Ben C. Smith wrote: ↑Fri Sep 13, 2019 6:25 am
Pilate could be there at least partly in order to combat the view that Jesus = John the Baptist.
Why should we assume necessarily an opposition «against» a different connection (Jesus=John) for the origin of the connection Jesus/Pilate, when the proliferation of different dates for the same person could be merely the expected corollary of the process known as euhemerization?
In my view, an example of opposition of the kind «against» is the episode Jesus Barabbas:
«the my hero Jesus is the guy called Christ, not the your mere Son of Father». Or, along the same line, the interpolation in Josephus of the costruct
«called Christ» in connection with the his
carnal brother (against the deniers of a fleshly Jesus), since there was the need of one
against the same opponent.
But where is,
behind the introduction of Pilate, the theological opposition against a different identity of Jesus, given a mere temporal dislocation of Jesus from the presumed time of John? I may see behind the baptism episode a
rivaly against a John's sect, but not a rivalry that would require an
entire dislocation of times.
If only John was the problem, why why did he still have to be brought up?
I think that Pilate could be introduced
more probably because it was increasingly embarrassing, for a Jewish-Christian, to continue to have a Gospel where
all the Jews are made the
only killers of Jesus, especially when an increasing number of gentile Christians there out was going
dangerously to connect
not only the
«Jews» with the death of Jesus, but also their god.
Well, this is the my point: Pilate serves to remind the ear of those Christians that the victim was
formally and officially (and who better than a governor could state it?) a
Jewish Christ. Something along the lines: even the Pagan State can confirm
independently that Jesus was
«their» king of Jews. (See Mark 15:12,
“What shall I do, then, with the one you call the king of the Jews?”)