Acts of Pilate as Christian deformation of historical events about Pilate

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Giuseppe
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Re: Acts of Pilate as Christian deformation of historical events about Pilate

Post by Giuseppe »

neilgodfrey wrote: Sun Oct 03, 2021 3:26 am
Giuseppe wrote: Sat Sep 11, 2021 4:35 am The text doesn't say that the trial didn't happen in Rome. It implies only that Tiberius was not the judge.
But before he reached Rome, Tiberius had already passed away.

This absence of Tiberius in the trial of Pilate was deformed in the Christian tradition as Tiberius being opposed by the Senate to introduce Jesus in the Roman Pantheon.
I think the implication is otherwise. If Pilate stood trial in Rome then the fact that Tiberius died would have been irrelevant and there would thus have been no need for Josephus to mention his death at that particular point in his narrative. By saying "BUT before he got to Rome Tiberius was dead" (presuming that English translation is accurate) the implication is surely that Pilate got lucky.

I don't know where to turn to check it up now, but I have long understood that if someone was sent to Rome to face trial before the emperor they got lucky if the emperor died before they arrived.
even in the more lucky case for Pilate, the formal absolution had to be made publicly before an imperial court, and in that occasion Pilate would have probably spoken the titular name of the Samaritan false prophet (i.e. "Christus") as formal apology of himself.

At any case, you had already answered that you are not persuased by this argument (I hope not for the fact that Tiberius died soon).
What do you think about another argument for the introduction of Pilate in the Gospel story?
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neilgodfrey
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Re: Acts of Pilate as Christian deformation of historical events about Pilate

Post by neilgodfrey »

neilgodfrey wrote: Sun Oct 03, 2021 3:26 am
I don't know where to turn to check it up now, but I have long understood that if someone was sent to Rome to face trial before the emperor they got lucky if the emperor died before they arrived.
Finally found it! Or at least one piece of evidence for the above claim:
408 When Vespasian heard the Tyrians abusing a man who was both a king and a friend of the Romans, he reprimanded them and exhorted the king to send Philip to Rome to submit an account to Nero concerning what had happened. 409 Philip was sent but never came into Nero’s sight. For when he found out that he [Nero] was at his last on account of the disturbances that had occurred and the civil war, he returned to the king.
Josephus, Life -- Steve Mason's translation, p. 162
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MrMacSon
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Re: Acts of Pilate as Christian deformation of historical events about Pilate

Post by MrMacSon »

neilgodfrey wrote: Thu Nov 11, 2021 7:26 pm
neilgodfrey wrote: Sun Oct 03, 2021 3:26 am ... I have long understood that if someone was sent to Rome to face trial before the emperor they got lucky if the emperor died before they arrived.
Finally found it! Or at least one piece of evidence for the above claim:

408 When Vespasian heard the Tyrians abusing a man who was both a king and a friend of the Romans, he reprimanded them and exhorted the king to send Philip to Rome to submit an account to Nero concerning what had happened. 409 Philip was sent but never came into Nero’s sight. For when he found out that he [Nero] was at his last on account of the disturbances that had occurred and the civil war, he returned to the king.

Josephus, Life -- Steve Mason's translation, p. 162
That's quite a significant story in it's entirety, as is the sequel -

.
74. It was not now long before Vespasian came to Tyre, and king Agrippa with him; but the Tyrians began to speak reproachfully of the king, and called him an enemy to the Romans. For they said that Philip, the general of his army, had betrayed the royal palace and the Roman forces that were in Jerusalem, and that it was done by his command. When Vespasian heard of this report, he rebuked the Tyrians for abusing a man who was both a king and a friend to the Romans; but he exhorted the king to send Philip to Rome, to answer for what he had done before Nero. But when Philip was sent thither, he did not come into the sight of Nero, for he found him very near death, on account of the troubles that then happened, and a civil war; and so he returned to the king.

But when Vespasian was come to Ptolemais, the chief men of Decapolis of Syria made a clamor against Justus of Tiberias, because he had set their villages on fire: so Vespasian delivered him to the king, to be put to death by those under the king's jurisdiction; yet did the king only put him [Justus of Tiberias] into bonds, and concealed what he had done from Vespasian, as I have before related. But the people of Sepphoris met Vespasian, and saluted him, and had forces sent him, with Placidus their commander: he also went up with them, as I also followed them, till Vespasian came into Galilee.

As to which coming of his, and after what manner it was ordered, and how he fought his first battle with me near the village Taricheae, and how from thence they went to Jotapata, and how I was taken alive, and bound, and how I was afterward loosed, with all that was done by me in the Jewish war, and during the siege of Jerusalem, I have accurately related them in the books concerning the War of the Jews.

However, it will, I think, be fit for me to add now an account of those actions of my life which I have not related in that book of the Jewish war.

http://www.earlyjewishwritings.com/text ... /life.html

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