Luke 23: 1-25, Pilate, Herod, Pilate

Now that the religious leaders have caught Jesus in "blasphemy", they continue with their plan to have him executed.  But that requires the permission of the Romans....

Luke 23: 1-7, Before Pilate
Then the whole assembly rose and led him off to Pilate. 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."

So Pilate asked Jesus, "Are you the king of the Jews?" 

"Yes, it is as you say," Jesus replied.

Then Pilate announced to the chief priests and the crowd, "I find no basis for a charge against this man."

But they insisted, "He stirs up the people all over Judea by his teaching. He started in Galilee and has come all the way here."

On hearing this, Pilate asked if the man was a Galilean. When he learned that Jesus was under Herod's jurisdiction, he sent him to Herod, who was also in Jerusalem at that time.

Pilate seems unperturbed by Jesus's claim to be the king of the Jews. Jesus has made no earthly claim to power and Pilate seems to recognize the political jealousy that has led to this trial. In this round, at least, Pilate has no interest in making a decision. Seizing a political opportunity, he passes the case to Herod.

Luke 23: 8-12, Over to Herod
When Herod saw Jesus, he was greatly pleased, because for a long time he had been wanting to see him. From what he had heard about him, he hoped to see him perform some miracle. He plied him with many questions, but Jesus gave him no answer.

The chief priests and the teachers of the law were standing there, vehemently accusing him. Then Herod and his soldiers ridiculed and mocked him. Dressing him in an elegant robe, they sent him back to Pilate.

That day Herod and Pilate became friends--before this they had been enemies.

In Jesus Christ, Superstar, Herod supposedly says, "Prove to me that you're no fool, walk across my swimming pool."  Those lyrics hit at the spirit of Herod's inquiry – he hopes for some splashy demonstration of magic.  But Jesus will not play.  Herod, however, is controlled by the people and their allegations (Herod pretends to be a Jew) and so Herod keeps Jesus in chains and passes him back to Pilate.

King Herod, described in this chapter, is Herod Antipas.  He is the son of Herod, the Great,  the Herod that massacred the innocent children of Bethlehem in Matthew 2.  (A third Herod mentioned in the New Testament is Herod Agrippa, grandson of Herod, the Great.)

Luke 23: 13-16, Pilate waffles
Pilate called together the chief priests, the rulers and the people, and said to them, "You brought me this man 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. Therefore, I will punish him and then release him."

Pilate sees no reason to continue the farce and so attempts to announce his decision. He plans to have Jesus whipped, in an attempt to mollify the angry leaders.

According to the NIV footnotes, some manuscripts add another sentence, verse 17: "Now he was obliged to release one man to them at the Feast."

Luke 23: 18-25, The crowd wins
With one voice they cried out, "Away with this man! Release Barabbas to us!" (Barabbas had been thrown into prison for an insurrection in the city, and for murder.)

Wanting to release Jesus, Pilate appealed to them again.

But they kept shouting, "Crucify him! Crucify him!"

For the third time he spoke to them: "Why? What crime has this man committed? I have found in him no grounds for the death penalty. Therefore I will have him punished and then release him."

But with loud shouts they insistently demanded that he be crucified, and their shouts prevailed.

So Pilate decided to grant their demand. He released the man who had been thrown into prison for insurrection and murder, the one they asked for, and surrendered Jesus to their will.

The injustice is clear.  A terrorist and murderer is set free while the innocent Messiah is to be executed in his place.  Barabbas is the first of many who are set free by the death of Jesus.  It is not recorded whether Barabbas is ever aware of this trade.

Timeline of Resurrection Appearances

The New Testament records a number of appearances of Jesus after his resurrection.  I will try to summarize that here.

The women visit the tomb

Luke 24 has the women visiting the tomb, followed by Peter.  Matthew 28 has the women seeing Jesus before they visit the eleven remaining disciples. (It also records that they saw one angel.) Possibly we have two visits to the empty tomb. The first visit involves two women, both named Mary (Matt 28: 1-10). Mark (in Mark 16:1-8) records these two women visiting the tomb, along with a woman named Salome.

John and Peter

According to John, Mary Magdalene saw the empty tomb (with a stone rolled away.) She then told Peter and John about this. They go to the tomb, John first, but John does not go in. Peter does. (No angels are mentioned.) John believes that Jesus has risen from the dead. They leave the tomb and then Jesus appears to Mary (after she tells the disciples the tomb is empty) and Mary sees two angels, one at the foot and one at the head of the tomb.

Evening visit by Jesus to the disciples in Judea

Later that evening Jesus appears to a number of disciples, including two unnamed followers who are walking to nearby Emmaus.  A week later (John 20: 24-29) he appears when Thomas is with the others. This seems to all occur in Judea.

Appearances is Galilee

Later (John 21, Matthew 28: 16-20) Jesus appears in Galilee to the disciples, after they have returned to their homes.

Paul, in I Corinthians 15: 3-7, records that after appearing to Peter and the other disciples, at one time Jesus appeared to more than 500 followers, many of whom are still alive in Paul's day.  After that, Jesus appears to James, his brother and then much later, on the Damascus road, Jesus appeared to Saul/Paul.

Resources

Here are some online sources that attempt to work through the various appearances.

1. From a Catholic scholar, a blog post.
2. This post, from biblestudy.org, even attempts to give precise dates, although leaving out the appearance of Jesus to Peter.  (The exact dates should be viewed with suspicion.)
3. Grace Fellowship Church in Toronto has a webpage that offers a chronology from the crucifixion to ascension.
4. BlueLetterBible.org has a similar webpage.
5. And, of course, there is a Wikipedia article.

Tomorrow we return to the last few chapters of Luke.

Passover Week, Holy Week

The Passover Week in Jerusalem, somewhere between 30 and 33 C.E., is the week in which Jesus enters Jerusalem in glory, adored by the crowds, riding on a donkey, spends time with his disciples in and around the temple, and then is crucified on Friday, just before the Jewish sabbath.  Then, on the first day of the week, Jesus is seen alive in parts of Jerusalem, his tomb now empty.

The week begins in Matthew 21, Mark 11, Luke 19 and includes numerous teachings by Jesus about the coming kingdom of heaven and the end times.

Historically, Christians celebrate the Friday crucifixion as "Good Friday" and the Sunday resurrection as Easter Sunday.  The celebrations of these days date back to probably the third century, if not earlier.

The last supper was apparently on Thursday, now celebrated as Maundy Thursday. Matthew 26:17 has the last supper occurring on the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread.

I've found a variety of interesting internet resources on the Passover Week.   As always, Wikipedia is a good source.  There is a Wikipedia article on the "Holy Week".

The Passover feast dates back to Exodus 12, when the tribe of Israel was expelled from Egypt.  On that night (the 14th day of the month Nisan) the Jews sacrificed a lamb and spread its blood over their doorposts so that the Angel of Death would "pass over" their homes and spare them, while killing the first born son of the Egyptians.

A Catholic view of Passover is here.  Another Christian view is here.  A Jewish explanation can be found here and a Messianic Judaism view here or here.

Was Jesus, in the Last Supper, really celebrating the Passover Seder? A fairly detailed analysis of this question appears in this Biblical Archealogy article.

Tomorrow we return to Luke's account of the Passover Week.

The Samaritans

On Sundays we take a break from our chapter-a-day pace through the New Testament and look at topics related to recent readings.

A reader of the New Testament learns that there is a collection of people called "the Samaritans." They are mentioned by Jewish leaders in derogatory ways (in the Gospel of John, for example) while Jesus uses them in his story about the "Good Samaritan."  The Samaritans represent a New Testament ethnic and racial division and it is interesting to see how Jesus interacts with the Samaritans.

To the devout Jew, the Samaritans were a mixed breed, involved in a false version of Judaism. To many the term "Samaritan" was derogatory. When Nicodemus challenges the Jewish leaders in John, they respond by calling him a Samaritan.

The Samaritans developed as a separate, distinct portion of Israel, probably around the time of the Assyrian invasion in 721 BCE. They may have originated from the northern tribes of Israel and were later accused of intermarriage with the local, pagan inhabitants.  A lengthy Wikipedia article on the Samaritans provides considerable details of their history.

In that racial environment, Jesus goes out of his way to include them in his ministry.  He deliberately begins a conversation with a single Samaritan woman in John 4, breaking a number of social taboos. He heals Samaritans in the gospels.  He uses a Samaritan as his central figure in a lecture on the meaning of the phrase "Love your neighbor" (see Luke 10: 30-37.)  Luke's gospel also records Jesus healing ten lepers; it is the Samaritan who returns to thank him (Luke 17: 11-19.) In John 8, Jesus is accused of being a Samaritan, a charge which he does not refute.  (He is also charged with being demon-possessed and does respond to that accusation.)

In Acts, Samaria is the next region, after Judea, to be evangelized. (Acts 1:8, Acts 8:1-25.)

On the Harmony of the Gospels

Anyone serious about the study of the New Testament is aware, after a bit of reading, that three of the Gospels are similar, but not identical, while the fourth gospel is quite different.  The three similar gospels, Matthew, Mark and Luke, are called the synoptic gospels (meaning "similar".)  The fourth gospel, that of the young disciple John, is written later than the other three and is quite different.  The gospel of John has a different philosophy from the other three and was probably written to fill in details not covered by the other gospels and to expand on the view of Jesus preached by the early church.

Given the four-fold lenses of these descriptions of the life of Christ, it is natural to create a "harmony" of the gospels, that is, an outline of the life of Christ which is consistent with the material provided by all four.  One example is provided here by Blue Letter Bible.  I have several books on this topic in my personal library including a standard text by A. T. Robertson.

There are a number of interesting problems that arise for those serious about a "gospel harmony" of the life of Christ.  The three synoptic gospels are each just a little bit different and the details of events and sermon vary.  At times they even appear to conflict. For example, Matthew (in Matthew 5-7) describes a sermon on the mountainside; Luke records a very similar sermon on a plain, after Jesus has descended from a mountain.  Are these two accounts recording the same event, but with slightly different descriptions by different observers? (Maybe Jesus stopped on a flat area to speak as he descended from the mountain?) Or are they different events, with very similar topics. Certainly Jesus told the same parables and teaching in different times, repeating many of the teachings, so the "Sermon on the Mount" was probably taught in a variety of locations.  These types of questions permeate the harmony attempts.

In addition to accounts which different, it is not always clear whether the episodes described in the gospels are intended to be in sequence.  Although Luke says that he put the events of Jesus "in order", he probably meant that he organized his history according to ideas and themes, not that he put the events in chronological  sequence.  (There is considerable evidence that some of the events in the gospel of Luke are out of chronological order.  At the end of Luke 9 Jesus turns towards Jerusalem but then in Luke 10-18 there are a variety of teaching or events that probably occurred prior to his final trip from Galilee to Judea.)

I'll say more about gospel harmony later, especially as we get to the gospel of John

Tomorrow we return to the study of Luke.

The Travels of Jesus

On Sundays we take a break from our chapter-a-day exploration of the New Testament and look at related topics.

The ministry of Jesus, from his baptism by John to his crucifixion and resurrection, is generally viewed to have lasted about three years.  (Some suggest 30-33 CE; others put the dates a few years earlier.) The synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark and Luke) describe Jesus growing up in Nazareth of Galilee, the town of his parents.  In his early ministry, Jesus ministers primarily in Galilee, in and around the Sea of Galilee.  The last half of the synoptic gospels then describe Jesus's decision to travel south and visit Jerusalem for a final time, leading to his trial, crucifixion and resurrection.  This decision to "go up" to Jerusalem seems driven by the death of John the Baptist and increasing opposition from the religious leaders.  Shortly before Jesus begins this final trip, the synoptic gospels describe the "Transfiguration", in which Jesus is visited by Moses and Elijah and is spectacularly transformed for a brief time.

Here is a map of the region, given from a Wikipedia page original source attributed to "Andrew c."

The final visit of Jesus to Jerusalem occurs during the Jewish feast of Passover, during which time Jesus is sacrificed on the cross, mirroring the Passover Lamb of the Jewish Exodus.  The Gospel of John records one other Passover visit (John 2: 13) and a third occurrence of the Passover when Jesus is apparently in Galilee (John 6:4). If three Passover Feasts occurred in the ministry of Jesus then his ministry was at least two years, possibly three.

John also includes at least one trip through Samaria (John 4) while the synoptic gospels include travels east of the Sea of Galilee, in the Decapolis area. John also records trips to Jerusalem for feasts other than the Passover. (The travels of Jesus to Jerusalem are summarized here.)  All in all, a three-year period for the ministry of Jesus is widely accepted.

Further resources:
More on the geography of New Testament times can be found here or here. Wikipedia has an interesting and extensive article on the chronology of Jesus and another on a timeline of Christianity.

Tomorrow we return to Jesus's Galilean ministry, as covered in Luke 7.

The Three Synoptic Gospels

On Sundays we take a break from reading another chapter and spend a brief time summarizing what we've been reading (or will read.)

Even a cursory reading of the New Testament reveals that the gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke are very similar, with many common stories and parables.  Then the fourth gospel, the Gospel of John, is very different, with different events and a special collection of teachings by Jesus that do not appear in the other three.

Presumably, the gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke had a common source for their accounts of Jesus's ministry and had personal reasons for deviations from that account.  Matthew, written to Jews, deviates from the common accounts to quote Old Testament prophecies, for example while Luke, written by a Greek to the Gentiles, adds observations and stories that might be of interest to the individual not aware of Jewish history.  (Luke is also careful to mention women in the Jesus ministry, naming women among his followers, both before and after the resurrection.)

One of the simplest explanations for the common passages in the first three gospels is that the Gospel of Mark was written first and that the other two gospel writers had access to Mark as an outline for their work.   (From the first few verses of the Gospel of Luke, we see that Luke interviewed individuals before writing his report, so one would expect that he would have access to Mark's gospel, if had had been written by that time.)

One can then explain the Gospel of John as deliberately different from the other three, since John, writing much later, probably assumes those other stories have been told and wants to add to, flesh out, the reports on Jesus's acts and teachings.

The term commonly used to identify the first three gospels, distinct from that of John, is "synoptic". More information, in considerable depth, is available on this Wikipedia page .

Related to the 3+1 gospels in the New Testament is the issue of gospel harmony.  Can we, using the four gospels, create an orderly summary of the events of the life of Christ?  There is an old, classical tradition of this and I have several harmonies of the life of Christ in my personal library.  These attempts differ slightly since the different gospels do have different orders for certain events and teachings.  And, very likely, Jesus taught the same messages several different times, in different places.  The Wikipedia page on this, at the link above, does a pretty good job of outlining one version of a gospel harmony, giving a table with 161 events from the life of Christ, along with their references in the four gospels.  Those 161 events – with representative church artwork! – can be found here.

Tomorrow we return to Luke, as Jesus begins his ministry in Galilee.