Alan, just a little balm of gilead here. I just took this from Shalom's scripture posts on the Rock. Dealing with the time of the plot
against Jesus TWO days only before he was actually grabbed at night. One scripture alludes to Ciaphus talking with just one or two others at the top that "one man must die or we lose the country". THe other scripture says that he was with probably a group that might have numbered 20, but I doubt it. Evil is usually confined to very few, lest rumors leak out. So maybe 10 or so. Certainly it was not an auditorium full of high priests, scribes and leaders. In a small small village with a tiny government that could have been 5 people for all we know. But they said that they needed to have Jesus killed but not on the Feast Day (2 days from that time) "Because the people would be in an uproar". (I can't find the way to pick part of one post and transfer it, so I have to paraphrase to say time.)
This could be interpreted that the people would love to see the man they had been following in huge crowds and making huge parades of adoration for KILLED, but NOT in a way as to interrupt their nice holiday with the Feast of Passover.
OR, this could be interpreted that if it was done in public when everyone was out, the people would rush the arresting people and perhaps kill the arresting people.
As we know,, he was picked up at midnight and whisked away and kept by Roman soldiers for the rest of the time.
To assume that in less than one working day ALL of the "Jews" then got together and showed up in a mammoth crowd outside Pontius Pilates office and demanded Jesus's death is ludicrous.
It was always assumed by me and taught to me that of course Ciaphus had salted the crowd with perhaps even paid traitors to yell they wanted Barabas. And of course, those who loved Barabas and fought with him would have their crowd yelling for Barabas too.
My point: Let's put it in perspective. The Romans killed Jesus, and we have never blamed them for a moment. The Jewish high priest arranged for Jesus's death because if you didn't worship Caesar in all the Roman Empire you were annialated by Caesar's army after word reached him, as Caesar had been pronounced God of the Earth sometime before that by another dead Caesar.
Then, interestingly, it was Rome that formed the Romish Church, which for 1700 years the history of that church is almost too indecent to read. The depravities found as the pope's seat was "sold" and warred for among the rich who had experience as clergy is not something a decent Christian should read. It is simply mind-numbing, and can be found in hundreds of secular books written by Catholics and aethiests alike.
So I rebel now against the fable that all of the Jews alive at the time
got together in a huge crowd and demanded that Jesus be killed because they didn't like him. Why do we come up with THAT when up to 2 days before his death he was almost hiding to rest from the constant preaching to them and adolation from what seemed to be coming from the whole country. Including a city-wide parade of screaming worshippers as he rode into town, per scripture, while he was yet still "a man".
I see that the scriptures have been twisted over time, and I never thought about it before.
Let's study the scriptures on that one. IT is interesting. |
