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PaperclipPerfector  3mo ago (text post)   32205 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of May 12, 2025

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The idea that it was Pilate's job to follow "due process" and that he was "derelict in his duty" is delightfully ahistorical. The laws which Pilate followed were the laws of Rome. Roman law was not very concerned with the rights of non-citizens, their brothels and salt mines were full of slaves. And Jesus was very much not a Roman citizen. As a military governor, the job ob Pontius Pilate, as far as the Senate was concerned, was to keep the peace and facilitate the extraction of wealth. How he did this was totally up to him. If one day he woke up and decided to drown a tenths of the infants in Jerusalem in boiling pig fat, Rome would only object to that as far as it lead to instability.

The fact that he even personally bothered to preside over the case is more a concession to the political touchiness of the subject than any due process. Quite frankly, the local elites were really pissed at Jesus because he had interfered with their religion by causing a ruckus with the money-changers (which ultimately threatened their business model). And Pilate decided that it would be in Rome's best interests to placate them by putting Jesus to death. Given that the followers of Jesus did not rise up in rebellion, it is hard to argue that he was wrong with his decision. (A Gibbonite would blame the fall of Rome on Christianity, but Pilate could not possibly have foreseen that.)

Quite frankly, by messing with religious institutions, Jesus was kind of asking for it, either intentionally or in a FAFO way. Most places and times did not have strong freedom of speech norms, and Jesus would have fared little better if he had criticized dominant religious practices in pretty much any culture. If he had tried his little stunt in front of the temple of Athena or Saturn or Odin or a medieval cathedral or in early Boston or in front of a mosque in contemporary Tehran or Riyadh or in front of some Buddhist temple in Myanmar, he would have fared little better. Sure, in today's Western world, he might have gotten away with just a night in a prison cell and a fine (or no penalty at all if he had opted to practice his free speech by just demonstrating with a sign "God hates money-changers"), but of all the atrocities committed in the name of Rome, the killing of Jesus likely does not even make the top million.

If we ask what most defines the bad governor the singular example is "He has an innocent man put to death." Whatever the truth of Pilate's reasoning, he was in dereliction of his greater duty to good governance. You call to cold practicality. Kill the innocent rebel, end the movement, prevent instability and possibly save many lives. Those bad but "necessary" decisions don't come from nothing, rather they come as the long consequences of earlier bad decisions and failures. How many seemed necessary at the time?

There is also a nice irony to preventing instability. Jesus, who held tremendous draw, offended the elders. They wanted him killed and they were appeased. Bar Kokhba also had draw; thus went Judea.

Good points, but it bears pointing out that the Gospels record that Pilate repeatedly said "this man has done no wrong" and that ultimately he declared "his blood isn't on my head, it's on yours". So, our primary sources tell us that he knew damn well that it was a miscarriage of justice and that it was wrong to carry that out (otherwise he wouldn't have disclaimed the guilt). I think it's pretty fair to call that derelict of his duty, since it's apparent from the narrative that his duty was to dispense justice. At best you can say that he had two duties in conflict, but that doesn't mean he didn't neglect one of them.

of all the atrocities committed in the name of Rome, the killing of Jesus likely does not even make the top million.

From the secular perspective, sure. From the Christian perspective (which, remember is what this whole discussion has been about) nothing else can really come close to "killing God" on a list of atrocities. So I would say that depends a great deal on your stance on other things.

According to not-the-gospels Pilate however, Jesus had done wrong and his blood was gladly taken on, as befits the role and dignity of a roman magistrate.

The Gospels' portrayal of Pilate is "widely assumed" to diverge greatly from that found in Josephus and Philo,[85] as Pilate is portrayed as reluctant to execute Jesus and pressured to do so by the crowd and Jewish authorities.

John P. Meier notes that in Josephus, by contrast, "Pilate alone [...] is said to condemn Jesus to the cross."[86] Some scholars believe that the Gospel accounts are completely untrustworthy: S. G. F. Brandon argued that in reality, rather than vacillating on condemning Jesus, Pilate unhesitatingly executed him as a rebel.[87]

Paul Winter explained the discrepancy between Pilate in other sources and Pilate in the gospels by arguing that Christians became more and more eager to portray Pontius Pilate as a witness to Jesus' innocence, as persecution of Christians by the Roman authorities increased.[88]

Bart Ehrman argues that the Gospel of Mark, the earliest one, shows the Jews and Pilate to be in agreement about executing Jesus (Mark 15:15), while the later gospels progressively reduce Pilate's culpability, culminating in Pilate allowing the Jews to crucify Jesus in John (John 19:16). He connects this change to increased "anti-Judaism". wiki

The entirely of the Testimonium Flavium, as we have it today:

Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man, for he was a doer of wonderful works, a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him both many of the Jews, and many of the Gentiles. He was the Christ; and when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men amongst us, had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him, for he appeared to them alive again the third day, as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him; and the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct to this day.

That's not "diverged greatly," that's just short.

Without the cinematic parts of washing his hands, calling jesus innocent, saying his blood’s on their heads, it’s normal roman governor behaviour. He’s there to maintain peace and render justice onto the barbarians, there’s zero dereliction of duty in that account. And I don’t appreciate those so-called “christians’“ tarring of a roman senator as a weak-willed incompetent.

I can't help but think this is kind of a silly conversation. The Testimonium Flavianum is a known and obvious forgery, as @Jazzhands' link notes. It's ridiculous to take a forgery as evidence of anything about reality. Yes, it might have been altered from a Josephan original passage, but we don't have the Josephan original passage, and are basically taking wild guesses at what it might have said; this is okay-ish if all you care about is whether Josephus referred to Jesus at all, but anything further is trying to walk on clouds.

Historians of Jesus Christ run into a peculiar contradiction when it comes to trying to figure out the precise circumstances of his death. On one hand they need him to be a minor figure of the time that he wouldn't attract the attention of contemporary historians, on the other hand they need something egregious enough that it would lead to extraordinary application of the law.

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