Hi, last night we watched the film Passion of the Christ by Mel Gibson at my church. And the High Preists caught Jesus and wanted to execute him. They then took Jesus before the Romans and then Herod trying to attain a death sentence. Why couldn’t they kill Jesus on thier own or by secret assassination?
From
a post of mine:
The Romans found that ruling indirectly and remotely, that is, using the loyal native rulers and leaders as proxies and considering them the responsible officials for a given area to be an effective form of government. It mostly contented itself with the collection of tribute and the maintenance of stable borders; for the most part it even left these tasks at the hands of these men.
In the Galilee, the tetrarch Herod Antipas was pretty much independent. Rome had the final say on crucial matters but he was more or less free to run the kingdom as he wished. He fulfilled the main conditions by keeping order, paying tribute and cooperating with Rome, and in return Rome gave him protection against implied threat of retaliation against invaders. The troops and the taxes were his, district governors were his appointees, and local rulers served at his pleasure. Judaea, meanwhile, was put under the rule of a Roman prefect since AD 6, but its prefect mostly limited himself by visiting places such as Jerusalem during pilgrimage festivals to prevent potential unrest: for the rest of the year he and most of his troops stayed in the capital of Caesarea Maritima with other gentiles, away from the eyes of Jews.
The prefect left daily management of internal affairs, as well as (to some degree) his main duties like maintaining of domestic peace and the collection of tribute, in the hands of people like the high priest in Jerusalem, who had informal councillors and a small formal council. Hence, if people wanted to deal with Rome, they went to the high priest. If Rome wanted to communicate with the people, the prefect summoned the high priest. If anything went wrong, the high priest held full responsibility. But he was only the first among equals: responsibility to prevent trouble fell, to some degree, on all the leading citizens. In short: Rome’s rule over Judaea at our period was rather ‘indirect’: it governed through client (puppet) kings or resident governors, who in turn, utilized local aristocrats and magistrates down the food chain.
Now Caiaphas and Pilate does have some reason to be concerned: Jesus had a following (maybe not too large but a following nevertheless), He talked about the Kingdom of God within the Empire of Caesar, He had taken physical action in the Temple. Coupled with the fact that He
is not a madman and is perfectly acting of His own accord makes Jesus loads more dangerous. In a season such as Passover (when millions of people from all over the known world come to the city to celebrate Israelite release from Egyptian bondage), a guy like Jesus was the last person you’d want showing up on your doorstep. Here you have the responsibility to keep the peace and quell anything that smacked of a disturbance to the status quo, then comes an obscure Galilean prophet bringing His followers and symphatizers with Him, teaching potentially inflammatory material (and staging what looks like public demonstrations to boot!).
Even the locals seem to be drawn to His teachings, which is not a good sign: the mere fact that people gather before this Man would have set off the warning signals. If the high priest did not preserve order, the prefect would intervene militarily, and the situation might get out of hand. As long as the Temple guards, acting as the police, carried out arrests, and as long as the high priest was involved in judging cases (though he did not execute anyone), there was little possibility of a direct clash between the Jews and the Romans.
The crowds were responsible for Jesus’ death, but not in the way many people think. It was precisely
because they supported Him that the authorities feared Him and wanted to get rid of Him to maintain public order.
Also, there is a giant fissure that opens in the temple at Jesus’s death. Has this been sensationalized?
That was a (IMHO rather overblown) portrayal of the Temple veil being torn in two.
Also what does “Pontius Pilate” mean? Thank you god bless!
It’s a name.
