the trial is a fiction. no such release a prisoner holidays ever happened. its a fiction meant to flatter potential roman coverts by portraying pilate as sympathetic to jesus but blameless for his execution. it puts the blame on the jewish mob. in reality pilate was not a well-tempered man sympathetic to jews. he was recalled to rome because his attitude of not giving a fuck what the jews thought caused too many problems. moreover, its not a co incidence that the bad guy, the jew responsible for the uprising in which roman soldiers were killed is named bar abbas, which means son of the father. the point is to confuse the two sins of the father but distance the good jesus from a murderous jewish insurgent. (protip: the real jesus was a murderous jewish insurgent).
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