Was Jesus Tried at Night?
The gospels describe a night-time interrogation following Jesus’ arrest at the home of Caiaphas, the High Priest. This included members of Sanhedrin and happened before they brought him before Pilate asking for Jesus to be crucified for sedition. Luke adds an account of Peter’s simultaneous experience in the courtyard of Caiaphas house, in which various people (presumably bystanders and the slaves of those meeting inside) suggest Peter is one of Jesus’ companions. Peter famously denies this three times before the cock crows at dawn. Luke also implies that the Sanhedrin also met more formally at daybreak. “They brought him to their council” (Lk22:66 NRSV) before they “rose as a body and brought him before Pilate.”. Given that by tradition Jesus was crucified by about 9am, Luke’s implied timings are tighter than those in the other gospels, but all are plausible.
Details differ across the Gospel accounts much as any eye-witness accounts of the same event will differ. If a night-time hearing did occur, reasons might include avoiding the volatile daytime Passover crowds, and a desire to resolve things before Jesus' followers could organise opposition. It is likely that Pilate's court had been deliberately requested to deal with Jesus before the Passover started on the sabbath Saturday.
Jewish legal tradition, as later codified in the Mishnah, explicitly prohibits capital trials at night. The Mishnah though, was compiled a century or more after these events, so its applicability to this period isn't fully established. Some scholars nevertheless doubt that a full formal night-time "trial" took place, favouring instead an informal preliminary interrogation before Caiaphas and other leaders, with the formal trial before Pilate happening early the next morning. The Gospels themselves aren't fully consistent, but this is the version of events favoured in the Maximus series.
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