-- an imagined dialogue:
A firebrand crackled on its post above them, flickering warm light on their faces as they sat facing each other on the portico.
“What brings you to me at this hour?” Pontius Pilate asked.
“Your excellency, I have come to present you with the opportunity not only to make your mark on our trivial little pocket of the Empire, but on the whole world, for all time,” answered Joseph of Arimathea.
“It must be an audacious offer, indeed,” Pilate said, with a bemused grin. “Go on.”
Joseph of Arimathea, a member of the ruling Sanhedrin council of Jewish elders, proceeded.
“Tell me, Pilate, what is the greatest impediment to your goals for Rome in Judea?”
Pilate laughed. “You are!”
Joseph laughed with him. “Precisely! And why am I, and why are we, such impediments to social and economic progress? What motivates our resistance to your agenda?”
“Sheer stubbornness. Intransigence. Ignorance.” Pilate shook his head in frustration.
“And what perpetuates that?” asked Joseph.
“We Romans have never in our noble history encountered a people so fanatical about their religion that they would fail to accommodate to ours. We let you worship your God as you please, as we do everywhere else, but that’s not enough for you. You think your God is so special that you won’t tolerate ours or anyone else’s being worshipped alongside it.”
“Precisely, Pilate. And that’s what brings me to you tonight. You have an opportunity to kill that God once and for all.”
“Kill the God of Israel? You’re kidding!” Pilate almost choked on his own laughter.
“Right now,” replied Joseph in a hush, “a man named Jesus has entered Jerusalem. You’ve probably heard of him. Just another mad Jewish prophet rousing the rabble, I’m sure you assume. Well, this one is different. This one has convinced a lot of the people that he is Yahweh, the God of Israel, walking the earth in human form. Not just the Messiah – we’ve had lots of those arise in the past – no, the people think this one is God himself! Soon, the Sanhedrin will bring this Jesus of Nazareth to trial, and will present him to you for conviction.”
“I have learned enough about this miserable, obstinate little country to know that for any human being to claim to be the God of Israel is the worst sort of blasphemy,” Pilate responded.
“Punishable by death,” Joseph said.
“I don’t crucify people for breaking your religious rules. I’m too busy crucifying people who break our Roman laws.”
“But you do crucify them for sedition, no? And what worse form of sedition is there than this – a wandering preacher believed to be not just the local, po-dunk God of little old Israel, but the high and almighty God of the universe, the whole Roman empire included? Remember, Pilate: the God of the Jews is not only our heavenly deity, but our earthly King. Our prophets warned against trusting in human kings, and told our people that God was our only true ruler. That’s what makes our religion so dangerous for Rome. And even more dangerous for Rome is the heresy that our God has taken human form.”
Pilate chuckled. “I’d be glad to kill off the God of Israel, and save myself and the Empire a lot of trouble, as you say. But to kill the God of the whole universe? The God above all the gods of Rome and all its provinces?”
“That’s exactly what I propose. Because the trouble you’ve got here in Israel, while an extreme case, is the trouble everywhere.
“Think of all Rome has accomplished. Straight, solid roads linking all corners of the Empire. Wealth created by untrammeled trade between the provinces. Aqueducts. Law and order. Uniform measures. Constant improvements in technology. So much of humanity has begun to rise above its brutish misery. What holds it back from further progress? Fatalism ingrained in the soul by belief in a God, or in the gods, who direct the lives of each and all, regardless of their level of industry. People resign themselves to how things used to be, to how things are, rather than believing they can change things for the better.
“Supernatural divinity is in the way, not just here in Judea, but everywhere. The top God, and all the other gods, must die so that humanity may fully thrive.”
“Well, all along, we Romans have been saying that you Jews are atheists, having no respect for the gods,” replied Pilate. “But I’ve never had that confirmed before by a Jew – much less a member of the ruling council! The God of Israel – he’s just one of the deities, and a minor one at that. But as a proper Roman, I know that my fate is in the hands of the gods, no matter how hard I strive in this world.”
“But look at the real consequences of that belief. It holds you back. Have you seen the gods? Or just statues or paintings or mosaics of them? If there were no gods, what difference would it make? Would the sun stop turning around the earth? Would people stop being born and living and dying? All the sacrifices, all the offerings, all the ceremonies, all the incantations. What difference do they make? Nobody’s listening up there. There’s nobody up there. The heavenly spheres spin on their own. You and I are on our own. And if we really understood that, if we really took full responsibility for ourselves and our fates, what a difference that would make! We’d be liberated to reach new heights of creativity and social and technical progress,” intoned Joseph of Arimathea. “So let’s get rid of God – starting right here in Judea!”
“Your impiety astounds me,” said Pilate. “Such talk is uncivilized, in Rome and everywhere else.”
“What matters to you most, Pilate? The glory of Rome, or devotion to the gods?”
“They are not so easily separated,” said Pilate, squirming a bit in his armchair. “Rome is the glory of its gods.”
“But what if those gods held back Rome from its full future glory? What if releasing the gods would now release Rome to claim its glory for itself? Maybe you needed the gods in the past. But now, given your remarkable achievements, they’re just in the way. Just as the supposedly almighty God of Israel is holding Israel back from what it could do and be. We should be the richest and most civilized province of the Empire. Our religion is all that stands in the way!”
“This province vexes me, as it has bedeviled everyone who has come before me. The fractiousness, the intrigues, the rebellions, the bizarre religious excitements. But I must say, I’ve never had such rich intellectual conversations before coming here. This is surely the most interesting of all of them! So, say more, Joseph. You have my attention!”
“As should be clear by now, I have come to admire the rule of Rome. Of course I hate the idea that my country has lost its independence. But that cost is overshadowed by the benefits. Rome has shown us that life can be better. Society can advance. The economy can grow. People can eat better, live longer, enjoy more of the pleasures life has to offer. We used to assume that God had ordered the world to keep being as it was, cycling with the seasons. When the Romans came, we saw that through organized human industry, the world could be changed for the better. We have stubbornly clung to our traditions in order to maintain our identity, but in fact we’ve changed forever. It’s time we broke from the chains of our past and embraced the bright future that lies before us.
“Our last remaining set of chains are the ones forged by primitive belief in God. A remarkable opportunity lies before us, Pilate. People believe that God has taken human form in Jesus. When you kill him, you kill God, and you break the chains! And in a chain reaction, the chains of rest of the people of the Empire will break as well! Imagine it with me: Pontius Pilate, Liberator of the World!”
Pilate shook his head, boggled. “You are a member of the Sanhedrin! One of the top religious authorities of Israel! And you come to me, uttering blasphemy against your religion and mine! If I agreed with you, both of us should be crucified!”
“There’s something you should know, Pilate. When we of the Sanhedrin voted on bringing Jesus to trial, I voted against doing so.”
“Then why are you here?” asked Pilate, confounded.
“Because that was the moment when I woke up to the absurdity of believing in the God of Israel and all the other gods. I was starting to have my doubts already, but this incident put me over the edge. Here is Jesus, a harmless homeless mentally ill person, wandering the country and preaching. Nutty as he is, it can’t be denied that he is a kind man. If we suspended our common sense and assumed for a moment that he is God, he makes God look better than God has ever looked before! Jesus deserves the compassion that he preaches and practices. He deserves help to recover from his delusions, not execution on a cross. Supposedly ours is a God of mercy, but not according to my fellow members of the Sanhedrin. I think it is awful that the top religious authorities of our land would take an action like this. But as I thought about it, I realized their decision was just a symptom of the real problem, which is espousing the existence of our God and all the rest of them. Barbaric religious belief inevitably leads to barbaric outcomes. It makes people assume they can’t change things because the gods are in charge and they are mere pawns in their hands. That makes them subject to all kinds of manipulation and abuse.
“I don't want Jesus to be crucified. And I’m willing to bet that you don’t want this, either. But I see that his crucifixion is inevitable. As a practical politician, you will have no choice but to go along with the Sanhedrin’s decision and condemn an innocent man. We both know that.
“All I ask here is that when you convict him and sentence him, you declare that he is who people say he is. Tell the people that you have sentenced the God of Israel to death on a cross. You can put a sign to that effect on the cross above his head: “Here hangs God”!
“I can’t do that! That’s preposterous!” Pilate declared. “I’d cause a riot! An uprising! A revolution against Rome! The whole point of killing him is to prevent just that!”
“Really?” asked Joseph. “Step back a bit and think about it. Neither you nor I, as believers in law and order, want to see an innocent man put to death. Let’s put the blame for this miscarriage of justice where it belongs – on people’s belief in God! Let the people deal with the consequences of their primitive ideas. Let them face the absurdity of religious belief by gazing at it on the cross. Don’t just condemn one innocent man, condemn the whole belief system that resulted in this terrible injustice!”
Pilate stared at him, stunned. “I have never in my life considered that I could be having a conversation like this. I am horrified by your impiety and at the same time I must confess to being intrigued by what you have to say. You’ve given me an idea: you’ll see what comes of it. I believe it is time for this discussion to come to an end.”
“Your excellency, I thank you for listening to my proposal. I have a last request.”
“Speak,” answered Pilate.
“After Jesus is crucified, I would like permission to retrieve his body and give him a proper burial. I ask that this be arranged quietly, without the knowledge of my fellow members of the Sanhedrin.”
“Permission granted.”
Then he (Pilate) handed him over to them to be crucified. So they took Jesus, and carrying the cross by himself he went out to what is called the Place of the Skull, which in Hebrew is called Golgotha. There they crucified him and with him two others, one on either side, with Jesus between them. Pilate also had an inscription written and put on the cross. It read, “Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews.” Many of the Jews read this inscription because the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city, and it was written in Hebrew, in Latin, and in Greek. Then the chief priests of the Jews said to Pilate, “Do not write, ‘The King of the Jews,’ but, ‘This man said, I am King of the Jews.’ ” Pilate answered, “What I have written I have written.” (John 19: 16-22)