Roman Law and Crucifixion: scholarly quotations

Sherwin-White, A. N.  Roman Society and Roman Law in the New Testament.  Clarendon Press.  1963.  The Sarum Lectures of 1960-1961 by an Oxford historian of Roman government, best known for his commentary on Pliny's letters.  He reads the trial narratives of the Gospels and Acts against what Roman law and provincial practice show about cognitio, capital jurisdiction, citizenship and appeal.  His work is the standard case that the Roman framework of these narratives is accurate;  he himself calls some scenes "worked-up."

1. 1a.

   Page 36:  “When we find that the capital power was the most jealously guarded of all the attributes of government, not even entrusted to the principal assistants of the governors, and specifically withdrawn, in the instance of Cyrene, from the competence of local courts, it becomes very questionable indeed for the Sanhedrin.”  He is answering Jean Juster's argument that the Sanhedrin kept capital jurisdiction.  The argument rests on Roman practice in other provinces, not on a Judean document. ↩

2. 1b.

   Page 42:  “as the evidence stands, the only certain exception to the general rule that the municipal authorities of the Empire were refused capital jurisdiction is that the Sanhedrin possessed certain powers of this sort in connexion with the maintenance of public order in the Temple area. Anything else should either belong to the jurisdiction of the procurator or require his sanction. If the Sanhedrin, under a strong high-priest, occasionally overstepped these limits, it was not unparalleled in other parts of the empire.” ↩

3. 1c.

   Page 24:  “In the hearing before Pilate the synoptic narrative fits the Roman framework remarkably well, considering that it was written with an entirely different purpose in mind.”  Page 25:  “The accusers allege facts, and the judge decides what to make of them. Since there was no defence, Pilate had no option but to convict. That was the essence of the system.”  Page 28:  “the severe beating accompanies the capital sentence, and the lighter whipping goes with the proposed act of coercitio.” ↩

4. 1d.

   Page 26:  “One may here leave aside the worked-up sections concerning the release of Barabbas, and other material, such as the story of Pilate's wife in Matthew, and the sending of Christ to Herod in Luke, none of which is part of the cognitio proper.” ↩

Winter, Paul.  “On the Trial of Jesus.”  Studia Judaica 1.  Walter de Gruyter.  1961.  A Jewish scholar's critical study of the trial narratives, which argued that the Sanhedrin of Jesus' day held full capital jurisdiction, that the Gospels progressively shifted blame from Pilate to the Jewish leaders, and that Jesus was condemned by a Roman court on a political charge.  It shaped the modern debate.  Written before the 1968 discovery at Giv'at ha-Mivtar.

1. 2a.

   Page 88:  “Jn 18 31b provides no evidence at all of the facts of history — the assertion denying the competence of Jewish law courts to administer capital punishment has its basis in the theological scheme devised by the Fourth Evangelist.” ↩

Bond, Helen K.  Pontius Pilate in History and Interpretation.  Cambridge University Press.  paperback edition of the 1998 first edition, same pages.  2004.  A Durham doctoral monograph, published in the Society for New Testament Studies series, that reconstructs the historical Pilate from Philo, Josephus, the Caesarea inscription and his coins, and then reads each Gospel's Pilate as a literary character.  Its first chapter is a compact account of how the province was governed.  Bond finds the sources more consistent with each other than either the harsh-Pilate or the weak-Pilate stereotype allows.

1. 3a.

   Page 15:  “There is not enough evidence to determine whether or not Jewish courts could inflict the death penalty at this period; scholarly opinion is sharply divided on this issue.” ↩

Fredriksen, Paula.  Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews: A Jewish Life and the Emergence of Christianity.  Alfred A. Knopf.  1999.  A historian of ancient Judaism and Christianity sets Jesus in first-century Jewish life.  Her reconstruction is built on what she calls an anomaly:  Jesus was executed as an insurrectionist, but his followers were left alone.

1. 4a.

   Page 9:  “Though Jesus was executed as a political insurrectionist, his followers were not.”  “Had Rome, mistakenly or not, truly thought that Jesus posed any sort of political threat, more than only Jesus would have died.” ↩

Sanders, E. P.  The Historical Figure of Jesus.  Allen Lane The Penguin Press.  1993.  A general account of the historical Jesus by the scholar who did most to set him in the Judaism of his day.  He holds that the high priest had Jesus arrested after his action in the Temple and that Pilate executed him on the charge of claiming to be king.

1. 5a.

   Page 273:  “Why did Pilate order Jesus' execution? Because the high priest recommended it and gave him a telling charge: Jesus thought that he was king of the Jews. Pilate understood that Jesus was a would-be king without an army, and therefore he made no effort to run down and execute Jesus' followers.” ↩

Crossan, John Dominic.  Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography.  HarperSanFrancisco.  1994.  A popular biography by a co-founder of the Jesus Seminar who denies the resurrection.  Its chapter "The Dogs Beneath the Cross" argues that the passion details were composed from Old Testament texts and that Jesus' body was probably left exposed or put in a shallow grave.

1. 6a.

   Page 152:  “I do not presume at all any high-level consultations between Caiaphas or Pilate about or with Jesus.”  “The details in our gospels are, in any case, prophecy historicized and not history memorized.” ↩

Hengel, Martin.  Crucifixion in the Ancient World and the Folly of the Message of the Cross.  SCM Press and Fortress Press.  Translated by John Bowden.  1977.  A survey of Greek, Latin and Jewish texts on crucifixion by a Tübingen historian of early Judaism and Christianity, written as background to Paul's "word of the cross."  It is short and still the standard starting point.

1. 7a.

   Page 86:  “Crucifixion was and remained a political and military punishment.”  Page 87:  “among the Romans it was inflicted above all on the lower classes, i.e. slaves, violent criminals and the unruly elements in rebellious provinces, not least in Judaea.”  “The chief reason for its use was its allegedly supreme efficacy as a deterrent; it was, of course, carried out publicly.” ↩

Samuelsson, Gunnar.  “Crucifixion in Antiquity: An Inquiry into the Background and Significance of the New Testament Terminology of Crucifixion.”  WUNT 2/310.  Mohr Siebeck.  2011.  A Gothenburg doctoral thesis that reads every Greek, Latin and Hebrew text on "suspension" before AD 30 and argues that the words did not yet name one specific punishment.  It is the most skeptical modern reading of the terminology.

1. 8a.

   Page 305:  “The ancient texts that with any likelihood describe crucifixions are both rare and vague. This observation includes the texts of the New Testament.” ↩

Ehrman, Bart D.  How Jesus Became God: The Exaltation of a Jewish Preacher from Galilee.  HarperOne.  2014.  A popular book by a leading skeptical New Testament scholar.  Its fourth chapter gives three reasons to doubt that Jesus was buried in a known tomb:  Roman practice with the crucified, common graves for criminals, and Pilate's character.  Ehrman says he had earlier accepted the burial.

1. 9a.

   Page 160:  “In sum, the common Roman practice was to allow the bodies of crucified people to decompose on the cross and be attacked by scavengers as part of the disincentive for crime. I have not run across any contrary indications in any ancient source. It is always possible that an exception was made, of course.” ↩

Brown, Raymond E.  “The Death of the Messiah: From Gethsemane to the Grave, volume 2.”  Anchor Bible Reference Library.  Doubleday.  1994.  The standard critical commentary on the passion narratives of the four Gospels, by a Catholic priest and Union Theological Seminary professor.  Its section on the burial gathers the Roman and Jewish evidence on the bodies of the crucified.

1. 10a.

   Page 1210:  “Thus we cannot discount the possibility of an honorable first burial of one crucified by the Romans.” ↩

Magness, Jodi.  The Archaeology of the Holy Land: From the Destruction of Solomon's Temple to the Muslim Conquest.  Cambridge University Press.  2012.  A textbook by an archaeologist who has excavated in Israel, including at Qumran and Huqoq.  Its chapter on Jewish burial compares the Gospel burial accounts with tombs, ossuaries and Jewish law in Jerusalem.

1. 11a.

   Page 248:  “The Gospel accounts of Jesus' burial appear to be largely consistent with the archaeological evidence. In other words, although archaeology does not prove there was a follower of Jesus named Joseph of Arimathea or that Pontius Pilate granted his request for Jesus' body, the Gospel accounts describing Jesus' removal from the cross and burial accord well with archaeological evidence and with Jewish law.” ↩