Section 06
The high priest tore his robes
The blasphemy reaction at the trial confirms that Jesus’s claim was understood as a claim to divine identity.
Mark 14:61 to 64: the high priest asks whether Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the Blessed. Jesus invokes Daniel 7’s Son of Man at the right hand of Power.
The high priest tears his robes, the formal gesture for hearing blasphemy, and condemns him.
If the claim were political messiahship, the charge would not be blasphemy. The reaction tells us what the claim was.
And the high priest said to him, "I adjure you by the living God, tell us if you are the Christ, the Son of God." Jesus said to him, "You have said so."
Matthew 26:63 to 64.
By the numbers
- Daniel 7 background
- ~6th century BC
- Caiaphas ossuary discovered
- 1990
- Pilate Stone discovered
- 1961
Strongest counter position
A skeptical reading holds the trial scene is a Markan literary construction. The site responds: named figures in the high priest’s circle provide chains of testimony.
What this does not prove
The verbatim Greek of any single saying is uncertain. The substance of the exchange is multiply attested.
Citations
- Mark 14:61 to 64.
- Matthew 26:63 to 65.
- Daniel 7:13 to 14.
- Caiaphas ossuary, Jerusalem 1990.
- Pilate Stone, Caesarea Maritima 1961.
Goes deeper