The record
Crucified
Pontius Pilate is not just a name in the Bible.
Jesus of Nazareth was crucified under his authority.
Mark 15 · Tacitus, Annals 15.44 · Pilate inscription - Israel Museum · Oxford Classical Dictionary, Crucifixion
The scene
Jesus of Nazareth was crucified under Pontius Pilate around AD 30. His execution is one of the most widely accepted facts about his life.
Pilate was the Roman governor of Judaea. A damaged inscription from his own lifetime survives, naming him as prefect.
The Roman historian Tacitus calls him a procurator instead. Later governors of Judaea used that title for the same job.
Around AD 116, Tacitus was writing about Nero's persecution of Christians when he mentioned the man from whom the movement took its name. Christus, he wrote, had suffered the "extreme penalty" during the reign of Tiberius under Pontius Pilate.
That's where the Christian sources put his execution too.
Tacitus wasn't friendly to Christians. He described Christianity as a destructive superstition.
The execution alone doesn't get us to Christianity. Rome crucified plenty of people.
But this particular execution had a very strange aftermath.
The point
Jesus was here, and he was crucified. That much is history.
Sit with this
What happened to the body?