Tool Beta
The Ancient World Behind the Text
Pick a passage anywhere in the New Testament. See the customs and ideas a first reader knew without being told.
Luke 23:1-25, Before Pilate, before Antipas, and Barabbas
The council brings Jesus to Pilate charged with forbidding tribute and claiming to be a king. Pilate sends him to Herod Antipas, who mocks him, and in the end Pilate gives in to the crowd and releases Barabbas.
Luke 23:1-25, in every translation this tool compares.
The whole council takes Jesus to Pilate and accuses him of misleading the nation, forbidding tribute to Caesar and calling himself the Messiah, a king. Pilate finds no basis for a charge, but on hearing that he is a Galilean sends him to Herod, who is in Jerusalem; Herod hopes to see a sign, gets no answer, and with his soldiers mocks Jesus, dresses him in a splendid robe and sends him back, and that day Herod and Pilate become friends. Pilate tells the leaders and the people that neither he nor Herod finds Jesus guilty and proposes to have him flogged and released, but they shout for Barabbas, a man jailed for rebellion and murder, and for Jesus to be crucified. Pilate gives them what they demand.
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Opposing tribute and claiming to be king were both treason, and a Galilean had led the tax revolt of AD 6 (Keener and his notes). The council could not carry out executions: Josephus tells how the high priest Ananus was deposed for having James, Jesus' brother, put to death between two governors (Strauss, in the Zondervan backgrounds commentary). Antipas would be in Jerusalem for the feast, and Pilate could pass the case to him and be rid of it (Keener and his notes). Pilate and Antipas had clashed before, over Pilate's use of temple money for an aqueduct (Keener) and the golden shields he hung in Herod's palace (Strauss, from Philo). Wright writes, "Barabbas was not a common criminal": he was a rebel, and Strauss sets him beside the Sicarii, who stabbed opponents in festival crowds. Pilate first meant only a light beating as a warning, not the scourging that came before execution (Strauss). Pilate's own view is read in different ways: as seeing an impractical sage (the cultural backgrounds notes), as hearing a religious claim, not a political one (Keener), or, in Wright's view, as sharing Herod's dislike of the chief priests.
- Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament, on Luke 23:1, 23:2, 23:3-4, 23:5, 23:6-7, 23:11, 23:12 and 23:18-25
- NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, notes on Luke 23:2, 23:4, 23:7, 23:11, 23:12 and 23:24
- Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews 18.3.1-2, trans. William Whiston
- N. T. Wright, Luke for Everyone, comments on Luke 23:1-12 and 23:13-26
- N. T. Wright, Jesus and the Victory of God, ch. 11, section (b) Jesus on Trial
- Mark L. Strauss, Luke, in Zondervan Illustrated Bible Backgrounds Commentary, ed. Clinton E. Arnold, on Luke 23:1, 23:2, 23:7, 23:12, 23:16 and 23:19
