The Episode of the Roman Standards at Jerusalem

Abstract

One of the great handicaps confronting the student of Christian origins is the paucity of specific information about Palestine in the period of Jesus and the early Church. The student can learn much that has an indirect bearing upon Palestine by acquainting himself with the history and antiquities of Syria, Transjordan and Egypt. He can obtain an adequate picture of the general course of events in Palestine itself from Josephus, and can recreate the outlines of its changing scene and changing conditions by piecing together many bits of unrelated information from earlier and later periods. But when it comes to strictly contemporary Palestinian remains and specific contemporary Palestinian events, he has to admit that his knowledge is regrettably limited and fragmentary. The cities, the towns, the public buildings, the private houses and their household effects in the Palestine of the days of Jesus and his apostles are known only imperfectly and vaguely, in the main from literary sources. The complete excavation of even one site with datable contemporary strata would clarify the picture tremendously. For a knowledge of contemporary events our most productive source is still Josephus, and from the allimportant procuratorship of Pontius Pilate, 26–36 A.D., Josephus has only three episodes to narrate. They are the episode of the standards, the episode of the new aqueduct, and the episode of the sacred vessels supposedly buried on Mt. Gerizim.

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