maryhelena wrote: ↑Wed Mar 07, 2018 8:59 am
The JC crucifixion story aside, there is still a historical problem with Pilate having such a very long time in office.
The arguments put forward by Daniel Schwartz for a 18/19 c.e. appointment of Pilate to office in Judea are indeed compelling. However, these arguments sidestep the Josephan statements regarding the years in office given to Gratus and Pilate i.e. the 11 and 10 years respectively. Seemingly, there are no manuscript variants of these years:Why is that a problem? I know it would be longer than any other prefect/procurator, but Josephus already praises Tiberius for having appointed only two of them, so the combined tenures of Gratus and Pilate are already probably going to be longer than the combined tenures of any other pair. And according to Tacitus, writing from the point of view of necessary Roman interventions into Judean affairs, sub Tiberio quies: so there would be little need for Tiberius to replace Judean prefects/procurators during his reign.
Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected 4 times to the US presidency, and died during that fourth term. No other president was elected even to 3 terms (and the number of terms is now restricted by law). So Roosevelt really stands out in the list of presidents. If Pilate stands out in the list of prefects/procurators, well, Josephus and Tacitus have given us some decent reasons for it, I think.
Rather than so easily deny authenticity for the numerical data in Josephus re the 11 and 10 years of Gratus and Pilate - perhaps there is something to learn from them. Perhaps the 11 years Josephus gives Gratus were not 11 consecutive years but made up of two periods in which he was governor in Judea. Perhaps Gratus was in office 4 years prior to Pilate and 7 years after Pilate. Thus 11 years - and Pilate's 10 years running from 18/19 to 28/29 c.e. Yes, it is of course possible that Pilate was in office for 18 or so years - but the Josephan numerical date allows for an alternative approach.
It is the gLuke JC story that requires Pilate to be in Judea at the end of Tiberius' rule in 36/37 c.e. . (JC birth in 6 c.e., baptism about 30 years.) gLuke moved the Jesus story from it's setting in the Acts of Pilate in the 7th year of Tiberius to the end of the rule of Tiberius. Story is one thing.....the historical question for Josephus is which Roman governor was in Judea from 28/29 c.e. to the end of Tiberius' rule. Was it a second term for Gratus or was it Pilate having a very long rule - a long rule that has no precedent in length.
Josephus does not say Gratus had two terms of office in Judea - but he also did not give the date for the death of Germanicus in 19 c.e.....an omission that contributed to the 26 c.e. dating for Pilate.
''Those who read Josephus all by himself will never know, for example, that Germanicus died in 19 CE
(a point that is quite clear in Tacitus’ annalistic narrative [see n. 75] but not at all indicated by Josephus), hence never have the occasion to wonder why Josephus juxtaposed that death with the beginning of Pilate’s tenure, something that apparently contradicts Josephus’ dating of that tenure – a point which we may pursue as we like, whether to learn more about Pilate or, rather, more about Josephus.''
Apart from these considerations there are difficulties with Josephus's ending of Pilate's rule in Judea....dealing with Vitellius visiting Jerusalem once or twice - and how long it took Pilate to get to Rome....i.e. the end of Pilate's appointment to Judea is not without questions.
-----------------------------------------
added later
It seems evident that there is an accommodation between Josephus and the gospel of Luke. gLuke's chronology for it's Jesus story requires Pilate to be in Jerusalem at the end of the rule of Tiberius. It also requires the figure of John the Baptist (John in Josephus) to be active at the end of Tiberius's rule. The Josephan writer 'fixed' these two problems for gLuke. The idea has been advanced that the John the Baptist appearance at the end of Tiberius's rule is a sort of flashback. On that argument then so too could be the appearance of Pilate.....
Why did the writer of gLuke move away from the Acts of Pilate timeline and it's 7th year of Tiberius Jesus crucifixion - a timeline supported by stories in Slavonic Josephus? Regardless of whatever suggestions could be made the consequences are pretty evident.....by attempting to rule out or deny an earlier version of the Jesus story, the gLuke version helped towards the historicizing, the canonizing, of gLuke's Jesus figure...whether intentionally or accidentally. Pilate became the fall guy to make it all work....his time in office in Judea left to Josephan ambiguity....