“He deserves to die!” The Law of Moses stated: “But whoever blasphemes the name of Yahweh, he is to be put to death, yes, death” (Lev. 24:16). Since blaspheming Yahweh was the only blasphemy that was deserving of death in the Law, by the time of Christ the overly religious and hypocritical Sadduccees and Pharisees had apparently decided that if anyone claimed to be the Messiah they had blasphemed Yahweh and were worthy of death. As we would expect of their hypocrisy, however, they would not have put everyone who claimed to be the Messiah to death because there are always insane people who think they are the Messiah; they would have only put people to death who they considered a threat to their control over society.