Jesus has a similar overblown speech spanning multiple chapters in John (14-18)
It’s a long speech, yes, and spans multiple chapters; but it’s not the sort of overblown verbiage one finds in Job. The speeches in Job are long not because they have a lot to say, but because they insist on saying everything in the most drawn-out and overdone way possible; each entire speech could probably be replaced by two or three sentences easily. It would be a lot harder to replace Jesus’ speech in John 14-17 with a similarly few short phrases.
Just FYI, Pilate’s behavior in the Gospels is almost completely at odds with how he’s described in literature that’s actually contemporary with when Pilate lived.
Okay, I’ve followed up your link, and I don’t think it backs up your claim as completely as you seem to assume it does. (That’s aside from the fact that people are complex beings, and often do unexpected things.) I hadn’t really looked into other sources on Pilate before reading your comment, so this is just sortof off the top of my head.
So, the picture I get of Pilate from your link is of someone who really doesn’t like the Jews, and is quite willing to set his soldiers on them—even to the point of enticing a Jewish crowd to form in a place where he can arrange disguised soldiers in its midst, so that his disguised troops can cut up the nearby protestors. He has no qualms about sentencing people to death and really, really doesn’t like to change his mind.
So. Imagine a person like that, and then imagine that this Jewish mob turns up on his doorstep, all unexpected, clamouring to have this man put to death. Pilate may not have qualms about sentencing a man to death; but a stubborn and inflexible man who doesn’t like the Jewish mob isn’t going to want to give them what they want. No, he’s going to want to deny them out of sheer contrariness; he’s going to look for a way to get this guy out of his hair, alive, so that he can go back and bother the Jews more.
And then, of course, there’s the data point that he often turns against the mob. But he’s human; one man against a mob tends to go really badly for the one man, and he knows that. He doesn’t turn against the mob on his own—he turns against the mob when he’s backed up by enough soldiers. As in the example where he had the soldiers disguise themselves to join the mob, this takes planning. This takes forethought. This takes knowing that the mob is going to be there. In advance. A mob that turns up entirely unannounced, while Pilate’s busy with other stuff and perhaps some of his soldiers are on leave, is another matter entirely; that calls for defusing them now, and punishing them later, when there’s been time to plan it out. And hey, this mob gets defused by simply having this one Jewish guy killed. Not optimal, but better than a riot that the troops aren’t quite ready to deal with...
Not only would Pilate not have acquiesced to releasing a (presumably) convicted criminal to appease a Jewish crowd, but there was no tradition of letting a prisoner go during Passover.
Given the picture you’ve painted, as a corrupt prefect, he might well release some minor brigand who’d only preyed on the peasants and left anyone with soldiers alone.
It’s a long speech, yes, and spans multiple chapters; but it’s not the sort of overblown verbiage one finds in Job. The speeches in Job are long not because they have a lot to say, but because they insist on saying everything in the most drawn-out and overdone way possible; each entire speech could probably be replaced by two or three sentences easily. It would be a lot harder to replace Jesus’ speech in John 14-17 with a similarly few short phrases.
Okay, I’ve followed up your link, and I don’t think it backs up your claim as completely as you seem to assume it does. (That’s aside from the fact that people are complex beings, and often do unexpected things.) I hadn’t really looked into other sources on Pilate before reading your comment, so this is just sortof off the top of my head.
So, the picture I get of Pilate from your link is of someone who really doesn’t like the Jews, and is quite willing to set his soldiers on them—even to the point of enticing a Jewish crowd to form in a place where he can arrange disguised soldiers in its midst, so that his disguised troops can cut up the nearby protestors. He has no qualms about sentencing people to death and really, really doesn’t like to change his mind.
So. Imagine a person like that, and then imagine that this Jewish mob turns up on his doorstep, all unexpected, clamouring to have this man put to death. Pilate may not have qualms about sentencing a man to death; but a stubborn and inflexible man who doesn’t like the Jewish mob isn’t going to want to give them what they want. No, he’s going to want to deny them out of sheer contrariness; he’s going to look for a way to get this guy out of his hair, alive, so that he can go back and bother the Jews more.
And then, of course, there’s the data point that he often turns against the mob. But he’s human; one man against a mob tends to go really badly for the one man, and he knows that. He doesn’t turn against the mob on his own—he turns against the mob when he’s backed up by enough soldiers. As in the example where he had the soldiers disguise themselves to join the mob, this takes planning. This takes forethought. This takes knowing that the mob is going to be there. In advance. A mob that turns up entirely unannounced, while Pilate’s busy with other stuff and perhaps some of his soldiers are on leave, is another matter entirely; that calls for defusing them now, and punishing them later, when there’s been time to plan it out. And hey, this mob gets defused by simply having this one Jewish guy killed. Not optimal, but better than a riot that the troops aren’t quite ready to deal with...
Given the picture you’ve painted, as a corrupt prefect, he might well release some minor brigand who’d only preyed on the peasants and left anyone with soldiers alone.