(04-27-2021, 11:17 AM)Blue Bird Wrote: Thanks a lot for this detailed information! So it could well be that Stephen was stoned in accordance with Roman law because Pilate wasn't around.
It's very hard to say anything definitive about whatever events actually occurred from the legendary and highly stylized account in Acts.
(04-27-2021, 11:17 AM)Blue Bird Wrote: 1.) Pilate said, “Take him yourselves and judge him by your own law. (John 18:31)
2.) You take him and crucify him. (John 19:6). - Could this also be a statement out of despairation because he had trouble to silence the masses?
I don't think so. The Christian accounts of Jesus' trials, which are not historical, tend to excuse Pilate (with Pilate finding no guilt in Jesus) as a way of demonstrating to their audience that their movement was not a threat to the powers that be. Consequently they also exaggerate (or perhaps even invent) the responsibility of the Judean leaders (and even the Jewish people) for the death of Jesus. This also fed into the Flavian propaganda about their great defeat of the Judean revolt. The initial animosity of the messianic sect toward the Judean leaders may have begun out of a sense of persecution, but over the centuries it would eventually result in much greater, horrific persecution and mass murder of Jews by Christians.