Killing Jesus: A History

The two-day journey follows a well-traveled Roman road on the east side of the Hulah Valley. Jesus and his disciples keep a sharp eye out for the bears and bandits that can do harm, but otherwise their trip is peaceful. Actually, this constitutes a vacation for Jesus and the disciples, and they aren’t too many miles up the road before Jesus feels refreshed enough to stop and relax in the sun.
    “Who do the people say I am?” Jesus asks the disciples, perhaps inspired by the great temple at Omrit, dedicated to Caesar Augustus, a man who claimed to be god but who was, in the end, just as mortal as any other man.
    “Some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah, and still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets,” comes the reply.
    It is often this way when they travel: Jesus teaching on the go or prompting intellectual debate by throwing out a random question. Rarely does he confide in them.
    “But what about you?” Jesus inquires. “Who do you say I am?”
    Peter speaks up. “You are the Christ, the son of the living God.”
    Jesus agrees. “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by man but by my heavenly father,” he says as he praises the impulsive fisherman, using Peter’s former name. “Don’t tell anyone,” Jesus adds as a reminder that a public revelation will lead to his arrest by the Romans. They may be leaving the power of the Jewish authorities behind for a short while, but Caesarea Philippi is just as Roman as Rome itself.
    But if the disciples think that Jesus has shared his deepest secret, they are wrong. “The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, chief priests, and teachers of the law,” Jesus goes on to explain.
    This doesn’t make sense to the disciples. If Jesus is the Christ, then he will one day rule the land. But how can he do so without the backing of the religious authorities?
    And if that isn’t confusing enough, Jesus adds another statement, one that will be a source of argument down through the ages.
    “He must be killed,” Jesus promises the disciples, speaking of himself as the Son of God, “and on the third day be raised to life.”
    The disciples have no idea what this means.
    Nor do they know that Jesus of Nazareth has less than a year to live.

CHAPTER ELEVEN
    JERUSALEM
OCTOBER, A.D. 29
DAY
    Pontius Pilate sits tall as he rides to Jerusalem. His wife, Claudia, travels in a nearby carriage, as Pilate and his escorts lead the caravan through unfriendly terrain. Pilate has three thousand men at his disposal. They are not actual Roman soldiers but the same mix of Arab, Samarian, and Syrian forces who once defended Herod the Great.
    Pilate’s military caravan has set out from the seaside fortress of Caesarea. The Roman governor makes the trip to Jerusalem three times a year for the Jewish festivals. 1 The sixty-mile journey takes them south along the Mediterranean, on a paved Roman road. After an overnight stop, the route turns inward, onto a dirt road across the Plain of Sharon and on up through the mountains to Jerusalem.

    Pilate intends to lend a dominant Roman presence to the Feast of Tabernacles, 2 one of three great celebrations on the Jewish religious calendar. Much like Passover, this holiday involves pilgrims by the hundreds of thousands traveling to Jerusalem to celebrate. The Jews commemorate forty years of wandering in the desert and enjoy a feast to celebrate the completion of the bountiful harvest. Pilate has little patience for Jewish ways. Nor does he think the Jews are loyal to Rome. The governor walks a fine line during these festivals: if the Jews revolt—which they are wont to do when they gather in such large numbers—he will take the blame, but if he cracks down too hard, he could be recalled to Rome for disobeying Tiberius’s order that these people be treated as a “sacred trust.”
    Thus Pilate endures the festival weeks. He and Claudia lodge themselves in the opulence of Herod the Great’s palace and venture out only when absolutely necessary.
    Pontius Pilate has been prefect of Judea for three years. His job as governor should be as simple as mediating local disputes and keeping the peace, but in fact the role of the occupier is always fraught with peril. The Jewish philosopher Philo will one day write that Pilate is “a man of inflexible, stubborn and cruel disposition,” and yet the Jews have already managed to outsmart him and damage his career. On the occasion that Pilate