Mark 15.1-15: Jesus stands before Pilate.

As soon as it was light, the head priests, with the elders, scribes, and the whole senate, held a conference and sent Jesus, in chains, to Pontius Pilate.

Pilate questioned him: “You're the king of Judea?” Jesus said in reply, “As you say.”

The head priests were accusing Jesus of many crimes. Questioning him again, Pilate said, “You’re not responding to anything. Look at all they accuse you of.” Because Jesus responded to none of it, it amazed Pilate.

Because of the festival, Pilate was releasing one prisoner if they begged for him. A man called “bar-Abba” was one of the insurgents arrested in a revolt; he’d committed murder. A gathered crowd had come to request him, as they’d do. Questioning them, Pilate said, “Do you want me to release the king of Judea for you?”—knowing the head priests had arrested Jesus out of spite. But the head priests had incited the crowd so he’d release bar-Abba to them instead.

Questioning them again, Pilate was telling them, “Then what ought I do to the man called the king of Judea?” They called out again, “Crucify him.” Pilate was telling them, “What evil has he done?” They called out all the more, “Crucify him!”

Pilate, wanting the crowd to stop it, released bar-Abba to them. He handed over Jesus, who’d been flogged, so he could be crucified.

—

People have in the past called this a trial, but as you can see this was no trial of any sort. Pilate simply heard the accusations against Jesus, didn’t buy it at all, but sent Jesus off to be crucified just the same.

In John, things are a bit different; Pilate appeared to actually care. Somewhat. But not enough to stand up for the right thing and let Jesus go.

We can speculate about Pilate’s motives all the live-long day. Only concerned about his job? Mostly. Didn’t take Jesus seriously because of his appearance, and lack of supporters? Likely. Got a little worried when he heard Jesus might be in some way divine? Yes, but it didn’t last.

Let’s discuss Pilate a bit.

Pontius Pilatus.

From the years 26 to 36, Pontius Pilatus of Bisenti (his hometown is debatable, though) served as the fifth Roman prefect of Judea, appointed by Tiberius Caesar. He was a knight in the Roman nobility, the rank just below senator, as prefects usually were. Little is known about his background, or his history after the gospels. Christians have greatly speculated, and there are a lot of myths and fiction.

Roman knights were expected to take public service jobs. All of them were very profitable, so this wasn’t purely out of patriotism. Prefects got a cut of the taxes, plus bribery was a legitimate part of the system. Tons of gold—literally tons—came through Jerusalem, as every Jew in the Roman Empire, and many gentiles, regularly gave to the temple. So, despite how the movies depict Pilate as griping about what a rotten appointment Judea was, if the man had half a brain his job would have made him obscenely wealthy. It’s why Pilate wanted to keep his office, and was worried about threats against it.

The Roman historian Tacitus called Pilate a procurator. He was mistaken, for a limestone block was found in 1961, called the Pilate Stone, which described Pilate as [praef]ectus Juda[eae]. Procurators weren’t necessarily military; prefects were. Pilate had direct control of the Roman soldiers which occupied Jerusalem and Judea at the time. As governor, he also appointed the head priest. (And fired him, when necessary.)

Since the Romans were in charge, only they could legally enact the death penalty, which is why the priests brought Jesus to Pilate. They wanted his execution to be completely legal, and thus avoid any problems they might have with the Romans later.

But don’t get the idea Pilate had absolute control over Judea and the Judeans. Many of the Judeans had Roman citizenship. (You could buy citizenship, you know. ) Being a Roman granted you all sorts of rights: You couldn’t be punished without a proper trial—and if convicted, you couldn’t be crucified, since crucifixion was only for non-Romans. You could also petition the emperor, or appeal to him if you felt the local judges were unfair. As Romans, same as Pilate, the Judean leaders could go over Pilate’s head to the emperor if they didn’t approve of his behavior.

And they had, three times already. Once was at the beginning of his term, when Pilate displayed Roman eagles (which the Romans would display kinda like we display the flag), which the Jews considered graven images, violating the Law. Another was when he displayed shields on Herod’s palace in honor of the emperor, which irritated the Jews again and got him a stern rebuke from Tiberius. And the third was when he spent temple money on an aqueduct, then had protesters assaulted by Roman troops.

So when Pilate was handed Jesus to deal with, it may be that Pilate was on the outs with Tiberius at the time, and didn’t want to rock the boat. Not too much, anyway. He was okay with passive-aggressively nailing Jesus’s crime over his head as if it were his title, but he was also okay with letting Jesus die like the head priests wished.

Turning loose bar-Abba.

Somehow it had become a custom for the prefect to pardon a criminal for Passover. We’ve no idea whether Pilate started it, or one of his predecessors, or whether he released more than just the one. Since Roman religion left most Romans hopelessly superstitious, it was a bad omen if you broke a custom, so Pilate likely felt bound to release somebody, which is why he was willing to release someone like bar-Abba.

Bar-Abba is a surname. It’s not a family name; it’s a patronymic, a name which means he’s the son of somebody named Abba. (Just like Johnson, O’Brian, MacDonald, Rodriguez, or Stefanovich originally meant sons of John, Brian, Donald, Rodrigo, or Stefan.) There were Jews who had the proper name Abba, and Arabs named Abbas. Bar-Abba’s given name was Jesus, as is found in some ancient copies of Matthew.

Since abba means “father,” many believe bar-Abba was an alias: Calling yourself “son of a father” is a smart-alecky way to give a Roman a Jewish-sounding name that didn’t actually mean anything. Or it might be a way to sound devout by calling yourself “son of the Father,” i.e. God: You’re one of his kids, a revolutionary for God. Maybe bar-Abba was an alias; maybe not. My translation puts it in quotes, and I leave the guess up to you.

People find this an interesting contrast: Two guys named Jesus. One called Messiah, and one called bar-Abba; but the guy not called bar-Abba really was the son of the Father. And one freed, one crucified—and it could’ve gone either way.

We condemn Pilate all the time for doing the wrong thing. Still, God did something amazing through his bad decision. We watch movies which depict Jesus’s death, boo Pilate, root for Jesus, yet know things needed to happen this way to destroy sin and death. I’m not saying we should let Pilate off the hook because of it, nor figure in this instance the ends justified the means. Evil is evil. But you can see how amazing it is when God turns things around, when he takes the worst miscarriage of justice and saves the world with it. He’s awesome like that.