Who is Pontius Pilate? Was he a weak leader who simply followed the orders given by the High Priest? Would Pilate have had tried to avoid crucifying Jesus? Is the Bible's portrayal of Pilate accurate?
Pontius Pilate was the Roman governor of Palestine during the time of Jesus. He is famous because he was the person responsible for condemning Jesus to execution.
Pilate was responsible for keeping the peace in Palestine, for collecting taxes and for matters of law and order; everything else was left up to the Jewish leaders.
He would have had a force of about 3000 troops and would have moved around Palestine to areas where he was needed most, this is why he is in Jerusalem during the Passover.
We don't really know much about Pontius Pilate. There are three sources of information, two of them written by his enemies (Josephus and Philo) and the gospels themselves. From what we can learn from his enemies Pilate was a pretty ruthless and blood thirsty person. It is difficult to know how accurate a picture of him this is. Both Josephus and Philo are Jewish historians and it was their own people who suffered under the hands of Pilate. From the events they relate it does sound like Pilate was pretty ruthless but then enemies do say some pretty inflammatory things about their political opponents in any age.
We do know that Pilate was considered a pretty good leader by his superiors. We know this because he was in charge for 10 years (A.D. 26 - A.D. 36). This is a very long time for someone in Pilates position. As John Adair points out in his book "The Leadership of Jesus" Pilate must have possessed in some measure the Roman virtues of gravitas (dutiful and constructive purposiveness), constantia (persistent endurance), and libertas (love of legal and political rights). However his reign was not without incident.
In one incident Pilate has some shields put on display (adjacent to the Temple Area) that bear the name of Roman Gods. There is a strong reaction to this and Pilate has them removed. It is true that Pilate is reluctant to give in to the demands and threatens violence as a solution but he does bow to the pressure in the end. It should also be noted that he had made sure that the shields only bore the written name of the god and not any images (so he had attempted to do the right thing to avoid upsetting the Jewish people even if he was a bit misguided).
On another occasion Pilate brings in some Roman Standards with his troops (again into the temple area). Because these standards have images on them (eagles) the people rebel again and he is forced to have them removed from Jerusalem. Again he gives in to the pressure and it should be noted that they were brought in under cover of darkness and not paraded in full daylight.
On another occasion Pilate used money given to the Temple to build an aqueduct. It would probably not have been possible to do this without co-operation from the High Priest. This incensed people so much that a large crowd gathered. He had his men secretly surround the crowd and at his signal his soldiers attacked the crowd. Many were killed and the rest escaped injured. There can be no doubt that Pilate was willing to use violence to assert his authority. This protest was probably directed as much towards the Priests as Pilate.
The most notorious of the stories concerns a story of Pilate killing a crowd that gathered to climb mount Gerezim, the Samaritan Holy Mountain. The crowd, however, were armed and Josephus reports that Pilate killed the trouble makers and not the whole crowd. However this was considered so appalling that Pilate was sent by his superior to Rome to answer to the Emperor. Pilate escaped any punishment because the Emperor died while Pilate was still on his way to Rome. Pilate must have seen this as a political issue (otherwise he would not have got involved) - perhaps persuaded of this by the High Priest who would have disliked (to put it mildly) the Samaritans.
It is very easy to get the impression that the Romans were always harsh, aggressive and grasping but this is not the full story. The Romans saw themselves as conquering heroes bringing peace and prosperity to the world. Virgil writes: "Let it be your task, Roman, to control the nations with your power (these shall be your arts) and to impose the way of peace, to spare the vanquished and subdue the proud!".
So, from what little we know of Pilate, I think we can draw a few conclusions:
More recently there has been a claim made by a few that the image of Pilate in the gospel accounts does not correspond with the accounts we find in other places and so the gospels must be wrong in what they say about Pilate.
The claim is made that Pilate is a bloodthirsty ruthless tyrant who would not have had any hesitation in condemning Jesus to crucifixion. They claim that because the High Priest was selected by the Roman who ran Palestine (e.g. Pilate himself) this would have meant they worked closely together and so it would have been enough for the High Priest to make the request and the crucifixion would have happened. They claim that the accounts in the gospels were fabricated to put the blame squarely on the shoulders of the Jews.
However it is possible to dispute this claim on several grounds.
First, and perhaps the most important, is that there is little evidence that Pilate and Caiaphas (the High Priest) were on good terms and worked closely together. All of the recorded incidents we have of Pilate causing near riots in Israel are concerned with Jewish beliefs and customs. If Pilate had worked closely with the High Priest then surely these incidents would never have arisen in the first place. This is pretty basic stuff as far as Jews are concerned and yet although Pilate shows a little sensitivity (he knows a little) he shows that he doesn't really understand their objections. However there is one occasion where Pilate seems to have the co-operation of the High Priest, that is when Temple money is used to build an aqueduct. It is hard to build a case for constant co-operation based on such little evidence.
Second it is claimed that because Pilate had the power to pick the High Priest this meant that he would have picked someone he liked and could work with. However we discover that Caiaphas was picked by Pilate's predecessor and deposed by the person who came after Pilate. This could be because Caiaphas was easy to work with and a good supporter of Rome (this is not suggested by the fact he is replaced after Pilate leaves) or it could be that Pilate didn't see the need to appoint someone because he wasn't going to take a lot of notice anyway (this is borne out by the evidence we have of someone who sees bullying and intimidation as a way to rule). This could easily suggest that Pilate tolerated the Jewish authorities rather than worked closely with them.
Third, Pilate is still bound by the law. There seems to be a misunderstanding sometimes in the power that Pilate had. Pilate is not the Emperor and is subject to rules and regulations like anyone else. He was not allowed to do whatever he liked but was bound to uphold Roman law. This would, no doubt, have meant that he was not allowed to execute people for no good reason. He would have to establish that there was a case for execution. I don't believe that this would have included taking the word of the High Priest in such matters. It should also be noted that the interview of Jesus took just a few minutes.
Fourth, although Pilate was open to persuasion he was very careful to guard his power and authority. It seems unreasonable to believe that Pilate would have acquiesced to a request from a Jewish leader without showing his own power by at least interviewing Jesus.
We cannot be sure about the tradition cited of releasing a prisoner for passover. This tradition is not mentioned anywhere else but given the shortage of historical documents this does not really mean a lot. However we do have an account of this in the gospels, which have proved accurate on other historical details, and without any evidence to the contrary there is no reason to discount this account. It is not right to argue from silence e.g. because it is not mentioned anywhere else it cannot be true.
It is right to say that Pilate would not have had any qualms about having Jesus crucified. But we do see Pilate on a couple of occasions doing things to please the crowd. This is consistent with the gospel accounts, that Pilate might have given the crowd the right to choose if he had decided there was not really much evidence to support Jesus' execution. It also appears that it would be a shrewd political move on the part of Pilate (Pilate is concerned with politics and not religion) when Jerusalem is packed with people for the holidays. It would be sensible to find out what the crowd thought of Jesus before condemning him, especially when the evidence was that Jesus was very popular. Washing his hands of the killing of Jesus was also clever as this would make the crowd understand that this had been their choice.
It has been claimed that the indecisive Pilate and the hand washing were later anti-jew inventions by the church. However the gospels were written before eyewitnesses had died and for a mainly Jewish audience. Jesus himself was of course Jewish. It would not make sense to write anything anti-jewish in the gospels other than what actually happened.
So you can see that the gospel accounts are entirely consistent with what we know about Pilate and there is no need to question the accounts as they are presented.
Despite some regrettable periods in church history where Christians have seen Jewish people as the killers of Jesus Christianity is not an anti-Jew faith. It is very clear that the crowd that condemned Jesus is first and foremost a crowd and hence is representative of people in general. Yes the Jewish leaders had Jesus killed but Jesus was a Jew as were Jesus' disciples.
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