Words of Mark shared by the other evangelists are underlined. Parentheses [] indicate implied words that must be added for proper understanding. Words in blue indicate what is common to Matthew and Luke, in red words of John shared by other evangelists.

1. Details of the Transfer
   • The three synoptic Gospels write: They led him/away. Who is this "They"?
     • Mark and Matthew: crowd with swords and clubs (Mk 14: 43 || Mt 26: 47)
     • Luke: he first mentions the crowd, then the chief priests, captains of the Temple and the elders (22: 50); it is a bit incongruous to find them afterwards around the fire in the courtyard of the high priest.
     • John: it is much clearer by specifying the Roman cohort and tribune as well as the Jewish temple attendants (18:2)

   • Matthew repeats "having seized Jesus" (26: 57) that he had already specified earlier (26: 50), a way of expressing his emotion before the whole scene in progress. For Luke and John, Jesus had remained unrestrained during his arrest. But from now on Jesus is bound in John, because the court proceedings took place a few weeks earlier, while in Mark and Matthew this will happen after the session before the Sanhedrin.

   • Mark repeats himself talking about the high priest, then the chief priests, while Matthew simplifies things by first mentioning Caiaphas, and relegating the chief priests to v. 59. In John, we note that the Roman tribune brings Jesus to the Jew Annas, a fact similar to what Acts 22:30 will evoke when a tribune brings Paul before the Sanhedrin.

   • The four evangelists mention the court (aulē) of the high priest, aulē meaning the court of a prince, the building of a palace and its main room, hence his court. The presence of the guards in the court reflects the fact that there is an event in progress.

   • In John's case, the guards (hypēretēs) are those who arrest him, lead him to Annas, therefore stand in the court and one of them is the one who slaps Jesus before Annas. In Mark and Matthew, they appear here for the first time when Peter sits with them, and will appear further on to bully Jesus, although they were not mentioned at the time of the arrest; their role is really unclear.

   • When we try to imagine the place where the scene takes place, we see a palace with an entrance door, a courtyard and a large room, a complex with guards and servants. This means that Mark/Matthew does not have in mind a meeting of the Sanhedrin in the usual place as mentioned by Josephus or the Mishna. Such an informal location is an indication that the Synoptics simplify the facts by placing a Sanhedrin session at that time. John's account would be more accurate by describing a simple interrogation before the high priest taking place in his palace.

   • Where was this palace of the high priest? It was probably the Hasmonean palace on the west hill of Jerusalem overlooking the Xystus (the gymnasium) and the temple.

2. The High Priests Annas and Caiaphas
   • Mark never mentions the name of the high priest. Some believe that Mark did not know him being a stranger in Jerusalem, others believe that the story originated in the milieu of Jerusalem and the high priest was so well known that there is no need to give his name.

   • Luke uses the expression "the high priests" in a stylized way, so that their names become unimportant; yet he knows "Annas and Caiaphas" well, since it is under their pontificate that he situates the ministry of Jesus (3:2).

   • Matthew only mentions Caiaphas in the conspiracy (26:3) and here.

   • John mentions Annas twice, and Caiaphas five times. First of all, he presents us with the expression "Caiaphas, who was high priest that year" (11:49). This does not mean that this role was only for one year, but rather that he was high priest the year Jesus was executed. Second, if Caiaphas was high priest, what role does Annas play? Annas had been high priest fifteen years earlier, and even when someone no longer held this office, he kept his title, as we see in Josephus (Jewish Antiquities, 18.4.3; #95). We can therefore imagine that in John's mind both bore the title of high priest, and since the session of the Sanhedrin had already taken place beforehand, Annas had taken the personal initiative of questioning him. He appears after Jesus' arrest under the title of Caiaphas' father-in-law. Later the expression "the high priest" appears five times (18, 15.16.19.22) without explicitly identifying him. Since the scene is presented as an interrogation before Annas, and since Annas will send him to Caiaphas at the end of this interrogation, this high priest must be identified with Annas. But then the question arises: why send Jesus afterwards to Caiaphas, where nothing will happen, if not to send him to Pilate? It is probable that, since Caiaphas was officially the high priest and Annas was no longer the high priest, he was the only one authorized to send someone to the Roman prefect. Moreover, John likes dramatic symbols: Caiaphas had already prophesied that Jesus was going to die for the nation (Jn 11:50-51), and now the prophecy is fulfilled.

   1. Annas

      Annas was appointed High Priest in the year 6 by the Legate of Syria, P. Sulpicius Quirinium, and then deposed in the year 15 by the Prefect of Judea, Valerius Gratus. Fifteen years after his deposition, he still exercised great influence, since five of his children became high priests, as well as a father-in-law and a grandson. It is a family that had the reputation of being greedy, repressive and corrupt: they would have moved the Sanhedrin to the Bazaar, which would explain the episode of Jesus and the money-changers in the temple; Josephus tells that Ananias II (son of Annas) gave a bribe to the procurator Albinus, in 62 AD, out of the money extorted from the temple grounds. It is probably purely accidental that Stephen, James, the brother of Jesus, and James, the brother of John, were all killed during the reign of this family. Nevertheless, they must have had a special antipathy towards the disciples of the one they crucified in the year 30.

   2. Caiaphas

      According to Josephus (Jewish Antiquities, 18.2.2; #34-35), the prefect Valerius Gratus appointed four different high priests who did not each remain in office for a year after the deposition of Annas, until the arrival of Joseph, nicknamed Caiaphas around the year 18. Caiaphas was still in office when Valerius Gratus retired to Rome and was replaced by Pontius Pilate in the year 26. After a conflict with the Samaritans, Pilate left Judea in December 36 AD. It was at this time, more precisely during the Passover of 37 AD, that Vitelius came to Jerusalem and replaced Caiaphas with Jonathan, the son of Annas. Nevertheless, Caiaphas had managed to stay in office for 18 or 19 years, which gives us an idea of what a clever strategist and politician Caiaphas was. On the other hand, he left little trace in history, apart from this ossuary found in a cave in 1990 near Abu Tor, south of the wall of Jerusalem, where the inscription in Aramaic appears: Yhwsp br Qyp’, Joseph son of Qaypā’. According to John, Caiaphas' decision to have Jesus executed was politically motivated (If we leave him thus, all will believe in him, and the Romans will come and take away our Holy Place and our nation... it is in your interest that one man should die for the people and that the nation should not perish as a whole, Jn 11:48-50). At the same time, for the evangelist, Caiaphas made a prophecy that was absolutely right, since Jesus was going to die for the nation -- not only for the nation, but also in order to gather together in unity the scattered children of God (11:51-52).

3. The Question Posed to Jesus by the High Priest (John 18: 19)
   • While Luke places Peter's denial before the session of the Sanhedrin, and Mark/Matthew places it at the same time, John associates him with Annas' interrogation. The whole can be structured as follows:
     • 18: 12-18: Transfer of Jesus to Annas; the other disciple and the first denial of Peter
     • 18: 19-23: Interrogation of Jesus by Annas; the slap of a guard
     • 18: 24-27: Transfer of Jesus to Caiaphas; second and third denial of Peter.

   • For John, the session of the Sanhedrin has already taken place, so that the interrogation before Annas (18: 19-21) becomes an example of the decision that an individual must make when confronted with the light, and which is parallel to the interrogation before Pilate (18: 28ff). The slap of the guard represents a rejection of the truth. At the same time, the reader of the fourth Gospel is aware that in Jesus it is the entire Johannine community that is being tried by the Jewish authorities who are preparing to exclude him from the synagogue. In the same way, the interrogation of Peter by the various servants of the high priest emphasizes the fact that what happens to Jesus also happens to the disciples.

   • The questions of the high priest are as much about Jesus' disciples as they are about his teaching. For the multiplication of the disciples was a matter of concern for the political authorities, just as the too great presence of Christians in the synagogue must have disturbed the Jews. As for his teaching, we find several assertions that may appear offensive: he still called God his own Father, making himself equal to God (5:18); he claimed to be the Messiah (10:24-25); he called himself a son of God (10:36). We can understand the reaction of the Jews who said to him: "We have a Law and according to this Law he must die, because he made himself Son of God" (19:7). For the Jewish authorities, Rabbi Jesus fell into the category of false prophets condemned by Deuteronomy (those who divine by dreams shall be put to death, 13:2-6; 18:20).

4. The Response by Jesus to the High Priest (John 18: 20-23)
   • "I have spoken openly to the world". For John, Jesus is divine wisdom personified, and as the Old Testament says, this wisdom speaks in the public square (see Proverbs 8:2-3; 9:3; Wisdom 6:14,16). It is neither subversive nor esoteric.

   • "I always taught in a synagogue and in the Temple, where all the Jews come together; and in secret I spoke nothing". In John's Gospel more than in any other Gospel, Jesus teaches in the Temple (2:14; 7:14.28; 8:20; 10:23). But here he adds the synagogue, a reference to his Christian community. And the fact that Jesus said nothing in secret evokes the God of the prophet Isaiah, who said: "I am the Lord, and there is none else.... I have not spoken in secret, nor in any dark place on earth" (Isaiah 45:18-19; see also 48:16). The Jesus who responds to Annas is full of majesty.

   • "Why do you question me?". Jesus' answer appears as an attitude of defiance. According to Josephus (Jewish Antiquities, 14.9.4; #172), all those who were brought to justice before the Sanhedrin presented themselves with humility, fear and seeking mercy. One can understand the reaction of the guard to slap Jesus. But for John, this gesture was less a physical abuse than an insult to the majesty of Jesus. Let us note that we have a similar scene in the Acts of the Apostles (23:1-5) where Paul, after having been struck on the mouth and having insulted the high priest, apologizes on the pretext that he did not recognize the high priest (see Exodus 22:27 which evokes the commandment not to curse a ruler of the people). But it is different with Jesus who challenges his audience to show that he spoke badly. John probably has Isaiah 50:6 in mind here: "I have stretched out my back to those who beat me, and my cheeks to those who plucked off my beard; I have not shielded my face from insults and spitting" (Isaiah 50:6).

1. The Order of Events

   Here is the order in which the Gospels describe the sequence of events from the arrest of Jesus to his transfer to Pilate.

   	Mark 14:53 - 15:1	Mat 26:57 - 27:2	Luke 22:54 - 23:1	John 18:12-28a
   #1	Jesus (=J.) is led away to h.p. (=high priest); coming together of chief priests, elders, scribes.	J. is seized, led away to h.p. Caiaphas where scribes, elders brought together.	J. is taken, led to house of h.p.	J. is taken by cohort and tribune, bound, led first to Annas, father-in-law of Caiaphas, h.p. that year.
   #2	Peter follows inside aulē of h.p. and sits with attendants near blazing flame.	Peter following until aulē of h.p., enters inside, and sits with attendants to see the end	Peter following; they kindle fire in middle of aulē; Peter sits in their midst.	Peter and another disciple following; other disciple enters aulē of h.p.; gets Peter in; FIRST DENIAL; servants and attendants make charcoal fire at which Peter stands.
   #3	Whole Sanhedrin seeks testimony against J.; many testify falsely, inconsistently; falsify J.'s sanctuary warning; h.p. standing, says: "Are you the Messiah, Son of Blessed?"; J. says: "I am; you will see Son of Man"; h.p. tears garments; charges blasphemy; all judge J. punishable by death	Whole Sanhedrin seeks false testimony; many testify falsely; two testify about J.'s sanctuary warning; h.p. standing, adjures: "Are you the Messiah, Son of God?"; J. says: "You have said it; you will see Son of Man"; h.p. tears clothes; charges blasphemy; they answer: J. to be punished by death.	Peter's THREE DENIALS.	H.p. questions J. about his disciples and teaching; J. answers that he taught openly; challenges h.p. to question those who heard him.
   #4	Some spit at J., cover his face, strike him, saying "Prophesy"; attendants slap him.	They spit in J.'s face, strike him: slapping him, they say: "Prophesy for us, O Messiah; who hit you	Men holding him (J.) mock and beat him; covering him, they ask, "Prophesy; who hit you?"; blaspheming, they speak against him.	An attendant, standing by, slaps and rebukes J. for answering h.p. thus; J. answers that he did not speak badly, so "Why do you beat me?"
   #5	Peter's THREE DENIALS.	Peter's THREE DENIALS.	As day comes, an assembly of elders of the people, chief priests, and scribes brought together; they lead J. away to their Sanhedrin.	Annas sends Jesus bound to Caiaphas, the h.p.; Peter standing there, warming himself; Peter's SECOND AND THIRD DENIALS.
   #6	Early a.m., chief priests with elders scribes, and whole Sanhedrin, having made consultation and having bound J., take him away and give him over to Pilate.	Early a.m., all chief priests and elders of the people decide against J. to put him to death; having bound him, they lead him away and give him over to Pilate, the governor.	They say, "If you are the Messiah, say to us"; J. says, "If I shall say to you, you will never believe...the Son of Man will be sitting at right of God's power"; they all say, "Are you then the son of God?"; J. says; "You yourselves say that I am"; they say, "What further need of testimony?"; whole multitude leads him to Pilate	They lead J. from Caiaphas to the praetorium; it is early.

   So the question arises: what really happened during the night and early morning? All the Gospels agree that Jesus was taken to the high priest during the night, that Peter denied him three times. For the rest, we must avoid harmonization, assuming that the Gospels have some of the facts, and that it is a matter of putting the pieces together. Each Gospel must be considered separately.

   1. Mark/Matthew

      All the legal proceedings, as well as Peter's denial, which occurs in parallel, take place at night and end in the early morning.

   2. John

      The sequence of events is roughly similar between John and Mark/Matthew, even though there are differences: the content of the court proceedings is not the same, the violence against Jesus is reduced, there are no witnesses, judges, questioning about the sanctuary or about the identity of Jesus, no accusations of blasphemy and no sentences. How can we explain the similarities? John does not know Mark. We have to assume a pre-Johannic and pre-Marcan tradition that Mark and John changed in their own way.

   3. Luke
      • Sequences #1 and #2 cover the same events, but in Luke's case, Peter's denial, which also occurs at night, does not occur simultaneously with the legal proceedings that take place in the morning when it is daytime. Some have proposed to harmonize Luke with Mark with the thesis that the morning session in Luke's case is an expansion of the night session as recounted by Mark. This thesis must be rejected: because Mark gives no indication that there was a morning session, and Luke's morning session is similar to Mark's night session. This leaves us with the question: Who is right, Mark or Luke? Some biblical scholars consider Luke's account to be more historically true. These biblical scholars are wrong for the following reasons.

      • Let's start with the timing of the court proceedings. According to the Mishna (Sanhedrin 4:1), a trial involving capital punishment was to be held during daylight hours; but there is no evidence that this 2nd century rule was in effect at that time. Second, while all jurisprudence normally requires that a trial open to the public be held in daylight, it must be remembered that the Jewish authorities want to do things by stealth to avoid attracting the attention of the crowd. Furthermore, Mark 15:1 does not say that there was a morning session, but rather that after Peter's denial, it ended. Finally, these proceedings are more like an investigation than a trial, since a proper Roman trial will follow. In short, the fact that the session took place at night is not really a problem.

      • Some biblical scholars prefer Luke's version, since Mark's seems biased in presenting the authorities as villains, having decided in advance to condemn Jesus. These biblical scholars forget that to want someone like Jesus dead, far from implying that one is naughty, may even come from a genuinely religious spirit that rebels against attacks from one's deepest beliefs. We need only think of Paul himself who was commissioned to chase Christians as far as Syria (see Acts 26:10).

      • Finally, some biblical scholars prefer Luke's sequence of events, which they find more orderly than Mark's, which seems very complicated: instead of having this back-and-forth between Peter's denials and Jesus' interrogation, Luke presents us with the account of Peter's denial as a whole, followed by Jesus' interrogation, also presented as a whole, which takes place in the morning. But all of this bears the signature of Luke, who warned us at the beginning of his Gospel that he wanted to present an orderly account (1:3) and does not hesitate to rearrange the sequence of Mark. This has the advantage of drawing a parallel between the arrest of Peter and John in Acts (4: 3-5), where they are in custody until the morning, and that of Jesus.

2. The Legal Event: Trial or Interrogation?
   • The question arises: Is the content of Luke's account borrowed from Mark, and does he intend to describe a trial? Many elements that give the impression of a trial in Mark/Matthew are absent in Luke: no witnesses, no specific questioning by the high priest, no accusation of blasphemy, no death sentence. Luke probably combines independent sources with the basic canvas he borrows from Mark.

   • On the other hand, despite the absence of typical elements, Luke intends to describe a trial. He assumes that standard Christian preaching has already informed the Christians that Jesus was tried and condemned by the authorities in Jerusalem, so that he does not feel the need to give details in his account about his arrest (22: 26-71). To be convinced of this, it is sufficient to read again the following passages from Luke where a trial is assumed:
     • Luke 9: 22: The Son of Man must be rejected by the elders, the chief priests and the scribes, and be slain.
     • Luke 24: 20: (disciples of Emmaus) how our high priests and leaders handed him over to be sentenced to death and crucified him.
     • cts 6: 13-14: (Stephen) they took him before the Sanhedrin. There they produced false witnesses who said... We have heard him say that Jesus, that Nazarene, will destroy this place.
     • Acts 13: 27-28: (Paul) The inhabitants of Jerusalem and their leaders ... finding no cause of death in him, they condemned him.

   • There is no ambiguity in John's case, for there is nothing to suggest a trial: it is a simple interrogation by Annas, without a judge or trial or witness. Yet he is able to describe a Sanhedrin session, since he did so a few weeks earlier (11:47-53). In spite of certain similarities with the synoptics, his account represents an independent tradition.

   • To sum up, the Gospels agree on the following points:
     • The Sanhedrin met to discuss the case of Jesus
     • One of the problems discussed concern the threat that Jesus posed to the temple/sanctuary
     • He who pushes others to make a decision to execute Jesus is the high priest
     • A judgment was pronounced that corresponds to a death sentence
     • There was an interrogation by the high clergy the night Jesus was arrested.

   • It is highly likely that John's presentation best reflects the original situation and is the most historical. And that the session of the Sanhedrin took place a few weeks before Passover is more plausible than a hasty session the night before. Similarly, a brief questioning of the Jewish authorities before handing Jesus over to the Roman authorities is understandable. On the other hand, it must be remembered that John has theological objectives in placing the Sanhedrin session immediately after the resurrection of Lazarus, i.e., having him condemned to death even though he has just given life.

3. Evaluation of Mark 14: 53-54

   Let's ask the question: does this approach that merges in the same night both the court proceedings and Peter's denial come from Mark or from an earlier source? There is a school of biblical scholars who see here only Mark's work. For, it is said, with these legal proceedings and Peter's denial we are faced with a typical Mark technique, called interleaving or sandwich narratives: it is a technique where one begins a narrative, interrupts it to insert another narrative, before resuming the first narrative; the narrative interrupted and resumed plays the role of the two slices of bread of the sandwich, while the narrative inserted that of the contents of the sandwich. There are several examples in Mark, such as the resurrection of the daughter of Jairus (5:22-43) interrupted by the healing of the woman with blood loss (5:25-34). Unfortunately, it is a mistake to find this technique again with the court proceedings and the denial of Peter. For example, 14:53 (Jesus is brought to the high priest) and 14:54 (Peter's arrival in the court of the high priest) have equal value: verse 53 provides the setting for the Sanhedrin's trial, while verse 54 provides the setting for Peter's denial. Both accounts are of equal length, and in 15: 1 the spotlights return to the Sanhedrin to conclude that the session is over. In short, these are two parallel scenes, not an intercalated technique. Even though Mark is the author of this parallel technique, he depends on earlier sources for these accounts. As for John, he also mixes the scenes of court proceedings with Peter's denial, but in a different way, so that it can be said that he does not depend on Mark.