by
Damien F. Mackey
“It means that the judgment made by the official
Sanhedrin against Jesus within the Chamber of Hewn Stones, was THE LAST
JUDGMENT ever given by the official Sanhedrin in their majestic chambers within
the Temple!”
The
important insights of Dr. Ernest L. Martin on this subject are summarised in an
article by William F. Dankenbring, “The Mysterious Events of the Year 30 A.D.!”
IN the gospel
accounts dealing with the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, we find that strange
events occurred, surrounding the event of the crucifixion, stamping it in the
memory of man and God.
Such a significant year in the history of all
mankind would hardly seem to be allowed to pass without some "sign"
or "wonders". Indeed, although unbelievers continue to deny
the facts, 30 A.D. was a strange, anomalous year.
In the book of Matthew we read:
“Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over
all the land unto the ninth hour.... Jesus, when he had cried again with a loud
voice, yielded up the spirit. And, behold, the veil of the temple was torn in
two from the top to the bottom; and the earth did quake, and the rocks were
split; and the graves were opened, and many bodies of the saints that slept
were raised, and came out of the graves after his resurrection, and into the
holy city, and appeared unto many. Now, when the centurion, and they that were
with him watching Jesus, saw the earthquake, and those things that were done,
they feared greatly, saying, Truly this was the Son of God”
- (Matthew 27:45-54).
Writes Alfred Edersheim in The Life and Times of
Jesus the Messiah:
“And now a shudder ran through Nature, as its Sun
had set. We dare not do more than follow the rapid outlines of the Evangelistic
narrative. As the first token, it records the rending of the Temple-Veil in two
from the top downward to the bottom; as the second, the quaking of the earth,
the rending of the rocks and the opening of the graves.., while the rending of
the Veil is recorded first, as being the most significant token to Israel, it
may have been connected with the earthquake, although this alone might scarcely
account for the tearing of so heavy a Veil from the top to the bottom. Even the
latter circumstance has its significance. That some great catastrophe,
betokening the impending destruction of the Temple, had occurred in the
Sanctuary about this very time, is confirmed by not less than four mutually
independent testimonies: those of Tacitus, of Josephus, of the Talmud, and of
earliest Christian tradition. The most important of these are, of course, the
Talmud and Josephus. The latter speaks of the mysterious extinction of the
middle and chief light in the Golden Candlestick, forty years before the
destruction of the Temple; and both he and the Talmud refer to a supernatural
opening by themselves of the great Temple-gates that had been previously
closed, which was regarded as a portent of the coming destruction of the
Temple” (p.610).
The Temple was destroyed by Titus in 70 A.D. Forty
years before that date would be 30 A.D. - the year of the crucifixion!
Says Josephus, in his Wars of the Jews:
“Thus also, before the Jewish rebellion, and before
those commotions which preceded the war, when the people were come in great
crowds to the feast of unleavened bread, on the eighth day of the month
Xanthicus [Nisan] and at the ninth hour of the night, so great a light shone
round the altar and the holy house, that it appeared to be bright day-time;
which light lasted for half an hour. This light seemed to be a good sign to the
unskillful, but was so interpreted by the sacred scribes as to portend those
events that followed immediately upon it. At the same festival also, a heifer,
as she was being led by the high priest to be sacrificed, brought forth a lamb
in the midst of the temple. Moreover, the eastern gate of the inner, [court of
the temple,] which was of brass, and vastly heavy, and had been with difficulty
shut by twenty men, and rested upon a basis armed with iron, and had bolts
fastened very deep into the firm floor, which was there made of one entire
stone, was seen to be opened of its own accord about the sixth hour of the
night. Now, those that kept watch in the temple came thereupon running to the
captain of the temple, and told him of it; who then came up thither, and not
without great difficulty was able to shut the gate again. This also appeared to
the vulgar to be a very happy prodigy, as if God did thereby open them the gate
of happiness. But the men of learning understood it, that the security of their
holy house was dissolved of its own accord, and that the gate was opened for
the advantage of their enemies. So these publicly declared, that this signal
foreshewed the DESOLATION that was coming upon them”
- (IV,5,3).
In early writings of the church fathers, Jerome in
a Letter to Hedibia relates that the huge lintel of the Temple was
broken and splintered and fell. He connects this with the rending of the Veil.
Says Edersheim, “it would seem an obvious inference to connect again this
breaking of the lintel with an earthquake” (p. 610, op. cit.). The lintel
was an enormous stone, being at least 30 feet long and weighing some 30 tons!
The Temple Veils were 60 feet long, 30 feet wide,
and the thickness of the palm of a man’s hand, wrought in 72 squares. They were
so heavy that we are told 300 priests were needed to manipulate each one. The
Veil being rent from top to bottom was such a terrible portent because it
indicated that God’s Own Hand had torn it in two, His Presence thus deserting
and leaving that Holy Place.
Says the Jewish Talmud in Yoma 39b of the events
which occurred in 30 A.D.:
“Forty years before the Temple was destroyed [i.e.,
40 years before 70 A.D., or in 30 A.D.] . . . the gates of the Hekel [Holy
Place] opened by themselves, until Rabbi Yohanan B. Zakkai rebuked them [the
gates] saying, Hekel, Hekel, why alarmist thou us? We know that thou art
destined to be destroyed...”
For the huge doors of the Temple behind the Veil to
open, of their own accord, or in association with the great earthquake, would
cause them to pull powerfully against the Veil, and with the lintel falling, at
the same time, could have torn it in two from top to bottom.
This same year, 30 A.D., the Sanhedrin had to
abandon the Chamber of Hewn Stones, near the Holy Place in the Temple, which
was its official seat or location. This was about 40 yards southeast of the
entrance to the Holy Place. In 30 A.D. the Sanhedrin had to move to another location,
called “The Trading Place,” farther to the east and a much less
significant spot. To be forced to move from a beautiful, gorgeous, awesome
location in the Temple to a spot much less beautiful, esteemed, and
reverential, must have seemed a terrible “put down.” Says the Talmud:
“Forty years before the destruction of the Temple,
the Sanhedrin was BANISHED (from the Chamber of Hewn Stone) and sat in the
trading station (on the Temple Mount)” - (Shabbat 15a).
Forty years before the destruction of the Temple in
70 A.D. is 30 A.D. - the very year of the crucifixion of the Messiah! Why was
the Sanhedrin moved in the very year Jesus was crucified? Could it also have
been forced to do so because of damage due to the earthquake associated with
the crucifixion of Jesus - and be direct punishment for their complicity in
handing Jesus over to the Romans? Was this evidence of God’s official
displeasure with their actions?
Prior to the War with Rome, Josephus tells us that
the Sanhedrin had to move once again. This time they moved to an area outside
the Temple complex, in an ordinary part of Jerusalem - actually a place west of
the Temple near a building called the Xystus (see Josephus’ Wars of the Jews,
V,4, 2). What a come-down! Says Ernest Martin in his book Secrets of Golgotha:
“If an earthquake of the magnitude capable of
breaking the stone lintel at the top of the entrance to the Holy Place was
occurring at the exact time of Christ’s death, then what would such an earthquake
have done to the Chamber of Hewn Stones (a vaulted and columned structure) no
more than 40 yards away from where the stone lintel fell and the curtain was
torn in two?”
“There is every reason to believe, though the
evidence is circumstantial, that the Chamber of Hewn Stones was so damaged in
the same earthquake that it became structurally unsafe from that time forward.
Something like this had to have happened because the Sanhedrin would not have
left this majestic chamber (to take up residence in the insignificant ‘Trading
Place’) unless something approaching this explanation took place”
- (p.230-231).
Martin is right! They would not have made such a
humiliating move - voluntarily! It had to be forced upon them by circumstance.
There is no record of the Roman government compelling such a move - they stayed
out of Jewish religious life. Nor would Herod the king have been responsible -
to offend the entire Sanhedrin would have been a disastrous political mistake.
Only a “natural cause” which men could not remedy would seem plausible
for causing such a move. Martin goes on:
“If this is actually what happened (and I have no
doubt that it did), we then have a most remarkable witness that God the Father
engineered every action happening on the day of Christ’s trial and crucifixion.
It means that the judgment made by the official Sanhedrin against Jesus within
the Chamber of Hewn Stones, was THE LAST JUDGMENT ever given by the official
Sanhedrin in their majestic chambers within the Temple! It would show that God
the Father demonstrated by the earthquake at Christ’s death that the sentence
of the Sanhedrin against Jesus would be the last judgment it would ever make in
that authorized place!” - (p.231).
But this is not all. The events of the year 30 A.D.
are amazing, when viewed from the perspective of almost 2,000 years later. Why
did so many anomalous events occur during that one single year? Why did so many
“curses” begin that very year? Why was the Sanhedrin so obviously
rebuked by God that year, by being forced to “relocate” to a much lesser
station than that which they previously held? Writes Rabbi Leibel Reznick in The
Holy Temple Revisited:
“Although this was the largest structure on top of
the entire Temple Mount, the purpose and function of the Basilica is not
recorded anywhere. The TALMUD tells us that when the Sanhedrin (Supreme Court)
CEASED TO JUDGE CAPITAL OFFENCES, they MOVED from the Supreme Court chambers to
the ‘shopping mall’ (Rosh HaShana 31a). This shopping mall was located on the
Temple Mount (Rashi) ... Perhaps this shopping mall was located within the
Royal Basilica. Because this area was built on Herod’s extension, it did not
have the sanctity of the Temple itself, and commerce would have been permitted”
(Jason Aronson, Inc., Northvale, New Jersey, 1993, p.69).
Notice! The year the Sanhedrin was moved was 30
A.D., the year Christ was crucified. This was also the year they CEASED to
judge capital offences! This “authority” was thenceforth removed from
their purview, denied to them - another withering rebuke to the sages of the
Court which so injudiciously and intemperately MISJUDGED the Messiah Himself!
Writes Craig Blomberg of this event:
“...the claim that the Romans retained the sole
right of capital punishment (John 18:31) has often been termed a Johanine
error, especially in view of the counter-example in the stoning of Stephen
(Acts 7:58). But this right is strikingly confirmed by a passage in the Talmud,
which says that capital punishment had been taken from the Jews FORTY YEARS
before the destruction of the temple in A.D.70 (pSanh. 1:1,7:2). Stephen’s
stoning reads more like mob action which defied technical legalities”
- (The Historical Reliability of the Gospels, by Craig Blomberg, Inter-Varsity
Press, 1987, p. 179).
It was the very year of the crucifixion that the
Jews were denied the right to perform capital punishment by the Romans. When
the members of the Jewish Supreme Court brought Jesus to Pilate, he told then “Take
him and judge him according to your law.” But they replied, “It is not
lawful for us to put any man to death” - (John 18:31). Yet they connived
and pressured Pilate and stirred up the crowd to demand the crucifixion of
Christ the Messiah, the Anointed One of God (John 18:32-40; 19:1-16).
Great trouble and trial has come upon the Jewish
nation ever since this moment frozen in time in 30 A.D. As He was led away to
be crucified, Jesus warned the women of Jerusalem,
“Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for me, but weep
for yourselves, and for your children. For, behold, the days are coming, in the
which they shall say, Blessed are the barren, and the wombs that never bare,
and the paps which never gave suck. Then shall they begin to say to the
mountains, Fall on us; and to the hills, Cover us. For if they do these things
in a green tree, what shall be done in the dry?”
- (Luke 23:28-31).
Truly, that was a memorable year of infamy!
[End of quotes]
Some may prefer a slightly different date, other
than 30 AD, for the Crucifixion of Jesus Christ.
But, whichever year it actually was, it was indeed,
as said above, “a memorable year of infamy!”
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