Anaphora Pilati Overview

• Claimed Author: Pilate

• Original Language: Greek

• This text seems to be an expansion of Pilate’s letter to Claudius

pgs. 212-213 & https://archive.org/details/apocryphasinait01gibsgoog/page/n34/mode/2up?view=theater

Chapters 1-6 Summarized

1-6. Pilate recounts how the Jews had Jesus crucified, even though the only thing he may have done wrong was say that the Sabbath and keeping it is useless. Pilate recounts all that Jesus did: heal Lazarus and have him come out of the grave like a bridegroom with just a word—even though he had been rotting away with a stench and being eaten by worms before; he healed a woman who was bleeding for 18 years (not 12) and was almost dead. Jesus’ healings are made just that much more epic.

Pilate tried his best to set Jesus free, but with the tumult of the crowd, he had to give in. Pilate explains how he really did do his best to save Jesus.

Chapters 7-8 Translated

7-8. When Jesus died, the sun was darkened, the stars appeared but not bright, the moon turned to blood and didn’t give light, the world swallowed up the sanctuary of the Temple and some Jews, and the Jews testified that Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, the twelve patriarchs, Moses, and Job rose from the dead. As Sunday dawns, the day lights seven times brighter than normal, thunder and lightning crash, angels appear, and a voice from heaven proclaims that Jesus has risen from the grave. It calls those who are in Sheol to come up. The earth splits and many people are seen coming out of it. All the disasters that happened around Jesus’ death are intensified; they are then reversed at his resurrection.