The Court-Martial of Jesus: A Christian Defends the Jews Against the Charge of Deicide

Fricke claims that the Gospel accounts of Jesus's trial before the Jewish Sanhedrin (or Supreme Council) are in all likelihood a fabrication. Nowhere other than in the Gospels is there a record of such a trial, he observes, arguing further that New Testament writers, eager to win acceptance for Christianity in the Roman Empire, played down Roman complicity in Jesus's violent death. Fricke, a German lawyer, believes that Jesus was probably sentenced and crucified by the Romans in a military-type summary proceeding. His aim in writing this powerful, impressively argued tract is to absolve Jews of the age-old charge of ``Christ murder.'' He makes an interesting case for the thesis that pious chroniclers invented the story of Judas's betrayal of Jesus to show fulfillment of a prophetic psalm of David. Readers searching for the historical Jesus will find this a compelling brief. (July)