Matthew 27 priests had handed Jesus over because they were jealous of his popularity, asks the crowd to choose between freeing a notorious prisoner known as Barabbas, or Jesus. The crowd, persuaded by the chief priests and elders, respond passionately, repeating "Let Him (Christ) be crucified!" Pilate, bewildered by this, asks the crowd for a reason for their choice. Instead, they continue to call ever more loudly for the crucifixion of Jesus. Pilate comes to see that he cannot reason with the crowd. His wife has had a disturbing dream and asks him to have "nothing to do with that just man".
Sources for the historicity of Jesus Sources for the historicity of Jesus Christian sources, such as the New Testament books in the Christian Bible, include detailed stories about Jesus but scholars differ on the historicity of specific episodes described in the Biblical accounts of Jesus. The only two events subject to "almost universal assent" are that Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist and was crucified by the order of the Roman Prefect Pontius Pilate. Non-Christian sources that are used to study and establish the historicity of Jesus include Jewish sources such as Josephus, and Roman sources such as Tacitus. These sources are compared to Christian