Time to Cleanse Ihe Temple
PETTINGELL, PHOEBE
Time to Cleanse the Temple THE TRIAL OF JESUS OF NAZARETH By S. F. G. Brandon Stein & Day. 223 pp. $6.95. Reviewed by PHOEBE PETTINGELL Everyone that is of the truth heareth my voice. John...
...Thus, on St...
...Although Pontius Pilate and Caiaphas are mentioned in historical records (Herod also, but not as overlapping with Pilate), there is no mention, except in the Josephus forgery, of Jesus Christ, any disciple, St...
...Mark's telling of the Barabbas episode: "For certain incidental remarks in his account suggest derivation from a tradition of which he was well-informed, but which he was reluctant to disclose fully to his readers...
...More people know of it, if only vaguely, than of the trial of any other person...
...The latest of these endeavors is S. G. F. Brandon's The Trial of Jesus of Nazareth, in Stein and Day's "Historic Trial Series...
...In the Synoptics, when Jesus prophesies his coming humiliation in Jerusalem, Brandon describes it as "clearly a literary composition," again not realizing that it is an Old Testament prophecy from Isaiah 53:3-5...
...The author is aware that the destruction of the Temple in 70 AD shaped Christianity, but he does not understand its significance...
...The assumption that the son of a carpenter from Nazareth was put to death by the Roman governor of Judaea is based on no evidence...
...One might just as well argue that the Roman soldiers read the Old Testament in their spare time, and knew that the Messiah would come as the Suffering Servant to be mocked and smitten for our transgressions...
...It will indeed, but it should be equally offensive to all men of good sense...
...This is rather startling, and one is naturally eager to know what wonderful new sources have turned up to support these new findings...
...Brandon does not tell us...
...They succeeded in seizing Jesus, but in the darkness and confused fighting they failed to arrest the disciples...
...The "armed resistance" Brandon refers to consists of an unnamed disciple in the Synoptics or Peter in St...
...Brandon interprets Peter's pat-ronym, Bar Jonah (son of Jonah) as Barjona (terrorist), and accuses the Markan writer of "euphemistically" translating the mysterious Boanerges (the name Jesus gives to James and John) as "Sons of Thunder...
...Did Jesus arrange His own crucifixion...
...We may believe, if we choose, on the evidence of the New Testament, in Jesus Christ, the Son of God, crucified, risen, and to come again...
...Brandon's worst feature is his failure to explain the true importance of some of the issues he presents...
...Many Messianists came to believe that He had already come once, as the Suffering Servant of Isaiah 53 and Psalm 22, and that he would return on the last day as King and Judge...
...Brandon does not defend his interpretation against these passages...
...Paul expressly stated that he was the last to see Jesus, suggesting that he would be the last ever to do so, we may fairly assume that private revelation is not the source, although it might be more convincing than personal ingenuity...
...He strongly implies that in later Christian centuries, Roman files on the event were destroyed...
...From its fatal outcome stemmed a religion that has become the faith of a large part of mankind, and inspired the cultuie of the Western World...
...from it, too, has flowed terrible consequences for the Jewish people, held guilty by generations of Christians of the murder of Christ...
...One is somewhat surprised to find that the sources consist of the four Gospels and Josephus—the same sources used by Origen (c...
...Why...
...John's Gospel, Jesus is the Divine Light battling with the Prince of this World (Satan) and the forces of Darkness...
...Here is his shrewd explanation of the Mocking of Christ: "The 'crown of thorns' certainly seems to be a mock-crown of royalty...
...Brandon says in his introduction that he is afraid his book will be offensive to believers...
...but toward a better understanding of what is historical evidence and what is not...
...And if it is a forgery, as most scholars believe, it suggests that Brandon's most important assumption that "the trial of Jesus was an historical event, having occurred at a particular place and time, and involving other historical persons besides the chief character" is highly questionable...
...254), Euse-bius (c...
...John drawing his sword and lopping off the ear of a servant of the High Priest—immediately healed by Jesus (St...
...Until recently, this remark reflected on Pilate...
...The reed, however, becomes more appropriate when it is known that its name in Aramaic was qana, sounding thus like the word for 'Zealot' (qannaya...
...Professor Brandon and his ilk are not courageous men taking unpopular stands...
...John 18:37 "What is truth...
...The Jewish leaders'] task that night, therefore, was to discover...
...That Barabbas was a Zealot is most probable...
...How then does Brandon come to such different conclusions...
...Christians opposed Judaism because, in their view, the Jews had been the People of the Book, but had not recognized Christ as the fulfillment of the Law...
...Even without such psychic intuition, Brandon is a poor reader and dishonest in his presentation of issues...
...If he has other sources, he is silent...
...its effect on human history has been incalculable...
...The New Jerusalem of Revelation re-established the Temple in Heaven, where there is no possibility of its destruction...
...In St...
...264-c...
...Brandon "believes that any person who seeks to understand what caused that fateful crucifixion outside the walls of Jerusalem, on the first Good Friday, will also be prepared to make the necessary effort to master the complete evidence...
...With the fall of the Temple, the coming of the Messiah to rule in Glory became impossible for the Jews, as did the practice of their religion as they knew it...
...185-c...
...Judging from recent books on Jesus, the question is now being taken seriously, and the ingenuity that goes into answering it is not unlike the more fantastic theories of the Kennedy assassination...
...He gives his justification for The Trial of Jesus of Nazareth in the following statement: "It can be claimed, without fear of serious contradiction, that the trial of Jesus of Nazareth is the most notable in the history of mankind...
...They are money-changers in the Temple, pandering to a credulous public, and they should be driven out...
...If the Jews have suffered by over-zealous misreadings of the New Testament (which is theological, not political), their wrongs will not be righted by further misinterpretation...
...There is no mention of actual fighting in the New Testament, and Jesus rebukes any attempt to prevent Him from His appointed destiny...
...the refusal of the Jews to enter the praetorium seems to be a factual detail, unrecorded in the Synoptic Gospels, that derives from the memory of the actual event...
...It is hardly necessary, however, to go beyond the New Testament itself for a refutation of Brandon's "particular time and place...
...He has, it seems, an intuition of "authentic tradition" lacking in the early Church Fathers...
...11:8...
...Since St...
...Luke...
...In St...
...According to Brandon, all records of early Jerusalem Christianity perished with the Temple in 70 ad...
...In his reconstruction of the Betrayal in the Garden, he announces, "the arrest met with armed resistance...
...He fails to point out that the real reason for its importance is the fact that it is the only contemporary reference to the historical Jesus outside the Gospels...
...but the force sent by the authorities was too strong...
...340), and Augustine (354-430...
...A truly courageous book on the New Testament would present this question fairly...
...Does Brandon know a better translation...
...13:8), and for the place, "that great city, which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified" (Rev...
...the identity of the chief followers of Jesus, who had escaped them...
...Brandon is ignorant of Old Testament references...
...Incidentally, it is not clear whether this Greek word has a Hebrew origin, but it seems to be the title given to the children of the Thunder God, Zeus...
...John's Gospel...
...Further, the smiting of the head of Jesus with a reed might be intelligible as an act of comic abuse...
...Pontius Pilate asks Jesus in the Gospel According to St...
...In addition, the Fourth Gospel announces that the disciple Jesus loved, John, "was known unto the high priest, and went in with Jesus into the palace of the high priest" (John 18:15...
...But if the story had been as dramatic as he claims, why does Josephus not mention Jesus in the context of Messianic Pretenders and Zealot leaders such as Judas of Galilee, rather than in the cryptic and favorable statement found in the disputed passage...
...Brandon, Professor of Comparative Religion at the University of Manchester, has written seven other books on related subjects, which he refers to as sources for much of the information in this one...
...For the time of Jesus' crucifixion, we find in Revelation, "the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world" (Rev...
...Paul, who speaks in First Corinthians of Jesus crucified by the "archons" of this "aeon," the demons of the world, has no use for the historical Jesus...
...but a reed seems a rather ineffective thing to use when more hurting implements would surely have lain at hand in the barrack-room...
...Jesus' reply to Pilate's questioning "has an air of verisimilitude...
...Since these Roman troops doubtless had a working knowledge of Aramaic, their seemingly strange action of hitting Jesus with a reed had a grim symbolism—regarding their prisoner as a Zealot leader, they mockingly smote him with a 'zealot,' doubtless enjoying their punning joke...
...History should not lead us to paranoid ingenuity (Was Paul anti-Semitic...
...Paul, or the Holy Family, outside the New Testament...
...He mentions that the famous reference in Josephus (referring to Christ as a man, then as a god) may be wholly or partly a forgery, then treats it as if the description of the man were authentic, with no better explanation than "its terseness has the ring of authenticity...
...This "evidence," as mastered by Brandon, is that Jesus was a Messianic Pretender who tried to overthrow the Temple hierarchy and was executed by Pontius Pilate for sedition against Rome...
...Or we may choose to disbelieve in His existence...
...And even Brandon is willing to admit that St...
Vol. 51 • December 1968 • No. 23
