Pilate may have thought that executing Rabbi Yeshua would be an effective pre-emptive crowd-control measure.
As far as we know, there were no crowd disturbances in Jerusalem following the crucifixion of Rabbi Yeshua.
Following the crucifixion of Rabbi Yeshua, his grief-stricken Jewish followers eventually constructed the greatest story ever told -- with him as the central character. They figured that he had been set up by a fellow Jew (or Jews) in Jerusalem.
To avoid any possible misunderstanding here, I want to say that I claim no originality for the line of reasoning that I have just set forth here. I am just reporting the line of reasoning that I have heard certain New Testament scholars present -- a line of reasoning that Barnstone evidently is not familiar with.
In any event, by the time that the greatest story ever emerged in a full narrative form, the authors of the four canonical gospels set forth their memorable versions of the basic narrative in their four respective canonical gospels.
Perhaps we can liken the four canonical evangelists to the oral singers of narrative tales that Albert B. Lord studies in his famous book THE SINGER OF TALES (1960).
No doubt Barnstone's poetic translations of the Koine Greek of the four canonical gospels strengthens this analogy with the oral singers of tales studied by Lord.
Finally, I want to mention Sherry Salman's book DREAMS OF TOTALITY (2013).
No doubt the greatest story ever told with Rabbi Yeshua as the central character involves a dream of totality.
Salman urges us to give up our dreams of totality, if we can. No doubt this is easier said than done, regardless of whether we are talking about our own individual personal dreams of totality or a group's dream of totality that we have bought into as part of a certain group such as a religious group.
For example, in the book THE THEOCONS: SECULAR AMERICA UNDER SIEGE (2006), Damon Linker alerts progressives and liberals to watch out for certain paleo-conservative American Catholics. In my estimate, those American Catholic theocons have bought into a group dream of totality.
Now, in ancient times, the emerging group of Jews who jumped on the bandwagon in favor of the historical Yeshua were understandably grief-stricken after he was crucified on the trumped-up charge of being an insurrectionist ("King of the Jews"). Out of their understandable sorrow, they eventually over time constructed the greatest story ever told. Tragically, the greatest story ever told includes numerous ant-Jew expressions.
No doubt the anti-Jew expressions in the canonical gospels contributed to Christian anti-Semitism over the centuries, as James Carroll details in his book CONSTANTINE'S SWORD: THE CHURCH AND THE JEWS: A HISTORY (2001).
In Barnstone's translation of the canonical gospel, he translates all of the anti-Jew expressions into straightforward English. There is no good reason to sweep those tragic expressions under the rug. Unfortunately, they are part of our Western cultural history that all of us need to come to terms with, rather than hide from it.
C. G. Jung urges us to integrate our personal shadow contents into our active conscious awareness. Unless and until we do this, we will make unconscious projections of our shadow on to other individual persons or possibly on to groups of people.
Jung's advice is consistent with the advice placed on the lips of Yeshua about taking the log out of one's own eye before we undertake to remove the splinter from another person's eye (Mt. 7:3; Lk. 6:42).
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