Hey! The guy had Aristotle as a teacher. Sure, maybe the Macedonians weren’t as posh and snooty as them there Athenians, but “half civilized”? Give me a break. And everything is relative, sir. It seems to me that this rep that the Macedonians have with certain other Greeks for being drunken hooligans is a bit like the Queen of England thinking of the Duchess of Cambridge as common trash. (Which maybe the Queen does, and maybe she doesn’t, I haven’t asked her. But you get my point.)
Aslan certainly pulls out the heavy duty incredulity for that part, doesn’t he? Still, its hard to argue with the point that Pilate keeps getting more and more reluctant as the story is retold, and the locals more and more bloodthirsty, to the point of silliness. If there had been a couple more canonical gospels written, we would probably have gotten to the point where Pilate quits his job, becomes a disciple, and gets Jesus on a boat to Mexico. There, they hide out for a while, only to be tracked down by a Jewish hit squad, dressed like this. They drag Jesus back to Jerusalem and nail him to the cross themselves, to the applause of cheering crowds. Meanwhile, a group of legionaries are standing by, sobbing. I’m sure we can fit in a scene with Pilate going “NOOOO!” Wait, I have to call someone in Hollywood about this, brb.
Is it likely that Pilate would even have spoken to Jesus personally? As already mentioned, no. Did the Romans crucify or not crucify people, on the whim of local mobs? No, not really. Did they have a tradition of releasing one criminal / rebellious insurrectionist, of the local mob’s choice, every year? Now, that question has one short answer, and one long answer. The short one is no. The long one is f*** no.
Many disagree with you, even scholars. Look even at Pilates Title, even the Romans didnt agree on what is was.
Wizard? Heal the sick- they do that every day in tents across America, at Lourdes, etc. The power of belief is very strong. Raise the dead? Once and until recently it wasnt uncommon to think a person dead when he wasnt really.
[QUOTE=Martian Bigfoot]
s it likely that Pilate would even have spoken to Jesus personally? As already mentioned, no. Did the Romans crucify or not crucify people, on the whim of local mobs? No, not really. Did they have a tradition of releasing one criminal / rebellious insurrectionist, of the local mob’s choice, every year? Now, that question has one short answer, and one long answer. The short one is no. The long one is f*** no.
[/QUOTE]
Well actually, from Josephus we know that Pilate’s successor did question one guy they brought to him, (and released him as a madman). Guy was named mumble mumble son of Ananias
The rest of the quoted is right of course. However, you did not want to be the guy whose wanton cruelty started a rebellion which needed 2 years and 10,000 men to put down. Once the Emperor found out that you were the reason that the province which generated *sesterces * by the cartload last year, now costs an ungodly number of denarii to pacify… well there were few faster ways to getting on the Emperor’s shitlist.
Cite? It seems that fear of accidental live burial was much more common than the actual practice. Trying to say that the Lazarus story just happened to be one of those cases seems to be in the same class of other attempts to explain events from the bible, such as the parting of the Red Sea or the Star of Bethlehem. But I see no need to try to explain those things scientifically–either you believe that it was a real miracle, or you believe that it was crap somebody made up. (I fall in the second camp.)
Jesu entered Jeruaslem wds, had boasted that he would destroy the temple (or call on the forces of heaven to do it), he trashed the market in the Temple courtyard providing money and animals for offerings (which probably paid the temple clergy a tidy rent); he wasn’t executed on the whim of a mob, he was executed for attempting to overthrow the existing order. Talking about “my Kingdom” to the existing powers and an occupational force gets you a cross and a sign above, “JNRJ”
As for “what do we know about Pilate”
Philo was contemporary 25BC to 50AD, and Josephus also close to the time (37AD-100AD). Neither seems to be writing with a grudge or embellishing to promote a Christian gospel point of view. Like anything from that era, all we have is close-to-contemporary writings. Josephus, if anything, was trying to suck up to the Romans, not trash-talk them. So we have two independent, relatively detailed pieces of information about his career - neither of which suggests he was a soft-hearted do-good who would care about a local troublemaker.
And, this is about as detailed as you’re going to get for historical details for anything other than the emperors themselves. Two relatively contemporary writers, no significant bias, writings appear to have been copied relatively intact, etc. Plus passing mention of questionable veracity in the bible.
As for Jesus son of Ananias - the Romans understood the difference between rambling crazy people and those who were actual rabble-rousers and revolutionaries. Crucifixion at the time was reserved to non-Romans who committed treason.
“Life of Brian” isn’t too far off. Aslan, no doubt quoting Josephus, lists a half-dozen or more messiahs, i.e. liberators. They all became guerillas attempting to free Judea from Roman shackles, unlike Jesus, who most likely expected heavenly forces to do the job for him. Which brings up an interesting point - the two thieves - bandits - crucified at the same time. Most likely, captured members of some guerilla group not simple thieves (The translation of the word used is questionable) since they were being crucified, implying a charge of treason.
Brained by a catapult, eh? Ouch. Being a Cassandra is the worst, isn’t it?
You know what? I may just concede the personal talk with Pilate point. Hey, I’m not married to it. The Roman governing apparatus wasn’t that big, and judging cases was certainly part of a governor’s job. I guess it would depend on how busy a schedule Pilate had that day. Maybe I got hung up on the “what common language” issue, but it’s not like you could be governor of Judea and not have some workaround for that. No way did he ship Jesus off to Herod Antipas for a second opinion, though. That’s where I draw the line.
Well, let’s get into Pilate’s head for a moment, shall we?
“Oh, shit, the locals really want me to crucify this guy, maybe they’ll rebel if I don’t. Let’s see, who is he? Oh, he’s a messianic rebellious insurrectionist, who claims to be King of the Jews. How did this go again? Do we execute those guys, or clear them off all charges? I forget. Right, nail them up. That’s what I thought. Not sure if I see a conflict of interest here. This guy seems to be pissing *everyone *off.”
But I suppose that’s just my take on things. And that is assuming that Jesus was, indeed, a rebellious insurrectionist, or would have been thought of as one by the Romans. I guess the “reluctant Pilate” question boils down to what Jesus’s crime was, exactly, which is also a much more interesting question. If the crime was pissing off the local religious authorities, over matters of esoteric theology that Pilate couldn’t give two hoots about, then, yeah, that’s different. But don’t tell me that Pilate needed encouragement to crucify a rebellious insurrectionist. And yes, BTW, I have been reading Reza Aslan, and like everyone else, I do have a crush on him (hey, he’s cute). So that’s my bias accounted for.
BTW, as side note: I don’t know about bringing in the sesterces by the cartload. You often hear that the Romans wouldn’t a conquer a place if there wasn’t money in it, but that’s not entirely true. I don’t have the tax income records handy, but I do get the impression that this backwater was mostly generating headaches, rebellious insurrectionists, slaves from failed rebellions, and strange religious ideas. I guess that’s an impression formed by mostly reading the highlights, but you have to wonder if it was even worth it sometimes.
The thing is, though, the Romans weren’t in Judea for the blatant imperialism of it, were they? They were in Judea because they were in other places for the blatant imperialism of it. Location, location, location. It’s right between Syria and Egypt, right next to the Med, and, major point, right next to the Parthians. And we sure as heck don’t want the Parthians getting in there, do we? Independence isn’t really an option, because this joint will end up being occupied by someone, and it’s pretty darned inconvenient if it’s not us, or at least someone who is in our pocket. It sure would be nice if those locals would sit still, though. Which they totally don’t. Like, at all.
I’m not sure how that would impact the cost/benefit analysis, if at all, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen a place flip-flop so much between being a client kingdom, a province, a client kingdom, a province, part client kingdom and part province, carrot, stick, special dispensations granted to the locals, to let’s just exterminate every last mothercopulating insurrectionist, and the donkey he rode in on.
Thing is that Pilate was first and foremost a bureaucrat, with a bureaucrat’s instincts (pass this off to someone else, so I don’t have to deal with it.. Its pretty clear from the sequence of events as narrated, the Romans did not find anything Jesus preached or did to be ex facie problematic, else they would have arrested him themselves. It was the Temple authorities who did. The only way he could be convinced to sign off on a death sentence would be for the Temple people to convince him that he is a threat to Rome His head is going to be more like *uuughhh, they are trying to make me do their dirty work. Ok, this person seems to be harmless, no way he is going to be a problem for us, he has about 20 people with him. But, Caiaphas really seems to want him dead and this guy complains to all and sundry in about me every chance he gets, and he has the Syrian Legate ear. Annnd its getting to be Passover; place is already on edge; you know what, I’ll just say yes. *
Certainly its been portrayed by modern writers as a backwater, whether it actually was, well Tacitus, Philo and Josephus seem to suggest it was bringing in some money before the rebellion.
Late addition, Aslan’s book is good, and he is right of course that Romans executed lots of Jewish preachers in that time. The Romans had an excellent intelligence apparatus and they usually were able to swoop down and interdict potential threats before they could ripen. With this knowledge, its significant that the Romans had no problem with Jesus, until the Temple officials started raising a stink.
Well, think about what they’re doing here. They’re taking out a guy with no history of violence apart from that stuff in the temple, a following of, as you put it, about 20 guys, and a messianic thread level, of… I dunno, 2? I think that pretty much counts smack bang in the bullseye as “inderdicting a potential threat before it could ripen”.
Worse, he choked at the critical moment. There he is, at the Temple, crowds are gathered, and all he has to do is cry, “I am the Messiah!” and he’d have had a city-wide uprising. But that was the moment he got meek (or just lost his nerve.) Judas was majorly peeved: he really wanted the uprising.
They say, if you strike a king, strike to kill. You don’t halfway rebel against Rome.
Not exactly “Preachers”. These guys mentioned were determined to drive out the occupying Romans and as a bonus, the oppressive and corrupt Temple officials. This was the definition of “messiah”, someone who would regain the Kingship of David and drive out the enemies. They were essentially terrorist guerillas, insurrectionists, or as the Romans termed them, bandits. After all, like contemporary guerillas, they had to support themselves, whether it’s FARC terrorizing the locals for food and money and kidnapping for fun and profit, or IRA, Red Army Faction, or SLA doing bank robberies.
Jesus was unique in that he seemed to expect holy lightning or something to do the job for him, he did not resort to force of arms (except for the guys with swords in Gethsemane). But, he did have a massive demonstration on entering the city, in a religiously significant spectacle, which surely scared the high priests. He did trash the major business of the Temple courtyard based on religious dissent, probably close to a riot. (Hands up those who don’t believe a whole bunch of stuff was stolen by assorted crowd members during the melee). Huge crowds had been following him around for months/years. He was a disciple of John the Baptist, also executed for making threats to one of the Herods. He had been heard saying he would tear down the Temple. He talked about a kingdom, supposedly “his kingdom”. In a repressive society, this was more than enough to condemn someone for “incitement to riot” against the authorities, which was the equivalent of treason.
He was executed in a manner reserved for those threatening Roman order - not common thieves, not religious heretics - those threatening insurrection. Once the priests explained the crime, I’m sure the Roman guy in charge who had no problem with slaughtering assorted Judeans was happy to crucify an alleged insurrectionist without a second thought.
I too heartily recommend Aslan’s book, as a good example of “reading between the lines” with what little we have to tease out a pretty good idea of what was going on at the time.
What are you implying? Some kind of attempt by modern writers to downplay the importance of Judea in world events and/or the Roman Empire? Well, I suppose certain people feel the need to point out its backwateriness. I guess it’s a knee-jerk reaction to countless Bible readers being given the impression that it’s the center of the universe, or something.
But, look, for starters, who is Pilate? Is he a procunsul? A propreator? A legate? No, he’s a prefect. And what do prefects do? They run unimportant places, that you usually never hear about, because they’re flyover country. Think Mauretania. Think Raetia or Noricum. Think the ass end of Thrace. And, heck, he’s answerable to the legate of Syria. We call Judea a province, because most of the time it was, it’s simpler, and, frankly, who wants to get into the details of Roman provincial administration? That’s about as much fun as doing your taxes, while getting a root canal. But at this point, it’s “that place we’re occupying because we’re occupying Syria, and we’re sending this guy down to keep an eye on it”.
Later, it had a procurator, but that’s more or less the same as a rebranded prefect. If there’s some confusion about Pilate’s title, BTW, that’s really not a big deal, because, as I said, taxes and root canals. Then, post-revolt, it got a legate. But why did it get a legate? Was it because it suddenly got important? No, it was because we’re having Jewish Wars now, the locals are clearly certifiably mental, this madhouse needs its own legions to sit on them, and someone here has to have a title and rank that allows them to command legions.
I think rank may have contributed to Pilate’s problems, although Tiberius would not have been pleased anyway by the troubles in Palestine, the direct consequence of the prefect’s actions. Pilate was acting as if he had no superior in the region, as if in fact he were the legate and Vitellius would not have been happy about that, especially as those actions pissed off the Emperor. Although of course it’s possible that Vitellius did have prior knowledge of these events and that Pilate scrupulously followed protocol. In other words the legate threw him to the wolves to cover his own ass, an age-old tradition faithfully followed even today by those in power. (If that were the case one can imagine just how bitter Pilate would have been!)
One thing that I would like to wrap my head around here is the question of Roman troops. And this isn’t one of those posts where I ask questions and then answer them myself like some asshole, because I’m really not sure if I actually get this, so help would be appreciated.
So, at the time of this particular crucifixion, Judea has a prefect. But a prefect does not command Roman legions (although he may have some auxiliary troops. whatever the heck that might involve at any given time and place). A legate does. There is no legion in Judea at this time, per se. The legions are up there in Syria. Therefore, and we’re told this often enough, the image that we have of Judea at the time as swarming with legionaries is wrong. Right? Your average peasant around those parts would never have seen a legionary. And so forth.
But now we also have our Reza Aslan-fueled image of a place where Romans are nailing up bandits / insurrectionists / holy men / could be the same thing, every five minutes.
I’m not sure what my question is. But I’m getting some signature symptons of cognitive dissonance going on here. Was there, like, “nail up the locals season” around Passover? Did Pilate borrow troops from Syria for that? Or was he constantly emailing Syria about borrowing troops? Was that why he was sacked?
Transcript of emails, Pilate to legate of Syria:
“Hey, could you lend me some troops? Thanks.”
“You still haven’t sent back the ones I borrowed you last month.”
“They’re still rounding up holy men. Need more to smack down a Samaritan uprising. Also, send me a box of nails. Extra large. Thnx, bye.”
“Dude, I’m running out of legions here. Please return troops from last month. Thanks. As for nails, see if you can procure them locally.”
“Hi. Still need to borrow some troops. Nail problem solved. However, seem to be running short on carpenters. Apparently, they’re all part time guerillas. Do you have any? Thanks.”
“I think you may a bit overzealous at your job. Please review instructions for ‘prefect’, section ‘command of troops’, also sections ‘procuration of nails’. and ‘hiring of carpenters’. Thanks.”
“Hi. Could you send me some troops? I’ll send them right back, promise.”
Transcript of emails, legate of Syria to the Emperor Tiberus:
“Sir, I hate to bother you, but regarding Judea: Either Pilate is a bit overzealous at his job, or Judea may need its own legion.”
“Nah, it’ll be alright.”
This is basically the answer, I think, yes. (What? I’m not answering my own question this time. DrDeth was first.) And, to elaborate:
Aslan sure paints a picture in the opening of his book:
To say that “legions of Roman troops were stationed throughout Judea” is of course nonsense. Yes, that was the case *during and in the immediate aftermath of the First Jewish-Roman War. *That’s because there was a war on. It was not the case when Jesus was crucified. Again, the legions were in Syria. BTW, the initial Roman response to said revolt was one legion, with auxiliaries. Which proved, um, insufficient. Then Vespasian and four legions were brought in.
What did a prefect or a procurator of Judea have to work with? As far as I can tell as of now, probably a couple of cohorts of auxiliaries. Those soldiers in the Antonia Fortress? I’m guessing that’s one. Add another one at Caesarea Maritima. It’s not exactly the police department, but still, yeah: It’s basically the police department.
What’s more, it’s also not a case of guerrillas lurking behind every bush. Yes, Aslan gives a great big list of “false Messiahs” in his introduction. But they’re spread out over about a century. And they often aren’t violent. They certainly don’t usually come with anything like armies. What would be needed to deal with each case? Basically the police department. I also don’t think Jesus was, like, the umpteenth rabble rouser claiming to be King of the Jews executed that week, like we may have been making it sound in this thread. They’re not coming *that *thick and fast.
Still, a few things to be taken away here:
Jesus was by no means unique in being a messianic rabble-rouser who ended up crucified. 2) Pilate was trigger happy (getting sacked after the business with the Samaritans, and I’ll trust any account him as being “reluctant” about half as far as I can throw it). 3) Romans generally don’t mess about. Sometimes, they’ll kill you stone dead for looking at them funny. 4) This was certainly a land of ethnic and religious tension, not to mention unhappiness with tax policy. And it would of course explode with the Great Revolt.
None of which is news, I suppose. A word on this, BTW:
Really, though? Don’t give them too much credit. Sometimes they seem to be stomping around with their junk hanging out, clueless about trouble brewing beneath surfaces. They were blindsided the the Great Revolt in 66 AD. Around the same time, they were equally blindsided by another revolt, in 60 AD, when Boudica and the Iceni had a pretty good go at kicking them off the island of Britain.
From the time of the Marian reforms the Roman Army was divided into two parts.
Legions: The troops we think of as the Roman Army. Only citizens could join. Divided into legions (5400 men) and were always under the Command of a legate; none were assigned to Judea.
Auxiliaries: Units raised from (initially Italian) the peoples of the Empire. Initially, these had been locals raised to “help” the Romans in their campaigns; by the time of the events in question, these were professionals, who served 25 years, and were granted Roman Citizenship upon discharge.
Pilate had under his command at the time; only the later, but they should not be thought of as inferior in prowess by any means.
There were two C**ohorts (5-600 men) stationed permanently in Jerusalem at the Antonia Fortress. One cohorts was stationed in Caesarea and would have (some of it at least) accompanied Pilate to Jerusalem. Two further Cohorts and a full Cavalry squadron were the “reserve” who would have served as needed all over Judea. In addition there would have been Archers, engineers and skirmishers as well as local miltia.
We even know the names of some of the Units
Cohors Prima Italica Civium Romanorum*: Italian Unit;
*Cohors Secunda Italica Civium Romanorum
*: Italian again, sister to the above Cohors Prima Augusta: Italian again, actually mentiond in the Bible. Cohors I Sebastenorum Samaratins. Ala I Sebastenorum The Cavalry.
The last Cohort’s name is lost to history.
All in all 3-4000 men.
The fact that Judea was ruled by a Prefect not Legate was probably a sop to local allies. Pilate had a lot of Gladii that he could call upon if need be. He was probably only administratively not operationally subordinate to Syria.
Not exactly the police department, then. So scratch that, I guess. That’s the ballpark equivalent of half a legion with auxiliaries. So, the average daily trouble level would be whatever matched that, I suppose.
Now I forget where I was supposed to go with this. Oh, yeah, Reza Aslan. I was working on calling bullshit on his exaggerated portrayal of Judea as teeming with messianic zeal, and with revolutionaries on every corner. And actually, I think I’m still doing that. It’s still not *that *many gladii. Although it wouldn’t have been Care Bear Land either. I think I’m happy with somewhere in the middle.
