THE PILATE STONE
The Pilate stone is a damaged block (82 cm x 65 cm) of carved limestone with a partially intact inscription attributed to Pontius Pilate, a prefect of the Roman province of Judaea from AD 26 to 36, who ordered the crucifixion of Christ. The stone was discovered at the archaeological site of Caesarea Maritime in 1961.
Until the summer of 1961, absolutely no archaeological evidence existed that would demonstrate that Pontius Pilate, a pivotal figure in the New Testament gospels, ever really existed. The artifact is particularly significant because it is an archaeological find of an authentic 1st-century Roman inscription mentioning the name “[Pont]ius Pilatus”. It is contemporary to Pilate’s lifetime, and accords with what is known of his reported career. In effect, the inscription constitutes the earliest surviving, and only contemporary, record of Pilate, who is otherwise known from the New Testament, the Jewish historian Josephus and writer Philo, and brief references by Roman historians such as Tacitus.
In June 1961, however, while working in the Mediterranean seaside ruins of Caesarea Maritima, a team led by the Italian archaeologist Antonio Frova found a sizable piece of limestone (82 cm x 65 cm) that bears the name of “Pontius Pilatus.” The Latin inscription read as follows:
[DIS AUGUSTI]S TIBERIÉUM (To the Divine Augusti [this] Tiberieum)
[…PONTI]US PILATUS (…Pontius Pilate)
[…PRAEF]ECTUS IUDA[EA]E (…prefect of Judea)
[…FECIT D]E[DICAVIT] (…has dedicated [this]).
To the Divine Augusti (this) Tiberieum
… Pontius Pilate
… prefect of Judea
… has dedicated (this)
The inscription says that Pilate had built a “Tiberieum” — evidently a temple in or near Caesarea dedicated to the then-reigning Roman emperor, Tiberius, who ruled from A.D. 14 to A.D. 37. Plainly, as others also did, Pilate was seeking to flatter the emperor.
Caesarea “Palace of the Procurators” is a place of enormous New Testament interest in its own right, where the apostle Paul was imprisoned for over two years under the Roman governors Felix and Festus (Acts 23:31-35; 24:27) and where he made his famous speech before Festus and Agrippa (as recorded in Acts 26).
It is, quite simply, no longer tenable to argue that Pontius Pilate never existed. And, while Pilate’s demonstrable reality certainly doesn’t prove that Jesus rose from the dead or atoned for our sins, or that he merits our devotion as our divine Lord, it constitutes an important part of a cumulative case for the reliability of the gospel accounts — which do, in fact, assert all of those things. In answer to Pilate’s question “What is truth?” (John 18:38), the New Testament declares that Jesus himself is (John 14:6).