Pilate

Abstract

Abstract Visitors to Lucerne in Switzerland may wonder why one of the nearby mountains is Mount Pilatus. The reason is that Pontius Pilate is said to be buried under it, according to an apocryphal text. Pilate is a New Testament character whose role in the trial of Jesus and whose subsequent career figure extensively in the apocryphal literature. Reasons for this interest in the Roman governor ‘s place in the Jesus story are not hard to find. The same motives lie behind the earlier, New Testament, interest in him. Crucifixion was known as a distinctively Roman form of capital punishment. In any telling of Jesus ‘ story his manner of death could not be avoided, and, as it was a death by crucifixion, Roman involvement at some stage in the judicial process had to be explained. Hence all the New Testament accounts tell how Pontius Pilate, the Procurator of Judaea, was the Roman official who passed the death sentence on Jesus. If one reads those accounts in the likeliest chronological sequence, first Mark, then Matthew, Luke, and finally John, one can discern a developing tradition regarding Pilate. The evangelists ‘ differing emphases reflect the early church ‘s sensitivity in handling Pilate ‘s involvement in the trial of Jesus at a time when a growing number of converts to Christianity were coming from a non-Jewish background, when the church was spreading throughout the Empire, and when Christianity was becoming increasingly dependent on the goodwill of the Roman authorities. Basically, the evangelists were embarrassed or reluctant to blame Pilate for the death of Jesus.