yalla

Well does it need to be Pilate executing specifically by crucifixion?
Could it be that Pilate executed someone[s] and that was embellished to crucifixion?
Do we know, via Josephus I presume, if Pilate in all his years as governor did execute anyone?
Did he specifically crucify anyone?
If so, then each and every one of such, from either category, could at a stretch qualify as the template for an HJ.
A big stretch of course.
And one that renders all the son of god/messiah etc stuff rather redundant.

Doug Shaver

I agree. I happen to have come around to the view that there are no facts in Mark, and that the first people who read the work, including Matthew and Luke, probably didn't think there were. I think the latter two were just embellishing what they understood to be a work of fiction.

At the same time, I don't think historicists are fools for rejecting such a hypothesis. I think it is very defensible, but I don't think historicism is indefensible. Not yet, anyway. I do, though, consider the evidence offerered in its support to be much weaker than most historicists apparently think it is.