Aldo Schiavone - Pontius Pilate: Deciphering a Memory

PONTIUS
PILATE

Deciphering a Memory

ALDO SCHIAVONE

Translated by
Jeremy Carden

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I. The Ancient Tradition

The most important sources on Pontius Pilate are Josephus and the Gospels, to which we must add Philo, Tacitus, Tertullian, and an epigraph discovered in Caesarea.

The texts I have cited by Josephus do not present particular critical problems, with one exception, the so-called testimonium Flavianum, discussed in reprint 1955: Antiquitates, vols. IIV; Bellum, VVI); the one of Samuel Adrian Naber, in the Bibliotheca Teubneriana series, Flavi Iosephi opera omnia, 6 vols. (Leipzig: 188993: Antiquitates, vols. IIV; Bellum, VVI), should be borne in mind as well. The Loeb edition, edited by Jeffrey Henderson, is also excellent, and was drawn on, with some minor modification, for the translations in this book: Wars (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1927, reprint 2004), translated by H. St. J. Thackeray, and Antiquities (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1965), translated by Louis H. Feldman. For insight into the world of Josephus: Santo Mazzarino, Il pensiero storico classico, II, 2 (Bari: Laterza, 1966), 95ff.; Pierre Vidal-Naquet, Flavius Josphe ou du bon usage de la trahison (Paris: Les ditions de Minuit, 1977); Shaye J. D. Cohen, Josephus in Galilee and Rome (Leiden: Brill, 1979); Tessa Rajak, Josephus: The Historian and his Society (London: Duckworth, 1983); Per Bilde, Flavius Josephus between Jerusalem and Rome: His Life, his Works and their Importance (Sheffield UK: Sheffield Academic Press, 1988); J. Carleton Paget, Some Observations on Josephus and Christianity, Journal of Theological Studies 52 (2001): 539ff.

A great deal of study has been devoted in modern New Testament criticism to the structure of the Gospels, the invention of their form, and the stratification of their sources: for a preliminary orientation, Raymond E. Brown, An Introduction to the New Testament (New York: Doubleday, 1997), and Gerd Theissen, Das Neue Testament (Munich: C. H. Beck, 2002). I accept the now widespread view that the most ancient text is Mark, the shortest. It was composed between 60 and 70 (whether before or after the Great Revolt is subject to debate), in a place that cannot be identified with certainty (Jerusalem, Alexandria, Antioch, Rome even), and must be considered as being the closest to the oral tradition, in which the first shift from Aramaic to Greek had probably already taken place following the conversion of communities that spoke (only) this language. Written documents must however have been circulating for some time, both in Aramaic and in Greek: collections of Jesuss sayings, parables, descriptions of his miracles, and an account of the Passionthe first of the traditions about Jesus to be wrought into a genuine narrative fabricknown to all the evangelists: Martin Dibelius, Die Formgeschichte des Evangeliums (Tbingen: Mohr, 1919), especially 15ff. and 56ff., in English as From Tradition to Gospel (London: Ivor Nicholson and Watson, 1934), is an extremely important book (not only from the point of view of the criticism of forms), which should be read together with Rudolf Bultmann, Die Geschichte der Synoptischen Tradition (Gttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1921), in English as The History of the Synoptic Tradition, translated by John Marsh (Oxford: Blackwell, 1963), another study of particular significance. Also worth remembering are Karl Ludwig Schmidt, Der Rahmen der Geschichte Jesus (Berlin: Trowitzsch, 1919); Vincent Taylor, The Formation of the Gospel Tradition: Eight Lectures (London: Macmillan & Co., 1933, 2nd ed. 1935), especially 44ff., and Id., The Gospel According to St. Mark (London: Macmillan & Co., 1963); Willi Marxsen, Der Evangelist Markus: Studien zur Redaktionsgeschichte des Evangeliums (Gttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1956), in English as Mark the Evangelist: Studies on the Redaction History of the Gospel, translated by J. Boyce et al. (Nashville: Abingdon, 1969). And, more recently: Rudolf Pesch, Das Markusevangelium, 2 vols. (Freiburg: Herder, 197778); Joachim Gnilka, Das Evangelium nach Markus, 2 vols. (Zurich-Neukirchen: Benziger, 197879); Werner H. Kelber, The Oral and the Written Gospel: The Hermeneutics of Speaking and Writing in the Synoptic Tradition, Mark, Paul and Q (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1983); Martin Hengel, Studies in the Gospel of Mark (London: SCM Press, 1985).

In Matthew and Lukewhich, with Mark, form the so-called Synopticsthere is both the nucleus of Mark and, for the amplifications, a common source (unknown to Mark) generally denominated Q (Quelle), lost to us, probably precisely because it was completely absorbed into the Gospels. Both also drew on other material, of uncertain provenance: see John S. Kloppenborg, Lvangile Q et le Jsus historique, in Daniel Marguerat, Enrico Norelli, and Jean-Michel Poffet, eds., Jsus de Nazareth: Nouvelles approches dune nigme (Geneva: Labor et Fids, 1998), 225ff. The Gospel of Matthew was composed in an urban contextperhaps Antioch, or, more likely, a city in Palestine, maybe Caesareain the years around 80. That of Lukemuch more elaborate in its style and conceptual frameworkwas probably written in Antioch, again in the 80s: E. Earle Ellis, The Gospel of Luke (London: Nelson, 1966); Jack Dean Kingsbury, Matthew: Structure, Christology, Kingdom (London: S.P.C.K., 1976); Ian Howard Marshall, The Gospel of Luke (Exeter, UK: Paternoster Press, 1978); Robert Maddox, The Purpose of LukeActs (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1982); Robert H. Gundry, Matthew:A Commentary on his Literary and Theological Art (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans, 1982); Joseph A. Fitzmyer, The Gospel according to Luke, 2 vols. (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 198385); Eduard Schweizer, Das Evangelium nach Lucas, 3rd ed. (Gttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1986), in English as The Good News according to Luke, translated by David E. Green (London: S.P.C.K., 1984); Philip Francis Esler, Community and Gospel in LukeActs: The Social and Political Motivations of Lucan Theology (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1987); Alan F. Segal, Matthews Jewish Voice, in David L. Balch, ed., Social History of the Matthean Community: Cross Disciplinary Approaches (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1991), 3ff.

The narrative structure of the Gospel of John, on the other hand, is very different, so much so as to prompt the now classic formulation Either the Synoptics, or John: see the prologue and (London: Oliphants, 1972), but see also Id., Essays on John, edited by C. M. Tuckett (Leuven: Peeters, 1992); Charles K. Barrett, The Gospel according to St. John: An Introduction with Commentary and Notes on the Greek Text, 2nd ed. (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1978); Raymond E. Brown, The Gospel according to John, 2 vols. (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 196670); R. Alan Culpepper,