Why Jesus was Executed by Pontius Pilate?

Pontius Pilate poses a question to Jesus of Nazareth in the Gospel of John, “What is the truth?”

This question could also be asked about the own history pf Pilate. From the point of view of the New Testament of the Christian Bible, the Judea’s Roman governor was a wavering judge who exonerated Jesus initially before bending to the will of the crowd. He condemning him to death. By contrast, the sources which are non-Biblical portray him as a barbarous leader who willfully defied the traditions of the Jewish people he oversaw. So, which was the truth?

History says very little about Pilate before he served as the Roman prefect of Judea between 26 and 36 A.D. It is considered that he was born into an equestrian family in Italy. But according to some legends, Scotland was his birth land.

One of the earliest and most devastating accounts of Pilate comes from the Jewish philosopher Philo of Alexandria. Writing around 50 A.D., he has castigated the perfect for his “briberies, insults, robberies, outrages and wanton injuries, executions without trial, constantly repeated, ceaseless and supremely grievous cruelty.”

An early Christianity historian at Willamette University, Stephen J. Patterson said that Philo summarizes the rule of Pilate as corrupt and full of bribery. He is also an author of several books including The Forgotten Creed: Christianity's Original Struggle Against Bigotry, Slavery, and Sexism. That kind of behavior wouldn’t have been all that extraordinary for a Roman ruler, but Pilate apparently did it more ruthlessly than most.

Head of the University of Edinburgh’s School of Divinity and author of Pontius Pilate in History and Interpretation, Helen Bond said that the main issue is that it is not easy to know how historical Philo’s account actually was. She noted that Philo is a hugely dramatic writer and one with very clear biases depicts that People who uphold Jewish laws are recorded in highly positive ways, while people who do not are described in highly negative terms.

By: Preeti Narula
Content: https://www.history.com/news/why-pontius-pilate-executed-jesus