The recent release of Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ has provoked powerful responses from believing Christians and non-believers alike. The Publishers feel it appropriate to reissue at this time a probing work that examines from another perspective these events that can fairly be said to have changed the course of Western history. A justice of the Supreme Court of Israel, writing as an expert on Jewish legal history, who is proud of Jesus' here challenges the descriptions and interpretations of the trial and death of Jesus as presented by the Evangelists in the New Testament.
Subjecting the Gospel reports to close forensic examination, Justice Cohn scrutinizes the texts in the light of information we possess from other sources concerning the laws and procedures (both Jewish and Roman) then prevailing; the political, ideological and religious motivations which may have prompted the actors to act; and the causes and purposes for which the Evangelists may have given the accounts they did. By thus placing the trial of Jesus in the context of known legal, political and religious facts, he is able to reconstruct the events as they may really have happened. And in so doing, he makes the case that "perversion of justice" traditionally ascribed to the trial itself must more truthfully be attributed to the aftermath of the trial - namely, the prejudice and persecutions of centuries.
Whether we ultimately accept or reject Justice Cohn's conclusions, his incisive analysis and extraordinary command of historical evidence provides a context to deepen and challenge our interpretations of the Gospel narrative.