Bruce James (Baruch Gershom) a convert to Judaism from Christianity has raised five questions, still valid to be answered rationally by our Christian friends. I think our Christian friends won’t mind answering them.
Courtesy About.com.
From Bruce James (Baruch Gershom), for About.com
http://judaism.about.com/od/jewishviewofjesus/a/jesus_execute.htm
Part III: Trial and Error (continued)
B. With these six principles in mind, lets examine the trial and execution of Jesus.
1. First, the says that the trial was on a Friday, and that on the night before, Jesus celebrated the Passover meal with his disciples. Accordingly, that would mean that his trial was on the first day of Passover. Here is a violation of two legal principles — his trial was not on a Thursday or Monday as required, and it was on a holiday when no trials whatsoever could be held.
2. Second, there were no witnesses of a warning to Jesus and no witnesses of his actual crime . The NT account of his trial shows that he was convicted on his own testimony. This is a severe violation of the Torah.
3. Third, there is no account in the NT of any call for defense witnesses .
4. Fourth, the choice of execution methods violates Torah completely . If convicted for Sabbath violation or false prophecy, the appropriate punishment was stoning. Why use a Roman torture method that took days to kill the felon, if it did at all, and resulted in a mutilated corpse?
5. Fifth, if the trial and execution were indeed held on Friday, there are several problems, including limited time for a trial, and limited time for the execution. A crucifixion on a Friday afternoon was certain to run over through Shabbat and then later. Assuming that the 120 judges of the Sanhedrin would have permitted a crucifixion (which is unlikely), one would doubt that they would have risked having Jesus die on the cross after the Sabbath began Friday night. Because of the Sabbath laws, they would have been unable to carry the corpse to a burial site, and leaving the corpse on the cross overnight would be a Torah violation.
6. Finally, sixth, there is no record teaching that the court of that era was known to be reckless with the use of the death penalty. Yet, not only was Jesus crucified, but so were two petty criminals, according to the NT, and their crimes did not even justify the death penalty under Jewish law.
C. G-d needed to experience pain?
One more note: With the rushed trial and execution, Jesus could not have been put on the cross until 1 or 2 in the afternoon. And then he’s taken down before sundown. That means, at most, he spent just four or five hours on the cross. If G-d wanted to understand the suffering of man, and did so by living the life of Jesus, you would think he would have hung there and taken the pain a little longer.
Taken together, these discrepencies between the Jewish legal system and the depiction of the trial and crucifixion of Jesus raise grave questions regarding the credibility of the account.
paarsurrey 