mel gibson's movie, which i haven't seen, has me thinking me about some old research i gathered for a story that i couldn't really get off the ground. the research i did surrounds the trial of jesus and the linguistic "fast one" that pilate might have pulled on the aramaic-speaking crowd.

the gospel according to mark is often thought to be the most reliable gospel, but even then, we're talking about a document that was written two generations after the crucifixion and which probably underwent at least three drafts before settling on the version we know today. just a few of the problems:

the idea that jesus was beaten 

the word used in describing what pilate ordered for jesus is "scourged." criminals who were roman provincials were beaten with metal-tipped whips before crucifixion, but jesus wasn't a provincial. in the legalese of the roman class system, he was considered a "foreigner," so he would have just been hung up to dry and starved on the cross, not whipped. the honor of a good whipping was reserved for citizens and provincials (second-class "citizens") because rome figured they should know better than to defy the Empire. but a nobody from the hinterlands? apparently rome was confident that crucifixion would do the trick for such barbarians.

and scourged had a different meaning back then than hacks like mel gibson now attach to it. in the greek of the day, scourged meant "humiliated" or "sarcastically mocked." more likely, dressing jesus in robes, a crown of thorns, and calling him king of the jews is what was meant by scourged - not a whipping or a stomping or even a stern spanking. because, furthermore, the sequencing doesn't work. in mark, pilate has jesus flogged before officially condemning him, which would not have followed roman "due process", to which pilate was bound as governor. it doesn't fit the timing of everything else that supposedly happened on Good Friday either – if we're to believe that pilate hands jesus over to the soldiers and jewish sanhedin as many times he does that day, jesus would have been crucified some time on saturday or sunday. or the following week.

nailing jesus to the cross

rome tied dudes to crosses, they didn't nail them. the mention of "nails" is obviously a sop to the prophecy-hounds of the day who needed to know that jesus was the messaiah of ancient prediction. the books of zecchariah and isaiah said that the messiah would be tortured with nails. so there ya go.

but the big whopper is in the imaginary ritual of roman governors releasing a jewish prisoner for passover. there's no roman record of such a tradition and it would have totally gone against the empire's ethic of showing no mercy, especially in the far-flung protectorates where roman oppression was a virtue.

ironically, though, there is a grain of truth here, because mark uses certain linguistic details that suggest he was the recipient of a legitimate oral tradition that sustained the first decades of the christian church. the greek-speaking mark drops an amazing amount of obscure aramaic phrases that prove, even 60 years later, that he was getting good info from people who knew palestine (phrases like "eloi, eloi, lama sabacthani", for example, which christ allegedly uttered from the cross).

for a minute let's ignore the fact that mark's made-up tradition of releasing prisoners is really total bogus. let's say that pilate did give a choice of prisoner-amnesty on that famous passover friday, because there's another ring of truth in the aramaic name that mark cites as the prisoner whom pilate offered up to the crowd: barabbas. break the name down, and you get "bar," a prefix that means son of, a root that we can see in the hebrew coming of age ritual, bar-mitzvah. "abba" is an affectionate term for father, more like dad. barabbas would also have been recognized in jerusalem as a catch-phrase for messiah. indeed, it's how jesus constantly referred to himself throughout the greek gospels. so who was pilate talking about? rendering this whole sitch even weirder is that some of the original greek manuscripts of mark's gospel give barabbas' first name as "jesus," or more accurately, "yeshua" (it's something you see more and more in modern translations of the new testament actually – that barabbas first name was Jesus!). sure, yeshua was a popular name at the time - think "joshua", since that's closer to the original anyway - but the preposterous notion that pilate was convicting two criminals who just happened to have the same name is so absurd it's hard to believe a better lie wasn't concocted at some point in the last 2000 years.

it's especially absurd when you translate back into aramaic what the New Testament claims that pilate asked the irate and inexplicably anti-jesus crowd:

"Yeshua Bar'Abba or Yeshua Bar'Abba , which one do you want me to release?"

And the crowd responded, "Bar'Abba!"

clearly the best explanation is that pilate knew full well what he was doing: duping jerusalem. rather than the inane explanation mark offers, it seems more likely that pilate had an angry messianic-crazed mob on his hands and, with his garrison two days away, he couldn't afford to have the angry crowd transform into an "insurrection." remember, six days earlier at the beginning of passover week, jesus deliberately entered jerusalem riding a colt, which was a famous and potent scriptural symbol of the messiah's arrival. and since "messiah" also meant "liberator" to jews of that era, this message to the occupying roman governor was loud and clear. furthermore, upon arriving in the capital jesus went straight to the jewish temple, which was serving as the equivalent of a stock exchange under roman rule. there, he basically told the merchants, "you're under new management. me." so at that trial, the attending population of jerusalem, smarting under foreign occupation and waiting for the messiah promised them in scripture, cried for jesus' release by calling out the name that they knew him by: "barabbas!" they weren't turning on jesus as the gospels would have it. they were trying to save him, and pilate let them believe that's what they were doing.

then, upon averting the throng's animus and sending them home, pilate turned around and immediately ordered "yeshua" crucified before anyone could figure out what happened.

i'm thinking mel gibson will probably address this in his sequel.