Was Jesus the Victim of Roman Politics?

Last week PBS premiered “The Last Days of Jesus”, a 2-hour documentary examining how Roman power politics may have resulted in Jesus’ crucifixion. According to the credits, the program was based in part on The Lost Gospel by Simcha Jacobovici and Barrie Wilson. Jacobovici contributed to many programs on The History Channel related to archaeology and the Bible either as host, director, or producer. Perhaps he is best-known for “The Lost Tomb of Jesus”, a 2007 Discovery Channel documentary in which he claims that a tomb found in 1980 was Jesus’ family tomb.

Having previously watched a couple of television programs Jacobovici has been associated with, let’s just say that I approached this latest one with a wary eye.

Plot Holes in the Passion Narrative

The program does raise some valid questions about the coherence and plausibility of the gospels’ recounting of the last days of Jesus in Jerusalem, from Palm Sunday to Good Friday. According to the gospels, Jesus entered Jerusalem amid people waving palm fronds and shouts of “hosanna.” He proceeded to the Temple where he overthrew the tables of the moneychangers. A few days later, he gathered with his disciples for the Last Supper, after which Judas betrayed him in the Garden of Gethsemane. He was brought before the Jewish Sanhedrin and then delivered to Pontius Pilate. Pilate was reluctant to order his execution and offered to release either Jesus or Barabbas. The crowd chose Barabbas and Jesus was condemned to death.

But anyone familiar with the historical background will notice holes in the plot. Pilate’s job was to maintain order in Judea. Any threat to Roman rule or the status quo would be met with a swift and brutal response. Interrupting operations in the Temple was a challenge to the status quo and Pilate would have no choice but to respond. Once Jesus was brought before him, condemning him to death would have been automatic.

Therefore, why wasn’t Jesus arrested on the spot for causing a disturbance in the Temple? Why would one of his most-trusted disciples betray him days later? Why was Pilate vacillating over ordering Jesus’ execution? And why, when Pilate offered to free Jesus, did the crowds that welcomed Jesus as king only a few days earlier turn against him and ask for Barabbas?

Herod’s Plan

According to “The Last Day of Jesus”, the answer to those questions can be found by looking at the political players involved, namely Herod Antipas and Lucius Aelius Sejanus. What follows is the argument from the program, not my own.

Antipas was tetrarch (“ruler of a quarter”) of Galilee and Perea, two small territories that fell within the larger kingdom of Judea that had been ruled by his father, Herod the Great. Antipas resented his diminished power and tried unsuccessfully to reclaim his father’s kingdom. He thought he had a supporter in Sejanus, ambitious prefect of the Praetorian Guard who had become the most powerful man in Rome, serving as administrator to the emperor Tiberius. Antipas had worked out an agreement with Sejanus – if he could pacify Judea, Sejanus would reward him by making him king.

Antipas saw Jesus as the means to accomplish the pacification of Judea. Jesus wanted to overthrow the unpopular priestly ruling class – the Sadducees – and replace them with his own disciples. Being closer to the people than the aristocratic Sadducees, Jesus and his disciples would encourage the Jews to follow Roman law and pay their taxes. His insistence on non-violence would dampen plans for insurrections.

To support and guide the Jesus movement, Herod Antipas covertly financed it and embedded his confidants within the organization. Joanna (Lk 8:3), the wife of Herod’s steward (the program refers to the steward as Herod’s “chief of staff”), was one of Jesus’ financial backers. Manaen (Acts 13:1), who had been brought up with Herod, was one of the leaders of the church in Antioch.

According to the theory proposed by the documentary, Jesus was not immediately arrested in the Temple court because the Roman troops present to prevent such a disturbance were told to stand down. As prefect of the Roman province of Judea, Pilate was in charge of the Roman troops and Pilate had been appointed to his position by Sejanus. The conspiracy between Sejanus and Antipas required that Jesus be allowed to challenge the priestly aristocracy, so Pilate was given orders not to interfere when Jesus halted commercial transactions in the Temple precincts.

What Went Wrong with the Plan?

On 18 October 31 CE, Sejanus was denounced for treason by Tiberius and executed. Disturbed by Sejanus’ anti-semitic policies, Tiberius released an edict the following year charging Roman procurators with not disturbing Jewish customs and reserving punishments for those guilty of breaking Roman laws.

Anyone associated with Sejanus – such as Antipas or Pilate – would have their loyalties questioned. They needed to put distance between themselves and Sejanus. In light of Tiberius’ edict Pilate, in particular, would need to suspend the brutal tactics he had previously used to control the Jewish populace.

With the downfall of Sejanus, any previous protection given to Jesus and his disciples evaporated and they were forced into hiding. This gave the High Priest Caiaphas and the Sadducees their opportunity to arrest Jesus for sedition and compel Pilate to either order his execution or be denounced as an enemy of Caesar.

Holy Week Lasts a Lot Longer

But these rapid changes in fortune could not have happened within the span of a few days. Mention of the crowds welcoming Jesus to Jerusalem while waving palm fronds suggest this occurred in the fall, around the time of the festival of Sukkot (Tabernacles), because palm leaves are a symbol of Sukkot as much as pumpkins are associated with Halloween. Palm leaves simply wouldn’t be readily available for the crowds’ use in the spring, around the time of Passover.

If Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem and his cleansing of the Temple took place at Sukkot in October 31, he was then under Sejanus’ protection and would not be arrested. But after news reached Jerusalem of Sejanus’ downfall, he would have been forced into hiding. For months Jesus waited for the situation to settle down, keeping a low profile and trying to decide what to do next.

Jesus and the money changers. A scene from “The Last Days of Jesus” (produced by Blink Films, Associated Producers Ltd., PBS, Channel Five Televison, LTD., SBS Television Australia and ZoomerMedia Limited.)

The program speculates that the Last Supper was a strategy session among Jesus and his disciples to determine the best course of action. Judas – described as a Zealot, a violent revolutionary – disagreed with Jesus’ collaboration with the hated Roman rulers and Herod Antipas, their puppet. As long as they could achieve their aims of revolution Judas was willing to go along with the plan, but after six month in hiding with nothing to show for it, he was disgusted with Jesus’ inactivity and willing to betray him.

When Jesus was brought before him, Pilate was faced with a dilemma. On the one hand, Jesus had challenged Roman order and could be executed for sedition. On the other hand, Pilate did not want to cause a riot among Jesus’ supporters. If a riot broke out, his measures to restore order would risk violating Tiberius’ edict.

Pilate offered the crowd the choice between Jesus and Barabbas. The crowds chose Barabbas because, much like Judas, they had become disenchanted with Jesus during his months in hiding. With no riot to fear and wanting to demonstrate his loyalty to Tiberius, Pilate ordered Jesus’ crucifixion.

It’s All About Timing

The power play theory proposed by Jacobovici  and Wilson seems to explain a lot of the logical gaps in the gospel accounts of Jesus’ last days. But is their theory plausible?

Timing is the key. The theory requires a period of months between Jesus’ “cleansing” of the Temple and his arrest and crucifixion. It also requires that his arrest take place after the downfall of Sejanus in October 31 CE. If either of those two postulates don’t hold up, the entire edifice collapses.

All four gospels agree that Jesus was crucified on a Friday. According to John’s gospel, both the Sabbath and Passover began at sundown on the day of his crucifixion. But the Synoptic Gospels claim that Jesus celebrated Passover at the Last Supper. That means that Passover began at sundown on Thursday. Biblical scholars think John’s chronology is right because it is implausible that the Sanhedrin would have a night trial of Jesus on the first day of Passover. The only years during Pilate’s administration when Passover began on a Friday were 30 and 33 CE. 31 CE might be possible if the Synoptic chronology is correct, but 32 CE is ruled out either way.

The power play theory requires that Jesus’ triumphal entry to Jerusalem occurred in the fall, at Sukkot, before the execution of Sejanus in October 31 CE became known. The theory also needs Jesus to be in hiding for a period of several months before being arrested and executed. Therefore, the Passover of 32 CE would be the logical time for his crucifixion according to the theory. But that is the one year when astronomy tells us that Jesus could not have been crucified because Passover did not fall on either a Thursday or Friday. A date of 33 CE would require that Jesus remained in hiding and eluded capture for 18 months and doesn’t seem plausible.

Palm Sunday in October?

While it is possible that Jesus’ Jerusalem entry took place at Sukkot, the only evidence supporting this hypothesis is the mention of the crowd waving palm branches (John 12:12-13).  But the specificity of palm branches only appears in John’s gospel. Mark and Matthew refer simply to generic branches cut from the trees and Luke doesn’t mention branches at all.

The symbolism of palm branches are not exclusive to Sukkot and the fall season. For proof, we need only look at 1 Macc 13:51. The Maccabees are described as entering Jerusalem amid shouts of praise and the waving of palm branches – just like Jesus – and we are told this happened on the 23rd day of the 2nd month (3 June 141 BCE), decidedly not around the festival of Sukkot.

If the detail of palm branches was added by John, maybe as an allusion to the event in Maccabees, then there is no necessity that Jesus’ triumphal entry occurred at Sukkot. Even if the detail is historical, that alone is not enough to prove it occurred at Sukkot, as the passage from Maccabees illustrates. Without the link to Sukkot, Jesus could have entered Jerusalem a few days before Passover just as the gospels recount.

Regime Change has Consequences

Timing is enough to sink the theory, but even if that issue could be tweaked, the central premise of the Roman conspiracy plot doesn’t make much sense. What would Sejanus stand to gain by supporting Herod’s efforts to have Jesus foment a popular uprising that threw out the Sadducees? A trusted man keeping order in Judea? Temple authorities who owe their power to Rome? He already had that with Pilate and Caiaphas!

Pilate was Sejanus’ choice to run Judea and Caiaphas served as high priest under the sufferance of Pilate. Caiaphas served from 18-36 CE, longer than any other high priest in that period, so he must have been able to work well with the Roman prefects. Pilate served as prefect of Judea for 10 years before he was deposed in 36 CE after complaints of his harsh handling of a Samaritan uprising. Either would have been replaced if they were unable to maintain order in the province. The program does not explain why the situation was so bad that Sejanus and Antipas would support Jesus’ efforts to overthrow the Sadducees, but not take the obvious step of replacing Pilate and/or Caiaphas.

In fact, the whole scheme sounds rather risky. Revolution and regime change have unintended consequences. Replacing the ruling aristocracy with Jesus and his crew could have caused more unrest in Jerusalem, the opposite of what Rome wanted. Certainly not all Jews would welcome a rabbi like Jesus with unorthodox ideas about the Mosaic Law. Herod should also have known from his experience with John the Baptist that holy men with large followings pose a risk of rebellion. Even if he made a deal with Jesus, how could he be sure that Jesus wouldn’t turn the people against him at some future date?

Alternate Explanations

Certainly, the disruption in the Temple precincts sounds like something that would have caused Jesus to be arrested on-the-spot by the Temple guards, if not the Roman guards. If Jesus were surrounded by large crowds of supporters, a public arrest could have triggered a riot and Caiaphas may have had a standing agreement with Pilate to make such arrests quietly and hand over the guilty party to the Romans for punishment. This would explain the gospel references to the “chief priests and scribes” seeking for a way to kill him (Mk 11:18) and Jesus asking at his arrest why he wasn’t seized while preaching in the Temple every day (Mk 14:49).

The indecisiveness on the part of Pilate could be a creation of the evangelists. Writing 40-60 years after the crucifixion to an audience who knew that Jesus was executed as a criminal, there would be an understandable desire on the part of the gospel writers to demonstrate that Pilate didn’t really want to condemn Jesus but was forced to do it by the Jewish authorities who were threatened by him. Jesus was an innocent man, convicted on false evidence.

I give the authors some credit for looking beyond the gospels to historical events known from ancient authors like Josephus and Philo. While ancient writers have their own motivations and are not always objective chroniclers of history, at least they give us more context than relying solely on what the evangelists tell us. Ultimately, however, I find their power play theory unconvincing.

If you have a question about the power play theory or events associated with the last days of Jesus, please leave a comment below.