Jesus Reincarnated

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Background
Joseph of Arimathea gave Jesus' body a customary-Jewish burial on the evening of the Passover. Before daybreak on the second day after the burial, a woman, or women, discovered that Jesus' body was missing from the tomb. However, an angel or angels instructed the woman or women to tell the Disciples to meet Jesus in Galilee, or just reminded them of Jesus' words regarding His resurrection.

Then Jesus appeared to Mary Magdalene, either when she was at the tomb or on her way back to tell the Disciples about the empty tomb. She either grabbed His feet and worshiped Him, or was told by Him not to touch Him.

If that is at all confusing, you have the disparate accounts in the Gospels to thank.

Jesus Reincarnated

Besides the vast number of contradictions from one Gospel to the next, one of the strangest aspects of Jesus' post-resurrection appearances is the great difficulty with which people had in recognizing Him. People under stress or grief can experience “jamais vu”, which is sort of the opposite of "deja vu". It is where a known face, word, or situation instead appears unfamiliar. That is a possible explanation, but what if Jesus did not look like Himself anymore? Let us take a closer look at one of these post-resurrection appearances to see if we can identify the real Jesus.

Luke 24:13-35 records the first and second appearances of Jesus since His resurrection, at least according to Luke, who skipped the Jesus-Mary encounter. The story goes like this:

The day that the empty tomb was discovered, "two of them" (Jesus' disciples, but not of the Eleven Disciples {12-1, Judas had killed himself}) were walking from Jerusalem to a town roughly seven miles (~11 kilometers) to the northwest, when Jesus came along and walked with them (Luke 24:13-15). As Luke 24:16 renders it:

but they were kept from recognizing [Jesus]. NIV

They "were kept" from recognizing Jesus? That speaks of some sort of active impediment or effort which prevented their recognition. That impediment may have been that Jesus neither looked nor sounded like He did before. Or, that effort may be God supernaturally inhibiting their recognition of Jesus, like how God prevented the Disciples from understanding Jesus' prophesy of His fate in Luke 9:43-45 and Luke 18:31-34. Either way, there is clear implication that the reason why they could not recognize had nothing to do with either their innate abilities or their mental status. We will revisit this point later, but now let us continue on with the story.

Jesus Misunderstood
Jesus inquired about the discussion they had been having, and, shocked that this unrecognized Jesus did not know about what had recently happened, they briefly explained that Jesus had been a prophet who was crucified by the Chief Priests, and how the women had found the empty tomb and had an angelic encounter (Luke 24:16-24). The most interesting line in that summary comes from Luke 24:21:

"but we had hoped that He was the one who was going to redeem Israel. And what is more, it is the third day since all this took place." NIV

Note the past tense here. They "had hoped", meaning that their hope had died with Jesus.

What hope was that? The redemption of Israel. If we take "redeem Israel" in its Old Testament Biblical context, it is more about re-establishing the Jewish nation, independent of foreign (Roman) rule, and enriched by God's blessing, similar to what we see in 2 Samuel 7:23, Nehemiah 1:8-11, and Micah 6:4 (among many other references). This appears to be the context of that statement, as opposed to a reference of a cleansing of sins and a shiny, happy afterlife.

Of course, that was a false expectation. So Jesus rebuked them for not believing the Scriptures, and then reviewed with and explained to them all of the Old Testament Messianic prophesies (Luke 24:25-27).

The Birth of Christianity?
Wait a moment though. Why would these disciples have such wrong expectations and understanding? They were disciples, literally students of Jesus' teaching, so how could they get it so wrong?

It could be that Jesus was a poor teacher, but how could that be? Teaching was Jesus' thing! Or, at least, it was one of His major focuses.

It could be that, like what we noted above, God had prevented them from understanding. However, if that was the case, then Jesus' rebuke of their misunderstanding, "How foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe", would seem misplaced; chiding them for something completely out of their control.

It could be that, although they had become Jesus' disciples, they had resisted His teaching and clung to the traditional interpretations, but why would they follow Him if they did not believe what He was teaching?

Or maybe, just maybe, it could be that this poorly thought-out work of fiction written with an intent. That intent? Simple. Show that those who had been eyewitnesses to Jesus' teaching, even those who had become disciples, did not fully understand His teaching of redemption.

At the hands of the early "church" leadership, this type of recorded misunderstanding would have allowed Jesus' message to evolve beyond anything which the historical Jesus had actually said, inferred, or intended. In other words, this change in understanding was how Christianity was born; "You only thought you understood. What Jesus really meant was... And it is only now that this truth is revealed to us by the Grace of God."

Jesus of a Different Form
Anyway, as the story continued, the disciples invited Jesus to stay with them that night. At dinner, after Jesus shared bread with them, they finally recognized Him and then He suddenly disappeared (Luke 24:28-32).

These disciples went back to tell the Eleven Disciples what had happened. The Eleven believed them, and reported that Simon/Peter had also been visited by Jesus (Luke 24:33-35).

OK, let us take a final look at how the disciples "were kept" from recognizing Jesus until the breaking of the bread. To do so, we will jump over to Mark, the original source of the story. In Mark 16:12-13 we read:

Afterward Jesus appeared in a different form to two of them while they were walking in the country. These returned and reported it to the rest; but they did not believe them either. NIV

Jesus appeared "in a different form". In other words, Jesus did not look like Jesus. It was as if Jesus had been reincarnated as someone else, in a manner of speaking. Or, maybe it was someone else! Also, note the different outcome; the Eleven did not believe these disciples.

Jesus may not have been the only thing reincarnated. It may be that Luke, who has consistently been a bit of an editor, was using Mark for a source here, and did not like what he read. A different form? If he did not look like Jesus, how can you be certain that he was Jesus? That is a huge problem when you are trying to build up credibility in the story, because someone could suggest that an imposter had claimed to be the resurrected Jesus. That uncertainty had to die.

Summary
Luke resurrected, polished, and expanded this snippet from Mark. Luke wanted to be sure to present Jesus as Jesus, without any possible doubt. So it was the same Jesus, but they were kept from identifying Him, presumably by God. Of course, as noted above, that makes Jesus' rebuke of the disciples' misunderstanding unwarranted. Luke was not that good of an editor. ;-)

Empty Recollection

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Background
Jesus, crucified between two thieves, after a few hours of darkness over the land, cried out to God asking why He had forsaken Him. When Jesus died, there was an earthquake, and the Temple's curtain tore. Dead holy men came out of their graves. Those watching Jesus die realized, at the very least, that it had been a mistake to kill Him.

Joseph of Arimathea petitioned Pilate for Jesus' body. Upon receiving it, Joseph wrapped it with linen, may or may not have adorned it with lots of spices, placed it a tomb, and rolled a rock door in front of the tomb.

Empty Recollection

Regardless of how stable we believe it to be, memory is prone to distortion. So, if we are willing to cast aside the foolish notion of Biblical inerrancy, when we come across contradictions across the four Gospels, honest skeptics and truth-seekers should consider whether or not they represent distorted memories, or instead speak of crafted manipulations of the story. Let us take a look at the differences in the Gospel accounts of finding Jesus' empty tomb, and then discuss the implications.

Matthew 28:1-8	Mark 16:1-8	Luke 24:1-12	John 20:1-9
Two women went to look at Jesus' tomb.	Three women went to anoint Jesus' body with spices.	"The women" went to anoint Jesus' body with spices.	Mary Magdalene alone went to Jesus' tomb (no reason given).
There was an earthquake, and an angel rolled open the door, scaring the guards.	The women found that the stone door had been removed.	The women found that the stone door had been removed.	Mary found that the stone door had been removed.
The angel spoke to the women from on top of the door.	The women entered the tomb, where they found an angel who spoke to them.	The women entered the tomb. Two angels appeared there and spoke to them.	No angels were seen or heard from yet. Mary saw the empty tomb and ran back to tell Peter.
The angel invited the women inside the tomb to see that it was empty, and told them to tell the Disciples to meet Jesus in Galilee.	The angel told them to tell the Disciples to meet Jesus in Galilee.	The angels reminded them of what Jesus had said in Galilee about rising on the third day.	(No angels there to speak, but two would appear there later with Jesus in John 20:10-18.)
Afraid yet joyous, the women went to tell the Disciples.	The women were afraid, fled, and told no one.*	The women told the Disciples.	Mary told Peter and "the one Jesus loved" that Jesus' body had been taken.
(No Disciples visit the tomb.)	(No Disciples visit the tomb, but later, in Mark 16:11, they would not believe the women's report.)	The Disciples do not believe the women, but Peter alone went to the tomb. Finding it empty, he was puzzled.	Peter and "the one Jesus loved" went to the tomb and found it empty, but they still did not understand that Jesus was to rise from the dead.

OK, so obviously there are several contradictions here, but are they just innocent and honest errors in memory?

On the side of corrupted memory, across all of the variations, there is a narrative skeleton of sorts running through these Gospel accounts; the door stone was removed for a female (at least one) eyewitness to observe the tomb in its empty state, who then informed Disciples of the finding. While an angel, or angels, did not appear in this section of John, they would appear later in the next section in John 20:10-18, so we could even include that element as part of the story skeleton.

This common skeletal thread does, indeed, suggest a common original source. That opens the door for these accounts, no matter how disparate, to have been based on a true story, but that is just one possibility. Equally possible is that the story was constructed by and distributed from one person or group of persons. Either way, the great differences in the story versions suggest that this was passed as part of the early oral history, because some time, and some geographical isolation, was likely necessary to allow for these different versions to develop.

On the other hand, and on the side of intentional alterations, there are some indications that these differences are not the result of corrupted memory, but rather demonstrate deliberate editing.

The easiest case to perceive possible manipulation is in Matthew. As noted in the previous study, Matthew uniquely recorded that Jesus' grave was guarded. He appears to have been writing with a purpose, and that purpose was to communicate that there was no way that Jesus' body could have been removed from the grave by someone. Not only was Matthew's grave guarded, but it was not opened until its opening could be witnessed by the two Mary's, and that opening was accompanied by the supernatural events of an earthquake and an angel opening the grave. And when the grave was opened? The body was already gone.

The other Gospels lack all mention of the guards at the tomb, the angelic tomb-opener, and the earthquake, and instead have the tomb open by the time a Mary arrives. With the tomb already open, who knows what could have happened to the body? (On the side of faith, the resurrected Jesus could have walked out of the tomb, which actually implied later in John, as we will see in the next study.) Without any support from the other three Gospels, and with an obvious motive for Matthew to have the tomb guarded and its opening witnessed, this appears to be a deliberate change that Matthew made.

This change can be further demonstrated by comparing Matthew 28:5-7 to Mark 16:6-7. The wording there is very similar to one another. If these were truly independent accounts, it would be an incredible feat, if not a miracle, for the two authors to remember and record these words in a manner which almost matches each other after so much time had passed, and yet such a miracle would be blemished by Mark not remembering anything about the earthquake and the angelic tomb opener. Instead, it seems much more likely that Matthew was copying from Mark, but tweaking the copy to fit in the guarded-tomb narrative.

Contrasting Matthew and Mark, where no Disciple visited the empty tomb, Luke and John have both recorded that Peter visited the tomb and was puzzled by its vacancy, thus demonstrating (explicitly in John) that the Disciples really did not understand that Jesus was to be resurrected. (Though it is uncertain, it is possible that this lack-of-understanding-the-resurrection meme was employed because the message of the historical Jesus turned out to be quite different than what would come to be known in the resurrected version of Jesus. In this way, the Disciples thereafter could claim to skeptical Jesus-witnesses that no one had really understood Jesus when He was alive.) This creates a couple of problems:

First, as we observed in a previous post, Matthew redacted the Disciples' lack of understanding of  Jesus' prophesied death and resurrection, and, in a different post, we cited how even Matthew's Pharisees understood that Jesus claimed that He would be resurrected, which is why they requested the guard for the tomb! So there is a fundamental contradiction between two alleged Disciples; Matthew and John.

Second, Mark, who was allegedly Peter's traveling companion, translator, and the writer of the earliest Gospel, does not record that Peter had even heard about the empty tomb from the women witnesses, let alone that he personally investigated it and was mystified by the fact that it was empty.

Summing all of this information up, what we have here is many contradictions in this short account of finding Jesus' tomb empty. While it is possible to explain the differences to faulty memory, there are some significant changes which appear to go beyond the realm of rotted recall, and instead drift into deliberate dissertation with contrived intents. I will leave it to you to weigh the evidence in your mind.

* Mark's Asterisk
The oldest manuscripts of Mark end the Gospel with Mark 16:8, without recording the women telling anyone about the empty tomb, and without any sightings of the resurrected Jesus. A series of later manuscripts append this onto the ending:

And they (the women) reported all the instructions briefly to Peter's companions. Afterwards Jesus Himself, through them, sent forth from east to west the sacred and imperishable proclamation of eternal salvation. Amen.

Still no appearances of Jesus, but at least the women passed on the instructions to the Disciples to meet Jesus in Galilee.

Post Mortem Epiphany

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Background
Jesus, with His cross, was led to His fate; crucifixion. Hung there between a couple thieves, Jesus was ever the mild servant of God, taking insults graciously and granting Salvation to a repentant thief. From noon to 3 P.M., the sun stopped shining, and Jesus asked why God had forsaken Him. Then Jesus died, the Temple's curtain was torn, there was an earthquake, and dead holy men were resurrected.

Post Mortem Epiphany

You do not know what you have got until it is gone. Or so it is often said. And it just so happens that that realization of loss is what we find portrayed by some unlikely sources immediately after Jesus' death. Let us take a look at the reactions of those standing by Jesus after His last breath.

Matthew 27:54-56, Mark 15:39-41, Luke 23:47-49, and John 19:31-37 reveal the reactions of people near Jesus at the time of His death. Let us begin this study with the first written Gospel of the set; Mark. Starting with Mark 15:39, we read:

And when the centurion, who stood there in front of Jesus, heard His cry and saw how He died, he said, "Surely this man was the Son of God!" NIV

So this is a centurion's reaction, a division leader in the Roman army. Implicitly, this man was Roman, and that makes it very likely both that he was polytheistic and that he recognized Caesar as divine. So it is strange, to say the least, that the centurion would claim that Jesus was the Son of the singular, Jewish God. However, it is possible that he had heard the story of Jesus and had come to believe. (As you may remember, earlier in the Gospels there were reports of other believing centurions.)

Note what had convinced this centurion of the "truth": hearing Jesus' cry and seeing how He died.

Now, "how He died" may be intended to imply the greater picture of how Jesus reacted to being put on the cross, how He handled the taunting and insults while on the cross, the miraculous three hours of darkness prior to His death, etc.

However, being coupled with the conjunction "and" to the cry that Jesus had made suggests a more immediate relationship; as in literally how Jesus died. It is probably safe to assume that this would not have been the first crucifixion that the centurion had witnessed, and there was something particularly different about the way that Jesus died. Perhaps it was the relative speed of Jesus' death, or an expression of peace and calm on His face, or a gentle transition from life to death, or even the possible witnessing of Jesus' spirit leaving His body. This is just speculation, given the lack of detail in the account, but the words seem to convey that there was something truly special in the manner in which Jesus died.

Mark 15:40-41 adds that there were some women watching from a distance, including a couple Mary's and Salome, who had followed Jesus from Galilee, and "cared for His needs". Well, a man has got needs, you know. ;-) Despite the fact that this implies gender roles where certain burdens are placed on women as a higher priority than the "important work" which the male Disciples were doing, and despite the fact that it is odd for multiple women to have to care for Jesus' needs alone as opposed to having the women portrayed as helping with the needs of the larger group, specifically noting the contribution of these women is a respectable and honorable sentiment.

Yet with the three hours of darkness preceding Jesus' death, it is a little odd that more people than just the centurion are not recognized as having the same epiphany that he did.

Matthew 27:54 changes the scene a little to be more consistent with his uniquely reported earthquake and mini-zombie apocalypse:

When the centurion and those with him who were guarding Jesus saw the earthquake and all that had happened, they were terrified, and exclaimed, "Surely He was the Son of God!" NIV

So now we have the centurion and his accompanying soldiers claiming that Jesus was the Son of God. And why? Because of something special in the way He died? No. Because they had been frightened by the darkness and the earthquake.

Like Mark, Matthew 27:55-56 also mentions women, who had cared for Jesus' needs, watching from a distance, including a couple Mary's and the mother of the Zebedee brothers.

Luke may have been a better editor than Matthew, in that he appears to have noticed some of the issues with Mark's version. Luke 23:47-48 reported::

The centurion, seeing what had happened, praised God and said, "Surely this was a righteous man." When all the people who had gathered to witness this sight saw what took place, they beat their breasts and went away. NIV

So Luke changed the centurion's expression into a more realistic one; not that he recognized Jesus as the Son of God, but that he recognized (presumably based on both Jesus' actions and God's reaction of stopping the sun from shining for three hours) that Jesus must have been a righteous man who was now wrongfully crucified.

It was not only the centurion, or his soldiers, who had this epiphany. The rest of the crowd who had come to gaze at this spectacle had this same revelation, as is implied by the report of them beating their breasts; an cultural display of mourning, and possibly repentance, as observed in Isaiah 32:12-13, Jeremiah 31:19, Ezekiel 21:12, and Nahum 2:7.

This mourning crowd was not made up of Jesus' followers, as, according to Luke 23:49, those who believed in Jesus were watching from a distance, along with the women who had followed Jesus. Luke oddly left out the bit about these women caring for Jesus' needs. Perhaps he also recognized how strange it appeared that multiple women were addressing Jesus' needs, or may by he just got tired of copying.

Now for something completely different. In John 19:31-37, there is no epiphany, or even a centurion for that matter. Instead, submitting to a request from the Jews, Pilate ordered for the crucified people to have their legs broken and to be taken down from their crosses during the Passover Sabbath (John 19:31). Strangely, the soldiers carrying out that task removed the thieves on either side of Jesus first (John 19:18) as opposed to progressing across the lineup of hanging men in a serial pattern (John 19:32).

When they finally came to Jesus (in the non-religious sense of those words), they just then discovered that He was dead (John 19:33). This is an huge contradiction to the Synoptic Gospels which record people reacting to Jesus' blatant moment of passing! But then, in John's version, Jesus' moment of death was much more reserved, having Jesus simply bow His head and give up His spirit, which would have been much easier to miss (John 19:30).

Anyway, the soldiers reacted like many guys do when they come across a corpse unexpectedly; they poked it with a stick. In this case, the stick was a spear, and they punctured Jesus' side with it, reportedly causing water and blood to rush out (John 19:34).

The next verse in John is what I would call a classic liar's tell. In John 19:35 we read:

The man who saw it has given testimony, and his testimony is true. He knows that he tells the truth, and he testifies so that you also may believe. NIV

It is true. You can know that it is true, because the guy who saw it gave this report, and his report is the truth, because he knows that he tells the truth. Oh please. Why is it that all of the rest of the preceding Gospel of John has been given without any claim of a truth-telling eyewitness until this one point? I will tell you why:

It is a lie. If it were true, there would have been more than just this one eyewitness to make the claim that this sequence of events actually occurred, like the group of Jesus-following witnesses watching from a distance reported by the other three Gospels. Furthermore, there would be no need to vehemently claim that it was true any more than for any of the other far-more-unbelievable events recorded previously in this Gospel. Sure, Jesus walked on water and raised Lazarus back to life after he had been dead for days, but this whole being stabbed on the cross and having water and blood come out of the opening, well, I am going to need a little proof for that...

Now, why would anyone lie about something like this? Well, to fulfill Scripture, of course! Any shred of apparent credibility to support your lie is always advantageous, and prophesy provides one of the best forms of that credibility. And if you are wiling to lie to make a connection to prophesy, why not tweak the Scriptures to make a prophetic match too?

John 19:36 tells us that these events transpired to fulfill the prophesy that "not one of His bones will be broken". Even favorably assuming that none of the bones in Jesus' ankles or wrists were broken in the process of being nailed to the cross (which is highly unlikely), the problem is that there is no such prophesy. The nearest match comes from Psalm 34, which speaks of how God protects righteous people in general. Such is the sentiment we find in Psalm 34:19-20:

The righteous person may have many troubles, but the Lord delivers him from them all;
He protects all his bones, not one of them will be broken. NIV

If the generalized sentiment is not strong enough to realize that this "prophesy" is not applicable, then consider that it says that God would save people from their troubles, which is pretty much the opposite of God letting an innocent, righteous person get killed on the cross.

John 19:37 provides another prophetic match; that "They will look on the one they have pierced." At least this is an actual prophesy as opposed to being just part of a song. This comes from Zachariah 12:10, and, of the little bit of the verse copied here, John almost gets the wording correct. More significant than a minor word adjustment is the fact that it is this prophesy has been severed from its context to make the match. Zachariah 12 is a prophesy about God turning the leaders and people of Jerusalem into an unstoppable, militarily conquering force which consumes "all the surrounding peoples" as part of a counter-attack from the city of Jerusalem being under siege. The verse right before this noted prophesy, Zachariah 12:9, has God defiantly claim:

On that day I (God) will set out to destroy all the nations that attack Jerusalem. NIV

If I know my history correctly, that did not happen the day that Jesus died, nor any time after that.

Furthermore, if you read the remainder of the prophesy, Zachariah 12:10-14, what you encounter is each of the individual clans of Israelites in mourning; a reference to the old national layout when the Jewish clans each occupied a different region of the Promised Land.

And why are they weeping? Because they have done God wrongfully. If you know the background behind this prophesy, the reason that Jerusalem was under siege was as a punishment doled out by God for the people breaking the provisions of His covenant. So when God steps in to aid His Chosen People, as is foretold in the prophesy, it is then they will come to the full recognition of how poorly they have treated God, and they will appropriately weep in repentance.

Bringing this study to a close, Let us review. We have seen contradictions from one account to the next regarding what actually happened when Jesus died, a liar's tell in the claim of truth, and misapplied prophesies used to help support the claim of Jesus' Messiah status. None of these issues, individually or collectively, indicate that Jesus was not crucified. However, any claim beyond that should obviously be given a healthy dose of scrutiny.

Pay No Attention to the Dead Man Behind the Curtain

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Background
Once sentenced to His fate, Jesus carried the cross to His own crucifixion, at least according to John. The other Gospels suggest that a man named Simon carried it for Him.

While hanging on the cross, Jesus possibly granted Salvation to one of the two thieves who were crucified at the same time as Him; "possibly" because Luke alone recorded this forgiveness of the repentant thief, while Matthew and Mark record that both thieves mocked Jesus instead. Then the sun stopped shining for three hours; which is an event unsubstantiated by John, or by resources outside of the Bible, or by physics, but we are talking about miracles here.

Pay No Attention to the Dead Man Behind the Curtain

Jesus died. Like everyone else will experience, His mortal body stopped its life-sustaining functions. Of course, it was only a partial death for Him, because His spirit went on living, even before His body was resurrected. Unlike anyone else, Jesus' death was accompanied by miracles as He took His last breath. Let us take a fateful look at this moment of death.

We will examine Matthew 27:50-53, Mark 15:37-38, Luke 23:45-46, and John 19:30. This time, we will begin with John.

John 19:30 goes like this:

When He had received the drink, Jesus said, "It is finished." With that, He bowed His head and gave up His spirit. NIV

It was a quiet, solemn release. Jesus' work was done, for now, so, with a bow of His head, He shed His mortal body. It was an understated, yet powerful scene. Even beautiful. Now let us turn to the Synoptic Gospels to see how they will mess it up, beginning with Mark, who was the source for the other two.

In Mark 15:37-38 we find:

With a loud cry, Jesus breathed His last. The curtain of the Temple was torn in two from top to bottom. NIV

So, no quiet, solemn release here. Instead, Jesus yelled. There are no details of what this cry was, so we can only guess, and given that it was the moment of death, a reasonable guess would certainly be something along the lines of a guttural gasp of pain or anguish.

The curtain of the Temple... what curtain are they talking about? Well, we have dig a little into the background to understand this. The layout of the Temple was strongly inspired from the mobile version of the Temple called the Tabernacle. With the Tabernacle, a perimeter fence of curtains established the Tabernacle grounds, or courtyard, where the altar for burnt offerings was on display and put into use.

Inside that courtyard was a tent, sometimes referred to as the Tent of Meeting, and that tent was subdivided into two chambers.

The first tent chamber, known as the Holy Place, where the golden lampstand, altar of incense, and table of the showbread were kept according to God's instructions.

Separating the first chamber from the second was heavy, decorative, purple curtain (Exodus 26:31-33).

The second tent chamber, known as the Most Holy Place (a.k.a. Holy of Holies), contained (among other things) the Ark of the Covenant and the Atonement Cover (a.k.a. Mercy Seat), and hosted the very presence of God. Literally, God was there, which is why prayers were directed towards it (Psalm 28:2), and why in Leviticus 16:2 we read:

The Lord said to Moses: “Tell your brother Aaron that he is not to come whenever he chooses into the Most Holy Place behind the curtain in front of the atonement cover on the ark, or else he will die. For I will appear in the cloud over the atonement cover. NIV

This verse was obviously written with no intent of the High Priest having a close, personal relationship with God, as God would kill him if he showed up at non-appointed times. Anyway, back to the torn curtain...

The curtain which Mark referenced is undoubtedly the curtain separating the Holy Place from the Most Holy Place. While nearly every other part of the facade of the Tabernacle and Tent of Meeting were replaced by stone or wood, this curtain remained integral to the Temple design. So ripping open the only vale between God and the people would be both symbolic of removal of the barrier between God and man, as well as a more literal indication that God had left the building.

There is a big problem here though... how did anyone know about the curtain; that it was ripped, that the rip corresponded to Jesus' time of death, and that the direction of the rip was top to bottom?

It was torn in two, so to know the direction of the tear (other than with the assistance of modern CSI technology) would have been impossible without an eye witness, but that seems unlikely. Access to this holy place was very, very restricted, thanks largely to verses like Exodus 28:43:

Aaron and his sons must wear them whenever they enter the Tent of Meeting or approach the altar to minister in the Holy Place, so that they will not incur guilt and die. "This is to be a lasting ordinance for Aaron and his descendants." NIV

With this restricted access, and factoring that access is not permitted at non-appointed times, the chances of there being a witness to this event are statistically very small.

Yet even assume that there was a witness or two, we still have the fact that the witnesses would have been the religious elite, and would have been under no obligation, and certainly no motivation, to reveal to anyone that the curtain had been torn, let alone in what direction the tearing took place. Releasing such easily-concealed information would have been damning evidence against themselves. So, again, how is it that Mark knows anything about this curtain?

Now we come to Matthew. Matthew polished up Mark's verbiage a little more that usual, as Matthew 27:50 reveals:

And when Jesus had cried out again in a loud voice, He gave up His spirit. NIV

The "again" could convey a few different things. Least likely, but still possible, is inference of just some loud, nondescript utterance. Instead it may have been an intelligible cry, similar but different to the "Why have you forsaken me?" cry in Matthew 27:46, but for some unknown reason the exact words not recorded. Also possible is that Matthew intended it to mean that Jesus made the exact same cry as in Matthew 27:46.

Whatever the content of that scream, it was a far cry from being a quiet passing portrayed by John. Yet, conspicuously, we find in Matthew the "He gave up His spirit", as seen in John. Given that John's lack of mentioning a cry would not guarantee that there was not one, and with other queues from across the Gospels (at least for this particular section), believers can quite reasonably claim that these different versions appear to be be describing the same event, which enhances their credibility... at least until we consider what Matthew recorded soon thereafter.

In Matthew 27:51, the Temple curtain is torn, top to bottom. No surprise there, but Matthew also aggregated onto the story that there was an earthquake at that moment too, one powerful enough to split rocks. And in Matthew 27:52-53, we find this remarkable addition:

The tombs broke open and the bodies of many holy people who had died were raised to life. They came out of the tombs, and after Jesus' resurrection they went into the holy city and appeared to many people. NIV

This mini-zombie-apocalypse is not mentioned in any other Gospel. As implied above, an argument from silence is not usually a strong one, and can never be taken as solid proof, but are degrees of strength based on the circumstances of the situation. We are not talking about whether or not some speech snippet was recorded, which was essentially unessential to the story here.

Sure, the Jesus'-death-synchronized earthquake could qualify as simply just another miracle which adds trivially to the story. However, resurrected holy people is incredibly significant, possibly even more than that of Jesus! Why?

Consider this: God made man by scooping up some dirt and blowing into it (Genesis 2:7). Any God that could do that could easily bring Himself, as Jesus, back to life in the flesh. Other than it being a miracle by our standards, it is no big deal. In fact, such a God could easily bring anyone back to life.

On the other hand, the resurrection of these saints represents the fulfillment of God's promise of resurrection for the rest of us. So even more than Jesus' resurrection, the resurrection of these holy people demonstrated the veracity of God's offer of Salvation through Jesus.

The absence of this resurrection anecdote from the other Gospels, which Matthew himself barely included with a single verse, creates one of the strongest types of arguments from silence that there can be. This is because, based on the implications of the content described above, it would have been extremely advantageous to include in the other Gospel accounts, as it both reassures Salvation and it could be used to explain to those who had heard about or seen these resurrected holy people why that had occurred.

And that is just it. It probably did not occur. It is not mentioned in any other Gospel, nor in the rest of the New Testament. When you read passages like Acts 4, where Peter and John are apprehended for preaching about resurrection of the dead, their obvious, go-to defensive evidence would have been to point to these holy people coming back to life because of Jesus, but we do not find that, not even as a footnote to their speech.

OK, enough about the zombies. Let us wrap this study up with a quick look at Luke, the editor. Luke had the curtain torn in two also, but had it happen just before Jesus' death and wisely dropped the "top to bottom" directionality. Then in Luke 23:46 we read the famous line:

Jesus called out with a loud voice, "Father, into your hands I commit My spirit." When He had said this, He breathed His last. NIV

I have to applaud Luke here. Other than Jesus screaming this sentence, which seems unnecessary unless God is hard of hearing, Luke really portrayed Jesus in a beautiful moment of submission to God's Plan, but, in turn, that also portrayed Jesus as being subservient to God. So it is one more verse to muddy the relationship between the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

About the Image
The image is of a triptych depicting Saint Anthony the Great (a.k.a. Anthony Abbot), with the third panel illustrating his meeting with a centaur.  You cannot make this stuff up.  :-)

Cross Talk

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Background
After being tried by the Priests and investigated by Pilate, Pilate relented to the crowd's demand to have Jesus crucified. So Pilate chose to flog Jesus, and then soldiers led Him away to face His fate. Those soldiers may have mocked Jesus with purple robe and false praise of kingship (Matthew, Mark), unless that happened before Jesus was sentenced, under Herod's watch (Luke). Then, Jesus carried His own cross to the mount where He was crucified (John), unless a man named Simon carried it for Him (Matthew, Mark, Luke).

Cross Talk

One of the aspects I enjoy about the Bible is that, like many other literary works, it captures human nature fairly well. The Bible provides an unusual slice of that nature because the Gospels, in particular, were written with an intent of building credibility behind the claim of Jesus being the Messiah, among other intents. Let us take a look at this facet of nature as we examine Jesus' time on the cross up to, but not including, His death.

Matthew 27:36-49, Mark 15:25-36, Luke 23:35-45, and John 19:19-29 all cover Jesus' hang time on the cross. Let us begin with Mark, shall we?

Mark 15:25 tells us that it was 9 A.M. (the third hour) when Jesus was put on the cross. The timer begins. There were two daily sacrifices that the Priests carried out on a regular basis. The first just happened to be at around 9 A.M. Coincidence, or deliberate writing? You know the answer. ;-)

In Mark 15:26 we read:

The written notice of the charge against Him read: THE KING OF THE JEWS. NIV

You may remember from the previous posts, the Priests charged Jesus with blaspheme, but instead they presented Jesus to Pilate as an insurrectionist claiming to be king.

In Mark 15:27, you find Jesus was crucified between two thieves. This seemingly benign verse is used to tie in the prophesy of Isaiah 53, in particular the verse of Isaiah 53:12 where a suffering servant of God was "numbered with the transgressors".

Any association with prophesy would bolster credibility, and that of Isaiah 53 is one of two Old Testament prophesies which, as a whole, actually come close to matching parts of the Jesus story. The language in Isaiah 53 is a bit vague, and requires context to properly discern. Please see this very detailed post discussing Isaiah 53 if you are interested in the refuting of that prophesy.

With Jesus on such a shameful display, it is a fitting portrayal of human nature that we find Him being mocked. The mocking in Mark 15:29-30 is particularly interesting, because people walking by mocked that Jesus said He would "destroy the Temple and build it in three days". However, despite the apparent commonality of the knowledge of this claim presented here, back when Jesus was being questioned before the Priests they could not get witnesses to agree that Jesus had actually made such a claim (Mark 14:58-59)! So to find people walking by using that statement as a point of mockery is strange, to say the least.

Of course, the Chief Priests and Teachers of the Law also mocked Jesus, demanding that He miraculously come down from the cross to prove his Messianic status, and both of the thieves crucified with Him mocked Him as well (Mark 15:31-32). It is a great display of an unsavory side of human nature. Everyone around Jesus was united in mob mentality to pick on Him, given His lofty claims versus His then-present lowly situation.

Next, from noon to 3 P.M. (the ninth hour), it got dark outside. Three hours of darkness in "the whole land", and yet there is no recorded history of this event happening outside the Bible. This was probably just thrown in for dramatic effect. :-) The end was about to come...

3 P.M. was also the time of the second ritual, daily sacrifice for the Priests. Another likely contrived coincidence.

Speaking of contrived coincidences, in Mark 15:34 we read:

And at the ninth hour Jesus cried out in a loud voice, "Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?"—which means, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" NIV

The Christian story behind this cry, as Gill puts it, was that Jesus was "now without a sense of the gracious presence of God" and was facing the divine wrath for the sins of mankind. It is a quaint story, but it does not hold up to scrutiny.

Given that Jesus was God, or at least some integral part of God, how could Jesus not feel the presence of God? That would be like not being aware of your own presence, which is fairly difficult to do when you are conscious. ;-)

Yet an even greater paradox than that bizarre scenario of God not feeling His own pretense is the question of "why". Not my "why", but rather Jesus' "why". For Jesus to ask why this was happening would indicate that He did not know His purpose and God's plan, and yet He did know. Why would Jesus ask such a question when He knew the answer?

I will tell you why. Because the author of this Gospel wanted you to know what "prophesy" he was using as a script for the crucifixion, so that it would appear that the prophesy was fulfilled and thus enhance his credibility. It is a quote of Psalm 22:1. Psalm 22 was allegedly written by King David, metaphorically describing the events before he was king, when King Saul had his men hunting down David. Saul had essentially labeled David as public enemy #1.

While quite a bit of Psalm 22 appears to be a good match for the Jesus story, refer to this post to see that focusing on the details reveals that Psalm 22 has quite a bit that is not about Jesus at all, and even runs contrary to Jesus' story.

Anyway, people around Jesus thought that He was calling for Elijah when He made that yelp (Mark15:35). If people standing near the cross could not understand Jesus, then it is a bit of a mystery how anyone did understand Him enough to record Jesus' cry of forsakenness.

Someone offered Jesus wine vinegar to drink, which is a tie in to Psalm 69:21 (we discussed Psalm 69 in the previous post), and others mocked Jesus some more by saying that Elijah should save Him (Mark 15:36).

OK, on to Matthew. Again, as is typical with Matthew, he essentially copied Mark with only slight wording changes, with two exceptions where he, also as typical, added material.

The first significant change is that, while the time of the beginning of the crucifixion is not mentioned, instead we have a reference to soldiers keeping watch on Jesus (Matthew 27:36). This is unique to Matthew, and the vigilance displayed here portends the soldiers which would be used to guard Jesus tomb in Matthew 27:62-66. Matthew was trying to persuade his readers that there was no possible substitution or saving of Jesus, or taking of His body afterward.

The second addition comes in the form of a particular insult hurled at Jesus by the Chief Priests and Teachers of the Law in Matthew 27:43, which is mostly unremarkable other than that they are quoted as saying "He (Jesus) trusts in God" as if they did not, providing a little more slander against the Jewish religious elite.

Now, to Luke. Luke edited and rearranged the story quite a bit.

Luke 23:35 begins our study with people mocking Jesus on the cross. Noticeably absent is the mocking found in Matthew 27:39-40 and Mark 15:29-30 regarding Jesus destroying the Temple and rebuilding it in three days. That is no surprise, but is rather a mark of consistency for Luke, who had earlier edited out that charge against Jesus.

While Luke gets some points for consistency, we may need to subtract some for strangeness when we find in Luke 23:36-37:

The soldiers also came up and mocked Him. They offered Him wine vinegar and said, "If you are the King of the Jews, save yourself." NIV

The soldiers, who are implicitly Roman, somehow manage to associate being King of the Jews with having miraculous powers. Of course, it is also reasonable to guess that they had heard of the Messianic prophesies, or possibly that some Jews had been conscripted as soldiers, so we can give Luke a pass on this oddity.

In Luke 23:38 is the sign on the cross, which is essentially the same as Mark.

Next we come to the thieves on the cross. Different than Matthew and Mark, Luke 23:39-43 says that only one of the thieves mocked Jesus, while the other one claimed that Jesus was being punished without having done anything wrong. (Thanks, Luke, for that convenient, convincing reminder of Jesus' innocence.) That thief asked Jesus to remember him, and in Luke 23:43, we find this remarkable reply:

Jesus answered him, "I tell you the truth, today you will be with me in paradise." NIV

This is a rather problematic verse on many levels, but the main issue is the "today" part for a few reasons.

The first reason is the technical detail that death by crucifixion would often take days, so it would be unlikely for that thief to have died that day in order to be in paradise with Jesus.

The second reason is the Scriptural contradiction versus John 20:17, where, after His resurrection, Jesus had said that He had not yet been to Heaven.

The third reason is the way in which it overturns so much dogma. But do not take my word for it. Here is what Christian Dr. Charles R. Erdman inserted into John Gill's biblical commentary:

In the salvation of one of the thieves, theology finds one of its finest demonstrations. Sacrementalism was refuted, for the thief was saved without recourse to baptism, the Lord's Supper, church, ceremony, or good works. The dogma of purgatory was refuted, for this vile sinner was instantly transformed into a saint and made fit for paradise apart from his personal expiation of a single sin. The teaching of universalism was refuted, for only one was saved of all who might have been saved. Jesus did not say, "Today shall ye be with me in paradise," but "Today shalt thou be with me in paradise." The notion of soul-sleep was refuted, for the clear implication of the entire incident is that the redeemed thief would be in conscious fellowship with his Saviour in paradise even while his body disintegrated in some grave. Too, it is doubtful whether any other gospel incident presents the plan of salvation more clearly or simply.

Like Matthew and Mark, Luke also recorded three hours of darkness (Luke 23:44), but Luke 23:45 added this interesting detail to explain why it was dark:

for the sun stopped shining. NIV

The sun stopped shining. When a skeptic asks why were there not contemporaneous reports about Jesus outside of the Bible, a common counter is that the religious elite suppressed the reporting of Jesus. However, even if they could have done such a thing, and somehow the rumors and stories the great teaching and miracles stayed within the bounds of Jewish influence, we should still see reports about the sun not shining all over the region, which, obviously, defies the laws of physics as we know them.

That is it for Luke. He edited out the claim of Jesus calling out, asking God why He had forsaken Him. Perhaps Luke realized how ludicrous such a cry would have been for Jesus to make, even at the expense of dropping a "prophetic" reference.

Finally, we come to John. If you have been following along, you already know that John will be different. ;-) However, it is not too different, suggesting that the story of the crucifixion was an early part of the Christian tradition. Anyway...

John 19:19-22 also mentions the sign on the cross calling Jesus the "King of the Jews" (although each of the four Gospels disagree over the precise wording of the sign). John adds the details that it was written in three languages, and that the Chief Priests complained to Pilate regarding the sign.

Then John 19:23-24 discussed the casting of lots for Jesus' bloody underwear, as we discussed previously. It is a different order than the other Gospels mention this, but really that is a trivial change, given the simultaneous nature of the event.

John 19:25-27 then uniquely recorded the charming scene of Jesus giving His mother to "the disciple whom he loved" (who most Christians consider to be John), and recorded how Jesus' mom then stayed in the home of that disciple. Of course, this makes us question if Jesus' father dead at that time, or did Joseph kick Mary out of the house? There is no mention either way, so we are left with speculation.

Without either a perceived call for Elijah or soldiers mocking Him, Jesus prompted receiving a wine vinegar spong-drink by saying "I am thirsty" (John 19:28-29).

And that is it! There was absolutely no mention of mocking Jesus on the cross, including any speech at all by the thieves recorded in John. That in and of itself is not so remarkable, as mocking was likely a common occurrence of the victims of crucifixion and therefore may not have been worth noting.

However, John does not even mention the land getting dark or the sun ceasing to shine for three hours. That is precisely the kind of detail you would want to include it it had actually happened, as you could easily say to a potential convert "Hey, do you remember years ago when the sun stopped shining in the middle of the day for three hours? That was because they crucified our Savior, Jesus, at that time."

Having all of these differences across the four Gospels, and some interesting conundrums within the accounts themselves, we have a blurry picture of what occurred in what is arguably the most important moment in Jesus' life. At best, it speaks of faulty memory and the fidelity loss in communicating between an eyewitness and a third party. At worst, it is fiction; a common story point in the myth which was tweaked as each author saw fit. Given the track record of the Gospels thus far, the latter case appears to be more likely.

Premature Exoneration

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Background
After Jesus was arrested, a trial was held against Him by the Priests. They had difficulty convicting Jesus of any wrongdoing, until they decided that Jesus had blasphemed by calling Himself the Son of God. (At some point in time either before {Luke 22:63-65} or after {Matthew 26:67, Mark 14:65}, that trial, Jesus was mocked and beat by soldiers.) With the charge of blaspheme, they sent Jesus to Pilate.

Yet when Jesus was before Pilate, there was no mention of a blaspheme charge from the Priests. Instead, Pilate questioned Jesus about being the King of the Jews. After that light inquisition, Pilate determined that Jesus was innocent.

Meanwhile, Judas Iscariot, betrayer of Jesus, repented of his actions and hung himself in shame.

Premature Exoneration

Innocent! Innocent, I tell you! Pontius Pilate stood there at the cusp of exonerating Jesus; realizing that He was an innocent man. This was the moment where Pilate would become either an angelic administrator or a despicable devil. You may know the rest of the story, but do you know the details? Do they add up? Let us take a look at the moment that defined Pilate's legacy in Christian lore.

Matthew 27:15-26, Mark 15:6-15, Luke 23:15-25, and John 18:38-40 + 19:1-16 all cover Pilate's handling of Jesus after he had found Him not guilty. We will begin with the Synoptic source; Mark.

In Mark, Pilate had not yet claimed Jesus' innocence. Mark began by informing us that there was a custom of releasing a prisoner during the Passover feast, that a Jewish rebel named Barabbas was in prison, and that the crowd had come forward to ask Pilate for the customary prisoner release (Mark 15:6-8). Remember that: Jesus' potential release was prompted by the crowd.

It is worthy to note as well that the name of the rebel was Barabbas, which literally means in Aramaic "son of the father"... strange to say the least. What makes it even more odd is that some early manuscripts give his full name as "Jesus Barabbas". So we have Jesus, son of the father, and Jesus, Son of the Father. Some critical scholars have suggested that there may have only been one Jesus (THE Jesus) in the original story. I speculate that this play on words was an intentional literary device; the name was used to emphasize the choice of these people between God and man. Anyway...

Pilate offered to release "the King of the Jews" to the crowd, suspecting that envy had driven the Chief Priests to arrest Jesus (Mark 15:9-10). It seems odd that Pilate would have used "King of the Jews" as opposed to Jesus' name, but, again here, I suspect that it is a literary device used to emphasize Jesus' role and the Jewish denial of it.

Speaking of strange, in Mark 15:11 we see:

But the Chief Priests stirred up the crowd to have Pilate release Barabbas instead. NIV

That is quite the wondrous turn of events! We have gone from the Chief Priests being afraid of the crowd's reactions (Matthew 21:26, Mathew 21:46, Mark 11:32, Mark 12:12, Luke 22:2) and having large crowds following Jesus (Matthew 21:8, Mark 12:37, Luke 14:25, John 12:19), to having the Chief Priests being able to manipulate the crowd against Jesus! How did that happen? Easy. Just refer to the plot of nearly any summer blockbuster movie. The story is driven by emotion, not internal consistency.

So the crowd asked for Barabbas' release, Pilate asked what he should do with Jesus, and they demanded His crucifixion (Mark 15:12-13). Of course, we should question why Pilate was giving them the option of selecting Jesus' punishment. Jesus was in the hands of the Roman authority now, so why would the Roman authority be asking the Jews how justice should be enacted on a prisoner? Well, because it must be that way in order for the story to make sense, that is why! As we see in Mark 15:14, the Roman authority found Jesus to be innocent:

"Why? What crime has he committed?" asked Pilate.
But they shouted all the louder, "Crucify him!" NIV

Pilate's reaction in Mark 15:15 is even more peculiar:

Wanting to satisfy the crowd, Pilate released Barabbas to them. He had Jesus flogged, and handed him over to be crucified. NIV

OK. So Pilate yielded to the rowdy crowd. So he released Barabbas. So he sent Jesus to be crucified. But flogged? Flogged?!?! That is just adding insult to injury, and ridiculousness to dubiousness. If Pilate thought that Jesus was innocent, and was only reluctantly submitting to the will of the crowd, why would he go the extra mile to have Jesus flogged?

Mark's version just does not add up. What about Matthew? Just like in our previous study, Matthew is essentially the same as Mark, but with some aggregations. The only really significant wording change is a refinement in Pilate's initial question to the crowd. In Matthew 27:17, Pilate gave the crowd an explicit choice between Barabbas and Jesus, and, unlike Mark's "King" account, Pilate labeled Jesus more colloquially "Jesus who is called Christ".

As for the aggregations, one is trivial, while the other is epically memorable.

The first insertion involves Pilate's wife. She sent Pilate a message during the process of the judgement which told Pilate that she had a nightmare about poor, innocent Jesus, so he should leave Jesus alone (Matthew 27:19). Of course, we have to wonder how we could possibly know about this message, which is unlikely to have been public knowledge.

The second insertion is the classic scene where Pilate, convinced of Jesus' innocence and yet remarkably subject to the will of the crowd, washed his hands in front of the crowd, metaphorically washing the guilt of Jesus' judgement off of himself (Matthew 27:24-25). Yet even with this defiantly passively-aggressive stance against killing an innocent man, Matthew's Pilate, of his own volition, still had Jesus flogged before being crucified (Matthew 27:26).

While Luke is not immune to issues himself, he was a better editor than Matthew, and was not afraid to rewrite the story to make it smoother.

As opposed to Matthew and Mark, Luke 23:14-16 began with a statement to the crowd that Jesus had "done nothing to deserve death" and so He would be punished and then released. Nothing deserving death... That is a well crafted phrase. Unlike Matthew and Mark which effectively pronounced Jesus as completely innocent, Luke leaves it a little bit murky. Nothing deserving death, just a little punishment instead...

Depending on which Bible version you read, you may or may not have Luke 23:17. It is absent from early manuscripts, and it speaks explicitly about Pilate's obligation to release a prisoner at the feast. It is hard to tell with certainty if that verse should be dropped or not, as it does reasonably fit into the context of what happened next. Different to Matthew and Mark, Luke's Pilate voluntarily offered to release Jesus without provocation from the crowd, but similar to Matthew and Mark, the crowd demanded Barabbas' release instead (Luke 23:18-19).

Luke enhanced the story by adding a triple rejection of Jesus by the crowd, having Pilate appeal twice more to the crowd to only punish Jesus since He had not committed any capital crime (Luke 23:20-23).

Luke must have realized how awkward it was to flog the innocent Jesus on top of sentencing Him to crucifixion, so in his version of Pilate's capitulation, there is no reference to that punishment (Luke 23:24-25).

Finally we come to John. John's version is similar, yet quite different. Like Luke, John began with a declaration that Jesus was innocent (John 18:38).

Like Mark, Pilate offered to release "the King of the Jews" as opposed to saying Jesus' name, but he made the offer unprompted by the crowd, like Luke (John 18:39).

Of course, "they" requested Barabbas instead (John 18:40), but John's "they" is quite different. In the other Gospels, Pilate was addressing a crowd of Jewish people which included consisted of lay people, not only the religious elite (Matthew 27:15-17, Mark 15:8, Luke 23:13-14). On the other hand, John's Pilate was addressing only the religious elite; the same ones who had questioned Jesus and had brought Him to Pilate (John 18:28).

That little twist makes John's account ludicrous, because we have Pilate offering to release Jesus to the same people who had voluntarily arrested, tried, and sent Jesus to Pilate to be killed. Why would Pilate expect, or even bother asking, if they wanted Jesus to be released. If they had, they would not have brought Jesus to Pilate in the first place!

John's account becomes even more bizarre, as Pilate immediately had Jesus flogged (John 19:1). That flogging got coupled to a scene which would happen later in the other Gospels, where the soldiers mocked Jesus with a robe a crown of thorns (John 19:2-3).

That cruelty was immediately followed up with Pilate claiming that Jesus was innocent of any charges, coupled with an implicit appeal to those same religious elite to let Jesus go (John 19:4-5). Not surprisingly, they (explicitly the Chief Priests and their officials) demanded crucifixion, to which Pilate told them to do it themselves (John 19:6).

(At that point, it is a real mystery why the religious elite did not accept the offer to do just that!)

These "Jews" fired back that Jesus had committed blaspheme; claiming to be God's Son (John 19:7).

At that point, John got ahead of himself again, making Pilate "even more afraid" (despite never making him afraid to begin with), which prompted Pilate to ask Jesus' origin (John 19:8-9).

Jesus did not answer, so Pilate asked Jesus if He realized the power that he had over Him (John 19:10). In John 19:11, we find an interesting response:

Jesus answered, "You would have no power over me if it were not given to you from above. Therefore the one who handed me over to you is guilty of a greater sin." NIV

First, we see a confirmation of the Old Testament philosophy. The "if it were not given to you from above" implies that God is the one who controls who rules nations. All human authority ultimately comes from God. Hitler. Stalin. Castro. Kim Jong-un. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Thank God.

Second, we see a gradation of sin; "a greater sin." That destroys the modern Christian mantra of all sins being equal before God.

Following this, we find in John 19:12 a persistence from Pilate:

From then on, Pilate tried to set Jesus free, but the Jews kept shouting, "If you let this man go, you are no friend of Caesar. Anyone who claims to be a king opposes Caesar." NIV

That sounds like a reasonable objection from the "Jews", except for the fact that they were asking for an insurrectionist/murderer to be freed instead of Jesus (Mark 15:7, Luke 23:19, John 18:40)! No one who releases an insurrectionist is a friend of Caesar either, but that is what Pilate did in the other three Gospels (John does not mention Barabbas actually being freed).

Despite the logic loop, John ends similarly to the other Gospels. Pilate made a last appeal, but finally relented to the crucifixion request (John 19:13-16). Again, with John's version, the outcome is even less of a surprise, given that Pilate was making the appeals to the Chief Priests (John 19:15).

Adding all of this up results in the square root of a negative number. ;-) It is imaginary. In each account, there is one implausibility after another, which collectively should not be ignored. Truth is sometimes stranger than fiction, so some remnant of the truth could be in these texts. Yet as they are in the Bible, they appear to have issues.

Jesus Is My Co-Pilate

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Background
Judas left Jesus and the other Disciples to enact his betrayal. After meeting with the authorities, he led them back to where Jesus was. Judas then identified Jesus to the authorities by kissing Him (Matthew, Mark), unless Jesus stopped the kiss from happening (Luke), or instead Jesus identified Himself and for arrest as soon as the authorities arrived (John).

After the arrest, the Priests struggled to find any charges against Jesus, but they ultimately decided that Jesus had blasphemed by calling Himself the Son of God. So they bound Him up, and sent Him to Pilate. (Before {Luke 22:63-65} and/or after {Matthew 26:67, Mark 14:65}, that trial, Jesus was mocked and beat by the soldiers who had custody of Him.)

Meanwhile, Peter, who had been waiting outside the High Priest's house, ended up denying three times that he had known Jesus (Matthew 26:69-75, Mark 14:66-72, Luke 22:56-62, John 18:17-27). That happened just as Jesus had predicted.

Jesus Is My Co-Pilate

Heavy is the head that wears the crown. Besides the more mundane administrative affairs of state, one crucial role is ensuring that the rule of law is enforced. Without law, you have chaos. You might as well be ruling cats. Law requires some form of justice. Let us take a look at the justice rendered by arguably the most infamous prefect in history; Pontius Pilate.

The Priests had bound Jesus, and delivered Him to Pilate for ultimate justice. Like any good minister of justice, Pilate questioned Jesus about His crimes. Well, not really. In this post, we will cover that inquisition captured in Matthew 27:1-14, Mark 15:1-5, Luke 23:1-16, and John 18:28-38.

We will start with the source, Mark. According to Mark, right after Jesus was handed over to Pilate (Mark 15:1), in Mark 15:2 we see this question and answer:

"Are you the King of the Jews?" asked Pilate.
"Yes, it is as you say," Jesus replied. NIV

This leaves us with the question of how Pilate came to think that Jesus should be called the "King of the Jews". As we know from last time, blaspheme was the charge against Jesus, so when did it come up that Jesus was a King?

Plus, there is the even bigger question of how this little snippet of dialog is recorded! There were no Disciple eye-witnesses here.

Anyway, after that question, the Chief Priests accused Jesus of "many things", and Pilate was amazed that Jesus gave no reply to these multiple charges against Him (Mark 15:3-5). What are these "many" accusations, when there was only the charge of blaspheme against Him? Who knows? Of course, again, we should also ask who knows that there were actually "many" accusations, given the lack of Jesus-aligned eye-witnesses?

That is it. With that paltry investigation, Pilate was allegedly able to discern both that Jesus had been arrested out of jealousy (Mark 15:9-10) and that Jesus was innocent (Mark 15:14). That would make for a pretty shoddy episode of CSI!

Seriously though, while we should not assume that all of the pertinent information about the investigation is recorded here, we do have a lack of details which are critical to Pilate reaching a judgement on Jesus, which is odd, to say the least. It is as though the story-teller could not think of a crafty way to reasonably resolve the dialog in Jesus' favor, and so chose to leave a gap instead.

Matthew 27:1-14, with some clarifying word changes, is essentially identical to Mark's account, except that Matthew aggregated into that passage the parallel account of Judas repenting his act of betrayal, throwing his money back to the Priests, and then hanging himself in shame.

Luke, of course, was a better editor than Matthew. While Luke missed the lack-of-eye-witnesses issue, he fixed the issue with the out-of-nowhere question from Pilate about Jesus being a King by having the Priests make their accusations first, as Luke 23:2 shows:

And they began to accuse Him, saying, "We have found this man subverting our nation. He opposes payment of taxes to Caesar and claims to be Christ, a king." NIV

So now we know why Pilate asked Jesus about being a King, but Luke created some other problems. For starters, where is the blaspheme charge? Next, why are the Priests accusing Jesus of opposing taxes when He did not oppose taxes? Of course, this does paint the Priests as being all the more evil, as they were willing to distort the truth in order to have Jesus killed by appealing to Roman law as opposed to God's Law.

Yet with that fix, it makes Pilate's investigation appear all-the-more inadequate, as Pilate goes straight from asking Jesus if He is King (Luke 23:3) to declaring Jesus' innocence (Luke 23:4).

Luke also added in more detail. After Pilate (miraculously?) found no basis for charges against Jesus, the Priests mentioned how Jesus had been stirring up people all the way from Galilee. Galilee was Herod's district, who just happened to be in Jerusalem, so Pilate sent Jesus to Herod for investigation. Herod asked Jesus "many" questions, and the Priests accused Jesus in front of Herod, but Jesus gave no replies. So Herod sent Jesus (with an elegant robe) back to Pilate (Luke 23:5-11). Pilate gathered the Priests and the people together (Luke 23:12-13) to make the public (and therefore witness-able) declaration we find in Luke 23:13-15:

and [Pilate] said to them, "You brought me this man (Jesus) as one who was inciting the people to rebellion. I have examined Him in your presence and have found no basis for your charges against Him. Neither has Herod, for he sent Him back to us; as you can see, He has done nothing to deserve death." NIV

It is strange that this public declaration, including the mention Herod's judgement, is not covered by any of the other three Gospels. (In fact, Herod is not mentioned at all in John; not for the Massacre of the Innocents, for the beheading of John the Baptist, or for his role in examining Jesus.)

Even more strange is how Luke later spun Herod's involvement in Jesus' death. Referencing the first couple of verses of Psalm 2 as "prophesy", in Acts 4:25-28 we see:

"You spoke by the Holy Spirit through the mouth of Your servant, our father David:

‘Why do the nations rage and the peoples plot in vain? The kings of the earth rise up and the rulers band together against the Lord and against His anointed one.’

Indeed Herod and Pontius Pilate met together with the Gentiles and the people of Israel in this city to conspire against Your holy servant Jesus, whom You anointed. They did what Your power and will had decided beforehand should happen." NIV

So somehow Pilate and Herod finding Jesus to be innocent adds up to conspiring against Jesus! That is ludicrous! This is yet another instance were we find the truth stretched to fulfill a prophesy.

If Luke is ludicrous, John is laughable. There, Pilate's investigation of Jesus happens inside the palace with no eye-witnesses, because the Jews did not want to sully themselves on the holiday (John 18:28). So Pilate went out and asked the Priests what charges they had against Jesus, to which they responded that Jesus was a criminal, without giving any specific charge (John 18:29-30).

Pilate then did what any Roman law keeper would do: he told the Priests to judge Jesus according to Jewish Law (John 18:31)! Ha! That seems extremely unlikely, but it certainly is possible, especially if Pilate was just trying to get rid of this annoyance so early in the morning. Anyway, the Priests objected because they did not have the authority to conduct executions (John 18:32).

So Pilate went back inside the palace to question Jesus. And his first question? You guessed it. From out of nowhere, Pilate asked Jesus if He was the King of the Jews (John 18:33). Instead of Jesus essentially answering "yup" as in the other Gospels, we get more dialog (recorded without eye-witnesses) of Jesus explaining that His Kingdom was "not of this world" and "from another place", and that people "on the side of truth" listen to Him (John 18:34-37).

Based on that, ahem, painstakingly thorough line of questioning, Pilate asked "What is truth?" and then went out to tell the Priests that he finds that Jesus is innocent (John 18:38).

Lacking any sense of jurisprudence, in all four of the Gospels, Pilate is portrayed as absolutely inept at getting to the truth of the matter and thereby rendering effective justice. Jesus is declared innocent with only the most superficial and indirect line of questioning. Although many Christians like to vilify Pilate, in a way, he is a model of Jesus. Not that Pilate was a sin-free self-offering of God, but that it is Jesus who will allegedly serve as the mediator of God's wrath, and His ultimate qualifying question determining your guilt or innocence will be of the most superficial nature: did you believe in Me?