From: sheaffer@netcom.com (Robert Sheaffer)
Subject: Re: What did Judas betray?
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services (408 241-9760 guest)
Date: Sat, 10 Oct 1992 22:51:49 GMT

In article <LEET.92Oct1175952@dove.ims.com> leet@ims.com (Lee Thomas) writes:

>The accused *did* have a trial before the Sanhedrin - a "full" trial,
>and before that, during the night, a "partial" one (which, as I
>recall, was itself not legal).  

If Jesus *did* have a "full trial" before the Sanhedrin, then they
probably pronounced him guilty, and had him stoned to death, then hanged
on a tree.

>
>That Jesus could not be convicted on the same basis that Stephen was -
>Jesus gave no clearly blasphemous statement until the judges
>themselves illegally accused him, unlike Stephen, who freely gave them
>the needed statement.

Actually, they had plenty of latitude on this. The article "Capital
Punishment" in The Jewish Encyclopedia cites Pentateuchal codes
supporting execution for 15 different crimes. Either Jesus or Stephen
could potentially have been framed up for: blasphemy (Lev. 24:16),
false prophecy (Deut. 13:6), idolatry, actual or virtual (Lev. 20:2),
insubordiantion to supreme authority (Deut. 17:12). Using modern terms,
"heresy" of any sort was potentially a capital offense.

And besides, we have *nothing like* a credible transcript of either
trial, only some very probably inaccurate second-hand statements.

>  Question, though: are you
>certain that the "they" in Acts 7:57 was the rabbis, and not the
>original accusers from Acts 6:9-14?

Does it matter?

>  Another question: how do you
>conclude that the trial was left unfinished?  And yet another
>question: wasn't Stephen already guilty of what we would call today
>"contempt of court", or at least of contempt of the officeholders?

If the trial was FINISHED, then Steven was executed legally for
his "heresy", immediately raising the presumption that Jesus was,
as well.
>
>How credible is it that someone could be "stoned, then hanged on a
>tree" for the public to see, during Passover, and a fictional account
>of a completely different, even more public event replace the story?

As indicated before, there was powerful incentive for the fiction.
>
>As I recall, there was a division between the religious issues (which
>were tried and punished by the Sanhedrin) and the civil issues (which
>were strictly the domain of the Roman court system).  Since there was
>no consistent testimony by which to convict Jesus in the Jewish court
>system for blasphemy, they tried the Roman courts, with the charge of
>insurrection - which itself almost failed due to Pilate's reluctance
>to convict him.  

As suggested above, Deuteronomy 17:12 contains such a sweeping statement,

       "As for anyone who presumes to disobey the priest appointed
        to minister there to the LORD your God, or the judge, that
        person shall die. So you shall purge the evil from within
        Israel." [NRSV]

that it can be used to justify the imposition of the death sentence
for virtually any act of religious insubordination, if desired, and
still follow the letter of the Law of Moses.
-- 
  
        Robert Sheaffer - Scepticus Maximus - sheaffer@netcom.com
  
 Past Chairman, The Bay Area Skeptics - for whom I speak only when authorized!

       "Beware when the great God lets loose a thinker on this planet.
        Then all things are at risk. It is as when a conflagration has
        broken out in a great city, and no man knows what is safe, or
        where it will end."
                               - Emerson: Essay, "Circles"