Pontius, Our Pilot – Part 1

To those who have, of late, recited to me our old evangelical adage – that the scriptures of the Bible are, despite their manifold authors, truthful and without contradiction – I have countered with my standing response: where would you like to begin?

Today we shall turn to one of our preeminent but unacknowledged allies, one who stands as exemplar of the sorrowing fact that the biblical writers were rather making it up as they went along – our old dear villain, Pontius Pilate. Just like Lazarus and Paul, Pontius can help us to pilot up-current, back through the Channel of No Return, to break the siren spell of rose-tinted apologetics. For the New Testament scenes that feature Pilate offer a front-line case study in non-historical nonsense, the crafting of a literary foil to our own Jesus, and a legendizing inflation of the Nazarene. And Pilate – just like Lazarus – wags a heavy finger at the masked men who penned our Gospels, particularly the fourth, whom we may redub as St. John, the Liar. Yet before all is done, Joseph Smith will re-enact for us just how a tawdry death is exonerated by the pen, and how a martyr is born.

A Succinct Scope

Though much has been stated about the scenes and role played by Pilate, here I shall keep the focus on two primary areas:

1. The dialogue between Jesus and Pilate
2. The reluctance of Pilate in judging Jesus

Mark’s Mute Messiah

For the first, we need look to no references beyond the Bible itself. In Mark, the first narrative account of Jesus’ life written, Pilate examines Jesus. The nature of their discussion is succinct, since Jesus essentially refuses to answer Pilate’s questions. During the course of the interview, Jesus makes only a single short statement – a mere two words in the Greek. And Mark makes Pilate’s frustration at the Silent Jesus clear:

And as soon as it was morning, the chief priests held a consultation with the elders and scribes and the whole council. And they bound Jesus and led him away and delivered him over to Pilate. And Pilate asked him, “Are you the King of the Jews?” And he answered him, “You have said so.” And the chief priests accused him of many things. And Pilate again asked him, “Have you no answer to make? See how many charges they bring against you.” But Jesus made no further answer, so that Pilate was amazed.

(Mark 15:1-5 ESV)

From a historical point of view, the reader should ask a very sensible question at this point: how does Mark know what passed between Jesus and Pilate at all? The type of interview that took place was typically non-public, likely taking place in Pilate’s offices. Mark never tells us how word of the proceedings came to be known at all. Apart from any identifiable witnesses or sources of information, one could be forgiven for thinking that Mark was either guessing at the trial dynamics or working from rumors that may have passed around at second or third hand from Roman soldiers or Jewish accusers.

Again we are in no position to say what exactly happened at Jesus’ trial before Pilate. His followers who later told stories about it were not there, and the principal participants, Pilate and the chief priests, would not have made themselves available later for interviews. I should also point out that the Gospel accounts of the large crowds at the trial do not pass the criteria of contextual credibility or dissimilarity.

Ehrman, Bart D. (1999-07-26). Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium (p. 222). Oxford University Press. Kindle Edition.

Yet setting aside (for the moment) the question of historical plausibility, there were good theological reasons for Mark to craft the story the way he did. Jesus was believed to be the Messiah, and a Jesus who did not answer the charges against him would comport with the prophecy of Isaiah, as indeed the author of Acts indicates:

He was oppressed, and he was afflicted,
yet he opened not his mouth;
like a lamb that is led to the slaughter,
and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent,
so he opened not his mouth.

(Isaiah 53:7 ESV)

The manner in which Mark portrays the scene would confirm this prophecy, whether Mark actually knew what Pilate and Jesus said or not.

Synoptic Repetition: Matthew and Luke

The silent portrait of Jesus was reaffirmed by the next gospel written, Matthew. He was, of course, working with the gospel of Mark in hand, giving an expanded (and edited) narrative of the earlier account. But his description of the trial remains nearly the same:

But he gave him no answer, not even to a single charge, so that the governor was greatly amazed.

(Matthew 27:14 ESV)

In both Mark and Matthew, Jesus effectively takes the 5th.

By the writing of the third gospel, Luke, the emphasis on silence began to wane. Luke portrays Jesus in much the same way, but the examination breaks off with new discussion of Pilate attempting to sidestep a ruling and passing Jesus off to Herod – a new parenthetical event absent from the other three accounts.

Nevertheless, in three gospel tellings, we have a Silent Jesus, who says only two words to Pilate during the entire examination. And that’s how we know Jesus fulfilled Isaiah. Right?

St. John, the Liar

And then comes John. Dear, dear John, who proves ever fluent in his poetic aggrandizements, his mythical embellishments, his carefree coloring outside the lines. Apart from John, we would not have Christianity as we know it. Without John, we could not have a Divine Jesus, we would not have water turned into wine, and we would not have the great “I am” sayings. Nor indeed would we have the confected tale about Lazarus’ resurrection – nor even the existence of Lazarus, for that matter. Because the other three gospel writers have not the slightest knowledge of these things. John’s innovations leave us sitting in a rather awkward chair – for if John is truthful in his gospel, then either the earlier gospel writers were derelict in their portrayals, or they were ignorant of some rather critical information about Jesus.

If John is truthful.

And here, Pontius can help. For in John, our Silent Jesus is downright chatty with Pilate, making a range of theological points through several exchanges. Pilate is no longer the historical judge, but a literary softball pitcher, lobbing slow pitches for a verbose Jesus to swat over the wall. Jesus’ multiple responses outflank his hapless government examiner in every exchange:

Jesus answered, “Do you say this of your own accord, or did others say it to you about me?” … Jesus answered, “My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting, that I might not be delivered over to the Jews. But my kingdom is not from the world.” … Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. For this purpose I was born and for this purpose I have come into the world—to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice.” … Jesus answered him, “You would have no authority over me at all unless it had been given you from above. Therefore he who delivered me over to you has the greater sin.”

(John 18:34, 36, 37, & 19:11 ESV)

What do these fox-clever responses have in common? They have the shared quality of being entirely unknown to the other (and earlier) gospel writers. Let us return to the sensible question asked about Mark earlier: how does John propose to know what Jesus said? On whose second-hand recounting is this conversation based? Someone present in the room would need to have told John. And here is the sticking point: why didn’t the prior three gospel writers have access to the same information? Mark did not know about this extended exchange. Matthew was ignorant of the theological points that John puts in Jesus’ mouth. Even Luke – who loves to include dramatic narrative content – apparently had no access to whatever eye-witnesses related these events to John. And the gospel of John was completed last. Everyone who had actually been present for the trial was, by that time, dead.

What portrait do they paint? They indicate that Jesus, and not Pontius, controlled the engagement. Far from having Jesus take the 5th, John has Mouthy Jesus showing up Pilate – something to which the prior three accounts never give hint. The Jesus of the synoptic gospels doesn’t lecture his judge or drop any theological three-pointers from half-court.

Like a struggling writer yearning to craft a breakout work, John simply held nothing back in the padding he afforded to his stories. He seems discontent with anything short of grand theater, leading many of his scenes take on the dimensions of runaway parable (think: Lazarus). Even as early as the 2nd century, Origen nodded to the Johannine problems with the kindest possible phrasing:

John does not always tell the truth literally; he always tells the truth spiritually.

~ Origen

A relief, to be sure. Unless we want to know what Pilate actually said or did. Or what Jesus actually said or did. Seat shifting follows.

Nevertheless, the literary brilliance of John cannot be understated, for he wards off such questioning using an old device. John places a quite sensible question in the mouth of the villain:

For this purpose I was born and for this purpose I have come into the world—to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice.” Pilate said to him, “What is truth?”

(John 18:37-38 ESV)

The irony reverberates in the historical hollows of our Jesus stories – we are confronted with four versions of truth – nay, of “gospel truth” – regarding what happened at the trial of Jesus. And in arriving at the unremitting embellishment of John’s fourth telling, We The Readers really ought to be asking – what indeed is “gospel truth”? But this question has been embarrassed away before We The Readers can ask it: by the blindness of the villain, dear Pontius. The Truth stands before you, and you ask, what is truth?

The myth of the Garden warns us off from seeking forbidden knowledge. John’s myth of Pilate embarrasses any serious question about his assertions of embodied Truth. We The Readers ought to ask the unknown author of Genesis: forbidden knowledge according to whom? We The Readers ought to ask the unknown author of John: embodied truth according to whom?

In this case, we have the “truth” according one who, per Origen, doesn’t always tell the truth literally.

We have the right – even the duty – to ask such questions and to persist until we find answers.

Can’t All Be Right

The Christian reader has a choice of paths from this divergence in the wood. We may assume that the first three accounts were essentially correct, and that Jesus was indeed a model of quiet resignation at his trial before Pilate. Yet this would mean conceding the corollary accuracy indictments against John – our dearest John, who grants us the incarnation, the way, the truth, and the life. On pain of relinquishing such tightly clutched prizes, one could instead prefer to believe John and excuse the somewhat misleading omissions of the three earlier accounts. But doing so would mean a loss of Isaiah’s prophecy. Jesus cannot have been both the silent figure of Isaiah and the mouthy figure of John’s gospel concurrently.

Happily, such conundrums rarely trouble the faithful, who so reliably find means by which to either forget or embrace contradiction, thereafter to resume again the mantra that the Bible is without error or discrepancy. And the Jesus of faith, whether a viable historical reality or not, remains an amalgamation of the divergent gospel accounts through the magic of what we call “harmonization.” As does Pilate, or any figure therein appearing.

CONTINUED IN PART 2 >>

Related Sources:

• Thomas, Robert L, and Stanley N. Gundry. A Harmony of the Gospels, NASB. Harper Collins, 1978.
• Price, Robert M., John Dominic Crossan, Luke Timothy Johnson, James D.G. Dunn, and Darrel L. Bock. The Historical Jesus: Five Views. Edited by James K. Beilby, & Paul R. Eddy. IVP Academic, 2009.
• Ehrman, Bart D. Jesus, Interrupted: Revealing the Hidden Contradictions in the Bible (And Why We Don’t Know About Them). HarperOne, 2010.
• Ehrman, Bart D. Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium. USA: Oxford University Press, 2001.
• Borg, Marcus J. Evolution of the Word: The New Testament in the Order the Books Were Written. HarperOne , 2012.
• Bart Ehrman. Lecture on Misquoting Jesus.
• Debate: Bart Ehrman versus Craig Evans.