Doesn't really matter. At the time that later xtians chose to set their story the situation in Judaea was relatively peaceful. In 6 AD, Augustus had granted a petition by the nobility to remove Archelaus as Tetrarch and let the province become a Roman prefecture attached to Syria. According to the Luke variant of the tale as it exists now jesus wasn't even born until sometime after Quirinius and Coponius were sent to Syria and Judaea respectively. Of course, the Matty variant has "jesus" being 10-12 years old by this time and living in "Nazareth" which was located in Herod Antipas' realm of Galilee and Perea. The Sanhedrin had limited local authority in Jerusalem and the Prefect himself went to set up his headquarters in Caesarea Maritima which was built by Herod the Great and was far more accommodating to Greco-Roman lifestyles. Plus the climate was better. This rather happy state of affairs continued until Caligula came along and by the time the jesus story was supposedly over. Pilate, according to Josephus and Philo, may have antagonized the people some but neither of them mentions him killing any so-called "jesus."
Crucifixion was a punishment reserved for slaves and rebels among the Romans and the Jews seemed to prefer stoning. The gosples claim that jesus was neither a slave nor a rebel so the whole story just does not ring true. But then, there are so many parts of the story that do not ring true that fixating on that one seems tame.
Frankly, the whole thing seems to be an invention of whoever wrote "mark" and the others copied it - and, as someone noted - "Luke" who was writing for a primarily Roman audience translated the term into Latin. So what?
Crucifixion was a punishment reserved for slaves and rebels among the Romans and the Jews seemed to prefer stoning. The gosples claim that jesus was neither a slave nor a rebel so the whole story just does not ring true. But then, there are so many parts of the story that do not ring true that fixating on that one seems tame.
Frankly, the whole thing seems to be an invention of whoever wrote "mark" and the others copied it - and, as someone noted - "Luke" who was writing for a primarily Roman audience translated the term into Latin. So what?
