So your evidence that Jesus was a reputed psychic all boils down to one of the literary devices from the myth that has been
thoroughly debunked? Hint: The "trial" of Jesus in a Sanhedrin court never happened.
But there was a "trial" which probably involved some members of the Sanhedrin. Maybe it was not an official proceeding.
David Flusser, a Jewish scholar, suggests this possibility:
If, then, there was a session of the Sanhedrin before the crucifixion of Jesus, it must have resembled the arbitrary assembly of distinguished Sadducees who later condemned James, the Lord's brother, to death.
Was it an official assembly of the Sanhedrin that condemned Jesus to death? [The Gospel of] John knew nothing about it, and in the whole of Luke . . . a verdict of the supreme court is not even mentioned. Mark was the first to alter the ancient report.
David Flusser, Jesus, Hebrew University Magnes Press, 2001; p. 146
Flusser seems to blame the Mark account for the problems of the trial account. He seems to mean a later redactor, not an early Mark, who relied on "the ancient report" and altered it.
Flusser: He attempted to portray a session of the judiciary passing judgment. Matthew subsequently based his account upon Mark.
And Flusser gives more credibility to the Luke and John accounts. Where the events described are incompatible with what is known about the procedures of the official Sanhedrin, it was the Mark account, and reliance on it, that is to blame.
Atheos:
- Error #1: The Sanhedrin convened at the high priest's house
Mark mentioned that the Sanhedrin met in the house of the high priest while all our other sources on the Sanhedrin tells us that the council does not convene anywhere else except in the Chamber of the Hewn Stone in the Temple. [5]
- Error #2: The Sanhedrin met at night
The Sanhedrin was said to have convened immediately after Jesus was arrested and taken to the high priest's house. This was after the Passover supper and the prayer at Gethsemane which makes the council meet around 9 to 10pm at night. This is again incompatible with what we know of the procedures of the Sanhedrin which disallows nocturnal meetings. [6]
- Error #3: The Sanhedrin conveyed on the Passover
To add to the absurdity, this night, if we are to believe the synoptic chronology, was Passover eve and by Jewish reckoning already the 15th of Nisan, Passover itself. As many eminent Jewish scholars have pointed out, this is simply inconceivable, given the strict ruling of no council meetings on the Sabbath, and on religious feast days, such as the Passover. [7] We quote the Jewish scholar, Joseph Klausner from his book Jesus of Nazareth (New York 1925):
the Sadducees themselves would not have conducted even a simple judicial inquiry either on the night of the Passover or the first day of the Passover...the mishnah lays it down that capital cases may not be judged on the eve of a Sabbath or on the eve of a festival to avoid delay should the case not be finished that day, since all trials were forbidden on a Sabbath or a festival. [8]
- Error #4: The Sanhedrin pronounced the death sentence immediately
Another procedural impossibility is given in Mark 14:64 which includes the sentence: they all condemned him as worthy of death. This means that the sentence was passed on the same day instead of the prescribed interval of twenty four hours. These procedural flaws in the Markan account weighs heavily against any claims of historicity for the episode described there.
... the high priest's assertion (Mark 14:64) that Jesus committed blasphemy in his reply (Mark 14:62-63) makes no sense. It was not an offence for a Jew to claim to be the messiah because eventually, according to their belief, someone has got to be he. It is no blasphemy, though of course it could be a mistake, in claiming the title of messiah for oneself. [12] The claim Jesus made, as being seated at the right hand of God does not necessarily have any divine connotation for himself, as the Jewish scholar Rabbi Morris Goldstein stated:
Use of the phrase "Son of the Blessed" or "Son of God" was no capital crime. The reference to sitting at the right hand of power (Mark 14:62) is not greatly different from King David's allusion to himself sitting at the right hand of God (Psalms 110:1), at all events, it is nowhere indicated as blasphemy.
Flusser explains how an illegal meeting of the Sanhedrin might take place:
In 62 A.D., the Sadducean high priest, Annas [Ananus], convened a session of the Sanhedrin at which the Lord's brother James and other Christians were indicted before the judges, and condemned to be stoned. The Pharisees engineered the deposition of Annas, because in their opinion, the session had been illegal . . .
Here is the Josephus account of this:
. . . but this younger Ananus, who, as we have told you already, took the high priesthood, was a bold man in his temper, and very insolent; he was also of the sect of the Sadducees, who are very rigid in judging offenders, above all the rest of the Jews, as we have already observed; . . . he brought before them the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ, whose name was James, and some others, [or, some of his companions]; and when he had formed an accusation against them as breakers of the law, he delivered them to be stoned; but as for those who seemed the most equitable of the citizens, and such as were the most uneasy at the breach of the laws, they disliked what was done; they also sent to the king [Agrippa], desiring him to send to Ananus that he should act so no more, for that what he had already done was not to be justified; nay, some of them went also to meet Albinus . . . and informed him that it was not lawful for Ananus to assemble a sanhedrin without his consent; whereupon Albinus complied with what they said, and wrote in anger to Ananus, and threatened that he would bring him to punishment for what he had done; on which king Agrippa took the high priesthood from him, . . .
Antiquities, Book 20, ch. 9, 199-203
One further point to add to this picture, helping to explain reasonably what happened -- This is from a speech by a 7th-Day-Adventist lawyer, Lewis Walton,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d9D46yW4ym0 , which seems to have the ring of truth on this one point, even if not on others, and that is that the rules of the Sanhedrin were such that it was
very difficult to get a conviction in a death-penalty case, and the members of the Sanhedrin had a strong responsibility to defend the accused and to disallow false evidence or improper charges. And the only accusers or prosecutors were those of the public who attended and made charges, while the court per se provided only defense and not prosecutors. (Someone will correct this if it's not accurate.)
So a reasonable explanation about this "trial" which violated the rules is that there was ambiguity for the Sadducees who made up the Sanhedrin: Josephus says they were tough on the accused (the Josephus account above), and yet, the rules of the Sanhedrin were favorable to the accused and made it difficult to convict.
So doesn't it seem credible that other "trials" like that of James may have occurred? Isn't this the best explanation of what happened to Jesus? I.e., because the rules of the Sanhedrin were so favorable to the accused, in some cases a sham "trial" was held which violated the procedural rules and made it easier to get a "conviction."
As to the reports that members of the Sanhedrin spat on Jesus and struck him, this is just as incredible in the proceedings of that highly dignified body as if it were reported of the high court of England or the supreme court of the United States.
The scenes of the physical abuse don't say it was members of the Sanhedrin who did this, though you can easily interpret the Mt and Mk accounts that way. But it was probably the soldiers or guards who did it.
Flusser accepts it as a genuine description of the behavior of the guards, though he tries to interpret it as some kind of game that might have been played with prisoners generally. But he makes a poor case for this. The word "Prophesy" almost certainly means something that involves using psychic power, or power from a divine source, but Flusser was able to find one obscure use of the word "prophesy" which might have the meaning of "guessing" rather than that of making a pronouncement using paranormal or divine power.
But Flusser accepts that the scene did take place. And also that the "trial" did take place but that it was not an official session of the Sanhedrin. This makes much more sense than discarding the entire trial of Jesus as fiction.
Here is an explanation of the scene from David Strauss:
. . . and blows on the head and cheek, to which it is added, in Luke also, that he was blindfolded, then struck on the face, and scoffingly asked to attest his messianic second sight by telling who was the giver of the blow.
David Strauss, The Life of Jesus Critically Examined, p. 657.
The footnote to this tries to explain the meaning of the Matthew version which omits the blindfold:
Matthew does not mention the blindfolding, and appears to imagine that Jesus named the person who maltreated him, whom he saw, but did not otherwise know.
Here, the meaning of "Prophesy!" is taken in the sense of showing supernormal power, but since the blindfold is omitted, Strauss takes it to mean that Jesus named to them the one who struck him, even though he didn't know that person. This is really a stretch -- a desperate attempt to make sense of the words "Prophesy! Who is it that struck you?"
This shows the difficulty of making sense of the words when an important element is omitted. But the problem is solved by recognizing that it was an actual incident and that the witnesses who reported it left part of it out. What else better explains this scene?
Other than that, the logic seems impenetrable...