The Life of Jesus

Pilate replied, “Am I a Jew? Your own nation and head cohanim have handed you over to me; what have you done?”

Yeshua answered, “My kingship does not derive its authority from this world’s order of things. If it did, my men would have fought to keep me from being arrested by the Judeans. But my kingship does not come from here.”

“So then,” Pilate said to him, “You are a king, after all.” Yeshua answered, “You say I am a king. The reason I have been born, the reason I have come into the world, is to bear witness to the truth. Every one who belongs to the truth listens to me.”

Pilate asked him, “What is truth?” Having said this, Pilate went outside again to the Judeans and told them, “I don’t find any case against him.

However, you have a custom that at Passover I set one prisoner free. Do you want me to set free for you the ‘king of the Jews’?”

But they yelled back, “No, not this man but Bar-Abba!” (Bar-Abba was a revolutionary.)

Pilate then took Yeshua and had him flogged.

The soldiers twisted thorn-branches into a crown and placed it on his head, put a purple robe on him,

and went up to him, saying over and over, “Hail, ‘king of the Jews’!” and hitting him in the face.

Pilate went outside once more and said to the crowd, “Look, I’m bringing him out to you to get you to understand that I find no case against him.”

So Yeshua came out, wearing the thorn-branch crown and the purple robe. Pilate said to them, “Look at the man!”

When the head cohanim and the Temple guards saw him they shouted, “Put him to death on the stake! Put him to death on the stake!” Pilate said to them, “You take him out yourselves and put him to death on the stake, because I don’t find any case against him.”

The Judeans answered him, “We have a law; according to that law, he ought to be put to death, because he made himself out to be the Son of God.”

On hearing this, Pilate became even more frightened.

He went back into the headquarters and asked Yeshua, “Where are you from?” But Yeshua didn’t answer.

So Pilate said to him, “You refuse to speak to me? Don’t you understand that it is in my power either to set you free or to have you executed on the stake?”

Yeshua answered, “You would have no power over me if it hadn’t been given to you from above; this is why the one who handed me over to you is guilty of a greater sin.”

On hearing this, Pilate tried to find a way to set him free; but the Judeans shouted, “If you set this man free, it means you’re not a ‘Friend of the Emperor’! Everyone who claims to be a king is opposing the Emperor!”

When Pilate heard what they were saying, he brought Yeshua outside and sat down on the judge’s seat in the place called The Pavement (in Aramaic, Gabta);

it was about noon on Preparation Day for Pesach. He said to the Judeans, “Here’s your king!”

They shouted, “Take him away! Take him away! Put him to death on the stake!” Pilate said to them, “You want me to execute your king on a stake?” The head cohanim answered, “We have no king but the Emperor.”

Then Pilate handed Yeshua over to them to have him put to death on the stake. So they took charge of Yeshua.

Carrying the stake himself he went out to the place called Skull (in Aramaic, Gulgolta).

There they nailed him to the stake along with two others, one on either side, with Yeshua in the middle.

Pilate also had a notice written and posted on the stake; it read, YESHUA FROM NATZERET THE KING OF THE JEWS