“The answer may lie in something we do not always fully appreciate about the crucifixion of Jesus: just how institutional it was. The central institutions of Jesus’ world—the Roman occupying army and its procurator, the Romans’ client king Herod, and the religious establishment led by the Jerusalem Sanhedrin and its high priest—all play pivotal roles in the trials that lead to Jesus’ condemnation. And in doing so all of them are revealed to be deeply corrupt.”