Killing Jesus: A History

by Bill O'Reilly

  MONDAY, APRIL 3, A.D. 30

  MORNING

  It is dawn. Jesus and the disciples are already on the move, walking purposefully from Bethany back into Jerusalem. The pandemonium of yesterday’s jubilant entry into that city still rings in the Nazarene’s ear. He was adored by the people as “Jesus, the prophet from Nazareth in Galilee” when he dismounted at the city gates. It was a coronation of sorts, a celebration. But to the authorities, the exhibition is cause for great concern. Jerusalem hasn’t seen such a moment since Jewish rebels tried to capture the city in 4 B.C. and again in A.D. 6. Those rebels, of course, paid for the action with their lives.

  Jesus knows this, just as he knows that the Roman governor and the Jewish high priest are constantly on the lookout for rebels and subversives. He is well aware that Pilate and Caiaphas received at least some word that the Nazarene had ridden into the city on a donkey, stirring up the Passover crowds. During the event, Jesus was calm, stepping down off the animal and walking straight up the great steps into the Temple courts. He did not go there to teach but to be a pilgrim just like any man from Galilee, observing the sights and smells and sounds of the Temple during Passover week.

  Roman soldiers are posted throughout the Court of the Gentiles, and the Temple guards no doubt took note of Jesus and the people who crowded around him. But none of them made a move to arrest the Nazarene. Apprehending such a beloved public figure might cause a riot. With Jews pouring into Jerusalem by the hundreds of thousands, even the smallest confrontation could quickly get out of hand. The soldiers and guards are armed, but their numbers are minuscule in comparison with the number of pilgrims. Anyone trying to take Jesus into custody could be overwhelmed by the peasant hordes. Anger about the injustice of arresting such a peaceful man as Jesus would blend with the people’s simmering rage about heavy taxation.

  It was late afternoon when Jesus departed the Temple courts in order to get back to Bethany before nightfall. He and the disciples retraced their steps back out of Jerusalem, past the tent camps on the Mount of Olives, where trampled palm leaves and olive branches still littered the dirt road. Even though the crowds made it clear that they wanted him to be their king and treated his arrival as a prelude to his coronation, Jesus neither said nor did anything to lead Caiaphas or Pilate to believe he was plotting a rebellion.

  But this day, a Monday, will be very different.

  * * *

  Jesus spots a fig tree. He and the twelve are just outside Bethany, and Jesus has had little to eat this morning. He walks alone to the tree, hoping to pluck a piece of fruit, even though he knows that figs are out of season. Jesus scours the twisted branches but sees only leaves. He is annoyed at the tree. “May no one ever eat fruit from you again,” he says.

  The outburst is uncharacteristic, and the disciples take note.

  But Jesus is just getting started. Once again the group walks into Jerusalem and straight to the Temple. It has been three years since Jesus turned over the money changers’ tables, but now he plans to do it again. Only this time he has no whip, and he is no longer an unknown figure. The first incident was not quite forgotten, but it was minor enough that Jesus was able to resume his teaching in the courts almost immediately.

  Things are different now. The stakes are higher. Jesus of Nazareth is famous. People follow him wherever he goes. His every movement is watched, as the Pharisees wait for him to make the vital slipup that will allow them to turn public opinion against him. The smart move would be for Jesus to avoid controversy, to remain peaceful, and to let the status quo hum along as smoothly as during every other Passover. A jarring public display of temper would be most unwise.

  Jesus doesn’t care. Without warning, he flips over a table and sends coins flying. Then another. And another. There are no vendors selling sheep and cattle today, so Jesus makes his statement by releasing the caged sacrificial doves and overturning the benches of the men who sell them. He then confronts those standing in line before the tables, driving away anyone in the act of buying or selling. He is angry but not out of control. His actions are methodical, and his every movement shows that he fears no soldier or guard.

  When the confrontation is done, Jesus stands in the middle of the carnage. Coins litter the ground. Doves circle and land. “Hosanna,” comes the cry of a spectator.

  “It is written,” Jesus calls out to the crowd now ringing him. The onlookers include irate money changers and the sellers of doves. Also present are parents with their children in tow, just like Mary and Joseph were with the young Jesus so many years ago. A substantial number of people in the crowd are followers of the Nazarene.

  “My house will be called a house of prayer,” Jesus says, quoting Isaiah, the prophet who foresaw so much of the Nazarene’s life. “But you are making it a ‘den of robbers.’”

  The “robbers” quote comes from Jeremiah, the prophet who was threatened with death for daring to predict the fall of the Temple.

  The Temple guards are tense. They know that arresting Jesus is now completely justifiable. He has interfered with the flow of commerce and called the Temple his home—as if he were God.

  But a quick scan of the crowd shows that this would be unwise. The people aren’t afraid of Jesus; they’re empowered by him. He’s just done something they’ve wanted to do every time they stood in that long line to change their money, watching corrupt men siphon off a significant piece of their earnings.

  Even the little children are cheering for Jesus. “Hosanna to the Son of David,” a child calls out.

  And then, as if it were a game, another child calls out the same thing. Soon, some in the crowd beg to be healed, right there in the Temple. The Pharisees, as always, are watching. “Do you hear what these children are saying?” the chief priests and scribes call out indignantly to Jesus. The chief priests have now joined the crowd and observe Jesus with great concern. They will report his every move back to Caiaphas and perhaps even to Annas, the powerful former high priest who is also Caiaphas’s father-in-law. The aging Annas is just as wily as Caiaphas and still wields a great deal of influence.

  More Hosannas ring throughout the Temple courts, shouted again and again by children.

  “Do you hear what these people are saying?” the chief priests repeat.

  “From the lips of children and infants, you have ordained praise,” Jesus tells them, quoting from David.

  The religious leaders know the psalm well. It is a call for God to bask in the adoration of the children, then to rise up and strike hard at the powers of darkness that stand against him.

  If the Pharisees’ interpretation is correct, Jesus is actually comparing them with forces of evil.

  Still, they don’t motion for Jesus to be arrested. Nor do they try to stop him as he leaves the Temple, trailed by his disciples.

  The sun is now setting, and the first cooking fires are being lit on the Mount of Olives. Jesus and the disciples once again make the long walk back to Bethany. For now, he is a free man.

  For now.

  * * *

  Six hundred years ago, when Jeremiah prophesied that the Temple would be destroyed, he was punished by being lowered into an empty well. He sank up to his waist in mud and was left to die.

  Thirty-two years from now, a peasant named Jesus ben Ananias will also predict the Temple’s destruction. He will be declared a madman at first, but his life will be spared by order of the Roman governor—but only after he is flogged until his bones show.1

  But the time of Jesus is different. He is not a lone man but a revolutionary with a band of disciples and a growing legion of followers. His outbursts in the Temple are an aggressive act against the religious leaders rather than a passive prediction that the Temple will one day fall. Jesus is now openly antagonistic toward Temple authorities.

  Caiaphas has seen what happens when political revolt breaks out in the Temple courts and remembers the burning of the Temple porticoes after the death of Herod. He believes Jesus to be a false prophet. Today’s dis
play truly shows how dangerous Jesus has become.

  The threat must be squelched. As the Temple’s high priest and the most powerful Jewish authority in the world, Caiaphas is bound by religious law to take extreme measures against Jesus immediately. “If a prophet, or one who foretells by dreams, appears among you and announces to you a sign or wonder,” the book of Deuteronomy reads, “that prophet or dreamer must be put to death for inciting rebellion against the Lord your God.”

  Caiaphas knows that Jesus is playing a very clever game by using the crowds as a tool to prevent his arrest. This is a game that Caiaphas plans to win. But to avoid the risk of becoming impure, he must move before sundown on Friday and the start of Passover.

  This is the biggest week of the year for Caiaphas. He has an extraordinary number of obligations and administrative tasks to tend to if the Passover celebration is to come off smoothly. Rome is watching him closely, through the eyes of Pontius Pilate, and any failure on the part of Caiaphas during this most vital festival might lead to his dismissal.

  But nothing matters more than silencing Jesus.

  Time is running out. Passover starts in four short days.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  JERUSALEM

  TUESDAY, APRIL 3, A.D. 30

  MORNING

  The serenity of Lazarus’s home provides Jesus and the disciples instant relief. After the day in the Temple and the two-mile walk from Jerusalem back to Bethany, the men are spent. Hospitality is a vital aspect of Jewish society, dating back to the days when the patriarch Abraham treated all guests as if they were angels in disguise, offering them lavish meals of veal, butter, bread, and milk. So it is that the spacious home of Lazarus, with its large courtyard and thick door to keep out intruders at night, is not just a refuge for Jesus and his disciples but also a vibrant link to the roots of their Jewish faith.

  Lazarus’s sisters, Martha and Mary,1 dote on Jesus, though in opposite ways. Martha is the older of the two, and hypervigilant, constantly fussing over the Nazarene. Mary, meanwhile, is enthralled with Jesus. She sits at his feet and sometimes shows her respect by anointing them with perfumed oil. In their own way, each woman gives him comfort. They also see to it that Jesus and the disciples remove their sandals and wash their feet upon returning each evening, so that any impurities or infections might be cleansed. A stepped pool in the basement offers Jesus a place to remove his robe and sleeveless knee-length tunic so that Martha and Mary can wash those, too.2 He will then bathe and change into his other set of clothes. And of course Jesus and the others will wash their hands before sitting down to eat.

  This week, Martha and Mary are serving two meals a day. Dinner consists of fresh bread, olive oil, soup, and sometimes beef or salted fish washed down with homemade wine. Breakfast features bread and fruit—though dried instead of fresh because melons and pomegranates are out of season. As Jesus learned on the road yesterday morning, fruit from the local fig and date orchards will not ripen for months to come.

  There is no record about how Lazarus earned money, but because Bethany is the breadbasket of Jerusalem, he most likely was a landowning farmer. Lazarus has a reputation for being charitable and can afford to offer his guests gracious hospitality. It is customary to take in passing strangers who need a place to sleep overnight. This becomes an issue during Passover, when entire families require shelter for a week. A man needs to be a shrewd judge of character in times like these, balancing hospitality with the possibility that he might unwittingly invite thieves or ne’er-do-wells into his home.

  Even though Lazarus truly enjoys being with Jesus, the Nazarene’s presence means much more than that. This is a man whom Lazarus trusts, reveres, and, indeed, says he owes his very life to.3 The fact that Jesus travels with a dozen grown men, each with a man-size appetite and requiring a place to sleep, is a small price to pay for the Nazarene’s company. Besides, the fussy Martha can easily handle the needs of all the men.

  * * *

  Dawn breaks. The countdown to Passover continues as the citizens of Bethany stir. Some prepare for a day’s work in the nearby fields, and others plan a walk into Jerusalem. Like people everywhere, they start the morning with their daily ablutions. There are no indoor toilets, so men and women alike venture outside to a concealed private spot. A hole in the ground—into which a spade of dirt from a nearby pile of earth is promptly thrown—meets this need. Teeth are cleaned with a short, soft branch pulled straight off a tree and chewed. Inside Lazarus’s home, Jesus and his disciples wash their hands and eat their daily bread before setting out for another day in the Temple courts.

  The group soon falls in alongside a line of travelers. Today will be the last time Jesus ever teaches in the Temple courts, and he has prepared a number of parables that will explain difficult theological issues in ways that even the most unread listener can understand.

  “Rabbi, look,” exclaims a disciple as they walk past the fig tree Jesus confronted yesterday. Its roots are shriveled. “How did the fig tree wither so quickly?” the disciple asks.

  “Truly I tell you, if you have faith and do not doubt, not only can you do what was done to the fig tree, but also you can say to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and it will be done. If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer,” Jesus responds.

  For years to come, the disciples will marvel at what happened to that simple tree. They will write about it with awe, even decades from now, and quote Jesus’s two-sentence response. Even though Jesus has performed wonders in front of them, this one seems to amaze them almost more than any other.

  But the fig tree is just the start. The disciples will remember the events that take place today for as long as they live. They will quote Jesus again and again—not in sentences but in paragraphs and pages. The next twelve hours will be so exhausting that Jesus will make tomorrow a day of complete rest. But it will also be a time of challenge and triumph unlike any they have ever known.

  The morning is beautiful. The sun shines. The cool April air is verdant with the fresh smells of new spring growth from the fields and orchards lining the road.

  New life is everywhere, even as death approaches.

  * * *

  As the group draws close to Jerusalem, Jesus knows that a drama will unfold. He sensed it yesterday, as the religious leaders hovered at the fringe of every crowd, watching him intently as he interacted with his followers.

  This week, these priests and Pharisees are wearing robes that are even more resplendent than normal, choosing their most colorful and expensive garments as a way of setting themselves apart from the drably dressed pilgrims. The priestly robes are a reminder that the priests are vital members of the Temple, not mere visitors.

  Jesus, meanwhile, still clothes himself like an average Galilean. He wears his seamless tunic and over it a simple robe. Sandals protect his feet from sharp pebbles and sticks as he walks but do little to keep off the dust. So the walk from Bethany down into Jerusalem often gives him an unwashed appearance by comparison to that of the Pharisees, many of whom have bathing facilities and ritual pools in their nearby homes. And while his accent might sound provincial within the confines of cosmopolitan Jerusalem, Jesus does nothing to hide his native tongue. If anything, it works to his advantage, for it so often leads the religious leaders to underestimate the Nazarene as just another pilgrim from Galilee.

  * * *

  Jesus and the disciples pass through the city gates. Their movements are now being closely tracked by the religious authorities, so their arrival is noted immediately. Jerusalem has grown louder and more festive with every passing day, as pilgrims continue to travel there from throughout the world. Voices in Greek, Aramaic, Latin, Egyptian, and Hebrew fill the air. The bleating of lambs is another constant, as shepherds bring tens of thousands of the small animals into the city to have their throats slit on Friday. That grisly duty will be performed by high priests, who stand for hours in the hot sun as the blood of the lambs soaks into their white cer
emonial robes.

  Jesus enters the Temple courts. Today he ignores the money changers and the men selling doves. He selects a spot in the shaded awnings of Solomon’s Porch and begins to teach. The religious leaders arrive almost immediately, interrupting him.

  “By what authority are you doing these things?” a chief priest demands, referring to reported acts of healing that Jesus performed yesterday. The interrogators who stand before the Nazarene are not just common Pharisees or scribes but the most elite of the religious leaders. Their presence is meant to awe those pilgrims who might otherwise be transfixed by Jesus. Their goal is to use their intellectual prowess to make the Nazarene appear stupid.

  “And who gave you this authority?” asks a second priest.

  “I will ask you one question,” Jesus replies calmly. “If you answer, I will tell you by what authority I am doing these things.” He has thought deeply and anticipated their questions.

  The religious leaders have spoken with the Pharisees, who traveled to Galilee last year and are well aware that Jesus is clever. But they think him to be uneducated and unread and hope to lure him into a theological trap. The priests await Jesus’s question.

  “John’s baptism,” Jesus asks. “Where did it come from? Was it from heaven or from men?”

  The religious leaders do not answer immediately. The crowd looks on apprehensively. On one side stands Jesus, on the other side, the self-proclaimed holy men. Finally the chief priests talk among themselves, debating Jesus’s question from all angles: “If we say, ‘From heaven,’ you will ask, ‘Then why did we not believe him?’”

  Jesus says nothing. The religious leaders continue with their private conversation.

  “But if we say that John’s baptism came from men, we are afraid of the people, for they all hold that John was a prophet.”

  Jesus remains silent. The men haven’t given him an answer yet, and the crowd knows it. It is becoming clear that the chief priests and elders are no different than those Pharisees who tried but failed to trap Jesus in Galilee. Once again the leaders are on the defensive. Their trap for Jesus has failed.