Urantia Book 106. The Life of Jesus of Nazareth, Joshua bin Joseph, Yeshua, Christ Michael, Sovereign God of Nebadon. After 6am on Friday morning Jesus was brought before Pilate, the Roman procurator who governed Judea, Samaria and Idumea. Jesus was accompanied by his accusers, the guards and John. Although much of the examination was conducted inside the praetorium, Pilate took Jesus out on the steps for the public trial. This was a concession to the Jews who refused to enter any gentile building where leaven might be used this day of preparation of the Passover. This would subject them to purification ceremonies before they would be able to participate in the Passover supper (185.0.1-4).************** If Pontius Pilate had not been a reasonably good governor of the minor provinces, Tiberius would hardly have suffered him to remain as procurator of Judea for 10 years. Although he was a fairly good administrator, he was a moral coward. He was not a big enough man to comprehend the task as governor of the Jews. He failed to grasp that these Jews had a real religion, a faith for which they were willing to die, and that millions upon millions of them, scattered here and there throughout the empire, looked to Jerusalem as the shrine of their faith and held the Sanhedrin in respect as the highest tribunal on earth. Pilate did not love the Jews, and this deep-seated hatred early began to manifest itself. Of all the Roman provinces, none was more difficult to govern than Judea. Pilate never really understood the problems involved in the management of the Jews, and therefore, very early in his experience as a governor made a series of almost fatal and almost suicidal blunders. It was these blunders that gave the Jews such power over him. When they wanted to influence his decisions, all they had to do was threaten an uprising, and Pilate would speedily capitulate. In each controversy the Jews would come out on top due to a number of unfortunate encounters. First, he failed to take seriously their deep-seated prejudice against all images as symbols of idol worship. His soldiers had banners with pictures on them, and the Jews wanted them gone, as in yesterday. He refused and threatened them with death. But they were ready to die for their cause. Then Pilate realized that he had made a threat he was not able to carry out and surrendered and had the images removed from the banners. From that day on, he found himself subject to the whims of the Jews. To regain his lost prestige, Pilate put Caesar’s shields on the walls of Herod’s palace walls. The Jews protested and when he refused to remove them, they appealed to Rome. The emperor promptly ordered the shields taken down. The next act of Pilate was that he dared to take money from the temple treasury to pay for an aqueduct to provide water for the millions of people who came on the Jewish holidays. The Jews, of course, objected. Riots and bloodshed resulted from this action and a group of people at prayer were massacred. Finally, Pilate was called to Rome. Tiberius died while Pilate was enroute, and he was not reappointed to Judea. He retired to the province of Lausanne, where he later committed suicide.