What exactly is Pilate’s role in the crucifixtion of Jesus?
Unlike Judas, he traditionally never has been made out to be an enemy or a villain. At worst he is perceived as a somewhat just and righteous administrator who gives into weakness and wanting to keep the peace.
Historically, the reason for that was really because the early Christians focused more on the Jewish responsibility for the death of Jesus than the Roman one. The early Christians portrayed Jesus’ death as being essentially the last of a long line of prophets who were rejected and killed by ‘Israel’ and adopted the OT rhetoric of calling ‘Israel’ out for its sins. As a result, 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.
The Christians who made use of this rhetoric were originally Jews working in a Jewish context and talking to fellow Jews; it’s not surprising then that the two most Jewish gospels of the four, Matthew and John, are at the same time, quite ironically, the most ‘anti-Jewish’. (Of course, when Christianity started becoming less ‘Jewish’, the original Jewish context of this rhetoric was really forgotten, but the ‘you killed Jesus’ rhetoric remained - and Christian anti-Semitism arose.)
Plus, you have to remember that early Christians were also trying to curry favor from Rome. By the 2nd century, when Christianity and Judaism became officially separate, Christianity could no longer invoke the tolerated status that Judaism had: Christianity was, at this point, an illegal
superstitio. In oher words, they don’t really 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.
It was 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 or Judas; if Pilate had any faults, at best it’d be the lack of a backbone. Some Christians even started fantasizing about Pilate as a sympathetic figure, maybe even a secret Christian who gets to be martyred for his faith - in other words, a saint.
In fact, it’s rather telling tha 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. At that point, Christians no longer needed Pilate to get recognition from Rome - hence many Christians (Western Christians in particular) became more free to imagine a more shameful end for Pilate. Pilate was no longer a secret Christian-slash-martyr; he became portrayed as a tortured man cursed by his role in the death of Jesus. In later legends, not only does Pilate get disgraced, he also commits suicide - and worse, evil spirits infest his dead body and cause havoc wherever the body is brought, which is why it had to be thrown into a lake.
Could the depiction of him in the gospels, (as being hesitant to crucify Jesus) be somewhat innaccurate? I only ask because in that era most Roman governors were quite cold and ruthless and thought little to nothing of executing someone if they thought it would keep the peace.
Here’s the problem. While obviously it’s unlikely that the historical Pilate was the very wishy-washy sort of guy many people infer from the gospels, he’s also unlikely to have been the sadistic butcher many people infer from Philo and Josephus either. (And that’s one problem: for some reason, there are people - scholars in particular - who are hesitant to think the gospels are historical, but are willing to take Philo and Josephus uncritically. That’s not scholarship. There should be no preferential treatment; either you critically assess
all of them or no.)
It’s all about context. If you’re doing historical work, you must never take the descriptions at face value. Because, who knows? Maybe the authors - the evangelists, Philo, Josephus - have had their own reasons why they chose to portray Pilate the way they did. In both cases, we’re really only getting half the picture: the early Christians were generally more focused on ‘Israel’s’ fault in rejecting Jesus, to the point that they didn’t really give major attention to the Roman culpability in Jesus’ death (later, even to the point of whitewashing the Romans entirely). Philo and Josephus, as Jews, were by association connected to those who have had to bore the brunt of Pilate’s occasional heavy-handedness.
Of course their portrayal of him would not be positive.
Pilate may not have been the well-meaning, intellectual proto-Christian some Christians seem to imagine him to be, but I don’t think he was necessarily a ruthless killing machine either. Those are two extremes. Maybe the actual fact was somewhere in the middle: Pilate from the Jewish perspective may have been a ‘cruel’ man who did overstep the line in some instances, but that’s not necessarily because he’s an inhuman, insensitive brute who just randomly kills Jews for laughs, as to be fair some scholars nowadays seem to insinuate. Who knows? The fact that Pilate was prefect for ten years (when many other governors before and after him only lasted a year or two at the most) would actually show that he was a capable politician.
