Preface

For 2000 years, the Jewish people have been charged by Christendom with the crime of deicide. Deicide refers to the death of Jesus, the Christian God. That accusation was and is made against the Jews, even though it is undisputed that Jesus was crucified by the Roman occupiers of Judea, upon the order of Pontius Pilate, Roman Prefect (governor of occupied Judea). Charging the Jews with deicide resulted in submitting the Jewish community to an inheritance of murder, mayhem, malefaction and misery, delivered under the slogan “you killed our God.”

To many, the notion that the life of the one omnipotent God—who created the entire world and all of the people in it—can be taken by one or more of his creations is both incredible and blasphemous.

Christian doctrine originated with four anonymous, but related folk histories called the Gospels (Mark, Matthew, Luke and John), which deal with the last three years of the life of Jesus. The four Gospels were selected among several by a priest named Irenaeus, and they were written in the first century, between the years 65 A.D. and 100 A.D., approximately 35 to 70 years after the crucifixion of Jesus.

Scholarly study of the Gospels reflect that some have, from time to time, been subject to change or alteration. Such alterations are professionally referred to as “interpolations.” Though originally written or composed in the first century A.D., they ultimately became the four foundational pillars of the New Testament, written and accepted in the latter part of the fourth century A.D.

This article identifies the compelling evidence that the four Gospels—Mark, Matthew, Luke and John—subject to major interpolations prior to inclusion in the fourth century New Testament. The express purpose of those interpolations was to allow the establishment of the Christian Church as the official religion of the Roman Empire and to grant to the Church exposure to 30 million residents of the Roman Empire. In order to accomplish that goal, it was necessary that the interpolation exculpate Rome from fault in the death of Jesus.

Study of the fourth century New Testament Gospels strongly suggests a finding of a compact between the Church and Rome to create a gospel scenario wherein the Jews would appear responsible for the death of Jesus, and Rome would simply be serving as a ministerial executioner without blame or moral responsibility. Thus, Christianity would become the state religion of the Roman Empire, and the Jewish community would inherit the libel of deicide.

The Life and Times of Yeshua ben Yosef a.k.a. Jesus

Formal History

Credible historical records of Yeshua (hereinafter referred to as Jesus) are quite scarce. Historians generally agree that a man named Jesus of Nazareth, a Jewish teacher, lived in Galilee and Judea and was baptized by his cousin, Yochanan ben Zechariah a.k.a. John the Baptist. Jesus’s crucifixion by order of Pontius Pilate is also widely accepted as a historical event. Beyond these core events, there is less certainty about the details of Jesus’s life as presented in the Gospels.Much of the remaining narrative is considered either theological or legendary.

Gospels

The Gospels mentioned are the principal four books of the New Testament, named: Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. They detail the teachings, death and reported resurrection of Jesus. They are considered the foundation of Christianity, offering a narrative of Jesus’s ministry and a message of salvation. These four Gospels were anonymously written in Greek between 66 and 100 A.D. Almost certainly, none of the four actual authors was an eyewitness to the events which they describe. Modern names for the four anonymous Gospels were added in the second century by using the names of four evangelists. The word gospel translates as “good news.”

The four Gospels were selected out of several by a Greek bishop, Irenaeus, sometime between 170 and 180 A.D. With the exception of the occasional discovery of very small fragments, there was no public knowledge of their contents until they finally appeared in the New Testament at the Council of Hippo in 393 A.D.

Canonical Gospels as Distinguished from Synoptic Gospels

The four Gospel books together are identified as Canonical Gospels. The first three Gospels (Mark, Matthew and Luke) have similar themes and have shared material and are known as the Synoptic Gospels. Because the fourth Gospel, John, is somewhat different from the other three in theme and subject matter, it is not identified as a Synoptic Gospel.

Although Jesus was born of Jewish parentage at the very beginning of the Common Era, there are no identifiable records of his life in the annals of Jewish history, with the possible exception of Josephus. Josephus was a Jewish general in Galilee, who later, as a turncoat, changed sides to support Rome. He then moved to Rome and became the recipient of Roman patronage. Ultimately, he became a Roman citizen. While there, he wrote briefly of Jesus, but it was seen as too overly Christian by many scholars, leading them to believe that Josephus’s comments were influenced by his Roman patronage and were embellished or inserted by later Christian copyists. One must take special care to avoid interpolation (alteration) of the Gospels. The public domain has many articles suggesting caution to verify authenticity.

The Early Life of Jesus

What little is known of the early life of Jesus is found in the four Canonical Gospels. Jesus was born to a Jewish couple, Joseph and Mary, in Bethlehem, Judea. He was raised in Nazareth, a small Judean village in the Galilee, along with his four brothers (James, Joseph, Simon and Judas) and two sisters. (Mark 6:3; Matthew 13:55). Jesus was apparently trained by his father to be a carpenter. One can only assume that his moral, religious and practical training were provided by his parents and by the community in which he was born and raised.

Jesus’s Social Conscience

According to the Gospels, Jesus was a very sensitive young man with a passion to improve the lot of the poor, the infirm and the underprivileged. It was his passion that attracted to him other young men of similar station, such as carpenters, laborers and fishermen, who admired him and associated themselves with him. These men were later identified as disciples or apostles and included: Peter, Andrew, James (son of Zebedee), John, Philip, Bartholomew, Thomas, Matthew, James (son of Alphaeus), Simon the Zealot, Judas (son of James) and Judas Iscariot. (Luke 6:12-13). They were all Jews.

Miracles

During the last three years of his life, Jesus and his companions traveled from one Jewish community to another, lecturing, restoring the infirm and providing physical and spiritual aid to the underprivileged. It was on these occasions that miracles were reported to have been performed by Jesus, e.g., turning water into wine, driving out evil spirits, healing the sick and the infirm, walking on water and feeding 5000 men with five loaves of bread and two fish.

Religious Conscience

Jesus had a strong religious faith. He was supported by his cousin, John the Baptist, a Jewish preacher whom he greatly admired and from whom he took baptism. Baptism was a unique way of cleansing oneself in a body of water from prior unacceptable paths. As Jesus traveled, lectured and reportedly performed exceptional deeds, his fame grew throughout the land.

During the entire period of Jesus’s lifetime, Judea was occupied by Rome and under the yoke of Roman oppression. The population was constantly yearning for some person or event to set them free.

Jewish religious law at the time required all Jews to visit the Temple in Jerusalem during each of the three holy festival holidays: Passover, Shavuot and Sukkot. In compliance with the religious requirement, Jesus and his companions traveled to Jerusalem to visit the Holy Temple during the Passover festival.

The Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem

As Jesus, astride a donkey, accompanied by his 12 Jewish companions, entered Jerusalem, a sizable portion of the Jewish population of Jerusalem greeted and honored him by throwing palm leaves and personal items of clothing in his path. The Gospels attest to the shouts by the Jewish admirers who called out “Hosanna,” an anglicization of the Hebrew words (Hoshea Nah), effectively saying “save us, please” or “save us now.” Others declared “blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord,” even “King of Israel.” Still others proclaimed, “he is the prophet Jesus from Nazareth of Galilee” and “blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David.” Especially with regard to the crowd of Jews in Jerusalem acclaiming Jesus as King of Israel, that could not be endured by Roman authorities. (John 12:19; Luke 19:28-44; Mark 11:1-11; Matthew 21:1-11). Rome, which had conquered Judah in 63 BCE and had ruled it for 67 years, already had its own client King of Israel, Herod Antipas.

Pontius Pilate’s Response

Pontius Pilate, as Prefect of the Roman province of Judea, obviously saw his duty as maintaining Roman rule and condemned Jesus to crucifixion.

Roman Soldiers’ Confirmation of the Reason for Jesus’s Crucifixion

The obvious reason for Pontius Pilate’s condemnation of Jesus is confirmed on the day of Jesus’s death by the very soldiers assigned to his crucifixion. They stripped Jesus, put a scarlet robe on him, signifying royalty (Matthew 27:28) and twisted together a crown of thorns that they put on his head. (Matthew 27:29; Mark 15:26; Luke 23:28; John 19:19-20). They then put a reed in his right hand and, kneeling before him, they mocked him, saying “Hail, King of the Jews!” (Matthew 27:27-31). They spit on Jesus (Matthew 26:67), took the reed and struck him in the head and led him away to crucify him. Over his head, they put a plaque which read “This is Jesus, the King of the Jews.” (Matthew 27:27-56; Mark 15:16-41; John 19:1-3).

The Fire that Ravaged Rome

More than 30 years after the crucifixion of Jesus, his Christian adherents were accused of setting a fire on July 18, 64 A.D., which devastated the city of Rome. It was the fire in which Nero, Emperor of Rome, allegedly fiddled while Rome burned. The fire destroyed large parts of the city of Rome and cost the lives of many Romans.

Nero’s Vengeance Against the Christian Community

Nero’s vengeance against the Christians was immediate and exceedingly cruel. All Christians in Rome were arrested and tortured before their execution. Some were crucified, thrown to wild animals or burned alive as living torches. Rome’s animus against the Christian community seemed to know no limit in cruelty. In 64 A.D., Simon called Peter, a.k.a. St. Peter—a Jew and first Pope—was crucified in Rome. Sometime between 64 and 67 A.D., St. Paul, a.k.a. Saul of Tarsus—a Jew—was beheaded in Rome. Rome’s vengeance lasted intermittently for 249 years, from the mid first century to the Edict of Milan in 313 A.D.

The Growth of Christianity During the Second and Third Centuries A.D.

In the second and third centuries A.D., Christianity grew significantly throughout the Levant. It transformed a small marginal Jewish sect into a diverse, influential religion. The era is known as the ante-Nicene period. Despite the growth, there were continuing episodes of persecution.

Roman Emperor Constantine and His Enchantment with Christianity

Roman attitudes towards Christianity were about to change dramatically. In 306 A.D., Constantine the Great became the Emperor of Rome. Not long after that, his mother Helena became very devoted to the history and development of Christianity. She traveled to the Holy Land seeking relics of that faith and ultimately discovered fragments of the cross upon which Jesus was crucified. Her interest in Christianity was not lost on her son, Constantine. In fact, it was reinforced when he led a battle to victory after having seen the image of a crucifix in the sky. After that occurrence, Constantine issued the Edict of Milan, affirming Roman tolerance of Christians. Thereafter, Constantine appeared to spend more time and energy on Christianity than on the affairs of the Roman Empire. He supported the Church financially, built basilicas, granted privileges and exemptions to Christian clergy and promoted Christians to high-ranking officers.

In 325 CE, Constantine convened the first Council of Nicaea of Christian bishops in order to confirm the divinity of Jesus as the son of God. By the time of Constantine’s death in 337 CE, the intense hatred by Romans for Christians had miraculously changed to a congenial and somewhat fraternal relationship.

Students of the period were puzzled as to why Christianity was not made the official religion of the Roman Empire during the lifetime of Emperor Constantine. A fairly obvious response to that query is that Rome could not—without being a laughingstock of nations—whip Jesus, require him to wear a crown of thorns, display a plaque designating him King of the Jews, compel him to drag a huge wooden cross down the Via Dolorosa to the place of crucifixion, nail his arms and legs to the cross, watch him painfully die and then declare him God.

If ever there could be a union between Christianity and Rome, Rome had to be exculpated from the death of Jesus.

As already noted, there can be only one authentic form of the four anonymous Canonical Gospels, which describe the life and death of Jesus. No one has the authority to change them. The original, authentic Canonical Gospels were written in the latter part of the first century A.D., and the writing in those Gospels was consistent with the religious and political environment and attitudes of the first century A.D. Any interpolation (addition, subtraction or alteration) would corrupt their historical value.

More than 200 years after Irenaeus took possession of copies of the Canonical Gospels, they were included as the principal building blocks in the creation of the New Testament. Were they the same Gospels as those received by Irenaeus more than 200 years earlier? If not, who ordered the alteration of the Gospels when they were included in the New Testament? More importantly, perhaps, is why?

If we had copies of the Canonical Gospels as they existed during the first, second and third centuries, we could easily tell whether the Canonical Gospels that appear in the New Testament had been interpolated. Unfortunately, while very small fragments of first, second and third century Canonical Gospels exist, there are no complete copies of any of the Canonical Gospels other than the one that appears in the New Testament. One often hears that the best test for the quality and flavor of food is the “taste test.”

It should be no surprise that the best test for the authenticity of certain documents is the “text test.“ There is little controversy among scholars that both the Gospels, as well as the text of the New Testament were occasionally subject to interpolation. The text of the Canonical Gospels that appears in the New Testament speaks both loud and clear.

Late first century Christians, already subject to Roman wrath, knew that Rome ordered the crucifixion of Jesus and that Rome would have no benefit or satisfaction in simply blaming it on the Jews. But, more than 280 years later, after Constantine the Great, the New Testament Gospels told a different story entirely. Interpolation of Gospels sourced in the fourth century New Testament sought to exculpate Rome and to place the blame for the death of Jesus on the Jews. Doing so would bring the Church big rewards by rendering Christianity as the official church of 30 million residents of the Roman Empire.

Date and Time Are Critical Elements

On Sunday, the first day of the six days Jesus spent in Jerusalem, he arrived to the joy and exultation of a Jewish population. They honored Jesus as a savior (Hosanna–Hoshea Nah), as a Messiah and as a forthcoming King of Israel. Palm leaves and items of personal clothing were lovingly placed in his path to celebrate his arrival in Jerusalem. Out of the blue, and totally inconsistent with the ecstatically joyful way in which Jesus was received in Jerusalem, the Gospel texts report that there is a plan for the death of Jesus by the Hebrew priests and the elders. (Matthew 26:1-5; Mark 14:1-2). The Gospel text gives no explanation why anyone would want Jesus dead. Although this makes no sense at all, this report is the first signal that there is going to be a Sanhedrin trial of Jesus in the Gospels.

But, without a Sanhedrin trial and an order for his death for the capital offense delivered to Rome, there could be no exculpation for Rome. A pretend summary version of such a trial and decree appears in the Gospels and is conveniently accepted by the early Church and the Romans for such exculpation. With the exception of Jesus’s response to the money changers and vendors at the entrance to the Holy Temple, he is reported in the Gospels to have spent most of his time in the Temple teaching.

Seder Night

On Thursday night, the Seder night—the evening of the fifth day in Jerusalem—the Gospels tell us that a large number of Jews left their wives and children and the sanctification of their Seders. They got swords and clubs in order to take the beloved Rabbi Jesus into custody. This is obviously not a scenario that comports with traditional Passover religious Jewish culture. And how is that consistent with the fact that the Jewish community warmly greeted Jesus as he entered Jerusalem on Sunday and lectured openly in the Temple for days prior to the Seder? Under those circumstances, why could his assailants not identify Jesus and need to pay Judas 30 pieces of silver to identify him?

In the Gospels, Jesus asks his assailants a very important question: he inquires why they waited until Seder night to take custody of him when he was present and available teaching at the Temple for the last several days? The answer to that question discloses the serious problem that the interpolators had with what appears to be a superimposed interpolation.

The Achilles heel of their interpolations of the New Testament Gospels is that there was not a total remake of the first century Gospels. The interpolators merely added new material to accommodate their fourth century needs. Their interpolations were constantly doing battle with what they left in the original first century Gospels. As a result, they had to deal with certain incompatibilities and impossible constraints. For example, the obvious rationale for Jesus’s crucifixion, i.e., his potential as a king or Jewish leader against Roman occupation of Judea, still remains in the fourth century Gospel. The crown of thorns, the plaque reading “King of the Jews” and the vindictively cruel treatment by the Roman soldiers tell a different and conflicting story than the one of Jews wanting the death of their highly admired leader Jesus for Judaic religious blasphemy.

Another obvious problem of the superimposition is how the Gospel was obliged to go to the evening of the Seder in order to take custody of Jesus. The same fourth century Gospel also includes the fact that three or four days out of his six days in Jerusalem, and before he was taken into custody, Jesus had lectured at the Temple.

The Time Constraints

Simply superimposing a new scenario on top of the original first century Gospels created for Rome and the Church an impossible time constraint. Apparently, the days of Jesus lecturing in the Temple remained unaltered from the first century Gospels, and the Jewish authorities did not take possession of Jesus until the Seder on Thursday evening. That gives the fourth century New Testament Gospels fewer than 13 hours in which to aggregate Jews from their Seders, armed with swords and clubs, find and take Jesus into custody and try to follow the highly structured laws of a legal Sanhedrin capital offense trial. Those constraints for such a procedure 13 hours before crucifixion on the first day of Passover should have discouraged the most ardent proponent of the entire project.

The Sanhedrin trial would have included: (1) assembling Jews from their Passover Seders, no fewer than twenty-three Sanhedrin judges (the minimum required for a Sanhedrin capital case); (2) arranging for a trial at the Hall of Hewn Stones on the Temple; (3) acquiring and assembling the relevant witnesses; (4) taking the witnesses’ testimony; (5) allowing the judges to consider the evidence and to vote; and (6) all of the other formalities required of a Sanhedrin capital case. All of this assumes that Sanhedrin capital cases could even be tried during the sacred Passover festival.

Even if all of the above were humanly possible, why would the Sanhedrin authorities choose to try Jesus during the Passover festival? While the Gospel interpolators were constrained to trying to fit a Sanhedrin capital trial in no more than 13 hours on Passover—the functional equivalent of trying to fit a whole watermelon into a wineglass—the Sanhedrin personnel on the other hand had no such time and date constraints.

Later, while in custody at the home of the high priest, Jesus was asked “are you the Christ, the son of the beloved?” (Mark 14:61). To be candid, I was very surprised to read in the Gospel that the first century chief priest of all of Israel used the word “Christ” in lieu of the word “moshiach.” Why would he use the occupier’s terminology for a Judaic concept when addressing another Jew? I will admit that surprise degenerated to disbelief when I realized that the word “Christ” was being used by the Jewish high priest to mean God. If God were anointing and sending another God as a Messiah, or Christ, Christianity would have again entered the realm of polytheism.

The concept of “messiah” (Heb. “moshiach”) originated in ancient Judaism, where it refers to an “anointed one” chosen by God, often a king, priest or prophet—subjects such as King David and King Cyrus—both human. It evolved to represent a future leader who would restore Israel and usher in an era of peace and righteousness. It was a concept developed within the Hebrew Bible and became a central tenet of Jewish belief, later adopted by Christianity. According to Jewish law, a messiah is a human and can never be a God. “Christos,” from which the word “Christ” originates, is the Greek word for moshiach, and in all likelihood originated with the Greek translation of the Old Testament, the Septuagint. The translation of a word from one language to another does not and cannot change the meaning of that word without abject confusion.

The word “moshiach” means exactly the same thing as its English equivalent, “messiah” and its Greek equivalent “Christos,” from which the word Christ is derived. The fact that the Hebrew word “moshiach” can only refer to a human and not to a deity has to be troublesome with words like “Christ,” “Christian” and “Christmas.” If the “Christ” in those words refer to a human messiah, that is fine. If, however, it is intended to mean “God,” it creates a serious problem. You then have God anointing the sending of another God and have effectively lost monotheism. Such a concept would not only be in violation of the first of the Ten Commandments, but would also constitute polytheism.

Second century Christianity had a similar challenge to monotheism with the concept of God, the father, and God, the son, for which it offered the resolution of The Trinity, which does not appear in either the Old or the New Testament. The doctrine was generated to avoid the criticism that God, the father, and God, the son, would render Christianity a polytheistic religion. It sought to avoid that by simply declaring that the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost were simply one composite entity. While it remains a thesis in Christendom, most American Christians reject the notion of Trinity. See CRC Research, Arizona Christian University, and The Barna Report.

I suspect that the words of Jesus on the cross (reported in Matthew 27:36 and Mark 15:34), “why have you forsaken me” may have generated questions as to whom they were addressed.

Pontius Pilate

Pontius Pilate was a former military leader who served as the Roman Prefect for Judea for 10 years, 26 to 37 A.D.He was an individual who had difficulty dealing with the Jewish priestly class and Jewish sects and had a reputation for cruelty. He was a headstrong ruler who unnecessarily offended the religious sensibilities in Roman Judea. Philo, the famous Jewish philosopher from Alexandria, Egypt, described Pilate as a man of “inflexible, stubborn and cruel disposition” and is on record for killing suspects without trial. Philo was alive and in the vicinity during Jesus’s lifetime, but said absolutely nothing about Jesus. Scholars suggest that he was unaware of Jesus, viewed Christianity as a minor superstition or the information simply did not reach him in Alexandria. Pilate is treated kindly by the Gospels. His Gospel image is one who weighed the guilt and innocence of Jesus and believed that he might be innocent.

As the Prefect for the area, he had the right, under appropriate circumstances, to order the crucifixion of a guilty defendant. He was under no obligation to be an executioner at the behest of the occupied Jewish community. Nevertheless, he washed his hands, declared that he was innocent of this man’s blood and ordered Jesus’s crucifixion.

On the morning of Jesus’s crucifixion, the Gospel suggests that Rome, in respect of the Jewish holiday of Passover, offered the Jewish public an opportunity to select the release of one Jewish prisoner destined for crucifixion. (Matthew 27:17). Pontius Pilate allegedly asked the public, “whom do you want me to release for you: Barabbas or Jesus who is called the Christ?” The Gospel reports that the crowd selected Barabbas for release. Pontius Pilate continued: “then what shall I do with Jesus we call the Christ?” The Gospel reports that the crowd responded, “let him be crucified.” (Matthew 27:23). It should be noted that there is no compelling evidence that any such release custom ever existed, except in the pages of the Gospel. It is not hard to imagine how the authorities in Rome would have reacted to Pontius Pilate’s offer of possible freedom to a potential adversary King who would seek the expulsion of Rome from Judea.

It is in the foregoing Gospel report that the Jewish crowd selected Barrabas, a criminal, for release instead of Jesus. That is the source of the charge against the Jewish community of deicide. If a vilification of the Jews for their refusal to accept Jesus as a deity was the real object of the Gospel, that would certainly have been enough. However, that did not accomplish the real goal for the unification of the Church and Rome. All that did was to make the Jews in pari dilicto (equally at fault) with Rome in the death of Jesus. That was not the object of the early Church and Rome. What they were seeking was the total transference of fault in the death of Jesus from Rome to the Jews. When they realized that simply placing blame for the death of Jesus on the Jews would not, in itself, exculpate Rome from its participation in the death of Jesus, it became obvious that another solution was necessary, i.e., the total exculpation of Rome

Ugly beyond human conception is the report in the Gospels of Jews who purportedly selected Jesus for crucifixion over Barrabas and who responded, “his blood be on us and our children.” (Matthew 27:25). What human beings of any background or description would voluntarily impose their errors on successive generations of their children and grandchildren?

Such a general statement seems to want to emphasize Jewish voluntary compliance in the death of Jesus. To say the least, that Gospel’s description appears more than a bit inconsistent with the same Gospel’s description of the Roman soldiers, who crucified Jesus because he was regaled by the crowds as a potential king of the Jews, threatening Roman control of Judea.

Pilate was ultimately recalled to Rome to be tried for his brutal treatment of the Jews, but when Emperor Tiberius died, Pilate was never brought to trial. He was thought to have committed suicide in 37 A.D.

The Sanhedrin Trial of Jesus Described in the Canonical Gospels

Jewish laws relating to capital punishment have always been meticulously prescribed. That attitude regarding capital punishment was best expressed by the scholar, Maimonides, who argued that executing a defendant on anything less than absolute certainty would lead to a slippery slope of decreasing burdens of proof until convictions would merely be “according to the judges’ caprice.” The site, personnel and procedures in a

Sanhedrin capital case in Judea were clearly outlined: trials took place at the Hall of Hewn Stones, situated in the Temple site; at least 23 qualified Sanhedrin judges were required to sit in on a capital case; and judgment was rendered upon majority vote of those judges.

In the narrative of the Synoptic Gospels, after the arrest of Jesus, he was taken to the private residence of Caiaphas, the high priest of Israel, where the “scribes and the elders were gathered together.” The Gospel of John suggests that he was first taken to the house of the father-in-law of the high priest, Annas, and then went to the house of Caiaphas. The next morning, an interview with Jesus was held in the house of Caiaphas, rather than in the Hall of Hewn Stones. At Caiaphas’s house, Jesus was allegedly mocked and beaten. (Luke 22:63).

According to the Gospel, Jesus spoke very little during that time and gave infrequent and indirect answers to the priests’ questions. (John 18:22). This resulted in his being slapped by an officer. The men holding Jesus at the high priest’s house blindfolded and insulted Jesus. According to the Gospel text, the high priest then asked Jesus, “Art thou the Christ, the son of the Blessed?” (Mark 14:61). Jesus responded, “I am.” Under Jewish law, the son of Christ is the son of the Messiah—a human—not the son of God. In fact, no fewer than 80 times in the Gospels did Jesus identify himself as “son of man.” In biblical times, as well as today, there seems to be a serious misunderstanding or confusion as to the nomenclature of the word “Christ.”

The high priest then tears his robe, appearing to say to the crowd, “I find him guilty of blasphemy.” Shortly thereafter, he was taken to Pontius Pilate for execution. The Gospels do not confirm the presence of any Sanhedrin judges, much less the required 23 qualified Sanhedrin judges essential for a capital punishment judgment. Finding Jesus guilty in the absence of a vote by the required judges, and in a trial outside of the Hall of Hewn Stone, there could be no Sanhedrin capital decree of death. Ironically, even if there were a valid Sanhedrin decree of death, the Roman occupiers were absolutely under no obligation to carry it out.

The death of Jesus was unalterably a Roman action and deed. It could not result from a Sanhedrin capital decree because none was possible under the circumstances. The authors of the interpolation had to be very anxious to try to demonstrate a strong Judean desire for the death of Jesus—something that would be very difficult to do, given the warm, hopeful and joyous welcome that greeted Jesus as he entered Jerusalem earlier in the week. Under no circumstance could a Sanhedrin trial be relied upon to justify Rome’s crucifixion of Jesus as a mere ministerial act of an executioner, thus releasing Rome from fault in the death of Jesus.

Conclusion

By the time of the death of Emperor Constantine, in 337 A.D., the hostility of Rome against the Christian Church had long abated. A number of the Roman soldiers stationed in Judea had associated themselves with the Church. Both Rome and the Church began to realize that they had a future together. While the future can be planned and undertaken successfully, it is much more difficult—if at all possible—to alter the past. In this instance, the past related to Rome’s crucifixion of Jesus, the Christian deity.

Nevertheless, this alteration of the past stood to benefit both the Church and Rome. With regard to the Christian Church, the possibility that Rome could declare Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire was exciting. That would expose

the population of 30 million residents of the Empire to the Church and make way for huge growth and development. For Rome, it could mean the alleviation of the onus in the death of Jesus, the adoption of monotheism and the transition away from its multiple gods, many of which were copied from the Greeks.

The first plan was simple: finding another entity to blame for Jesus’s death, i.e., the Jews. That involved creating a Passover holiday choice where the Jews get to select between Barabbus—a convicted criminal—and Jesus for release from death by crucifixion and where the Jews select Barrabus. Where that could work to vilify the Jews, it does not accomplish the joint desire of Rome and the Church to exculpate Rome from fault in the death of Jesus. What it does do is make both Rome and the Jews in pari dilecto responsible for the death of Jesus.

What was really needed for the exculpation of Rome in the death of Jesus was to change Rome’s function from that of hostile overlord to one of ministerial executioner, which merely followed an official determination of guilt for a capital offense. To accomplish that, one would need a Jewish Sanhedrin trial, with all of its formalities, to charge Jesus with a capital offense, to find him guilty and to deliver him for execution within the available period of 13 hours. Even Rome could not do that.

What they did was to get creative with an interpolation on the last few pages of all four Gospels to provide a summary Jewish trial wherein Jesus is convicted in the household of the chief priest for the capital offense of blasphemy. He then is immediately delivered to the Roman executioner to carry out that sentence.

It seemed to make little difference: that there is no Jewish history of Jesus for the period of his lifetime; that there is no history outside of the New Testament Gospels of any such trial; that that kind of summary trial could not result in a judgment for capital punishment; or that Rome itself was never under the obligation to provide capital punishment for the offense of Jewish blasphemy. The Church and Rome deemed Rome exculpated in the death of Jesus, and thus Christianity was declared the official religion of Rome in 380 A.D., by Emperor Theodosius. One can only assume that the interpolators must have believed that one’s strong religious faith in the Gospels would discourage inquiry. It would have been a lot easier if we had a valid first, second or third century copy of the Gospels. A quick glance could have given us the answer regarding the interpolations. Unfortunately, we are advised that such a copy does not exist. This paper is being presented with the use of a coveted Latin legal maxim, very often used in American courts: Res Ipsa Loquitur. The facts speak for themselves.

The end offers us a surprising twist: shortly after Christianity had been made the official religion of Rome, Rome exercised the strength of its size and authority in the Church and took the Church 2500 miles away to reside in the Vatican, where, with the exception of a brief period, it has existed ever since, under the name of “the Roman Catholic Church.” Such are the spoils of war.

In 1965, Pope Paul, in a genuine effort to remove the onus of deicide from the Jewish people, certified what was known as the “Nostra Aetate.“ Conservative members of the Church allowed that Jews who were not involved at the time of Jesus’s crucifixion, or who have been born since the event, are not responsible. While celebrated, that simply says that the innocent are clearly innocent. What it does not say is that the Jews were not responsible for the death of Jesus.

The Price of the False Conspiracy

The charge of deicide, coupled with patently anti-Semitic provisions which appear in the Gospels (such as in John 8:44-47) are clearly the origin of Christian anti-Semitism, then and now.

Millions of Jews have died as a result of Christian anger engendered by those false charges. To name a few:

1. six million in the Holocaust;
2. thousands from the call of Pope Urban II, in 1095, to recapture the Holy Land from the Muslims;
3. an estimated 100,000 were burned alive because they were falsely blamed for causing the bubonic plague, in the
4. 14th century, and other blood libels;
5. more than 35,000 were burned at the stake in Spain, during the Spanish Inquisition of 1492; and
6. untold numbers, whose lives were taken in the pogroms of Europe under the oral banner of “you killed our God.”

All of this does not even speak to the diminished quality of Jewish life in Christian communities over the 2000 years of diaspora since the original charge of deicide. It is time to restore truth and honesty to the Judeo-Christian relationship. Here, in the United States, democracy has created standards for quality of life. One of them is  separation of church and state. A more Godly requisite would involve separation of church and hate.

Douglas Kaplan