Did Pilate Ask the Jews to Choose Between Jesus and Barabbas
One the part of the Crucifixion that strikes my as obvious propaganda is the moment when Pilate asked assembled Jews if he should kill Jesus or the other man on trial, Barabbas. In the tale Jews tell him to kill Jesus. Pilate thinks he has no choice. He sets Barabbas free and orders Jesus killed. Bart Ehrman, whose field is critical analysis of the Bible, explained some years ago why the evidence we have points toward this story as myth.
There is no recorded history, independent of the Bible, which describes Pontius Pilate as anything but ruthless. There are other references to him independent of the Bible. All of them without exception show him to be an off-with-their-heads kind of administrator. He was considered very efficient. There is no evidence of other political figures opposing him getting some kind of attention or recognition. They all went to their gruesome deaths. If there was a Barabbas, he also would have received no mercy.
There is no plausible reason to think an efficient administrator would have had any interest in attending whatever went on at the crosses. Bodies were put up as warnings to others with political ambitions. Hanging black corpses in the U. S. South were left on display for exactly the same purpose. The body of some trouble maker like Jesus would not have been given to anyone but hung and eaten by birds.
The character "Barabbas" was inserted in the story but is mentioned no where else in the Bible. "Barabbas" was no doubt a fictional creation also.
As my Baptist preacher friend, Howard Bess, likes to point out, stories in the Bible were written for specific audiences with the goal of making a specific point. Anyone is free to speculate on the motive for including this story. Most popular is that the Jews writing the story regarded some other branch of the faith as "Jews-in-name-only." They would have been today's like anti-abortion zealots consider Joe Biden and his supporters who are religious as "Christians-in-name-only."
Another aspect mentioned by critical pundits is how Pilate was portrayed. He was portrayed as a decent fellow caught in political cross currents not of his own making. There is no evidence he was ever in this set of circumstances. Instead, the story tells us its writers wanted to curry favor from Pilate so they portrayed him in a favorable way.
Preachers and priests since way back have been giving audiences their own spin on the meaning of this story. Others, like myself or Ehrman, have a different view.
Do you believe in Genealogy? There is a vast research science behind the whole system. I've tried it out for 3-4 generations and it matches my baby books as compiled by my parents and their parents before them.
ReplyDeleteMy point is quite simple.
There are opinions like you've just expressed. Then there are facts. Facts trump opinions. I am sure you would agree. Someone could be of the opinion that Hitler killed no one during WWII but that opinion would be wrong since the facts are clearly contrary.
In your essay today, you state Barabbas was mentioned only in this story. That is, in a small sense, true. However, 4 authors, all Gospel authors mentioned Barabbas. Therefore, Barabbas was mentioned 4 times in the Bible. You've mentioned correctly that all 4 Gospels were written by different authors at different times. You've criticized some stories as being mentioned in only one Gospel, thereby creating the impression that the other 3 writers missed the story, thereby leading one to believe the story was not credible. Here, we have Barabba mentioned 4 separate times by 4 different authors.
You assume that Pilate was unlike any other Roman governor. Some Roman governors did pardon prisoners and release them. Other than that, we have the story of Pilate's wife who implored Pilate to release Jesus. In the end, Pilate decided to wash his hands of Jesus and let the crowd decide.
You are entitled to your opinion. And you can ignore other facts like other Roman governors or Pilate's wife. But your own essay today is dripping with your contention that Jesus lived and was under the judgment of Pontius Pilate. On that, we agree.
Matt--There are some items in your post that have sources outside of the Bible. That some prisoners were pardoned was recorded elsewhere. So far as I know there are no records of political prisoners being pardoned. This stands to reason--someone engaged in politics was far more trouble for the Romans than a common thief or even a random murderer.
DeleteIn the rest of your post your religion gets in the way of clear thinking. Pilate's wife is only mentioned in the Bible, only once and no where else. There are not even independent records that he had a wife.
There is no trail of Barabbas. If all four gospels were copied from the same source would not all four mention Barabbas. Better would be Barabbas worked into other Biblical tales or some independent source.
That there was a Pilate is in independent Roman records. Also there are independent records of his efficiency in collecting taxes and keeping order. As to Jesus, Ehrman believes he actually existed. In my blog I reviewed the story the way Ehrman reviewed it, as if there was actually a Jesus. For myself I think the jury is still out on that. There remains no independent record or siting of a Jesus. There is not even writing alleging the writer saw and/or knew a Jesus.
All four Gospels mention Barabbas. All four Gospels were written by four different people. C'mon man. Is it the reading or the thinking that leads to your Biden-style conclusions?
DeleteHow many single source characters are there in history? How about recent movies? Stan Lee appears once in Spiderman.
Barabbas appears in history more than once. Even me, with a silly Engineering degree could find Barabbas in multiple sources.
I find it telling that you find Bart's Jesus' histriology defective. I find Bart to be wrong and ill-researched. As for the actual existence of Jesus, one would have to be truly in denial. Do you believe we actually landed on the moon? That Marilyn Monroe bedded JFK? That Hunter Biden never profited from his father's political connections? I suppose the 11 Apostles who were tortured and killed on account of not denying the imaginary Jesus faked it until the gory end.
I actually believe Americans walked on the moon. I believe Marilyn and JFK cheated on Jackie. I believe Hunter - and Joe - milked Joe's office as VP for all they could get. And I believe Jesus lived, died and was traded over Barabbas by jealous Jewish leaders for money. More to the point, I believe in the facts which support each of my beliefs even though I didn't see or hear any of the above.
Matt--My observation is that "Holy Texts" grab people and they cannot let go. Here is an email from an anonymous Muslim to Bart Ehrman. This person sees the Koran the way you see the Bible:
Delete"Sir…the Quran is a “living Miracle.” Miracles do happen, as a man could see even if he were blind. The authenticity and sophisticated preservation of the Quran were “miraculous” combined with truthfulness and sincerity of the Shahabas to keep this oral or written revelation in their hearts in their minds and everyday life. Though Torah and Gospel are the Jewish and Christian Scriptures, they are NO MATCH, because they were not preserved. That is because the keepers themselves were hypocrites and disobedient group of men, so their books are filled with contradictions."
The Koran is a "miracle" because it has not been altered? There exists no original copy of the Koran. Critical thinking helps us understand to Bible is mostly propaganda. Occasionally there is a historical person mentioned that actually existed, like Pilate. But, stories about miracles, the crucifixion, Resurrection, walking on water, sermon on the mount, etc. are religion, not history.
Matt -- "Do you believe in genealogy?"
ReplyDeleteTimely question for me. During the "lockdown" I have joined several 1st cousins on ZOOM to discuss our family's history. Each has letters, pictures, written recollections of two generations back and some of us have visited graves and home three generations back. We have not found the same accuracy as you.
There have been written recollections that do not jive with official records--mostly they did--but not entirely. Missing are the motives for moving across the ocean etc.
But the BIG one is a mixed race marriage in the 1950's. Apparently this was expunged from relatives' knowledge. It was between a nephew of my grandmother and his wife. I knew my grandmother until she died at 104 years old--so did all these cousins. She never mentioned it. We knew the man's father, our great uncle. No one ever mentioned this marriage although all seemed to have visited with the couple over the years. We only learned of this when a man in CA saw our website and sent pictures of his grandfather, our great uncle. He has been on ZOOM with us for months. So, is oral history "really" accurate? My answer would be, not always.
Jon persists in looking for records/documents that would corroborate the events depicted in Scripture. here's a thought, speculative to be sure, but nonetheless reasonable. most, if not all of the Temple records were destroyed by the Romans in 70AD. Similarly many of the Roman records were probably destroyed or left to deteriorate during the 5th and 6th centuries. much of what we now have would have also perished were it not for people like Boethius and Cassiodorus.
ReplyDelete