There’s no historical evidence of the Roman governor Pontius Pilate ever having tried or executed anyone by the name of Jesus of Nazareth. The only mention of this event comes from the gospels, and they’re far from accurate historical documents.
There are major logistical problems with viewing the gospels’ account of Jesus’ trial and crucifixion as a chronicle of historical events. Firstly, everything happens at the Passover, the most holy festival of Judaism. It would have been impossible for a court to convene and a person to be executed over this holiday. Jewish law forbade capital trials to occur during a religious festival, yet the gospels claim that the trial of Jesus occurred over Passover night.
The gospels also imply Jesus was tried and crucified for the crime of blasphemy (Mark 14.64, Matthew 26.65), but the punishment doesn’t fit the crime. The traditional punishment in Judaism for blasphemy was stoning, but it’s questionable if that was still enforced in the first century.
Crucifixion was the severest Roman punishment, originally reserved only for slaves, and later extended to enemies of the state and pirates. The Romans wouldn’t have tried Jesus and sentenced him to the extreme punishment of crucifixion for simply being accused of blasphemy against the Jewish god. The gospels also state that the Roman governor Pontius Pilate found Jesus blameless and famously washed his hands of the case (Matthew 27.24).
The idea that Pilate would crucify a man he found blameless due to pressure from the Jews doesn’t fit with the description of Pilate from Jewish sources. Philo wrote of an event where the Jews were offended by four shields being placed in Herod’s palace and petitioned Pilate. Philo wrote that ‘he steadfastly refused this petition, for he was a man of a very inflexible disposition’ (On the Embassy to Gaius XXXVIII).
The timescale of events as they appear in the gospels isn’t right for a historical trial and execution, but is perfect for a passion play or literary creation. The Last Supper, the Garden of Gethsemane, the betrayal by Judas, the priests’ council, the trial by Pontius Pilate, the referral to Herod, the presentation to the people, the crucifixion, the collection of Jesus’ body and its burial all happen within less than 24 hours. This also all supposedly happened at the Passover, the most holy festival of Judaism.
Lastly, the Jewish council described in the gospels existed after the fall of Jerusalem in 70 CE when the gospels were written, but not before it, when the gospel narrative is set.
The trial and crucifixion of Jesus were deliberately placed at the Passover to tie the main story of Christianity to the main story of Judaism. In the Book of Deuteronomy the Israelites are told to sacrifice a lamb as ‘the Passover victim’ (Deuteronomy 16.6), that Passover victim became Jesus in the gospel story. The ‘Lamb of God’ is a standard Christian motif for Jesus. We also find this motif in the suffering servant of Isaiah 52-3 that was so influential on the gospel narrative, which states, ‘he was led like a lamb to the slaughter’ (Isaiah 53.7).
The writer of the Gospel of John went so far as to slightly alter the whole Passion narrative to have it fit better with the Passover. In his account, he changed the day of Jesus’ death to Passover eve, rather than having it occur on the following day as it originally was in the Synoptic Gospels. That way Jesus’ death took place at the same time that the lambs were being slaughtered.
While he never placed the trial and crucifixion of Jesus at the Passover, Paul made this connection in his letters, stating, ‘Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed’ (1 Corinthians 5.7). The letter 1 Peter also connects Jesus to the Passover lamb when it calls states, ‘You were redeemed…by the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or spots’ (1Peter 1.18-19). In second temple Judaism, sins were absolved the through sacrifice of animals at the temple.
In the New Testament, Jesus takes the place of the sacrificial animal to redeem the original sin of humanity. Matthew 20.28 has Jesus say, ‘The Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.’ The Book of Revelation also makes this connection, ‘You were slain, and with your blood you purchased for God persons from every tribe and language and people and nation’ (Revelation 5.9).
Hippolytus of Rome (170 – 236 CE) also noted this link when he wrote of Jesus, ‘In the Passover season, so as to exhibit himself as one destined to be sacrificed like a sheep, and to prove himself the true Paschal lamb’ (The Extant Works and Fragments V).
Justin Martyr similarly noted, ‘And it is written, on the day of the Passover you seized him, and that also during the Passover you crucified him. And as the blood of the passover saved those who were in Egypt, so also the blood of Christ will deliver from death those who have believed’ (Dialogue with Trypho chapter 111).
Tertullian (160 – 200 CE) wrote that, ‘He [Jesus] also knew the exact time it behoved him to suffer, since the law prefigures his passion. Accordingly, of all the festal days of the Jews he chose the passover’ (Against Marcion 4.40).
The idea of Jesus as a the sacrificial victim may also have links to the Jewish scapegoat ritual. During the festival of Yom Kippur, two goats were taken to the temple in Jerusalem. One was sacrificed to Yahweh and one was outcast into the desert to carry the sins of the people with it.
The figure of Barabbas may also be linked to this idea, his name was Jesus Barabbas, which means ‘Jesus, Son of the Father’. He is released, while Jesus is sacrificed. The whole Barabbas episode is fictional, we know of no such custom of releasing a prisoner at the Passover or on any other feast day. Origen made the connection between Barabbas’ release and the Yom Kippur scapegoat,
‘You see! You have here the goat who is released alive into the wilderness. Bearing in himself the sins of the people who were shouting and saying ‘Crucify! Crucify!’ He is therefore the goat released alive into the wilderness, while the other is the goat dedicated to God as a sacrifice to atone for those sins, making of himself a true atonement for those who believe.’ (Homily on Leviticus 10.2.2).
The biblical story of the trial of Jesus also has similarities to the earlier trials of Socrates and Dionysus. All three were tried for blasphemy and corrupting the populace. Socrates stated that the charges brought against him were as follows,
‘He says he knows how the youth are corrupted and who are their corruptors’ (Euthyphro 2c)
and
‘He says that I am a maker of gods, and that I make new gods and don’t believe in the old ones. He claims he indicted me for the sake of these old ones.’ ( Euthyphro 3b)
Euripides wrote that the charges against Dionysus were,
‘This effeminate stranger, who corrupts our women with this new disease, fouls the whole land with lechery. If you catch him, bring him here bound for judgement, and a death by stoning. He’ll wish he’d never brought his Bacchic rites to Thebes.’ (The Bacchae 353-7)
Similarly, the gospels record the charges made against Jesus as, ‘We found this man subverting our nation’ (Luke 23.2) and ‘Blasphemy! We don’t need to call any further witnesses. You’ve just heard the blasphemy’ (Matthew 26.65).
There are several other parallels in the story of the trial of Jesus and those of Socrates and Dionysus. All three make no attempt to resist arrest despite the fact they know they are innocent. When the troops come to apprehend Jesus, he readily goes with them, telling his apostles,
‘Don’t you know that I could appeal to my Father, who would at once send me more than twelve legions of angels? But how then could the scriptures come true which say that this must happen?’ (Matthew 26.53-4)
Socrates and Dionysus also readily accepted their arrest and incarceration. Socrates described his apprehension with,
‘The Athenians have decided it right to condemn me, and accordingly I have thought it better and more right to remain here and undergo my sentence.’ (Phaedo 98e)
Dionysus’ arrest is described by Euripides in The Bacchae,
‘The beast was tame. He didn’t try to run away, no he surrendered willingly enough…He stood still, making it easier for me to take him in.’ (The Bacchae 434-441)
Socrates was a key template upon whom the figure of Jesus was based. Socrates was viewed by philosophers of the time as a righteous figure who had been rejected and put to death by the people of Athens. It’s not only Jesus’ sermons on loving one’s neighbour and turning the other cheek that mirror Greek philosophy. Plato’s writings may even have been an influence on the first Christians who came up with the story of the crucifixion. Over 400 years before Christianity, Plato had prophetically written,
‘The just man will be scourged, tortured, and imprisoned, his eyes will be put out, and after every extremity of suffering he will be crucified.’ (The Republic 2.361e-362a)
The death of Socrates from drinking a cup of hemlock is almost as well known as the death of Jesus by crucifixion. The gospel of Matthew appears to link Jesus’ suffering and death to that of Socrates by having Jesus say ‘My father, if it is possible, let this cup pass me by’ (Matthew 26.39). Elsewhere in the gospels, Jesus again affirms the link between his own passion and that of Socrates with the words, ‘My father, if this cup cannot pass me by without me drinking it, your will be done’ (Matthew 26.42), and ‘This is the cup my father has given me, shall I not drink it?’ (John 18.11).
The writings of Plato sometimes represented Socrates as a divinely sent messenger. At one point in the tale of the death of Socrates, the imprisoned philosopher tells his captors,
‘And so, men of Athens, I am not making my defence for my own sake, as you might imagine, but for yours, that you may not sin against God by condemning me…And I am, as I say, given to you by God.’ (Apology 30d – 31a)
Origen noted the similarity in the stories of Socrates and Jesus, observing both willingly accepted their fate and refused to try and avoid it. He wrote,
‘Socrates knew that he would die after drinking the hemlock, and it was in his power to escape from prison to avoid these calamities if he had allowed himself to be persuaded by Crito. Nevertheless he decided that it was better for him to die as a philosopher, than live in a manner unbecoming one…Now where is the wonder if Jesus, knowing all things that were to happen, encountered what he foreknew and didn’t avoid them.’ (Against Celsus 2.17)
He also wrote, ‘Jesus did indeed meet with a most sad death, but the same might be said of Socrates.’ (Against Celsus 7.56)
The similarities in the stories of Jesus, Socrates and Dionysus carry on from the trial into the crucifixion. As he is being crucified, Jesus states, ‘Forgive them father, they don’t know what they’re doing’ (Luke 23.34). Jesus is repeating the words of the earlier son of god Dionysus, who told his persecutors, ‘You don’t know what you’re saying, what you do, nor who you are’ (The Bacchae 506). This is also reminiscent of Socrates, who berated his tormentors with,
‘They can do neither good nor evil: they cannot make a man wise or make him foolish, whatever they do is the result of chance.’ (Crito 44d)
The Bible and Mythology 