(11 votes, average: 4.73 out of 5)
Loading...I have been intermittently posting accounts of modern forgeries of Gospels that provide, as a rule, sensationalized information about the “lost” records of Jesus – for example an account claiming he traveled to India as a young man to learn his wisdom from the Brahmins, or another purportedly based on an eyewitness to the crucifixion.
Here now is yet another, this one an allegedly official copy of the death sentence from his trial, written by Pontius Pilate himself, in Hebrew no less. It’s amazing how gullible modern readers can be. But for a long time now, many people have simply assumed that if they read something in a tabloid, hey, it must be true!
Critical scholars, however, have no trouble demonstrating when these things are forgeries. One could only wish that such critical skills were shared by the reading public at large (and not just those interested in early Christianity!).
Again, I have taken this discussion from the final chapter of my book Forged.
*********************************************************
The Death Sentence of Jesus Christ
One of the striking and, to many people, surprising facts about the first century is that we don’t have any …
To see the rest of this post, you’ll need to be a blog member. Joining will make a world of difference. You’ll get five posts a week, going back seven years (all archived); the blog will thrive; and every penny will go to help those in need. So what’s the downside?
As a retired high school math teacher, seeing that some of my former students in courses like Honors PreCalculus believe in such cons as Essential Oils is certainly disheartening. I wish I had a do-over.
Hey, we all could have gone into Marketing!
I’m constantly surprised and perplexed by how willing many people are to accept even the most blatant “alternative facts” whenever they see them in their social media news feed. Articles that smell fake from a mile away – and whose fakeness can be confirmed by even the most cursory checking – are routinely not only accepted but shared and promoted.
Our tendency as humans to believe that which supports or underscores our existing worldview is strong.
Is there any hint of the Harrowing of Hell in the New Testament?
Later believers certainly claimed there was. In fact, lots of hints. The most important (and possibly closest to being one) is 1 Peter 3:18-20; 4:6, a passage exceedingly difficult to interpret over the years.
The Goodspeed translation of the Bible was the text for a college course I took back in the 60’s, entitled the Bible as Literature. It was the first time I studied the Bible as lierature rather than as the Holy, literal word of God of the King James Version. This experience probably laid the groundwork for a later move away from fundamentalusm.
He was a bona fide scholar, the real deal.
While looking this up, I found yet another forged death sentence of Jesus, published by Edmund Sutcliffe, “AN APOCRYPHAL FORM OF PILATE’S VERDICT”, Catholic Biblical Quarterly vol 9 #4 (October 1947), 436-441, an Italian document perhaps of the 17th century.
Interesting. Can’t recall if I’ve seen that or not….
Was claiming to be the Son of God considered a crime punishable by death anyway? Maybe by Jewish law, but would Roman law care?
No, not really. Romans might think you were a bit nuts, but unless you were a political nuisance, they didn’t much care.
I laughed so hard when I came to the part about sending the warrant to “all the tribes of Israel” that I nearly spit out my coffee. Too bad Pilate wrote it in Hebrew rather than Reformed Egyptian.
How would Jesus have communicated with Pilate? Is it assumed that there needed to be a middleman to translate?
There either was a translator or there was no communication. Pilate may well have heard the charge and simply condemned him. May have taken 20 seconds….
Dr. Ehrman, I completely enjoy your verbal content, through audio books, you tube debates and presentations. I listen to you while at work so it’s easier than reading, keep the audio content coming! I’ve exhausted your debates, if you have any more to post…. patiently waiting.
Slightly off-thread, but slightly connected — just info that readers might be interested in:
New crucifixion remains found in Great Britain (second century)
“Analysis of the remains has shown that the victim was a man, likely in his late 20s, who lived around 1,800 to 1,900 years ago during the period of Roman control over Britain.”
“…the crucified man’s remains were treated with the same care as other burials.”
“The Fenstanton remains indicate that, regardless of the crime for which the man was crucified, he was viewed by the local community as deserving of a proper burial. ”
(from article at https://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/rare-evidence-for-roman-crucifixion-found-in-second-century-britain/?mqsc=E4140182&dk=ZE14D0ZF0&utm_source=WhatCountsEmail&utm_medium=BHDA%20Daily%20Newsletter&utm_campaign=12_20_21_Rare_Evidence_for_Roman_Crucifixion)
Thanks! I’m very interested in this. I don’t know what hte second and third physical remains of a crucified victim are. Do you? In this case my questions are: do we know who crucified him? (Certainly Romans?) and the fact he was treated like all the other dead — I wonder if the others were slaves? Seems weird for a slave to be buried with a family or as a regular part of the community. But I don’t know much about slave burial practices. In any event, if Romans did it, as I think we should probably assume, I wonder how long they left him on the cross before allowing the family to bury the remains.
Dear Dr. Ehrman,
we do not have _any_ documents from Pilate directly, right? Like, none of his, say, court nor tax records, right?
We have secondary sources that he existed, but we don’t have anything that would be directly “commissioned” by Pilate, correct?
Thanks for your work, and Happy New Year! 😀
– Rob
That’s right.