There’s an aspect of cross-cultural gestural significance that has always intrigued me in this drama. Pilate was a military man, Roman and fluent in Greek: he knew the Jewish community well, he had been governor of the province for at least a decade, appointed Jewish High Priests and worked closely with Caiaphas.
A couple of corrections. Pilate would have been governor of Judea for at most a decade. His tenure in the post was ten years (26 - 36/7) so how long he'd been on the job when he interviewed Jesus depends on when you date the Crucifixion. Also he appointed one High Priest (singular), not multiple ones, which implies an ability to work with Caiaphas over the long-term whatever disagreements they may have had from time to time.
. . . it was a calculated ploy to place responsibility back with the Judean authorities and with the crowds calling for blood. Although there's a history in the early church of that claimed Pilate was a good man (apocryphal literature argues he converted later and in fact was declared a saint by certain faith communities) who saw the justness and innocence of Jesus, history has weighed in on the side of culpability.
This can also be seen as an early move towards Christian anti-Semitism, stipulating Roman (and there for Gentile) innocence contrasted with Jewish bloodthirstiness.
There would be large parts of the Roman army who did not speak Latin, . . .
The legions of the first century expended considerable effort making sure the auxiliaries (non-Romans serving in the Roman army) learned at least basic Latin during their service. This was not just for immediate practical benefits (like being able to understand the orders of their Roman commanders) but part of a larger society-building exercise. Each auxiliary who completed his twenty year term of service in the army received Roman citizenship.
Nah, even the Romans used Greek for philosophical musings, or at least the ones with enough education did.
Cicero is credited with first using Latin for philosophical discussion. That is about seventy odd years prior to the crucifixion, though I don't think we have enough material to do reception studies for Cicero among the Roman governing class in the first century AD.
There’s an aspect of cross-cultural gestural significance that has always intrigued me in this drama. Pilate was a military man, Roman and fluent in Greek: he knew the Jewish community well, he had been governor of the province for at least a decade, appointed Jewish High Priests and worked closely with Caiaphas.
A couple of corrections. Pilate would have been governor of Judea for at most a decade. His tenure in the post was ten years (26 - 36/7) so how long he'd been on the job when he interviewed Jesus depends on when you date the Crucifixion. Also he appointed one High Priest (singular), not multiple ones, which implies an ability to work with Caiaphas over the long-term whatever disagreements they may have had from time to time.
. . . it was a calculated ploy to place responsibility back with the Judean authorities and with the crowds calling for blood. Although there's a history in the early church of that claimed Pilate was a good man (apocryphal literature argues he converted later and in fact was declared a saint by certain faith communities) who saw the justness and innocence of Jesus, history has weighed in on the side of culpability.
This can also be seen as an early move towards Christian anti-Semitism, stipulating Roman (and there for Gentile) innocence contrasted with Jewish bloodthirstiness.
There would be large parts of the Roman army who did not speak Latin, . . .
The legions of the first century expended considerable effort making sure the auxiliaries (non-Romans serving in the Roman army) learned at least basic Latin during their service. This was not just for immediate practical benefits (like being able to understand the orders of their Roman commanders) but part of a larger society-building exercise. Each auxiliary who completed his twenty year term of service in the army received Roman citizenship.
@Croesus, I did some reading around because I'd just looked at articles in the Catholic Biblical Quarterly dealing with Philo of Alexandria and Josephus, but most studies of the historical Pilate agree he had an unusually long period of office from CE 26-37covering the ministry of John the Baptist as well as Jesus. That was the point I was making.
Third, washing one's hands publicly is a symbolic act which makes good sense in every culture. I find it impossible to believe otherwise. It's not dependent on knowing anything about C1 Judaism. The gospels were written for gentiles as well as Jews. Nobody felt there was any need to explain what Pilate meant by referring to Jewish traditions that a gentile might not understand. Yes, though, I agree, Pilate deliberately chose a gesture that had a clear symbolic message.
Here is an article that ties Pilate washing his hands to another Jewish custom, though
@Gramps your second highlighted link doesn't work but the first is fine. The question of whether or not the washing of hands was intended to echo a Jewish ritual cleansing seems open. There's also the gesture of Caiaphas ripping or tearing his outer garment as he accuses Jesus of blasphemy, and how onlookers would have read this symbolism as indicating the extent of the high priest's outrage and indignation or that Caiaphas was doing something forbidden and violating his Levitical office. The non-verbal gestures embedded in differing cultural narratives are worth looking at closely, as is the silence of Jesus before his accusers. (There was a thread offering possible interpretations of that silence in a Greek context I recall reading in the friendly and helpful B-Greek forum to which some of us here belong.)
@Gramps your second highlighted link doesn't work but the first is fine. The question of whether or not the washing of hands was intended to echo a Jewish ritual cleansing seems open.
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A couple of corrections. Pilate would have been governor of Judea for at most a decade. His tenure in the post was ten years (26 - 36/7) so how long he'd been on the job when he interviewed Jesus depends on when you date the Crucifixion. Also he appointed one High Priest (singular), not multiple ones, which implies an ability to work with Caiaphas over the long-term whatever disagreements they may have had from time to time.
This can also be seen as an early move towards Christian anti-Semitism, stipulating Roman (and there for Gentile) innocence contrasted with Jewish bloodthirstiness.
The legions of the first century expended considerable effort making sure the auxiliaries (non-Romans serving in the Roman army) learned at least basic Latin during their service. This was not just for immediate practical benefits (like being able to understand the orders of their Roman commanders) but part of a larger society-building exercise. Each auxiliary who completed his twenty year term of service in the army received Roman citizenship.
Here is an article that ties Pilate washing his hands to another Jewish custom, though
Let me try this again. While I would not say that Pilate's washing of his hands is related to the Jewish ritual washing of hands before a meal, there is another Jewish ritual washing referred to in Dt 21: 1-8 that I think it may be tied to. This is the full link that I wanted to post https://hermeneutics.stackexchange.com/questions/21586/was-washing-ones-hands-to-show-innocence-as-pilate-did-a-common-ritual-in-the/41229#41229