Pilate's tenure - did it begin AD 18 or 26?

[MrMacSon]

Ambiguity in Josephus regarding both the arrival and the departure of Pilate suggests that more is at play here than the length of Pilate's rule in Judea.

Perhaps the ambiguity in Josephus *raises the question 'if more is at play*, rather than 'suggests that more is at play'.

What do you mean by "If the Jesus crucifixion dating has changed in the retelling of the Jesus story... "?

And, regarding

did dating Pilate move along with the re-dating of the crucifixion?

I'm not sure what you're getting at - both the proposed short and long periods of Pilate's governorship covers the date of Jesus's crucifixion.

[maryhelena]

Ambiguity in Josephus regarding both the arrival and the departure of Pilate suggests that more is at play here than the length of Pilate's rule in Judea.

Perhaps the ambiguity raises the question 'if more is at play', rather than 'suggests that more is at play'.

What do you mean by "If the Jesus crucifixion dating has changed in the retelling of the Jesus story... "?

Various sources indicate different dates - and the gospels themselves have no exact date. Thus, the probability that the Jesus crucifixion dating changed.

And, regarding

did dating Pilate move along with the re-dating of the crucifixion?

I'm not sure what you're getting at - both the proposed short and long periods of Pilate's governorship covers the date of Jesus's crucifixion.

Within that Pilate 19 year period the Jesus story places the crucifixion. Ah.... a 'take your pick crucifixion' dating. If your happy with that approach nothing more to say.....The Jesus historicists might be happy with that approach. The ahistoricists/mythicists should be calling them out for failure to face the consequences of a movable crucifixion date. The most important event in Christian 'history' - the crucifixion - and Christian writers don't have their ducks in a row - close eyes and pin that tail on the donkey......

For me, that approach is a dead end - it achieves no forward movement in understanding the development of the gospel story - and hence understanding early christian origins.

Actually, the reference to Archelaus in gMatthew and Jesus being a young child can be read two ways:

1) If Jesus was a young child* in 4 b.c. (start of Archelalus rule) then he was born around 10 b.c.e. - thus making him around 30 years old in a 21 c.e. crucifixion story. (the Epistula Apostolorum and it's Pilate and Archelaus story)

2) If Jesus was a very young child in 6 c.e. (when Archelaus was removed from office) - a baby/toddler - then gLuke's dating system comes into play - where Jesus was not born under Herod I. (which produces a Jesus figure around 30 years old for a crucifixion story around 36/37 c.e.)

3) The Jesus birth story moves from the time of Herod I (gMatthew) to removal of Archelaus (gLuke and Quirinius). If the Jesus birth story is moved, then, logically, the Jesus crucifixion story dating most be moved.....demonstrating, of course, that the Jesus figure is not historical but a figurative construct ....

* pe-school young child around 6 years old.

[MrMacSon]

Perhaps the ambiguity raises the question 'if more is at play', rather than 'suggests that more is at play'.

Perhaps the ambiguity in Josephus *raises the question 'if more is at play*, rather than 'suggests that more is at play'.

[maryhelena]

Perhaps the ambiguity raises the question 'if more is at play', rather than 'suggests that more is at play'.

Perhaps the ambiguity in Josephus *raises the question 'if more is at play*, rather than 'suggests that more is at play'.

Take your pick and run with it.....

[MrMacSon]

Take your pick and run with it.....

Invokes Bayes Theorem ...

[maryhelena]

FLAVIUS JOSEPHUS
VOLUME 1B
JUDEAN WAR 2

TRANSLATION AND COMMENTARY
BY
STEVE MASON

• Pilate’s dates in office are usually given as 26-36 CE,
  on the strength of Ant. 18.35, which has his predecessor
  Valerius Gratus in Judea for 11 years, and 18.89, which
  gives Pilate 10 years in office, a calculation that accounts
  for Eusebius’ claim that Pilate began to govern in the
  12th year of Tiberius (= 26 CE; Hist. eccl. 1.9). D. R.
  Schwartz (1992: 182-217), however, makes a compelling
  argument for the years ca. 19 to 37 as Pilate’s term.
  His case includes these points: (a) Valerius Gratus is
  reported to have left Judea after deposing 4 high priests
  in rapid succession (after about a year each from 15 CE)
  and then leaving Caiaphas in office; (b) the extremely
  brief account of Gratus’ tenure, which is only in Antiquities (18.34-35),
  contrasts with an expansive treatment of
  Pilate’s term in both works (Ant. 18.35-89); (c) the long
  term of Caiaphas as high priest (18-36 CE) is most easily
  explained by a change of governor and therefore of
  policy with respect to high priests; (d) most important,
  the surrounding events in the Antiquities narrative—the
  founding of Tiberias in about 19 CE (18.36-38), the rule
  of Orodes as king of Armenia (16-18 CE; Ant. 18.52),
  the death of Germanicus in 19 CE (Ant. 18.53-54), an
  the expulsion of Judeans and Egyptians from Rome in 19
  (so Tacitus, Ann. 2.85; Ant. 18.65-84)—would normally
  suggest that Pilate arrived at roughly the same time. As
  Schwartz observes (1992: 184), it seems more economical
  to explain the unsupported year counts for Gratus’
  and Pilate’s terms in office, even as textual corruptions,
  than to overturn this complex of accidental narrative
  evidence.
  
  Schwartz’s arguments are independently supported by
  K. Lönnquist (2000). His “archaeometallurgical” analysis
  of Judean provincial coinage in the period 6-66 CE
  shows that in coins dated from 17/18 CE to 31/32 the
  lead content dropped from about 11% to virtually nil
  (2000: 465), then returned to its previous levels under
  Claudius and Nero. Although lead (a common material
  in Roman aqueduct construction) has not yet been found
  in the Jerusalem aqueducts, its discovery in the contemporary
  system at Panias leads Lönnquist to concluded
  that it was also used at crucial points in the Jerusalem
  system (though now lost through subsequent ravages)
  and that Pilate’s removal of lead from his coins was for
  this purpose. Although he allows that Pilate’s predecessor
  Valerius Gratus may have begun construction or
  planning (to account for the 17/18 CE), he thinks that
  the appearance of a new coin type—with upright palm,
  representing good luck—matches a type otherwise used
  only for the arrival of new governors. And so he dates
  Pilate’s arrival to 17/18 (2000: 467-68).
  
  If Schwartz and Lönnquist are correct (but cf. Bernett
  2007: 199 n. 111), Josephus’ quick movement here from
  Tiberius’ accession 14 CE to the appointment of Pilate
  in 18/19 CE would be more easily intelligible than it
  is on the customary dating: his passing over the brief
  term of Gratus would match his treatment of the other
  2/3-year terms, of Coponius (barely mentioned at 2.117),
  Ambivulus, and Rufus, to focus understandably on the
  governor who spent some 18/19 years in the region and
  left a decisive mark. It would not, then, be the enormity of
  Pilate’s measures alone that attracted Josephus’
  interest (note his apparent difficulty in characterizing
  the aqueduct episode as a catastrophe), but much more
  Pilate’s impressively long term in office. Such a long
  term would match Tiberius’ known policy of leaving
  provincial governors in office as long as possible (Ant.
  18.170; Tacitus, Ann. 1.80; Suetonius, Tib. 41), assuming
  only that there was some defect with Tiberius’ first
  choice of prefect, Gratus.

A long term in office for Pilate allows the Jesus story to have a number of different dates for it's crucifixion story. Thus, the Jesus historicists can argue that the early christian writers just did not have the correct dating; that a general time period, ie. Pilate restricted to 26 to 36/37 c.e., suffices as a kind of ground zero.

However, that is not the only option re a long term in office for Pilate. A long term in office for Pilate (18/19 to 36/37 c.e.) allows development in the Jesus story i.e. early crucifixion dating and later crucifixion dating allows sources such as Slavonic Josephus and Acts of Pilate to play their role in the developing Jesus story. Thus indicating the literary construct of the Jesus figure.

[maryhelena]

Daniel Schwartz: Studies in the Jewish Background of Christianity. Page 200.

Chart detailing Schwartz chronology. Page 190.

Antiquities	Historical Details	Years
18.33b-35	V. Gratus governorship; Pilate appointed.	14/15 - ?
18.36-38	Antipas builds Tiberius	19-21
18.39-54	"At that time" Parthian affairs, Armenia, Germanicus' mission to East and death there.	2 b.c.e - 19 c.e.
18.55-64	Pilate's governorship in Judaea.	? - 37
18.65 -80a	"In those days" = Isis scandal	19
18.80b -84	"At that time" - Jewish scandel in Rome	19
18.85-89	Pilate suppresses Samaritans and is removed from office	37
18.90-95	Vitellius and the high-priestly vestments	37
18.96-126a	Vitellius, the Parthians, Antipas and the Nabateans; Philip dies	34-37

Josephus gives Gratus 11 years and Pilate 10 years.
Schwartz gives Gratus 4 years and Pilate 18 years.

My suggestion, in an earlier thread, was that Josephus has reversed the order of Roman governors. Pilate ruled prior to Gratus and ruled 11 years from 14 c.e. He was followed by Gratus who ruled 10 years from 26 c.e. to 36/37 c.e.

Yes, Josephus has Pilate in office up until 36/37 c.e. Necessary, of course, if he has already switched, reversed, the order of these two Roman prefects. i.e. placing Gratus prior to Pilate instead of Pilate followed by Gratus.

The Acts of Pilate reference a 7th year of Tiberius crucifixion story. gLuke references a post 15th year of Tiberius crucifixion story. Rather than relying upon a questionable very long period in office by Pilate to accommodate these two different crucifixion dates i.e. it could be one or the other because Pilate had 19 years in office, stay, instead, with the Josephan years for the two prefects, 11 and 10 years respectively. Reverse the order of their time in Judea: Pilate in office from the sole rule of Tiberius in 14 c.e. - the 7th year of Tiberius and the 7th year of Pilate running simultaneously. The 10 years of Gratus run from 26 to 36/37 c.e. (death of Tiberius).

Yes, gLuke has Pilate in office during the 15th year of Tiberius. However, in order for gLuke to move the crucifixion date from 21 c.e. to post the 15th year of Tiberius required some adjustment of historical data. i.e. Pilate was no longer in office in Judea. Josephus, by allowing ambiguity into his account of the arrival of Pilate in Judea, provided the necessary historical 'adjustment'. The time of Pilate in Judea could be read as pre 19 c.e. and post 26 c.e. Problem, for gLuke, fixed.

Josephus, re Schwartz, has two Roman prefects in Judea under Tiberius. By keeping the years Josephus assigned to these two prefects, in themselves long years - but - reversing the order in which they appear in Judea - might provide insight into the Eusiebus problem: The Acts of Pilate 7th year of Tiberius crucifixion story and gLuke and the post 15th year of Tiberius crucifixion story. A problem that required a little bit of ambiguity from Josephus in order to resolve.

[MrMacSon]

.
I don't post this to argue the date, but to suggest why a date of 26 AD for the start of Pilates tenure might be (or might have been) significant: why it might have been a date some in Antiquity [or later] focused on -

Pilate and his wife arrived at Caesarea in 26. Almost immediately, troubles started: soldiers had brought statues of the emperor into Jerusalem, and almost the entire population of Jerusalem marched to Caesarea, imploring the new governor to remove the effigies. There are three reports about the incident. The oldest is written by Philo in the forties and is extremely hostile to Pilate, for reasons explained above [quoted here, now -]

Writing after the war between the Jews and the Romans of 66-70, the Jewish historian Flavius Josephus tries to explain to the non-Jewish public that misgovernment by certain governors added fuel to a smoldering fire. Although his main scapegoat is one Gessius Florus, his portrait of Pilate is little short of a character assassination.

In the text known as the Embassy to Caligula, Philo of Alexandria includes a letter by the Jewish prince Herod Agrippa to the emperor Caligula, in which the latter's attempt to have his statue erected in the Temple at Jerusalem is compared to Pilate's attempt to have shields with pagan inscriptions placed in his Jerusalem palace. According to the author of this letter, Pilate was corrected by the emperor Tiberius, whose behavior is presented as exemplary. To present Tiberius as a virtuous ruler, Pilate had to be presented as a despot. Besides, it should be noted that Agrippa wanted to become king of Judaea; a negative portrait of Roman government could convince the emperor that there was a real need for his accession. (The letter served both purposes; Caligula backed down and Herod Agrippa was made king of Judaea.)

Summing up, we may conclude that the gospels do not represent the historical truth when they show us a well meaning but weak Pilate. On the other hand, the two Jewish sources have their own agendas. If we want to reconstruct the historical truth, we will have to be extremely careful.

http://www.livius.org/pi-pm/pilate/pilate01.htm#Philo

Philo was not present, however; he was at Alexandria, and this distance may explain some discrepancies with the other reports. These are both written by Flavius Josephus, whose Jewish War appeared in the seventies and is (partially) based on oral sources. He retold his tale in the nineties, when he wrote his Jewish Antiquities, the third report.

http://www.livius.org/pi-pm/pilate/pilate04.html

That Livius article, by Jona Lendering, cites versions of these -

• Philo of Alexandria, The embassy to Caligula 299-305 http://www.earlyjewishwritings.com/text ... ook40.html
  
  Flavius Josephus, The Jewish War 2.169-174 [2.9.2] http://www.sacred-texts.com/jud/josephus/war-2.htm
  
  Flavius Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 18.55-59

- and then gives an Interpretation -

There are two striking differences between these stories. To start with, Philo knows about a petition by four sons of king Herod and tells us nothing about the sit-down action that has Flavius Josephus' interest. The other difference is that Flavius Josephus thinks that army standards were involved, whereas Philo mentions gilded shields with an inscription. Differences like these are to be expected in any society in which the spoken word is the most important form of communication. Both authors had different spokesmen, and this explains the discrepancies. We can be a little bit more precise about one of these spokesmen: Philo was related to the Herodian dynasty and will have heard the story from one of the members of the embassy. (It should be remembered that at least one Herodian prince hated Pilate: Luke 23.12.)

Whatever their differences, Philo and Flavius Josephus have one thing in common. They do not tell the story from Pilate's point of view, but tell a Jewish story, which is extremely hostile to the governor. But it is unlikely that Pilate deliberately provoked the Jews. Only an anti-Semite would have done so, and the emperor Tiberius was far too clever to send an anti-Semite to Judaea. The Romans could be harsh masters, but they were not stupid. Besides, we have already seen that Pilate accepted Judaism and paganism as equals (above). It must have been an accident.

A clue to the interpretation is given by the remark from Flavius Josephus' Jewish Antiquities that the soldiers were brought in from Caesarea and were removed to winter quarters in Jerusalem. The sequence in which Flavius Josephus places the story strongly suggests that the incident took place immediately after Pilate's arrival. It is likely that he brought some fresh troops with him and immediately sent these men to Jerusalem. (We know that among the occupying forces were at least two Italian regiments, the Cohors Secunda Italica Civium Romanorum and the Cohors Prima Augusta.) The soldiers simply did not know that it was forbidden to bring their standards (or the shields) into the holy city. If they covered the distance between the two cities -90 km- in three days, it is not strange to read that the blasphemous objects were introduced into the city during the night.

Next morning, the Jerusalem population discovered what had happened, and decided to implore the new governor to remove these effigies. The first to arrive in Caesarea will have reached it on the evening of the third day, and it is unlikely that the governor allowed an audience to these few people. When the crowd grew, he ordered his soldiers to guard it. He had no reliable (i.e., Roman) report of what had happened and will have sent a messenger to Jerusalem. Meanwhile, the Herodian princes had discovered that their subjects were almost revolting, and hurried to Pilate to advise him on this matter. Flavius Josephus tells us that the strikers had to wait until the sixth day; probably this is the time Pilate needed to hear the answer of his messengers, and to send a new messenger to order the removal of the statues (or gilded shields).

It is remarkable that Pilate addressed the crowd in person (probably in Greek*, a language that neither he or his audience had as a native tongue); it would have been easier to inform their representatives about his decision. Flavius Josephus' report that his soldiers seemed ready to kill all those present must be a misinterpretation: the tired men and women from Jerusalem unexpectedly saw the guard and the governor and were scared. That they 'bared their throats' must be a rhetorical exaggeration from either Flavius Josephus or his source; it should be remembered that Flavius Josephus probably heard this story and did not read about it. It is possible that Josephus' spokesman was influenced by another story - that of the protests against the Syrian governor Petronius, whose encounter with Jewish peasants offering their lives is well attested.

After the incident, Pilate must have written a letter to the emperor, to which was attached the request by the four Jewish leaders. It was common practice that a governor reported incidents and asked guidance from the monarch; the letters written by the governor of Bithynia-Pontus, Pliny the Younger, to Trajan are known to us and show us that the emperor was consulted frequently, and for matters of far less importance than the incident with the gilded shield (or the iconic standards). Philo must have known about Pilate's letter to Tiberius[?], but he can never have read it. He certainly did not know the answer, which must have been friendly: Pilate was to be governor for another ten years.

http://www.livius.org/pi-pm/pilate/pilate04.html

* This reminds me of Acts 21 - about Paul - particularly v 28 and vv 37-38 -

• Paul’s Defense to the Jews in Jerusalem (Acts 21:26—22:29)
  
  • This text poses us with several questions, the answers to which will significantly help us to understand what is taking place, and what [the author of Acts] wishes his reader to learn from these events. The first area of investigation is this: “Why would Paul wish to delay his exit, and to speak to this crowd, who had just tried to kill him, and who would still do so if given the opportunity?” The second avenue of inquiry is: “Why did Paul speak to this crowd in the Hebrew language, when only a part of this crowd could understand this language, and all others would have no idea what was said?” A third line of investigation is: “Why does [the author of Acts] record three accounts of Paul’s conversion?” Is this not repetitious? What is unique about Paul’s account in chapter 22, which is not given elsewhere? A final crucial question is: “What was it about what Paul said which caused the crowd to explode, as described in verse 22?”

Perhaps there is covertly more about Pilate in the NT than the crucifixion of Christ Jesus??

.

[MrMacSon]

.
Commentary by Marcus Borg (1998), in Conflict, Holiness, and Politics in the Teachings of Jesus (Bloomsbury Publishing USA, p. 59) about Pilate and how he upset the Jews, either through naivety & insensitivity, or through arrogance or malice --

• 

  Pilate Images Marcus Borg.JPG (96.94 KiB) Viewed 5839 times

https://books.google.com.au/books?id=I7 ... le&f=false

.
.

[MrMacSon]

.
Josephus on the Aqueduct Riot and Pontius Pilate -

"On a later occasion he provoked a fresh uproar by expending upon the construction of an aqueduct the sacred treasure known as Corbonas [ aka Corban: the 'sacred money dedicated to God in the treasury of the temple']; the water was brought from a distance of seventy kilometers. Indignant at this proceeding, the populace formed a ring round the tribunal of Pilate, then on a visit to Jerusalem, and besieged him with angry clamor. He, foreseeing the tumult, had interspersed among the crowd a troop of his soldiers, armed but disguised in civilian dress, with orders not to use their swords, but to beat any rioters with cudgels. He now from his tribunal gave the agreed signal. Large numbers of the Jews perished, some from the blows which they received, others trodden to death by their companions in the ensuing flight. Cowed by the fate of the victims, the multitude was reduced to silence." (Josephus, The Jewish War 2:175-177).

"He spent money from the sacred treasury in the construction of an aqueduct to bring water into Jerusalem, intercepting the source of the stream at a distance of thirty-five kilometers. The Jews did not acquiesce in the operations that this involved; and tens of thousands of men assembled and cried out against him, bidding him relinquish his promotion of such designs. Some too even hurled insults and abuse of the sort that a throng will commonly engage in. He thereupon ordered a large number of soldiers to be dressed in Jewish garments, under which they carried clubs, and he sent them off this way and that, thus surrounding the Jews, whom he ordered to withdraw. When the Jews were in full torrent of abuse he gave his soldiers the prearranged signal. They, however, inflicted much harder blows than Pilate had ordered, punishing alike both those who were rioting and those who were not. But the Jews showed no faint-heartedness; and so, caught unarmed, as they were, by men delivering a prepared attack, many of them actually were slain on the spot, while some withdrew disabled by blows. Thus ended the uprising." (Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 18:60-62).

Bible commentators have speculated that the Tower of Siloam of Luke 13:4 may have been part of a Roman aqueduct -

... little is known about Pilate’s construction of the first aqueduct which led from "Solomon's pool" near Bethlehem all the way into the city of Jerusalem. This greatly improved Jerusalem's limited water supply, which was mainly the spring of Gihon and carved out cisterns.

Luke 13:1-5

• "There were [some] present at that season some who told Him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. And Jesus answered and said to them, "Do you suppose that these Galileans were worse sinners than all other Galileans, because they suffered such things? I tell you, no; but unless you repent you will all likewise perish. Or those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them, do you think that they were worse sinners than all other men who dwelt in Jerusalem? I tell you, no; but unless you repent you will all likewise perish."

http://www.bible-history.com/jerusalem/ ... educt.html

and Some people have also speculated about the Tower of Siloam being part of an aqueduct connected to the similarly named the ' Pool of Siloam' mentioned in the Gospel of John as the location to which Jesus sent "a man blind from birth" in order to complete his healing.