Debunking a Myth
In the era of the Roman occupation of Palestine, there existed two Judaisms side by side. One was the ancient folk Judaism of the temple and animal sacrifices, anthropologically traceable back to Pharaoh's Egypt, where of course the children of Israel had spent many of the formative years of their religion. The other was the scholar's Judaism, the religion of the synagogue and prayer, that had arisen from the reformation of the Temple cult, started by the prophets eight hundred years earlier. When an obscure young Galilean man started his own, very localised preaching ministry, few folk took much notice. It was when Jesus decided to go to Jerusalem - which was surely essential if his political message was to carry any significant clout - that the authorities sat up and took notice. He was a liberal, preaching against all forms of injustice, in the tradition of the prophets. There was nothing unJewish in his ideas: he taught observance of the Mosaic law, compassion for the poor, tolerance and mercy.
Jerusalem, tense at the best of times, was, frankly, a ridiculous place for Jesus to go for Passover in the year 33 AD. The city was crowded with pilgrims. The Romans had just quelled a rebellion in the provinces, and rumours were rife that another would soon occur. The Essenes (the Dead Sea Sect, so called because they lived on the edges of the Dead Sea, and ritually dipped their members in it to cleanse them of their sins) had been preaching a doctrine of rebellion to the Jews. Pontius Pilate, the governor of Palestine (whose tyranny was so great that, as Josephus records, the emperor had to remove him from office a few years later) left his mistress in Caesarea on the north coast, and circled his armies around Jerusalem, awaiting whatever disorder would occur.
And Jesus of Nazareth, all four gospels record, was to kick-start the political unrest. Jesus, who was born in the genealogical line of many of the temple-reform prophets, was interested in temple reforms. He objected to two practices: the selling of sacrificial animals, and the handling of money on temple grounds. His reaction when he encountered these practices in the temple, was violent: Mark says that he "upset the tables" (11.15) whilst John records that he used a whip against the dove vendors (2.15). But this attack was in no way anti-Jewish, it was Jesus acting on behalf of his vein of Judaism.
It is hardly surprising, given the heated politics at the time, that the Romans arrested Jesus. Anyone familiar with Jewish judicial proceedings at the time will assure you that the Jews would never arrest anyone at night. It was illegal to hold Sanhedrin (high court) proceedings at night time. The Sanhedrin could not initiate an arrest. It could only meet in the Chamber of Hewn Stones, never in the palace of a high priest. So how do we explain the discrepancies of the gospels' accounts here? The gospels claim that the Jews arrested him. Perhaps some of the synagogue Pharisees (who followed the oral, rather than the written law and may have supported the reformation of the temple cult) arrested him to protect him from the Romans? This arrest though, was to no avail, and the Romans rearrested him and executed him in the usual Roman manner. (The Jews never crucified anyone - they practised stoning. Crucifixion was a Roman practice).
This Good Friday, Christians will mark and remember Jesus death in different ways. Catholics will be miserable. Evangelicals will be joyful. Whether or not Jesus' death had to occur is not the point of this article. My aim is to argue a simple historical point, and to persuade all who celebrate Easter to get their facts right. Christianity, in its intricacy, was born out of first century Judaism. As Jesus' mother Mary was a Jew, then Jesus himself was born of Judaism. It did not kill him.