Pontius Pilate

[J.Alco]

Something I discovered and just gotta share.

Anyone who's familiar with biblical stories, or who's ever leafed through the bible, or has watched the Passion, or even has a bit of knowledge about the crucifixion, will know that Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor of Judea, is always portrayed (in the bible stories) as a good, kind man, a competent ruler, who has to crucify Jesus Christ essentially because his hands are tied by the matter. He laments the whole state of affairs and then washes his hands clean before ordering the crucifixion. Anyone who's familiar with christian mythology will already know all this I've said.

Now, all of us who've had the great fortune to see Monty Python's Life of Brian will surely remember Michael Palin's delicious performance as Pilate (particularly his accent: 'Bwian?' ). Of course, if you look past the whole R pronounced as a W thing (and the Bigus Dickus moment) you see that the Pilate portrayed in Life of Brian is vain, pompous, cruel (he has a soldier dragged off to the 'ciwcus' for laughing at him and, on meeting the Brian, often has a centurion beat him for imagined offences), generally incompetent at managing a city, and there are even hints of anti-semitism in his character (observe the sneering way he addresses Brian as 'Jew' when he meets him for the first time).

Anyways, leafing through various history books, sources, and talking with people who know of the matter, I've discovered that, and this really did surprise me, Monty Python's portrayal of Pilate is probably closer to historical truth than any Bible version of the Roman governor! (now, I'm not sure about the accent, though anything's possible )

I really just had to share that, because I'm still kinda amazed that a comedy film came closer to portraying a historical character's true nature than any 'serious' biblical story.

[Justinian II]

Something I discovered and just gotta share.

Anyone who's familiar with biblical stories, or who's ever leafed through the bible, or has watched the Passion, or even has a bit of knowledge about the crucifixion, will know that Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor of Judea, is always portrayed (in the bible stories) as a good, kind man, a competent ruler, who has to crucify Jesus Christ essentially because his hands are tied by the matter. He laments the whole state of affairs and then washes his hands clean before ordering the crucifixion. Anyone who's familiar with christian mythology will already know all this I've said.

Now, all of us who've had the great fortune to see Monty Python's Life of Brian will surely remember Michael Palin's delicious performance as Pilate (particularly his accent: 'Bwian?' ). Of course, if you look past the whole R pronounced as a W thing (and the Bigus Dickus moment) you see that the Pilate portrayed in Life of Brian is vain, pompous, cruel (he has a soldier dragged off to the 'ciwcus' for laughing at him and, on meeting the Brian, often has a centurion beat him for imagined offences), generally incompetent at managing a city, and there are even hints of anti-semitism in his character (observe the sneering way he addresses Brian as 'Jew' when he meets him for the first time).

Anyways, leafing through various history books, sources, and talking with people who know of the matter, I've discovered that, and this really did surprise me, Monty Python's portrayal of Pilate is probably closer to historical truth than any Bible version of the Roman governor! (now, I'm not sure about the accent, though anything's possible )

I really just had to share that, because I'm still kinda amazed that a comedy film came closer to portraying a historical character's true nature than any 'serious' biblical story.

Well, my understanding is that some of the members of the group were History majors, at some point. My Medieval History professor has actually flat out stated in class that "Quest for the Holy Grail" is actually the most accurate medieval movie out there.

[Geoffrey S]

The fact that the group could make political satire of the situation hundreds of years ago, and make it funny to modern day audiences says quite a bit about their talents in my opinion.

[Respenus]

Now, I don't want to insult anyone by saying this, yet it is my sound belief that the Bible can be taken as a "serious" historical account. Not offense, yet I have yet to see someone waking from the death and walking on water. It's it deep cultural influence on todays Western culture is what interested in.

In regard to Monty Python, I must seriously watch it sometimes. Yes, bad me for not doing it before.

[Megas Methuselah]

it is my sound belief that the Bible can be taken as a "serious" historical account

No offence taken. But I think you mean it cannot be taken as a serious historical account.

[russia almighty]

Depends on which parts . The migration out of Egypt sure. But the whole Israel being split up between 12 factions . Their conflicts with the Canaanites , getting conquered by Assyria , Babylon , bowing willingly to Persians and their uprising against the Seleucid's is VERY real .


This is coming from an atheist btw .

[Chaotix]

Well, when you consider the fact that the Bible was edited by the Romans after it was composed, it's not that surprising that he's portrayed as a generally just person.

[pezhetairoi]

The old testament is a very valid historical document, I agree. It's the new testament that must be taken with a pinch of salt because it was written evangelically, with an intention to 'sell', for want of a better word, the religion to the people. It is strange though, that they edited Pontius Pilate's character and not the scourging, or the crucifixion.

This is coming from a once-Catholic religious cynic, by the way. No offence meant, if any was taken. It's just where I stand personally on the matter.

[Gaius Scribonius Curio]

Well the Bible was not written by a single person. It wasn't even compiled until it became a mainstream religion. (I think the council of Niceia but I could be wrong).

Some parts were obviously written focusing on the miraculous (ie, the Gospels). However there is no reason why some, particularly the Old Testament wasn't written by Historians who had faith, recording faithfully (in their eyes), the events of their time.

Meaning is all about context. NB: using this as an example only, I don't mean to offend anybody. Living now and viewing the war in Iraq, a general view is that it was a mistake. 1000 years down the line you could have the view that it was necessary, or that it was a disaster that led indirectly to world war 3. We don't know what is going to happen in the future, all we can do is evaluate events by generally accepted attitudes, and the like. The context of now.

Obviously the authors of the Bible believed that they were writing a true history of their time, or a time before theirs. So the Bible can be used as a serious historical account, by the people of the time. That we don't believe it, or know that it did not happen is our choice with the knowledge that we have now.

So the Bible is useful in that it gives us an insight into what some people believed was history. Hence it is a historical document. That said it is only a viewpoint of what happened, like all other documents.

I'd also like to point out before anybody asks, no I am not a Christian.

Back to the point, I believe Pilate is viewed kindly in the Bible due to his actions with respect to the Crucifixion. The fact that he tried to spare Jesus meant that contemporary Christians may have felt that he was indeed a kind man, regardless of what happened before or after.

[Gaius Scribonius Curio]

Sorry, forget the last bit. I'm not overly familiar with the Bible, sorry.

[antisocialmunky]

The New Testament isn't really a historical document. Its mostly letters dealing with issues within Christianity that you can glean a little history from.

As for the Old Testament, its pretty good historical document since it lines up with archeology fairly well during the Assyrian, Babylonian periods, and early Persian periods. Before that evidence is a little sparse. :-\

Just look at all the stuff that corroberates that part of the Old Testament including the things that it brought up that were unknown in any other source but were confirmed by evidence that has been found within the last 200 years.

[Cyclops]

I am an agnostic humanist. I respect other peoples faith as it gives them strength. Speaking from a critical secular veiwpoint though I feel the Bible is a most misrepresented collection of works.

The New Testament isn't really a historical document. Its mostly letters dealing with issues within Christianity that you can glean a little history from.

The new testament is a narrative account of the life and teachings of a religious leader (the gospels) and his followers (Acts) and a number of letters attributed to those closest followers (letters and the Apocalypse). I think it is an historical document: it is flawed and has synoptic problems, and some pretty obviously mis-attribution (or even forgeries?), but it narrates a course of events and quotes primary sources.

As for the Old Testament, its pretty good historical document since it lines up with archeology fairly well during the Assyrian, Babylonian periods, and early Persian periods. Before that evidence is a little sparse. :-\

The old testament is a gaggle of court histories, wisdom literature, erotic poetry, creation myths (most likely written with an eye to discrediting rival religion's practices), genealogies (most likely written to justify land-grabs), prophecy (some of it perhaps backdated to make it look better), a couple of different lawcodes apparently by the same bloke (never mind the anachronisms) and a folksy story directly contradicting one of the law codes (Ruth), all edited, revised, assembled and reassembled many times over. its more like a weeks worth of net-surfing than a history book.

Just look at all the stuff that corroberates that part of the Old Testament including the things that it brought up that were unknown in any other source but were confirmed by evidence that has been found within the last 200 years.

The stuff about the Maccabees smashing the Seleukids is over-stated to say the least. People hunt for history in a story like Job that starts with Satan teasing God into torturing a good man, or Jonah where a fella survives inside a sea monster.

There's a handful of major things like "oh, really, there actually were Assyrians?" but usually when people say "history proves Bible right" its a tenuous link, eg a grave marked "Goliath" with a 6 foot bloke in it from 600 or more years after David lived.

More often its utter nonsense like "there were giants" "they had a box that shot lightning" or "there's a boat big enough to hold 2 of every animal parked halfway up Mt Ararat".

[Gaius Scribonius Curio]

@ Cyclops

Its still a historical document. It documents the thoughts and prejudices and attempts at justification of a people. Yes there are legends, David and Goliath, the trek out of Egypt etc. but these could be metaphors/ exaggerations.

Everyone exaggerates, its human nature. I definately do!

I'm not saying (and I doubt that antisocialmunky is too) that it is a definitive history of the world! Merely that it can be useful in understanding the mindset of the people at the time, not to mention the way of life etc.

History is written by the victors, is a well-known saying but I'd say more that history is written in every book, computer, construction etc. that is left behind/ recorded. It just offers differing opinions.

In truth I agree with your representation of the New Testament as a historical document for the same reasons given above.

I don't see how you can accept one and not the other, particularly when the the other is the one that is supposed to be historical (at least in part).

I'm sorry I'm rambling...



... I'll shut up now.

[pezhetairoi]

I'm not saying (and I doubt that antisocialmunky is too) that it is a definitive history of the world! Merely that it can be useful in understanding the mindset of the people at the time, not to mention the way of life etc.

... I'll shut up now.

Don't worry, nothing wrong you said. Keep talking, Curio!

The Bible definitely isn't a definitive history of the world, because there are definitely justifications and backdating and selective censorship/editing in there. Depending on your faith, you may or may not take the parting of the Red Sea, the smiting of Jericho, the crushing of the Assyrians, et al as gospel truth (pun not intended). That's a personal choice of belief. But it is nevertheless an interpretation of the truth, and we 21st-century students of history are certainly experienced enough in historiography and historical inquiry to be able to filter our fact from fiction as long as we set aside the absoluteness of blind faith (because faith by definition requires belief in something that cannot be conclusively proven) and adopt a critical, cynical POV if only for the duration of the analysis.

It seems to me that the Old and New Testaments are simply two kinds of history: one a typical modern-day compilation of historical essays, edited by a person or organisation. Each person contributes an essay, on a particular period. Hence each guy gets a say over what goes into his period without intervention from other writers. The other, on the other hand, is made of essays of the same period, but with different interpretations by different people. If I understood Cyclops rightly, he sees the Old Testament as being a lot less truthful than the New.

May I be so bold as to say that I feel at the least they are pretty on par. Consider that the Old Testament, for all its editing and censorship and apologia, has come down to us more or less faithfully from the 'not-one-word-more, not-one-word-less' faithful copyings of the Torah. The only issue being the veracity of the original document.

Whereas the New Testament is actually (if I may use the word) unworthy to be called a historical document in the sense it was originally intended. The number of books that have been cut out from it, forbidden and made practically heresy to even read, is probably the biggest and most wide-ranging historical act of censorship there has ever been in human history in consideration of the people it has affected directly or indirectly throughout the centuries.

On a nearly unrelated note, it's amazing how you can find said Forbidden Books of the New Testament readily available on Project Gutenberg.

[Respenus]

No offence taken. But I think you mean it cannot be taken as a serious historical account.

Yeh. See what tiredness does?!

[alatar]

The old testment is about as unbiased as mien kamf.

God takes active parts in wiping out enemiescomments genocide and is basicly one long justification of itself.
However thats not to say it isn't a historical source, just that don't trust i unless it has alot of backing evidence.

[Watchman]

Even devoutly Christian historians often observe readily enough the OT has its fair share of half-assed excusing of gruesome massacres. (Then again, boasting of your gruesome massacres was all the rage back those days in any case.)

That aside, a fair bit of the major events can be cross-referenced to Egyptian, Assyrian and Babylonian (plus sundry) sources for proof and an alternate perspective, and the thing is one of the precious few surviving written records concerning the Middle East around early Iron Age. You just need to filter out a lot of blatant propaganda and the usual other crud, but scholars are supposed to do that anyway.

[antisocialmunky]

The stuff about the Maccabees smashing the Seleukids is over-stated to say the least. People hunt for history in a story like Job that starts with Satan teasing God into torturing a good man, or Jonah where a fella survives inside a sea monster.

There's a handful of major things like "oh, really, there actually were Assyrians?" but usually when people say "history proves Bible right" its a tenuous link, eg a grave marked "Goliath" with a 6 foot bloke in it from 600 or more years after David lived.

More often its utter nonsense like "there were giants" "they had a box that shot lightning" or "there's a boat big enough to hold 2 of every animal parked halfway up Mt Ararat".

I was thinking about Nabonidius, Belshazzar, the fall of Babylon without a major siege from Daniel. The account in Jonah refering to the size of the Ninevah megalopolis. Genesis names of cities match closely with the naming conventions(as far as can be told) used in the 4th millenium. The accounts of Ur being a rich city. The political situation during the Assyrian perios to the early Persian period. Etc.

As for stuff 'cut' from the New Testament... well aren't most of them works after the first century, nostic, or obvious forgeries by Greeks?

As for faith, its defined as an asured expectation of unseen things IE: you believe things will happen, the common misconception is that there's no basis for it. Faith often has a basis for it IE: I trusting your friend because you know his character - I have faith in him. Blind faith should not be representative of the idea of faith but an abberation. Otherwise you get the commonly held view that faith is for the ignorant which I can quite assure you that it is not as we all have faith in something whether it be God, gods, goverment, or each other.

[Justinian II]

The New Testament isn't really a historical document.

True, but as both a Christian and a Historian, you can see some tidbits about what WAS going on in Jesus's lifetime; societal movements, religious movements, and it provides, weirdly enough, a "snapshot" (albeit blurry) of the life of what amounts to the average citizen in the Roman world: the poor, disgruntled peasant which is always walked over.

This, IMO, does make the gospels valuable for historical research. Whether what it says about Jesus is true or not is irrelevant for the historian, IMO, and only relevant for the believer.

[unreal_uk]

Never let the truth get in the way of a good yarn.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

Even devoutly Christian historians often observe readily enough the OT has its fair share of half-assed excusing of gruesome massacres. (Then again, boasting of your gruesome massacres was all the rage back those days in any case.)

You called?

Okay, seriously now. The OT is a mess, flat out. Even things from the time of Soloman are diffivult to corroborate. After that things get better and the Apothryca (between OT and NT) is okay.

That aside, a fair bit of the major events can be cross-referenced to Egyptian, Assyrian and Babylonian (plus sundry) sources for proof and an alternate perspective, and the thing is one of the precious few surviving written records concerning the Middle East around early Iron Age. You just need to filter out a lot of blatant propaganda and the usual other crud, but scholars are supposed to do that anyway.

The NT is a mixture of biography and philosophy. Inherrent in it's formation and use of four divergent accounts is an admission of fallability, in my view at least.

[Gaius Scribonius Curio]

The old testment is about as unbiased as mien kamf.

God takes active parts in wiping out enemiescomments genocide and is basicly one long justification of itself.
However thats not to say it isn't a historical source, just that don't trust i unless it has alot of backing evidence.

Biased yes, but as I said before everything is biased.

I'm going to expand on something I said earlier. The 'God taking part in wiping out people' stuff, could be metaphor. The smiting of Jericho, for example, could have been due, in part, to an eathquake. The Hebrews were performing a religious ceremony, an earthquake struck, the Hebrews out in the open were relatively unaffected but the walls of Jericho came tumbling down? The Great flood, occured long before the Bible was compiled, could have been a massive and devastating flood, didn't cover the earth but could have caused a lot of damage, caused people to question their faith. Look at the Black Death and the Flagellants.

Yes it justifies, but who realistically, in a religion that is about loving thy enemies and caring and turning the other cheek, wants to be known as a cold-hearted and ruthless murderer?

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

The only problem with the walls of Jericho coming down is they weren't up to begin with. Either Exodus etc happened at another time or in another way than advertised.

[Gaius Scribonius Curio]

oops there I go again...

[antisocialmunky]

The only problem with the walls of Jericho coming down is they weren't up to begin with. Either Exodus etc happened at another time or in another way than advertised.

Well, archeologiests date the Hebrew presences about 4-500 years after the bible's genological records do. The last destruction is only around 1550 or so. Exodus dates it to around 1400-1500 and archeology puts the Hebrew presense to 1000ish.

Though, Jericho's an interesting place since its a contender for the oldest city on earth. The side effect is that it was burned down lots and lots of times.

As for divergent accounts, well all the Gospel writers focused on different aspects and if all are who tradition were, their own view points. Try to ask two people about something that happened 20+ years ago with some records and see how well their stories match up.

That being said, Luke is the most interesting one IMHO, the intro indicates he did research for someone (evidently somewhat prominient or wealthy) on the origin and progression of Christianity. He also mentions that many people did the same.(Luke 1:1-3)

I guess if you had to risk your life because you believed in something, it only makes sense that you're believing something accurate.

[chairman]

It's seem's that the general opinion here is that the Bible inherently needs to be proved by other sources, but these other sources don't need proof to use them. However, the OT (in the form of the Torah) is one of the most widely copied and distributed texts from antiquity. And the NT also has one of the largest amounts of identical manuscripts of the Classical period. This means that while we are dealing a handful or if lucky a few hundred copies a "Author"s "History of the X People", we are dealing with thousands of copies of the Bible. And just as we use Herodotus, Thucydides and Xenophon to tell us about the Persian Wars and use Appian, Arrian, Livy, Plutarch and Polybius to tell us about Rome, we use Matthew, Mark, Luke and John to tell us about Jesus, Peter, and John the Baptist. The inclusion of four Gospels is the NT's way of validifying itself by showing multiple viewpoints to tell about a particular series of events and people.

By the way about the OP's topic: one reason that Pontius Pilate "seems" to be better than he was in real life is that he isn't portrayed like this. If read correctly, the Gospels paint a picture and indecisive, arrogant governor who dislikes the local population and prefers to avoid dealing with them. As much as he can, Pilate tries to shove Jesus off on other people, rather than deal with the issue himself. Firstly, he attempts to have the Sadducees take Jesus back and work it out. When that doesn't work, he sends Jesus to see Herod, the ruler of Galilee (nowhere near the kind of ruler that his namesake was), but Herod says that it's not his problem either. The Gospels also show Pilate's arrogance and contempt when he tells Jesus that he has the power of life and death over him. Jesus responds by saying that Pilate's power is temporary. This has two meanings: first in the purely religious sense of spiritual and temporal power, but also showing that the Jews could tell that Pilate's days as governor were numbered. Only a few years later, the incompetant prefect was shamefully recalled to Rome by the emporer, who was not happy with him. Apparently, the people of Judea knew that the emporer was fully aware of how bad a job Pilate was doing .

Just a few thoughts.

Chairman

[Cyclops]

The OT is flawed as history but obviously has points of interest if you can contextualise it a bit. Eg in the book of Ruth there's some interesting details on legal procedure and inheritance: but are they relevant to the time it was composed (600-400BC?) or 4 generations before David (pre-1000 BC sometime)? Is it an actual legal tradition or a fiction interpolated to to justify a reform?

If you're relying on it for a narrative of the course of politcal events in the Near East then you're in trouble.

Its extremely rare to find anything in the OT that's usable history. More often its "oh here's a Babylonian poem that has been copied in Psalms" or 'here's a place name vaguely similar to one mentioned in the Bible 1000 years out of context".

There's a nice debunk in Robin Lane Fox's The Unauthorized Version: Truth and Fiction in the Bible . He poses two questions: Is the Bible true? Did the authors think it was true when they wrote it? His answer on both points is usually often No, and its quite convincing.

[Gaius Scribonius Curio]

That sounds interesting Cyclops, I'll give it a look.

Thanks.

[chairman]

Saying that the OT is flawed is an awefully strong criticism to be making. How do we know that what the Bible tells us about the ancient levent isn't true? It's not like we have detailed accounts written by Babylonian historians on the peoples around them like we do for the Greeks and Romans. What we have in the way of textual evidence from that time period is mostly Egyptian, Babylonian and Assyrian court records that are more concerned with the matters of "big picture" geopolitics and such. None of the documents covers in any scale of detail the area of Palestine and Syria, especially the Israelites. So, in the OT, we have a set of documents written from the emic perspective about the history, culture, religion, politics, laws, wars, and life of the Israeli people. Not only does the OT cover an area and people not heavily discussed by the contemporary texts, but it is also written, not by the court scribes of major empires, but by relatively less significant people. So, the OT is talking more about the daily lives of people in Palestine and less about dynasty engrandising issues. This is similar to the hundreds of thousands of cuniform tablets from Mesopotamia that deal mainly with individual economic transactions. In many ways, the OT is complete history, ethnography, theological summary and collection of cultural songs, poems and sayings. If we were to discover a similar document from ANY other people in that time period or any period, we would call it the find of the millenium! Arrian's lost "Alanica" or Polybius's other works would pale in comparison to a similar text for any of the peoples in that part of the world.

Chairman

[Kολοσσός]

I always imagine Pilate as David Bowie in a toga...what movie was that?