A close reading of the New Testament's portrayal of the Pharisees and Scribes — and why that portrayal cannot be reconciled with what is known of the historical Sanhedrin.
Summary. The New Testament is a rhetorical work that needed a villain to make Jesus the hero. The Scribes and Pharisees were cast in that role and have suffered two thousand years of consequence. The article examines the Mark accusation that Jesus exorcized by Beelzebub's power and shows that the framing is implausible by Jewish standards (Beelzebub was a Philistine god, not a recognized power in Judaism); examines the trial narrative and the Talmud's brief mention of Jesus's execution; and argues that the New Testament's lying about the small things should make readers skeptical of its larger claims. The article closes with the same generous note as 'On Redemption.'
The Article (Verbatim)
I am grateful, now in the twenty-first century, that Judaism counts so many friends among Christians. God bless them for it. That has not always been the case. Indeed, a prominent justification for antisemitism, historically, has been that "the Jews killed Christ". And though that epithet emerged with particular potency in the hands of European politicians over a span of two thousand years, it found its origin in the New Testament—in its account of the trial and crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth, and beyond that, in its every reference to Jewish leadership.
Christianity is, and has been since its earliest days, an evangelical faith. (This has led to much bloodshed. But, in fairness, it has also led to the proliferation of Judaism's own best ideas, which underlie Western civilization.) Its believers are asleep at the wheel if they aren't proclaiming the truth of it, converting others to it. Its founding document is written to both declare this, and to bring it about. The New Testament is not a historical document. The New Testament is a tract: a rhetorical work that contains some history, but whose purpose is not history, but rather, convincing and converting. To do this, there are two overarching rhetorical requirements: the hero, and the villain. Jesus is established as the hero. And Jews—or at least Jewish scholars and legislators—are coerced into the role of villain.
At every turn, the book sets up the "Scribes and Pharisees" like bowling pins to be knocked down. They are hidebound, anachronistic, petty, fools; rhetorical foils for Jesus as the common-sense innovative revolutionary. They are the straw men, whose literary place is to present an argument in its weakest form, ready not just for defeat, but for sound defeat with single poetic thrusts.
Take, for example, the Gospel According to Mark's description of Jesus expelling a demon, and the scribe's accusation that Jesus had channeled the power of Beelzebub to do it.
The narrative point of the story is to arrive at this flourish, from Jesus: "If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. If a house is divided against itself, that house cannot stand. And if Satan opposes himself and is divided, he cannot stand; his end has come."
To get there, the author needs a foppish target, someone building a clumsy argument for… well… pluralism. Now, the idea of pluralism isn't easy to defeat (it's the basis for democracy and human rights, after all, and is the organizing reality of Judaism and its governing body at that time, the Sanhedrin). So, to defeat pluralism (in favor of monoism), pluralism's argument must be weak.
Judaism is not a monolith (it's pluralistic!) It has never been a monolith (surely one of its virtues.) So, we can't say for certain what this first-century scribe may have believed. But, given that the Scribes and Pharisees, in the New Testament, are used not as individuals, but as a power class, it seems a reasonable conclusion that this scribe, in Mark, is not an outlying crank or member of a mystical splinter, but rather, is part of an orthodox movement and likely close to the Sanhedrin.
In any case, the question is this: Would the Sanhedrin have believed an accusation, by a scribe, that Jesus—a Jewish rabbi—would turn to Beelzebub for help in exorcizing a demon, and get that help? Or, more cynically, would they have believed that the people would believe it?
Let's talk about Beelzebub. Beelzebub was a god of the Philistines. While the Gittin, Berakhot, and Pesachim tractates of the Talmud do discuss demons, and even exorcism (though in far more benign terms than was later popularized in connection with Catholicism), they do not mention Beelzebub. Nor do any other available writings either contemporary to that time, or within the ensuing thousand years. What's more—and this is key—while demons in the early mystical leanings of Judaism are sometimes borrowed from other cultures (Ashmedai was an evil and destructive being in Zoroastrianism; Lilith was a night demon of Sumerian mythology) they do not set up any tradition of transmuting foreign gods into Jewish demons. This is important. Jews being the world's founding monotheists, this would be highly improbable: the admission that a foreign god existed, had power, and that a Jewish rabbi (Jesus) could wield that power in expelling a demon.
There is argument within Judaism of whether the founding Jews at Sinai were truly monotheists, or rather pantheists (recognizing the existence of other gods, but maintaining the preeminence of Hashem/God). But even this attenuates early in Jewish history, and by the time Elijah pits the power of Hashem against Ba'al, it is seen not as a contest between gods, but rather, a demonstration that Ba'al was a fraud, an idol, utterly powerless. It is highly unlikely that the Sanhedrin of the first century CE would ever credit Beezebub, a foreign god, with even existing—let alone having power.
What's more, exorcism in the Talmud is seen as legitimate, and not as a figment of foreign gods, or even as sorcery. Sorcery would be, for example: using divination to learn about the future; necromancy; some associations with demons (though this is nuanced); pagan rituals of healing. A charge of exorcism wouldn't be damning. And while the Sanhedrin may well have stipulated a successful exorcism by the aid of a demon (wait for it—we'll get there), they would not have done so by the aid of another god.
Is this pedantic? Absolutely. But pedantry is, after all, one of the accusations the New Testament levels against the Sanhedrin (and is one that, it must be said, it would proudly own).
Now, demons. The Gittin tractate of the Talmud describes (at some length) King Solomon's capturing of Ashmedai, the King of Demons, and pressing him into service building the temple. Later, medieval, Midrashic works talk of a ring, the Seal of Solomon, inscribed with the "Tetragrammaton", giving Solomon power over demons.
So, even using the power of demons (though again: never other gods) in the service of good was seen as acceptable. One could well imagine that Jesus might be accused of faking a capture of Ashmedai or Lilith—but not Beelzebub!—presuming to assume the power of Solomon, in order to stage a demonic exorcism. This would have been in keeping with established tradition, and while it wouldn't merit a death sentence, it would be discrediting.
Even the later (medieval and post-medieval) Jewish mystical writings and traditions of the Zohar and Kabbalah, are careful to maintain the lesser status of angels and demons, and not stray from monotheism.
So, regarding Mark's purported account: there is no corroborating history or literature to support even its framework, let alone the Beelzebub specificity; and it flies in the face of those traditions that are well documented. It is unlikely to have occurred as the author describes it.
As for the trial and crucifixion of Jesus, the Talmud says (in the Sanhedrin tractate), "Jesus the Nazarene is going out to be stoned because he practiced sorcery, incited and led the Jewish people astray. Anyone who knows of a reason to acquit him should come and teach it on his behalf. And the court did not find a reason to acquit him, and so they stoned him and hung his corpse on Passover eve."
Jesus existed, he was a revolutionary, he founded a movement, and he was executed. But what about all the surrounding circumstances? Can we corroborate the New Testament accounts?
The (formidable) Jewish historian Flavius Josephus, born in Jerusalem shortly after the New Testament's dating of the crucifixion, wrote "Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man… Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men among us, had condemned him to the cross." But, this history arrives at us, today, through the hands of Christian keepers over the course of two-thousand years. Who can say what Josephus wrote, originally?
A hundred years after the fact, the Roman historian Tacitus wrote, "Christus, from whom the name [Christians] had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilate." Contemporary to Tacitus, the satirical writer Lucian of Samosata mocked Christians for their worship of Jesus, "who was crucified in Palestine because he introduced this new cult into the world." And perhaps most definitively, the Syrian philosopher, Mara bar Serapion, wrote in a letter to his son, "What advantage did the Jews gain from executing their wise king? It was just after that their kingdom was abolished." But bar Serapion's own source was very probably Christian—it may well have been a book of the New Testament, being that his letter post-dated the Gospels by decades.
Jesus of Nazareth lived at a tumultuous time when Messianic claims were almost common. And they were dangerous, drawing Roman ire, and often leading to bloodshed. Roughly contemporary with Jesus, there were: the Samaritan Prophet, Judas of Galilee, the Teacher of Righteousness, Simon of Perea, the Egyptian Prophet, and Athronges. It is understandable that the Sanhedrin would be wary of false Messiahs.
Even so, though the Torah prescribes in detail those crimes that may merit a death warrant, it also states that death sentences were very rarely actually carried out. The Mishnah says (in Makkot), "A Sanhedrin that executes one person in seven years is called a bloody court; Rabbi Eliezer ben Azariah says, 'One in seventy years.' Rabbi Tarfon and Rabbi Akiva say, 'If we had been in the Sanhedrin, no one would ever have been executed.'"
Rabbi Akiva was born shortly after the New Testament's dating of the crucifixion, and is one of Judaism's great heroes. He supported the Bar Kokhba Revolt against the Romans, and when it failed, was executed by flaying. If Judaism of Jesus's time was producing fathers who raised scholars like Akiva, fair-minded and merciful, fearless and fierce, how can we possibly credit the depiction in the New Testament of the Sanhedran—petty, fearful, bloodthirsty?
No. No. For its slander of the Jews, the New Testament is a calumny. To set the stage for its Messianic claims, with a tragically casual ease, it sketches The Jew as a caricature greater in infamy than Shakespeare's Shylock. And on this foundation, we're to believe the supposed cross-corroborating accounts of the resurrection of Jesus? When we know it has lied about "the little things" (as though the two-thousand year suffering of a people can possibly be so relegated), we're to believe it is genuine about the big thing: the coming of God to earth, toppling His prior word, fulfilling the Messianic prophecy of Isaiah, and rising from the grave?
You be the judge.
(But. We live in our own time, which isn't two thousand years ago, or five hundred, or seventy. Many very good people live by the teachings of Jesus—many of those teachings were borrowed from Judaism. The two faiths have far more in common than otherwise. And for my part, if Christians find accessing God's redemption through the person of Jesus of Nazareth to be their user-friendly path, today, I would not begrudge them, and I don't believe God would either. May God bless Christians.)
Where Denominations Diverge
The argument is largely historical-textual and is shared across Jewish denominations. Conservative and Reform scholars (Geza Vermes, Amy-Jill Levine) have written extensively in the same critical-historical vein. Orthodox apologetic literature against Christian missionary efforts (Skobac, Singer) covers similar ground from a more traditional reading.
Sources Cited in the Article
New Testament: Mark 3:22–27 (Beelzebub passage).
Talmud Bavli, Gittin 68b (Solomon and Ashmedai); Sanhedrin 43a (Jesus); Sanhedrin 67b (charges of sorcery).
Mishnah Makkot 1:10 ("a Sanhedrin that executes one in seven years").
Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews 18.3.3 (the disputed Testimonium Flavianum).
Tacitus, Annals 15:44; Lucian, The Death of Peregrinus.
Mara bar Serapion's letter (preserved at the British Library).
Further Reading
Amy-Jill Levine, The Misunderstood Jew.
Geza Vermes, Jesus the Jew.
Daniel Boyarin, The Jewish Gospels.
David Klinghoffer, Why the Jews Rejected Jesus.