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Home > Magazines > Bible Review > June 2004
Pilate in the Dock

For the Defense

By Paul L. Maier

Did the gospel writers whitewash the role of Pontius Pilate on Good Friday, portraying him as a magistrate who condemned Jesus only under pressure from a Jewish prosecution, when in fact Pilate really wanted Jesus on the cross? This revisionist portrait of Pilate—presented to BR readers by Professor Stephen J. Patterson in “The Dark Side of Pilate” (December 2003)—is becoming normative among many biblical scholars today. As seen through this nontraditional lens, the evangelists, motivated by the growing dispute between church and synagogue in the first century, magnified Jewish involvement at Jesus’ trial; the traditional role of Pilate, as […]

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Footnotes

1.

The longest was Pilate’s predecessor, Valerius Gratus, 15–26 A.D.

Endnotes

1.

Philo, Embassy to Gaius 299–305.

2.

See Paul L. Maier, “The Episode of the Golden Roman Shields at Jerusalem,” Harvard Theological Review, January 1969, pp. 109–121.

3.

Josephus, Jewish War 2.169-174.

4.

Josephus, Jewish War 2.175-177.

5.

Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 20:254.

6.

See Maier, Pontius Pilate (New York: Doubleday, 1968, Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel, 1990), p. 359. Surplus from the half-shekel temple dues is discussed in the Mishnah, Shekalim 4.2.

7.

Josephus, Jewish War 6:118ff.

8.

Josephus, Jewish War 2.177.

9.

Philo, Embassy.

10.

Tacitus, Annals 15:44.

11.

See Zvi Greenhut, “Burial Cave of the Caiphas Family,” and Ronny Reich, “Caiphas Name Inscribed on Bone Boxes,” in Biblical Archaeology Review, September/October 1992, pp. 28–44.

12.

Josephus, Antiquities 20:200, as translated by Paul L. Maier, ed., Josephus: The Essential Works (Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel, 1994), p. 281.

13.

He was otherwise known as James the Just of Jerusalem, the first bishop of the church (see Acts 15 and Eusebius, Church History). The discovery of what may well be his ossuary, first announced by Biblical Archaeology Review in November/December 2002, is still being debated. For more on James, see Ben Witherington III, “Bringing James Out of the Shadows,” and Jerome Murphy-O’Connor, “Where Was James Buried?” in BR, June 2003.

14.

For further discussion on this theme, see Paul L. Maier, “Who Killed Jesus?” Christianity Today (April 9, 1990), pp. 16–19, and In the Fullness of Time—A Historian Looks at Christmas, Easter, and the Early Church (Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel, 1997), pp. 145ff.