It was Pilate who had Jesus crucified-we know him now. But this has not always been the popular belief, and the blame of Jews may have helped to spread anti -Semitism.
It is a simple part of the history of Easter: Roman governor Pontius Pilate ordered Jesus to kill Nazareth for his soldiers. He imposed him a sentence that the Roman judges often inflict on social subversives-the crucifixion.
This is what the Gospels of the New Testament say. Nicene Creed, one of the main statements of faith of Christianity, says that Jesus “was crucified by Pontius Pilate.” Paul’s testimony, the first person whose preaching in the name of Jesus Christ is preserved in the New Testament, refers to crucifixion.
But over the last 2,000 years, some Christians were common to consider Almost innocent pilate of the death of Jesus and treat the Jews as responsible – A belief that shaped the global history of Anti -Semitism.
During the medieval time, Easter was often a dangerous height for Jewish communities, which Christians considered “murderers of Christ“This perception was an integral part of hatred that motivated mass violence in Europe until the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, including Pogroms in Russia and even Nazi genocide.
Why did Christian teachings virtually pilate? Why did many Christians claim that the Jewish fault was?
The History of the Gospels
In the Gospels, the first four books of the New Testament, Pilate considers Jesus innocent of any crime. In some of them, it even proclaims it in public.
But the heads of the priests of the ancient Jewish temple of Jerusalem see Jesus as a charismatic and popular Jewish preacher who challenges his authority. Command arrest Jesus and judge you before Pilate during Easter week.
Pilate plans the liberation of Jesus, but a angry crowd calls for his death. Pilate gives in and decides to crucify Jesus that Christians believe they have risen three days later.
An account, written in the middle of the second century or later, and not included in the New Testament, even stated that the crucifixion of Jesus had not been ordered by Pilate. Instead, I blamed Herodes Antipas, The Jewish ruler of Galilee – the region where Jesus grew up. Other texts after the first centuries CD claim that Pilate has become a Christian.
Roman history
Scholars have long debate the historical facts of Jesus’ judgment. In his book of 2025, “Killing The Messiah”, also Nathanael Andrade, who writes on the topic in The Conversation, does so.
Gospel testimonies capture the essentials of criminal trials before the Roman judges, who were held in public. Judges asked the accusers and defendants, and had ample powers to decide whether a person was innocent or guilty and to impose a punishment.
The writers who lived in the Roman Empire portrayed the judges as whimsical, irresponsible or influenced by threatening crowds. The gospels reflect this attitude, making Pilate seem intimidated to condemn an innocent man.
But from the point of view of a historian, there is a crucial problem with the description of the gospels. The Roman judges could and sometimes faced the dismissal of office, the confiscation of properties, exile or even death for performing clearly innocent people. In other words,It is unlikely that Pilate had proclaimed innocent Jesusbut then gave in to the pressure and condemn him in it.
Pilate did not indiscriminately gave in to hostile crowds, It didn’t even do everything the heads of the priests wanted. Since the Roman mayors, like him, had to coordinate with the Jewish priests to rule Jerusalem, probably considered subversive to people who incited social disturbance against them. Jesus would have been framed in this category, but neither phylum nor Josephus give examples of Pilate killing people after acquitting them.
A growing division
Why did Pilate then crucify Jesus? As many scholars have argued, the simple answer would be that he believed that Jesus had committed some kind of sedition “Not that the crowd had simply pressed Pilate to do so.”
However, when the gospels were composed, a generation after the crucifixion portrayed Pilate as convinced of the innocence of Jesus. Over time, others Works of the ancient Christian literature transferred the responsibility of Pilate to the Jews.
The experiences of the early followers of Jesus help to explain this change. They, like Jesus Himself, were Jews and considered him a Messiah sent by heaven. But throughout the first centuries, they were increasingly separating from other Jews until they began to see themselves as members of a non-Jewish movement: Christianity.
In the eyes of the Roman authorities, Christians were uncomfortable and sometimes faced legal proceedings and capital punishment. In addition, Rome had inflicted atrocities and punitive measures to Jews After insurrections.
Historians and Bible scholars continue to debate the reason why Pilate condemned Jesus. Has it been suggested that he was the Messiah, or, in the words of Pilate, the “king of the Jews”? Had Jesus urged a crowd to disturb the temple during Easter – or were employees concerned about the fact that he could, even if inadvertently, caused such a disturbance? Would Jesus be and his followers involved in an armed insurrection?
But regardless of the answer, as Nathanael Andrade argues, Responsibility for crucifixion is up to Pilate “Not to the heads of the priests and the Jewish multitude in Jerusalem.”
