Peter Marchant: The Trouble with Pilate

[Giuseppe]

I note that Laura Knight-Jadczyk has arrived, even before Marchant, to the dangerous connection of Pilate with the crucifixion of Judas the Galilean:

Because he always refers to Christ crucified, Christ on the cross. Apparently Paul had something pretty profound happen to him, so my speculation is that the reason that the date for - and you can find this in some of the early Christian literature - that they refer back to the time of the beginning of the gospels, not back to the time of the crucifixion. In fact the earliest Christian literature makes no mention whatsoever of an earthly Jesus, a real man or anybody who was even known. They make no mention whatsoever. They refer back to the beginning of their gospel.
If my idea is correct, then that means that Paul was converted in about 29 or 30 AD and somehow they got this mixed up. They decided they had to find the right evil procurator of Judea to do the crucifying and somehow, somewhere along the way, Pontius Pilate was mentioned as having executed somebody who was very important to the Jews, so Pontius Pilate was obviously the one who did it. The only problem is, Pontius Pilate executed Judas the Galilean in 19 AD and the Apostle Paul began his gospel in 30 AD and the two became conflated. And that's the big problem.

https://www.sott.net/article/314412-Beh ... ht-Jadczyk

It doesn't seem at all that "Mark" (author) had a such problem. Mark mentions only Pilate as killer of Jesus. Period. Quirinus was introduced by Luke for anti-marcionite reasons (== Luke needed someone registering the birth of Jesus "by a woman, under the law" in the annals of the history, and he found Quirinus, of which the pun with the Cyrenaic has to be not missed: the birth and the death were witnessed resp. by someone named Quirinus/Cyrenaic). So Eusebius is victim of the Luke's anti-marcionism when he insists that Jesus was not crucified shortly after the census of Quirinius since by then Jesus was yet a children.

Laura goes contra Occam in her attempt to fit an entirely genuine Paul in her theory: if she had read Turmel, then accordingly she would have no problems to accept a historical Paul who was a mere follower of Judas the Galilean.

[Giuseppe]

So Laura:

. The Testimonium Flavianum is, in fact, “The Dog That Didn’t Bark”. Josephus repeatedly refers to Judas the Galilean in various guises throughout his works, but never mentions his death. That is astonishing. Josephus is so interested in this personage that every time he mentions a descendant, he recites the pedigree – even if pejoratively. The life and legacy of Judas the Galilean is the thread of Ariadne that leads one out of the labyrinth of Josephus. The question that Unterbrink asks which is the obvious question to ask – is this: Was the spurious Jesus passage a replacement for Judas’s death by crucifixion? The death of Judas by crucifixion should not be seriously doubted. Judas fights against Rome, actions punishable by crucifixion. In addition, two of Judas’s sons, James and Simon, are crucified a generation later (46–48 CE).[323] As I said, Unterbrink speculates freely, but his attention to the texts could be said to be more perspicacious than that of most biblical scholars. He adduces a lot of evidence that is convincing, and one of the matters that he takes up is the dates of the birth and death of the alleged Jesus of Nazareth (according to the gospels) and how these are clues that lead directly to Judas the Galilean. Using a convoluted (but interesting) set of texts and reasoning, he concludes that Judas was executed in 19 AD. I am arguing the same point, though I am coming at it from a very different angle and for a different reason. The bottom line is that the rebellion (including the cleansing of the Temple), the capture, and the execution of Judas the Galilean is what occupied the space where the anemic Testimonium Flavianum now stands.

(my bold)

[GakuseiDon]

It doesn't seem at all that "Mark" (author) had a such problem. Mark mentions only Pilate as killer of Jesus. Period.

.
Well,no, not "period". gMark soft-pedals Pilate's action, and includes the high priests and elders as being involved, which I believe is consistent with what we see in Paul:

Mark.15
1. And straightway in the morning the chief priests held a consultation with the elders and scribes and the whole council, and bound Jesus, and carried him away, and delivered him to Pilate.
2. And Pilate asked him, Art thou the King of the Jews? And he answering said unto him, Thou sayest it.
3. And the chief priests accused him of many things: but he answered nothing.
4. And Pilate asked him again, saying, Answerest thou nothing? behold how many things they witness against thee.
5. But Jesus yet answered nothing; so that Pilate marvelled.
6. Now at that feast he released unto them one prisoner, whomsoever they desired.
7. And there was one named Barabbas, which lay bound with them that had made insurrection with him, who had committed murder in the insurrection.
8. And the multitude crying aloud began to desire him to do as he had ever done unto them.
9. But Pilate answered them, saying, Will ye that I release unto you the King of the Jews?
10. For he knew that the chief priests had delivered him for envy.
11. But the chief priests moved the people, that he should rather release Barabbas unto them.
12. And Pilate answered and said again unto them, What will ye then that I shall do unto him whom ye call the King of the Jews?
13. And they cried out again, Crucify him.
14. Then Pilate said unto them, Why, what evil hath he done? And they cried out the more exceedingly, Crucify him.
15. And so Pilate, willing to content the people, released Barabbas unto them, and delivered Jesus, when he had scourged him, to be crucified.
16. And the soldiers led him away into the hall, called Praetorium; and they call together the whole band.
17. And they clothed him with purple, and platted a crown of thorns, and put it about his head,
18. And began to salute him, Hail, King of the Jews!
19. And they smote him on the head with a reed, and did spit upon him, and bowing their knees worshipped him.
20. And when they had mocked him, they took off the purple from him, and put his own clothes on him, and led him out to crucify him.
21. And they compel one Simon a Cyrenian, who passed by, coming out of the country, the father of Alexander and Rufus, to bear his cross.
22. And they bring him unto the place Golgotha, which is, being interpreted, The place of a skull.
23. And they gave him to drink wine mingled with myrrh: but he received it not.
24. And when they had crucified him, they parted his garments, casting lots upon them, what every man should take.
25. And it was the third hour, and they crucified him.
26. And the superscription of his accusation was written over, THE KING OF THE JEWS.
27. And with him they crucify two thieves; the one on his right hand, and the other on his left.
28. And the scripture was fulfilled, which saith, And he was numbered with the transgressors.
29. And they that passed by railed on him, wagging their heads, and saying, Ah, thou that destroyest the temple, and buildest it in three days,
30. Save thyself, and come down from the cross.
31. Likewise also the chief priests mocking said among themselves with the scribes, He saved others; himself he cannot save.
32. Let Christ the King of Israel descend now from the cross, that we may see and believe. And they that were crucified with him reviled him.

There is a similar scene in gMatthew.

In gLuke, the rulers and the high priests are actually named, and Luke 24 blames the high priests and rulers generally for the crucifixion:

Luke.3
1. Now in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate being governor of Judaea, and Herod being tetrarch of Galilee, and his brother Philip tetrarch of Ituraea and of the region of Trachonitis, and Lysanias the tetrarch of Abilene,
2. Annas and Caiaphas being the high priests, the word of God came unto John the son of Zacharias in the wilderness.

Luke 23:
13. And Pilate, when he had called together the chief priests and the rulers and the people,
14. Said unto them, Ye have brought this man unto me, as one that perverteth the people: and, behold, I, having examined him before you, have found no fault in this man touching those things whereof ye accuse him:

35. And the people stood beholding. And the rulers also with them derided him, saying, He saved others; let him save himself, if he be Christ, the chosen of God.

Luke 24:
19. And he said unto them, What things? And they said unto him, Concerning Jesus of Nazareth, which was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people:
20. And how the chief priests and our rulers delivered him to be condemned to death, and have crucified him.

So gMark might well support Laura Knight-Jadczyk's point: that Jesus was being confused with a revolutionary Judas of Galilea whose rebellion had religious implications that involved the Jewish high priests and elders as well as the Roman overlords of the time.

[MrMacSon]

... gMark soft-pedals Pilate's action, and includes the high priests and elders as being involved, which I believe is consistent with what we see in Paul

What passages in Paul do you have in mind?

[MrMacSon]

I note that Laura Knight-Jadczyk has arrived...to the dangerous connection of Pilate with the crucifixion of Judas the Galilean:

https://www.sott.net/article/314412-Beh ... ht-Jadczyk
.

There's lot that's interesting in that commentary eg.

.
And then there was this clever guy, Daniel Underbrink and his book Judas the Galilean; where his idea was that Judas basically was the model for Jesus. Judas was Jesus and of course everything else; Paul was evil, Paul was a liar.1 And this is Robert Eisenman's idea that Paul was the liar in the Dead Sea scrolls. And of course he [ie. Eisenman] got into a lot of the Dead Sea scrolls and so on and so forth ...

So that was when I made this little discovery that my book is kind of focused on, which is the fact that I am convinced...that Pontius Pilate was not in Judea in 26/27 to 36 or 37 AD. He was in fact there from 14 or 15 to 19, which was just about four or five years. And the evidence is pretty much there in Josephus if you work between Josephus' Wars and his Antiquities, and work with that, with Tacitus as your control, your yardstick, you find that it's pretty darn certain, based on a whole pile of circumstantial evidence because of course there's no smoking gun. When you've got a text that has been manipulated and has been corrected or had something added or interpolated into it, other people are going to argue, "Oh that was original!" But if you're a believer, you're going to argue for all of the falseness of the text. If you're not a believer, you're going to say it's obvious that 'that' was added.

But in any event, when you take Pontius Pilate out of the time period in which he is supposed to have been there, when he's supposed to have executed this Jesus person for whom absolutely not a shred of evidence exists that he was a real person, it basically pulls the rug out from under the whole Christian myth. But the interesting thing about that is that it then makes other things make a lot more sense because [Daniel] Underbrink was right.

The Jewish model for Jesus was Judas the Galilean and he was also right that Paul was on about something else. 1 But he was wrong that Paul was evil and so is Eisenman about Paul being the liar ...

And they also used Paul's epistles for a lot of their doctrinal work. People go on and they say, "Well how come Paul says this and this but Jesus never said that. Paul says the lord said it. Why didn't Paul quote Jesus on this because if he'd been familiar with the story of Jesus he would have quoted him when he was trying to make a certain point, but he never did."

And then on the other hand you find things that Paul said reappearing in the mouth of Jesus. But Paul never [gave] Jesus credit for it.

Well there's a reason for that. It's because the gospels were written after the 'fact'. Many sayings of Jesus came from Paul. And also interestingly, some saying of Jesus came from Julius Caesar. And the life story of Jesus is largely the life story of Caesar, the passion is that of Caesar and there's also some Paul in there. There are also some episodes that are taken from Homeric stories as Dennis R. MacDonald has shown in his books about the gospels. And there's a big part of it that is formed up on the Elijah/Elisha narrative. Basically the persons who were writing these texts were familiar with the rhetorical norms of the day. They were familiar with certain literature and they most definitely were really working Josephus.
.

[GakuseiDon]

... gMark soft-pedals Pilate's action, and includes the high priests and elders as being involved, which I believe is consistent with what we see in Paul

What passages in Paul do you have in mind?

The one related to the rulers crucifying the Lord of Glory. I didn't want to quote it because I didn't want to derail this thread (which I have the unfortunate habit of doing!) My point is that one consistent theme in the earliest Christian literature is that the crucifixion was a group effort, contra to Giuseppe's point that in gMark, Mark mentions only Pilate as killer of Jesus.

[MrMacSon]

I'm not convinced Judas the Galilean was the sole model for the gospel accounts of Jesus of Nazareth, but it's an interesting proposition in light of this framing -

So Laura:

... Josephus repeatedly refers to Judas the Galilean in various guises throughout his works, but never mentions his death. That is astonishing. Josephus is so interested in this personage that every time he mentions a descendant, he recites the pedigree – even if pejoratively. The life and legacy of Judas the Galilean is the thread of Ariadne that leads one out of the labyrinth of Josephus. The question that Unterbrink asks which is the obvious question to ask – is this: Was the spurious Jesus passage a replacement for Judas’s death by crucifixion? The death of Judas by crucifixion should not be seriously doubted. Judas fights against Rome, actions punishable by crucifixion. In addition, two of Judas’s sons, James and Simon, are crucified a generation later (46–48 CE).[323] As I said, Unterbrink speculates freely, but his attention to the texts could be said to be more perspicacious than that of most biblical scholars. He adduces a lot of evidence that is convincing, and one of the matters that he takes up is the dates of the birth and death of the alleged Jesus of Nazareth (according to the gospels) and how these are clues that lead directly to Judas the Galilean. Using a convoluted (but interesting) set of texts and reasoning, he concludes that Judas was executed in 19 AD. I am arguing the same point, though I am coming at it from a very different angle and for a different reason. The bottom line is that the rebellion (including the cleansing of the Temple), the capture, and the execution of Judas the Galilean is what [could have] occupied the space where the anemic Testimonium Flavianum now stands.

(my bold)

Giuseppe, where is this from? (it doesn't seem to be from that interview ie. https://www.sott.net/article/314412-Beh ... ht-Jadczyk)

[MrMacSon]

My point is that one consistent theme in the earliest Christian literature is that the crucifixion was a group effort

That's an interesting and likely pertinent point, especially with Jesus having roles as both (i) a king [and prophet] of Israel' and (ii) as a personification of Israel, and possibly as a potential representative of other peoples --ethne or nations -- defeated by Rome.

.
The crucifixion of Jesus is exhibit Number One for evidence of the violence at the heart of Roman rule. The basic facts about Roman crucifixion lay bare the charge: (1) crucifixion was the act of nailing a person to a makeshift tree until they slowly died; (2) Romans crucified hundreds of thousands of those they conquered; (3) such government crucifixions were intentionally undertaken as public torture and terrorism; and (4) many of 'the early communities of the Anointed' emphasized the centrality of crucifixion for defining who they were.

Early Anointed-association envoy Paul said, “I know nothing but Jesus Anointed and him crucified” (1 Cor. 2:2). The Gospel of Mark has Jesus saying, “Those who want to be a follower of mine . . . let them take up a cross” (8:34). Paul understands himself and his relationship to Jesus associations in terms of crucifixion: “I am crucified with the Anointed, and yet I am alive” (Gal. 2:20) ...

The assassination of Julius Caesar in 44 BCE was less what ended Rome’s Republic and more a perfect picture of what Rome had become. Violence and combat became the trademark of Rome’s rising power in the Mediterranean ...


Although Rome had a relatively early code of written laws, lawyers, and judges ... no legal protections prevented conquered peoples from being tortured. Crucifixion was legal and designated as the punishment for noncitizens fomenting revolt against Rome. Roman officials were always on the lookout for potential rebellion in the empire.

Rome normally tolerated local religions while requiring participants to offer sacrifices to the honor of the emperor and to pray for him, so the many religions in the Roman Empire had roots in the conquered nations and tribes ...

Because of the breadth of the spread of the practice of Israel throughout the empire, Rome exempted Israelites from the requirement of sacrifice, but not from praying for the emperor.

Early Jesus groups feared Rome’s oppression and brutality. They responded to Roman violence with anger, but also through imagination, resistance, and humor ... they worked to stop Rome from damaging their lives and to help people heal from torture and loss.

Telling the story of Jesus’s crucifixion in an open way, and celebrating it, was an act of resistance to Rome. Jesus’s crucifixion was not unique but was duplicated over and over throughout the empire, and the stories of Jesus being tortured to death allied his story with those of hundreds of thousands similarly executed.

Early Jesus groups dramatically described how their Anointed leader was crucified by Roman soldiers. They proclaimed openly that Jesus was an executed enemy of the state. Later Christians obscured Rome’s violence by highlighting Jesus being crucified to save people from their sins. Without being side-tracked by that later Christian doctrine, most [early] communities of the Anointed...publicly acknowledged the paradox that Rome’s defeat of Jesus the Anointed was actually Rome’s defeat.

Erin Vearncombe; Brandon Scott; Hall Taussig; The Westar Institute. After Jesus, Before Christianity, pp. 33-7; 41-43. HarperOne.
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Hebrews 13:12-15, in the wider context of vv. 7-16, might be an appeal to more than just 'Christians'

.
7 Remember your leaders, who spoke the word of God to you. Consider the outcome of their way of life and imitate their faith. 8 Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.

9 Do not be carried away by all kinds of strange teachings. It is good for our hearts to be strengthened by grace, not by eating ceremonial foods, which is of no benefit to those who do so. 10 We have an altar from which those who minister at the tabernacle have no right to eat.

11 The high priest carries the blood of animals into the Most Holy Place as a sin offering, but the bodies are burned outside the camp. 12 And so Jesus also suffered outside the city gate to make the people holy through his own blood. 13 Let us, then, go to him outside the camp, bearing the disgrace he bore. 14 For here we do not have an enduring city, but we are looking for the city that is to come.

15 Through Jesus, therefore, let us continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise—the fruit of lips that openly profess his name. 16 And do not forget to do good and to share with others, for with such sacrifices God is pleased.
.

[Giuseppe]

It doesn't seem at all that "Mark" (author) had a such problem. Mark mentions only Pilate as killer of Jesus. Period.

.
Well,no, not "period". gMark soft-pedals Pilate's action, and includes the high priests and elders as being involved,

the high priests and elders are obviously scapegoat to make Pilate innocent. In addition, only Pilate is named, hence the others din't count at all, sorry .

In addition, a Paul with 1 Cor 2:6-8 can't be mentioned in this discussion, because an authentic 1 Cor 2:6-8 implies mythicism IMHO.

[Giuseppe]

Giuseppe, where is this from?

https://it.scribd.com/document/31678627 ... er-of-Time