The Messiah Confrontation: Pharisees Versus Sadducees and the Death of Jesus

Knohl (The Messiah Before Jesus), a Bible studies professor at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, delivers a cogent account of how the trial of Jesus illuminated schisms within Judaism about the messiah. Knohl traces the evolution of the concept of a human redeemer and persuasively argues that the “trial of Jesus was not a clash of Jewish and Christian doctrines, but a confrontation between two internal Jewish positions—of expecting a Messiah or rejecting the messianic idea.” The author chronicles how this disagreement played out between the two major Jewish sects in Roman-occupied Palestine: the Pharisees, who believed that a “godlike warrior Messiah” would save them from Roman oppression, and the Sadducees, who refuted the idea of a messiah. Pharisee opposition to Jesus, Knohl contends, was based on their belief that he was not the messiah, but they did not find the idea of a messiah heretical, and Knohl suggests that Jesus would not have been convicted and executed if tried by Pharisees instead of Sadducees. Accessible prose makes parsing scriptural texts and placing them in historical and political context enthralling, even for those unfamiliar with biblical criticism. This thought-provoking work fascinates. (Nov.)