CSI Jerusalem...Jesus on Trial

Our investigation now begins to look specifically at the trial(s) of Jesus. As we explore lets set everything up with a bit of background on the justice system of the day. By understanding this we can better see any glaring problems with the trial of Jesus.

Despite the corruption within the Sanhedrin, the justice system was still governed by rules of evidence and principles of impartiality that had been established under Moses. Two credible witnesses were still required to establish guilt. The accused were supposed to be entitled to a public trial. People placed on trial were entitled to a defense, including the right to call witnesses and present evidence.

As a deterrent to anyone who might bring false testimony against an accused person, Moses’ law established this principle:

If a false witness rises against any man to testify against him of wrongdoing, then both men in the controversy shall stand before the Lord, before the priests and the judges who serve in those days. And the judges shall make careful inquiry, and indeed, if the witness is a false witness, who has testified falsely against his brother, then you shall do to him as he thought to have done to his brother; so you shall put away the evil from among you. (Deuteronomy 19:16–19)

So if someone testified falsely against a person accused of a capital crime, the false witness himself could be given the death penalty.

Rabbinical tradition had added another restriction on death-penalty cases. A full day of fasting had to be observed by the council between the passing of sentence and the execution of the criminal. (That not only prevented hasty trials and executions, but it also kept capital cases off the docket during the feasts.) After the obligatory day of fasting, council members were polled again to see if they had changed their opinions. Guilty verdicts could thus be overturned, but a not-guilty verdict could not be rescinded.

All those principles were established to ensure that trials were both fair and merciful.

Legal scholars who have studied the justice system of the Sanhedrin cite numerous other principles that governed the hearing of capital cases. To ensure fairness, the council could try cases only where an outside party had brought the charges. If charges had been brought against the accused by council members, the entire council was disqualified from trying the case. Testimony of all witnesses had to be precise as to the date, time, and location of the event one was testifying about. Women, children, slaves, and the mentally incompetent were not permitted to testify. Persons of questionable character were also disqualified from being witnesses. The accused was to be presumed innocent until an official guilty verdict was reached. Criminal trials were not to be convened at night, and if a trial was already underway when nighttime fell, court was to be recessed until the following day.

His trial was unjust and illegal by virtually every principle of jurisprudence that was known at the time.

Caiaphas and the Sanhedrin turned their own council into a kangaroo court with the predetermined purpose of killing Jesus. The trial they imposed on Him was one extended act of deliberate inhumanity, the greatest miscarriage of justice in the history of the world.

Matthew writes, “And those who had laid hold of Jesus led Him away to Caiaphas the high priest, where the scribes and the elders were assembled. But Peter followed Him at a distance to the high priest’s courtyard” (Matthew 26:57–58). The apostle John’s account fills in more details. John apparently followed Jesus to the high priest’s house too (John 18:15). And from John we learn that before Jesus was taken to Caiaphas’s house, “they led Him away to Annas first, for he was the father-in-law of Caiaphas who was high priest that year” (v. 13).

Annas was one of the most powerful men in Jerusalem. He had served as high priest twenty years before this (a.d. 7–14), and for all practical purposes, he had controlled the high priest’s office ever since. Five of his sons had already succeeded him as High Priest, and now his son-in-law, Caiaphas, had the title. Annas thus managed to control the high priesthood through his sons and son-in-law until the end of his life. As the real power behind the office, he also retained use of the title. Therefore several times in the New Testament, he is referred to as the high priest.

Annas and family had managed to turn the high priesthood into an incredibly profitable business, and they had amassed enormous wealth through it. They did this chiefly by collecting license fees and commissions from the brokers who changed money and sold sacrificial animals on the temple grounds. The entire business was crooked. Both the moneychangers and the animal merchants were renowned for their dishonesty and greed.

Since Annas controlled a monopoly on the whole enterprise, the merchants who worked for him could charge exorbitant rates—especially during the seasons of the feasts when the city was filled with pilgrims. Of course Annas himself took a hefty portion of the profits. Thus Annas and his sons had grown wealthy at the expense of people who came to worship God. That explains Jesus’ outrage over the whole business, which led Him to purge the temple by driving out the moneychangers and animal sellers on two occasions (Matthew 21:12–13; Mark 11:15–17; John 2:14–16).

Because the Roman coins that were used in most commerce had an image of Caesar stamped on them, and that was deemed idolatrous. Roman coins were therefore not to be used for donations to the temple treasury. Worshipers coming to the temple were required to use Jewish coins for their tithes, alms-giving, and temple taxes. Ostensibly for the sake of convenience, moneychangers licensed by the high priest were permitted to ply their trade right on the temple grounds, exchanging foreign currencies for Jewish coins. But the exchange rate they offered was unreasonably disadvantageous to the worshiper. In short, the high priest was sanctioning a form of organized larceny.

Something similar was happening with the animal trade at the temple and elsewhere around Jerusalem. Worshipers were required to bring an unblemished animal—and the priests certified animals as to their fitness for sacrificial purposes. All the temple brokers’ animals were precertified for sacrificial purposes. Therefore it was often much easier for out-of-town worshipers to purchase an animal at or near the temple, rather than bringing one’s own animal from a distance only to have it disqualified when the temple priest found a blemish of some kind.

As high priest, Annas virtually owned the franchise on precertified sacrificial animals. He and the merchants who worked for him took full advantage of this situation and fixed unreasonably high prices on the precertified animals both at the temple mount and throughout the city of Jerusalem.

Annas administered this power through his sons, who regularly collected the high priest’s cut of profits from those shady businesses. Annas functioned very much like a modern organized crime boss. No wonder Christ twice purged the temple. Annas had quite literally turned it into a house of merchandise and a den of thieves

And no wonder Annas was so determined to eliminate Christ. Jesus had repeatedly been a threat to Annas’s business interests. Moreover, Christ was everything a true high priest should have been—holy, devout, chaste, honorable, and virtuous. Corrupt men who wield power as Annas did simply cannot abide true righteousness. Jesus was a constant rebuke to Annas. For all those reasons Annas had to see Him destroyed.