by Adam Winn
Caleb wiped the tears from his eyes and shook his head. “You are full of surprises, Cousin.”
“I think I could say the same thing of you.” They laughed.
On their way to the door, Judah said, “Having you as an informant will be a great weapon for us. There is something sweetly satisfying in knowing that our ranking priests, puppets of Roman power, will be financing those who will bring that power down.”
As they stepped outside, Caleb breathed deeply of the cool night air and said with a smile, “It is sweet, indeed.”
AUTHOR’S NOTE
No doubt after reading this narrative, many readers are left with a variety of questions, particularly given the fact that my depiction of Jesus’ death is, in some significant ways, different than traditional understandings. Some might be left wondering how much of what they just read is fact and how much is fiction. Some might be wondering if this narrative contradicts the Gospels of the New Testament. Others might be questioning my interpretation of this detail or that. While I cannot possibly respond to all of the questions this story has raised, here I will attempt to answer some of them.
First, what can be said to those seeking a distinction between fact and fiction in the narrative? It is not as easy as dividing the events in the narrative into two categories: those that are fact and those that are fiction. Such an approach ignores the difficulty of assessing what is indeed fact. When it comes to the historical facts of Jesus’ death, there is great disagreement and debate among historians and biblical scholars as to what those facts actually are. While some will simply conclude that all the details found in the New Testament are historical fact, others will not. And for those who accept everything in the Gospels as historical facts, what is to be made of the places where there are apparent discrepancies among the Gospels themselves? Even among historians and biblical scholars, there are wide-ranging opinions regarding the facts of Jesus’ life and death. Did Jesus’ triumphal entry actually happen? Did Jesus actually disrupt the temple—and if he did, what was the significance of this action? Did Jesus present himself as a “messiah” in any way? Would Jesus have been perceived as a threat to the peace of Jerusalem? Was Jesus actually tried by Jewish authorities or the Sanhedrin? Did Judas actually betray Jesus? The list of debated issues goes on and on. My narrative has woven in my own historical assessment of what is fact and fiction, and to address each disputed issue here would be overly burdensome. Instead, I will here outline for you my own scholarly opinion about the facts of Jesus’ death. After doing so, I will be able to more easily identify the aspects of the book that are clearly fiction.
My understanding of Jesus’ death begins with the social and political setting that Jesus entered during his final week in Jerusalem, namely the celebration of the Passover. This feast was a celebration of God’s deliverance from slavery in Egypt, and given that the Jews of Jerusalem and Judea were currently living under foreign occupation, such a celebration would be of particular relevance to them. Put another way, there is likely no time of the year in which Jews were collectively focused on freedom from Roman occupation more than at the Passover festival.
Compared to the rest of the cities of the Roman Empire, the civil unrest and political tension within Jerusalem was regularly quite high, but at Passover it was even greater. In fact, the historian Josephus tells us that the risks of riot and revolt were greatest during festivals like Passover (Josephus, Jewish War 1.88). The feast drew a large number of Jewish pilgrims to Jerusalem; most scholars estimate that the population grew between four to five times its normal size of somewhere between 50,000 and 100,000 people. The crowd-control issues alone would have been enough to give the governing Roman officials a major headache! As the narrative explains, the tension and the crowds put both Jewish and Roman authorities on high alert in the months leading up to the Passover and during the festival itself. I think it is fair to say that during the Passover celebration, the Roman governors of Judea wanted nothing more than for it to come and go without any disruption to the peace. When Jesus came to Jerusalem just before Passover, he entered a political tinderbox that could be set ablaze with the smallest of sparks.
But before discussing Jesus’ entry into the city, a few comments must be made about Jesus himself. Though not all historians and scholars would agree, many would contend that Jesus was an extremely popular prophet and teacher, and it is likely that many Jews hoped or believed he was God’s Messiah who would deliver them from Roman occupation. As such, I believe Jesus would have drawn the eye of Roman and Jewish authorities long before he came to Jerusalem for Passover. Whether there were any attempts or plans to stop Jesus from coming, as I suggest in my story, is admittedly speculation. But I would contend that, given Roman vigilance in this region, such efforts are highly plausible. Roman authorities would have certainly seen a popular prophet who proclaimed the coming of a new kingdom of God as a potential threat to peace.
Now let us consider Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem at Passover. While some scholars reject the historicity of the Gospels’ depiction of this event, I not only affirm it but give it great significance in my reconstruction of the political realities that led to Jesus’ death. Jesus entered the city of Jerusalem as a conquering king, welcomed by the people’s cries of “Hosanna!” (which means “salvation” or “save us”) and acclamations of him as Messiah. This entrance is at the heart of church celebrations each year on Palm Sunday, but rarely do Christians pause to think about the political significance of Jesus’ actions. In the eyes of Roman authorities, Jesus is committing a capital crime! From a Roman perspective, and the perspective of the crowds, Jesus is entering the city as a messianic king who will save the people from Roman oppression. An entry like this would be extremely dangerous at any time of year, but it would be particularly so at Passover. The Roman governor Pilate would quickly know of such actions and would need no other reason to execute Jesus as a dangerous political threat. To add fuel to the fire, Jesus caused a major disturbance in the Jewish temple. He condemned the temple leadership, which had been appointed by Rome and thus were representatives of Roman power. Such an action could be regarded as a capital crime as well.
Despite both of these actions, Jesus was not arrested, and one must ponder why. In agreement with the Gospels, my narrative suggests that he was not arrested because of a fear that his arrest itself might catalyze what Roman authorities wanted to avoid, namely rioting in the streets that could lead to rebellion. Thus, Jesus presents a Catch-22 for Pontius Pilate. If Jesus is not arrested, he might lead the people to riot and revolt. But if Jesus is arrested, that very arrest might bring about the same outcome. How then can Pilate solve his Jesus problem?
Pilate’s solution is at the heart of my narrative. I propose that Pilate colludes with the Jewish authorities of the city to formulate a strategy for eliminating Jesus and the threat he poses to peace. This strategy involves Jesus being arrested and tried by Jewish authorities followed by their formal and public request to Pilate for his execution. Pilate makes a public show of finding Jesus innocent, but ultimately accedes to the will of the Jewish authorities and hands Jesus over for crucifixion. Pilate reasons that if he is seen as executing Jesus, the chances for riot and revolt are much higher than if the people’s own leaders are perceived as responsible for Jesus’ death.
Thus, I present the Gospels’ depiction of Jesus’ trial before Pilate and the Jewish authorities’ participation in that trial as an act of political gamesmanship. The ruse takes place in the early morning so that the crowds of Jesus’ supporters, who might respond violently to a public arrest, would still be in bed or just waking up. But the ruse is also public so that witnesses could spread throughout the city the narrative that Pilate had created. As the people in the city hear this news, there is sadness and anger, but most importantly there is confusion regarding the role Rome played in Jesus’ death. This confusion stifles the potential fires of rebellion. In the end, the plan works, and Pilate gets exactly what he wanted all alon
g: the death of a dangerous prophet and messianic claimant without riot or revolt.
The narrative in this book is primarily a way to creatively introduce the reader to this reconstruction of Jesus’ death and the political realities that brought it about. Obviously, many aspects of the story are my own creations. The only characters that have a firm basis in history are Jesus, his leading disciples (including Judah/Judas), Caiaphas, and Pilate. Caleb, Caleb’s cousin Judah, Judah’s coconspirators, and even Caiaphas’s son Eleazar are fictional, as are many of the events and interactions they participate in. Even the interactions between truly historical characters such as Caiaphas and Pilate, and Jesus and Pilate, are fiction, although they are grounded in a sound historical understanding of the sociopolitical realities of Judea and Jerusalem under Roman occupation. That is to say, characters like Judah, Caleb, and Eleazar did exist, and their actions in the story reflect plausible historical realities, even if such actions are not themselves those realities.
Some might fear that this narrative contradicts the New Testament Gospels or undermines their claims in certain ways. This could not be further from my intended aim. My primary goal is to help readers better understand the social and political realities that provide the proper context for understanding the depiction of Jesus’ death in the New Testament Gospels. The Gospels are not exhaustive historical accounts of all the details related to Jesus’ death, and they were not intended to be so. Each Gospel has its own purpose in its depiction of Jesus’ Passion and death, and thus each depicts Jesus’ death slightly differently. Not only is there much the Gospel authors assume the reader already knows about the social and political context, information most modern readers do not in fact know, but also there was at least some information related to Jesus’ death that the Gospel authors were simply not aware of. Thus, while the New Testament Gospels are our best historical sources for the death of Jesus, for the history that they depict to be best understood, additional historical analysis and reconstruction are necessary. The narrative I have created reflects just such analysis and reconstruction.
Perhaps an example will best illustrate these claims. The Gospels’ depiction of Pilate finding Jesus innocent has long been a thorny problem for historians and New Testament scholars. At least two ancient writers outside the Gospels depict Pilate as quick to shed blood when faced with resistance to Roman authority (see Philo of Alexandria, Embassy to Gaius 299–305; and Josephus, Jewish War 2.9; Antiquities of the Jews 18.35-177). However, the Gospels depict a reluctant Pilate who does not want to execute a troublemaking Jew. That Pilate finds Jesus innocent is particularly perplexing when one accepts as historical Jesus’ triumphal entry into the city as a messianic figure, his great popularity with the people, and his harsh critiques of the Roman-backed Jewish authorities. How do we explain Pilate’s innocent verdict in the face of such realities? Some scholars have dismissed the Gospel accounts of Pilate finding Jesus innocent as fabrications created for apologetic, polemical, or theological reasons. Others have sought alternate explanations that maintain the veracity of the Gospels’ claims. But the point remains that the depiction in the Gospels of Pilate finding Jesus innocent begs for further historical explanation and understanding. The Gospels do not resolve this tension, and it was not their purpose to do so.
I offer my own solution to the problem of Pilate finding Jesus innocent by offering the narrative that while Pilate privately wanted Jesus eliminated, for political reasons he publicly found Jesus innocent. Does such a solution contradict or deny the Gospel accounts? I would propose that it does not. The Gospels depict the public narrative that Pilate wanted people to see and to be reported throughout the city, yet I am proposing that there was a private narrative that was kept secret by the power brokers of Jerusalem. Instead of contradicting the Gospel accounts, my narrative actually affirms the public narrative that the Gospels bear witness to. At the same time, however, it offers a way in which the historical tension present in the Gospels can be explained and alleviated, namely that there may have been a private narrative of which the Gospel authors were not aware.
Another example is my treatment of the character Barabbas, who appears in each of the Gospel passion narratives. In each Gospel, Pilate gives the crowd gathered before him the choice of freeing either Jesus or a man named Barabbas. Many readers have probably noticed that the name Barabbas does not appear in the story they have just read. Instead of Pilate releasing a person named Barabbas, he releases Judah’s best friend, Samuel. This name change is related to historical questions that surround the Gospel tradition of Barabbas. Why would a Roman governor release a dangerous political prisoner at Passover? Would this be advisable for a figure tasked by the Roman emperor to keep the peace of the region? The name Barabbas itself also raises questions of legitimacy. The name comes from Aramaic, and literally means “the son of the Father.” That Barabbas would be an individual’s personal name is quite odd, and there is no evidence of any person with this name in the entirety of ancient literature outside the Gospels themselves. Many have suggested that the name is not a literal or actual name of a historical figure but that it serves a literary/theological purpose in the Gospels. The choice between Barabbas and Jesus is the choice between two “sons of the father,” one who is a political revolutionary and sought to bring about God’s kingdom by violence and one who is truly God’s Messiah and sought to bring about God’s kingdom through his own sacrificial death. Some have concluded that the entire episode finds no basis in history, and that it is merely a literary/theological device used to contrast the way of Jesus with the way of zealots and revolutionaries. Others have maintained that the tradition is strictly historical. My narrative provides a compromise of sorts. It offers a historical basis for the tradition, that is, that Pilate did indeed give the crowd a choice between Jesus and another prisoner, though a choice that was part of his larger act of political manipulation. But at the same time, by changing the name of the character to Samuel, I am recognizing that the name Barabbas itself (not the tradition of releasing a prisoner) is best understood as a literary/theological device and not the actual name of historical figure.
But what of other apparent discrepancies between the above story and the Gospel accounts? Why does Judas not kiss Jesus in the garden? Why does the Passover meal come after Jesus’ death and not the night before? Why doesn’t Jesus stand trial before Herold Antipas? These are all good questions, but people would be asking them even if they never read my narrative and relied on the Gospels alone! While Judas kisses Jesus in Mark and Matthew, he does not do so in Luke or John. While Luke presents Jesus’ Last Supper as a Passover meal, according to John, the Passover meal would have been eaten the night of Jesus’ death. And while Luke presents Jesus standing trial before both Herod Antipas and Pilate, Matthew, Mark, and John do not report a trial before Herod.
That the Gospels vary in such details should not be troubling given their various purposes and audiences, but the fact is that they do differ from each other both in the details noted here and in many others. In creating historical fiction about Jesus’ death, an author has to make the choice to follow one Gospel or another at certain points, and my narrative reflects my own choices in these matters. No single factor can explain all of them. Some choices reflect a move toward narrative coherence and/or consistency, and others reflect my own historical assessment of particular Gospel details. Yet ultimately, all of the decisions I have made have some precedent in the Gospels themselves.
The theory this narrative proposes is only one among many competing theories regarding the political realities that culminated in Jesus’ death. All such theories have strengths and weaknesses, with some accounting for certain aspects of the historical data better than others. As noted above, not all scholars agree on what the actual pieces of the historical puzzle are. Even when they do agree, they do not always assemble those pieces in the same way. It is not my intention to debate the merits of my own approach to the historical puzzle over against the app
roaches of others. Such an enterprise would no doubt require another book! Here I simply throw my own proposal into the ring for consideration, and I will leave the evaluation of its merit to you. For both your praise and criticism I am equally grateful.
THE DEATH OF JESUS AND THE HISTORY OF ANTI-SEMITISM
Traditional Christian depictions and interpretations of the death of Jesus have long been intertwined with Christian anti-Semitism. Given the Gospels’ depiction of a Roman governor who finds Jesus innocent and a mob of angry Jews demanding Jesus’ death, Christians have long understood Jews to be responsible, at least legally and politically, for Jesus’ crucifixion. Thus, throughout the last two thousand years, Christians have destroyed Torah scrolls, burned synagogues, confiscated Jewish property, taken Jewish lives, and even engaged in genocide, regularly justifying such actions by using the epithets “Christ killers” and “God killers.”
Tragically, such evil actions persisted even in the face of official teachings from the Christian church that denounced both the actions themselves and this particular justification for them. Even today, many Christians are either ignorant of or simply insensitive to the implications that the Gospel accounts of Jesus’ death have for Jewish-Christian relationships. In light of such a history, it would be highly irresponsible to write a book on the death of Jesus without addressing anti-Semitism.
One of the purposes of this book is to demonstrate that the historical realities surrounding Jesus’ death are more complicated than what appears in the Gospel narratives. While the Gospels reveal a public narrative that was witnessed by the masses, I propose that a private narrative also existed that the Gospel authors were not privy to and thus did not include. While my imaginative re-creation of this private narrative does not completely remove Jewish involvement from the death of Jesus, I hope that it qualifies Christian perceptions of Jewish culpability in significant ways. First and foremost, my reconstruction rejects the perception that Pilate truly believed that Jesus was innocent, and instead argues that he was the primary instigator and orchestrator of Jesus’ arrest and execution from the beginning. Such a move is important, because Jewish guilt for Jesus’ death is often magnified when compared to the Gospels’ portrayal of Pilate finding Jesus innocent. While throughout Christian history Pilate has often been rehabilitated and sometimes even presented as one who later came to Christian faith, the Jews have been vilified for demanding the death of an innocent man. By strongly implicating Pilate in Jesus’ death, I hope readers’ perceptions of Jewish guilt will be mitigated.
