Who was Pontius Pilate?

The short answer

Pontius Pilate was the Roman governor of Judea, the man with the power to put someone to death. The Gospels say he found no crime in Jesus and tried to release him. In the end he gave the crowd Barabbas and sent Jesus to the cross.

What the record says

Luke names him as governor when John the Baptist began to preach, “Pontius Pilate being governor of Judea” (Luke 3:1).

John tells of a private talk inside the governor’s headquarters. Jesus said that everyone who is of the truth listens to his voice (John 18:37).

Pilate said to him, “What is truth?”

John 18:38

Then Pilate went out and told the crowd, “I find no basis for a charge against him” (John 18:38). He offered to release a prisoner for the feast, and the crowd chose Barabbas. Matthew says Pilate’s wife sent him word about a dream. “Have nothing to do with that righteous man,” she said (Matthew 27:19). The crowd only grew louder.

So when Pilate saw that nothing was being gained, but rather that a disturbance was starting, he took water and washed his hands before the multitude, saying, “I am innocent of the blood of this righteous person. You see to it.”

Matthew 27:24

Mark says Pilate, “wishing to please the multitude, released Barabbas to them,” and handed Jesus over to be crucified (Mark 15:15). Afterward he granted the body to Joseph of Arimathea (Mark 15:45).

How Third Day tells it

Third Day is a novel. In the novel he goes by Yeshua, the name his family would have called him. In chapter seventeen, “The Governor,” the priests won’t step onto Roman stone, so Pilate goes out to them in the cold. Then he takes Yeshua into a small room, sits on the bench beside him, and asks John, who has followed, whether his teacher refused Caesar’s tax. John says he paid it. Pilate asks what truth is and gets up before any answer comes. He declares the prisoner innocent and sends him to Herod. When Yeshua comes back in an old purple robe, Pilate offers the crowd Barabbas. His wife sends a wax tablet about her dream. He reads it twice and turns it face down. He has Yeshua scourged. After Caiaphas warns him he’ll be no friend of Caesar, he washes his hands in front of the crowd and signs the order with wet fingers.

Pilate watched the letters blur at one edge. He put the seal beneath them anyway.