Chronological Reading Plan for Nov 12, Lk 23, Jn 18-19

Today's readings are Lk 23, Jn 18-19. Tomorrow's are Mt 28, Mk 16.

Here are Jesus's movements through Jerusalem on the night of His arrest and the day of the crucifixion starting at the Upper Room and ending at Golgotha:

Here is some background on Pilate from the Holman Bible Handbook:

 PILATE

 Pontius Pilate was the Roman procurator in Judea from A.D. 26–36. Procurator was the title for a governor of a Roman province under direct imperial rather than senatorial control. Pilate was thus responsible to the emperor, Tiberias Caesar, for the military, financial, and judicial operations in Judea.

 The emperor personally supervised some provinces, such as Judea and Egypt, because of their instability or crucial importance to Rome. Judea qualified on both counts as the land bridge to Egypt, Rome’s breadbasket, and as a rebellious population longing for independent Jewish rule (see John 8:31–33 and Mark 15:7).

 A procurator held an authority by delegation from the emperor, called the imperium. The imperium was the power of life or death over persons in a subject population. Pilate reflected this with accuracy when he said to Jesus, “Don’t you realize I have power to free you or to crucify you?” (John 19:10).

 Pilate’s responsibility for maintaining peace and order was the reason for his being in Jerusalem at the time Jesus was arrested. Passover season commemorated the deliverance of the Jews from Egypt (Exod 12:1–36) and was the time of year when Jewish patriotism was at its height.

 Pilate, whose residence was at Caesarea on the Mediterranean coast, was in Jerusalem to take personal command of the resident Roman forces in the event of any uprising or act of rebellion in Judea’s largest Jewish city. He personally interrogated Jesus rather than delegating it to a regular judge (for example, see Matt 5:25 and Luke 18:2–6) because Jesus was accused of claiming to be a king—a charge that assumed He was trying to recruit revolutionary forces to launch a rebellion against Roman authority (see Matt 27:11–14; Mark 15:2–5; Luke 23:2–5; and John 18:33–38). Pilate sentenced Jesus to death even though he knew the charge was fallacious (Matt 27:18), but the soldiers clearly believed they had a revolutionary leader in custody and mocked Jesus (Matt 27:27–31; Mark 15:16–20; Luke 23:11; John 19:2–3).

 Pilate was certainly less than noble in dealing with Jesus as he did, revealing both an indifference to human life and an ugly willingness to cooperate with the Jewish leaders in an execution on the basis of a false charge (Matt 27:18). See the article “Trial of Jesus.”

 Additional information about Pilate from non-Christian sources supports the picture of Pilate’s character revealed in the NT. Philo reported that Tiberius was infuriated with Pilate for his insensitivity in governing and accused him of taking bribes as well as performing numerous executions without any trials (Embassy to Gaius, 302–4).

 Josephus recounted two incidents in which Pilate himself sparked Jewish demonstrations in Jerusalem—one by flaunting Roman images of the emperor on military equipment and the other by attempting to confiscate temple funds for works he wanted done related to the water supply for Jerusalem (Antiquities, 18.55–62).

 The incident that resulted in Pilate’s being returned to Rome in A.D. 36 by Tiberias was his ordering the unwarranted execution of a number of Samaritan villagers for a religious march to Mount Gerizim (Antiquities, 18.85–87). Nothing is known of Pilate after his recall in A.D. 36, but several fictional accounts of his later years appeared during the ensuing centuries. Some of these accounts have Pilate becoming a Christian while others stress his despondency over the way he treated Jesus.

Dockery, D. S., Butler, T. C., Church, C. L., Scott, L. L., Ellis Smith, M. A., White, J. E., & Holman Bible Publishers (Nashville, T. . (1992). Holman Bible Handbook (p. 628). Nashville, TN: Holman Bible Publishers.