The Passion of Jesus

The Passion of Jesus

Jesus’ conflict with the Jerusalem authorities escalates. Our labels for these authorities are problematic at best: “Jewish” is anachronistic; “religious” as opposed to “political” is modern and Western. In first-century Jerusalem, the temple authorities, whom we might call “Jewish” or “religious,” also had some limited “political” authority, but they were constrained by the occupying Roman imperium. Mark notes briefly their looking for a way to arrest Jesus, but then gives more attention to the story of an unnamed woman who anoints Jesus’ head with oil in the house of Simon the leper in Bethany…