(March 1, 2015 at 1:49 pm)Nestor Wrote: Doesn't that kind of make the possibility of his freeing an actual criminal and putting to death a religious heretic, by toying with the mob and forcing them to vote---during Jerusalem's most holy festival---a bit more credible?
I see what you're getting at, but you have to remember that Jesus didn't appear before Pilate for heresy (which Pilate wouldn't have cared a damn about) but for sedition -- allegedly declaring himself the Messiah, which to the Romans (and of course most Jews) was tantamount to declaring oneself king. You could hardly swing a dead cat back then without hitting this or that Messianic pretender, and they all came to a bad end when they ran afoul of Rome. Jesus' alleged trial took place during high festival, a time of heightened tensions and security concerns. Pilate's role would have been uncomplicated and straightforward as his principle tasks were to ensure that the taxes/tributes flowed unabated to Rome and to keep the fragile peace by whatever means were considered lawful by the empire's brutal standards. He dispatched untold numbers of Jews to the cross in pursuit of that job description. Jesus would have struck him as just another troublemaker to serve as a gruesome reminder to the Jews what happens when you set yourself in opposition to the Emperor.
Despite the Gospels' transparent efforts to exculpate Pilate, and by extension Rome, from responsibility for Jesus' death and to lay responsibility for it at the feet of the Temple Priests (easy targets since the Temple had been destroyed and Jerusalem burned to the ground by the time of the Gospels' writings), that dog won't hunt. Pilate probably dispatched Jesus to his death in the time it would take to make a sandwich. And I seriously doubt he lost any sleep over it.
