236 - The Trial Of Jesus; The Jewish and Roman Proceedings against Jesus Christ

The Trial Of Jesus;
The Jewish and Roman Proceedings against Jesus Christ
Described and Assessed by Josef Blinzler
312 pp. Westminster, Md., The Newman Press, 1959. $4.75.

This is an important book by a noted Roman Catholic scholar who teaches New Testament studies at the diocesan seminary of Passau in Bavaria. Dr. Blinzler investigates the historical sequence and juridical character of the trial of Jesus, insofar as the available Biblical and non-Biblical sources render this possible, and presents a clear and comprehensive account of the many problems involved in the subject matter.

So many and such diverse views have been expressed by scholars on the trial of Jesus that it is difficult to classify them in a summary fashion.

237 - The Trial Of Jesus; The Jewish and Roman Proceedings against Jesus Christ

The most general classification is based on the question of how far the trial was a legal process carried out in accordance with Jewish and Roman law. Admittedly the cardinal question is whether Jews as well as Romans were involved in killing Jesus, and if so, how far they were involved. Blinzler divides these who have sought to answer this latter question into five groups, distinguished according to the degree to which they hold that the Jews were involved in the tragedy of Good Friday: (1) exclusively; (2) predominantly; (3) to the same degree as the Romans; (4) to an unimportant extent; (5) not at all. The author surveys the evidence in the New Testament as well as an enormous number of studies, lives of Christ, articles, and monographs which deal with the subject, and concludes that both the Sanhedrin and Pilate sentenced Jesus to death. He places the chief guilt upon the Jews who made up the Sanhedrin of those days and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem who made common cause with them. At the same time Blinzler is careful to emphasize that any connection between modem anti-Semitism and the passion narratives of the Gospels is without justification.

Besides this central problem of responsibility in the trial, there are many other historical and literary problems that emerge from a careful analysis of the sources. Competent scholars have drawn widely divergent conclusions as to the sequence of the events prior to and during the trial of Jesus before Annas, the Sanhedrin, Herod, and Pilate. Questions such as how far the authors of the Gospels had access to full and reliable accounts of even those parts of the trial which were public; on what charges Jesus was condemned; whether the Mishnaic code of legal procedure was in operation in the first Christian century; the custom of releasing a prisoner at the Passover; the place of the scourging and mocking of Jesus, and what may be called the archaeology of the Crucifixion; the divergent chronological notices in the Gospels prior to and during the trial-these and many other difficult problems are dealt with in a comprehensive and objective manner. The author is au courant with an enormous amount of literature and moves with firm step among a welter of conflicting points of view. At the same time he has achieved a remarkable clarity in the presentation of highly technical details.

Dr. Blinzler, whose previous publications against the authenticity of the Holy Shroud of Turin were models of sober historical research, has put an even wider reading public in his debt for this judicious and painstaking monograph. It is unfortunate, however, that the English translation, though by and large flowing and idiomatic, is not entirely reliable. For example, the translators (Isabel and Florence McHugh) make Blinzler speak of "the accounts by the four evangelists of the cross-examination by Annas" (p. 86), whereas the Synoptists are totally silent regarding the

238 - The Trial Of Jesus; The Jewish and Roman Proceedings against Jesus Christ

hearing before Annas. The error arises from misunderstanding the quite simple German, "im Bericht des vierten Evangelisten..." ("in the account of the Fourth Evangelist..."). On page 22, line 2, the translators have unaccountably inserted a negative, "There is no reason to assume where the original ("Man hat Grund anzunehmen . . .") should be rendered. "There is reason to suppose..." Again, the, phrase, "an ancient Syrian text of the Gospels" (p. 10) erroneously suggests Hort's classificaton of later manuscripts and fails to reproduce Blinzler's correct reference to the Old Syriac Gospels.

Bruce M. Metzger
Princeton Theological Seminary
Princeton, New Jersey