Pontius Pilate Very little is known of Pontius Pilate before his seat as governor of Judea, also referred to as “Perfect of Judea” (Milles, 2017). It is speculated that he and his family were from the region of Samnium in Central Italy, but there is no solid evidence to make this fact indisputable (Zavada, 2017). The majority of what we do know about Pilate comes during his reign as governor, 26- 36AD. His judgement of Jesus and sentencing to Crucifixion had a very significant impact on the course of history. If so little is really known about him then how could such an unknown man make his way into government to make such a decision? It is more than likely he was first a Roman equestrian, which is generally described in these times as a knight …show more content…
In Pilate’s mind he was a free man. but the crowd and the Priests were not content about this. They were infuriated that Jesus was claiming to be the King of the Jews, for this reason they demanded Jesus to be crucified. Pilate, not wanting to crucify an innocent man offered the crowds to choose between Barabbas, a notorious murderer or Jesus to be set free and the other to be crucified (Elwell, 2013). The crowd chose to have Barabbas freed. Pilate was very skeptical still to have Jesus put to death, but he was afraid of the crowds creating a protest in the street. So eventually he was forced into succumbing to the crowd’s request and he sentenced Jesus to first be flogged and then nailed to the cross. After he made his executive order there seemed to be a change in Pilate, almost something like …show more content…
Some accounts say that Pilate could have died never knowing that it was his hand that condemned the greatest gift this world has ever received, to death. Others say that later Pilate and his wife converted to Christianity because of the events that day. These accounts also say later he committed suicide because he could no longer bear the burden (Funk and Wagnalls, 2016). Even though we do not have a complete timeline of Pilate’s life or his lineage the little we do have, spanning his eleven years as governor, has played an immense role in Christianity. God always has a plan, he instrumentally placed Pilate as the governor during Jesus’s judgement because no one else would have been able to be so indifferent to a man threatening Roman rule. This was God moving in a man’s heart to change him for the better. It didn’t happen in time to change the course of history, but that was also part of God’s plan. Jesus was sent here as a sacrifice for our sins, that was never going to change. Pilate became a different man that day, so did a lot of people and for this reason he is such an important character in the New