"The Judas Brief" challenges the fundamental Gospel concept that at least some leading Jews played a key role in having Jesus executed. Gary Greenberg provides a detailed examination of all Gospel accounts of hostile interaction between Jesus and the Jews, with special attention to the Jewish and Roman trials of Jesus. He then compares these Gospel reports with the historical evidence and reaches some surprising and controversial conclusions, including that: there was never any organized Jewish hostility to Jesus; the only significant opposition came from Roman authorities and that Judas was a close ally of Jesus and represented him in negotiations with the High Priest; that the High Priest tried to protect Jesus and his followers from a Roman initiated massacre. Greenburg contends that Jesus willingly agreed to surrender himself to Pilate as a hostage to insure that his followers remained passive during the holiday; that Judas and Caiaphas had expected that Jesus would be released after the holiday and that Judas committed suicide in grief over the unexpected death of Jesus and the role he had played.
"The Judas Brief" may well provide modern Christian scholars and exegetes with some of the tools necessary to challenge the anti-Semitic reactions that flow from the Gospel accounts of Jewish hostility to Jesus.
- ISBN10 0826489990
- ISBN13 9780826489999
- Publish Date 1 August 2007 (first published 1 January 2007)
- Publish Status Out of Print
- Out of Print 26 February 2013
- Publish Country GB
- Publisher Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
- Imprint Continuum International Publishing Group Ltd.
- Format Hardcover
- Pages 256
- Language English