Pontius Pilate Deserves No Sympathy

Roman Prefect, Pontius Pilate condemned Jesus to the cross. Christians have always known this. However, due to a failure to look at the big picture when reading the accounts in the New Testament Gospels, some Christians are reluctant to place much blame on the merciless leader.

As we all know, Judas Iscariot betrayed Jesus to the authorities in Jerusalem. These authorities were the ones who arrested Jesus. This makes sense historically, as the authorities, not Pilate, would be responsible for handling Jewish matters such as this.

High priest, Joseph Caiaphas and others decided Jesus had to be executed and brought him to Pilate.
All four canonical Gospels tell us that Pilate gave a crowd of Jews the opportunity to choose whether or not to crucify Jesus.

The Jews in the crowd loudly proclaimed to Pilate that Jesus should be crucified. In the Gospel of John, Pilate stated that he found no fault in Jesus. Despite this, he gave into the demands of the crowd and condemned Jesus to his bloody fate.

Since the actions of Caiaphas and Judas brought Jesus to Pilate and Pilate initially opted not to execute Jesus, some Christians today have argued that Pilate had "no choice" in the matter. To make their case, they have acknowledged that Pilate was a "coward," but argued that the two previously- mentioned Jewish men deserve much more blame.

To be perfectly blunt, that is a ridiculous argument. The prefect ultimately DID sentence Jesus to death on the cross. While I would not disagree Caiaphas was the worst of the three since he was so eager to kill Jesus, Pilate was unbelievably cruel to kill anyone in that fashion.

Had Pilate simply wanted to punish Jesus and stop Him from creating a major disturbance at Passover, he could have thrown Jesus in jail for a while instead. Pilate had many soldiers at his disposal, so if angry Jews protested the decision to simply imprison Jesus, Pilate could have used them to silence the dissenters. 

So, what does this tell us? Is it possible Jesus' claims of God's kingdom and power angered the Roman elites as well and this also led the prefect to agree to the death penalty? After all, there is the possibility the talk of such a kingdom was viewed as a insult to someone who was the current ruler. We cannot know for sure.

This is not to say the Gospels are wrong when they said Pilate was reluctant to kill him initially. My argument is that Pilate ultimately did make the decision to give Jesus the most horrific punishment known to man, despite the fact Jesus had done nothing wrong. There is no need to feel sorry for him or cut him slack, just because Jewish elites were the ones who initially wanted him to die. 

The point is, Pilate was a violent man who actually put a LOT of people to death. Here are just two examples of Pilate's violent side:

The famous Jewish historian, Flavius Josephus wrote in his Antiquities of the Jews 18.3.2 that Pilate spent money from the Jewish Temple to build an aqueduct. Pilate had soldiers hidden in the crowd of Jews while addressing them and, when Jews again protested his actions he gave the signal for his soldiers to randomly attack, beat and kill – in an attempt to silence Jewish petitions.

Additionally, the ancient Jewish writer, Philo of Alexandria harshly criticized Pilate, writing that the prefect feared of being reported to his superior, Emperor Tiberius, for "...the briberies, the insults, the robberies, the outrages and wanton injuries...the ceaseless and supremely grievous cruelty (On the Embassy of Gauis, Book XXXVIII).

The point is that Pilate was not a man who made a cowardly decision after dealing with demands from a Jewish crowd and some Jewish leaders... He was a brutal man who put large numbers of people to death.

I don't believe, even for a second, that Pilate lost any sleep over the matter. Since he had killed many others, he probably decided killing an innocent man was no big deal, even though he didn't personally see any reason for a death sentence. As mentioned before, there is also the possibility some of Jesus' teachings of God's kingdom did not sit well with the an authoritarian leader like Pilate. 

Though we as Christians believe Jesus had to die for us, Pilate's cruelty against an innocent man was still hard to fathom. The Roman prefect should be remembered for what he was. To portray him otherwise is to miss the overall point- He put Jesus to death.

The Purpose of this Blog (Part Two)

My belief is that Christians should certainly study the early history of their faith. The information is easily available, so why wouldn't we want to learn more about it? 

When Christians make claims about the history of our faith that stand in contrast to what happened historically, it makes us look bad. As followers of Christianity, we should know more about our faith than anyone! 

It is my belief that history matters and we should look into our history to find out what happened in the past. Though some do not care how historical figures from the past are depicted, I personally believe men and women deserve to be remembered for who they truly were while they were alive. 

Secondly, if we do not understand history, this false information can have bad consequences for the future.

Take my earlier example of Mary Magdalene. She was not a prostitute, as many of my fellow Christians still believe, but was instead a devout follower of Jesus. Why should a woman who so dearly loved Jesus deserve to be thought of in a way that is not historically accurate? 

This portrayal of Mary undoubtedly hurt Christian women, as a figure who could otherwise be thought of as a role model and biblical hero was portrayed in a more negative light. To be sure, many of those who make the claim Mary was a prostitute do acknowledge that through Jesus' forgiveness, she became a good woman and devoted follower. 

However, this portrayal of Mary could surely come across as sexist.

Additionally, we have to remember the major consequences of some other misunderstandings by past Christians. 

The Bible does tell us that Jesus was betrayed by one of his disciples, Judas Iscariot, who was Jewish. The high priest who wanted Jesus executed, Joseph Caiaphas, was also a Jewish man. Additionally, Jews in the crowd in front of Roman prefect, Pontius Pilate loudly proclaimed they wanted Jesus crucified.

While I do not at all doubt these men wanted Jesus dead, the stories have historically led some Christians to become furious at Jews. In today's world, Christians are often very supportive of Jews and Israel, but this was not the case throughout many parts of world history . 

Some early Christians despised Jews in part because the actions of these Jewish men lead to the brutal crucifixion of their beloved messiah. To be sure, plenty of Christians had no problems with Jews.

However, these stories have been used historically by both Christians and non-Christians as justification for Antisemitism. Though many of the Nazis despised Christianity and the religious leaders in the Church, some of them nevertheless used stories such as these to stir up hatred toward the Jewish people. This political approach was utilized to help convince German Christians that Jews had always been bad people.

It should also be noted that not only was Jesus himself a Jewish man, but all of his disciples were as well. Most of his other followers prior to his deaht also appeared to be Jews. Knowing this will help Christians to realize that while some Jews were responsible for the death of Jesus, others were his biggest supporters. There is no reason to hold anger toward Jews as a group.

Additionally, while Judas and Caiaphas' actions led Jesus to Pilate, the Roman prefect himself was the one who ultimately sentenced Jesus to death. Even today, some Christians defend Pilate and say he did not have a choice in the matter.

The problem is that even if Pilate personally believed Jesus did not deserve to be crucified, he ultimately DID sentence Jesus to death on the cross. Had Pilate simply wanted to punish Jesus and stop Him from creating a major disturbance at Passover, he could have thrown Jesus in jail for a while instead. 

Pilate had many soldiers at his disposal, so if angry Jews protested the decision to simply imprison Jesus, Pilate could have used them to silence the dissenters. The writings of Jewish historian Flavius Josephus and others have shown that Pilate was often a cruel man who had crucified many people during his time in power.

So, even though some Jewish men were eager to have Jesus executed, Pilate ultimately made the final decision to kill Jesus in the most inhumane fashion known to man. He could have stopped it, but handed Jesus over to die on the cross.

Had Christians realized this and held Pilate equally or more responsible than the other men, less people would have grown angry with Jews, since Pilate was not a Jew. This is a major example of how history can affect our future.

The Purpose of this Blog (Part One)

There can be no doubt that many of those who run Christian blogs do so because they want to share their personal stories of faith with others. Other bloggers want to tell their readers what they believe the Christian view on various political topics actually is.

I created this blog a few weeks ago for a different reason- many Christians actually know very little about the early history of their faith.

 I became increasingly interested in early Christianity toward the end of 2012 and began really doing research into the subject in 2013. I had always loved history, so learning about the history of my religion only seemed natural.

However, I was surprised to discover that many things Christians (and non-Christians) had heard and said about the faith were either untrue or greatly exaggerated.

Allow me to explain. As I wrote in previous posts, it is a common misconception that Mary Magdalene was a prostitute who repented with Jesus' forgiveness. Evidence from the Bible itself shows that Mary was NOT a prostitute.

Another common claim made by Christians and non-Christians is that the Roman Emperor Constantine I made Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire. That is a bogus claim.

Constantine ordered religious tolerance toward Christians and members of all other religions with the passage of the Edict of Milan in the year 313. Constantine would go on by the year 324 AD to openly "favor" Christianity, but he never made Christianity the official religion. He simply did things that showed his preference for the Christian God

Christianity would not be made the official religion until 380 by the corrupt Emperor Theodosius. This happened over 40 years after Constantine's death. To say Constantine essentially forced everyone to become Christians is simply ridiculous.

Many other examples of these misconceptions can be found in my previous blog posts. I will address other misconceptions in future posts as well.

Why do these types of things matter? I will explain in the next post.