Bribe For The Death Of Jesus

According to the canonical version of the Passion of the Lord, the arrested Jesus was issued by the Jewish "rulers" to the Romans, who carried out the execution of the cross. However, there is an Old Russian translation of the book of Josephus Flavius "The Jewish War" with a different version of the death of Christ. It is no longer the Romans, but the Jewish "rulers" themselves are directly responsible for the massacre of Jesus. Despite the fact that this translation contradicts the Gospels, some scholars consider the story told in it to be trustworthy.

However, everything is in order. First of all, it should be noted that the Old Russian version of the "Jewish War" is not even a translation, but rather a free retelling of the book by Josephus, in which many famous episodes are skipped, but there are many inserts and additions that clearly do not belong to the pen of the famous historian. One of these inserts is a lengthy account of the life and death of Jesus Christ, strikingly different from the evangelical version.

So, how did Jesus die? According to the Old Russian variant, Jewish "lawyers", fearing the enormous popularity of Jesus Christ, informed Pilate on him, accusing him of inciting sedition. Pilate, after questioning Jesus, did not find any guilt behind him, and released him to freedom (in addition, Jesus healed the Prokhorator's seriously ill wife, as well, and caused even greater sympathy for him). Then, we read further, "the envy of the pack is vulnerable to corruption in the law, and 30 talents are given to Pilate, and they are killed." "And let them vzem and give them their will, and they want to use their own will." But suck is like time, They killed Pilate, 30 talent before, and let them extradite Jesus to Jesus, and they crucified and defiled with the law of the fatherland and mocked him a lot. "

Translated into modern Russian, this means that "lawyers who
Overcame envy, gave 30 talents to Pilate, so he ordered him to be killed. He took them and gave them permission to do what they wanted. So they seized him and crucified him, contrary to the law of the fathers. "

In this passage, there is a striking desire to shift all
Responsibility for the execution of Jesus on the Jewish authorities and to justify Pontius Pilate, who in the ancient Russian version of the "Jewish War" is completely uninvolved in this crime. Jesus died because of Jewish elders, who acted contrary to the paternal Law. This is the main idea of the Old Russian version.

Some researchers believe that this is the original text of Josephus Flavius,
Translated into Old Russian. German scientists A. Berends and R. Eisler,
Working before the Second World War, suggested that the ancient Slavonic
The translation of the "Jewish War" was made from the lost Aramaic script. In their opinion, there were two versions of the "Jewish War": one, created by Joseph Flavius for compatriots, in Aramaic, and the other, addressed to Greco-Roman readers, in Greek.

This hypothesis has met with serious objections from many scientists. Soviet
The researcher N. A. Meshchersky in 1958 refuted Berends and Eisler, proving that the Old Russian translation of the "Jewish War" goes back to the well-known Greek text of the work of Josephus Flavius, and not to the mythical "Aramaic prototype." This is proved by a large number of Greek words and Grecianisms, left without translation. In addition, the Old Russian text retains the same order of words, the same syntactic constructions as the Greek script. "Directly link the Old Russian text with the Greek numerous linguistic tracing-letters," literal reprints, "preserving the morphological structure of the Greek word," NA Meshchersky states.

Eyeball in the additions to the famous text of Flavius and numerous
Borrowing from the New Testament as separate expressions, and whole plots. Even the Wise Men and the Star of Bethlehem knew, it turns out, Joseph Flavius! All this also inspires very great suspicions about the reliability
Old Russian version of the "Jewish War".

The final conclusion of NA Meshchersky is unequivocal: the details of the execution of Jesus,
Given in the Slavic version of the "Jewish War", are not genuine
The text of Josephus Flavius, and the invention of a pious translator who, in all likelihood, it seemed strange that a famous historian, describing Palestine under the prosecutor Pontius Pilate, did not say a single word about Christ. To the best of his abilities and abilities, he tried to eliminate this "injustice".

According to NA Meshchersky, the Old Russian translation of the "Jewish War" by Joseph
Flavia could be made in the era of Kievan Rus not later than the XI century. With this conclusion,
However, the Italian A. Donini did not agree. He, too, considered the episode with Jesus
Interpolation, but made much earlier, possibly in the I - II centuries. In his opinion, "no Christian copyist could have invented them when the image of Christ was already steadily formed on a theological basis.This episode, perhaps found in some of the oldest books of Flavia's book in Aramaic or Greek, and then could be saved in the Balkans , As if in a reserved corner of the Christian East. "

Well, on account of the fact that not a single copyist would have invented the details,
Contradicting the existing ecclesiastical tradition, is too boldly said. In our
Time of what kind of stupidity did not write about Jesus, and - imagine! - no
The established "theological foundation" did not become a hindrance! Therefore, all the interpolations in the original text of Josephus could have been made not in the first and second centuries, as A. Donini believed, but much later.

So, the episode with a bribe of 30 talents, supposedly given by "lawyers" Pilate with the aim
To destroy Jesus, is not a reliable historical fact, but only a fiction of the nameless Old Russian editor. And fiction, it should be noted, is extremely unfortunate. Indeed, if we accept this version, it turns out that Jesus was executed on the cross not by the Romans, but by the Jews themselves. This is so incongruous with the evangelical version of the Passion of the Lord, and indeed with all the historical realities of that time, which does not deserve further discussion.