Conflict and the Death of Jesus

Overview

Recall questions on the Fourth Gospel's conflict with the authorities, the Temple incident, the Sabbath controversies and the Law of Moses, the sequence from arrest to sentence, political expediency, and Rivkin and Culpepper on responsibility for Jesus' death.

What you need to know

Answer each one before you reveal it.

Questions from this subtopic

Each one with the model answer underneath.

1. 1

   Why were the religious authorities so troubled by Jesus, as the Fourth Gospel presents it?

   Model answer

   Because of what he was understood to be claiming as much as what he did. He acted with authority in the Temple precincts, healed on the Sabbath and defended it by appealing to his Father's work, spoke of an existence preceding Abraham, and drew crowds who speculated about him. The Gospel presents the leadership as concluding that a man making such claims could not be left alone without either God being dishonoured or the community being endangered.

2. 2

   What is the significance of the Temple incident in the Fourth Gospel?

   Model answer

   Unlike the other gospels it is placed at the start rather than at the end of the ministry, which makes it programmatic: the conflict is set up from the beginning. Jesus disrupts the trade that supported the sacrificial system and then speaks of a sanctuary being destroyed and raised, which the Gospel explains as referring to his own body. The episode therefore combines an attack on the Temple's operation with a claim to replace what it provided.

3. 3

   Why do the Sabbath controversies matter to the plot?

   Model answer

   Because Jesus' defence escalates the charge. Healing on the Sabbath was a dispute about interpretation, on which observant Jews already differed. But when Jesus justifies himself by saying his Father is still working and so is he, the argument shifts from what is permitted on a day to what he is claiming about himself, and the Gospel says his opponents heard it as making himself God's equal.

4. 4

   How does the Law of Moses feature in the conflict?

   Model answer

   As the shared authority both sides appeal to. Jesus' opponents invoke it against Sabbath breach and against blasphemy, and the Gospel has them insist they are Moses' disciples. Jesus in turn argues that Moses wrote about him and that his accusers do not in fact keep the law. The dispute is therefore internal to Judaism, an argument over the right reading of a common inheritance rather than an attack on it from outside.

5. 5

   Trace the sequence from arrest to sentence in the Fourth Gospel.

   Model answer

   Jesus is arrested in a garden by a detachment accompanied by officers of the authorities, having stepped forward to identify himself rather than being pointed out by Judas. He is taken first to the former high priest for questioning, then to the serving high priest, and the Gospel gives no full council trial. He is handed to the governor, who conducts an extended interrogation about kingship, repeatedly states that he finds no case, attempts release, and finally gives way when the crowd invokes loyalty to the emperor.

6. 6

   What charges are brought against Jesus, and why do they change?

   Model answer

   Before the Jewish authorities the issue is religious: that he has claimed to be God's Son and so committed blasphemy. Before the governor the charge is recast politically as a claim to kingship, since only that would engage Roman jurisdiction. The Fourth Gospel makes the shift explicit and turns the exchange about kingship into an extended discussion of where Jesus' authority comes from and what truth is.

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