Who was ultimately responsible for Jesus’ crucifixion? Theologically, all of us as humans have played a role in the death of Jesus, while believers in Christ mercifully receive its atoning benefits. But historically speaking, was it Pilate or the Jewish leaders who consigned Jesus to die on the cross? This is a thorny question which requires a careful answer.
Ecce Homo (“Behold the Man”), Antonio Ciseri’s depiction of Pilate presenting a scourged Jesus to the people of Jerusalem. It took Ciseri twenty years, from 1871 to 1891, to complete the painting (from Wikipedia)
Pilate’s Hands Washing: From Mick Jagger to a Cathedral in Regensburg, Germany
The Rolling Stones lead singer, Mick Jagger, imprinted a passage from the Christian New Testament on the minds of a generation, when in 1968 he first sang “Sympathy For The Devil,” as a personification of Satan:
“And I was ’round when Jesus Christ Had his moment of doubt and pain Made (expletive) sure that Pilate Washed his hands and sealed his fate”
What was the washing of Pilate’s hands all about? In Matthew 27:1-2, the Jewish chief priests and elders judged that Jesus should be put to death, but they sent him to Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor of Judea anyway. Later in Matthew 27:24-26 we read of the aftermath of Pilate’s interview with Jesus:
So when Pilate saw that he was gaining nothing, but rather that a riot was beginning, he took water and washed his hands before the crowd, saying, “I am innocent of this man’s blood; see to it yourselves.” And all the people answered, “His blood be on us and on our children!” Then he released for them Barabbas, and having scourged Jesus, delivered him to be crucified.
All four of the Gospels note that Pilate had a role in Jesus’ crucifixion, but there are some differences in how Pilate is portrayed. What is peculiar about this passage in Matthew is that none of the other three Gospels record the incident of Pilate washing his hands. Neither do the other Gospels tell of the specific response of the people, “His blood be on us and on our children!”
Was Matthew putting the blame for Jesus’ crucifixion on the Jews? Or is something else going on here?
On a trip to Europe my wife and I took in 2022, I was stunned to see so much historical evidence of antisemitic sentiment preserved in what was once the very heart of Christendom, central Europe. In Regensburg, Germany stands a great cathedral, where one side looks over the remains of what once was the city’s only Jewish synagogue. Prior to becoming an Anabaptist in the early 16th century, Balthasar Hubmaier, who was then a firebrand medieval priest at that cathedral, preached a pogrom against Regensburg’s Jewish population, leading to the expulsion of Regensburg’s Jews and the destruction of their synagogue. Regensburg’s Jews had been labeled as “Christ-killers,” whereby the blame for Jesus’ death had shifted from Pilate to the Jews, and the label got stuck there.
Some have tried to have these Judensau engravings removed. But I am in a sense grateful that they are still around, as it helped to convince me that antisemitism is real, deeply embedded in the psyche of many, and we should leave reminders of the past around in order to educate younger generations.
That question haunted me as I wandered the streets of Regensburg.
When I reviewed two books on Veracity a few years ago, Augustine and the Jews, by Paula Fredriksen (a convert herself from Roman Catholicism to Judaism), and Future Israel: Why Christian Anti-Judaism Must Be Challenged, by Australian evangelical bible scholar, Barry E. Horner, I felt a lot of discomfort reading about the history of antisemitic acts perpetrated by so-called “Christians.” I got another taste of that discomfort in readingWhen A Jew Rules the World, by Bible prophecy teacher Joel Richardson, showing that some of my heroes in the early church voiced a kind of anti-Jewish sentiment at times in some sermons. But that visit to Europe two years ago convinced me that the history of antisemitism was worse than I had previously thought.
This blog post goes on multiple rabbit trails, but I want to address several issues:
Answering the charge by critics that the New Testament is antisemitic.
Thinking about why the Gospel of Matthew portrays Pontius Pilate the way Matthew does.
Showing how the Gospels use Greco-Roman compositional devices to frame their narratives.
Comparing modern compositional devices with the way first century literature like the Gospels were written.
Making the case that a nuanced understanding of biblical inerrancy increases our confidence in the Bible.
How Christian “Fan Fiction” has shaped the way we have thought about Pontius Pilate down through the ages.
Christians have been both “Bullies” and “Saints” in church history, and why it is important to wrestle with this.
Christians should be able to share the Gospel with our Jewish friends without stepping on mines filled with anti-Jewish prejudice. Journey with me on this exploration of Christian apologetics through the lens of church history!
Bullies and Saints: An Honest Look at the Good and Evil of Christian History, by John Dickson, explores many of the good contributions of Christianity to the world, while also casting a light on a number of the more unsightly episodes of church history, that as a Christian I would rather forget. Celebrating the goodness of the Gospel’s impact on society while simultaneously acknowledging failures of the church along the way is vitally important, in a day when many in Western culture are skeptical about the value of organized Christianity.
Have you ever been troubled by what might appear to be contradictions between the four Gospel accounts? If so, then Dr. Michael Licona’s Jesus, Contradicted will help you to tame the doubts in your mind, and have a fresh look at the trustworthiness and reliability of the Bible.
I know because I have been there. Having not grown up in an evangelical church, I never heard of the concept of “biblical inerrancy” until my years in college in the 1980s. Growing up in a liberal mainline church instead, the Bible only had a secondary role in spiritual formation. As a teenager though, I read through all of the New Testament (except for Revelation), and I was wrestling through the things I read in the Bible. One of the first things I noticed is that there are differences between the four Gospels and how they report various speeches and events.
But apparently, not every Christian is convinced that having differences in the Gospel is a good thing. Some argue that we should do whatever we can to harmonize the Gospels, even if some of those harmonizations come across as unconvincing, embarrassingly ad-hoc, otherwise severely strained.
Mike Licona, a New Testament scholar, is one of most able defenders of the bodily resurrection of Jesus, having debated Bart Ehrman, the world’s most well-known skeptic, on several occasions. Now, Michael Licona is arguing for a more robust view of biblical inerrancy, in Jesus, Contradicted: : Why the Gospels Tell the Same Story Differently
In the mid-1970’s, Harold Lindsell, who had been a professor at Fuller Theological Seminary, had popularized an idea to try to resolve the apparent contradictions in the various accounts of Peter’s denials of Jesus, on the night Jesus was handed over to the authorities to face trial and eventually to be crucified. Mark 14:72 and Luke 22:61 has Jesus saying that a cock would crow twice after Peter denies Jesus three times. But in Matthew 26:74-75 and John 18:27, a cock crows once after Peter denied Jesus three times. Matthew has Jesus predicting one cock crow, while John says nothing about Jesus predicting anything about a cock crowing.
While this type of harmonization sort of “works,” it still really confused me. After all, all four Gospels explicitly state that Peter denied Jesus three times, not six times as Lindsell’s “inerrantist” interpretation suggested. I reasoned that if this type of convoluted logic is required to make sense of “biblical inerrancy,” then I simply could not accept it. I really wanted the Bible to be “inerrant,” but as a mathematics major in college I just could not force my mind to accept the idea that 3 equals 6.
I pretty much shoved the idea off of my mind, visiting it every once in a while, but I just could not get past the problem. It was not until I read Five Views of Biblical Inerrancy ( introduced and reviewed here on Veracity,) a multi-views book highlighting the perspectives of five different biblical scholars holding separate and distinct definitions of what constituted “biblical inerrancy,” that I finally had some peace about the matter. Not every proponent of “biblical inerrancy” holds to the rather strict version championed by Harold Lindsell.
This was quite a relief. I could now hold to a version of “biblical inerrancy.” My problem was that I still was not sure what that version of “biblical inerrancy” really looked like.
Jesus, Contradicted: Why The Gospels Tell The Same Story Differently, by Michael Licona, offers a more evidenced-based approach to handling differences in the Gospels, without resorting to tortured harmonization efforts concerning incidental details.
A common objection to the Bible raised by critics is that the Gospel accounts contradict one another. A most famous example is Jesus’ “Triumphal Entry” into Jerusalem, celebrated in many churches with children waving palm branches on Palm Sunday. While parents enjoy watching their kids fanning themselves with palm branches, wandering around the church sanctuary, such celebration obscures a very troubling passage common to all four of our Gospels.
How many donkeys did Jesus ride into Jerusalem? Perhaps much of the answer to this comes down to how well we understand what each Gospel writer was purposely trying to do.
A look at the various parallel passages reveals the problem. Here is Matthew 21:1-11 (ESV):
1 Now when they drew near to Jerusalem and came to Bethphage, to the Mount of Olives, then Jesus sent two disciples,2 saying to them, “Go into the village in front of you, and immediately you will find a donkey tied, and a colt with her. Untie them and bring them to me.3 If anyone says anything to you, you shall say, ‘The Lord needs them,’ and he will send them at once.”4 This took place to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet, saying,
5 “Say to the daughter of Zion, ‘Behold, your king is coming to you, humble, and mounted on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a beast of burden.’”
6 The disciples went and did as Jesus had directed them.7 They brought the donkey and the colt and put on them their cloaks, and he sat on them.8 Most of the crowd spread their cloaks on the road, and others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road.9 And the crowds that went before him and that followed him were shouting, “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!”10 And when he entered Jerusalem, the whole city was stirred up, saying, “Who is this?”11 And the crowds said, “This is the prophet Jesus, from Nazareth of Galilee.”
Some will derisively look at this passage and suggest that it is really bizarre and funny to think that Jesus tried to ride two animals at once, a donkey and a colt (a young donkey), as though trying to perform some circus trick. Riding one donkey might be hard enough, but straddling yourself across two donkeys simultaneously would be a feat that even the Messiah might find difficult to perform!
But that is only part of the problem. Compare Matthew with Mark’s version of the story (Mark 11:1-10 ESV):
11 Now when they drew near to Jerusalem, to Bethphage and Bethany, at the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two of his disciples2 and said to them, “Go into the village in front of you, and immediately as you enter it you will find a colt tied, on which no one has ever sat. Untie it and bring it.3 If anyone says to you, ‘Why are you doing this?’ say, ‘The Lord has need of it and will send it back here immediately.’”4 And they went away and found a colt tied at a door outside in the street, and they untied it.5 And some of those standing there said to them, “What are you doing, untying the colt?”6 And they told them what Jesus had said, and they let them go.7 And they brought the colt to Jesus and threw their cloaks on it, and he sat on it.8 And many spread their cloaks on the road, and others spread leafy branches that they had cut from the fields.9 And those who went before and those who followed were shouting, “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!10 Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David! Hosanna in the highest!”
In Mark’s version, there is only one animal mentioned, a colt (a young donkey), as opposed to two animals in Matthew’s version. Both Luke’s version (Luke 19:28-38 ESV) and John’s version (John 12:12-15 ESV) only mention one donkey as well.
So, what is the deal with Matthew, with Jesus riding two animals, as opposed to one mentioned by the other Gospel writers?
One possible way of answering this objection is to note a detail highlighted above in verse 7 of Matthew’s version:
They brought the donkey and the colt and put on them their cloaks, and he sat on them.
Notice how the text says that cloaks were placed on the two animals, and that Jesus “sat on them.” What is the “them?” A natural reading suggests a reference to the cloaks, and not the two animals. The cloaks were spread across the two animals, side by side to the other. Jesus could have easily seated himself on one donkey, on top of the set of cloaks spread out between the two donkeys. So, to think that the Bible is in error here because of how ridiculous it would have been for Jesus to ride two animals at the same time, can be easily addressed.
But what about the difference in number, between two animals (per Matthew) and one animal (per Mark, Luke and John)? It could simply be that Mark, Luke, and John only focused the spotlight in their narratives on the one donkey, and purposefully left out the second donkey as not being crucial for the telling of their respective stories. Presumably, Matthew could have included the second donkey, being the mother of the young colt which Jesus rode, as the mother would have provided the young colt some confidence in performing his task of parading Jesus through the streets of Jerusalem.
New Testament Bible scholar, Michael Licona, in his Why Are There Differences in the Gospels?, suggests that this literary technique of spotlighting was a common rhetorical, compositional device used in certain varieties of Greco-Roman literature (Licona, p. 131-32). First century authors would use spotlighting to focus their attention on certain details deemed to be important, while ignoring others.
YouTube apologist, Michael Jones, at Inspiring Philosophy, has a useful video explaining how all of this works with this supposed Bible contradiction:
While I think Michael’s solution is surely a viable one, I can understand why some critics may not be so easily convinced. Is there possibly a better, more plausible explanation for what is going on here?
Much of what we think about how certain Bible discrepancies can be resolved comes down to our understanding of biblical inerrancy. Someone who holds to what might be considered as a rather strict form of inerrancy, will be drawn to the solution that there were indeed two donkeys present at Jesus’ “Triumphal Entry,” according to Matthew, instead of one, whereby the second donkey was ignored by the other three Gospel evangelists. However, a more nuanced form of inerrancy will pay more attention to the intention of each author in telling their respective stories in the way that each one did.
Notice that in Matthew’s version of the story, he makes it a point to connect the story of the two donkeys with a prophecy, highlighted in Matthew’s verse 5, going back to Zechariah 9:9 (and partly also to Isaiah 62:11).
“Say to the daughter of Zion, ‘Behold, your king is coming to you, humble, and mounted on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a beast of burden.’”
Interestingly, neither Mark nor Luke make any reference back to the Zechariah prophecy. Mark and Luke simply describe the acquisition of the donkey and Jesus’ riding the donkey scenes, with no reference to the Old Testament.
Matthew, on the other hand, wants the reader to know that the donkey episode is a fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy. Most scholars today believe that Mark’s Gospel was written first, and that Matthew most probably had a copy of Mark’s Gospel in hand when he wrote his Gospel. Matthew adds the detail about the second donkey to highlight the fulfillment of prophecy that Mark (and Luke) ignore.
But we have a different problem when it comes to comparing this to John’s story. John’s very brief version mentions the Zechariah 9:9 prophecy, but John still only mentions a single donkey, and not two (John 12:12-15 ESV):
12 The next day the large crowd that had come to the feast heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem.13 So they took branches of palm trees and went out to meet him, crying out, “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, even the King of Israel!”14 And Jesus found a young donkey and sat on it, just as it is written,
15 “Fear not, daughter of Zion; behold, your king is coming, sitting on a donkey’s colt!”
Some scholars suggest that Matthew made a mistake in interpreting Zechariah. John takes the last two lines of Zechariah’s prophecy, and folds them into one statement, that of “sitting on a donkey’s colt,” showing that both of these lines from Zechariah are speaking of but one donkey, and not two. An example of such critical scholarship can be found in what the Harper Collins Study Bible says for Zechariah 9:9, Matthew’s understanding “fails to take into consideration the parallelism of the Hebrew poetry (donkey is equivalent to colt) when it has Jesus riding on two donkeys at once.”
But this is not the most charitable way of reading Matthew’s text, nor does it acknowledge the fact that Jewish interpreters of the Old Testament in Jesus’ day did not have a univocal understanding of every passage which they read. As it turns out, there were two different interpretive traditions concerning Zechariah 9:9 among Second Temple Jews in Jesus’ day, and the Christian New Testament testifies to this reality (even the Inspiring Philosophy video notes this). Notice the difference in how a translation like the ESV has Matthew, in Matthew 21:5, quoting Zechariah 9:9:
“Say to the daughter of Zion, ‘Behold, your king is coming to you, humble, and mounted on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a beast of burden.’”
And in how the NIV translation quotes it:
“Say to Daughter Zion, ‘See, your king comes to you, gentle and riding on a donkey, and on a colt, the foal of a donkey.’”
The ESV omits the “and” in the last phrase, suggesting that the “donkey” in the immediately preceding phrase is repeated again in the “colt” of the last phrase, suggesting that only one donkey is being discussed here. The NIV includes the “and” in the last phrase, suggesting that the “donkey,” and the “colt“; that is, the young (foal) of a donkey are in mind here, suggesting two donkeys, presumably a young donkey and his mother.
So, what are we dealing with here: one or two donkeys? That all depends on which interpretive tradition in Second Temple Judaism you follow. It would appear that Matthew is intending to address those who follow the “two donkey” tradition, whereas John is intending to address those who follow the “one donkey” tradition.
It is not that a certain evangelist (or evangelists) does/do not care about historical accuracy to the “n’th” degree, but rather they care more about crafting a reasonably historical narrative that meets their distinctly different intended purposes.
This may sound a bit confusing, but the point is that Matthew and John are addressing two different audiences, each audience following a different interpretive tradition concerning the prophecy in Zechariah. Mark and Luke, on the other hand, have no interest in connecting the donkey story with Old Testament prophecy, as the prophecy connection did not serve the intended purpose of either Gospel writer, as least not enough to mention it. In other words, our Gospel writers as a group are trying to cover all of the bases, serving different audiences.
Matthew could be more concerned with trying to convince readers with a “two donkey” mindset that Jesus was indeed fulfilling Zechariah’s prophecy, and less concerned about whether or not one or two donkeys were part of the story. Matthew probably was well aware that at least Mark’s Gospel assumed “one donkey” to be evidence of prophecy fulfillment, but that Matthew wanted to make sure that those who held to a “two donkey” view would realize that Jesus’ “Triumphal Entry” was indeed a fulfillment of prophecy as well. We really do not have enough evidence to figure that detail out with exact, technical precision.
Ultimately, whether we have two donkeys or just one donkey, Matthew and John are convinced that Jesus’ “Triumphal Entry” on Palm Sunday in Jerusalem fulfills prophecy. Furthermore, all of our four evangelists note that at least one donkey is involved in the historical narrative.
While this solution does not neatly solve the problem of two or one donkey(s), it tries to respect the intended purpose of each Gospel writer, acknowledging that there might be very good, but yet very different intended purposes being served by each evangelist. In other words, we are not dealing with a question of “who is in error here?,” but rather, we are dealing with the fact that each Gospel writer is doing what they are doing on purpose. Reading the text of each Gospel more carefully can help us to discern the intended purpose of each author, which in many ways is much more important than trying to establish a neat, easily harmonized, strict sequence of events.
Most Christians never bother to read parallel passages in the Gospels. This is unfortunate, as many skeptics of the Bible point to inconsistencies between such parallel passages, as part of their justification for rejecting the reliability of the Bible. It would behoove believers to make an effort to study parallel passages, in order to think through why different authors in Scripture have their differences! One can study such differences without necessarily abandoning the divinely inspired nature of all of Scripture. In fact, such study can help us to better appreciate the underlying motives of each author, as an aid to better understanding each text.
The ultimately takeaway for all Christians (and skeptics!) who study this Palm Sunday set of passages in the Bible is that Jesus comes riding into Jerusalem in a humble way, while simultaneously announcing that Jesus is the true King. The events which followed on that fateful week, that of Jesus’ Crucifixion and Resurrection, show to the whole world that Jesus is indeed the King of Kings.
Critics of the Bible will often point out discrepancies between different Scriptural accounts to be evidence of contradictions in the Bible. A classic case involves differences between Matthew’s account and Luke’s account of the death of Judas Iscariot. In a 2019 debate, critical scholar Bart Ehrman presses the contradiction claim against evangelical Bible scholar, Peter Williams.
Peter Williams’ explanation of what might have happened, in reconciling these accounts, parallels the answer given by Answers in Genesis’ Georgia Purdom. While the standard Williams/Purdom explanation does have a measure of plausibility, I must admit that Bart Ehrman has a point here. Given enough range of possibilities, you can pretty much resolve just about any contradiction.
But some attempts to harmonize the text do not always convince everyone. In Matthew, Judas hangs himself before any mention of the purchase of a field. In Luke-Acts, Judas dies in the field, after he had just bought the field. It is possible that Judas acquired the field, in some manner, before hanging himself, and then afterwards, the chief priests repurchased the field. But the events still seem a bit disconnected. Furthermore, it seems strange that Luke would not have reminded his readers that Judas had hung himself.
I would not want to totally dismiss the Williams/Purdom explanation, but it does border on being ad hoc. Might there be a better resolution to this discrepancy, that has better explanatory power? I think there is, but you have to think a bit “out of the box” to get there.
YouTube apologist Michael Jones, a.k.a. Inspiring Philosophy, brings Licona’s insights to bear on the death of Judas conundrum. In the days of King David, Ahithophel deserted David and plotted against the king, in support of Absalom. But when Ahithophel realized that the plot against David would fail, he hung himself (see 2 Samuel 17, especially verse 23). It is possible that Matthew might have used the hanging of Ahithophel as a metaphorical way of saying that Judas was yet another Ahithophel.
This would have been consistent with the practice of Greco-Roman bios to use figures of speech, that may not be obvious to the modern reader. In other words, perhaps Judas did not actually hang himself, but he could have committed suicide in a manner more like it is described by Luke, early in the Book of Acts. This idea is supported by evidence in the Gospel of John, where John alludes to Judas’ betrayal as being like the betrayal of Ahithophel (Psalm 41:9; John 13:18).
What I would conclude here is that there are a variety of possible resolutions to this classic Bible discrepancy, but that allowing for the use of metaphor and figure of speech, where something has been traditionally interpreted in a non-metaphorical sense, might actually be a better, more plausible and even probable way to resolve such difficulties.
Well, if by “everybody,” you mean, those who pay attention to what is going on in the Christian music world, then sure.
Me? So, I really do not know that much about Marty Sampson’s role in Hillsong. But I get why such news can bother some people.
As someone who has helped to lead music in Christian worship settings for years, I have enjoyed Hillsong’s music. But I am also quite aware that Hillsong has its detractors, by those Christians who dismiss Hillsong as “theologically shallow.”
It gets even more grieving when otherwise sincere Christians inappropriately criticize doubters, like Marty, by saying some really insensitive things, like “You must not have been a true Christian,” or “You reject God because you want to justify your sin,” or “Satan has taken control of your life.”
The fact of the matter is that a lot of Christians wrestle with doubt. Not everyone, though. Like Marty, there have been a number of times in my life where I have wrestled with doubt. Some people are more prone to doubt than others. I just happen to be in that group more prone to doubt. Perhaps Marty Sampson is there, too.
Apologist Michael Licona, and his wife Debbie, who is a Christian music worship leader, put out the following video. The Licona’s do an excellent job addressing the question of doubt, for Christians, showing that it is OK to doubt, while encouraging those who doubt to explore resources, that help believers work through their doubts. Here are a few takeaways I had with the half-hour video:
There is a difference between intellectual doubts and emotional doubts. Discerning the difference is essential.
Do your research. There are competent Christian scholars addressing practically every area where doubts can trouble us (digging into the archives here on Veracity might be a good place to start!!!).
Evangelical churches are not doing enough to help fellow Christians deal with their doubts. Christian apologetics are sadly neglected in many churches today, and does not receive a high enough priority.
Veracity 