Another historical problem with the account in the New Testament has to do with the custom of releasing a prisoner at Passover. In the New Testament, that practice forms the backdrop that highlights Pilate’s reluctance to kill Jesus. But there was no such custom. The rituals of Passover are well documented, because Passover was even more central in antiquity than it is now. And the Jewish insistence on justice is equally clear. So the alleged practice of releasing a prisoner seems to have been invented for the purposes of this story, and seems to fly in the face of established Jewish doctrine.
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