What reason did the Jews give for Crucifying Jesus?

Answer 1

A:The circumstances during the period immediately before and including the crucifixion of Jesus are explained very concisely in Mark's Gospel, which breaks down the last twenty four hour into eight intervals of just three hours each.

1. We start with the celebration of the Passover Feast, which becomes the Last Supper. It began "when it was evening" (Mark 14:17), or when the sun went down: approximately 6 pm. Mark knew that the duration of the Passover meal was three hours and that it concluded with the singing of a hymn, so the first thing Jesus did was to sing a hymn with his disciples. Then Mark says, "And when they had sung a hymn they went out to the Mount of Olives". It was about 9 p.m.
2. Mark then has Jesus and the disciples go to the Garden of Gethsemane, where Jesus went to pray. He suffered alone and in agony, asking God that, if possible, he take this cup (his destiny to be crucified) away from Jesus. Meanwhile his disciples, Peter, James and John, were not able to remain awake. "Could you not watch one hour?" Jesus asked. The process was repeated two more times. The disciples could not watch one, two or three hours. It was now midnight.
3. The betrayal of Jesus, the darkest deed in human history, came next, occurring at the stroke of midnight.
4. At 3:00 a.m., Jesus was led away for a trial before the high priest and other senior priests and elders. It was on the basis of his messianic claim that he was judged to be worthy of death.

   The watch of the night between 3 am and 6 am was called cockcrow. Peter's threefold denial of Jesus, once each hour until the cock crowed, marked the end of that phase of the night. That makes it 6 am.

5. "As soon as it was morning", which would be 6 am, Jesus was led by the chief priests, scribes and elders to Pontius Pilate for judgement.
6. "It was the third hour when they crucified him," that is, 9 o'clock.
7. When "the sixth hour had come" (12 noon), darkness covered the whole earth, reflecting the betrayal at 12 midnight. After three hours of darkness, at 3 p.m., Jesus cried out and gave up the ghost. He has suffered alone and in agony, just as in the Garden of Gethsemene, and his last words reflect anguish at the failure of his prayer in the Garden, when he asked if it were possible that this fate be taken from him: "My God. My God. Why hast thou forsaken me?".
8. Joseph of Arimathea then asked Pilate for the body of Jesus, so that he could be buried before the Sabbath began. Jesus was buried in the final period from 3 to 6 pm, before the sun went down.

Notice that not only are the eight intervals elegantly of just three hours each, but they also form a chiastic structure, in which the first four intervals are reflected in the second group. The two other synoptic gospels more or less copy Mark's story of the last twenty four hours, but do lose this chiastic structure.

The circumstances described in John's Gospel are entirely different. Christ's crucifixion takes place on the day before the Passover celebration. There is no Last Supper to celebrate the Passover, but instead Jesus washes the feet of the disciples after the evening meal. There is no trial before the Sanhedrin, with Jesus simply taken separately to the homes of Annas and then Caiaphas. The trial of Jesus takes place later in the day, and Jesus is not sent for crucifixion until the sixth hour -12 noon.

The gosples make it clear that the priests and scribes felt threatened by Jesus. The synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark and Luke) say that the final trigger for the arrest and crucifixion of Jesus was the Cleansing of the Temple, when Jesus overturned the tables of the moneychangers in the Temple. They also accused him of claiming to be King of the Jews, perhaps to impress the Roman governor, Pontius Pilate, who had the final authority to order the crucifixion. However, John's Gospel moves the Cleansing of the Temple passage to the beginning of the mission of Jesus, to allow the resurrection of Lazarus to be the reason for his arrest and crucifixion. In John 12:19, the turning point is identified: "The Pharisees therefore said among themselves, Perceive ye how ye prevail nothing? behold, the world is gone after him."

Answer 2

According to the New Testament, the reason was blasphemy since Jesus was claiming to be a Divinity when such a thing is counter to Jewish belief and practice. Historically, since the Jews did not actually crucify anyone (the Romans crucified Jesus), they did not proffer any reason.

Examining the New Testament Account

The New Testament certainly holds the perpsective that Jews killed Jesus and paints Pontius Pilate as a man who seems fair and honest. Meanwhile, the rabid Jewish crowd demands Jesus' blood in a persistent and foul way.

However, assuming that Jesus was a true historical figure, it seems far more likely in actuality that the reverse occurred. The Romans were probably intent on crucifying him and the Jews most likely begged for long-term imprisonment instead of execution. Of course, this would not be out of any love for what Jesus was preaching and many probably would have agreed that as heretic he should be silenced. However, there are only four acceptable implementations of capital punishment in Judaism that are strongly regulated: decapitation, quick strangulation, quick strangulation with internal burning, and stoning. There is complete rejection of any form of capital punishment that uses piercings to kill or leaves the criminal to suffer for hours on end. Crucifixion is in both categories and would be opposed on those grounds.

It is interesting that Pontius Pilate is painted so dovishly in the Bible as concerns the debate on Jesus' death, but nearly every other Roman source paints him as a vile and cruel man. Such a man would have delighted in crucifying a man he perceived as a threat and Jesus was a serious threat to the Roman Empire. The Messiah of that period was understood the way that Jews still understand this concept: an Earthly King who would establish a Jewish Kingdom. Necessarily, therefore, Jesus was going to have to raise an army or commit some political intrigue to achieve this goal. The Romans were likely afraid that Jesus would try to lead a rebellion to free Judea from Roman occupation. This fear would prove justified when another Messianic Candidate, Bar Kochba, would actually lead a revolt against the Romans that ended disastrously for the Jews. In order to prevent Jesus from taking that power, the Romans pre-emptively sought him out and questioned if he was the King of Jews, i.e. someone actively trying to create a Jewish Kingdom in defiance of Rome. When Pontius Pilate received answers that troubled him, why would he spare the rod here when there was such an obvious threat?

The Church does not even hold to the line in Matthew 27:25 where Jews take upon themselves the bloodguilt for the Crucifixion. The recent Popes, and the Catholic Church in general, have made clear that this part of Matthew (if not the whole book) is a polemic and that the truth is that Romans executed Christ. Many Protestant Churches (like the Lutheran and Episcopalian Churches) got there even sooner than the Catholics. Since Christian Leadership does not hold those lines in the Book of Matthew to be necessarily authentic or worth following, Christian Leadership does not even advocate for them.

Examining the Jewish Perspective

Jews do not recognize the Christian claim that they killed Jesus. Jesus was executed by a bloodthirsty Roman Tyrant: Pontius Pilate. However, Paul and Peter could not sell Christianity to the Gentiles while claiming that the Roman people were responsible for the Death of the Savior, so Matthew 27:25 ascribing bloodguilt to the Jews was added to avoid condemning the Romans for their act. Jews, while not major fans of Jesus are not responsible for his death and therefore are not proud or remorseful for it.

Jews disagreed with Jesus quite fervently. The most potent infringement of Jewish Law that Jesus put forward was the consumption of human flesh and human blood as the seal of a divine covenant made through human sacrifice (the eucharist). This violates (according to Jews) the sanctity of humanity (Genesis 9:3), the horror of cannibalism (Leviticus 26:29; Deuteronomy 28:53-57), the prohibition of blood consumption (Deuteronomy 12:23), the prohibition of human sacrifice (Genesis 22:11-12), and the prohibition of transferable expiation - that one person can relieve the sins of another. This is just one of numerous Jewish arguments against Jesus.

There is even a discussion in the Talmud on the issue of Jesus (although it is unclear if this is a later edit-job or part of the original text). The Rabbis come to conclusion that he is heretic and that he merits stoning in this section of the Talmud.

However, the act of plotting to actually commit murder is far removed from these discussions and more serious. There are many debates in the Talmud concerning both historical individuals and alleged stories like the Oven of Achnai. This does not mean that those events actually happened, only that the thought experiment of "what would happen under these circumstances" was done. The New Testament makes a number of simple errors about Jewish jurisprudence on such matters. For example, it claims that the Sanhedrin convened on Passover to condemn Jesus. However, the leaders of the Sanhedrin followed the letter of the law to a fault (Jesus even reprimands them for it) and one of the laws is that the Sanhedrin can never meet on a holiday, especially one as central as Passover. Secondly, they allude to a connection between the High Priests and the Sanhedrin in agreeing on what actions to take on Jesus. There was an intense political fight between the High Priests and the Rabbis of the Sanhedrin as to the future direction of Judaism. The High Priests were more corrupt and elitist. The Rabbis were more earnest and populist. There is no reason that the High Priests would not wish to keep Jesus preaching if his populist approach would weaken the appeal of the Rabbis.

Answer 3

rebellion to the roman empire