I reckon this is the best place for this question.
Pontius Pilate, “good guy” or “bad guy”? If I sum up what I know about PP from The four Gospels he seem to be very unhappy camper and really wanted to set Christ free. I did hear somewhere that he and his wife later on became Christians, so what about him? I know it had to be someone who gave the order to crucify Jesus as well as someone had to betray Him, but PP did not like what he did and most likely he also did have some sort of faith and maybe did really believe what Christ was.
My opinion? He was a guy who did his job. Just like Caiaphas or Herod or Judas.
Just a little background: you had this pervasive anti-Jewish (not to be confused with anti-Semitic) sentiment in early Christianity. The early Christians, originally acting from within a Jewish context, really took a page from the OT prophets’ calling Israel out for its sins (e.g. Nehemiah 9:26; 2 Chronicles 36:14-16): as part of their message towards (fellow) Jews, they emphasized the Jewish responsibility for the death of Jesus, coupled with a plea for Israel to repent and accept Jesus as the Messiah (cf. 1 Thessalonians 2:13-16; Acts 2:22-38; 3:12-26; 4:8-22; 5:29-32). They cast the Jewish rejection of Jesus in the same light as Israel’s rejection of the prophets in former times.
It’s not surprising that the two most Jewish gospels of the four, Matthew and John, are at the same time, quite ironically, the most ‘anti-Jewish’. While Matthew tries hard to portray Jesus as the Jewish Messiah who fulfilled the Jewish Scriptures, the antagonists in his gospel are “the scribes and the Pharisees.” In fact, his gospel is the one which has that infamous line in Matthew 27:25. John, while he records Jesus saying, “Salvation is from the Jews,” often (but not always, note) casts “the Jews” in antagonistic roles toward Jesus.
A side effect of this rhetoric is that less focus is made on the Roman culpability for the crucifixion. The level of anti-Judaism in early Christianity depended mostly on the geographical area (they tended to be high in areas where there are more Jews for Christians to encounter, dialogue and/or heckle with than in areas with only a minimal Jewish presence), but in its most extreme form, the Romans are totally excused of all blame - the crucifixion is made to be an act perpetrated solely by the Jews. Sometimes, it is no longer Pilate that sentences Jesus to death, but
Herod (the closest they could get to a Jewish equivalent to Pilate - a political ruler). For the most extreme specimens of anti-Jewish rhetoric in late 2nd century Christianity, you have the
Gospel of Peter and St. Melito of Sardis’
Sermon on the Passover.
Another possible reason why early Christians would want to blame the Romans less is because they don’t want to antagonize the government further than they already did. When you’re practicing an illegal ‘superstition’ that could get you discriminated or worse, arrested, the last thing you’d probably want to do is to portray a Roman official complicit in the death of your movement’s Founder. This tactic also has some basis in Jewish apologetics: in the 1st century, Philo appealed to Caligula and reminded him of the many privileges that previous emperors had granted to Jews, in response to measures the emperor was about to enforce that were offensive to Jewish sensibilities. It is not just that Christians needed an ally in the form of a Roman official, but it was also significant for them to not have an enemy in the form of a Roman official. This is part of the reason why Christians were kinder to Pilate than they were with, say, Caiaphas: some Christians started fantasizing about Pilate as a sympathetic figure, at best even a secret Christian who gets to be martyred for his faith. If Pilate had any faults at best it’d be the lack of a backbone.
The positive portrayal of Pilate begins to be less popular by the 4th century, coincidentally with the arrival of Constantine and the recognition of Christianity as a legal religion. Constantine and his successors were living, breathing emperors whose stature overshadowed that of a long-dead governor. In other words, Christians no longer needed Pilate to get recognition from Rome. Basically the positive portrayal of Pilate remained strong in the East, while in the West, the negative portrait of Pilate began to dominate.
… This line came into my head at your comment. But I do understand the level of culpability Pilate was faced with. Even Jesus recognized that. But still, washing his hands of the direct intent to crucify Jesus is a far cry from Baptism. We have no indication Pilate sought reconciliation from Jesus. Becoming friends with Herod seems to show otherwise. But as always, we need to remember Jesus is judge of hearts.