I agree that that’s not the best of arguments.
For myself it comes down to these incongruities:
If Jesus was tried and executed for seditious acts, then why were his known followers not only allowed to live, but also allowed to openly recruit thousands of new recruits – in Jesus’s name – just weeks after his execution?
If Jesus was just a common rabble-rouser, then why was he tried and executed like a seditionist, instead of being summarily executed by the closest Roman soldier at hand like other common rabble-rousers?
IMO, the role of the Romans in the Gospels seems more like plot device than historical fact.
Because He’s just “a common rabble-rouser.” One of the reasons I think that He wasn’t just stabbed by a soldier in the open is the same reason why the chief priests hesitated to arrest Him in the open: it might escalate into a full-blown riot. Passover especially is that time of year when Jerusalem is crowded with pilgrims.
I think we need a review here of just how Roman government worked. Judaea was a province ruled by a prefect (or after AD 41, a procurator), who commanded auxiliaries recruited from
peregrini, local non-citizens - 3,000 of them. Being an equestrian, the prefect was not of high rank enough to command a legion; his immediate superior, the legate of Syria, meanwhile, commanded four. The prefect and the majority of his soldiers stayed in the capital of Caesarea Maritima for most of the year, far away from the sight of Jews. In addition to the cohorts settled in Caesarea, there was a garrison in a fort next to the temple (the Antonia), but its soldiers seldom had police duties. A few other very small garrisons were established in existing forts in other parts of the country, but these too had no regular police duties.
As mentioned, Jerusalem was a center of pilgrimage, and pilgrimage was a very popular activity in the ancient world. Three times a year, the population of Jerusalem suddenly swelled about tenfold as pilgrims and tourists came from every corner of the known world to celebrate the three pilgrimage festivals - Passover, Shavuot (Pentecost), and Sukkoth (Booths). Then and only then did the prefect bring more troops to the city as precaution against any potential trouble. On these occasions, they did assume some police duties, which were concentrated on the largest assembly point in Palestine, the temple courts.
During the forty-five or so weeks of each year that the Romans were not in Jerusalem, who was responsible for local government? It fell under the lot of the high priest, assisted by an advisory council composed of other aristocrats, many of whom were also priests. Police duties were the responsibility of the high priest’s guards.
This system was simply a reversion to the one followed during the Persian and Hellenistic periods, before the Maccabean (Hasmonean) revolt - which introduced a system where the high priest would also be the ‘king’. For over 400 years, from the late 6th or early 5th century BC to 37 BC, when Herod conquered Jerusalem, the Jews in Palestine had been governed by a priestly aristocracy. We tend to be more familiar with Israel being a monarchy since the Old Testament contains many more books that reflect the period of the monarchy than the subsequent period, when priests ruled Jerusalem and Judea under a remote and usually non-interfering empire. About as many years had passed under high priestly rule as under monarchical rule, and the priestly years were very recent. Many Jews during the 1st century preferred oligarchy to monarchy, since kings tended to become dictators. Many Palestinian Jews disliked both of the two recent royal families, the Hasmoneans and the Herodians. Most of the high priests had been more collegial rulers than Herod and Archelaus, and most Jews also knew that the priests would interfere with even fewer aspects of their culture than had the Herods. Consequently, a lot of Jews preferred the ‘new’ arrangement in Jerusalem and Judaea.
How did this form of government work? First, the aristocrats had to get along well with the prefect or procurator. They needed his backing when there was trouble, and they could not cross him in any way. They served as mediators between prefect and people, presenting the behavior of the populace to the prefect in a good light. On the other hand, they also had to keep the masses from offending Rome too much. If Roman soldiers and Jewish crowds came together and blood was spilled, the aristocrats failed.
