7T

7T

Yeshua was grateful that none of his disciples  would share the rest of his ordeal on this timeline but  it complicated things. Caiaphas must find new charges to  get him to his  execution by the Roman governor and not even Yeshua could see the way.

Caiaphas put his  first question  to  Yeshua. "It is said  you seized control of the baptizer's cult  when he was put to death. Is that true?"

Yeshua said, "The other  followers of Yohanan  looked to  me to lead them after he was arrested on the orders of Herod."

"These transgressors  who come  to  you  seeking redemption  in water, do you accept them all, or turn some away?"

"Some are  not  baptized,  true," replied  Yeshua. "God alone forgives, but only the truly penitent."

"Perhaps you blaspheme God," Caiaphas raged,  "by arrogating to yourself, a  mere man, the  power to frame petitioners  as truly penitent  as only  you  decide. Now  speak!  Abjure before  this council in the name of the living God that you are divine!"

Yeshua replied, "Truly I say to you, in three  days time I will be seated at the right hand of God."

'The charge is proven!' one of the council members exclaimed.

"What need have we of witnesses?" asked another

But Yosef of the town of Ramathaim-Zophim reminded them how the Empire recently took away the tribunal's rights in most capital cases. And Caiaphas knew he was correct. The only authority the Sanhedrin retained to carry  out the death  penalty was  in the case of a Gentile trespassing in the temple. But he brightened when he saw it was a way around their  law forbidding execution on the same day as conviction. "We will take this false prophet before Pontius Pilate," said he,  "and say the rabble  looks to him to restore the line of David to the throne in Jerusalem."

Yeshua shook his head at the amazing irony. Yudah had betrayed him precisely for not fulfilling that expectation.

Pilate was procurator of Judea. He ruled under Vitellius, who was the legate  of Syria,  and  had absolutely  no respect  for Jewish religious sensibilities. So bringing Yeshua before him on charges of being a  false prophet  or a  blasphemer would  be a waste of his time.