Rome and the East
ἔγραψε δὲκαὶτίτλονὁΠιλάτος,καὶἔθηκενἐπὶτοῦσταυροῦ.ἦνδὲ
γεγραμμένον,ἸησοῦςὁΝαζωραῖοςὁβασιλεὺςτῶνἸουδαίων.τοῦ-
τον οὖντὸντίτλον πολλοὶἀνέγνωσαν τῶνἸουδαίων,ὅτιἐγγὺςἦνὁ
τόπος τῆςπόλεως,ὅπουἐσταυρώθηὁἸησοῦς.καὶἦνγεγραμμένον
Ἑβραϊστί,Ῥωμαϊστί,Ἑλληνιστί.(Jn.:–)
It will be seen at a glance that by far the most detailed and informative of
the four accounts is that of John. That of itself will of course not prove that
this narrative should be preferred to the Synoptic versions, from which it
differs in almost every particular, including above all the relation of the Cru-
cifixion to Passover. But in fact there are many reasons for believing that the
‘‘historical Jesus’’ is best reached through John’s Gospel.^1
All four reports of what the inscription said are transmitted to us in Greek,
by authors whose origin (whether Jewish or gentile), current place of resi-
dence (whether in Judaea or elsewhere), or date of writing are all entirely
matters of speculation. But the fact that they did write in Greek is of course
a perfectly accurate reflection of the centrality of Greek as the primary lan-
guage of communication throughout the Roman Near East. Given that role,
it also functioned as a medium of transmission between the various Semitic
languages used in the region on the one hand and Latin on the other. This role
is perfectly exemplified, for instance, in a perishable medium, in the census
return of.. from the archive of Babatha, in which both Babatha’s sub-
scription, originally in Aramaic, and that of the Romanpraefectus, originally
in Latin, appear in Greek translation.^2
In the three Synoptic Gospels, however, the coexistence of Latin, Greek,
and a Semitic language, as symbolised on the Cross, has dropped out of view,
to leave only three different reports in Greek of what the inscription said. It
is not only in that respect that John’s report is more complex and detailed.
It is also he alone who records, whether veridically or not, that Jesus’ origin
in Nazareth was indicated; and only he who reflects the currency of trans-
literated Latin official terms in everyday provincial Greek, in calling the in-
scription aτίτλος,ortitulus: in this sense a notice written on any form of
material, for public display.
. See for the best discussion of the issues, E. Bickerman, ‘‘Utilitas Crucis,’’RHR
(): (Studies in Jewish and Christian HistoryIII [], ); and for the significance of
John’s Gospel, F. Millar, ‘‘Reflections on the Trials of Jesus,’’ in P. R. Davies and R. T. White,
eds.,A Tribute to Geza Vermes: Essays on Jewish and Christian Literature and History(),
( chapter of the present volume), and R. Lane Fox,The Unauthorised Version: Truth and
Fiction in the Bible(), ff.
. N. Lewis,The Documents from the Bar-Kokhba Period in the Cave of Letters: Greek Papyri
(), no. .