In cases of monetary law, the court judges during the daytime, and may conclude the deliberations and issue the ruling even at night. In cases of capital law, the court judges during the daytime, and concludes the deliberations and issues the ruling only in the daytime.
THIS ANALYSIS IS DRAFT and a WORK IN PROGRESS
(The Talmudic sources were compiled with the aid a Talmid Chacham affiliated with the Portland Kollel, who prefers to remain anonymous at the moment. Having not read the gospel accounts himself, he should not be held liable for any errors I've introduced in this essay)
An inquest and interrogation on capital charges was conducted by the chief priest and sadduccee Caiaphas at his a private residence, at night, on the eve of holiday. [citations needed] Therefore it would have been an unlawful assembly if it really occurred in the manner recounted in all four gospels. requires a daytime trial in a public venue, and not on the day prior to Sabbath or holiday - since all three of these requirements were flagrantly violated. The accused, Joshua ben Miriam (aka Jesus), is not the only one vindicated by gospels.
The gospels also vindicate the many aspects of the Oral Torah of the Pharisees - the Torah she bal Peh (the Talmud), and of course they vindicate the written Torah itself. The Sermon on the Mount found in Matthew 5-7, is an example of Oral Torah, an exposition of the second table of the decalogue, with detailed explanation (pirush) of halakha and mussar. It may come as a surprise and a horror to some of his devotees to discover this, but Joshua was a Pharisee. And when he calls some of his colleagues "hypocrites", it is exactly that element of their presentation that he condemns - their assimilation to greek theatrics. Pharisee is a term of praise, not of contempt, when used in the gospels - "for the Pharisees sit in Moses seat, therefore do what they say," says the Nazarene. Their willingness to teach the law (to be pharaisaical) is praised, it is their failure to actually do what they preach (their hypocrisy) which is condemned.
Perhaps it is for this reasons that christian bible expositors - who cannot deny the points demonstrated above - hold that even the gospels are not a guide for theology or ethics today, in the "dispensation of grace", since the events narrated took place under the "previous dispensation of the law". It is this type of perverse anti-Jewish interpretation on the New Testament at odds with the plain meaning of the texts, which has led Christianity to hold incorrectly that since the the trial was "according to Jewish law", therefore the law is itself condemned and therefore abrogated - both the oral and written Torah Law. In the christian imagination, all law is now superseded now by the grace that comes by way of efforts at theosis and gnostic self-realization through innovated rituals, by arbitrary decree of ecumenical councils, and by the tender mercies of pragmatic Roman emperors, God forbid.
The following morning, according to Mark, chief priests held a consultation with the elders and scribes and the whole council, and bound Jesus, and carried [him] away, and delivered [him] to Pilate". If this occurred on the "first day of unleavened bread", as John recounts, then it would have been an illegal gathering, since the council - the Sanhedrin - is forbidden from doing business on the sabbath, or the festival sabbaths.
Moreover, they should have recognized the inquest at Caiaphas house as a "false matter", from which they ought to have "distanced themselves" following Ex 23:7
We conclude that both the "inquest" and the "council" - as depicted in the gospels - were unlawful assemblies and in no sense can be construed as a "trial according to Jewish law". The moral rebuke intended by the gospel authors is that the sadducee priests, who are Roman collaborators, have flagrantly denied due process of law, which the Torah and the pharasaic/rabbinic tradition guarantees, in order to arraign Joshua on a false matter. The gospels therefore uphold pharisaic Judaism in general (and valorize in particular the Hasidic, Gallilean strain taught by Joshua). They demonstrate and condemn the unjust willingness of the Sadducaic heresy to capitulate to Roman colonial occupation, and comply with its perversions of justice, in order to preserve their privelege as stooges of a imperial Roman banana republic and continue the legacy of the Hellenizers against the Maccabees.
The christian readings of this narrative usually pervert this lesson into its exact inverse- that the trial did happen according to Jewish law, and conclude that the law is therefore condemned as unjust and is abrogated - not only the oral law taught by the Pharisees, but the written Torah as well. This is a perversion of the plain meaning of the text, and the proof texts brought from elsewhere in the the new testament and especially from Paul's writings, do not support the Christian interpretation - as I will explain in future commentaries, linked at the bottom of this essay.
Luke adds that "they began to accuse him, saying, We found this [fellow] perverting the nation, and forbidding to give tribute to Caesar, saying that he himself is Christ a King" - which if true would be an appeal to Roman law, attempting to make Judaism illegal.
It should be noted that according to Jewish law, it is not illegal to resist Roman hegemony, nor is it illegal (unless he is willfully misrepresenting) to declare oneself "Christ the King". Both of these, however, would be illegal under Roman law - an act of insurrection - for which he was tried and executed by Pontius Pilate. We conclude that regardless of whether Jesus was or was not in fact the Christ, the Messiah son of David, both of the so-called "councils" as depicted by the gospels in their plain interpretation, were unlawful assemblies in their very presence, and furthermore arraigned him on a false matter: according to halakhah, it is not a crime to declare oneself the Christ, the king of the Jews, nor to resist the Roman empire.
As some Christian scholars are now belatedly recognizing, in no way can the Jewish people as a whole, nor the Torah, be blamed for this unlawful assembly of heretical sadducees. Nor can rabbinic Judaism, which is based on the oral Torah of the Pharisees, according to whom this was an illegal trial. The willingness of the Pharisee faction to defend Paul when he was tried in the Sanhedrin, is more evidence to support this: even if many of them doubted his messianic beliefs, or disputed details of his halakha, they didn't regard his teachings as a fundamental departure from Torah Judaism, and were willing to tolerate it as a permissible sect. Many Pharisees did believe in Paul's messianism, which supported that taught by Peter and James respectively to the diaspora Jews and to the Judaeans.
Two possibilities appear: the gospels writings of the new testament are darshanim, "tales of the Hasidim", in the tradition of rabbinic Judaism, or else if the Mishna as redacted by Yehuda HaNasi represents an evolution from what was held to binding before the churban ha bayit (destruction of the temple) then the Talmud and rabbinic Judaism have been influenced by the New Testament more than either Judaism or Christianity have been willing to admit.
Apropos the people of Jericho, the Gemara relates that powerful people would steal wood from them. The Sages taught: Initially, the priests would place the hides that were flayed from animals consecrated as offerings of the most sacred order, which were given to the priests, in the Parva chamber. In the evening, they would distribute them to the members of the family of priests serving in the Temple that day. And the powerful priests among them would take them by force before they could be distributed. The Rabbis decreed that they would distribute them each Shabbat eve, because then all the families of both priestly watches came and took their part together. All the families from both the watch that was beginning its service and the one ending its service were together when they divided the hides. The powerful priests were unable to take the hides by force.
Wikipedia Draft - User:Jaredscribe/Caiaphas_trial_of_Jesus
Anyone can edit this, and I welcome good faith contributors. Especially needed are references to published works by contemporary scholars, which can be cited on wikipedia as reliable sources (unlike this self-published source sheet). Chag sameach.
Noahide covenant taught by the Apostle Paul in Romans 1,13,14-15
Judaism affirmed for Jews, and Gentile anti-Judaism refuted in Romans 9-12:
Jacob Have I loved and Esau have I hated:
Analysis of Torah sources for Paul's epistle to the Romans (work in progress)
Paul's epistle was originally an attempt to teach the "Hasidei meUmot Olam", the "pious of the nations of the world", to reject Caesar as "son of God" and elect the "King of the Jews" to that role instead. Nowhere in Paul's writings are found the christian doctrines of trinity, abrogation of law and Sinai covenant, supercession and replacement of the Jewish people by the church. These opinions must have already been circulating in his own day and age, because he specifically refutes them.