NOTES for Mar 14:53-72
The Gospel story of the trial of Jesus is interesting not so much for its unusual character as, sadly, for its ordinariness. History knows many staged and politically motivated trials, and in this respect there is nothing new or surprising in the trial of Jesus. But why did the Temple elite need this trial? Without their participation it could not have taken place at all. It would seem that Jesus had given the religious orthodox plenty of reasons to hate Him, and the Temple priesthood was clearly disturbed by His activity. Yet this concern alone would not have been enough: in those years in Judea a decision to impose the death penalty was not so common, and the sentence would have had to be submitted for approval to the Roman authorities, who were known for their legal meticulousness. This was quite different from a secretly organized assassination: the matter acquired public and political visibility. Besides, the Temple priesthood's hostility toward Jesus could hardly have had a strictly religious coloring: these people traditionally treated the prophetic books in general, and prophecies about the Messiah in particular, with restraint and even skepticism, and they considered only the Torah proper, the Pentateuch, to be Sacred Scripture. The messianic expectations of the Synagogue were in many ways foreign to the Temple. Therefore they viewed every messianic movement from an exclusively religious-political point of view, which is hardly surprising: it was precisely the Temple, or more exactly the High Priest, that then held the highest political authority in Judea; above him stood only the representative of Rome, the procurator, who at that time was Pontius Pilate, mentioned in the Gospel. From the point of view of high politics, any messianic movement was undesirable, and on this the procurator and the High Priest agreed, since any such movement could easily grow into an uprising against Rome, which in the end is what happened in A.D. 70. But the representatives of the Temple, and first of all the High Priest himself, were playing their own game, using the messianic expectations widespread among the people and the religious-political tension in Judea connected with those expectations to put pressure on Roman power and bargain for political concessions for themselves. They regarded this political game as a good for Judea and for the Jewish people, and they saw their main task in it as keeping the process under control in order, on the one hand, to get as much as possible from Rome, and on the other, not to give Rome a reason for direct military intervention in the situation. Jesus turned out in this game to be merely a bargaining chip: His preaching could least of all be a threat to Rome, but through His example they could demonstrate to Roman authority an active struggle against disturbers of order and peace in Judea. At the same time they could get rid of a figure who irritated both the Temple and the Synagogue. Thus casually, while playing politics, the Temple elite handed over to death the Messiah-Christ sent by God.