Malachi151

Assuming that Jesus was a myth, and Mark crafted the story of his gospel, why is Pilate cast in the story?

Was Pilate a part of oral tradition by the time already, or was this a Markian invention?

If Pilate was already part of oral tradition, then why?

gstafleu

Perhaps that question comes down to: why at that time and place. We know why the place, since the Jesus story is a Jewish offshoot. So, if we know why at that time we'll know why Pilate, because that's who was governor.

Gerard

Toto

Pilate was a known character from Philo and Josephus. If "Mark" was working from a distance in time and space and using literary sources, Pilate would work as a character.

Malachi151

This is my thought as well, except that Josephus' writings on Pilate that we know of come after the generally agreed upon date of Mark, and we can't be sure that Mark read Philo, though I think that he did. So, these are maybes.

But I think that the time and place issue brought up by gstafleu makes sense.

My view is that Mark was written shortly after the destruction in 70, and was in fact prompted by that event. So the question then becomes of time, or perhaps something else?

Now I ask, if as I suspect, Mark is really an allegory ABOUT the destruction of Judea, did Pilate set anything in motion that led ultimately to the conflict in 64-66 that led to the destruction of Judea?

Doug Shaver

For the same reason that if you were telling a story about something happening 50 years ago and your story had a role for the president of the United States, you would cast Eisenhower in your story.

Malachi151

Then we are back to what gstafleu said, why is the story set in this time?

gstafleu

It has to be before 70, so we have a terminus ante quem (always wanted to use that term ). But the TAQ is a bit far away.

It would also be nice to have a terminus post quem. Does Josephus give any clues as to when the Jewish revolt started to pick up steam? Were there any precipitating events? Maybe Herod (the one who died in -4) was an extra nasty character who really started things rolling?

Gerard

Solo

To explain the emergence of the "Jesus" movement shortly afterwards ?

Jiri

Tigers!

Just a wild guess. Because that's when it occured?

Malachi151

Well, the Jewish revolt that I know of was in 63, but perhaps more occurred earlier, I just know know. It seems from Philo that the Jews and Pilate didn't get along well. There is also the business of John the Baptist. They both lived during the same time, so dependence on either one of them meant that the other had to be in the story, so perhaps Pilate is in the story just because JtB had to be in the story, putting Pilate in by necessity.

Mark doesn't say anything about Jesus' birth, so I doubt that 4 BCE had anything to do with anything.

I would say its probably because he wanted to include JtB, which necessitated Pilate.