Who Was The Real Pontius Pilate? | The Man Who Killed Christ | Timeline

hi everybody welcome to this timeline documentary my name is dan snow and here i am in a lancaster bomber cockpit one of the few remaining lancasters from the second world war to tell you about my new history channel it's called history hit it's like netflix for history hundreds of history documentaries on there and interviews with many of the world's best historians follow the information below this film or just search online for history hit and make sure you use the code timeline to get a special introductory offer now enjoy this show [Music] in 26 a.d a soldier called pontius pilate was sent to judea to impose order on a troublesome roman province [Music] he policed a volatile people for 10 years suppressing uprisings and crushing riots but the historical account of pilots long career has been overshadowed by a single event the trial and execution of jesus according to the gospels pilate condemned jesus on the accusation of the jews and then washed his hands of the whole affair but this version of the trial ignores the realities of roman rule in judea turning a blind eye to pilate's own motives for disposing of jesus does the gospel truth miscast pilate as a weak ruler in greek and roman sources pilate comes across quite differently he's brutal he's tough he's efficient he controlled a very difficult province for 10 years a long spell as a provincial governor he was a good roman administrator [Music] this is the story of pontius pilate the man who killed christ jerusalem crucible of world faiths [Music] but a city cursed by a weight of religious enmity [Music] it was here two thousand years ago the trial of jesus took place an event that still has the power to set christian against jew the trial was roman justice a roman prefect judged an enemy of rome and meted out a roman punishment crucifixion yet the accepted account derived from the gospel absolves pilate of real blame it's the jews who surround pilate's palace and coerce him to do their dirty work what should i do then with jesus who is called christ pilate asked and they answered crucify him there's been a very long tradition of the christian church blaming the jews and the basis for this can be seen in the new testament accounts of the trial of jesus it's the jews who organize and manipulate the trial so that jesus dies the romans are the unwilling participants who never want to see this who would stop it if they could this is completely spurious history it is also the root cause of christian anti-semitism the pogroms of medieval europe even the holocaust itself can be traced back to the scene in matthew's gospel where pilate washes his hands [Music] and the jews accept upon themselves the blood guilt a curse that has haunted them ever since the picture of the jews as responsible for the death of jesus fuels the imagination of christian writers from early on and by late antiquity medieval times and well into the modern era it poisons the minds of ordinary people who see in their jewish neighbors so many centuries afterwards the killers of jesus in first century jerusalem pontius pilate is the man at the heart of this controversy the idea of blood guilt depends on pilot bending under jewish pressure but the romans had reasons of their own for killing jesus his trial was just one in a line of incidents in which a volatile people were put in their place by a harsh no-nonsense prefect pilot has tended to be seen as a rather weak character in actual fact though pilot was really quite different what we know about him from outside sources shows a competent strong governor not at all the weak character of the gospels [Music] the roman historian tacitus wrote the romans make a desert and they call it peace after 20 years as a roman province by 26 a.d judea was still in a brutal stage of colonization tax rebellions had plagued the lives of pilot's predecessors a generation later judea would erupt in open revolt pilate arrived here with the job of securing a roman peace judea was a pretty important place strategically it was on the western edge of a very unsettled area what we would now consider the middle east and so the men who were sent there from rome tended to be soldiers first and diplomats second if you look at the other governors of judea if you look particularly at those who proceeded pilate they were a pretty violent bunch we after all have only three crucifixions to attribute to pilot but governor gratis who went there before him crucified 200 at least they were quite nasty men most of them the very name prefect shows us that pilot's responsibility here in judea was primarily a military one because prefect is a military position and most of the people would probably have had a military background they would have been men who perhaps served in the armies in in germany perhaps or in the east the emperor would have got to know about them heard about their military successes and thought that they would be useful in a province these are the ruins of caesarea built by herod the great on judea's mediterranean coast the romans annexed judea after herod's death and caesarea became the imperial hq it was a world of baths and temples and marbled terraces an oasis of roman civilization in a hostile land pilate lived here a world apart from the jews he'd come to govern he had very probably met jews before he went to judea there was a jewish ghetto in rome obviously the ordinary romans didn't go into it much but they knew strange things about it that the women were kept hidden for example that jews never ate pork that they didn't work on the sabbath which made romans think they were dead lazy and that they were circumcised romans were pruriently interested they were fascinated by circumcision so when pilate goes to judea suddenly all these stories are all around him and he has to deal with these very peculiar people he's probably laughed at them in rome and left them alone now he's got to work with them somehow [Music] there was one famous story the romans told about the jews when the roman general pompey ransacked jerusalem a century earlier he stormed the temple of solomon and entered the holy of holies looking for treasure to loot and statues to destroy but he found nothing just an empty space it begged a question how do you conquer a people with an invisible god [Music] religion was a central part of roman life and as prefect of judea pilate was high priest of the roman state church a devout faith that informed his thoughts and actions there's a crucial nexus between religion and power in the roman mindset the reason the romans keep winning is that they are such a religious such a pious people and the fact that they keep winning proves that god rewards their piety so it was natural for the romans to be both militarily very brutal and religiously very pious and therefore it was taken for granted that the way to ensure continued success is to have a strong military presence on the ground and to keep worshipping uh the gods as they should be worshipped and a crucial part of this where religion and politics especially meet is in the imperial cult the only physical evidence that survives of pilate apart from a few coins is an inscription from caesarea recording a temple built by pilate to his living god the emperor tiberius his devotion to the imperial cult immediately set him at odds with the jews he'd come to govern the jewish historian josephus writing only 40 years after the event records what took place he describes a very different pontius pilot from that of the christian tradition his pilot wasn't a man to be bullied by the crowd he sets down that pilot's first actor's prefect was to send fresh troops into jerusalem but the troops he chose were a provocation their standards carried the images of the emperor tiberius flouting both the first and the second commandments thou shalt have no other gods before me thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image the incident of the standards is a direct result of his wish to impose himself on judea there is a feeling in pilate's mind that he's got to make a very strong statement right at the beginning that he wishes to romanize judea that he wishes to bring it unto rome in no uncertain terms and to do this the first thing he does is to take the roman standards with the image of tiberius on them right into jerusalem which had never been done before josephus describes the outrage caused by this insult to the law of moses word spread from jerusalem to the countryside and a crowd of hostile jews marched to caesarea to protest against this assault on jewish custom it was a face-off between two world views and for six days the protest continued the jews surrounding pilate's palace pilot had underestimated how different judea was from other provinces of the empire elsewhere the emperor was worshiped alongside local gods but the jews would worship none but their own one god for pilate to back down would be an insult to the emperor himself pilate a soldier first a diplomat second staged a confrontation he summoned the crowd to a stadium and sat on a dice above them as if to answer their petitions instead on his signal troops surrounded the jews in an act of blatant intimidation if drawn swords were meant to make them break and run the plan backfired as one josephus writes the jews fell to their knees ready to die rather than transgress the law [Music] fearing a bloodbath pilate held back i think this is a bad start for a pilot at the beginning of his period as governor the first task of a roman governor is to preserve peace and rather than find himself raising the whole population in revolt he decides he has to back down on this issue but it must have stung it must have it must have hurt him that he couldn't get his way on this matter that he realized then he had to negotiate his way carefully around the temple authorities around the sanctity of the temple and around the religious sensitivities of the jewish population the showdown at caesarea taught pilate a hard lesson he turned to diplomacy to navigate the minefield of jewish sensibilities and to ensure law and order for rome in 29 a.d judea was a nation craving liberation fulfillment of the ancient jewish prophecy of freedom under god's rule the jews had a very long tradition of enslavement to foreign powers the exile in egypt liberated by moses captivity in babylon subjugation to the persians domination by the greek rulers of the seleucid empire this sequence of foreign domination stimulated the jews to believe in themselves as a special nation to believe in the imminent arrival of a liberator a deliverer a messiah who would overthrow the foreigners and give the jews back the land of milk and honey which they had been promised when in egypt north of judea was the galilee a province so seditious the very word galilean was synonymous with troublemaker here a rabbi had appeared who'd soon fall under the watchful eye of pontius pilate he preached of the coming kingdom of god he was in his way a revolutionary if we mean by revolutionary someone who is specifically targeting roman power then i don't think jesus is a revolutionary in that sense if we mean by did jesus expect a radical change of political circumstances the answer i think is yes because he's talking about the coming of the kingdom of god and the coming of the kingdom of god is going to completely reorder power relations that will affect everybody from the roman governor down to the lowest person in the street the people who followed jesus i believe had a number of different expectations and some of them would have had the simple longing to be cured as soon as it could be seen that he cured people some were following him as a persuasive speaker and i think others clearly wanted political deliverance from this man even though he was a mere man and had no army with him or anything of that sort his very eloquence persuaded them that maybe he was the man who could deliver judea from the romans [Music] in the gospels pilate has a bit part in jesus story in the account of josephus it's the other way round jesus wasn't the first so-called messiah josephus lists several men before him who'd focused jewish hopes a slave called simon athranges the shepherd judas the galilean john the baptist each had challenged the ruling elite and been disposed of killed either by the romans or their herodian allies the galilee in pilate's time was a client kingdom of rome responsibility for keeping order there was delegated to the second son of herod the great herod antipas luke records there was no love lost between pilate and herod though no reasons given for the acrimony pilot expected herod to deal with local troublemakers but unlike john the baptist jesus avoided herod's grasp leaving him free to travel into pilot sphere of influence five times he came south to jerusalem for the feasts and there he was most definitely pilot's problem the most volatile moments as far as the roman government was concerned were the jewish festivals in jerusalem because there you have massive crowds of pilgrims gathering from all over judea and from galilee and from all around the jewish diaspora east and west gathering from moments when the worship of god and when the sense of the identity of the nation is at its highest [Music] most of the jewish festivals had historical memories of times when god acted to liberate them from pagan oppression they looked back to the exodus from egypt as the time when god went and said to pharaoh israel is my people and i'm going to do a job on you unless you let them go and that's how it happened in the story so when the jews celebrated a festival what they were saying was that's what god did in the past and that's what we want him to do again right now with the particular pagans who we've got oppressing us here today so it's not just they're all very excited it's a religious occasion it's they're excited because this is a religious occasion which has a sting in the tail and pilot a better watch out three times a year pilate came to jerusalem specifically to manage the volatile feast days he brought fresh troops to bolster the jerusalem garrison he was bringing in troops precisely to make sure that law and order was maintained and that there was no rioting and yet ironically the very presence of these troops in jerusalem in the crowded city meant that rioting and disorder was actually much more likely josephus describes the hostility pilot faced on these peacekeeping trips to jerusalem he records crowds surrounding pilot as he entered the city besieging him with angry clamour pilot needed a strategy other than force to keep the crowd at bay he employed a proven tactic used by prefix across the empire forging alliances with the local aristocracy the crowds natural leaders in pilot's case that meant the temple priests rome had only a very small administration in any of its provinces and pilot actually had very few troops at his disposal and so he would have depended to a large extent on the native authorities in jerusalem for the day-to-day running of the country it was the jewish aristocrats the high priest caiaphas the chief priests generally who would have been responsible for maintaining law and order it was these aristocrats who were important in mediating the will of the people to the governor and of course the will of the governor to the people pilot has the power ultimately to control what goes on in jerusalem because he can hire and fire high priests so they owe their very position as high priest to the favor of the governor and therefore to some extent their quizzling figures who only remain in power so long as the superior roman authority wants them to be there the problem for pilot was that the people's loyalty to the priests was under strain [Music] their collusion with the romans played badly with the crowd and this popular resentment was fed by the arrival in jerusalem of the galileans and their rogue messiah jesus many of the gospels give the impression that jesus only went to jerusalem for that one final passover festival but in fact we know from john that jesus went up to the festivals quite often and this is extremely exciting because we have on the one hand the ancient sources that show this wildly unpredictable dangerous city on the other hand we had the gospels saying jesus was there whipping up the crowd or doing his part to make them even more excited adding to the difficulties and tensions of the whole place i suspect the romans were pretty puzzled about jesus they would have had quite good records we know that roman governors had spy networks and they kept information on potential troublemakers they were pretty efficient at that sort of thing and so the romans are thinking to themselves when they get these reports about jesus who is he what's what's he up to what's his game and it doesn't fit any of the normal models they will have seen him as a potential threat because anyone who's gathering crowds is a threat anyone who is talking about god's kingdom is a threat anyone who knows anything about first century judaism knows the kingdom of god talk means we want god to be king not herod not caesar etc nevertheless he wasn't doing the sort of things that you might have expected a kingdom of god movement to be doing so i suspect they saw him as a potential enemy but weren't actually quite sure how that was going to play out jesus never preached directly against the romans when it came to pilate's allies in the temple it was another matter he attacked the priests as hypocrites and stirred up the crowd challenging the supremacy of this jewish elite as far as we can tell jesus attitude to the temple is that it was a wonderful central institution put there by god for israel to come and worship and know god but that now it was being made redundant and as a sign of that redundancy the present corruption of the priests and their eagerness for money and so on was just a symptom of something much deeper because jesus was going around galilee and judea acting as if he were the temple in person i mean it's bizarre to say that but when he says out there on the street my child your sins are forgiven everybody would think you normally have to go to the temple to do that stuff it's like a private individual approaching you on the street and offering to issue you a passport or a driving licence and it's not does he think he's god it's more he is acting as if he is the place where and the means by which israel's god is doing what he normally does in the temple and that means that when he comes to jerusalem the place simply isn't big enough for both of them the gospel of john describes a scene in which outrage priests attack jesus for his presumption and urge the crowd to stone him it was pilate's job to please this kind of incident and take action against anyone who threatened the status quo in josephus there's an incident that shows pilot in action clamping down on public disorder pilot had used temple funds to build an aqueduct the crowd was angry at this deal between pilate and the temple elite and surrounded the prefix palace with the priests compromised it was up to pilate to keep order he did so brutally it's a far cry from the pilot of the gospels he gave instructions for soldiers to dress as civilians disguised in jewish robes instead of swords they carried wooden clubs outside the anger of the crowd had turned to riot in josephus's phrase a full torrent of abuse pilot gave the signal his undercover troops moved in isolating the troublemakers clubbing some arresting others the jews josefa says caught unarmed by this prepared attack withdrew and thus the uprising ended [Music] i think what you see here in this incident compared to the earlier one with the standards is that pilot has learned something of a lesson he realizes that there's no point in sending in roman troops with their swords blazing ready to cut down everybody who opposes him and so what he's doing here is more a kind of a police operation this is not the weak pilot of the gospels this is a harsh strong no messing governor the gospels make no direct mention of the aqueduct riot but there are cryptic clues hinting at these events luke talks of the galileans whose blood pilate mixed with their sacrifices and then there's barabbas the man who later in the trial of christ pilate would offer to the crowd in a passover amnesty all we know of barabbas is that in mark's words he'd killed someone in the uprising [Music] there's no doubting the violence of roman rule in judea nor pilate's readiness to be its brutal agent another holy festival had reached a bloody conclusion at passover pilgrims would again come to jerusalem and pilate would again have to exert his power this time the victim would be jesus there's only a short account of the jesus affair in the pages of josephus he describes jesus as a doer of startling deeds a teacher of the people condemned by pilate to the cross josephus describes how after jesus death those that had loved him previously did not cease to do so and up until this day the tribe of christians has not died out he was writing forty years after jesus death at the same time the first gospels were being compiled they record the memories of men and women who'd follow jesus and describe in detail the events of one week in the prefecture of pontius pilate [Music] according to modern scholarship the date was passover a.d 30. in that week the rabbi jesus made a public display of his messianic claims his entry into jerusalem on a donkey was loaded with symbolic meaning the crowd understood the reference to ancient prophecies this was how the king would come it was a challenge to all earthly authority [Music] next jesus moved to the temple the seat of pilots jewish allies here he hit out against the money changes these men were fulfilling a religious function changing impure pagan coins and by attacking them jesus attacked the temple itself this is an acted parable of judgment of destruction it's not a way of saying there's too much commercialization here we need to clean the place up it's not a way of saying we need to think about the meaning of the sacrificial system and do it with more integrity it's a way of saying this whole show is finished if the commotion in the temple forecourt had been kept out of sight of the romans this might have remained a purely jewish affair but the antonia fortress overlooked the temple and for the priests that posed a problem they wanted their ally pilot to deal with jesus but it would have to be on their terms if word reached pilate of this disturbance and he reacted hastily sending in the troops the consequence would be disastrous if pagan soldiers had come into the temple that would have destroyed the whole purity system that was so vitally important to the temple and it would have effectively made the whole feast the whole cultic activity null and void [Music] to worship the one true god was the duty of the chosen people not just for israel but for all mankind any disruption of this ancient ritual would upset the balance between god and man and have cosmic implications jesus was offering an alternative path to god and this blasphemy threatened the smooth running of the passover it was vital jesus be dealt with at the earliest opportunity but outside the temple perimeter according to josephus pilate condemned jesus because of an accusation made by the leading men amongst us and there's no doubt the temple aristocracy played their part in jesus's death but over centuries of christian tradition that fact has become dangerously blurred with all jews damned by the actions of the temple elite what we have to remember about the gospel accounts is that they emerge from a jewish world the gospel writers were jews when they wrote about the bitter conflict between the followers of jesus and those who they believed had condemned jesus to death they wrote as jews in conflict with other jews when the gospels were read later by people who were not jews who did not understand inner jewish controversies the jews were read as a very alien group very other and the gospels hostility towards the jewish authorities is read as hostility towards all jews of all times at some point an agreement was reached between pilate and the priests and plans made for jesus to be arrested at night away from the temple and out of sight of the crowd [Music] pilate's motives are clear jesus was a troublemaker who undermined his temple allies and threatened the peace of the passover but most of all it was the title messiah that provoked pilate messiah the anointed one jesus the king of the jews it was a direct challenge when he was crucified there was a placard over jesus's head saying the king of the jews that seems to have been the charge on which he was presented to pilate that this man is making himself out to be the king of the jews and that is a title that pilate would instantly recognize as a political claim which directly challenges pilate's own and roman rule in the nation pilot perhaps saw this as an opportunity to make it as clear as possible and as public as possible that roman rule would not tolerate anybody claiming to be the king of the jews that night in gethsemane the temple guard did not act on their own john's gospel records the presence of a spa-era of soldiers the greek word means cohort 500 roman troops maybe it's an exaggeration but it fits the picture of pilot drawn by josephus the military prefect determined to clamp down on civil disorder the next day pilate would try jesus and execute him under roman law making jesus an example to all those who question the authority of rome on the passover ad30 pontius pilate crucified a man whose cult would one day sweep the roman empire the morning of the day of the trial is one of the most fascinating moments in pilate's life here if you like you have the moment when fate fingers him but he would have got up as if it was an ordinary working day which means that after he'd washed and dressed he would have made his private devotions to the gods he would have offered incense he would have made his prayers the way any roman starts an ordinary working day but how extraordinary it is for us to think that on this ordinary day for pilate he was going to have such a calamitous meeting one that changed the course of history if you like according to the gospels jesus spent the hours before his trial in the presence of caiaphas the high priest it's one of several scenes that paints a damning portrait of the jews [Music] and tear their robes in contempt caiaphas the high priest had genuine spiritual reasons to neutralize the blasphemer but he had no power to order his execution the only man with both motive and authority to see jesus dead was pontius pilate [Music] as far as the romans were concerned it had to be made absolutely clear that they and they alone were boss here that if they were to be any leaders of the people of judea the romans were going to appoint them that's why they hired and fired high priests at will and that therefore they were never going to allow some popular leader to arise from out the ranks of the jewish population the romans were used in other provinces to native revolts to people taking on kingly roles or leadership roles in gore for instance or in britain and their reaction was always swift and merciless put this down we can't allow this in john's account of the trial the priests remained outside the palace to preserve their purity for the feast that will begin later in the day pilate came out to meet them and right from the start he engaged in power play take him yourselves he said and judge him by your own law but we have no power to execute anyone the jews replied his authority established pilate returned to the palace and he called the prisoner inside for a private audience the priests were left outside excluded from the process of roman law when pilate calls jesus to him you have the extraordinary moment of a roman governor and jesus face to face you have the ultimate representative of roman power and you have this brigand a common criminal as far as he knew and you have this extraordinary dialogue between them which i think is pinterest in that pilot keeps asking questions and jesus doesn't answer his questions he answers something else you have the two worlds meeting but they're not meeting they're not meshing with each other they don't understand do you know what they're saying about you that you're the king of the jews is it true if i were an earthly king my followers would afford to prevent my arrest my kingdom is not of this world so you are a king this is why i was born this is why i came into the world testify to the truth what is truth i think pilate probably realized that jesus was in a category apart that he was different he'd never met anybody like him he may well have thought that jesus was a deluded fanatic that he was just mad there were other mad people around who did silly things maybe jesus was another one and yet the sources imply and of course they've been written up by christians the pilot was also haunted by the clarity and the serenity and in a measure the silence of jesus we have to remind ourselves that the roman imperial ideology was sweeping the mediterranean world at the time so when you find somebody who appears as a rival to caesar this is not just a political issue this is also a religious issue jesus had emerged as a threat to the empire a man pilot needed to destroy but there was also a golden opportunity here for pilate to use jesus as a pawn against the jews he returned to the priests and questioned them further they described how jesus had caused trouble all the way from the galilee at which point pilate sent jesus to herod antipas in the christian tradition this episode is presented as evidence of pilate's weakness he is passing the buck [Music] alternatively pilate saw here a way to repair a broken relationship by offering herod a role in the governance of judea he could bring an important ally back on board the gesture worked herod satisfied his curiosity questioning jesus and sent him back to pilate according to luke that day herod and pilate became friends but pilate had even more to gain from this trial he could use it to strengthen his authority over the jews priests and crowd alike he staged a piece of theater using as bait the prisoner barabbas arrested in an earlier disturbance it is your custom for me to release to you one prisoner at the time of passover should i release barabbas or the king of the jews [Applause] the different motives of the crowd were twisted to pilate's advantage the priests would call his way as would devout jews swayed by the priest's opinion others would see in barabbas a man worth saving a more active freedom fighter than jesus ever was [Music] pilot's master stroke came in goading the crowd with the very idea of kingship was this lowborn nobody their king his contempt invited betrayal pilot recognizes here a chance to establish as clearly as can possibly be established that the jewish people do not have and will never have somebody they recognize as king of the jews so he keeps coming back to them and saying what do you want me to do with the king of the jews and they say crucify him what shall i do with the king of the jews and every time he uses that title and every time they reply crucify him he is forcing them to concede that they do not have ultimate power that no king of the jews can arise here that as they put it in the gospel account we have no king but caesar shall i crucify your cake [Applause] [Music] [Applause] pilate essentially has won the day not only has he got rid of jesus who was a troublemaker and he wanted to get rid of him anyway but he's also goaded the chief priests into this terrible declaration that they have no king but caesar all in all it was a good day's work for pilate this interpretation of the trial is a version of history that fits the picture in josephus of a strong no-nonsense prefect in the gospels there are glimpses of quite another man a troubled governor haunted by the idea his victim might be innocent a governor who receives a letter from his wife mid-trial she'd had a dream about this just man in this version of history pilate is the unwilling gentile who senses the divinity of christ and is bullied by the jews into ordering his death the fact is pilate dealt with jesus the way governors all over the empire dealt with rebels killing the messiah reaffirmed the authority of rome jesus wasn't the first troublemaker pilate had dealt with nor was he the last five years after the trial of jesus another messiah challenged pilate a prophet from samaria this time [Music] josephus describes how pilate sent in the troops he had the prophet and all his followers slaughtered that was what happened to those that defied rome their kingly pretensions were mocked and their bodies were butchered even on the day of his crucifixion jesus wasn't alone two other men were executed with him not thieves as is commonly remembered but according to the gospel lest i the greek word for rebel the romans used crucifixion for slaves and they used them for anybody who challenged roman power somebody you wanted to humiliate you may die in a way that was public where they were naked where they were pinioned to a piece of wood and therefore in the ultimately powerless position so crucifixion is a public political statement that we have the power to take whoever challenges our authority to pin them to a piece of wood and to leave them to die [Music] [Music] the inscription nailed to the cross was pilot's final contemptuous gesture jesus of nazareth king of the jews the priests complained and asked for it to read he said he was king of the jews but pilate replied what i have written i have written it was an insult to the whole jewish nation [Music] you

Channel: Timeline - World History Documentaries

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Length: 49min 10sec (2950 seconds)

Published: Sat Apr 03 2021