Chapter 3: Pilate and The Crowds
I can already hear you yelling: but what about the crowds, Laura? The crowds very clearly said to crucify Jesus!
Okay, let’s slow down. First of all, this specific story gets weedy for historical reasons (was the release on Passover a real ritual? Etc.) but I’m going to try to take it as a series of texts as well as I can. There are lots of scholars who mostly say that it didn’t happen, but I don’t want to rule out the possibility that this story made sense to people at the time for reasons that we might not have access to today. I also should note that a significant number of scholars will simply argue that the passage is designed to steer the reader’s attention away from Rome to the crowds and the priests, in spite of historical implausibility, on the grounds that the New Testament and probably Christianity itself is hopelessly anti-Jewish and there is nothing to be done about this besides lame apologetics. I understand the arguments, I just can’t get there myself and I think there might be more than one option.
So, let’s talk about Jesus before Pilate, focusing on Mark but noticing differences as we go.
Pilate is running the hearing and Jesus is not making much of a defense. A crowd is outside and asks Pilate to do what he apparently usually does on this day (15:8) – release one prisoner. Pilate decides the offerings this year are Barabbas, who just killed a guy in an uprising, and Jesus. Pilate is doing this, we are told, because he thinks the priests are acting out of “envy.” His apparent plan is for the crowds to pick Jesus, but this backfires and they don’t.
So I’m just going to blitz through the historical issues here. First, the question of how accurate these trial notes are. For instance, the trial looks like the same trial as the Sanhedrin all over again in Mark – a bunch of accusations, Jesus doesn’t say anything, then the person in charge asks a direct question, etc (Marcus, Mark, 1032). So this is weird for historical reasons – the same events happening basically over again. If that doesn’t pass your smell test for realism, you’re not crazy.
The second issue is that Pilate has a ritual where he’ll basically release anyone to the public once a year. It’s a little hard to believe Rome would just send a violent traitor out into the general public, no questions asked, on the grounds that he was popular with large, aggressive mobs (15:7). The third issue is the day and time – an amnesty release of a prisoner would presumably be done so that the prisoner could celebrate the feast with his family. But the feast was last night, according to Mark. (But not John; Marcus, Mark, 1028).
The fourth issue is that it’s just a little too cute that the whole ritual looks so much like a scapegoat ritual, the ritual at the atonement where one goat would be sent off into the wilderness and the other would be sacrificed. It’s not impossible that something like this happened, but a lot of scholars have expressed incredulity about it. It also puts Pilate in a situation that is literarily and theologically useful if you are a writer who thinks Jesus was innocent and everyone knew it – Pilate wanted to pardon Jesus, but he could only pardon one guy, and this year’s slot was already taken. That’s not how Roman law works. The provincial leaders have all the authority they require from the state to kill or free whoever they want. By any reasonable metric, Pilate could deliver Jesus, and he didn’t.
But that’s the thing about having only one or two sources (depends on how independent you think John is, or if there’s a source behind them). We just don’t know. I don’t want to inherently say that there’s no way the governor released a prisoner per year on Passover, and argue this on the grounds that no other sources mention it. There’s just not that many sources from this era at this time – all New Testament scholars are working with few sources, that’s just the lay of the land.
So let’s take the source as it happens. All four Gospels suggest at least some level of reluctance on the part of Pilate. This is weird. There’s really nothing in Pilate’s history that would alert us to whether or not he’d take great care in avoiding crucifying someone for no reason. Pilate was appointed to the position of governor in 27 CE, or thereabouts. Josephus, Philo, and Luke all mention incidents where Pilate reacted violently to Jews protesting his actions. One of these appears in Luke 13. Pilate was eventually recalled to Rome to stand trial after attacking Samaritan pilgrims at Mount Gerizim, but it’s not clear if the trial ever happened or if Pilate simply retired after Tiberius died (Caligula, like most Roman emperors, may well have dismissed all outstanding legal cases when he took office, so Pilate may have been pardoned rather than found innocent).
So at least according to the records we have between Philo, Josephus, and Luke, Pilate killed a lot of people - sending out armies to wipe out opponents of Roman rule. This has become, for many scholars, reason to suppose that it is not believable that Pilate would be so squeamish about executing Jesus.
But maybe that’s taking things too far. Usually, the historical argument here is that Pilate is made to look more compassionate and reluctant because the texts insist on the guilt of the priests and absolve Rome. But if that’s the case, then the Gospels don’t really do that good of a job at that. For one thing, none of the Gospels just leave Pilate out of it, or make a passing reference to “the governor.” Pilate is always the man who orders the execution, and he’s always the one who’s named. Pilate is named in all four Gospels when Caiaphas is only named in two. If you want to let Pilate off easy, this is a weird way to do it. The second thing is that Pilate doesn’t come off well in any of the Gospels – he’s always portrayed as weak and easy to push around, eager to hand off responsibility, overly susceptible to other influences, cowardly, bad at his job, etc. So if this is all Pilate PR, it’s not very good PR.
So maybe there’s some historical truth to this – that Pilate actually wasn’t eager to execute Jesus, even though he did it anyway, and even though he was a violent governor on the whole. What we don’t know is how Pilate would have reacted to an individual arrested person who was not arrested during the course of an insurgency when their guilt would have been basically uncontestable. By comparison, all the Gospels suggest that Pilate just didn’t think Jesus was all that dangerous.
Is that enough to get Pilate to drag his feet? Unfortunately we don’t have any other individual cases to compare this to, but there’s some available motives to uncover that could possibly explain why Pilate might be less bloody-minded when faced with an individual offender as opposed to a crowd. One motive is from Matthew, who says that Pilate’s wife had an omen about Jesus (Matt 27:19). Even in the course of Matthew, though, there’s no real indication Pilate takes that omen seriously – he still has Jesus killed.
Another may be that Pilate’s slowness to act against an individual offender, and his violence against groups, are actually two sides of the same coin, rather than the Gospels portraying a very different Pilate than Philo and Josephus do. Maybe Pilate applies violence unevenly in such a way that minor incidents blow up into state problems. He wouldn’t be the only Roman governor who made this mistake. About thirty years later, Decianus Catus would try calling in debts in Briton and flogging the king’s widow into submission. Unfortunately for Decianus, that widow’s name was Boudica, and if you know the name Boudica you know how that story ended for him. If that’s the case, the Lukan version of the story (Pilate plans to flog Jesus as a warning and then release him) looks a lot like how Decianus Catus’s story starts. It could be that Pilate either doesn’t deal with unrest in a proactive way and gets backed into a worse corner later, or it could be that Pilate prefers to make martyrs of people by flogging them and sending them off to go start mobs, because Pilate is an idiot.
Or, a third option: maybe Rome considered it within their best interest to stay as uninvolved as possible in sectarian disputes within Jerusalem, and Pilate wanted to be very sure he wasn’t killing a Pharisee for the sake of the Sadducees. Thirty years later, a high priest would actually carry out his own execution of Jesus’s brother James, according to Josephus by sneaking it in between Roman governors, an event which Josephus says was met with general disapproval. Similarly, Stephen never makes it in front of Rome at all – he seems to be killed unofficially outside the city. So that might be evidence that Rome wasn’t in the habit of simply rubber-stamping execution ideas raised by the peanut gallery – religious conflicts that didn’t rise to the level of sedition were dealt with when the Romans weren’t looking, because Rome didn’t want to be involved/know about it. The status of being a “friend of Rome” was usually a pretty one-way street in the provinces – Rome wasn’t looking to dole out favors or take sides in fights that could cause trouble for them later. And that could be what’s imagined here. In the Gospels, Pilate suggests a few times that this be handled internally (John 19:31) or non-lethally (Luke 23:16), which would dramatically lower the stakes of his involvement.
All this is possible, and without more information about Pilate it’s hard to say whether the story we have about him is believable or what reasons might make it believable. But it’s also all besides the point in a way, because all the stories end with Pilate ordering Jesus’s execution anyway. Why does Pilate do that?
The short answer is “the crowds.” They show up in all four Gospels telling Pilate to let Barabas go and to crucify Jesus.
Now, here’s the thing: this is a little surprising. At the beginning of the week, and up until the hearing, the crowds have been overwhelmingly pro-Jesus. They clear a path for him, they say Hosanna, they listen to Jesus teaching, and they like him so much that the chief priests agree they can’t arrest him while they’re there. But then by Friday they’re so anti-Jesus that Pilate has no choice but to crucify Jesus? What’s going on there?
If the public turned on Jesus, I think there’s two plausible historical explanations how. The first is this: the possibility that the makeup of “the crowd” is changing. Believe it or not, there’s more than one crowd in at least Matthew and Luke. Take a look at this: In Matthew 21:10 Jesus comes in with a great deal of fanfare, and “the city” is stirred, asking what’s going on. To which the crowds respond, “this is Jesus.” One collective, the one coming in with Jesus, is enthusiastic about Jesus. They may be pilgrims from Galilee, they like their hometown boy, they have followed him from Jerusalem, etc. The second collective is in Jerusalem, they’ve regularly got Pilate in their backyard, and they’re not so sure about this. Or, if we look at Luke, Jesus is followed by a group of people, some of whom are “daughters of Jerusalem” who are weeping and mourning (23:27-28). Also in Luke, the people watch while the rulers mock Jesus on the cross (Luke 23:35), and the people go home from Jesus’s death despairing and mourning (23:48).
Even in John, the text that is most inclined to use the language of οἱ Ἰουδαῖοι/”the Jews” (or “the Judeans,” as some scholars have contended, based on John 7:1, though note that John 4 complicates the hell out of this) recounts that large groups of people absolutely do seem to be believing in Jesus (11:54; 12:17). Even though John is most comfortable insisting on the enmity between Jesus and οἱ Ἰουδαῖοι as a whole, John still somewhat talks out of both sides of his mouth, framing the crowds as believing in Jesus (12:12-13) and not believing in Jesus (12:37)
So even if we take these texts as historical witnesses to the idea that the public turned on Jesus, we have to note there’s more than one public and more than one reaction being recorded.
The idea that everyone in Jerusalem, including the crowds Jesus came in with, were enthusiastic about Jesus’s death gets even less believable if we give historical credence to the timing of Jesus’s death in Mark. Jesus and his entourage stay outside the city when they’re in Jerusalem. Even so, Jesus is already on the cross by nine in the morning, following what tradition has is about a forty-minute walk to Golgotha – slower if you’ve just lost several pints of blood and you’re dragging a cross. If that’s true, Jesus had to start walking towards Golgotha at 8:15 AM at the very latest, and that’s after he has been flogged and after he’s been condemned and after the ritual of releasing one prisoner happened. If all that’s true, Jesus got condemned first thing in the morning. Whoever’s on Pilate’s porch would need to get up and head over there early to make their opinion known. While people in the ancient world did usually get up with the sun, this still wouldn’t account for people who were staying outside the city. If you’re a pilgrim staying in a surrounding village like Bethany, it’s a full hour walk before you’re even in Jerusalem. So if this reflects a real historical memory that Pilate’s morning session wanted Jesus dead (and, as is always the case when we only have one or two independent witnesses, that’s a big if), we’re already talking about people who were at Pilate’s place first thing in the day. Matthew’s timeline does not specify when Jesus was actually crucified, but agrees with Mark that Jesus died at around three in the afternoon (Matt 27:46; cf. Mark 15:34). Luke moves Jesus’s hearing before the Sanherdin, and Herod, to the morning (22:6), but has Jesus die at noon (Luke 23:44). John has Jesus questioned privately by the priest and his father overnight with the hearing before Pilate at dawn (John 18:28), with the crowd amassing at Pilate’s house at noon (19:4). John’s timeline makes the most sense for a sizable crowd to have gotten the news of Jesus’s arrest and amassing in public to call for his death. The Synoptics, less so.
Here’s a second option. From a literary perspective, Matthew in particular frames a narrative where the crowds go from being generally enthusiastic about Jesus – too enthusiastic for him to be arrested! – to suddenly calling for his execution. What’s that about? Well, from a literary perspective in Matthew is extremely concerned about leadership throughout his narrative. In line with his present concerns about ministry and missions, Matthew seems particularly concerned about possible rivals and leaders who might be interested in persuading others not to become Christ followers. And, when you look at Matthew and Mark, both of them say that the reason why the crowds turned on Jesus was because the priests persuaded them to (Matt 27:41; Mark 15:11). But that’s surprising, isn’t it? What could they have possibly told people that would make them sour on Jesus?
Well, according to Sanders in Jesus and Judaism, there actually might be a historical reality here, and that’s the problem of the Temple. If the priests told the people, “He said he’s the messiah,” the triumphal entry sequence makes us suppose that the crowds might be more inclined to say “Well, he is!” than “Crucify him!” But what if they brought out that repeated accusation that Jesus said he was going to destroy the Temple – which he was accused of doing in Matthew and Mark, and actually does in John 2?
That might change some minds. Speaking or acting against the Temple in the ancient world was a really bad look. Josephus insists that the extent to which the Zealots were willing to use it as a base of operations was instrumental in turning Jewish feeling against the revolutionaries during the war. And, it’s the accusation that seems to be front and center against Jesus in the passion narratives. It’s the accusation that comes up in Jesus’s first trial (Mark 14:58), and it’s what people yell at Jesus on the cross (15:29). The clincher seems to be that Jesus did, in fact, say he was going to destroy and rebuild the Temple, though John is quick to say that this was a misunderstanding (2:21).
Combine this with Jesus having recently been flipping tables in the Temple, and per Sanders, we start to get a better idea of what might be meant by the priests “stirring up the crowd” against Jesus. Mark and Matthew both report that the priests were the ones who convinced the crowd to turn against Jesus (Mark 15:11; Matt 27:20). Per Sanders, this seems plausible. They saw Jesus acting against the Temple, at least some people seem to have heard Jesus say he was going to rebuild the Temple. So if there’s a historical reality behind this, this might be it – that Jesus was generally popular until word got around that Jesus had acted against, and predicted the destruction of, God’s own house. That might seem incredibly impious, and immediately disqualifying for a possible messiah.
A third option, which Marcus raises, is that the Gospel writers believed that the crowds were influenced by demonic powers, and that this is another example of demons popping up suddenly to wage war on Jesus, which happens often in Mark. Luke attributes Judas’s willingness to betray Jesus to Satan, and this would fit with the general apocalyptic outlook in Mark and the presence of the demonic suggested by the darkness in the Passion narrative. This is, of course, not really a historical explanation, but it is a literary and theological explanation for what Mark might be thinking is going on (Joel Marcus, Mark, 1036-37).
So why is the opposition of the crowds so remembered in these texts?
Well, remember that the Gospels are written right around the time of the Jewish War, the revolution that culminated with the destruction of the Temple, and the death or enslavement of large numbers of Jews. The war was a traumatic event that ended in a disaster that was probably pretty destabilizing for most people who worshiped the God of Israel, whether they had come to be Christ followers or not. Even if you lived in the Diaspora, you probably still participated in the Temple in some ways, either by going to it for major holidays or supporting the sacrifice system financially. The Temple was destroyed, and the sacred articles were taken as plunder to Rome. If you’re a Jewish Christian, you’re probably looking for answers, and if you’re a gentile Christian, this actually might feel pretty vindicating regarding your decision to participate in the Christian community without Judaizing.
Either way, it’s not surprising that people land on the death of Jesus as an explanation for these events – “his blood be on us and our children,” per Matt 27:25. You know, the exact generations that would have been around to see the destruction of the Temple about forty years after Jesus died.
These aren’t neutral, objective narrations of history – as though such a thing could exist. The events in these texts, even if they happened more or less the way the writers say they do, are still being interpreted by the author to answer certain questions. And in this case, the question of how these events are being interpreted, what questions are being brought to this story, and how we may be interpreting these texts differently from early writers are all relevant questions. Are we actually supposed to believe that Pilate, who has a garrison and full legal authority to do whatever he wants, has no choice but to execute Jesus because a crowd tells him to? Are we actually supposed to believe that Matthew agrees with Pilate when Pilate says he is innocent of Jesus’s blood – right before Pilate orders his execution? Does Matthew want you to go the Mel Gibson route and see Pilate as a tragic, soulful figure, whose crime of ordering the execution of a man he thinks is innocent, pales in comparison to being a person in the crowd who thinks he did the right thing?
Or, does it make more sense to see it this way: that Matthew is ultimately not trying to partition responsibility between Rome and Judea, but working through a list of confounding details to answer his own questions. Matthew knows that Pilate sentenced Jesus to death, probably for sedition. But, Matthew also thinks Jesus was innocent of the charges, and does not want to insist otherwise. Matthew also lives in a world where many of his interlocutors would be (I think, fellow) Jews who do not believe Jesus was the messiah and are probably hampering missionary efforts to persuade others this is the case. Matthew makes a pretty big deal out of synagogue discipline, which may suggest that his group has been trying and failing to get a purchase there. And, of course, Matthew knows something terrible has just happened in Jerusalem, where forty years ago his messiah was crucified.
Matthew doesn’t need to come up with a theological explanation for why an unjust ruler would crucify someone. Matthew knows perfectly well that killing innocent people is just a thing rulers do. This tendency to treat Roman violence as something of an inevitability while God’s people impact what exactly God does to them shows up in a pretty wide swath of Jewish literature in the wake of the destruction of the Temple – 4 Ezra, 2 Baruch, some early rabbinic writings, and, yes, the New Testament. So it’s not surprising to see it show up again here – with this feeling that Rome did what Rome was going to do, but the consent of some critical figures within Israel explains why things have gotten so bad ever since.
From a historical perspective, these events are difficult to corroborate, but the events in themselves are not inherently implausible: that the priests were investing Jesus for blasphemy, that when it escalated to kingship claims they fulfilled the role they were deputized to do under Pilate and turned him over to them. Then, finally, perhaps early in the morning when some pious people were making their way to the Temple for morning prayer and sacrifices, they heard Jesus was arrested, heard what he’d said and done at the Temple, and either felt they’d been tricked by an impious pretender or had their worst fears about him confirmed.
Either way, the ultimate orders come down through Pilate. When Pilate hands Jesus over to be flogged and crucified (Mark 15:15), it is to his own cohort, in his own headquarters (15:16; Matt 27:27). When Jesus said he was going to be delivered to the gentiles (Matt 20:19; Mark 10:33), that’s basically what happened.
In the next section we’ll talk about some other opponents of Jesus and do a deeper dive into some of the texts that focus more on the role of Jewish leaders in these events, particularly those outside of the Gospels.
This is so helpful!
I know that this is pulling out a pretty specific question, but I was a little surprised you said that the Gospels were being written during the Jewish War - it's been a while since college, but I was under the impression that later dates were still pretty standard scholarship (I favor earlier dates, but I always thought I was in a conservative minority on that). Has consensus shifted to earlier dates now? Or do you share my optimistic minority opinion?
You covered everything I hoped you would cover, Dr. Robinson. Thanks!