Ossuary Mayhem Again

[merkavah12]

www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44347890/ns/technology_and_science-science/t/ancient-ossuary-may-reveal-home-caiaphas/?gt1=43001#.TmAYQI5r9xI

Now it's Caiaphas turn.

[joel]

Has the question of the James Ossuary been fully resolved? I know there's still some controversy over it, but I don't know enough to tell whether it's legitimately possible that it's authentic or if it's like the "controversy" over the Shroud of Turin.

[merkavah12]

Nah. On last call, the J.O has been debunked as a fake.

[sandwiches]

Caiaphas!

What should we make of him? Mel Gibson or Geza Vermes?

www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/3602602/Never-mind-what-Mel-Gibson-says-Caiaphas-was-innocent.html

Never mind what Mel Gibson says, Caiaphas was innocent
By Geza Vermes


Here we need to pause and reflect. Why did Caiaphas not order his henchmen to proceed with the stoning of Jesus? The first three Gospels overlook the question. Only John makes the Jews give Pilate a legal tutorial in which they claim to him that they are not authorised to carry out the death penalty. But was this, in fact, the case? There is, it is true, some evidence to show that the right to put a criminal to death was the exclusive privilege of the Roman governor. But there are arguments that appear even stronger suggesting quite otherwise.

There were, it seems, circumstances in which the Jews themselves could impose capital punishment without Rome's permission. Philo of Alexandria, an older contemporary of Jesus, attests that entry into the innermost area of the Temple was punishable by death without appeal. The Jewish historian Josephus (37-c100) and an inscription from the Temple also proclaim that any non-Jew, even a Roman citizen, risked his life if caught inside the sanctuary. In such cases, there was no need for the Roman governor's consent. We also learn from the Acts of the Apostles that when St Paul was summoned before the Sanhedrin (the supreme court in Jerusalem) on a capital charge, he was so afraid of being found guilty and put to death that he used the privilege of a Roman citizen to appeal to the emperor's tribunal.

From all this we can draw an important conclusion: the decision of Caiaphas to hand Jesus's case over to Pontius Pilate did not reflect his legal incapacity to execute him, but his unwillingness to do so. He was passing the buck - and the decision to crucify Jesus was Pilate's and Pilate's alone.

Is that true? E.g. the execution of James, brother of Jesus:


en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_the_Just#Death

According to a passage in Josephus's Antiquities of the Jews, (xx.9) "the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ, whose name was James" met his death after the death of the procurator Porcius Festus, yet before Lucceius Albinus took office (Antiquities 20,9) — which has thus been dated to 62. The High Priest Ananus ben Ananus took advantage of this lack of imperial oversight to assemble a Sanhedrin (although the correct translation of the Greek 'synhedion kriton' is 'a council of judges') who condemned James "on the charge of breaking the law," then had him executed by stoning. Josephus reports that Ananus' act was widely viewed as little more than judicial murder, and offended a number of "those who were considered the most fair-minded people in the City, and strict in their observance of the Law," who went as far as meeting Albinus as he entered the province to petition him about the matter. In response, King Agrippa replaced Ananus with Jesus, the son of Damneus.

Not that I prefer Gibson to Vermes. Just wondering about Vermes' argument here. What were Caiaphas' motives?

[James Hannam]

Hmm.

I've always felt the efforts to exonerate Caiphas are political correctness. The case against him is pretty strong, as Sandwiches has partly shown, but it has become unacceptable among left wing scholars to say so. The reason for this, of course, is it would appear to justify the historic persecution of the Jews. Obviously, it does nothing of the sort but no one said politics had to be logical.

Best wishes

James

[hawkinthesnow]

Caiaphas waqs a consummate politican. He had been appointed High Priest by the Romans, as had his predecessors. They had also removed a number of them from office too. Caiaphas was one of the longest serving of them, and maintained a working relationship with various Roman officials, including Pilate. His main job was to keep the peace in Jerusalem, maintain a buffer zone if you like between the general populace and the Romans.
Whether Caiaphas had the power to deal with Jesus or not we will never know. We don't know enough about the circumstances, and the New Testament records are sketchy and really cannot be used as a reliable historical source. What we do know is that it was the Romans and not the Jews who were responsible for the execution of Jesus. I suspect that Caiaphas did what he had to do to ensure that the fragile equilibrium between Jews and Romans was maintained. There is a tantalising verse in John's gospel, which has Caiaphas saying that it would be better for one man to die than for the nation to perish.
In the end though, it was Pilate, and Pilate alone, that was responsible for the death of Jesus.

[timoneill]

Sept 7, 2011 12:43:53 GMT James Hannam said:

Hmm.

I've always felt the efforts to exonerate Caiphas are political correctness. The case against him is pretty strong, as Sandwiches has partly shown, but it has become unacceptable among left wing scholars to say so. The reason for this, of course, is it would appear to justify the historic persecution of the Jews. Obviously, it does nothing of the sort but no one said politics had to be logical.

Ah, so it's "POLITICAL CORRECTNESS GONE MAD!!!" then? I must have missed these "left wing" attempts at "exonerating" Caiphas. All I've seen is solid scholarship noting the clear fact that the gospel accounts of the trial of Jesus have some obvious pseudo historical nonsense in them. The claim that the wicked Jewish leaders couldn't execute Jesus and so forced poor meek little unwilling Pilate to do so being the main one of them.

As the esteemed Professor Vermes notes, they could have just stoned Jesus if he was guilty of some kind of blasphemy. But they didn't. And nothing we know of Pilate fits the weak, reluctant figure we find in the gospels. What the gospel writers, following Mark, are clearly doing is trying to get around the awkward fact that their Jesus died the death of a rebel against Rome at the hands of the Roman prefect - not exactly great PR for their sect in the wake of the recent failed Jewish Revolt of 66-70 AD.

Noting that the Sadducees were not the sole "villains" of this story and that the gospels try (clumsily) to exonerate Pilate as much as possible is not "political correctness", it's the clear reading of the evidence and mainstream scholarship.

[endrefodstad]

Missed this one. The version Tim gives - the Gospels trying to whitewash the roman prefect's role in his (likely more casual) execution of a jewish rabble-rouser - was precicely the one I was taught, now close to 15 years ago, in my bachelor's degree courses on ancient history on the historical Jesus. Hardly PC.

[tolkein]

There's nothing implausible in the idea that the Jewish leadership didn't have the ius gladii (I think Sherwin-White is quite convincing here, and Josephus tells us that James was stoned when there was no Roman governor. Which rather implies the leadership couldn't generally use such tactics to get rid of political enemies). The Gospels may have tried to emphasise the Jewish leadership's role and minimise the Roman responsibility, but the general portrayal of the trial seems plausible - again see Sherwin-White. It doesn't prove it right or wrong, but the flavour is coherent and plausible.

[timoneill]

Sept 16, 2011 20:27:42 GMT tolkein said:

There's nothing implausible in the idea that the Jewish leadership didn't have the ius gladii

All the evidence indicates otherwise. Philo, Josephus and an inscription found in 1935 all clearly show that the Sadducees had the right to execute gentiles who entered the inner courts. Later Talmudic material details the rules by which the Sanhedrin held capital crimes in this period and the methods of execution used for each offence. The Sadduccess used the Temple guards as a police force in Jerusalem with Roman sanction and kept order in the city with the power to execute for a number of both civil and religious crimes. They had to get permission from the prefect to carry out executions, but the evidence that they could execute people is absolutely clear.

(I think Sherwin-White is quite convincing here, and Josephus tells us that James was stoned when there was no Roman governor. Which rather implies the leadership couldn't generally use such tactics to get rid of political enemies).

Not at all. It means that what Ananus did wrong was execute someone without getting Roman sanction first. The fact that he tried James and executed him at all shows that he considered this within his powers. It seems some political enemies of his tripped him up on the legal technicality that he shouldn't have done this until Lucceius Albinus had arrived from Rome to take up his post at Caesarea.

The Gospels may have tried to emphasise the Jewish leadership's role and minimise the Roman responsibility, but the general portrayal of the trial seems plausible - again see Sherwin-White. It doesn't prove it right or wrong, but the flavour is coherent and plausible.

Sorry, but Sherwin-White's analysis has been severely critiqued, especially by T.A. Burkill. I also have to say I'm dubious of the objectivity of a person who throughout his study refers to Jesus simply as "Christ". That the Sadducees had a role in the arrest and execution of Jesus is extremely likely, since it was in their interests to remove this rabble rouser, especially at festival time with the Roman prefect and several cohorts of troops sitting in the Fortress Antonia with itchy sword hands. But the way the gospels depict things is clearly a whitewash designed to shift the blame as far from Pilate as possible. This is highly implausible and the idea that the Jews couldn't execute Jesus (found only in gJohn anyway - always a dubious source) is clearly nonsense.

[sandwiches]

It was the Temple Guard which was sent to arrest Jesus. Would the Romans themselves have bothered or even (without Caiaphas) have been aware that Jesus was a threat to order? There were up to two and half million people in and around Jerusalem during Passover. To the Romans Jesus was another Jew.
Jesus, as the Gospel of John suggests may have been a reasonably frequent visitor to Jerusalem. Caiaphas knew Jesus was not an insurrectionist, which is why the followers of Jesus were not slaughtered. But Jesus by his actions in the Temple and possibly by making prophecies construed as threats to The Temple was a challenge to the authority of Caiaphas as well as a possible focus for excitable elements and a threat to order.
As Josephus says: “When Pilate, upon hearing him accused by men of the highest standing among us, had condemned him to be crucified, those who had in the first place come to love him did not give up their affection for him..” (Vermes himself defends the authenticity of the Jesus references in Josephus.).
Pilate – certainly a cruel and ruthless man - was something of a rubber stamp in the execution of Jesus. If there had been no Romans in Jerusalem at the time, would Caiaphas have hesitated to have Jesus killed? The death of James gives us a clue.

[timoneill]

Sept 16, 2011 21:39:56 GMT sandwiches said:

It was the Temple Guard which was sent to arrest Jesus.

So we're told. But that's reasonable anyway - it was their jurisdiction and it makes sense that the Sadducees would want to deal with the problem by finding and removing the ringleader rather than letting Pilate deal with things his way, since that often involved troops being set loose on crowds.

Would the Romans themselves have bothered or even (without Caiaphas) have been aware that Jesus was a threat to order?

If he was causing a ruckus in the Temple courts at Passover, yes. They were stationed in the fortress on the edge of the Temple compound and there to suppress precisely that kind of thing.

There were up to two and half million people in and around Jerusalem during Passover.

And 1.8 million people attended President Obama's inauguration. But if a small group of them got near the steps of the Capitol building and started chanting "Death to Obama" do you think security might notice them? And 2.5 million is an exagaeration of the crowd at Passover anyway.

To the Romans Jesus was another Jew.

Not if he'd just entered Jerusalem a Passover with even a small group declaring him to be Yahweh's Messiah. Nor if he was doing anything disruptive at all in the Temple. The Romans weren't morons.

Jesus, as the Gospel of John suggests may have been a reasonably frequent visitor to Jerusalem.

gJohn is at variance with the other gospels on that point and too late to be a reliable source anyway. Even if Jesus had been there before, it is obvious from all the gospels that there was something special about this visit. If he didn't consider it the climax of something or other, his followers did. And he got noticed.

Caiaphas knew Jesus was not an insurrectionist, which is why the followers of Jesus were not slaughtered.

What Caiaphus did or didn't think about Jesus is almost impossible to tell from the sources. What Caiaphus almost certainly did know was that Jesus was no friend of the Temple priesthood. The references to Jesus claiming he would tear down the Temple, the reported preaching about its destruction and Stephen's similar reference before his stoning all indicate that the Sadducees would have been happy to see Jesus removed.

But Jesus by his actions in the Temple and possibly by making prophecies construed as threats to The Temple was a challenge to the authority of Caiaphas as well as a possible focus for excitable elements and a threat to order.

Indeed - see above. But claiming to be or being claimed to be the Messiah was not an apolitical act, regardless of what kind of Messiah one claimed to be. Jesus was no friend to the priesthood, but that claim alone would have been enough to get him nailed up by the Romans. It's just that gMark and the other gospels have to dance around that rather awkward point for PR reasons.

As Josephus says: “When Pilate, upon hearing him accused by men of the highest standing among us, had condemned him to be crucified, those who had in the first place come to love him did not give up their affection for him..” (Vermes himself defends the authenticity of the Jesus references in Josephus.).
Pilate – certainly a cruel and ruthless man - was something of a rubber stamp in the execution of Jesus.

That's a highly peculiar reading of what Josephus says there. Caiaphus seems to have had several reasons to hand Jesus over to Pilate (i) to keep Pilate from acting in a more excessive manner and (ii) to get rid of an anti-Sadducee peasant rabble-rouser from the sticks. But Pilate didn't need Caiaphus' to crucify Jesus for claiming to be what the titulus on the cross said he claimed - King of the Jews. The Romans had a zero tolerance approach to that kind of thing.

This reluctance to accept what the evidence clearly indicates seems to be driven partly by a desire to defend the gospels' account but also by a still-current need to distance "gentle Jesus meek and mild" from the Jewish Yeshua of history. Jesus being executed for what was at least partly a political claim is too close to the historical bone for some.

[hawkinthesnow]

A study of the layout of the Temple is instructive. The Roman soldiers were based in the Fort of Antonia which was built on the North side of the Temple precinct, and commanded good views of the Temple area. The precincts were patrolled by Roman soldiers during Passover to ensure that if any trouble broke out in the area, they could deal with it pretty quickly. There is a description in Josephus of how on one occasion during Passover a soldier, (who were mostly from A Syrian cohort, and Syrians hated the Jews), lifted his skirts and bared his bum to the pilgrims below. The upshot was that there was a riot, and 20000 pilgrims were killed. THAT is how volatile Jerusalem was during Passover. That is why the Prefect left Caesarea every Passover to superintend the security in Jerusalem. The whole city was on high alert. Besides the very visible Roman presence, Caiaphas would have had his own spies mingling in the crowds on the lookout for the smallest sign of trouble. Jesus scene in the Temple would simply not have failed to go unnoticed! If the Romans had not arrested him straightaway, it would have been because the Temple guard, (Caiaphas little private army) got to him first. The fracas would no doubt have been reported to both Pilate and Caiaphas, and after that Jesus probably wouldn't have been able to fart without Caiaphas knowing about it. It is my belief that once Jesus had created a stir in the Temple, he had really sealed his own fate. Pilate would simply not have tolerated anything that might look like rebellion, and Caiaphas simply could not tolerate anything that might threaten his position as High Priest.

From Antiquities of The Jews Book XX chapter 5

3. Now while the Jewish affairs were under the administration of Cureanus, there happened a great tumult at the city of Jerusalem, and many of the Jews perished therein. But I shall first explain the occasion whence it was derived. When that feast which is called the passover was at hand, at which time our custom is to use unleavened bread, and a great multitude was gathered together from all parts to that feast, Cumanus was afraid lest some attempt of innovation should then be made by them; so he ordered that one regiment of the army should take their arms, and stand in the temple cloisters, to repress any attempts of innovation, if perchance any such should begin; and this was no more than what the former procurators of Judea did at such festivals. But on the fourth day of the feast, a certain soldier let down his breeches, and exposed his privy members to the multitude, which put those that saw him into a furious rage, and made them cry out that this impious action was not done to approach them, but God himself; nay, some of them reproached Cumanus, and pretended that the soldier was set on by him, which, when Cumanus heard, he was also himself not a little provoked at such reproaches laid upon him; yet did he exhort them to leave off such seditious attempts, and not to raise a tumult at the festival. But when he could not induce them to be quiet for they still went on in their reproaches to him, he gave order that the whole army should take their entire armor, and come to Antonia, which was a fortress, as we have said already, which overlooked the temple; but when the multitude saw the soldiers there, they were affrighted at them, and ran away hastily; but as the passages out were but narrow, and as they thought their enemies followed them, they were crowded together in their flight, and a great number were pressed to death in those narrow passages; nor indeed was the number fewer than twenty thousand that perished in this tumult. So instead of a festival, they had at last a mournful day of it; and they all of them forgot their prayers and sacrifices, and betook themselves to lamentation and weeping; so great an affliction did the impudent obsceneness of a single soldier bring upon them. (10)

[hawkinthesnow]

A study of the map here shows that the Antonia fort was actually inside the temple precincts to the north of the Temple, and was built on raised ground commanding good views of the Temple area and the Kidron valley.
templemountlocation.com/fortAntonia.htm

[tolkein]

That the Romans permitted the Jews to kill Gentiles on warning is not the same as showing they had the right of ius gladii generally. That Sherwin-White referred to Jesus as Christ doesn't make his conclusions wrong. The example of James shows that the Romans had good reason to keep the ius gladii out of the hands of provincials, as they'd otherwise use the power to attack their political enemies (and maybe Rome's friends).

Anyway seems an argument about not very much. Everybody here seems to agree that Pilate was ultimately responsible for Jesus' death, but that he was inconvenient to the Jewish leadership.