‘What is truth?’

It’s unwise to rely on the Gospels for an accurate description of that first Good Friday

‘And yet we call this Friday good.’ So what actually happened on the first Good Friday? The balance of probability is heavily against those who would dismiss the whole affair as a mere addition to the literature of mythology. Beyond all reasonable doubt, we can be certain on two points. A man was crucified and His death had dramatic consequences.

Even though we are aware of the story’s ending, the Gospel narratives are a compelling read. Yet there is one difficulty: a childishly incoherent distortion of the historical record, which is in danger of undermining the four authors’ credibility, but which does tell us a lot about the Palestinian politics of the period. This all relates to Pilate.

We know quite a lot about the historical Pilate. He was tough, corrupt and ambitious, like most Roman governors. Like them, he had been trained in a hard school. He had been chosen for an important post. On the Mediterranean coast, crucial for Roman communications, Palestine was of considerable strategic consequence. In country, the governor had to cope with cunning and self-serving Herodian monarchs, who were as tricksy as Cleopatra without her compensations. He had to handle their truculent subjects. It is unlikely that a newly-appointed Roman official’s briefing material would have included the Old Testament, which was unfortunate. Jehovah could have told the Romans how difficult it was to deal with those proud and stiff-necked Jews.

Even so, Pilate was undaunted by difficulty. But the Gospels entirely misrepresent him, portraying an anxious, self-doubting figure: a likeable but weak man who sees goodness but cannot embrace it. None of that has any foundation in truth. John almost persuades us to be a New Testament Pilatean, when he gives him one of the greatest of all lines: ‘What is truth?’ Then again, the Hellenising Evangelist who starts his Gospel with ‘In the beginning was the Word’ could make even a Roman hegemon sound like a philosopher.