Killing Jesus: A History

by Bill O'Reilly

  2The Gospels clearly state that Jesus had four brothers: James, Joseph, Judas, and Simon. They also mention that he had sisters, but the number is not specified. The Roman Catholic Church believes that Mary remained a virgin throughout her entire life. This doctrine was first put forth four centuries after Jesus lived, by an early leader in the Church named Simon. The Church considers the siblings mentioned by the Gospels to be Jesus’s cousins. Eastern Orthodox Christians believe them to be stepbrothers and stepsisters brought into the marriage by Joseph, a widower before he married Mary. Most other Christian sects believe that Mary did not remain a virgin for her entire life and that these siblings were Jesus’s brothers and sisters.

  3Numbers 15:38. Also, Deuteronomy 22:12: “You should make tassels on the four corners of the cloak you wear.”

  4Judas of Gamala, a Galilean, is not to be confused with Judas of Galilee, who fomented rebellion after the death of Herod the Great in 4 B.C. They are two separate individuals, but some historical accounts mistake the two men. Both died horrible deaths for their uprisings. No one knows for sure how Judas of Gamala was executed, but crucifixion is a very likely option. And while Rome practiced this manner of execution almost exclusively during this time, crucifixion was certainly within the Jewish tradition. Most famously, Josephus writes that the Jewish ruler Alexander Jannaeus crucified some eight hundred Pharisees in 88 B.C. (It should be noted that the historical record confirms that both of Judas of Gamala’s sons were crucified.)

  CHAPTER SIX

  1These were the top religious voices of their day. The Pharisees were sticklers about religious law; the Sadducees were equally pious but were wealthy and more liberal in their thinking; and the Levites were a tribe of priests and Temple guards directly descended from Levi, a son of the patriarch Jacob.

  2This is in reference to the common practice of improving roads before a king journeys from one country to another. Valleys are filled in and crooked paths are made straight so that the king’s travels might be as smooth as possible.

  3The Roman standard was a statue of an eagle, or aquila, situated atop a metal post. In the case of the dispute with Pilate, an emblem bearing a likeness to Tiberius was affixed just below the eagle. The standard was the symbol of a legion and was carried at all times by a standard-bearer (from which we get the modern term for someone who represents an ideal or a value). To lose in battle was considered an enormous form of disgrace. When the dying legionaries at the Battle of Teutoburg Forest in A.D. 9 surrendered three standards (legions XVII, XVIII, and XIX), the Roman Empire scoured the Germanic regions in an attempt to get them back. They ultimately succeeded. Worth noting is that an image of Jesus would adorn Roman standards beginning in the fourth century.

  4The appearance of the dove is recounted in each of the four Gospels of the New Testament and might be seen as an attempt to insert overt spiritual symbolism into the Gospel narrative. But, in fact, each time the word dove is used in the canonical Gospels and the Old Testament, each of them is an allusion to actual doves—not divinity. The Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke (known as the Synoptic Gospels) recount that the dove appeared after Jesus’s baptism. John has the bird landing on Jesus beforehand. The Gospels are a combination of oral tradition, written fragments from the life of Christ, and the testimony of eyewitnesses. This would explain the discrepancy. The appearance of the dove may have been coincidental with Jesus’s baptism. However, the Gospels were written as many as seventy years after Jesus’s death (Mark in the early 50s, Luke between 59 and 63, Matthew in the 70s, and John between 50 and 85). For the dove to remain a part of Jesus’s oral tradition for that long indicates that the bird’s appearance must have been remembered quite vividly by all who were there.

  5This is a seminal moment in Jesus’s ministry for two reasons. First, the allusions are back to Psalm 2:7 and Isaiah 42:1, and possibly Isaiah 41:8. Psalm 2 is a regal psalm, with 2:7 referring essentially to the Messiah, validated by John the Baptist’s comments in Luke 3:16. The Isaiah references, particularly 42:1, are the references to the servant, who has both prophetic and deliverance attributes. Thus the baptism blends two portraits into the figure of the Messiah/servant. Second, the baptism itself marks the beginning of Jesus’s ministry with divine endorsement. The endorsement is through both the divine word from heaven and the anointing by the Spirit.

  6For Antipas, the issue is moral as well as political. Josephus shows that the woman Antipas planned to divorce in order to marry Herodias was daughter of King Aretas IV of Nabatea. This arrangement aroused severe tension between the kingdoms. Many of Antipas’s subjects in Perea were ethnically Nabatean, thus more loyal to Aretas than to Antipas. The arrest of John would of course make matters worse—when Aretas later defeated Antipas in battle, people said it was God’s judgment on Antipas for what he’d done to John the Baptist.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  1Germanicus died of a mysterious illness. He was a popular general, particularly among the legions. He was responsible for avenging the defeat at the Battle of Teutoburg Forest and for retrieving the fallen eagle standards of legions XVII, XVIII, and XIX. Many thought he would attempt to claim the throne upon the death of Augustus, but he deferred to Tiberius. There were whispers that Tiberius had him killed because he was too great a threat to the eventual ascension of Drusus to the throne. This rumor gained more credibility when Gnaeus Calpurnius Piso, the governor of Syria who was to go on trial for Germanicus’s death, committed suicide rather than testify. And while Germanicus would never serve as emperor, his son Caligula would succeed Tiberius on the throne and become infamous for a level of debauchery transcending even that of Tiberius.

  2Drusus was poisoned by his wife, Livilla, and her lover, Lucius Aelius Sejanus. This was done so skillfully that it would be eight years before their plot was uncovered. When it was, Livilla was forced to commit the slow death of suicide by starvation. Sejanus’s death was far more gruesome. He had assumed great power in Rome, thanks to Tiberius’s self-imposed exile to Capri. On October 18 of A.D. 31, upon learning that Sejanus had murdered Drusus by poisoning his wine, Tiberius ordered his arrest. Sejanus was strangled that night in Rome and his body was thrown to a crowd of onlookers, who tore his corpse to pieces. After this, they conducted a manhunt for all his friends and relatives and killed them, too. Sejanus’s son and daughter were arrested in December of that year and killed by strangulation. When Tiberius was informed that the girl was a virgin, and thus not able under the law to be killed for a capital offense, he ordered the executioner to place the rope around her neck, rape young Junilla, and then, only after the young girl had been deflowered, pull the rope tight.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  1Scholars debate the exact nature of karet. Josephus wrote that it was a physical punishment, perpetrated by man. Some thought it meant dying well before one’s time, likely between the ages of fifty and sixty, “by the hand of heaven.” There is, however, a provision for repentance, which annuls the karet.

  2A recitation of the six Psalms, 113–18. While the complete verses are too lengthy to be included in this brief space, their themes, in order, are: a celebration of God’s majesty and mercy; a reminder that Judea is God’s sanctuary; praise to the Lord as the one true God; thanks to God for deliverance from death; a reminder of God’s enduring faithfulness; and a thanksgiving for deliverance from enemies. The term psalm is Greek. The traditional Hebrew words are tehillim (“praises”) or tephillot (“prayers”). There are 150 Psalms in all, of which Psalm 117 is the shortest, at just three sentences.

  3To this day, the Israeli unit of currency is known as the shekel. It was thought to be more metallically pure than the common currency in the Roman Empire, the denarius. One denarius was worth between ten and sixteen assarions (“asses”), the smallest coin in regular circulation at that time. A denarius was usually silver and stamped with the image of the reigning emperor. The rate of exchange for denarii into shekels was typically four to one.

  4Before being written down, the
Gospels were oral histories. This might explain some discrepancies among them. The story of Jesus and the money changers is placed at the beginning of Jesus’s ministry in John (2:14–22), while Matthew (21:12–17), Mark (11:15), and Luke (19:45) all place it at the end. This has led some to speculate that Jesus performed this cleansing twice, as specific details of the various Gospel accounts differ.

  5Not much is known about Nicodemus, other than that he was a very wealthy Pharisee and a member of the Sanhedrin. The historian Josephus mentions a Nicodemus ben Gurion, who counseled against the Jewish rebellion against Rome in the first century A.D. This is very possibly the same man, for Nicodemus was not a common name. The Talmud mentions a man named Nakdimon ben Gurion, who is thought to be the same man (“Nicodemus” being a Greek version of the name). Nakdimon originally came from Galilee, which might explain his affinity for Jesus. He is said to have lost his fortune late in life and was eventually martyred.

  6John 7:5: “For even his own brothers did not believe in him.”

  7For Elijah see 1 Kings 17–18 and for Elisha see 2 Kings 5.

  8The confrontation in Nazareth comes from Luke 4:30.

  CHAPTER NINE

  1According to Jewish law, as set forth in Leviticus 11:9–12, fish with scales and fins are considered clean and are acceptable for eating. Eels and catfish, on the other hand, are considered unclean.

  2This method of crafting wood into slots and grooves to hold two pieces together was also commonly used to secure the two parts of the crucifix.

  3The words apostle and disciple are both used to describe the twelve members of Jesus’s inner circle. A disciple is a follower, while an apostle (taken from the Greek apostello, “to send forth”) is someone who puts his faith into action by going out into the world to share those teachings. As it has often been noted, all apostles are disciples, but not all disciples are apostles. The twelve followers of Jesus do not go out into the world on their own until the winter of 28, almost a year after Jesus calls them to be disciples. This transformation from disciple to apostle will be most evident after the death of Jesus, when they will travel far beyond the boundaries of Judea to spread Jesus’s message.

  4There is a key distinction between “Roman roads” and the dirt highways found elsewhere in Judea. The Romans paved their roads in stones, with a crest in the middle to facilitate drainage. They began by digging a trench three feet deep and as much as twenty feet wide. Upon a bed of large stones, laid together tightly, a layer of gravel and concrete was poured. Gravel was laid on top of that and then leveled before paver stones were added for the actual road surface. Roman roads had gutters and curbs, and each mile was clearly marked, indicating the distance from Rome.

  5Though Mary Magdalene is not mentioned by name in this story (Luke 7:36–50), it has long been the tradition of Christian teaching that it was she. Luke most likely veiled her true identity because she was still alive at the time he wrote his Gospel. He did the same with Matthew, the tax collector and Gospel author whom he refers to as Levi (Luke 5:27).

  6Women often played pivotal roles in Jewish society, so it would not have been unusual for her to follow Jesus and the disciples. The pages of Jewish history are full of heroic matriarchs such as Rachel, Sarah, Leah, and Rebecca. Miriam worked with her brothers, Moses and Aaron, to lead the exodus from Egypt. And of course the prostitute Rahab helped bring about the Israelite victory over Jericho. Women in Jesus’s time were considered equal to men, though separate in their worldly responsibilities. They were allowed to choose their marriage partner, enter into contracts, buy and sell property, and speak at weddings. It was forbidden for men to beat or mistreat women, and in the case of rape, it was understood that such an act occurred against a woman’s will and that the man was presumed guilty. In fact, women were treated better in the time of Jesus than they are in a great many places in the modern world.

  7Matthew 11:6.

  8A reed was Herod Antipas’s personal emblem of his rule.

  9In some versions this is written as “silver platter,” which has since become a cliché in the modern world.

  CHAPTER TEN

  1The Sabbath was a day of complete rest, beginning at sundown on Friday and continuing until three stars were visible in the sky on Saturday evening. Strenuous work was forbidden, as were many other activities, in an effort to replicate God’s day of rest after creating the universe.

  2Somewhere in the twelfth century, these supernatural happenings will come to be known as miracles.

  3Zedekiah was the last king of Israel. The dates are unclear, but his reign was most likely 597–86 B.C. Zedekiah was installed on the throne at the age of twenty-one, by Nebuchadnezzar II, the king of Babylon. When Zedekiah stopped paying tribute some years later, Nebuchadnezzar brought his army to Jerusalem and laid siege to the city. It eventually fell, and the people were taken off to Babylon for a lifetime of slavery. The Temple was destroyed at this time and not rebuilt until Cyrus gave the approval to the Jewish people to return home and rebuild the Temple. Work began around 536 B.C. and finished in 516 B.C. This Second Temple was completely renovated under Herod the Great. Zedekiah, who had ignored the counsel of the prophet Jeremiah to be more diligent in worshipping God, was captured as he tried to flee his fallen capital. At Nebuchadnezzar’s orders, the king’s young children were put to the sword before his eyes. This would be the last sight Zedekiah would ever see, for he was immediately blinded (the preferred technique was to press thumbs into a man’s eye sockets), chained, and marched off to Babylon as a slave.

  4The source of some of Jesus’s income can be found in Luke 8:2–3, where it is specified that there were many who gave of their own money to financially support Jesus and his ministry.

  5John 12:6.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  1The three major Jewish pilgrimage festivals were Passover, Tabernacles, and Weeks—in Hebrew, Pesach, Sukkot, and Shavuot. Jews were required to attend all three, but many preferred to attend only Passover, which was sometimes held in conjunction with the Feast of Unleavened Bread. Since the destruction of the Temple in A.D. 70, it is no longer required that Jews make the pilgrimages to Jerusalem. They instead attend the festivals that take place at their local synagogues. It should be noted that the most holy holiday on the Jewish calendar is Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement.

  2Sukkot, as the festival is known in Hebrew, commemorates the years of nomadic dwelling while Moses searched for the Promised Land.

  3The description is from the philosopher Philo, a Jew living in Egypt.

  4“Dazzling” does not begin to describe the Temple robes. Caiaphas’s was a long blue tunic decorated with bells and long tassels. He cinched it tight at the waist with a sash, then slipped on a boldly colored waistcoat embroidered in gold, with the twelve tribes of Israel listed upon its shoulders and a breastplate coated in precious stones that reflected the sun. His head was covered in a turban upon which rested a three-tiered gold crown bearing the name of God.

  5The equestrians were a significant step below the aristocratic senatorial class in Roman culture. For a man to move upward, he needed to show brilliance in politics and on the battlefield and also to accrue tremendous wealth. Being a prefect was an ideal way to become wealthy, mostly through taking a cut of all mining licenses, monopolies, and taxes. Pilate does not appear to have had any previous diplomatic experience before his posting to Judea, so it is likely that he had the assistance of a high-ranking friend to get the job. Some believe that he was close to Lucius Aelius Sejanus, the ill-fated administrator who oversaw much of the Roman Empire while Tiberius was off in Capri.

  6John 7:4.

  7God instructed Moses to construct an altar of uncut stone, thus making it sacred. “And if you make for me an altar of stones, do not build it of hewn stones; for by wielding your tool upon them you have profaned them” (Exodus 20:25). An entire room made in a similar fashion would have been a most sacred place.

  8Not to be confused with the distant inland city of Caesarea
Philippi.

  9In order, these prophecies are: Psalms 27:12 and 35:11; Micah 5:1; Isaiah 50:6; Psalms 22:18; Psalms 22:16, Zechariah 12:10, and Deuteronomy 21:23; Numbers 9:12, Psalms 34:20, and Exodus 12:46; and Zechariah 12:10.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  1Leviticus 22:4–7.

  2The days of the week take their names from the Roman fixation on the heavens. In order, they are named for the Sun, Moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus, and Saturn.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  1When Jesus ben Ananias continued for seven more years to proclaim loudly and publicly that the Temple would be destroyed, a Roman soldier permanently silenced him by catapulting a rock at his head. Four months later, the Romans destroyed the Temple as punishment for a Jewish revolt.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  1Not to be confused with Jesus’s mother or with Mary Magdalene. Mary and Martha were both extremely common names at the time—as was Jesus.

  2They take care when cleaning the tunic because it is a most unique and expensive garment. Every man, woman, and child wears one as the undergarment closest to their skin. The Pharisees and other people of means wear tunics that extend down to their ankles, while the poor can afford only a knee-length version. Whether made of linen or wool, most tunics are constructed by stitching together rectangles of cloth, leaving seams that chafe and bind in three different places. But Jesus’s tunic was woven on an upright loom, which allowed the weaver to construct a fine cylinder of fabric. The tunic is therefore completely seamless. A medieval legend will say it was given to Jesus by his mother, Mary. Others say it was a gift from one of the many benefactors who supported his ministry. Either way, it is unique to Judea, thus making it desirable to any robbers or highwaymen who might waylay Jesus and the disciples.

  3The legend of Jesus’s raising of Lazarus from the dead became so widespread that it was a main component in the Temple priests’ plotting against Jesus.