The Last Days of Jesus

by Bill O'Reilly

  Buddhists believe that Jesus was an enlightened man whose teachings were similar to those of the Buddha.

  To Hindus, Jesus was an incarnation of God, a saint, and a wise teacher.

  Muslims believe that Jesus was one of many true prophets sent by God but superseded by Muhammad.

  Whether or not one believes that Jesus rose from the dead, the story of his life and the message he preached achieved much greater status after his crucifixion. Unlike other preachers and prophets, such as Judas of Gamala, Jesus became a noted personage in the history of Jerusalem and beyond.

  * * *

  After the crucifixion, the disciples of Jesus underwent a radical shift in behavior. They were quite positive that they had seen a resurrected Jesus and soon went out into the world and fearlessly preached his message. Known as the apostles, ones who are sent out to teach, all but one of the men paid a tremendous price for their faith.

  In AD 44, the grandson of Herod the Great, Herod Agrippa, who ruled Judea at that time, ordered that JAMES be put to the sword. The beheading of James made him the first disciple to be martyred. Agrippa was violently opposed to Christianity and used his power to ruthlessly suppress the followers of Jesus.

  For a time Agrippa imprisoned PETER, but did not kill him. Peter’s missionary work eventually took him to Rome, where he formalized the new Catholic Church. The Romans reacted by sentencing Peter to death on the cross. The year is thought to be sometime around AD 64. There is good evidence that Peter is buried beneath St. Peter’s Cathedral in Vatican City.

  The deaths of most disciples are more legend than fact. ANDREW, the apostle known for being optimistic and enterprising, preached Jesus’s message in what is now the Ukraine, Russia, and Greece. He is believed to have been crucified in Patras, a Roman-controlled region of Greece.

  The often-pessimistic THOMAS is thought to have been speared to death near Madras, in India. BARTHOLOMEW preached in Egypt, Arabia, and what is now Iran before being flayed—skinned alive—then beheaded in India. SIMON THE ZEALOT is thought to have been sawed in half for his preaching in Persia. PHILIP preached in what is now western Turkey. He is said to have been martyred by having hooks run through his ankles and then being hung upside down in the Greco-Roman city of Hieropolis. The gregarious former tax collector MATTHEW may have died in Ethiopia, murdered like all the rest for his fervent preaching.

  Little is known about what happened to the others, except that each disciple spent his life preaching and all but one was killed for doing so. It is a fact that the disciples of Jesus traveled as far as Africa, India, and Britain in their zeal to spread their faith, marking a sea change from their timid behavior during Jesus’s life and in the hours after his death.

  The last to die was JOHN, who was taken prisoner by the Romans for preaching Christianity and exiled to the Greek island of Patmos. There he wrote his gospel and also what would become the final pages of the Christian New Testament, the Book of Revelation. John died in AD 100 in Ephesus, in what is now Turkey. He was ninety-four, and the only apostle not to have been martyred.

  Matthew’s gospel and the First Book of Acts attribute JUDAS ISCARIOT’s death to suicide. Matthew writes that upon learning that his plan to force Jesus’s hand had resulted in the execution order, Judas flung his thirty pieces of silver into the temple and hanged himself from a tree. Legend has it that he used a horse’s halter to break his own neck. Whether or not this is true, Judas Iscariot was never heard from again.

  The same is true for MARY MAGADALENE. After her appearance at the tomb of Jesus, she disappears from the story.

  MARY, THE MOTHER OF JESUS, is mentioned in the Book of Acts and alluded to in the Book of Revelation as “a woman clothed with the sun,” but her fate goes unrecorded. On November 1, 1950, the Roman Catholic Church decreed that her body had been “assumed into heaven.” Pope Pius XII noted that Mary, “having completed the course of her earthly life, was assumed body and soul into heavenly glory.”

  * * *

  Six years after washing his hands of Jesus’s execution, PONTIUS PILATE intervened in another case involving a preacher—and this time it cost him his job. The man from Samaria had holed up in a mountaintop sanctuary in Gerizim. Concerned by the man’s growing legion of followers, Pilate suppressed the movement with heavily armed Roman soldiers. This resulted in many deaths, and led Pilate to be recalled to Rome to explain his actions. He thought his appeal would be heard by his friend, EMPEROR TIBERIUS. But by the time Pilate reached Rome, Tiberius was dead. The fourth-century historian Eusebius records that Pilate was forced to commit suicide, becoming “his own murderer and executioner.” Where and how Pilate died is still debated. One report says he drowned himself in the Rhone River near Vienne, a city in modern-day France. There a Roman monument still stands in the heart of the city and is often referred to as “Pilate’s Tomb.” Another report says he hurled himself into a lake near what is now Lausanne, Switzerland, where Mount Pilatus is said to have been named in his honor. There is also a rumor that Pilate and his wife, Claudia, converted to Christianity and were killed for their faith.

  The ossuary of the high priest Caiaphas, the chest his remains were put in after time in a tomb. [The Bridgeman Art Library]

  With Pilate gone, CAIAPHAS was left without a Roman political ally. He had many enemies in Jerusalem and was soon replaced as the temple high priest. Caiaphas then left the stage and disappeared from history. The dates of his birth and death are unrecorded. But in 1990 an ossuary believed to contain his bones was discovered in Jerusalem. They are currently on display at the Israel Museum.

  HEROD ANTIPAS may have been well schooled in palace intrigue, but it eventually brought about his demise. His nephew Agrippa was known to be a close friend of the Roman emperor Caligula. The Jewish historian Josephus relates that when Antipas foolishly asked Caligula to name him king, instead of tetrarch (at the suggestion of his wife, HERODIAS, who continued to get him into trouble), it was Agrippa who lodged charges that Antipas was plotting to assassinate Caligula. As proof, Agrippa pointed to the enormous arsenal of weaponry possessed by Antipas’s army. So it was that Caligula ordered Antipas to spend the rest of his life exiled in Gaul (now France). His fortune and territories were handed over to the younger Agrippa. The former tetrarch was joined by his wife. The two lived in Lugdunum, which many believe to be the location of modern-day Lyon.

  THE HISTORY AFTER JESUS’S DEATH

  The tension between Rome and the Jewish people did not lessen after the murder of Jesus. In AD 66, the Jews waged war on the Roman occupying army and took control of Jerusalem. However, the Romans did not accept defeat.

  By AD 70, they had surrounded the city with four Roman legions and were laying siege. Pilgrims arriving to celebrate Passover were allowed into the city—then not allowed to leave, putting considerable pressure on Jerusalem’s limited water and food supplies. Those attempting to escape were promptly crucified and their crosses left on the surrounding hills to warn Jewish residents of the fate that awaited them. Thousands were eventually nailed to the cross during the siege, so many that the Romans ran out of wood. Trees had to be logged and carried to Jerusalem from miles away in order to accommodate the tremendous number of crucifixions.

  When the Romans finally breached the city walls, the destruction was total. Those Jews who didn’t escape were killed or enslaved. The temple itself was burned to the ground and much of the city leveled.

  Four hundred years later, in AD 476, the Roman Empire was toppled by Germanic tribes. However, long before the empire’s collapse, Rome turned away from its pagan gods and began worshipping Jesus Christ. Christianity was officially legalized throughout the Roman Empire in 313.

  The destruction of the temple in AD 70; 19th-century painting by Francesco Hayez. [The Bridgeman Art Library]

  COUNTING YEARS

  A 19th-century Jewish calendar from the Israel Museum in Jerusalem. [Mary Evans Picture Library]

  We use calendars to fix certain lengths of time�
��days, months, and years—and to measure the passage of these lengths of time. The calendar we use today was devised in the sixth century and approved by the Roman Catholic pope Gregory XIII. His calendar makers used the presumed birth of Jesus, in AD 1, as the dividing point. The years before AD 1 are often labeled as BC, meaning “Before Christ.” AD stands for Anno Domini, the Latin for “the Year of Our Lord.” (Today, many historians prefer not to use a religious-based calendar notation and use BCE and CE, meaning Before the Common Era and Common Era, respectively.)

  Jewish people have a calendar that counts time from the year before the estimated creation of the world. This calendar is used to determine the correct date for religious observances and to assign Torah readings to particular days. A year generally runs from September to September. The year 5775 begins at sundown on September 24, 2014, and ends on sundown September 13, 2015.

  Evidence of the Romans’ influence on world culture still lingers. Some months of the year are named for Roman gods, including two emperors.

  JERUSALEM: HOLY CITY TO THE WORLD

  The city of Jerusalem is important to three major world religions: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.

  Since biblical times, Jews have considered Jerusalem holy. The Western Wall, the only remains of the Second Temple, is one of the most sacred sites to Jews in Jerusalem. Each year, millions of locals and visitors come the wall to pray and often write prayers and tuck the papers into cracks in the wall. About twice a year, the written prayers are removed and buried in a cemetery on the Mount of Olives. It is forbidden to destroy anything that has the name of God written on it. People who cannot visit Jerusalem in person can send a prayer via e-mail through Aish.com’s Wall Camera. Prayers will be printed out and placed in the wall by a yeshiva student.

  Christians consider Jerusalem sacred because Jesus taught and died there. The Church of the Holy Sepulchre, built on the location of Jesus’s crucifixion, is a sacred site in the city.

  Jerusalem is one of three cities sacred to Muslims, after Mecca and Medina in Saudi Arabia. The Muslim holy prophet Muhammad is believed to have left from Jerusalem when he visited heaven. Today, the shrine known as the Dome of the Rock is on that site.

  HOW WE KNOW ABOUT THE LIFE OF JESUS

  The New Testament

  The New Testament is the second half of the Christian Bible. It contains twenty-seven books written between AD 50 and AD 100 by followers of Jesus. Historians have identified the eight writers as six apostles—Matthew, John, Paul, James, Peter, and Jude—and two of their disciples, Mark and Luke.

  The books of the New Testament can be divided into three groups: historical books that mostly relate the life of Jesus, though one, called Acts, details the establishment of early church communities in Palestine and Syria; morally instructive books that are letters to early Christian congregations; and one prophetic book, the Apocalypse or Book of Revelation, which recounts a vision experienced by its writer, John.

  A relief showing the symbols of the four gospel writers: John, an eagle; Luke, a winged bull; Matthew, an angel; and Mark, a winged lion. [Mary Evans Picture Library]

  The books were gathered together over time to form the document known as the New Testament. The accounts and quotes in this book are taken from the New International Version published by Zondervan in 2011.

  Flavius Josephus

  In addition to the New Testament, a contemporary historian named Flavius Josephus wrote a history of the Jewish people, called Jewish Antiquities. He was a well-educated Jew who grew up in Jerusalem. His history mentions Jesus several times and is used to provide historical evidence of some of the events in Jesus’s life and what his followers believed him to be.

  Flavius Josephus shown in a 19th-century engraving. [The Bridgeman Art Library]

  Tacitus

  The Roman historian Gaius Cornelius Tacitus was also a senator. In about AD 116 he wrote an account of the empire that includes references to Jesus’s condemnation by Pontius Pilate and his crucifixion.

  Gaius Cornelius Tacitus. Engraving; no date. [The Bridgeman Art Library]

  Archaeological Evidence

  There is a great deal of interest in life in the first century in what was the province of Judea. Sites in Jerusalem are excavated continually to show what architecture and living conditions might have been like. Historians examine fragments of pottery for food residue, bones for nutritional indicators, and walls for murals that may tell stories about beliefs and customs. It is a search that continues, with new findings every year. There are twenty-nine current digs in Israel, including ones in Tiberius and Mount Zion, in addition to those in Jordan, Italy, Spain, Turkey, and Egypt. To see a list of interesting digs, visit Biblicalarchaeology.org.

  THE DEAD SEA SCROLLS

  The discovery of a cave protecting ancient manuscripts was the most exciting biblical find of the twentieth century. In 1947, Bedouin goatherds were searching for a lost goat in the hills along the Dead Sea. One threw a stone into a cave, and instead of a goat bolting, he heard the sound of a jar smashing. Alert for treasure, he entered the cave to find seven tall pottery jars. Inside were nearly intact scrolls and some fragments written on parchment and papyrus as well as one engraved copper tablet.

  One of the Qumran caves where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found. [Kurt Prescott]

  By 1956, ten more caves had been found in the area now known as Khirbet Qumran. Scholars now have fragments of almost 900 documents dating from 250 BC to AD 68. Among them are the oldest known copies of the books of the Hebrew Bible written in Hebrew and Aramaic, as well as prayers, hymns, and other writings.

  Although the Dead Sea Scrolls, as the mass of documents is known, do not mention Jesus, they are strong evidence of how important religion was in the lives of the people living in the area at Jesus’s time. And they provide a wealth of information about first-century Judaism and the development of early Christianity.

  You can browse the Dead Sea Scrolls and learn about the efforts to translate them at http://www.deadseascrolls.org.il/.

  Limestone cliffs rise above the Dead Sea. [Library of Congress]

  THE PURPLE CLOAK

  The robe worn by Jesus just before his crucifixion has captured the attention and the imagination of people for centuries. Its color was intended to mock him, signifying that he was “king of the Jews.” What might that royal color have actually looked like?

  In the first century, most cloth was the neutral color of the flax or wool from which it was woven. More vibrant hues were rare and valuable; there were three known to be extremely long-lasting and intense. In Hebrew, they are tekhelet, a bluish purple; tola’at shani, scarlet; and argaman, a reddish purple known to the Romans as Tyrian purple. While dye of the scarlet tola’at shani was made from an insect, dyes of the purplish argaman and tekhelet were made from mollusks, animals such as snails or oysters.

  Archaeological researchers have discovered large numbers of mollusk shells throughout the Mediterranean. In particular, they found many shells in modern Lebanon near the cities of Tyre and Sidon, which were centers of the manufacture of dye in the time of Jesus. Dye makers collected the animals and punctured the shells, pulling the creatures out. Then the juices from their stomachs were drained. These contained the valuable pigment—the source of the color. Experiments have shown that liquid taken from twelve thousand mollusks produces only .053 ounce (1.5 grams) of pure purple dye. For this reason, a pound of Tyrian purple cost the equivalent of roughly ten thousand dollars. Because it was so valuable, it truly was the color of kings.

  A lithograph showing varieties of mollusks. [The Bridgeman Art Library]

  THE SYMBOL OF THE CROSS

  For years after the death of Jesus, Christians were embarrassed by the cross, for it was considered a cause of death best suited for slaves, murderers, and members of the lowest class. However, by the second century, Christians began touching their forehead, chest, and each shoulder to make the sign of the cross as a way of warding off demons. By the fourth ce
ntury, the cross was more commonly viewed with pride, as a symbol that Jesus had suffered a lowly death for the benefit of all mankind. The iconic image showing the body of Jesus affixed to a cross did not become part of the Christian culture until six centuries after his death.

  A 12th-century cross from a monastery in Spain. [The Bridgeman Art Library]

  THIRTY PIECES OF SILVER: HOW MUCH IS THAT WORTH?

  Judas Iscariot accepted thirty pieces of silver as payment for betraying Jesus to the Romans. Was that a lot of money or a little? It is difficult to know exactly.

  The kind of silver coin that Judas received was most likely referred to as a shekel. This kind of shekel is a coin that weighs about a half ounce of silver. A shekel was a unit of weight, so one could also have a shekel of grain or a shekel of spices.

  In Jesus’s day, thirty shekel coins might buy a slave who would work for you until he had saved up enough money to buy his freedom. For a skilled laborer, thirty shekels would be about four to six months’ wages.

  Thirty coins was very likely a huge amount for Judas, especially considering the scarcity of actual money at the time. Despite that, according to a gospel account in the New Testament, when Judas heard that Jesus had been killed, he returned to the temple and threw down the thirty coins. It is said that the priests used the coins to buy a field to be used as a cemetery for foreigners.