at 2:12 pm
Why not a regular debate with Christopher Hitchens, Hugh Hewitt as moderator, on his radio program?
I don’t think there would be much to debate anymore after this house-cleaning. It really boils don’t to one person’s choice to live a challenged life. Being atheist is much easier in the short run since hard evidence of God does not exist as science would like it. Typically that evidence is in a very personal witness that can’t be handed out. We can lead a horse to the water, but you can’t make it drink.
All in all, a very good discussion that was very well handled.
posted June 11, 2007 at 2:15 pm
don’t … should be down
posted June 11, 2007 at 6:34 pm
hitchens is full of hitchens. There is a verse in Romans chapter one that says professing to be wise they became fools. I would rather trust the acient book the bible than hitchens foolish writinhs.
posted June 11, 2007 at 6:35 pm
hitchens is full of hitchens. There is a verse in Romans chapter one that says professing to be wise they became fools. I would rather trust the acient book the bible than hitchen’s foolish writings.
posted June 11, 2007 at 8:10 pm
Before I became a Christian, I found Jesus’s teachings “garbled and contradictory.” Now when I read scripture with faith, much is revealed that was hidden before. This is the strongest proof I have for the truth of the gospel, though it is ineffective to convince a skeptic.
posted June 11, 2007 at 8:16 pm
Hitchens is a bright and clever guy. On those things where he’s expert, I consider him top-rate. But he does have a severe problem with religion. Maybe he was frightened by an Abbot while young.
As for Islam, to him, it’s just another human foolishness:
http://www.slate.com/id/2135499/
“I went on Crossfire at one point, to debate some spokesman for outraged faith, and said that we on our side would happily debate the propriety of using holy writ for literary and artistic purposes. But that we would not exchange a word until the person on the other side of the podium had put away his gun. (The menacing Muslim bigmouth on the other side refused to forswear state-sponsored suborning of assassination, and was of course backed up by the Catholic bigot Pat Buchanan.)”
Whatever else he may be, he’s never dull, and only fools and angels should consider bebating him. About anything.
posted June 11, 2007 at 9:33 pm
“Natrium, the point is not that people can die for something that is ultimately untrue but rather why would so many die for something the knew to be untrue because they had made it up.”
Joseph Smith died for his beliefs. Did he know that he had made it up?
posted June 11, 2007 at 11:19 pm
I listened to Hitch v. Roberts once at Hewitt’s site. I haven’t read Hitch’s book. I’m an agnostic.
Roberts’s arguments here seem so crazy teeny to Hitch’s point that “Great claims require great evidence.” Our universe is 150 billion light years wide, there’s a billion billion billion stars the size of our sun in the thing, and…let’s suppress our smug atheist smiles here… Roberts feels he has a proof of a god that created that by arguing whether Hitchens got the evidence on a Roman census correct? Or a sermon on a mount is similar to sermon on a plain?
Roberts is arguing about a gnat’s eyelash, and Hitch is standing on Everest. Or Hitch has the sunrise and Roberts is trying to blind him with a dim penlight. Whatever the comparison.
posted June 11, 2007 at 11:43 pm
Robert, the point is that the disciples had to know if the life of Jesus and the resurrection were true or false. They knew him. Hitchens incredibly believes that Jesus never existed and then these followers who KNEW he didn’t exist each died horrible deaths for professing that not only did he live but that he was resurrected from the dead. People will did for a lie they believe to be true but will not – ever in history – die for a lie they know to be a lie. Joseph Smith was killed in a jail by a mob. That is not remotely relevant.
posted June 12, 2007 at 12:08 am
“Joseph Smith died for his beliefs. Did he know that he had made it up?”
Joseph Smith didn’t die for his beliefs, he was killed trying not to die for his beliefs. In fact, he shot several people in self-defense.
I believe he did know he made it all up, that’s why he fought so hard because he had a harem and lots of adoring followers waiting for him in this life.
posted June 12, 2007 at 12:08 am
I haven’t read Hitchens’ book nor all of the comments to these posts, but it appears that Hitchens frequently makes pronouncements regrading the “morality” of this or that action, opinion, etc. I know he did this on Hugh’s show and was surprised when he wasn’t called on it. Does Hitchens, in his book, explain the basis for his judgments? That is, with reference to what authority does he judge some of Jesus’ teachings “immoral”. Or is “morality” something he intuits?
posted June 12, 2007 at 4:27 am
Re. 6 Shane
Hitchens has criticized Islam many times not only in print but also in public speeches. And let’s not forget that for many years he hid his friend Salman Rushdie. Hitchens may be many things, but he is not a coward.
posted June 12, 2007 at 10:50 am
Thanks Ted for giving us some insights. I think you are probably right. I’m not keeping score though.
Indeed, I suspect the “Great God Debate” was argued once before in the head of the German theologian Rudolph Bultmann. Wasn’t he the one who created form criticism and led efforts to demythologize the Bible? I am only a novice, but I suspect that arguments over the minutiae of the New Testament are not going to be very satisfying — except to those who like to count the score by enumerating the hits, runs, and strikeouts.
For believers, religion is there because of a real and palpable spiritual hunger. Some people feel it, others do not. Mr. Hitchens finds that secular humanism fills that spiritual hunger. I look into my daughter’s eyes and think there is something more going on in Life.
posted June 12, 2007 at 12:25 pm
.19 Bobolink: As I have noted elsewhere, I do not have a problem as such with the notion that “Great claims require great evidence.” Where I take issue with Hitchens over it is that he raises the standard as to what can count as proof whenever the topic is Jesus.
It is claimed that Alexander the Great conquered most of the known world… but the earliest biographies that we have of him were written around 300 years after the fact. Hitchens gets antsy over the first Gospel appearing 30 to 40 years after the fact. (You have to leave off that Paul sets out the story of Jesus’ death and resurrection in his letters, which probably date about 20 years after the fact.) If you applied Hitchens’ dictum, we would have to reject any notion of Alexander the Great, based on the great claims of his conquests… but we don’t.
Reasonable minds can differ, and any conclusion will unprovable in a laboratory, but Hitchens has simply made the standards for proof impossible to satisfy only in this area. That does not “prove” him wrong, it simply suggests to me that his methodology is inconsistent and flawed, and will like have flawed conclusions.
posted June 12, 2007 at 5:29 pm
â??Joseph Smith died for his beliefs. Did he know that he had made it up?â?
Joseph Smith didnâ??t die for his beliefs, he was killed trying not to die for his beliefs. In fact, he shot several people in self-defense.
I believe he did know he made it all up, thatâ??s why he fought so hard because he had a harem and lots of adoring followers waiting for him in this life.
—
Thank you Tim, I’ve no idea who Joseph Smith was. I imagine it is also quite possible that Smith was delusional, a charge far harder to sustain when faced with a larger group of people who scattered in fear when Christ was arrested only to later submit to execution because of their beliefs.
Ask yourself what kind of event could lead them all to have such a dramatic change of heart? Why would St. Peter not simply deny any knowledge of Christ as he had done before?
posted June 13, 2007 at 9:30 am
Weeble, Joseph Smith was the founder of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (Mormon). If one were to read contemporary accounts of those who knew Joseph Smith, he does not come across as a delusional fellow. But he does come across as someone with a whole lot to live for, namely a harem, adoring followers, etc.
I assume your question regarding St. Peter was rhetorical?
posted June 13, 2007 at 1:53 pm
What I find remarkable about Mr. Hitchen’s blind faith in his secular humanistic leftism is how he seems more than willing to manipulate terms to justify his own fallible historical narrative. For instance, if atheist governments murder its own people in pogroms, that makes them “religious” since only “religious regimes” kill people! Makes complete, circular sense, doesn’t it?
For instance, Mr. Hitchens makes no distinctions between what Jesus and primitive Christianity taught with respect to living peaceably with ones neighbors where possible and to obey Caesar by giving to Caesar what’s Caesar’s and giving to God what’s God’s and how some rulers have cloaked their self-interested powergrab in religious (read: Christian) rhetoric in order to legitimize their despotism.
That is, in the terrestrial sphere Christians are to give obedience to legitimate ruling authorities because they are “ministers of God” (Romans 13) who cause fear in the unrighteous but not the righteous. But just as assuredly we are informed in those same words (okay, it’s strongly implied by reverse example) that those governments which do cause fear in the righteous citizen (law abiders) are illegitimate usurpers of power which God will humble and destroy. In either case the Christian is to save their ultimate allegiance for God, not for the State. Likewise, having the moral law of God written on their hearts Christians should normally gravitate toward obeying Caesar in terrestrial matters – paying taxes, obey the laws of the land, giving limited fealty to law-and-order government, etc.
That said, when Mr. Hitchens rails about the “evils of religion” like the various Catholic Crusades against Muslim predations, the various pogroms like the Spanish Inquisitions (which were often commissioned by secular authorities trying to maintain order in their respective societies – often creating a State-Church abomination), or any people being killed in the generic name of religion … when applying those standards of guilt-by-association Mr. Hitchens conveniently blinds himself to the utter ruthlessness of atheist humanist regimes that have murdered nearly 200 million innocent civilians in just the last 100 years.
His answer: When secular atheist regimes engage in such death and mayhem, by definition they become “religious”! If that isn’t intellectual dishonesty I don’t know what is. But Mr. Hitchens does establish one truth at the expense of another arguing in this circular manner, atheism itself is a statement and view about God and is in fact practiced as an irreligious religion by a good number of people … like Lenin, Stalin, Pol Pot, Ho Chi Ming, and other secular/atheist despots. R.J. Rummel’s “Death By Government” (http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/20TH.HTM) documents the evils of secular/atheist governments that make even Islamofascists seem like pikers when it comes to mass death in the name of government – secular or theocratic.
BTW, as to the pretentious argument that the various Gospel accounts are irreconcilable with reference to Peter’s denial of Jesus, one can only come to the conclusion if they are already predisposed toward the concept that there are indeed outright contradictions in Holy Writ. Simply because one account has the cock crowing once, another twice, and another three times is no contradiction at all. What would be a contradicition is if it were stated that a cock never crowed in the first place. If, for example, a Gospel account had stated that the cock crowed ONLY once and then came Peter’s denial, that would be a cause for concern. We must remember, these are PERSPECTIVES of the same event, so there will always be some “diversity” in how the accounts would be rendered and recorded. I would be willing to bet if the Gospel accounts were word-for-word, we’d be hearing from the skeptics how the Gospel writers merely copied one another or shamelessly plagiarized their accounts after attributing their renderings to having been inspired of God. You see, Christians can’t win either way because of the implacable skeptical “arguments” which have evolved to blunt the authority of the Gospel of Christ.
Allow me to clarify other so-called “contradictions” in Holy Writ. One such example occurs when one Gospel account claims Jesus went UP the mountain to preach, another Gospel account also claims that Jesus came DOWN the mountain to preach. Though it may be legitimate to claim that Jesus preached the same kind of message many different times and maybe the gospel authors Matthew, Mark, Luke and John were referencing different preaching sessions, it’s probably actually the case of perspective. The New Testament on several occasions mentions the practice of Jesus going UP the mountain to pray before preaching. So one witness or disciple would see that as Jesus going UP to preach whereas another would see it from a different perspective of Jesus literally coming DOWN to preach … both are absolutely right and adds to the texture and tapestry of our historical understanding. There are more examples I would be glad to share which at first blush appear to be “contradictions” but are really a question of reconcilable perspectives which are absolutely true to the historical observer at that time.
posted June 13, 2007 at 2:38 pm
Hmmmm … as a matter of clarification. Even if a Gospel account doesn’t mention the cock crowing, this omission does not create a “contradiction.” One assumes the eyewitness did not find a cock crowing relevant to Peter’s mendacious and cowardly actions in denying Christ.
I was once told by a very wise and humble Christian man, “If a person is looking for error, they will invariably manufacture an error to keep the winds of that competing system of thought from causing their own house of cards to fall. Look for truth with all your mind, seek for wisdom with all your heart and Almighty God will see to it that you find it.”
The Apostle Paul remonstrated, “Examine EVERYTHING carefully, but hold fast to that which is good.” This is not a call to being “open-minded”, the kind of open-mindedness which makes your brains fall out, but rather being “fair-minded.” Examining everything carefully, be fair and balanced. Most of the criticisms of Christianity or the Bible is the result of people with ideological axes to grind. I know, I used to be one of those people thirty some odd years ago. I was a practical atheist, ardent evolutionist, finder of biblical contradictions, a proud American nihilist … I WAS MY OWN GOD! I subsequently found out how wrong I was … and thank God I did.
posted June 14, 2007 at 4:01 pm
re dying for a sham you know is a sham
1. Jim Jones, christian cult
2. Saddam Hussein and WMD
in both cases they got in too deep to get out of thier own lies, there are many other cases, mostly cults of one sort or another, many innocent followers also died
Hitchens never said Jesus didn’t exist, it’s the divinity he doesn’t buy, he believes a myth was built up around a real man, who really lived and DIED
there is plenty of contemporanius evidence of Alexander, coins, monuments, inscriptions
K
posted June 16, 2007 at 2:13 pm
posted June 19, 2007 at 11:17 am