Pontius Pilate Pilate was "astonished". Pilate appears to have been reluctant to allow the crucifixion of Jesus, finding no fault with him. According to Matthew 27:19, even Pilate's wife spoke to him on Jesus' behalf. According to the gospels, it was the custom of the Roman governor to release one prisoner at Passover, and Pilate brought out Barabbas, identified by Matthew as a "notorious prisoner" and by Mark as a murderer, and told the crowd to choose between releasing Barabbas or Jesus as per the custom, in the hopes of getting them to request the release of Jesus. However, the crowd demanded
Matthew 27:58 to approach Pilate, and also has Pilate exclaiming on how quickly Jesus died. Matthew, Luke, and John do not have these details. Gundry notes that at the time Mark was written the question posed by skeptics was whether Jesus really was dead. By the time Matthew was written this had faded as an issue, to be replaced by the allegation that the disciples had stolen Jesus' body. Thus Matthew drops the sections emphasizing that Jesus was truly dead, and adds much evidence that the body could not have been stolen. There is also a much longer version of this scene