(04-26-2021, 06:54 PM)Blue Bird Wrote: [ -> ]In the times of Jesus the people of Israel weren't allowed to kill (John 18:31) and therefore Jesus was handed over to the Romans.
(04-26-2021, 09:16 PM)Jason Wrote: [ -> ]The NT makes the claim that the Jews didn't have capital authority. ... It's a question to look into.
The gospel of John, which is not a good historical source, is actually ambiguous on this point. Contrary to Jn 18,31, see Jn 19,6:
Quote:When the chief priests and the [temple] police saw him, they shouted, “Crucify him! Crucify him!” Pilate said to them, “Take him yourselves and crucify him; I find no case against him.”
Jesus was most likely executed by Pilate for a seditious anti-Roman claim to be the 'King of the Judeans', a royal title which could only be granted by the Emperor and the Roman Senate. 'King of the Judeans' is nowhere else used in the Christian scriptures as a title for Jesus. Thus, it may be historical rather than a later Christian invention. If any members of the Jerusalem
sunedrion were also involved in bringing charges to Pilate against Jesus, they were no doubt acting in good faith, rightly believing that Jesus' political, anti-Roman claim was not only foolhardy but dangerous to the Jewish people. According to Josephus, the Romans instituted the role of the
sunedrion to be a local aristocratic replacement for dynasties, 'though at times they would only function as a body that limited a king's authority. Thus it was the natural role of a
sunedrion to oppose any royal (ie, messianic) claims.
Pilate normally resided in Caesarea, but came to Jerusalem with additional troops for the Passover crowds. When Pilate was not around, I would not be surprised if the Roman-established
sunedrion exercised their own Roman-appointed authority with greater freedom when Pilate was not around. There are those who argue that the Judean authorities otherwise retained the ordinary power of capital punishment, or at least exercised it, as they had previously* and reportedly would also do at later times.** I by no means deny Pilate’s decisive role in the crucifixion, but it seems Caiaphas ordinarily ruled in lock-step with the policies of Pilate, who in turn allowed Caiaphas more or less free reign to administer the temple as he saw fit during this period, yet always with the real threat of Roman imperial desecration.
*See Josephus,
Antiquities 13,380 (13,14,2) who claims that during the reign of Alexander Jannaeus (103-76 BCE), the Hasmonean king, ordered the crucifixion of 800 Pharisees, before whose eyes their wives and children were also executed.
**See the 3rd-century claim of Origen in his letter to Julius Africanus (§20).