Tool Beta
The Ancient World Behind the Text
Pick a passage anywhere in the New Testament. See the customs and ideas a first reader knew without being told.
Mark 14:53-72, At the high priest's house
The council tries Jesus at night. He says he is the Messiah and quotes the Son of Man coming with the clouds, and is condemned for blasphemy while Peter denies him in the courtyard.
Mark 14:53-72, in every translation this tool compares.
Mark sets two scenes side by side. Inside, false witnesses cannot agree, the high priest asks Jesus if he is the Messiah, Jesus says I am and speaks of the Son of Man at the right hand of power, and the council condemns him. Outside, a servant girl recognizes Peter, and he denies knowing Jesus three times before the rooster crows.
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/chief-priests-and-council\/","n":"Chief priests, elders and the council","s":"The Jerusalem aristocracy of priestly families and elders who ran the temple and the Sanhedrin and dealt with Rome.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/temple-and-courts\/","n":"The temple and its courts","s":"Herod's huge rebuilt temple in Jerusalem, believed to be God's dwelling, laid out in courts that kept Gentiles, women and Jewish men at set distances.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/messiah\/","n":"The Messiah, son of David","s":"The anointed king most Jews expected from David's line, who would free Israel from its enemies. Nobody expected him to be killed.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/son-of-man\/","n":"The Son of Man","s":"Plain Aramaic for a human being, and also the figure in Daniel 7 who comes on the clouds and receives a kingdom. It is Jesus' favorite way of speaking about himself in the Gospels.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/blasphemy\/","n":"Blasphemy","s":"Speech that dishonored God, including claiming what belonged to God alone. Under the law the penalty was death.","r":""}
Keener notes that Peter's curses and oath called on a deity as witness and avenger of any false oath, and that denying knowledge of a person insulted that person. Judeans, he notes on Matthew, thought Galileans did not pronounce their gutturals properly, and would tie Peter to his Galilean teacher. The Caiaphas ossuary, inscribed Joseph son of Caiaphas, held the bones of a man of about sixty, and Caiaphas kept office from AD 18 to 36 where Gratus had removed four high priests (Garland). The trial rules in Mishnah Sanhedrin were compiled around AD 220 and are idealized, so they say little about first-century procedure (Garland; the cultural backgrounds article on Jesus' trial, which adds that the hearing may only have framed a charge for Pilate). Under that later rule blasphemy required pronouncing the divine Name (m. Sanhedrin 7:5). A Talmud story mocks a Galilean whose word could mean ass, wine, wool or lamb, and the verb for Peter's curse has no object, so he may be cursing Jesus, as Pliny later made suspected Christians do (Garland).
- NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, notes on Mark 14:53, 14:58, 14:61, 14:67, 14:70 and 14:71, and notes on Matthew 26:3 and 26:73
- N. T. Wright, Mark for Everyone, comment on Mark 14:53-72
- ESV Study Bible, study notes on Mark 14:58 and 14:64
- David E. Garland, Mark, in Zondervan Illustrated Bible Backgrounds Commentary, ed. Clinton E. Arnold, on Mark 14:53, 14:55, 14:64 and 14:70-71, and sidebar The So-Called Illegalities of Jesus' Trial
- NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, article Jesus' Trial
