Jesus was just a man – The trial

Making Judgements

Study these two images of Jesus carefully. Discuss which of the images is better, in your judgement, for showing who Jesus is for Christians. Click on an image to take a closer look.

The Lamentation over the Dead Christ
Christ Glorified in the Court of Heaven
Jusepe de Ribera, The Lamentation over the Dead Christ © The National Gallery, London. Presented by David Barclay, 1853.

Probably by Fra Angelico, Christ Glorified in the Court of Heaven © The National Gallery, London.

The Trial

In your teams, you will have 20 minutes to study your case notes.

You need to elect a reader to communicate the contents of the case notes to the group, a scribe to write down your responses and a spokesperson to put your case forward to the judges. The judges’ spokesperson will deliver the verdict, with their reasons, to the ‘courtroom’.

Defence and opposition teams will need to present a two minute speech to convince the judges. Judges will deliver the verdict to the courtroom, after their (short) deliberations

Was Jesus just an ordinary man?

Time for the judges to retire and consider their verdict. They have two minutes. Start the timer!

Whilst they are doing this, complete a WWWEBI review on how well the trial went for your group. Use the printable resource.

Class Graph - Our Personal Verdicts

Carry out a class survey and then drag the bars on the graph to represent the data before printing out.