And straightway in the morning, the chief priests held a consultation with the elders and scribes and the whole council,

and bound Jesus and carried him away and delivered him to pilot.

Hey listeners, this is Nick from Scripture Central, and today's podcast addresses the question.

Why was Jesus put on trial and crucified? After Jesus suffered for the sins of

the world in Gathsemini, Judas, one of the twelve, came and with him a great multitude with swords and

staves from the chief priests and elders of the people. Upon willingly submitting

himself to this mob, Jesus endured several flurried and hasty trials. These include his arraignments

before the Sanhedron, Pilate, and Herod. Precisely what rationale led to these judicial proceedings

isn't fully clear from the scriptural record.

As John W. Welch has noted, one runs directly into several stubborn problems

when trying to ascertain motivations behind the actions of the chief priests and other key players in these activities.

For instance, Matthew and Mark each state that the Sanhedron delivered Jesus over to Pilot for envy,

which Pilate misunderstood for some petty motivation.

Yet even feelings of envy do not adequately describe the reactions exhibited by the Sanhedron at Jesus' trial.

Welch thus reasoned that fear was likely a greater driving factor, particularly fear

of Jesus' miraculous powers. Specifically, fear of the occult appears to have followed closely behind

many of the miracles Jesus performed, as the Pharisees woefully misunderstood the source of Jesus' divine

powers. This helps explain why, throughout Jesus' ministry,

his faith-inspiring miracles were almost always followed by a strong reaction from the Pharisees,

who accused him of using powers of Beelzebub, and who repeatedly sought to take his life.

Thus, as Welch observed, behind everything here lurks

a strong undercurrent of misplaced fear that Jesus was an evil magician. Notably, both

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