At that time then Pilatus took Yeshua and flogged Him. And the soldiers having woven a crown from thorny weeds put it on His head and robed Him with a purple cloak and started at Him and were saying, “Hey! King of the Iudaeans!” And they hit him in the face.1 And Pilatus came out again outside and says to them, “Look, I am leading Him to you outside so that you would know that I don’t find any reason at all to charge Him.” Yeshua then came out outside, bearing the crown of thorny weeds and the purple cloak. And he says to them, “Look at the man.” When the high priests and the officers saw Him they yelled loudly saying, “Crucify Him! Crucify Him!” Pilatus says to them, “Take Him and crucify Him yourselves! I don’t find any reason to charge Him!” The Iudaeans replied to him, “We have the Torah! And according to the Torah He is obligated to die because He made Himself the son of a god!”2
When Pilatus heard this message, he was all the more panicked, and entered into the praetorium again and says to Yeshua, “Where are You from?!” But Yeshua didn’t give him an answer. Pilatus then says to Him, “You won’t talk to me?! Don’t you know that I possess the authority to set you free and I possess the authority to crucify You?!” Yeshua replies, “You don’t possess a shred of authority where I am concerned except for what had been given to you from above. For this reason the guy handing Me over to you holds the more egregious error.”3 From this, Pilatus was looking for a way to set Him free. But the Iudaeans yelled out loudly saying, “If you set this person free, you aren’t a friend of Caesar! Every single person making himself a king talks against Caesar!”
Pilatus then having heard these words led Yeshua outside and sat upon the Bema Seat in the place called, “Stone Pavement,” and in Aramaic4, “Gabbatha.” And it was the preparation day of the Paskha, it was like the sixth hour5. And He says to the Iudaeans, “Look at your king.” Those people then yelled loudly, “Take Him away! Take Him away! Crucify Him!” Pilatus says to them, “I should crucify your king?” The high priests answered, “We don’t have a king except Caesar!” At that time then he handed Him over to them so that He would be crucified.
They then take Yeshua aside, and carrying His own execution cross He comes out into what is called “Place of the Skull,” which is called in Aramaic, “Gulgulta,” where they crucified Him, and two others with Him from here and from here, and Yeshua was in the middle. And Pilatus also wrote an execution notice and put it on the cross. And it was written, “Yeshua from Natseret King of the Iudaeans.” This then was the execution notice many of the Iudaeans read, because the place where Yeshua was crucified was near the city. And it was written in Aramaic, Roman, and Greek.6 The high priests of the Iudaeans then were telling Pilatus, “Don’t write, ‘the king of the Iudaeans,” but “that person said, I am king of the Iudaeans.” Pilatus answered, “What I have written, I have written.”
The soldiers then, when they crucified Yeshua, took His clothes and made them four parts, a part to each soldier, yet His shirt was also seamless, having been woven from the top down through the whole. They then said to one another, “Let’s not tear it up, but we should throw lots about whose it will be;” so that the writing which says, “They split up My clothes among themselves and threw lots for My apparel,” would be fulfilled. The soldiers then in fact did these things. And His mother and His mother’s sister, Mariam the wife of Klopa, and Mariam from Migdol stood beside Yeshua’s cross. Yeshua then having seen His mother and the disciple who was dear to Him standing beside her says to His mother, “Woman, look at your son.” Then He says to the disciple, “Look at your mother.” And from that time on, the disciple took her for his own mother.
With this, Yeshua having seen that everything had already been finished, so that the writing would be brought to completion says, “I’m thirsty.” A vessel full of wine vinegar was sitting there; having then put a sponge full of wine vinegar around a piece of hyssop they brought it to His mouth. When he then took the wine vinegar Yeshua said, “It’s finished,” and having inclined His head He surrendered His pneuma.7
The Iudaeans then, since it was the preparation day, so that the bodies wouldn’t stay put on the crosses on Shabbat, because that Shabbat was a huge day, requested Pilatus to break His legs and those of the others who were crucified together with Him. But having come upon Yeshua, as they saw Him having already died, didn’t break His legs, but the soldiers stabbed His side with a spear, and blood and water immediately came out. And the guy having seen it has testified, and his testimony is real, and that guy knows that he is speaking honestly, so that you also would trust. Because these things happened so that the writing would be fulfilled, “His bones will not be shattered.” And again a different writing says, “They will see into whom they pierced.”
And with these things Yosef from Har-Ramatha, being a disciple of Yeshua yet having hidden because of his fear of the Iudaeans, requested of Pilatus that he might take the body of Yeshua; and Pilatus allowed it. He then came and took His body. And Nikodemos also came, the guy having come to Him by night at first, bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes like a hundred litras. They then took the body of Yeshua and bound it with linen cloths with the spices, just like it is the custom of the Iudaeans for intombing. And there was a garden in the place where He was crucified, and there was a fresh tomb in the garden in which no one had yet been placed. It was there then because of the preparation day of the Iudaeans, because the tomb was close by, they placed Yeshua.
1Yeshua was being formally accused of insurgency against Rome whether the soldiers knew who He was or not. It would have been a similar situation to U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan being handed an Al-Qaida leader after watching their friends being killed by insurgents, and then told to rough that leader up.
2Notably, the Greek here does not include the definite article before θεος, indicating that Yahweh was not necessarily meant, but “a god” in general. Pilatus, being a Roman who likely worshiped the Olympians, would have caught that. In his Greco-Roman worldview, this would have been a real possibility. His following actions were probably colored by whether or not he was being asked to crucify a demigod, and possibly the offspring of one of the Olympians.
3Yeshua just confirmed Pilatus’ worst fear without directly stating that His Father was the God. Pilatus would have in no way wanted to be responsible for crucifying the offspring of any of the gods because of that god’s potential repercussions against him.
4Greek, “Εβραιστι,” “Hebrew.” I chose to render it as “Aramaic” instead because the word, “Gabbatha,” is actually from Classical Syriac/Aramaic rather than Hebrew.
512:00 PM give or take
6“Yeshua m’N’tsaret Malka Y’hude,” “Iesus Nazarenus Rex Iudaerorum,” and “Iesous o Nazoraios o Basileus ton Ioudaion,” respectively, all the written languages anyone there might be literate in.
7This could also be rendered, “He breathed His last,” or also “He gave up His breath.”
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