Judaea in Hellenistic and Roman times
By Shimon Applebaum
Roman law and history in the New Testament
By Septimus Buss
Septimus Buss makes an interesting statement, that the Talmud says "... the power of capital punishment was away from the ecclesiastical judges [The Sanhedrin] for forty years prior to the fall of the temple.
There are two major conflicts which I can see evidence of in these readings, which would occur rather rapidly because of such a decree. These would be idolatry, and prostitution. Both of these have no punishment under Roman law, and have a death penalty under Hebrew law.
Since, the Sanhedrin could find a person guilty and sentence him to death, but could not carry out the sentence, the man (or woman) would then be taken to Pilate, who would ... let him go, especially if the person was worshiping Zeus or Apollo... can't kill a man for worshiping your own god... that's just silly.
I'm sure it wasn't silly or even humorous to the Jews at the time -- after all we are talking about the First Commandment being broken here, but... what could they do about it?
What is certain, for me anyway, is that my own research in to this era has been made more difficult by the continuous view point that in this time period Jerusalem is consistently looked at as a Jewish city, when in fact this wasn't the case at all. However, it was viewed this way by the Jewish people living there at the time as well, despite the Roman legion, banners, people and a large population of Greeks and Arabs living inside the walls as well. I found, however, that the actions and decrees of the time period I find during my research, become much easier to understand, when I remind myself, that Jerusalem at this time is conquered and occupied by Rome.
