>Pilate saith to him: What is truth? And when he said this, he went out again to the Jews, and saith to them: I find no cause in him. But you have a custom that I should release one unto you at the pasch: will you, therefore, that I release unto you the king of the Jews? Then cried they all again, saying: Not this man, but Barabbas. Now Barabbas was a robber.
Why would Pilate ask them if they would like him to free Jesus, after they delivered him to Pilate and insisted that he be put to death?
Other urls found in this thread:
bartleby.com
anyforums.com
twitter.com
because he was dumb enough to see the potential for rationality on the part of savage jews
>I find no cause in him
But as far as Pilate is concerned, Jesus is innocent. If he wants to release Jesus, it doesn't have to be Jesus OR Barabbas.
He didn't want to get his shitty colony ruined by Jews chimping out and have Mr. Caesar getting angry
That doesn't explain anything?
There was probably no Barrabas. It was probably just a metaphorical event.
>just a metaphorical event.
And what is iot supposed to mean?That the crowd willfully chose the wrong side of things?
It's a strange situation. Does Pilate really expect him to be favored? It isn't even Pilate, but Pilate's wife who venerates Jesus.. Pilate himself only appears to be going through the motions of SEEMING as if he gives a fuck. Why ask the crowd if they want 'the king of the Jews' released as opposed to Jesus of Nazareth, for instance? The crowd's responding in any other way would be viewed as treasonous by the Jewish authorities, the very one Pilate himself wished to appease. Iow's Pilate knows what the result will be beforehand. There's cowardice in this passage on both sides, it's a mockery, and that's the point.
Where are all the crowds of people that saw jesus heal everyone and bring lazarus back from the dead?Shouldnt they be there to defend him?
Yes. It's a polemic against the Jews who rejected Jesus. It's emphasizing that Jesus is the real Messiah and that he was wrongfully rejected by the majority of his own people.
Yeah. Kinda obvious that this bit was invented later than the rest of the fictioaal and stolen Bible myths
It was customary for the governor to release one prisoner during Passover, so he was going to release someone. It was a practice designed to placate the populace, so sometimes he let them choose whose death sentence to commute. He offered up a pretty tantalizing choice: A prophet who claimed to have healed many, and who claimed to be the Son of God, or a leader of a riot against the occupying Roman force. The public chose the leader of the revolution.
It wasn't the entire populace that offered Jesus to Pilate, just the Pharisees and their cronies. Plus, he thought Jesus was innocent, so he thought it best to give him a fair shot.
Why would they be allowed inside?
That's interesting, I've heard Pilates behavior referred to as cowardice in his statement: "What is Truth?" Is it him unwilling to take responsibility and not come to a clear conviction, or was he making philosophical statement about the unknowable nature of Truth?
>Inside
No Jew entered the building, save for Jesus. This is because they have a law where entering the house of a gentile makes them unclean, whereas they were about to celebrate passover
"WHAT is truth? said jesting Pilate, and would not stay for an answer."
One of most beautiful and ambiguous moments in bible.
bartleby.com
That's interesting, so you're saying by that time a crowd of regular Jews had gathered?
My confusion stems from the assumption that he asked the people mentioned here:
>When the chief priests, therefore, and the servants, had seen him, they cried out, saying: Crucify him, crucify him. Pilate saith to them: Take him you, and crucify him: for I find no cause in him.
>The Jews answered him: We have a law; and according to the law he ought to die, because he made himself the Son of God.
(St John 19:6-7)
whether they would like him to release Jesus. Obviously they would say no.
The other confusing point is that Jesus is not guilty in the eyes of Pilate, so why would releasing an innocent be a concession?
I was responding as to why Jesus' supporters from neighboring towns would not be there to advocate for him.
Tens of thousands of Jews would be in Jerusalem at the time. So the chances of some being there and having their voice heard is unlikely.
"But the chief priests and the elders persuaded the crowd to ask for Barabbas and to have Jesus executed." That's from Matthew 27. It shows that it wasn't just the Priests and elders there, so it was reasonable to assume it was just a crowd of normal people.
Pilate doesn't care about who's innocent. The whole point of releasing a prisoner is that their innocence doesn't matter, you're letting them go whether they're innocent or not. The concession isn't releasing a guilty man, it's releasing a man period. If you're a Jew under imperial Rome, you view their authority over you as unjust in a sense. They have no authority, in your eyes, to prosecute a man, guilty or not.
As a Roman Governor, Pilate is aware of this antagonistic relationship between him and his subjects. Therefore, he offers up the men who he think will curry the most favor with him. He's not 100% sure who they actually want, and he thinks Jesus is innocent, and he knows Jesus is well-known, so he offers him, and he offers Barabbas too.
When one says 'oh, brother' one generally means something that both the tone and the circumstance dictate..
But Pilate's 'what is truth?' is obviously a rhetorical question. What it means is something like wtfe.
This is further supported when you see that he doesn't wait for an answer. He asks and immediately walks out.
Right. My sense of Pilate is that he goes about it the way he does for the sake of his wife (but hardly cares one way or the other..)