Nathanael Andrade’s Killing the Messiah aims at the general reader, yet it includes ample endnotes and a bibliography for scholarly consideration. Andrade is a professor of History at Binghamton University (SUNY), specialising in the Roman Near East, Syria and India.
Andrade contends that Pilate, far from grudgingly condemning an innocent man, became convinced of Jesus’ guilt due to sedition. Jesus’ preaching and acts were incendiary, especially amid the volatile climate of Jerusalem at Passover. The chief priests had acted properly as municipal and religious leaders in arresting Jesus and bringing him to Pilate. They were morally obligated to protect others from violent outbreaks that Jesus’ teaching could engender. Due to theological motives, the canonical Gospels regularly ‘shift responsibility for Jesus’ death from Roman authorities [esp. Pilate] to the chief priests and other Jews’ (p. 7). This has resulted in a history of anti-Semitism among many readers of the Gospels.
Andrade dates the Gospels late. For example, he asserts Luke’s Gospel and Acts are from the mid-second century, with the Lukan author employing Mark, Matthew, Q, Paul’s letters and Josephus (whom he often misunderstands). John appeared even later in the mid-second century. Each Gospel reworks previous material, increasingly portraying Jesus as acceptable to Roman authority. Andrade repeatedly suggests a pre-Markan gospel source can be traced, which recorded Pilate as affirming Jesus’ guilt.
Chapter 1 provides historical context, with helpful discussion of Judaean social tensions. Chapter 2 introduces Herod Antipas, the priests and scribes, and Pilate. Chief priests evidence a variety of motives, including their own political and economic gain, but also their duty to their fellow worshippers’ welfare. Dissenters are surveyed in Chapter 3, noting ‘prophetic voices’ (like the Qumran Essenes, John the Baptist and Jesus) and ‘insurgent leaders’. Jesus (like others) heralded a divine reversal of the imperial governing order. His followers held him to be the Messiah.
Chapter 4 discusses the date, sources and tendencies of the Gospels. Second-century Christians ‘heavily intervened in the Gospels to create the surviving forms and to define an increasingly non-Jewish (and anti-Jewish) Christianity’ (p. 73). Nonetheless, some ‘general features of Jesus’ activity and message’ can still be identified (p. 75). In particular, Jesus proclaimed that the current political and religious leaders were illegitimate and would meet a sudden end.
Chapter 5 focuses on Herod Antipas, who was likely hostile to Jesus but never had the opportunity to detain him. Chapter 6 considers Jesus’ final pilgrimage to Jerusalem, where he occasionally preached publicly, though he often engaged in clandestine activity to avoid capture. Even Jesus’ entry on a donkey and his volatile action against Temple moneychangers were small-scale events that escaped the chief priests’ initial notice. Yet, Jesus’ preaching could stir social disturbance, generating violence that put pilgrims’ lives at risk.
In Chapter 7, Andrade favours evidence for Jesus’ arrest by a party from the chief priests on the evening after Passover lambs were sacrificed. This is corroborated by authentic portions of Josephus’ Testimonium Flavianum (cf. Appendix 2). Chapter 8 contends that the Sanhedrin was an ad hoc assembly (contra later Rabbinic sources). It held a single informal evening hearing (not a trial) at Annas’ house. This assembly did not possess authority for capital punishment, but the chief priests were convinced that Jesus’ blasphemous claims could incite public disturbance. Thus, these priests delivered Jesus to Pilate.
Chapters 9 and 10 discuss Pilate’s authority to execute Jesus for sedition. Pilate valued the chief priests’ knowledge of the populace and was inclined to believe their charges, especially since Jesus did not deny those charges. Pilate’s harsh treatment of Jesus was consistent with Roman practice for those who committed sedition. The Gospels incorrectly assert that Pilate considered Jesus innocent. A hearing before Antipas never occurred (contra Luke). Barabbas was likely an insurrectionist, but he did not commit murder; Pilate willingly released Barabbas.
Finally, Andrade compares Jesus’ trial with subsequent accounts of legal procedures against Christians. Acts is not a trustworthy source. Yet properly read, Acts (and other sources) do portray latitude among Roman governors in dealing with seditious activity.
Andrade’s process in most chapters is to query the Gospel’s accounts, portray a range of scholarly views, and then offer a mediating position. The Gospels present a picture that is broadly true, but faulty in many details, making Jesus appear innocent.
A few thoughts in response: Andrade helpfully presents a complex picture of the chief priests’ motives in chapter 2 (including their own political and economic self-interest), but later he emphasises only their laudable desire to protect their fellow citizens. An evening preliminary hearing before Jewish leaders, followed by an official morning trial before the Sanhedrin, likely makes better sense of the Synoptic data. Other readers have found Pilate’s decision-making more complex, being partially influenced by Pilate’s desire to prevent a negative report from Jewish leadership to his superiors. Andrade’s late dating of the Gospels and Acts creates substantial tensions with Patristic usage and testimony. Andrade competently interacts with bibliography, even if several bibliographic items could be added (e.g., Martin Hengel on The Zealots, William Horbury on Bar-Kochba and on Toledoth Yeshu and Darryl Bock’s Blasphemy and Exaltation). Another recent general-readership book on The Trials of Jesus by Paul Barnett serves as an interesting contrast to Andrade.
This study of Jesus’ trial(s) is clearly written and engages the discussion in intriguing ways.
