Mark 14.53-65: Jesus’s trial.

They led Jesus away to the head priest. Every head priest, elder, and scribe assembled. Simon Peter followed him from far away, and got as near as the head priest’s courtyard. He was sitting with the aides and warming himself at the fire.

The head priest and the whole senate heard testimonies about Jesus, for the purpose of executing him. They found nothing. Many perjured themselves about him. Their testimonies didn’t line up. One got up to perjure himself about Jesus, saying this: “We heard him saying this: ‘I’ll destroy this handmade temple; after three days I’ll build another which is not handmade.’” This testimony didn’t line up either.

The head priest took the floor to question Jesus, saying, “You don’t answer anything. What about these witnesses against you?” For Jesus was silent, and answered no one. Again, the head priest questioned Jesus, and told him, “You’re Messiah, the son of the blessed one?”

Jesus said, “I am. You’ll see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of power, coming with the heavenly clouds.”

The head priest, tearing his tunic, said, “Why do we still need to have witnesses? You heard the slander. What’s it look like to you?” Everyone judged him to deserve death. Some began to spit on him; to cover his face, punch him, and say, “Prophesy!” The aides chose to slap him.

—

This was a show trial. The only verdict the head priest, and the Judean senate, wanted was death. And it was pretty much a farce until Jesus said he was Messiah, and gave them just what they were looking for.

The Judean senate.

There were two governments in Judea at the time of Jesus’s arrest and death. There was the Roman government, established by Augustus Caesar after the death of Herod 1, represented by a procurator, Pontius Pilate. And there was the Judean government: The senate (Greek synédrion, Hebrew sanhedrín/“Sanhedrin,” or knésset). It was established by God in the Law, but apparently it ceased to exist during the time of the judges, and during the time of the kings, it wasn’t needed; the kings had their own bureaucracies.

The senate was re-instituted during the Maccabee period. After the Maccabeean wars, Judea had no king, and the Hasmonean family—who were already head priests—functioned as kings. They ruled over Israel for the next century. Because they weren’t scribes, they created the Judean senate to help them on religious matters. And since most issues were of a religious nature, the senate took on more and more prominence.

Herod 1 married into the Hasmonean family, then overthrew them and made himself king. When he died, the Romans took over. But the head priests still thought of themselves as the true royal family; the head priest the true Messiah… and into all this, Jesus stepped in and called himself Messiah. So you can see why the head priest would especially have a bone to pick.

At this point in history the head priest was Joseph Caiaphas (ruled 18–36), the son-in-law of a previous head priest, Annas bar Seth (ruled 7-15). Annas had been deposed nearly two decades ago by procurator Valerius Gratus. But the Jews didn’t care what the Romans thought; they considered Annas the real head priest. Annas functioned as the power behind the throne: Five of his sons, then his son-in-law, served as head priest after him. And when Jesus was arrested, Mark makes it sound as if he went straight to the senate for trial… but according to John, first Jesus had a little private meeting with Annas. Seems Annas wanted to size up the Messiah for himself before his trial.

The senate consisted of Annas’s family. Then there were “the elders,” the heads of the families which had come back with Zerubbabel, Ezra, and Nehemiah, and re-established Jerusalem after the Babylonians had destroyed it. And there were “the scribes,” the religion teachers who knew Israel’s constitution, the Law. The scribes would be consulted whenever a legal point came up. Altogether, 71 senators, and the final vote (and sometimes tie-breaking vote) belonged to the nasi/“prince,” or senate president. (Till 191BC, this was the head priest; afterward it was a scribe, and in Jesus’s day usually a member of Rabbi Hillel’s family.)

Christians sometimes describe the Judean senate as “the Pharisees and Saduccees,” as if it was a religous body, run by the leaders of those two denominations. Yes, it was totally religious: It was run by priests and scribes, and its constitution came right out of the bible. But it wasn’t arranged along denominational lines. The head priests were Sadducee, but the president and most everyone else was Pharisee. And these senators weren’t necessarily devout Jews—as is obvious by the fact they tried to railroad Jesus.

And did a lousy job of it, too.

The trial.

Their show trial quickly turned into a farce. As Mark points out, they couldn’t keep their testimonies straight. You can’t convict someone without at least two witnesses’ testimony, and especially can’t condemn them to death. Mark said they epsefdomatýrun/“fake-testified,” or perjured themselves: They either made up stuff about Jesus, or they got the information secondhand, and garbled it when it was their time to speak. To be fair, it was the middle of the night, so they may have been too sleep-deprived to be any good at lying. Still, it gave the senate nothing to go on.

Mark does point out how one of them mangled Jesus’s statement, “Destroy this temple. In three days I’ll raise it.” Now, Jesus never made this statement in Mark’s gospel; it’s only found as a direct quote in John. And Jesus never said he’d destroy the temple—he told the Judeans to do it, and said he’d undo what they did, which hardly sounds insurrectionist of him.

Finally Caiaphas had enough, and chose to cross-examine Jesus himself. Movies tend to put him at a podium, and Jesus on the floor surrounded by his accusers and the rest of the senate, kinda like a courtroom. But senates followed the Roman pattern: Spectators were in the amphitheater-style seats, the better to hear the speakers, who stood on the floor. Caiaphas had to stand where he’d be best heard.

He pointed out Jesus hadn’t answered any his accusers. Which was true—and uncharacteristic of nearly all defendants. Of course, Jesus’s accusers were ridiculous, so there was no need for him to say anything. But now it was time for Jesus to testify about himself. In Matthew, Caiaphas even swore an oath to make Jesus answer. So he did: He told them he was Messiah.

It’s not a slander against God, or blasfimías/“blasphemy,” to say you’re Messiah. Nor even “the son of the blessed one,” since “son of God” was likewise a kingly title. Now, if you claimed you were the Son of Man, who was gonna come with the clouds of heaven, that’s a whole other deal. That’d make you a heavenly being. If you’re not, if you’re lying, that’s definitely slander.

Of course, Jesus wasn’t lying. But Caiaphas didn’t believe that. He couldn’t believe that. To Sadducees, the book of Daniel wasn’t bible; it was mythology, and likely not even true. Caiaphas didn’t believe in the End Times, or resurrection, or the Day of the LORD: The coming of a supernatural Messiah was, to him, stupid—and dangerous, considering the Romans would crush anyone who threatened their rule. So to him, Jesus was nuts, a blasphemer, and needed to die. He likely felt fully justified in having him killed. He’d said as much earlier: Better one nut die than the nation destroyed. Of course, he had no clue how prophetic his own cynically pragmatic statement truly was.

So, tearing his tunic in offense, he got the senate to vote the death penalty. And though the Romans forbade the Judeans from carrying out executions, they had every right to abuse Jesus in every other way they felt like. Such as spitting, slapping, punching, and a juvenile game of tell-us-who-hit-you. But the Romans would later do much worse.