The novel Pontius Pilate[i]
by historian Paul L. Maier defies genre.
It’s not quite historical fiction,
though it has both history and
fiction. It’s not biography. It’s not hagiography. It’s not a textbook. But it has something of
all of these. Maier describes it in his
brief preface as a “documented historical novel.” 
Pontius Pilate, the
most (in)famous Roman prefect of Judea, has been the inspiration for countless
stories and legends through the centuries, but Maier – writing as an historian –
attempted to ground his tale firmly in documented historical fact. And, for the most part, he has succeeded in writing
a compelling and believable account of Pilate.
I greatly appreciated his description of the internal politicking that influenced Pilate’s career. His appearance within the canonical gospels comes really without context. What Maier provides is an accounting for the pressures and demands faced by this Roman governor. The gossipy backbiting of rivals, the cynical machinations of political maneuverings, the paranoia and fear of living under vengeful and insane emperors – these tensions come only slightly into view in the gospels, but would have powerfully influenced Pilate and his decision making.
But Pilate dealt not only these Roman anxieties, but also his numerous collisions with the Jewish people. Time and again his failure to understand Jewish sympathies (and the Jewish manipulation of his failure to understand) led to conflicts – sometimes bloody and violent conflict.
Maier’s novel does an admirable job of putting all of this into historical context, and makes an inviting novel of it all. But (and there’s always a ‘but’, right?) the book has a couple of flaws.
First – Maier describes the political situation of Galilee during those first years of the first century A.D. as positively boiling over with zealots and revolutionaries. This description, as I understand, has fallen out of favor with historians somewhat. Those years in Galilee, while experiencing a revival of Jewish identity and religious fervor, were relatively peaceful. And the zealots, as an armed and active force, didn’t really exist until shortly before the Jewish revolt against Rome.
I greatly appreciated his description of the internal politicking that influenced Pilate’s career. His appearance within the canonical gospels comes really without context. What Maier provides is an accounting for the pressures and demands faced by this Roman governor. The gossipy backbiting of rivals, the cynical machinations of political maneuverings, the paranoia and fear of living under vengeful and insane emperors – these tensions come only slightly into view in the gospels, but would have powerfully influenced Pilate and his decision making.
But Pilate dealt not only these Roman anxieties, but also his numerous collisions with the Jewish people. Time and again his failure to understand Jewish sympathies (and the Jewish manipulation of his failure to understand) led to conflicts – sometimes bloody and violent conflict.
Maier’s novel does an admirable job of putting all of this into historical context, and makes an inviting novel of it all. But (and there’s always a ‘but’, right?) the book has a couple of flaws.
First – Maier describes the political situation of Galilee during those first years of the first century A.D. as positively boiling over with zealots and revolutionaries. This description, as I understand, has fallen out of favor with historians somewhat. Those years in Galilee, while experiencing a revival of Jewish identity and religious fervor, were relatively peaceful. And the zealots, as an armed and active force, didn’t really exist until shortly before the Jewish revolt against Rome.
But even so, the story
doesn’t fall apart on this point.
My other (very minor)
complaint is that this book stumbles in its viewpoint. Most of the book is told, appropriately
enough, from Pilate’s vantage. The problem, however, is putting Pilate at the
center of all those important events of the gospels (for Maier’s real intent is
to show Pilate in relation to Jesus…) when he wasn’t there to witness
them.
Maier does this most of
the time by having another eyewitness relate to Pilate what happened. For example, the centurion Cornelius (yes,
that one…) is dispatched to report on Jesus’ activities, Pilate’s wife tells
him of her encounter with Jesus and his followers at the temple… But this
solution is a weak one. Good writers show what happened, not tell… These second hand reports to
Pilate begin to sound like cliff-note summaries of the stories in the Gospels
and the Acts of the Apostles.
Maier’s other solution
to this problem is to switch viewpoints. On a few occasions the story jumps Caiaphas
or a few of the other characters. But
these jumps occur relatively late in the book – after firmly establishing the
story from Pilate’s point of view. The
jumps disrupt the narrative; if it’s Pilate’s story the story should stay with
Pilate.
Also in this same
complaint is the unevenness of the viewpoint.
While it is pretty much given as Pilates, many of the dates are given from
the readers’ point of view – for example, “late in the summer of A.D. 28 Pilate
took Procula on the sixty mile trip to Jerusalem…”[ii]
and “The year 31 A.D. dawned auspiciously for the prefect of Judea…”[iii] It would have been historically more accurate
and narratively more cohesive to give the dates Ab urbe condita.
Despite these minor
complaints, the novel is enjoyable and educational.
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