Koyaanisqatsi

Primarily because it makes absolutely no sense.

Not just "hateful," but a brutal, sadistic mass murderer of Jews.

First of all, Jews didn't have "kings" at that time but Greeks did, so there's a clue right there.

Secondly, why would someone who practically murdered Jews for sport be "loving" the "incident" with Jesus; an "incident" that allegedly (depending upon which version you read) involved the transfer of the prisoner to Herod, the tetrarch, then back again to him where he then held a trial, found him "not guilty" (even though there was no Roman law being tested) and then contradicted his own judgment by crucifying him all because he asked the crowd--a ritual that never before or since happened in Roman history--what he should or shouldn't do with a man he just found innocent of all non-charges against him? If anything, he wouldn't have given two shits about the affair and certainly would not have gone through such an elaborate process of sending him to Herod who sends him back to Pilate who sends him back to Herod who sends him back...blah, blah, blah.

And there sure as shit wouldn't have been any kind of trial as depicted in the NT. Why would there be? Jesus hadn't broken either Roman or Jewish law and never called himself the King of the Jews or officially claimed that he was, which still wouldn't matter, because that wasn't against either groups' laws.

IF the Sanhedrin actually would have come before Pilate with this matter (and that's a tremendous "IF"), all Pilate would have had to say was, "Fine, I'll kill him with my own sword right here and now because he's just a Jew and means nothing to me" or, "You go ahead and kill him, since there's absolutely nothing in your laws against stoning a blasphemer to death and you already tried, but somehow failed, so go ahead and do it again now and I'll hold him down to watch him die, because there's no Roman law against someone claiming to be 'King of the Jews.'"

The same Pilate who allegedly said, "Ye have brought this man unto me, as one that perveteth the people; and, behold, I, having examined him before you, have found no fault in this man touching those things whereof ye accuse him: No, nor yet Herod: for I sent you to him; and, lo, nothing worthy of death is done unto him. I will therefore chastise him and release him?" Was that an example of Pilate playing this for all it's worth?

None of the NT fictions make even the simplest of sense, especially not that ludicrous parenthetical (Luke 23:17) about Pilate having to release someone at the feast "of necessity," when he's just declared that neither he nor Herod found the guy guilty of any crime and no such Roman tradition existed!

Why would Pilate, having publicly declared three times, "This man has committed no crime and I will release him," and Herod, the tetrarch concurs with my judgment, then turn to the crowd--of Jews, presumably, the only ones who would give a shit about an innocent Rabbi--and countermand his own thrice repeated, public proclamation of "I find no reason to kill this man" in order to just throw all that away and acquiesce to those he oppresses, by killing the guy? To release a murderer--Barabbas--instead of an innocent man who had committed no crime by either Roman or Jewish law who both he and Herod had publicly declared to be an innocent man having committed no crime?

Accepting this profoundly uncharacteristic and lengthy show of unnecessary due process that is then impossibly discarded because of the cries of a Jewish crowd, why then the inscription? If it were the Jews who wanted Jesus killed, then the "title" you speak of would have no relevant meaning to them or the Romans, nor would it be any form of mockery except, possibly, to be self-mockery and a desecration of King David, but according to the NT accounts, Pilate officially states repeatedly that Jesus is not guilty of the crimes he is accused of, thus there would be no inscription!

You are clearly a product of christian, gentile propaganda, my friend.

Jews would have never taken anyone to Pilate for anything. Pilate murdered them en masse. He was their enemy and persecutor.

That would be like Auschwitz victims taking a traitor from their own ranks before the Kommandant and begging him to kill the man because he claims he's the "Feudal Lord of the Jews" and the Kommandant sending the man to Hitlerin Berlin, who says, "I find no reason to kill this Jew; it's not my problem," so Hitler then sends the man back to the Auschwitz Kommandant, who then holds a trial before finding the Jew "not guilty" of no German crime on the books and then for no reason whatsoever, after going through all of that pointless, time and resource consuming effort and holding a trial and finding him not guilty,(even though there was no crime with which to charge him), complying with the other Auschwitz victims' wishes by killing the man in the most public way possible with a sign on his head that says, "Feudal Lord of the Jews."

The Germans would never comply with such nonsense and the title would have no relevant meaning to the Jews.

Why? What "horror?" You're accepting the NT sequence as if it were possible, which it is not. No trial would have taken place and Pilate would most likely never have been involved, much less Herod, unless Jesus the Seditionist had caused such widespread military damage to the occupying forces as to be such a remarkable threat to the Roman occupation that he'd show up on Pilate's radar!

Jesus would have had to have been a modern day equivalent to Timothy McVeigh, not just another local Jewish prophet whack-job, going around town claiming he's "King" of the Jews (which, according to the NT, he never did!).

It is an obvious fabrication to aggrandize what, IF it happened at all, was most likely a local seditionist Rabbi who incited some form of military action against Rome ("I come not to bring peace, but a sword") and was murdered as a result by the Romans as an example.

The Sanhedrin wouldn't give a shit about anyone going around claiming to be the "king" of the Jews since (a) they hadn't had a "king" for thousands of years and (b) local whack-jobs claiming that they are kings isn't against Jewish law.

The only thing the Sanhedrin would have been concerned with is whether or not Jesus claimed and proclaimed that he was God. That and only that is blasphemy and that and only that would be a reason to stone him to death according to Jewish law, which they allegedly tried to do and somehow failed.

How you fail to stone someone to death is completely beyond me, however, but that's just more grist for the mill.

So we have a completely unbelievable sequence of events written in what language? Greek! A people and place that did still have kings and would have understood what a claim to being a King would imply.

Thus, Jesus, the Seditionist gets turned into Jesus, the Messiah King to people gullible enough and conditioned enough at that point in history to far more readily understand what Kings and kingdoms (in both physical and metaphysical senses) meant; the Greeks.

Pilate would probably never have been involved, either publicly or privately. A seditionist (especially a Jewish seditionist) would have been routinely and summarily rounded up and killed most likely without Pilate ever hearing the name, unless the damage the person had done was extensive and somehow threatening to the entire Roman power structure in the region.

Imagine that you are walking around handing out hand-printed pamphlets about Jews for Jesus in Cleveland. It is nothing but aggrandized fantasy that the Governor of the State of Ohio would ever hear your name, much less give a shit what you're doing. It is an impossibility that the Governor would send you to the Congressman of Ohio, who finds nothing illegal in your activities, and sends you back to deal with the Governor who then conducts an illegal trial against you because your own chapter of the Jews for Jesus cult brought you in...see where this is going, and that's in Cleveland!

None of this crap would have even crossed Pilate's mind.

No, it sounds very much like christian revisionist propaganda.

Not just "interpreted," made it up from whole cloth to give the appearance that Rome had always secretly been Christians or at the very least, sympathetic to christianity, so that when the "conversion" came after hundreds of years of "persecution" of the christians--related to us by the victors--the Roman connection could be easily sealed and the Empire could become the Holy Roman Empire.

After all, since they couldn't beat the Jews, they might as well join them and subvert them from within at their own game; mind control through fanatical beliefs.

Now that makes sense.

Haran

Touche! Thank you for your opinion Koy. BTW, what was the [sic] for in your quote of my post?

For your edification, you are wrong on several points, which you have, judging by your tone, taken from uncritical anti-Christian sources.

I'm not sure exactly what you mean by "at that time", but Herod the Great was appointed "King of the Jews" by the Romans in 40 B.C. It was a title that was used and well-known, even during Jesus' time.

P.S. - Your reputation precedes you, Koy, I've heard of your unyielding rhetoric. Truly, I hope you lighten up one day, or I imagine you will blow an anti-Christian gasket...

Haran

[ January 29, 2002: Message edited by: Haran ]</p>

Koyaanisqatsi

The [sic] was for your quote:

Didn't you mean to type "Philo?"

Herod the Great was conferred the title of "king of the Jews" by the Romans, but that title would have no relevant meaning to Jews; that would be like declaring the Pope "Prime Minister of Catholocism."

It especially would have had no relevant meaning in regard to Jesus or in reference to any alleged charges against Jesus. It was neither a Roman nor Jewish crime to claim that you were "King of the Jews."

Perhaps I didn't make that clear enough in my rhetoric ?

[ January 29, 2002: Message edited by: Koyaanisqatsi ]</p>

Apikorus

The Jews had kings as late as 37 BCE, when the last Hasmonean dynast, Antigonus, ruled. (If you think such self-proclaimed kings were illegitimate after Pompey took Jerusalem in 67 BCE, I suppose you can go back to Yannai in 76 BCE.) At any rate, the title of king among the Jews of 1st c. CE Palestine was redolent with significance. Messianic figures such as Simon of Peraea, Athronges, Menahem ben Yehuda, Simon bar Giora, Lukuas, and Simon ben Kosiba (= bar Kokhba) all arrogated the title of king (or the title was claimed for them by their followers). The resuscitation of the Davidic kingship was still anticipated by many Jews of this era.

If I understand Haran correctly, he is saying that Pilate may have cynically had Jesus crucified as "king of the Jews" in order both to rid himself of Jesus as well as mocking Jewish aspirations of their redemption via a prophesied messiah. Far from being laughable, this seems rather plausible to me. However, it still doesn't address Michael's point, namely Pilate's misrepresentation in the gospels, where he is portrayed as a weak figure (and progressively weaker as one proceeds through the synoptics to John).

James Still

<strong>If I understand Haran correctly, he is saying that Pilate may have cynically had Jesus crucified as "king of the Jews" in order both to rid himself of Jesus as well as mocking Jewish aspirations of their redemption via a prophesied messiah. Far from being laughable, this seems rather plausible to me.</strong>

Yes I largely agree. From what Josephus tells us about Pilate and his bloody military adventures with the Samaritans, he would not have thought twice about crucifying Jesus and all of his disciples if he could have found them. (Thus, the historical part of the passion narrative peeks through: under the Julian Law of the time sedition was punishable with death by crucifixion and the charge was to be hung on the cross.)

<strong>However, it still doesn't address Michael's point, namely Pilate's misrepresentation in the gospels, where he is portrayed as a weak figure (and progressively weaker as one proceeds through the synoptics to John).</strong>

Helmut Koester (and the German School before him) advocate the point of view in which the gospels become progressively more apologetic toward Rome in order to avoid their late leader's fate. This makes sense. The new cult had to keep a low profile if it wanted to survive and it must have been sensitive about the crime of sedition hanging over it. (Today we would say they had "bad PR" and needed "an image makeover") But here is where a true innovation takes place. Rather than figure out who was to blame, Paul's innovation is to craft his cross theology around the meaning of Jesus' death. He brackets out the issue of blame altogether. (When life hands you lemons you make lemonade.) And then another development occurs. Mark figures out a way to transfer the blame from Pilate and Rome to the Jews. Thus, we get the ridiculous story of a flaccid Pilate, unable to make a decision and visibly weak before a rabid mob. Matthew takes Mark's passion narrative up to the next level. By the time of Matthew the Christians had been thrown out of the synagogues, and this schism provides an excellent opportunity to transfer even more blame to the Jews. So Matthew 27 portrays a peaceful Pilate who washes his hands of the whole affair. Matthew even has the crowd insist that the blame ought to be on their heads. Needless to say, this polemic is ahistorical and set up a whole series of unfortunate attrocities against the Jews by Christians. But it provides the historian with valuable information today as to what might have really happened.

[ January 29, 2002: Message edited by: James Still ]</p>

Haran

Ha! Koy, I think you caught me in moment of senility. You are correct. I meant Philo, not Pilate.

Apikorus, thank you. Your expertise in this area is appreciated.

I have a question about the above... Wasn't Yannai (Alexander Jannaeus to others of us) just the High Priest after Aristobulus I the first Hasmonean King of the Jews died? Another interesting fact is that upon Yannai's death, there was a Queen of the Jews, Alexandra, Yannai's wife (and previously Aristobulus I's). Eventually, the kingship was bestowed upon Aristobulus II who's fight with Hyrcanus seems to have brought Pompey's wrath. Also, though tetrarchs ruled following Herod the Great, immediately during Jesus time, they seem to have been known informally as Kings. After the tetrarchs, Agrippa II, was made King of the Jews by Gaius/Caligula. There is a long history of Kings.

Very close to my point. However, I see it as possibly even closer to the Gospel account.

I see Jesus' teaching and sentiment that he was the "Son of God" as enraging the priests to the point of charging him with blasphemy. Under the control of the Romans, it was necessary to obtain permission to put him to death on this charge, so this might have been the route followed. Jesus eventually reached Pilate (not unlikely).

There were many uprisings against the Romans spurred on by thoughts of the Maccabees. Pilate probably would have been interested to bring Jesus in to see if he was a seditionist and to scare him a little. After seeing that Jesus would not respond and after possibly hearing of Jesus teachings (i.e. - "rendering unto caesar", "turn the other cheek", and "love your enemies") he may have decided that he was no threat and would in fact be a good (in his opinion) influence on the Jews. Therefore, Pilate might have partially decided to let Jesus go free.

After the priests planted hecklers in the crowd to shout for Jesus crucifixion, perhaps Pilate was angry and decided in his ruthless fashion to use this circumstance against them. Therefore, he crucified the lowly Jesus as the "King of the Jews" to humiliate the priests and make the incident very public.

Sorry for the quickly and poorly written summary, perhaps with several holes, but I think you can see what I am coming from. I do not see this scenario, with a little more thought, as implausible.

As for Michael's point about the Gospels portrayal of a "nice" Pilate, I attempted to answer this above, but I apparently didn't do a good job of it... I'll try below.

Helmut's idea of the Gospel's being carefully worded so as not to offend Pilate or the Romans (as mentioned by James, BTW, is this from Koester's Intro to the NT or his Ancient Gospels?) is possible but not likely in my opinion. It is not likely because by the time the Gospels were written, Pilate had been removed (by Tiberius) as prefect and sent to Rome supposedly for his cruelty. If his cruelty was recognized by the Romans, I doubt it would have been a bad thing for the gospels to have written of him in a bad way.

My belief is that, using my theory above, the authors of the Gospels may have very well perceived Pilate as relatively sympathetic to Jesus and his cause, whether Pilate really was or not.

In all actuality, Pilate is less sympathetic to Jesus in the canonical gospels than in the apocryphal literature and Church fathers works (e.g. Tertullian), so it may be quite an accurate picture of the events as they unfolded...

P.S. - RyanS2 mentioned a couple of excellent websites relating to the historical Pilate on another thread (can't remember which one at the moment, perhaps he'll post them here).

Haran

RyanS2

Here's two good websites on the historical discussion of Pilate:

<a href="http://cedar.evansville.edu/~ecoleweb/articles/pilate.html" target="_blank">http://cedar.evansville.edu/~ecoleweb/articles/pilate.html</a>

<a href="http://www.livius.org/pi-pm/pilate/pilate01.htm" target="_blank">http://www.livius.org/pi-pm/pilate/pilate01.htm</a>

The second one states that:

"Summing up, we may conclude that the gospels do not represent the historical truth when they show us a well meaning but weak Pilate. On the other hand, the two Jewish sources have their own agendas. If we want to reconstruct the historical truth, we will have to be extremely careful."

Koyaanisqatsi

My point was (and is) that the title "King of the Jews" would have no relevant meaning to the Jews.

Yes, there were Jewish Kings, but there were no "Kings of the Jews." Again, that title would have no relevancy to the Jews any more than stating the Pope is the "King of the Catholics" would have any relevant meaning to the Catholics.

Claiming you are the "son of god" is not blasphemy (as Jesus points out himself), but the point is that such a charge is within Jewish law to handle.

No, it was not. It was perfectly within Jewish law to stone a person accused of blasphemy to death, as evidenced by the fact that they already tried to stone him to death twice, but somehow failed because Jesus "hid himself" the first time "and went out of the temple, going through the midst of them, and so passed by." (John 8:56)

The second time he pulled another disappearing act, but not before firmly establishing the Jewish ability to handle this problem entirely on their own (if he hadn't been such a coward ):

Other than the fact that he kept running away, the Jews would have absolutely no reason to bring this religious matter before their oppressors.

As a religious question, entirely unlikely; as a seditionist question, not unlikely. Indeed, Pilate says as much when he lists the "charges" against Jesus that he dismisses as not applicable ("Ye have brought this man unto me, as one that perveteth the people; and, behold, I, having examined him before you, have found no fault in this man touching those things whereof ye accuse him: No, nor yet Herod: for I sent you to him; and, lo, nothing worthy of death is done unto him. I will therefore chastise him and release him").

If your argument is that the Jews trumped up a charge of secular sedition against Jesus in order to get the Romans to deal with him, then that's different, but you'd have to explain why?

They can stone him to death anytime they can actually manage to keep him in one place and there would be absolutely no questions asked by the Romans (they tried twice already!), so why in the world would they trump up false charges against Jesus--charges that were dismissed by both Herod and Pilate--in order to get the Romans to kill him?

Let's assume they did this for some unknown reason, or simply for the fact that they're apparently incredibly bad at stoning someone to death since he somehow escaped twice; they trumped up a charge of sedition against the Roman Empire in order to force the Romans to kill him.

That would mean Pilate's only consideration (which apparently it was) would be whether or not Jesus was a military/seditionist threat to the Empire; whether or not Jesus "perveteth" the people. Anything to do with the Jewish religion would have absolutely no relevancy to Pilate and certainly not Herod, as both of them publicly proclaimed.

In other words, according to Roman law, Jesus was not a criminal.

Now, in regard to the most ludicrous part of the whole fraud--the "ritual of the feast" that never happened and was never a Roman ritual--even if it were granted that for some bizarre reason Pilate actually did perform such a ritual, then Jesus would have absolutely nothing to do with that ritual. Pilate and Herod had ruled that Jesus was not a criminal and since the alleged ritual was to release a criminal to the crowd, Jesus was already out of the running.

Follow this. Pilate holds up Jesus and says, "This man is not a criminal, I release him." The crowd then says (for no reason fathomable), "Release Barabbas instead."

Pilate's only logical and likely response in that scenario would be to say, "You don't understand. Jesus is not a criminal. He is not in our custody. I have already declared that he is free and have released him."

If the crowd then shouted out (as it allegedly did), "Crucify him, crucify him," then Pilate, being the brutal, sadistic hater of Jews that you and Philo and everyone here agrees, would not have countermanded his and Herod's proclamations of innocence in order to appease a crowd of Jews! If anything, he would have marked that incident as just more evidence for his hatred of the Jews and how they should be exterminated, since they are irrationally shouting for the unnecessary murder of an innocent man while declaring that a convicted seditionist and murderer be set free instead!

So, let's just keep granting that after all of this, Pilate, because he's drunk off his ass, says, "All right! I'll crucify your innocent man for you and release a convicted murderer because I care so much that you all should love me."

Why then the inscription? If he truly hated the Jews so much then why wouldn't the inscription be "Here Dies An Innocent Man At The Insistence Of The Jews" or something along those lines? If all of this was because Pilate just gave into the whims of the Jews, then why put "King of the Jews" on his cross?

It only makes sense if the Jews had nothing to do with Jesus' death; if this were entirely a Roman initiated, Roman sanctioned sentence carried out by Roman law. Then and only then would the inscription make sense as a mocking example of what fate would befall any Jewish seditionist.

But, according to the NT, this wasn't the case at all and both Herod and Pilate found Jesus not guilty of sedition and are in fact adamant that they will not do Jewish bidding. So, other than a significant Sanhedrin bribe (that also makes no sense) why would the inscription read "King of the Jews?" To whom is this message meant? To the Jews who demanded he be killed? To the twelve apostles, who did not consider Jesus a "king" at all? To the people who heard Jesus speak, who also did not consider Jesus a "king" at all? As a reminder to other Jews not to go around claiming that they are the King of Jews? What?

It only makes sense from a Roman perspective or a Greek perspective, but not in the slightest from a Jewish perspective, and they're the ones--according to the NT--that wanted it done.

Well, according to the NT, Pilate didn't bring him in; the Jews did claiming that he "perveteth" the people, to which both Pilate and Herod proclaimed not to be the case. The Jews say, "This guy's a seditionist." Pilate (and Herod) say, "No he isn't."

End of story. Unless it's all a deliberate lie.

Wait, which version of the fraud are you referring to? He does respond. He states, "That's what you say."

Well, since we're all speculating here, where do you think he would he have heard of these teachings? Nevermind.

He did decide to let him go free! Jesus was found not guilty by both Herod and Pilate! Right there that means Jesus is free! No "partial" about it. Free man. Not a criminal. Acquitted. Case closed.

"Hecklers" eh? I like that. I suppose none of the twelve thought of putting a few "hecklers" in there as well? They were Jewish after all. Wasn't there a lawyer among them that could have easily pointed out that Pilate had declared that Jesus was a free man and was to be released three times already?

If Pilate were angry at the crowd, then why would he do what they wanted?

How would that "humiliate" the priests? That's what they wanted!

I see it not just as implausible, but highly improbable to the point of being, most likely, deliberate fraud in order to demonize the Jews and laud the Romans (in other words, Roman propaganda).

Please don't bring up the tired apologetics of authors having to be "careful" not to upset the Roman oppressors as these works were for cult member's eyes only and allegedly inspired by God, not fear of Romans. If there is a claim that it was fear of Romans that made the authors lie about what happened to the One True God in the unprecedented transubstantiation of God to Flesh never before or since seen in human history, well then this would instantly negate any claims of christian oppression and martyrdom for the cause, yes?

After all, if the Jews did it and the Romans were just acquiescing to Jewish desires, then why would the Romans start killing and persecuting Christians, as is alleged? The NT goes to great lengths to tell us that Pilate and Herod had nothing against Jesus and you're here telling us that he killed Jesus as a martyr for the Roman cause, apparently, so how do you explain subsequent Roman persecution of Jews and Gentiles who converted to follow a man that two Roman officials declared to be perfectly harmless and only put to death as a stab at the orthodox Jews?

So many holes...

Nor mine.

Umm, not to mention the fact that the gospels are supposed to be the inerrant word of god and therefore cannot lie, but hey, that's a minor point.

It isn't a matter of "perception," it's what happened or what didn't happen. Either the stories are correctly relating what happened, or they are not. Either Pilate found Jesus "not guilty" (thrice) or he did not. Either the Romans killed Jesus as a seditionist threat against the Roman Empire and the gospels are lying, or they killed Jesus because a crowd of Jews told them to kill an innocent man and the gospels are telling the truth.

What is accurate? You're talking about contradictory accounts that would tend to cancel each other out.

Either Pilate was a ruthless mass murderer of Jews who was removed from his commission due to such cruelty and would therefore never have shown the least bit of hesitation in murdering Jesus if in fact he ever would have held any kind of trial or even met the man to begin with, let alone sent him off to Herod (and as a result became "friends" with Herod), or he was the sympathetic character of the NT gospels, who was so concerned about what a crowd of Jews wanted that he granted them their wish and set a murderer free in order to kill a man that he took great pains to establish, publicly, was innocent of all charges.

These are mutually exclusive descriptions with little to no "wiggle" room that I can see.

So many holes, it's transparent.

(edited for formatting - Koy)

[ January 30, 2002: Message edited by: Koyaanisqatsi ]</p>

James Still

<strong>Helmut's idea of the Gospel's being carefully worded so as not to offend Pilate or the Romans (as mentioned by James, BTW, is this from Koester's Intro to the NT or his Ancient Gospels?) is possible but not likely in my opinion. It is not likely because by the time the Gospels were written, Pilate had been removed (by Tiberius) as prefect and sent to Rome supposedly for his cruelty. If his cruelty was recognized by the Romans, I doubt it would have been a bad thing for the gospels to have written of him in a bad way.</strong>

I of course did not say that the evangelists were attempting to appease Pilate. I said that they were apologetic toward Rome, which is a different matter altogether. Even though Governor Vitellius removed Pilate as Judaea's procurator this did not mean that the danger to the young cult had passed. If, as Koy insists (correctly I think) that Jesus was arrested for sedition, found guilty under Julian Law by Pilate and sentenced to death, then the charge of sedition would hang over the cult throughout Syria. But at the same time I don't want to over emphasize this point. It is clear from Pliny's letter to Trajan (c. 111 CE) that he didn't even know what Christianity was and after questioning a few deaconesses considers it to be a harmless superstition. This tells us that the disciples probably did flee after Jesus' arrest and execution and went underground so as to avoid their leader's fate.

We know that in the early decades Christianity flourished in the Gentile world primarily among slaves and women. As an underground movement of the underclass it went largely undetected until the second century. Three things are important here: while there are written gospels they are not widely distributed or well-known and the oral tradition is still considered more authoritative than the written gospels. Coupled with this fact is another, namely, that most converts to the cult are Gentiles in Rome, Greece, Syria and Egypt. Last, the Gentile converts probably did not appreciate what it meant to be thrown out of the synagogues but the enmity that they feel toward the Jews is preserved in the written and oral traditions then circulating in their communities. These three things (and perhaps a fourth: there were no reliable witnesses to the passion narrative and so the events will necessarily be muddled) combine to make it possible for the movement to change the events of the past to suit the situation of the present. What good would it do to rail against Rome when your church is located in Antioch or Alexandria? I believe that many details of the passion narrative are post-Easter fictions placed in a historical setting and designed to address the immediate situation of the cult. There are historical elements to it but this layer is buried underneath the layer of fiction.