The Catholic Message Board

Apologies in advance for my laziness in doing research. Just one of those days. In the Good Friday readings (maybe Palm Sunday as well), Pilate has a few lines. One is 'what is truth?' which seems to just be left hanging. The story continues, never explicitly getting back to that question. So why is this never more directly answered. Certainly, I get that Jesus wasn't going to just pause to answer - it seems that would have distracted from His passion. But I have always been puzzled by this.

The theory I most often hear is that Pilate wasn't interested in the answer. It's more of a rhetorical question: "The truth? Srsly?"

Pilate's question is a dismissive rejection of the word of Jesus. The criterion for an authentic belief in Jesus is to be open to his word. Pilate fails because like before him in the story, especially "the Jews" he dismisses the word of Jesus. (Francis Moloney Belief in the Word).

I think Pilate really wanted to listen to his wife's advice (smart guy). Admittedly, only mentioned in Mt., while Pilate's question was only mentioned in Jn., but he was fishing for a way...any way...to get out of the dilemma.

Thank you for your posts. Informative, as usual.

At Pilate's age with his many advantages in the search for Truth, he has zero to show for it. Anyway divorcing Truth from what is the right (true) thing to do, is his error. He admits that "what has this man done" but let's things go . Truth has its most strong test in doing the right thing and he did not.