27:1- 26 Jesus before Pilate
Jesus delivered over to Pilate (27:1-2)
In the early morning, all the chief priests and elders of the people confer together against Jesus that he might be put to death. These characters in the story are acting as though they were formally the Council and as though they had power to pass a capital sentence. In time (27:25) they will act as though they can take responsibility for the action that only Pilate can take. Jesus is taken in chains to the Governor Pilate. The third passion prediction (20:18-19) links the handing over of Jesus to this group of Jerusalem leaders and to Pilate. Pilate was the Roman governor of Judea from 26 – 36 CE and in less precipitous times would be found in Caesarea Maritima. Three passion predictions of a “delivery” are matched by Judas delivering Jesus to the Jerusalem authorities, the authorities delivering Jesus to Pilate and Pilate delivering Jesus over to the execution detail.
The death of Judas (27:3-10)
This is the first of four new features in Matthew’s passion story. There is another story of the end of Judas’ life in Acts 1:18-19) There, Judas does not explicitly take his own life, he buys the field. The “Field of Blood” may refer to Judas’ blood. Here, the returned money is “blood money” and the use of it by the Temple authorities to purchase the Potter’s Field gives the name to the field. The return of the money and the subsequent suicide is modeled on the actions of Ahithophel (2 Sam 17) and the prophet Zechariah (Zech. 11) rather than Jeremiah. (The parallels are set out in Davies and Allison, p. 502, 504f.) Judas’ “change of mind” (27:3), followedby “confession” (27:4) and return of the money (27:5) perhaps indicates repentance.
The other three features peculiar to Matthew occur here, along with the revamped Barabbas scene. (i) Pilate’s wife, an impartial observer (?) declares Jesus to be a “just man” Her message comes as a result of a dream (going back to the infancy story). (ii) Pilate is portrayed as going out of his way to get Jesus to disentangle himself from the jealous accusations. He eventually washes his hands of the matter, alluding to Deut 21:6-7, Ps 26:6. Unlike Joseph, Pilate does not act decisively upon warnings given in dreams.
(iii) Jewish acceptance of responsibility. In this story, the characters representing the leadership of Jerusalem are made to accept responsibility for Jesus’ death. In the world of history, the most that can be aligned with this is to say that Pilate’s decision to put Jesus to death as a political revolutionary furthered the interest of the Temple hierarchy who were threatened by Jesus. In the history of the world of Christian anti-Semitism, this has been generalized without restraint to say that all Jews for all times and in all places bear total responsibility for Jesus’ death. Shame on us!
(iv) The Barabbas story of a condemned man Barabbas being swapped out for an innocent man Jesus is found in all Gospels. Matthew, in the NRSV translation, has the manuscript suggestion that there was poignant choice between Jesus Barabbas and Jesus the Christ. "Which Jesus do you want?" This will be made much of in the Fourth Gospel where the people cannot distinguish between the Good Shepherd and the lestes who climbs over the wall and whose voice the sheep do not know. There is no historical evidence of such a swapping. The irony of the choice is rich.
What is being served by writing about Pilate and the Jewish leadership in this way, this transfer of blame away from the Roman Pilate and onto the Jewish leaders, this portrayal of Jesus as being innocent on any and all charges of insurrection, is the attempt to exonerate the early Christian communities in the eyes of the Roman state in the late first century. It is political apologetic: we are the good guys, you have nothing to fear from us!
