Rapporti tra autorità nella Palestina d’epoca tiberiana: particolarità e conferme relative al processo a Gesù in fonti apocrife

Abstract

[Relations between Authorities in Palestine at the times of Tiberius: particularities and corroborations in apocryphal sources with regard to the lawsuit against Jesus] The article offers a research approach to the much debated issue of the 'lawsuit against Jesus' and aims to find evidence in the so-called ‘apocryphal sources’. It focuses, in particular, on a number of fundamental passages contained in two undoubtedly reliable sources, the Gospel of Nicodemus (rec. Greca ‘A’) and the Gospel of Saint Peter.  The Gospel of Saint Peter, moreover, seems to offer evidence on the role of women in the primitive Christian Community, which is the result of a memory jealously kept alive. The study puts forward significant conclusions: the lawsuit against Jesus was a real one, the Great Synedrion of Israel was in charge of the judicial enquiry whereas the Roman Prefect of Judea was entrusted with cognizance and judgment, passed a real verdict of guilty and provided for the execution of the punishment. The study confirms that the canonical Gospels contain a reliable description of the lawsuit against Jesus.