The last few days of Jesus' life, they were
the most tragic of any in human history.
Ruthless men and women mocked Him, spit on
Him, hit Him.
And amidst all this violence, there stood
one man who had the power to stop all the
torture, one man who could call off the Roman
soldiers, and save Christ from being crucified.
His name: Pontius Pilate, the Roman official
who governed that area of Judea at the time
of Christ's death.
The story of the crucifixion can hardly be
told without mentioning the name of this Roman
official who sentenced Christ to death, even
though Pilate knew He was innocent.
But, although the Bible mentions Pilate on
several occasions, his name couldn't be found
among the archeological evidence.
For hundreds of years, no stone inscriptions
or other physical evidence could be produced
to support the idea that a man named Pilate
had anything to do with either Jesus or Judea.
Because of this, many people mocked the Bible.
They claimed that creative Bible writers concocted
Pilate from their own fertile imaginations.
I mean after all, if Pilate were such a prominent
leader, wouldn't there be some kind of archeological
evidence to verify his existence?
Again, the critics were silenced in 1961,
when an Italian archeological team working
at the city of Caesarea found a stone tablet.
It measured about 32 inches high by 27 inches
wide by about 8 inches thick.
On this stone slab--it's now known as the
'Pilate Inscription'--were the remains of
this very simple title: 'Pontius Pilate Prefect
of Judea.'
Almost the exact same title as the one given
to Pilate in Luke 3:1.
This then became yet another find to remind
us that the more we uncover the past, the
more we uncover the Truth.
The Bible is indeed the Word of God.
