Trial of Jesus

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Hello Friends,
I hope you will be able to help me with this question.
How can the Bible have such detail accounts of the trial of Jesus? To the best of my knowledge (which is very little) none of the disciples were in the same room as Pilate and Jesus, so how can they record the conversation between the two? The only disciple that was even close to the trial would be Peter, but he is only outside in the courtyard. I’m not sure where the other disciples would be, but I’m sure no ordinary person would be allowed in the room where they were trialing Jesus. Except maybe the High Priests and people working for Pilate.

Thank-you
God Bless us all
 
Jesus most likely just told them about the situations in question when he was with the apostles. It is difficult to say what he told his apostles and the crowds that isn’t recorded in the scriptures.

Another possibility is that it was inspiration from the Holy Spirit.
 
Well, one thing to remember is that the writers of the Gospels were under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, so He could have filled them in on the stuff left out, but more likely, the inspiration allowed for the clear memory of other witnesses, one of which is Jesus himself. It is likely that Jesus himself could have filled the apostles in on certain conversations he had while not with them, such as the one with Pilate. Also, Pilate could have filled them in, or through another witness to either the event itself, or someone Pilate may have told after the fact.

I found this interesting website, don’t take it as absolute fact, but it’s worth a read.
There’s also this website with more ideas.
 
I’ve done some reading in attempt to answer your question, and found the following:


  1. *]The trial before Pilate took place in the Praetorium (a hall), with the Jews remaining outside to save from being defiled before the Passover (John 18:28 ).
    *]The charges were made, and the judgement read out, from the Pavement outside the Praetorium.
    *]There were no Jewish witnesses to the trial, other than Jesus.

    See Pilate’s court [Wikipedia]

    I’ve also skimmed Pope Benedict’s account of the trial in Jesus of Nazareth - Holy Week, and it supported the above, with no further information on who might be the witnesses.

    I couldn’t find an answer to your question, but it looks like the record of the trial must have come from a Roman convert, or Jesus after His resurrection, or direct revelation.
 
Stigma said:
Hello Friends,
I hope you will be able to help me with this question.
How can the Bible have such detail accounts of the trial of Jesus? To the best of my knowledge (which is very little) none of the disciples were in the same room as Pilate and Jesus, so how can they record the conversation between the two? The only disciple that was even close to the trial would be Peter, but he is only outside in the courtyard. I’m not sure where the other disciples would be, but I’m sure no ordinary person would be allowed in the room where they were trialing Jesus. Except maybe the High Priests and people working for Pilate.

Thank-you
God Bless us all
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Hi, Stigma!

Welcomed to the forum!

…yeah some of the passages in Scriptures are perplexing…

Here are some assumptions: servants or guards could have been gossip mongers or one or two could have been secret disciples who would eventually pass down the info to the Believers (remember that the Sacred Writings did not take place during Jesus’ Ministry but several decades later giving time for the gathering of info)… then there’s the casualty of the Mystical Body: Both Christ and the Holy Spirit could have revealed everything that transpired during the Passion of the Christ! (remember that Sacred Scriptures are not simple biographies/chronicals–they are the Inspired Word of God.)

…you are correct, St. Peter was kept abay on the courtyard… but he was not the only Disciple present; St. John was known to the High Priest, it was he who got Cephas into the courtyard… but when Jesus was in front of Pontious Pilate I imagine He had been transferred to the governor’s palace/or government building where it would have been very difficult for a Jew of simple status to be granted audience (which I doubt that they would want to since that meant that they would be stepping into a pagan place of governance, etc.)–still the same as above applies (gossip/secred disciple/Divine Revelation).

Maran atha!

Angel
 
I would say that Jesus described what happened to His apostles after His resurrection.
 
Seriously???

The Trial of Jesus would have been the Trial of the Century. The guy (Jesus) had resurrected a man who had been dead more than three days, and healed a man blind from birth, and cast out a demon (or, many demons) from a mute. Very recently, he had fed a large crowd from meager rations. There would have been THOUSANDS of people in Jerusalem (both pagans and Jews) who had personally (and recently) witnessed these things (and more). His renown was wide - he was well-known to Herod Antipas (the king of the Jewish state in Roman-controlled Judea) and needed no introduction when brought before him.

In what bizarre world would accurate accounts of Jesus’ trial not be known to practically everybody?
 
Thank-you everyone on helping me understand, knowledgeable people in this forum.
Ps. DavidFilmer, I wouldn’t ask if I knew. Please be kind to other people in your reply to their questions.

God Bless
 
DavidFilmer said:
Seriously???

The Trial of Jesus would have been the Trial of the Century. The guy (Jesus) had resurrected a man who had been dead more than three days, and healed a man blind from birth, and cast out a demon (or, many demons) from a mute. Very recently, he had fed a large crowd from meager rations. There would have been THOUSANDS of people in Jerusalem (both pagans and Jews) who had personally (and recently) witnessed these things (and more). His renown was wide - he was well-known to Herod Antipas (the king of the Jewish state in Roman-controlled Judea) and needed no introduction when brought before him.

In what bizarre world would accurate accounts of Jesus’ trial not be known to practically everybody?
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Minor correction: Antipas was the tetrarch (‘ruler of a fourth’) of the Galilee. His father Herod the Great was the ‘King of the Judaeans’. 😉
 
Holly3278 said:
I would say that Jesus described what happened to His apostles after His resurrection.
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Exactly. 😉

Some people actually believe that the passion narratives were fictional stories made up from Christian interpretation of various OT prophecies; you know, because the male disciples ran away the only thing they literally knew was that Jesus was crucified. The main problem with this idea is, wouldn’t the disciples have wanted to know what really happened?
 
DavidFilmer said:
Seriously???

The Trial of Jesus would have been the Trial of the Century. The guy (Jesus) had resurrected a man who had been dead more than three days, and healed a man blind from birth, and cast out a demon (or, many demons) from a mute. Very recently, he had fed a large crowd from meager rations. There would have been THOUSANDS of people in Jerusalem (both pagans and Jews) who had personally (and recently) witnessed these things (and more). His renown was wide - he was well-known to Herod Antipas (the king of the Jewish state in Roman-controlled Judea) and needed no introduction when brought before him.

In what bizarre world would accurate accounts of Jesus’ trial not be known to practically everybody?
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I think that you forget that way back when trials did not mean what they mean today… it is only in recent history that we have such things as reporting and full disclosure… further, there were both public and private interviews; as when Pilate’s wife seeks an audience and relates to him that she has had dreams about “that man” (Jesus) and she tells her husband that he should set Him free.

…and while it is true that there could very well have been a gathering of tens of thousands… most of these would be as the games expectators who did not have the benefit of knowing what took place during most of the trial’s interrogations!

Maran atha!

Angel
 
DavidFilmer said:
Seriously???

The Trial of Jesus would have been the Trial of the Century. The guy (Jesus) had resurrected a man who had been dead more than three days, and healed a man blind from birth, and cast out a demon (or, many demons) from a mute. Very recently, he had fed a large crowd from meager rations. There would have been THOUSANDS of people in Jerusalem (both pagans and Jews) who had personally (and recently) witnessed these things (and more). His renown was wide - he was well-known to Herod Antipas (the king of the Jewish state in Roman-controlled Judea) and needed no introduction when brought before him.

In what bizarre world would accurate accounts of Jesus’ trial not be known to practically everybody?
Click to expand...
Thing is, Jesus was executed during a festival, when people really had other more important things to do than just watch someone get condemned. Jesus wasn’t the only healer or the only messianic claimant around at that time, note. Now I wouldn’t go as far as John Dominic Crossan (who thinks that there might have been only less a dozen people - if at all - in the Praetorium), but I do think that for practical reasons, we need to imagine the size of the crowd that showed up to be far smaller than the ‘cast of thousands’ you see in films like Ben-Hur or The Passion of the Christ. Everyone wanted to get it done over with as quickly as possible: the chief priests hand Jesus to Pilate during dawn, when the pilgrims (who are more likely to sympathize with Jesus than the locals: hey, Jesus was more popular in His home turf than He was here in the big city) are still camping outside and are just about to wake up. You wouldn’t want them showing up and showing their support, would you? I doubt that the native authorities, who had planned how to get rid of Jesus so carefully, left the composition of the crowd to pure chance (‘rent-a-crowd’ wasn’t a purely modern technique.)

Still, the fact that there are people - no matter what the crowd’s actual size was - congregated together made the possibility of a riotous outbreak occurring very near, which again is something which everyone would not want to happen. Besides, the faceless people were ultimately powerless to do anything: as soon as they get what they ask, they would have probably been escorted out of the place by guards.
 
Stigma said:
Thank-you everyone on helping me understand, knowledgeable people in this forum.
Ps. DavidFilmer, I wouldn’t ask if I knew. Please be kind to other people in your reply to their questions.
Click to expand...
Did you think I was being unkind? That was not my intent. I intended to cast your question in historic context. The claims about Our Lord’s divinity were not made decades (or centuries) after his death, but within the hearing of thousands would have been eyewitnesses to these events (some only a few days or weeks prior).

His trial would have been “big news.” There were no gag-orders in that era - everyone present would have been perfectly free to discuss the trial in great detail, and most would have been perfectly happy to do so (the human tendency to gossip - even when the gossip is true - is well established).

NOTE TO JO BENEDICT: I was REALLY not trying to be unkind. Please consider this response before giving me an infraction.
 
St. John was a friend of the chief priest or someone else in the court because that is how he got inside while St. Peter was left outside in the courtyard.

I believe Nichodemous was a man of influence, the one who asked Jesus what one must do to enter heaven. He was on the inside of the circle of knowledge.

There was another man who helped take Jesus down from the cross who was in the power ranks.

I would think that there were quite a few people the apostles or disciples knew on the inside.

Even the centurian who helped contribute money to build the synygogue in Capernaum, whose son was healed, would have known all about it. He too was in admiration of the Jewish religion and would have known from the soldiers.

The Holy women too knew other women in the grape vine.

I don’t believe this would be a problem at all.

Just an opinion.
 
fred_conty said:
St. John was a friend of the chief priest or someone else in the court because that is how he got inside while St. Peter was left outside in the courtyard.
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I am not familiar with a part of the gospel which has St John inside while St Peter is outside. Have I missed something?
fred_conty said:
…
I don’t believe this would be a problem at all.
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Agreed. 🙂
 
Edmundus1581 said:
I am not familiar with a part of the gospel which has St John inside while St Peter is outside. Have I missed something?
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From John:

Simon Peter followed Jesus, and so did another disciple. Since that disciple was known to the high priest, he entered with Jesus into the courtyard of the high priest, but Peter stood outside at the door. So the other disciple, who was known to the high priest, went out and spoke to the servant girl who kept watch at the door, and brought Peter in.
 
patrick457 said:
From John:

Simon Peter followed Jesus, and so did another disciple. Since that disciple was known to the high priest, he entered with Jesus into the courtyard of the high priest, but Peter stood outside at the door. So the other disciple, who was known to the high priest, went out and spoke to the servant girl who kept watch at the door, and brought Peter in.
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Thankyou.
 
fred_conty said:
Even the centurian who helped contribute money to build the synygogue in Capernaum, whose son was healed, would have known all about it. He too was in admiration of the Jewish religion and would have known from the soldiers.
Click to expand...
Slightly off-topic, but I would just note here the possibility that this centurion wasn’t a Roman one. The Galilee was a tetrarchy under Antipas, who had some military force at his disposal. (Judaea, being a Roman province directly governed by a prefect ever since AD 6, would obviously have a small number of Roman troops in it - most of whom stayed with the prefect in the gentile capital of Caesarea Maritima, far away from the Jews.) We don’t exactly know the details, but it could be likely that Antipas had, like his father Herod the Great, a multinational army composed of Jews as well as foreigners. Considering these factors, it is equally likely that the centurion Jesus met belonged to Antipas’ army.
 
patrick457 said:
Slightly off-topic, but I would just note here the possibility that this centurion wasn’t a Roman one. The Galilee was a tetrarchy under Antipas, who had some military force at his disposal. (Judaea, being a Roman province directly governed by a prefect ever since AD 6, would obviously have a small number of Roman troops in it - most of whom stayed with the prefect in the gentile capital of Caesarea Maritima, far away from the Jews.) We don’t exactly know the details, but it could be likely that Antipas had, like his father Herod the Great, a multinational army composed of Jews as well as foreigners. Considering these factors, it is equally likely that the centurion Jesus met belonged to Antipas’ army.
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Patrick, thank you for the info, interesting.

Lk 7;4 has this to say about the centurian.
"When they came to Jesus they pleaded earnestly with him. ‘He deserves this of you’ they said ‘because he is friendly towards our people; in fact, he is the one who built the synagogue’.

Then there was a picture I saw of Capernaum today, and it showed where the small military garrison was stationed just north and outside the city of Capernaum. This was located on a priciple route for travellers.
 
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