Pontius Pilate’s True Role Misunderstood for Nearly 2,000 Years Due to a Single Historical Line

Pontius Pilate shows Jesus to the mob saying, “Behold the Man.” Painting by Antonio Ciseri, 1871. Credit: Wikipedia, Public Domain

Pontius Pilate’s relation arsenic politician of Judea has been wide misunderstood for astir 2 1000 years. The error, researchers say, traces backmost to a azygous condemnation written by a Roman historian.

Wojciech Jan Kosior of the Faculty of Law and Administration astatine the University of Rzeszow successful Poland analyzed each surviving Latin and Greek root that references Pilate’s title. He besides reviewed decades of scholarly statement connected the subject. The study appears successful the Journal of Modern Science.

The disorder centers connected Tacitus, the Roman historiographer who wrote successful the aboriginal 2nd period that Christ was executed nether Pontius Pilate, whom helium called a procurator.

That azygous transition shaped however historians, the church, and adjacent lit came to picture Pilate for generations.

A azygous Roman historiographer who defined Pilate for centuries

Tacitus wrote astir a period aft Pilate served arsenic politician of Judea from 26 to 36 CE. By that time, Roman provincial governors were routinely called procurators.

Kosior notes that Tacitus held elder administrative posts himself, including consul and proconsul of Asia, and drew connected authoritative records, including Senate reports and imperial letters, erstwhile penning his works.

Statue of Tacitus, writer of Germania, extracurricular the Vienna Parliament. Credit: Walter Maderbacher CC BY-SA 3.0

An outright factual mistake connected his portion seems unlikely. The much plausible explanation, Kosior argues, is that Tacitus utilized the terminology acquainted to his ain epoch alternatively than Pilate’s precise authoritative title.

Other past sources adhd further complications. Josephus, the Jewish historiographer penning successful the precocious archetypal century, utilized astatine slightest 5 antithetic Greek presumption crossed his works to picture Judean governors. The Gospels utilized a wide Greek word meaning governor.

Philo of Alexandria described Pilate arsenic an officially appointed head of Judea. Scholar F. De Martino specifically cautioned against straight equating the Greek word utilized by Josephus with the Latin connection procurator.

The statement implicit Pontius Pilate’s relation successful Roman Judea

The clearest grounds came from archaeology. In 1961, excavations astatine Caesarea Maritima uncovered a damaged chromatic block.

Italian archaeologist Antonio Frova reconstructed the inscription, which identified Pilate arsenic the prefect of Judea and recorded his dedication of a operation called the Tiberieum to the radical of Caesarea.

Christ earlier Pilate. Credit: Mihály Munkácsy / Wikimedia Commons / Public Domain

Kosior stresses that Pilate himself commissioned the stone, making it a direct, firsthand grounds of however helium described his ain office.

Scholars projected competing interpretations aft the discovery. Researcher B. Lifshitz suggested the inscription could accommodate some titles, but different scholars rejected the speechmaking due to the fact that the projected substance was excessively agelong to acceptable the damaged spread successful the stone.

Researcher L. Herrmann argued the Tacitus transition did not picture Pilate’s rubric astatine all, suggesting the operation meant Tiberius exercised his authorization successful Judea done Pilate arsenic an intermediary.

Why was Pilate apt some ‘Prefect’ and ‘Procurator’

Researchers R. Carrier, F. Millar, A.H.M. Jones, and P.A. Brunt each recovered grounds that aboriginal Roman governors routinely combined prefectural and procuratorial functions astatine the aforesaid time.

Millar recovered nary inscriptions from the archetypal done 3rd centuries showing a procurator governing a state without besides holding a prefect’s title.

Jones argued that emperors similar Augustus and Tiberius were improbable to assistance the procurator rubric to provincial governors astatine all. Brunt concluded that implicit time, the terminology shifted portion the combined quality of the bureau itself did not.

Kosior concludes that Pilate astir surely served arsenic a prefect who besides held procuratorial powers, an statement that was communal signifier during the aboriginal empire. Tacitus was not wholly wrong, Kosior argues, but utilized the connection of his ain clip alternatively than the precise rubric Pilate formally carried.