Suffered Under Pontius Pilate

Welcome to Halting Toward Zion, the podcast where we limp like Jacob to the Promised Land and talk about life, the universe, and everything along the way. I’m Emily Maxson here with Greg Uttinger and Rachel Voytek, and this evening Ransom is sitting next to me burbling and babbling so if you have some extra baby noise, apologies. David will do his best, but he’s not a miracle worker.

Speaking of miracle workers, we’re talking about the life of Jesus. We’re approaching his trial before Pilate tonight. We have been through the three Jewish trials and now we’re moving to the civil Gentile trials before his crucifixion, so we’re in all four gospels, I think. Is there a particular one you’d like to start with, Greg?

Yes. There’s a harmony in the gospels that I found in – to give credit where credit is due – Bible Tales. I don’t know anything about these people except that they were the first ones I found who gave me exactly what I wanted, parallel columns tracking all four gospels, so I’m going to be using them just to keep us going.

The opening statement is pretty much the same for all the gospels, and then we have the little aside about Judas and his suicide, and from there probably we’ll spend a lot of time in John. We’ll look at Matthew first and then John. We’ll start in Matthew 27

When the morning was come, all the chief priests and elders of the people took counsel against Jesus to put him to death.

So morning, dawn. It was illegal to try somebody at night and kill them the following morning, but this trial was full of so many illegalities that this is hardly surprising. They at least waited till dawn to pronounce the death sentence formally. Apparently as somebody saw light streaming over the mountains they said “guilty.” They did it by voice vote, not by each person casting a vote, which was also illegal, but they’re moving along here. They have things to do, places to be, a Passover to celebrate, and they want Jesus out of the way.

And when they had bound him, they led him away and delivered him to Pontius Pilate the governor.

Our goal here is to spend most of our time with Pilate today. One or both of the ladies here will fill in some background detail in a moment, but let me give you just a few thoughts about Pilate as a man of his time.

This is the end of the Hellenistic time. Technically it ended when Augustus or Octavian defeated Marc Antony and Cleopatra at the Battle of Actium and took over Egypt, but we’re not so far from that. This is the world that Pilate grew up in. Truth was optional. Truth was relative.

The philosophers had tried – the Stoics, the Epicureans, the Skeptics. They had all given a shot at what might be truth and they had come up with nothing, and Pilate knew this so well. He moved in a world of pragmatism. “What do you want? What will get it to you? Who do you not want to kill you? Stay away from making them mad.” This is kind of the thing that motivates Pilate.

He’s well-read. He’s cultured. He moves in high political circles and has a reputation for being firm to the point of abusive and oppressive. He generally takes guff from nobody. We’ve seen a mention of him earlier of having mingled the blood of some Jewish people with the Jewish sacrifices to make a point, so normally he was a man who knew how to get things done. But he also knew who he worked for, and the Caesar on the throne, like any Caesar ever on the throne, was not someone you ticked off. So as long as he’s sure of himself he’ll get stuff done and he’s not going to let people boss him around. But when someone plays the “Caesar is watching you” card, he gets a little nervous.

Ladies, what else can you tell us about Pilate?

He was made the Prefect or Governor of Judea about four or five years before he judged Jesus’ trials. In that time he had done a number of things to make himself displeasing to the Jewish people in bringing in Emperor worship and coinage and religious symbols that offended them.

There was a point where he had more protection from one of the Roman leaders, but he had lost that right around the time that Jesus came before him, so in God’s providence he was more vulnerable to the pressure that the Jews are going to put on him, because he had already been accused by them multiple times for not being a good governor. A few years after he judges Jesus he actually is recalled to Rome for having treated the Samaritans badly, and ends up with a death sentence on him from Caligula, which he has to execute on himself – an interesting approach.

It seems that he was known for his cruelty and oppression, and yet at this particular moment he seems to be in a weak spot that leaves him more open to their pressure when they say, “You have to do what we want.”

As a matter of fact, he does “try” to free Jesus four or five times. He tries a number of strategies to get the Jews to back down. He could simply have asserted his authority and said, “I said he’s innocent. Get out of here. Release the man,” but once they pulled “This man has called himself a king. If you don’t deal with this you’re not Caesar’s friend,” that made things difficult. He needed for them to back down, so he tries a number of things and we’ll look at these as we go along.

One of the things he does is try to shift jurisdictions, try to shift venue for the trial. When he finds out that Jesus is Galilean he sends him to Herod, who is tetrarch of Galilee, and Herod doesn’t get anything out of Jesus. We’ll see that too. I bring this up to draw our attention to something that the church prays about later in the Book of Acts.

As we read through this trial and how Pilate and Herod are interacting, we don’t really get the feeling of any deep conspiracy to murder Jesus. It seems more like “Circumstances are circumstances and they’re in the way and we do what we’ve got to do to stay alive. It’s not our fault. We didn’t want this.” But when the early church prayed they said this –

Lord, thou art God, which hast made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and all that in them is. Who by the mouth of thy servant David hast said, Why did the heathen rage, and the people imagine vain things? The kings of the earth stood up, and the rulers were gathered together against the Lord and against his Christ.

They’re quoting Psalm 2.

For of a truth against thy holy child Jesus, whom thou hast anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and the people of Israel, were gathered together for to do whatsoever thy hand and thy counsel determined before to be done.

As David described it, it comes across –

Why do the heathen rage and the people imagine a vain thing? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together against the LORD, and against his anointed…

It sounds like a conspiracy, and the message of the prayer and of Psalm 2 is that God ordained all of this for his glory and for the sake of the gospel, and we need to remember that. These men, as servants of God, were obligated to do the right thing. That it was unpopular was irrelevant. They should have done the right thing, but instead Pilate ends up sentencing Jesus to death. Herod has the chance to set him free and won’t raise a finger to do so. They are therefore guilty.

We can feel sorry for them after a fashion – the political pressures and all that. The Jews are not nice. We can roll out all the excuses and explanations, but on Judgement Day God requires us to have done what we should have done, not what was politically expedient or what was easy or what we did because people were mad at us and yelled a lot. With that in mind, let us go on.

Have we talked about Judas and his returning the money?

I don’t think we have yet.

That’s the next thing in Matthew. It’s a little side jaunt here.

Then Judas, which had betrayed him, when he saw that he was condemned, repented himself and brought again the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders saying, I have sinned in that I have betrayed the innocent blood. And they said, What is that to us? See thou to that.

“Sounds like a you problem.”

Yeah, very sympathetic.

And he cast down the pieces of silver in the temple and departed and went and hanged himself. And the chief priests took the silver pieces and said, It is not lawful for to put them into the treasury, because it is the price of blood.

The money had just come from the treasury to buy the price of blood, “But we couldn’t possibly put them back in there now. We want to be so careful and pristine in our morality, hit all the fine points while we’re murdering the son of God.” So they’ve got this money. “What are we going to do with the money?”

And they took counsel and bought with them the potter's field to bury strangers in. Wherefore that field was called the field of blood unto this day. Then was fulfilled that which was spoken by Jeremiah the prophet, saying, “And they took the thirty pieces of silver, the price of him that was valued, whom they of the children of Israel did value and gave them for the potter's field, as the Lord appointed me.”

There’s a couple things here. First of all, the sheer action, the humanity, the drama. Here’s Judas and he’s sad that he’s betrayed his friend, his master, an innocent man. He tries to find a way out but all he knows to do is to throw the money back. “The priests – certainly they’ll say something encouraging.” Oh, they’re not going to do one thing and he’s left with one solution, suicide, because that makes things better.

There’s a little more to this. We find out in the Book of Acts when the apostles are trying to fill the spot that’s left by his suicide they say this –

And in those days Peter stood up in the midst of the disciples and said (the number of names together were about an hundred and twenty,) Men and brethren, this scripture must needs have been fulfilled which the Holy Ghost by the mouth of David spake before concerning Judas, which was guide to them that took Jesus. For he was numbered with us, and had obtained part of this ministry. Now this man purchased a field with the reward of iniquity; and falling headlong, he burst asunder in the midst, and all his bowels gushed out. And it was known unto all the dwellers at Jerusalem; insomuch as that field is called in their proper tongue, Aceldama, that is to say the field of blood.

And Peter, or Luke writing, quotes the Psalm prophesying all of this.

Notice we pick up a couple more details. First of all, Luke in writing Acts pulls it all together, or Peter does. “This man purchased a field.” Well, he was kind of dead at the time, but he gave the money to the Sanhedrin who turned around and apparently bought the field that he killed himself in, so he did buy it by their hand with the money he had earned from them.

They might have purchased it in his name or something.

Yes.

…and falling headlong, he burst asunder in the midst and all his bowels gushed out.

He hung himself and apparently the rope broke and he fell some distance and went splat and his bowels went everywhere, so historical details and prophetic details. There’s a couple weird things here.

Matthew, quoting the prophecy back in chapter 7 – “Then was fulfilled that which was spoken by Jeremiah the prophet, saying, and they took the thirty pieces of silver” – the only problem is that Jeremiah is not the one who said it. Zechariah is. People have bandied this about trying to figure out what’s going on here. Did Matthew make a mistake? No. He’s an inspired apostle, he did not make a mistake, so what’s the point?

Again, this is exegetical and this is a history podcast…

But since it is a history podcast we had to investigate how Matthew was not mistaken.

Yes, and that’s kind of the point. He is historically accurate. If you go back and read Jeremiah, Jeremiah introduces the idea of the potter. We all know the potter, the clay – we all know the “Cannot I do to you as this potter does to the clay?” God says to Israel.

The best clay for making pots was above Gehenna, which we have run into before.

The garbage dump, right?

Yes, exactly, and it became a symbol for hell. In fact, to throw something to the potter came to mean to throw it to the garbage man or throw it to hell. Zechariah picks up this theme, or God picks it up for him, and counts out the number of pieces of silver involved. Zechariah presents Messiah as a shepherd who comes to shepherd God’s people with two staves, and yet they will not submit to him and so he breaks the staves and demands that he be paid for his services, or not. “Pay me or forbear. I really don’t care what you do,” and they weighed to him 30 pieces of silver, which is the price of a mature adult slave.

The Messiah comments, “What a goodly price they prize me at. Cast it to the potter in the house of the Lord.” It’s like “Drop it down the drain,” and yet he’s writing in the context of the can that Jeremiah had opened and he continues to pour out of.

We do need to remember that scripture is not a series of isolated books. You might go to a library and look at this book by this author who has one perspective, and this book by a different author who says something else. It’s all the word of God and all flows together. It’s all God’s word, so something that God begins in one book he can continue in another.

That was a common practice for citations throughout that time. You could cite the beginning of an idea and wrap in all the other collaborating texts.

And that’s what Matthew is doing here. He’s taking us back to the discussion of God’s sovereignty. God is the potter, we are the clay, and all of Israel’s history and all of Messiah’s sufferings are in his hand, and this is all charted out, so as believers read this they could have the reassurance that none of this was an accident. This was God’s plan. God has been working these things out. Anyhow, that’s the story of Judas. He is dead now and will later be replaced.

Now we flash back to the trial. Jesus comes and stands before Pilate, and we’re going to go to the gospel of John here. Interestingly enough, all the gospels move very quickly through what comes next. This is the first trial that Jesus will stand before Pilate.

We might also want to include Luke because he’s the one who actually gives the accusations of the priests. I noticed that was the only place. Everywhere else it says they accused him, but there it actually stops and say what they accused.

Thank you. I was hoping to get to that point where Pilate says, “What accusation do you bring?” and we get two different responses. In John’s it, “Well, if he weren’t evil we wouldn’t have brought him to you.”

Which is a great answer.

They probably got a nice glare from him at that point. Somehow I’m seeing a Monty Python scene, I’m sorry. “Well, we found him perverting the nation, telling us we can’t pay taxes to Caesar, and that he’s our king.” Yeah, right, okay.

The main question in every gospel is, “Are you the king of the Jews?” which was interesting to note in the previous trial with the Jews. They were focused on, “Are you the son of God?” but now they change the accusation and the tactic to something that Pilate will potentially grab onto more. Although they later will actually bring back “He says he’s the son of God” accusation to Pilate, and that will also kind of scare Pilate. “Actually that means I need to let him go.”

Then the letter from his wife. Anyway, somewhere in here he tells them, “Well, you take him. You’re not going to give me a straight answer so you take him and judge him.”

“It’s illegal for us to put anyone to death,” because John says, “The word of Jesus needs to be fulfilled when he spoke what kind of death he would die.” It’s the death of the tree, being lifted up. That’s the Roman cross. The Jews killed by stoning. Besides, the Jews didn’t have permission from Rome to enforce the death penalty, so Rome has to do it, and Pilate basically has said no. Probably at this point somebody raises the, “Well, he’s a tax rebel and he calls himself a king.” Then this from John 18 –

Then Pilate entered into the judgment hall again and called Jesus [who’s under guard, he’s not just wandering around] and said unto him, Art thou the King of the Jews?

Remember, Jesus has already been up for more than 24 hours straight. He hasn’t eaten in a while. He’s been pummeled about by the temple guard. He does not look impressive. Remember the whole Gethsemane thing with sweat that’s like blood. Pilate can look at him and say, “You’re the king of the Jews? Really? Ok, this ought to be good.” But if Jesus will simply say yes, then that makes everything so easy. Pilate can say, “Oh, you are? Fooled me. Anyway, off with his head or to the cross. Get rid of him.”

He’s figuring he’ll get a yes or no, but Jesus does not answer that way. Jesus does what he often does, actually. He asks for clarification. “What’s the context for your question?”

Sayest thou this thing of thyself or did others tell it thee of me?

“Is this a personal inquiry? Is this a personal matter? Are you a religious seeker, for lack of a better word, or are you just doing your job as someone who’s reading the complaints that have come across his desk and acting on them? It kind of matters how I’m going to answer the question.”

It’s kind of like, “Did you come up with that yourself?”

And it matters to know that the Jews are actually standing outside of the area where Jesus is, so there is a sense in which it seems that Pilate is acting as relay, so he’s going out to talk to them. They’re accusing and he’s bringing, so when Jesus answers nothing, he’s answering nothing of what they’re saying to Pilate. He’s not out there talking or failing to talk to them, which is also why he can ask this question.

It’s interesting too if Jesus hears from Pilate that the Jews have said that he’s the king of the Jews, that’s a witness of one kind, a confession.

So again Pilate doesn’t really know what to do with that. He answers, “Am I a Jew? Let’s get this straight. This is not a religious inquiry. I’m not a seeker. I’m not interested in Jewish pipe dreams. You know who I am and what I am. I’m a politician, I’m a royal governor, and I have a lot of pull so come on, can we get on with this please?”

Thine own nation and the chief priests have delivered thee unto me. What hast thou done?

It’s a straightforward question and Jesus gives him a straightforward answer. Again it’s just not the answer that Pilate is expecting.

Jesus answered, My kingdom is not of this world.

He doesn’t say it’s not in this world, but it’s not from this world. Source, origin, and nature are not determined by anything in this world. “Pilate, you know how political kingdoms work. You’ve got soldiers, you’ve got armies, strategy, tactics, weapons.”

If my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight, that I should not be delivered to the Jews, but now is my kingdom not from hence.

The good old Elizabethan word “hence.” It’s not from around these parts.

It just means here, but with the preposition that you go from hence to there – here to there.

But in there he did use the words “my kingdom” so “Alright, let’s try this again.” If all that Jesus has to do is admit that he is a king in some recognizable and political sense, then Pilate can order him executed – no skin off his nose. He can go back and catch a late nap or something. They got him up awfully early. It’s that simple.

Pilate therefore said unto him, Art thou a king then?

That’s where the other gospels all chime in. They don’t give us the background of what’s led up to this, but in each case they do give Jesus’ initial response, “Thou sayest.” I’ve suggested before that it should be read something like, “You said it, but those words probably don’t mean what you think they mean.” I ran into another variation today, “So you say.” There’s confirmation but not complete agreement. “Yes, the words are correct but don’t push that too far.”

“Thou sayest that I am a king.” [the other gospels don’t tell us the rest, but John does] “To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world.”

Jesus could have said this a million different ways – to bless all nations, to save the world, to bind all of humanity into one – all kinds of redemptive language that would suggest to the uninitiated some kind of aggression or political power or even simple divine power, but consistent with John’s theme that Jesus came to reveal God, Jesus simply says –

…that I should bear witness unto the truth. Everyone that is of the truth heareth my voice.

In other words, Pilate didn’t get what he’s looking for. He doesn’t know what to do with Jesus. He doesn’t know what to make of him. He simply knows that what he’s been told is a bunch of nonsense.

Now, what he does not understand is that the truth stands in complete antithesis to all of the lies on which Roman authority is built, so there is a political danger here. It’s just not the kind that he’s used to thinking about, not the antithesis of wars and armies, regiments and battalions and all that, but of truth in the heart that changes men’s allegiances and changes how they live, and that eventually rewrites their society, so from his point of view Jesus is not a threat. He’s just mistaken. He’s just not the kind of threat he’s used to dealing with, or the kind of threat the Jews have made him out to be. He’s not a political revolutionary. But he does get off that classic one-liner, “What is truth?”

As I said, he belongs to the Hellenistic Age, an age that has lost its grasp on truth, very like our age. From his point of view it’s mockable, it’s senseless, it doesn’t go anywhere, and yet he understands clearly that Jesus is not out to hurt people. He’s not a revolutionary. He’s not an insurgent or insurrectionist. He’s not like that guy in the dungeon right now named Barrabas. In that’s sense he’s harmless and innocent and the Jews have other motivations here. So there’s enough of a conscience in the guy that he wants to let Jesus go, and so we continue.

And when he had said this, he went out again unto the Jews and saith unto them, I find in him no fault at all.

We’re going to keep running into this. Pilate is the agent of Rome. God has given Rome control over his people and over the part of the world where he is most at work, so Pilate is working for God, whether he knows it or not. And working for Rome, working for God, he has just pronounced Jesus to be innocent, and he will continue to pronounce Jesus to be innocent, to be righteous, that there is no fault in him in any legal sense. When he orders him executed he does not write any crime as his accusation, merely that he is Jesus of Nazareth, the king of the Jews, something that the Pharisees and Sadducees don’t appreciate it all.

This is one of the reasons that the expression “suffered under Pontius Pilate” is in the creed as something that must be believed. It is important for our salvation that God with one hand announced that Jesus is actually innocent, righteous, just, and without fault, and then sort of with the other executes him for those very reasons.

Can you imagine today if there was a trial – because so many trials are very publicized – where the jury actually came back saying “Innocent,” and yet the judge turned around and sentenced them to immediate death. The outcry there would be over all of that! Even when a verdict comes back as guilty people get upset when they think somebody should have been innocent, but if they were actually declared innocent and then also punished…

Even when we want to believe that someone is innocent and they are lawfully proved to be guilty and then assigned due punishment we have riots in the streets. This is impressive in human history. Not only will Pilate say this, but by implication Herod will say it as well as he has a chance to pass judgement.

As we go to Luke’s gospel, the people begin to reinforce what they’ve already said.

He stirreth up the people, teaching throughout all Jewry beginning from Galilee to this place.

“Galilee? He wouldn’t be a Galilean would he?”

“Well, as a matter of fact, he is.”

“Oh!”

When Pilate heard of Galilee, he asked whether the man were a Galilaean. And as soon as he knew that he belonged unto Herod's jurisdiction, he sent him to Herod, who himself also was at Jerusalem at that time.

It was Passover and Herod claimed to be a good Jew, so of course he’s at Jerusalem.

And when Herod saw Jesus, he was exceeding glad for he was desirous to see him of a long season, because he had heard many things of him and he hoped to have seen some miracle done by him. Then he questioned with him in many words, but he answered him nothing.

This is one more evidence of God’s sense of humor. Herod is Idumean, he’s descended from Esau. Whereas Jesus will speak to Pilate, who is the Roman governor and Rome is the empire entrusted by God to rule the world right now, Herod is a jerk. Herod is the evil brother, as it were, and Herod is superstitious. Everybody was superstitious, but he’s really got it bad.

He is the one who executed John the Baptist. He is fascinated by weird people. He imprisoned John but then listened to him and had him regularly called before him to have himself no doubt personally attacked by the word of God through John’s mouth, but thought it was all great and cool and did a lot of stuff we’re told. Then John died and suddenly he starts hearing about Jesus and he becomes convinced that Jesus is John the Baptist risen from the dead.

As we read through the gospels there’s a weird back and forth. Sometimes Herod simply seems, as here, like he wants to meet Jesus because Jesus is a miracle worker and Herod likes the idea of miracle workers. How cool is that? But there are also times when the Jews imply that Herod is seeking Jesus to kill him. Is that just something that the Jews are trying to pawn off on Jesus? Or is Herod just that flip-flopsy topsy-turvy, bipolar? It’s hard to know at this distance.

Anyway, Jesus appears before him now and Herod is hoping to see a miracle. He’s thankful to Pilate for sending him a toy to play with, but the toy doesn’t work. Jesus won’t do anything. He just stands there while the chief priest and Pharisees continue to throw accusations, and Jesus is absolutely silent. Finally Herod gets tired of this.

And Herod with his men of war set him at nought and mocked him and arrayed him in a gorgeous robe and sent him again to Pilate. And the same day Pilate and Herod were made friends together: for before they were at enmity between themselves.

I think there’s a deep study in human personality and spiritual issues there. Pilate sent Jesus to Herod so that Herod would take him off his hands. You would think the thing that would make them friends, if Herod agreed to do that and took responsibility, but no. Herod bounces him right back and says, “Hey, you do it.” So why are they friends? Is it, “We’re both in this together now. We’re both guilty. Guilt loves company.”

There’s a seeming point of commonality in that they’re both hearing a lot of complaints from the Jews about this man that they find no fault with, which I think is enough to form a friendship.

Yes, there’s something in that. You sit around and talk to somebody that you don’t know very well and find out that you’re getting the same problems from the same people as they are. “Oh, you know what they said next?”

“Yeah, I can guess it was probably….”

“Yes, right! That’s exactly what they said.”

“And then you said…”

“Yes! And it didn’t go over very well.”

“No, it never does with these guys.”

Maybe it was something like that. It’s an interesting side observation that God believed we needed to know about.

It’s also interesting that Herod is actually the first one to start the process of surrounding Jesus with soldiers and basically mocking and beating him up. He’s the one that first puts the so-called royal robe on him that will show up later, but it seems like this is actually where it starts. I don’t know if he was trying to provoke Jesus or again was trying to kind of look for a show. “Hey, maybe if we dress him up and beat him up a little bit something will come out. Maybe if we hurt him he’ll do a miracle.”

That would be obvious, wouldn’t it. “Ooo, if we hurt the guy we’ll see a flash of power.” Or it’s just, “Well, this toy doesn’t work and that toy doesn’t work. Let’s put them together and see what happens.” Whatever. Herod is very childish and maybe he’s trying to provoke a response. Maybe he’s bored. Maybe he’s got nothing better to do on a Friday morning.

Maybe they got him up too early. He was grumpy.

So Jesus is sent back, and I’m going to go back to my harmony here to see what’s next. It’s about this time that Pilate begins to realize he’s got a problem. This is not out of any great sense of righteousness. He does have something of a conscience, but mostly he does not like being manipulated, and the Jews are trying to manipulate him. They’re trying to push his buttons, pull his strings, pick a metaphor.

For that and for other reasons he decides, “The guy is innocent. Hey, I’ve got it. We have this custom every year at the Feast of Passover. We release a prisoner.” Depending on how you read the gospels, he may have had suggested it first, or someone in the audience may have called it out, but very quickly they come to, “Yeah, yeah, that would work. That’s a custom we can fall back on.”

It turns out that they had, as Matthew says, a notable prisoner named Barrabas, which means ‘son of the father,’ for whatever that’s worth. He was bound with some of his friends. The King James says robbers or thieves. The better translation would be insurgents or terrorists. These were people who had stirred up some kind of revolution in the city, and in the process had killed some innocent people, and Barrabas is the ring leader.

Presumably this was kind of a release valve or escape valve that if Rome had arrested somebody that the Jews liked, probably for expressing political ideas that Rome didn’t, this would be a chance for Rome to kick the guy free with a warning of, “We’re watching you. Knock it off. Don’t do that anymore,” without losing face or seeming powerless or over-awed by common complaint. They could say, “Oh yeah, we do this.”

Mostly one thinks that in the past the people who had been released had been popular people, noble people, notable people, people who had the love and affection of the people at least on some level. So when Pilate says, “Hey, how about Barrabas?” he knows they don’t like Jesus, but surely there’s no way that between the two they’re going to accept Barrabas. He’s a terrorist with all that means. He’s a murderer, and the people he murdered probably had friends in the audience here, or at least they knew somebody who knew somebody. So it was just unthinkable in Pilate’s mind that these people would ask for Barrabas, and yet they do.

Matthew says that Pilate recognizes that they’ve delivered Jesus up because of envy. He knows that the religious leaders hate him because he’s developing a following. He’s challenging their authority. He’s challenging their leadership and their way of looking at things, and they just can’t tolerate that. Pilate understands that this is not a battle of ethics. This is a battle of tactics. “What can I offer you? I can make you an offer you can’t refuse. I dare you.”

While this is going on, or somewhere in this, Pilate gets a note from his wife. His wife apparently was something of a psychic or had psychic friends or something. She was also very superstitious and into the mystical. She had had dreams and the message she sends to Pilate is, “Have nothing to do with that just man, for I have suffered many things this day in a dream because of him.” Oh great. That was just what Pilate needed to hear right now.

Meanwhile, the chief priests and the elders are circulating through the crowd that’s formed. Word has gotten out apparently of what’s going on here and people have showed up in fairly large number, even though it is early morning on the morning of Passover. The chief priests are stirring up the multitude to demand Barrabas, so Pilate returns, “Who do you want?”

“Barrabas!”

“What should I do with the king of the Jews?”

“Kill him. Away with him. Give us Barrabas!” and Barrabas was a terrorist.

What shall I do then with Jesus which is called Christ?

Again, Pilate is trying to point out the absurdity of this. “You want me to let a terrorist and a murderer go free? You’re playing your literally one ‘get out of jail free’ card and you’re doing it to let this guy out. Based on that scale, what do you want me to do with Jesus then?” hoping to shame them into some kind of less-blood thirsty response, but their cry is now universal.

Matthew: “Let him be crucified.”

Mark: “Crucify him.”

Luke: “Crucify him, crucify him.”

Pilate asks, “Why? What evil has he done? I found no fault in him. I’ll therefore chastise him and release him.” So again, “He’s innocent! What’s going on here?” Again he pronounces, “He is not guilty of anything worthy of death, but I’ll chastise him and release him.”

Why are you chastising him? We’ll talk about chastisement maybe later or maybe next time, but it was not nice. It’s not a slap on the hand. It’s very vicious and it could actually kill you, but Pilate is willing to go that far in order to get them to back down. He’s hoping that when they see him beaten nearly to death, that on top of his repeated declarations that Jesus is innocent, will move them to face reality.

“This is what death looks like. We’re one step away. Is this really what you want? Is this really where this is going?”

Again Pilate could simply have said, “We’re done here. I’m setting him free,” but he’s still afraid. So to Pilate’s offer again:

Matthew: “They cried out exceedingly, ‘Let him be crucified.’”

Mark: “They cried out exceedingly, ‘Crucify him.’”

Luke: “Their voices were urgent with loud voices that he might be crucified.”

Now back to Matthew. This is another of Pilate’s techniques to try to get out of all of this.

Should we maybe pause here and save the rest for next time, because we are out of time.

Yes. If it’s just a few minutes more we can cut into our recommendations time, but if we’ve got a ways to go then we should stop here.

We’ve got a ways to go, so if you want to know what Pilate’s last-ditch way of trying to save Jesus was you have to tune in next time.

And we’ve got all of John’s extra discussions that Jesus and Pilate have together. That’s a point we don’t want to miss.

You are so right. I forgot about those. I was being overly optimistic thinking we could actually make it, but we did pretty well as we continue with the historicity of the gospels with regard to the crucifixion. These are not fairy tales. This is what really happened.

I looked under Pontius Pilate on Wikipedia. Wikipedia is fascinating to me because with every study of the topic of encyclopedias, Wikipedia comes up ranking pretty highly as far as a low rate of factual errors, as measured by whoever is conducting this experiment. But of course what Wikipedia can’t give you is a cohesive sense of what is important about the facts.

I had a teacher who would not lecture during our class time because he said, “You can find out everything you need to know about the facts from Wikipedia. What you can’t get from Wikipedia is an actual sense of what was important, and that’s why we’re having discussions in class time instead.”

One of the funny things about Pontius Pilate is there’s a note that he was probably married – probably. They say that the only extant reference to his wife, in which she tells him not to interact with Jesus after she has had a disturbing dream, is generally dismissed as legendary. “So given that there are so few historical documents that even mention this kind of puny governor in the scope of the Roman empire, we’re just going to throw out one entire source because it was written by Matthew.”

It was interesting when I read Brittanica they actually were quoting the Bible exact references with no question whatsoever. It was just like, “This happened [Bible reference].” It’s interesting that different sources will handle it differently.

And if you can go back and find a copy of Brittanica from say 1908 or something, I guarantee you that it will be even more conservative and Bible-friendly. Brittanica has come down in the world.

That’s the thing – histories are written by people.

By the way, when you read that quote – “It is generally believed…” – by whom? That is so passive. “Orders were given. Jews were killed.” You’re going to tell us that we shouldn’t believe this because people not yet named have generally believed this? “We know. We took a survey of all of these people, but we’re not going to tell you who they were. That would be telling.”

So this is your weekly (biweekly, semi-annual) reminder to read critically and remember that history books are written by people. Shall we close out with some recommendations? I’ll start.

I have been unable to put a book down today. It’s the fourth book in a series, but don’t let that fool you. It is one story. It’s a 5-book story. The series is called Lockwood and Co. The first book is The Screaming Staircase. It’s kind of young adult/fantasy/horror. It’s hunting ghosts, and the series gets really, really good. The first book or two were fun so I kept reading, and now I was trying to keep my infant son away from power outlets and such while having one eye on the page because I could not put the book down. It came with a strong personal recommendation and now I can reinforce that strong personal recommendation.

Mine is for another podcast. I often recommend podcasts so I’m recommending an additional podcast episode from Elisa Childers that she does with Christopher Yuan, who is an author that I really appreciate. I liked this one particularly because it’s on calling out false teachers and what does the Bible say. They’re addressing what they call the 11th commandment – basically “Thou shalt be nice or kind. You can never be mean to anybody.”

They do an excellent job of talking through what the Bible says about false teachers and the commands that we have towards false teachers, who Jesus praises in Revelation related to false teachers and who he condemns. I thought it was an excellent addressing of that.

Also apparently people often want to pull in Matthew 18 when somebody on a podcast is talking about somebody else’s view negatively, so they address what Matthew 18 actually means in terms of personal sins. This is not dealing with me saying that someone’s publicly published book has error in it. Overall it was a very good summary of all that in dealing with an important current issue.

They were leading up to a second podcast where they were talking about Side B theology related to homosexuality and such. I listened to it and it’s very long, so I probably wouldn’t recommend as much just because they’re actually calling out specific false teachers there and they get into a lot of the details of people I’ve never heard of. But the first one I found particularly helpful.

I’m a few chapters into a book that I just got. Rachel’s husband read it before I did because they were visiting, and his summary encouraged me to go ahead and read it. The book is called They Had Names: Tracing the History of North American Indigenous People. The author is Nathaniel Jeanson. He works with Answers in Genesis.

This is an expansion on his last book. He looks at what we know and can surmise about the history of the people who lived here before the coming of the white man, how we know it, why we know it, and how fascinating it is, and so far it is indeed fascinating.

I’ve never heard of any work on this topic. Please keep talking.

Exactly. He takes the first couple chapters to say, “And when I was growing up I never heard anybody talk about this at all,” but using the science of genetics and working backward, as it were, and then accepting some of the documents that originally represented oral traditions, but sometime in the late 1700 or early 1800s they were actually written down, and comparing the findings he’s coming up with a real history of what I grew up calling American Indians, what today we call Native Americans or indigenous peoples or First Nations or whatever. It's really good. It’s very fascinating.

The Red Book that describes the history of the Delaware nation starts with the words, “After the flood…” and it tells about exactly what you would expect, a migration across an ice bridge between Siberia and Alaska. Thanks to genetics we’re now able to date the times and such. So if you’re a student of American history or any history of the ancient world, if you want to know how the world got populated, you want to know how genetics can be used in new surprising ways, it’s a fun book.

This book is a little more simply written than his last one, a little less detailed, and you may end up having to go back and buy the first one if you really want to get rigorous in your science, but so far this one is pretty straightforward and it is a lot of fun. The assumptions throughout of course are Christian. That is They Had Names.

Thank you both so much for this conversation. It’s been a delight as always. A big thank you also to David, our producer and my lawfully-wedded husband. Thank you also to our social media managers, Lilia and Rebecca.

Rebecca shot me a message this week as she was reviewing a previous episode for release where I said, “I don’t know where you find the Substack. You probably just Google it.” She says, “Emily, it’s linked in the show notes in the description every single time!” So if you want to get our podcast as a transcript in your email inbox there’s a link in the description. Now I know.

Speaking of transcripts, a big thank you to our transcriptionist. We appreciate her. She donates her time to make this podcast available to you.

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