From: Tim.ONeill@english.utas.edu.au (Tim O'Neill)
Subject: Re: What did Judas betray?
Organization: University of Tasmania (Australia)
Date: Mon, 9 Nov 1992 01:52:51 GMT

In article <1992Nov7.200723.17356@hfsi.uucp>, ata@hfsi.uucp (John Ata - FSO) writes:
> 
> In article <1992Nov5.235359.14072@imagen.com> avi@hawk.imagen.com writes:

> >2) The talmud is a MUCH more reliable source because despite the many years and
> >   hardships, there is ONLY 1 version of it (the Jersualem/Babelonyan being
> >   complementary). The New Testament however, has 4 different and often 
> >   contradictory versions (the 4 gospels) of the same story of Jesus' life and
> >   death.
> 
> Can we stop this "My book is better than your book" argument?

Why? Because he's pointed out that your books (plural) all contradict each 
other?
 
> >3) The Sandhedrin had no special interest in Jesus, even in the New Testament it
> >   is said that there were MANY False Messiahs before Jesus and NONE was
> >   crucified ! Certainly, there were false Messiahs After Jesus, the most known of
> >   which is Shabtai Zvi (300-400 years ago).  Neither was cruficied nor executed
> >   in any way, even if their bad influence was MUCH more prominent among jews then
> >   Jesus' ever was. (especially true with Shabtai Zvi) - So, why the exception
> >   with Jesus ?
> 
> Because He was the real McCoy :) and the Sanhedrin knew that he
> was a threat to their authority.  Remember, Jesus never claimed to
> be a Messiah in the way the word was used at the time.  Most of
> the conventional wisdom of the day held the Messiah to be an
> earthly king who would once again lead Israel to greatness.  If
> that had been Jesus's message i.e. make me king, and I will defeat
> your enemies and make you great once again, then odds are that he
> would have ended up like the other False messiahs, both before and
> after, a forgotten inkblot on the pages of history.  Instead, the
> Sanhedrin saw him as a real threat to their power, and wanted to
> eliminate Him.

This is pure nonsense John. Instead of repeating christian myths I would
suggest you do some research on the nature of messianic expectation in the
intertestamental period. This nonsense of'The Jews were expecting a Kingly
Messiah and Jesus was someting quite different.' is a gross oversimplification
of a vast and complex subject. The jews of Yeshua's time were actually expecting
all sorts of messiahs: spiritual beings from heaven, warriors of the line of
David, priestly messiahs, kingly messiahs, prophet messiahs and combinations
of the above. I don't believe that Jesus was a revolutionary kingly messiah,
but his spiritual/apocalyptic idea of the messianic status was not new at all.
It's pretty clear that the Sanhedrin handed him over to the Romans because
the Romans wanted to execute him (rightly or wrongly) for sedition, and the
Saducees who dominated the Sanhedrin didn't want trouble with the Romans.
The fact that Jesus had just led a riot in their temple wouldn't have endeared
him to the Saducees either. 
 
> >4) The Romans, however, had MORE than enough reason to crucify Jesus. Claiming
> >   to be the "King Messiah" was a DIRECT CHALLENGE to the Roman Emperor and more
> >   than enough reason to be crucified (remember, thieves were crucified, a sin  
> 
> No, since Jesus had made it clear time and time again that he was
> not interested in an earthly kingship, the Romans would not see
> him as a threat.  It is clear from reading the Gospels that Pilate
> did not wish to execute Jesus at all.

Again, this is pretty stupid. The Roman prefect, Pontius Pilatus, had just come
south from Ceaserea with a body of troops to watch over Jerusalem and the
Temple from the Fortress Antonia and make sure there was no trouble during the
politically volitile Passover Festival. Suddenly he gets news that another of
these Galilean lunatics is causing trouble in the Temple Courts. He makes some
inquiries, finds that this Yeshua of Nazareth is yet another apocalyptic 
preacher who predicts the coming of a kingdom of the Jewish God in the near
future.
Pilatus was a soldier, politician and military administrator, not an expert
in jewish eschatological theology. He would neither know nor care about the
hair splitting differences between what Yeshua was saying and what religiously
motivated Zealot insurgents were saying. He just knew that if you nailed them
up, they soon stopped preaching and stopped causing trouble. So the Sanhedrin
handed this lunatic over to him and he nailed him up.
The gospels' depiction of Pilate is a joke. We know from Josephus and other
sources that Pilatus was a ruthless bastard. He oppressed the jewish people
mercilessly and showed no signs of sympathy or compassion. The prefecture of
Judea was simply a political stepping stone as far as he was concerned. 
The emperor couldn't give a fig what Pilatus did, as he was sunbaking with
his little catamites on the Isle of Capri and the running of the empire was
in the hands of the despotic Sejanus: a good friend of guess who? That's
right, Pontius Pilatus. So the (supposed) threats of the jewish leaders 
depicted in the gospels would not have bothered Pilatus at all.
The reason the gospel-fictions depict this cold-hearted prick as a new sensitive
dude is fairly clear when you consider the political climate for the fledgling
church at the time the earliest gospels were being written.
(i) The christians were attracting more and more Gentiles and drifting further
and further from their Judaic roots.
(ii) The jews had just risen in rebellion against Rome at a time of Civil War
and a rising of Federate german tribes on the Rhine frontier. The accession
of the Flavian Dynasty has restored stability and crushed the Jewish Revolt,
but the jews were very unpopular because of it.
(iii) Early christianity was still strongly associated both with Judaism and
Jewish nationalism. Tacitus, writing in the late first century, gave Jesus
very scant mention, but the only detail he knew of him was that he was exectuted
for sedition.
Thus the early gospel writers faced a serious PR problem. They solved by
painting the Jews as the bad guys and making out that Pilate was reluctant
to execute Jesus. The trial scenes are a tissue of blatant fictions. 

> Yes, that is my awareness that only the Romans had the
> jurisdiction over capital cases.  That is the legal part of it.
> The other part is that the Sanhedrin was able to use the Roman's
> jurisdiction over capital cases to further their end, the
> elimination of Jesus.  They frightened Pilate into having Jesus
> executed by threatening to go over his head to Caesar.  I guess
> in Pilate's eyes, one more man dead so that he might not look bad
> back home was worth it.

There is actually very good evidence that the Sanhedrin had jurisdiction over
capital cases of a religious nature. If Yeshua's crime was blasphemy, as the 
gospels claim, then Jesus should have been taken out and stoned. The fact that
he was crucified by the Romans shows that his was considered a secular crime
against Roman law, not a religious one against jewish law. The idea that the
Jews couldn't execute him for blasphemy is nonsense, as the executions of
Stephen and James in Acts ably demonstrate. The fiction presented in the gospels
is even more blatant when you consider that Yeshua never committed blasphemy,
the gospels simply have him claim to be the messiah, which is not blasphemy
at all. Pilate would not have been threatened by the ficticious threats of the
Jews one bit.

> If your intention on placing the blame squarely on the Romans is
> to show the Gospels as being fundamentally false, then I must say
> that I strongly disagree with you.

Bad luck old sport. If your gospels disagree with other reliable historical
evidence, and show a demonstrable political and apologetic bias, then we can't
take them at face value can we?  


> If it is only to place blame
> off the Jewish people, then I agree with your goal since blame for
> the death of Christ is shared universally, and one people should
> not be made the scapegoat.

That's not what the Gospel of John says! 'On our heads and on our children's'
are the words used. 

> But I disagree with your method of
> "rewriting" history or the Gospels to further your aim.

History is always being re-written, it's called analysis and interpretation.
No-one's re-writing the gospels, we're just putting them in their place
as unreliable historical sources because of their demonstrable biases.

Tim O'Neill
Tasmanian Devil
(who is feeling aggressive because he's just given up smoking)