Passion and Death of jesus

... s called the Sanhedrin; it was a court of law for the Jews and was held by the high priests and seventy elders. The Sadducees and the Pharisees were the members of the Sanhedrin but the judgement of the council were kept divided because of their different interpretation of the Jewish law; this was the reason why they would not usually come together . Their opposition towards Jesus meant that they had to join as a group so that they would have a stronger case against him. The chief priests, the elders and the scribes were also at the high priests house. Even though these groups were against Jesus' own people they were all against him, so Jesus had no support from anyone. The Jewish trials were really just a questioning time to see if a case could be made against the prisoner. Then there would be a short consultation of the Sanhedrin in the morning where the case was given official approval and prepared to show the governor. The Sanhedrin was allowed to punish offenders but only the roman council could give the death penalty. There were many unfair aspects of Jesus' trail. Much of the questioning was out of the ordinary, for example, the high priests should have asked the question, 'Are you the Messiah, the son of God?'. The Sanhedrin had rules which they were supposed to follow but many of these were ignored. This type of trial , a capital trial, was supposed to begin and end during the daytime but Jesus' trail began and ended at night. If it was likely that the prisoner was found guilty, the trial would have to be postponed to a second day but this did not happen. Not only did the Sanhedrin break the rules by holding Jesus' trial at night, it was also the eve before the Passover and it was illegal to have the trial at night before a feast. IT seemed that even before Jesus appeared before the religious authorities , they had decided what to do because they wanted things to move along more quickly. They tried to find some evidence against Jesus but they were not able to find any. False witness were used in the hearing who told lies against Jesus, however their stories did not agree. According to the rules, disagreement between the witnesses should put an end to the trial. A confused story was told by some witnesses, starting that Jesus had claimed he would destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days. This was probably a misinterpretation of his prophecy about the destruction of the temple. Witnesses who did not speck truthfully were supposed to be liable to punishment given for the alleged offence. The High Priest asked Jesus if he had an an ...