The Complexity of Easter: The Intersection of Faith and History

There’s one film that I recommend to anybody who wants to learn something about Easter. I refer to Monty Python’s Life of Brian. Confusion, extremism, religious pedantry, failure to grasp the message, and laughter. Humour is big in the Gospels, if only people would understand it. Don’t, whatever you do, opt for Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ. It’s more medieval caricature than ancient reality.

Movies aside, as with all religions, there can be no conclusive proof for or against Christianity. It’s something the so-called “new” atheists have never understood in their arrogant assumption that all the clever people are on their side. There’s plenty of evidence for all sorts of Christian claims, often from sources that were far from sympathetic. Josephus, who was Jewish; the historian Tacitus, who was Roman; and his friend Pliny, who governed a province. None support Christianity, but all testify to the life and activities of Jesus. Yet, in the final analysis, faith is about faith.

The geopolitics of Easter are complex. Herod — there were several — had ruled Israel for many years but died in 4 B.C. His kingdom was divided into three, but the Romans soon took one part, Judea, as a province under their direct rule. Galilee was given to Herod Antipas, Herod’s son, meaning that Jesus wasn’t raised under Roman governance. There were lots of Greeks in Galilee and lots of bandits, too. The majority of Jews lived not only outside of Galilee but outside of the entire region. The diaspora has existed for a very long time.

The Easter story is the pinnacle. There’s no sacrifice, no resurrection, no salvation without the crucifixion. The Last Supper was the meal Jesus ate with his disciples before his execution, and in which he shared the bread and the wine “in remembrance of me.” What Jesus’ words precisely mean is still debated among Christians, but it was certainly a commandment. As was his plea that we love one another. The Latin for commandment is “Mandatum,” from where we get Maundy Thursday. The synoptic gospels present the Last Supper as a Passover Seder, although it differs in some respects from the 1st-century norm. In that Mark and Matthew were Jewish, and Luke either a Hellenized Jew or a Greek, who knew the Jewish world intimately, this must have been intentional.

Shortly afterwards, Jesus is arrested, and then comes the trial. Where it took place is uncertain. The traditional view holds to Jerusalem’s Antonia Fortress, built by Herod to honour his patron, Mark Antony, and by the time of Jesus, a large part of the Roman garrison was stationed there. Luke says that when Pontius Pilate discovered that Jesus was a Galilean, he sent him to Herod, but Herod returned him to an unwilling Pilate. The Gospels aren’t clear on the geography, and it was later pilgrims who established the route of the stations of the cross. It’s considered largely accurate, but the starting point, the trial, will never be precisely known. In terms of the date, we know from non-biblical sources that Jesus was crucified by Pilate during the reign of Tiberius, which provides a window of less than a decade.

The trial was conducted early in the morning before most people were awake. Pilate was a man promoted above his abilities, and he clearly didn’t want to be involved in what he considered an esoteric Jewish squabble. Philo, a Jewish scholar and contemporary, condemns him as corrupt and cruel. He was certainly out of his depth and largely unconcerned about what Jews and Jesus meant by messiahs and Christs. These were religious terms unusual to the Romans and considered absurdly rustic.

When the Jewish leadership claimed that Jesus held himself as a rival king to Caesar, however, there was resonance. Treason. That’ll do nicely, and the Etruscan-invented crucifixion, a judicial murder for slaves but never Roman citizens, could be applied. When the verdict was announced, the crowd cheered. But does it show the faithlessness of the mob? We’re speaking of relatively few numbers, and Jesus’s opponents had sufficient influence to sway a few hundred. Then there were the actual followers of Barabbas, the alternative candidate offered by Pilate for freedom. Contrary to what we’re told, he was more likely a rebel leader than a criminal, and his advocates would have been organized and violent.

Whatever the crowd’s composition, the verdict was crucifixion. It could take a long time, was public and exposed, the dying victim would struggle to breathe and was often bitten by wild animals aroused by the smell of blood. Seneca wrote, “You must never mention crucifixion in polite company.”

Then the resurrection. If you can believe this, the rest is easy. The first Gospel, Mark, was likely written between AD 64 and 72, a mere 30 years after it all happened. Numerous people would have been alive who had witnessed the events firsthand, and the author would have been dismissed as a lunatic or liar if they’d doubted him. People who saw Jesus killed would then devote their lives to his cause, knowing what their fate would be. People die for the wrong reasons, but never knowingly so. They believe, and in this case, they believed because they saw.

Have faith and see. And have a blessed Easter.