Pontius Pilate: Deciphering a Memory

by Aldo Schiavone (Author), Jeremy Carden (Author)

• New

  Deckle Edge
  2017

  $22.02

  The only historic figure outside the early Christian tradition to whom the Gospels ascribe a dialogue with Jesus is the first-century Roman prefect Pontius Pilate. Presiding over the trial and execution of Jesus, Pilate is a figure who has straddled the border between history and legend for over two thousand years. Yet what do we actually know of him? Now, renowned classical historian Aldo Schiavone answers those questions and presents a comprehensive, revisionist biography of Pilate that meticulously reconstructs the social, religious, and political context in which his fateful encounter with Jesus took place. Drawing on a wealth of original research, Schiavone weaves together all the sources available, from epigraphs to the Gospels, from Josephus to Tacitus and Philon, to create a portrait that approaches its subject as if for the first time, without any other intent-either theological or political-than to try to explain what might have happened.