Blogging Through the Book of Mormon

Jesus is trying to explain to Pilate that he is the Savior, not the king right now, so his answer to "art thou the king of the Jews?" is "My kingdom is not of this world: if my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight, that I should not be delivered to the Jews: but now is my kingdom not from hence." Listening to this, Pilate probably thought that Jesus was crazy. If you weren't familiar with Jesus' teachings, then these statements scream "I'm crazy." Bur Jesus is also providing Pilate with an insight that supports his statement that he is not competing for political power right now. Pilate persists "art thou a king then?" And Jesus answers, "Thou sayest that I am a king. To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth."  I had no idea what Jesus is talking about because the whole "you're the one who said it" has never made any sense to...

After having carefully considered all possible consequences, the chief priests decide that Jesus does in fact have to die, but don’t want it to be a Jewish matter for which He could become a martyr. They’ve devised a plan to get the Roman to put Jesus to death, thereby controlling any possible outcry from the people. At this point, I feel like the Roman are pretty liberal with their executions, so I don’t think that the Jewish leadership thought that there would have been any problem getting Jesus crucified. Their plan doesn’t go off without a hitch though, because they do run into some problems. The first problem that they run in to is that in order to take Jesus to be tried by the Roman governor of Judea, Pilate, those Jews would have had to enter into a gentile establishment, the “judgment hall” which would render then “unclean” and they wouldn’t be able to participate in the Passover ceremony scheduled for the next day. So they bring Jesus to Pilate but “went not into the judgme...

Peter isn’t the only apostle outside of Caiaphas’s palace when Jesus is being beaten, “Judas, which had betrayed him, when he saw that he was condemned, repented himself, and brought again the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders, saying, I have sinned in that I have betrayed the innocent blood.” I honestly feel like I’ve beaten the “Judas” horse to death in other posts, and most of that has to do now with statements that people have made in the modern era that Judas is a son of perdition. We know that perdition is the state of being in which someone refuses to repent, even after they have a fullness of knowledge, being in a state of perdition is a choice by the individual who prefers to wallow instead of repent. I think the biggest problem that I have with the concept of “perdition” as it is understood by most people these days, is that it is usually viewed as a place a person is put after displeasing God in som...

While Jesus is inside Caiaphas’s palace being interrogated and beaten, Peter is outside of the house waiting. I imagine that this “palace” is set up similar to the temple in that there are several different buildings, each with their own areas for people to stand while waiting outside. It was probably a sprawling place with many different places for people to wait outside. I wonder just how many people were there awaiting the verdict for Jesus. There would be the members of the Sanhedrin, or at least those who wanted Jesus dead, which was probably most of them. There would have been the servants that had been accompanying those members of the Sanhedrin, along with those caring for the horses or camels that they rode in on, and any trainee or apprentice would have been there too. Looking at it that way helps me understand why it would make sense that there were so many people there in the middle of the night for Jesus. Plus, it was the night before Passover and with so ...

With an incredibly powerful statement, Jesus has affirmed that He is, in fact, the Christ, and warned his accusers that the time is coming that he will be their judge. The high priest is not pleased and “rent his clothes, saying, he hath spoken blasphemy; what further need have we of witnesses? Behold, now ye have heard his blasphemy.” The IM comments, “Be definition, blasphemy meant to revile, despise, mock, or curse God. Jesus Christ did none of these, but Caiaphas considered the Savior’s statement that He would sit ‘on the right hand of power’ to be blasphemous. However, the Savior’s claim to divine power and authority would have been blasphemy only if it had been untrue. When Caiaphas heard this statement, he rent his clothes and declared that the Savior had spoken blasphemy- an offense punishable by death under the law of Moses.” I guess this is the problem with expecting someone to come and save you and then killing all the people th...

Annas sends Jesus to Caiphas’ palace, not Caiaphas’ personal home as I had previously believed. In an article on www.bible-history.com  it describes the Palace of Caiaphas as a place “where informal meetings of a small Sanhedrin were held.” It makes sense that there would be a main meeting hall for official business, but for a “palace” named for the high priest at the time, that wouldn’t be a fitting place for any regulated Jewish business. The fact that Jesus’ trial is taking place in the middle of the night in an unofficial venue detracts from the whole idea that Jesus is a criminal and is legitimately being tried as such. We know that Caiaphas’ father in law is still extremely influential in the day to day politics of Jewish life, and it seems that Annas is the one who gave the order since the guards brought Jesus back to his house first, but what kind of guy was Caiaphas? The IM provides background saying, “Caiaphas ...

The chief priests have their arresting officers take Jesus from the Gethsemane to Annas’ house. Now this is an interesting turn because Annas is not in a leadership position within the Jewish religion, and this appearance of Jesus at his house is only recorded by John. The other three writers of the gospels record that Jesus went straight to Caiaphas, which would make sense because Caiaphas was the High Priest at the time. But since John was there, we can assume that this is a first hand account. John says, “And led him away to Annas first; for he was father in law to Caiaphas, which was the high priest that same year. Now Caiaphas was he, which gave counsel to the Jews, that it was expedient that one man should die for the people.” This is referencing the time when the Jewish leadership was discussing possible political consequences of Jesus’ doctrines, Caiaphas said that it was better to put Jesus to death than to risk the Roman’s destroying them all as a...

Touching Malchus’ ear to heal him apparently wasn’t enough to get the arresting officers to move forward to apprehend Jesus, so he comments to them, “Are ye come out, as against a thief, with swords and with staves to take me? I was daily with you in the temple teaching, and ye took me not: but the scriptures must be fulfilled.” JTC comments, “But, though surrendering Himself unresistingly, Jesus was not unmindful of His rights; and to the priestly officials, chief priests, captain of the temple guard, and elders of the people who were present, He voiced this interrogative protest against the illegal night seizure.” This reminds me of the time that the Jewish elders brought the woman who was taken in adultery to Jesus to be judged. At that time, the men had just thrown her at Jesus’ feet for a condemnation, but we talked about the strict laws and protocols that were active in ancient Judaism. Jesus ensured that the woman was formally charged and that witnesses were given the chance to ...

All these guys in the Garden of Gethsemane is making for an incredibly tense situation. I would imagine that the officers who have fallen down have gotten back up and what they were there for was obvious. Just like the disciples probably didn’t understand the magnitude of what was happening while Jesus was praying a couple of hours previous, it feels like they are still dealing with everything on a very telestial stage. People are coming to arrest Jesus, they outnumber us so we must fight instead of “Jesus can end this just by thinking about it, how does he want this situation to end?” Luke tells us, “When they which were about him saw what would follow, they said unto him, Lord, shall we smite with the sword? And one of them smote the servant of the high priest, and cut off his right ear.” John mentions that this servant’s name is Malchus. One of the articles that I read about this incident noted that it is mostly an accurate description because af...

Over the course of the last three to four hours, every sentient existence from the beginning of time throughout the universe has descended upon the Son of God, and he endured it long past the point that it would have killed anyone else. Now that that part is over, he stands up and walks over to where his disciples are sleeping and wakes them up because he can see the torches of the mob coming to arrest him, there will be no rest for him tonight. This mob approaches “with swords and staves, from the chief priests and the scribes and the elders.” It’s important to point out here that the arresting officers are Jews serving as a “police force” for the Jewish leadership in Jerusalem; there is no Roman involvement at this point. I had previous believed that the Romans were the ones that had come to arrest Jesus in the garden, but that’s not the case, this was Jewish business handled by Jewish appointees. As the group approaches, low and behold, his very ...

I had kind of an interesting experience last night. After I finished my post yesterday, I went onto Reddit and started reading this thread asking for people to share their craziest experiences while visiting an unfamiliar town and as you’d imagine, the content got really dark, really quick. I was hooked, I started reading and couldn’t put it down to the point where I stayed up late into the night reading about what had happened to these different people. Some of it was strange, and a lot of it had to do with nature and fog and not being able to find a place that you’d been to before, etc. But then there were other stories about people being threatened and seeing ghosts and people that disappeared and all that kind of stuff. Also interesting is that clearly many of these people had been warned by the Spirit of danger, even though they of course didn’t call it that, just “for some reason he said ‘it’s a trap’ and we all understood what he ...

With the angel there to strengthen Him, Jesus was still filled with so much agony that “his sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground.” I always wondered if this was a metaphor because no one records this event except for Luke who says “as it were” like, maybe not real. And honestly, when ever there is a picture painted of the Savior in Gethsemane, I always wondered why his clothes were soaked with blood. I’ve always thought that if he bled out of his skin then his clothes would have been quite bloody by the time he was done. But then in D&C 19:18 Jesus says “which suffering caused myself, even God, the greatest of all, to tremble because of pain, and to bleed at every pore.” And both King Benjamin and Jacob testify that “blood cometh from every pore, so great shall be his anguish.” Clearly the bleeding actually did happen, so while it might not seem well recorded or even that important, Jesus bleedin...

When Jesus asks His Father to “let this cup pass from me,” Mark records something interesting and that is exactly how he addressed Heavenly Father. Jesus says, “Abba, Father.” I’ve never understood why that was significant but that’s probably because I grew up being taught “you are a special child of God, he is your Father,” etc. But I don’t think that the generalized Jewish understanding of God at that time was one of compassionate parent, but more of an ill-tempered task master. So imagine that the person you think is in charge is very authoritarian and you call him “sir” or “general” or something like that, then your friend says, “hey dad.” That would give you moment to pause and think, “maybe I had the wrong idea.” The IM gives excellent perspective, saying, “There is no scriptural record of anyone before Jesus Christ addressing God in this manner. Typical Old Testament ways ...