1. See Moloney, John, 493.
2. Dodd, Historical Tradition, 96.
3. Duke, Irony in the Fourth Gospel, 120.
4. See Brown, Death of the Messiah, 2:1351–73; John P. Meier, A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus, 4 vols.; ABRL (New York: Doubleday, 1991), 1:386–402; Morris, John, 684–95. Cf. Barry D. Smith, “The Chronology of the Last Supper,” WTJ 53 (1991): 29–45.
5. Contra Keener, John, 2:1100.
6. Brown, Death of the Messiah, 2:1372.
7. Frederick Dale Bruner, The Gospel of John: A Commentary (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2012), 1064.
8. Brown, Death of the Messiah, 2:1371.
9. Meier, A Marginal Jew, 1:396.
10. R. T. France, The Gospel of Mark: A Commentary on the Greek Text, NIGTC (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002), 561.
11. This argument is adapted from Meier, A Marginal Jew, 1:400.
12. BDAG 859.
13. Bultmann, John, 561.
14. Cf. Barrett, John, 531–33; Keener, John, 2:1099–1100.
15. Heil, Blood and Water, 46.
16. Cf. Helen K. Bond, Pontius Pilate in History and Interpretation, SNTSMS 100 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), especially 163–93.
17. Keener, John, 2:1104.
18. Brown, John, 2:847.
19. Brown is right to suggest that this is “a contemptuous use” of the demonstrative pronoun (John, 2:848). Cf. BDAG 740.
20. According to Helen K. Bond, “The Literary Function of Pontius Pilate in Josephus’ Narratives,” in Narrativity in Biblical and Related Texts, ed. G. J. Brooke and J.-D. Kaestli (Leuven: Leuven University Press, 2000), 213–23, this account between Pilate and the Jews matches other encounters.
21. Cf. Keener, John, 2:1104–9.
22. See J. Ramsey Michaels, “John 18.31 and the ‘Trial’ of Jesus,” NTS 36 (1990): 474–79 (474–75).
23. Michaels, John, 917.
24. Cf. Aquinas: “The words . . . do not indicate the intention the Jews had, but the arrangement of God’s providence” (John, 3:218).
25. According to Keener, “Although the severest form of execution Pharisaic law acknowledged on the basis of the Hebrew Bible was stoning (b. Sanh. 49b–50a), Jewish rulers had used crucifixion before the Roman period. Under Roman rule, however, all official, public executions belonged to the Romans” (John, 2:1104).
26. If there is vagueness in the account, it is intentional, for the narrator wants the entire trial to be seen under the explanation of “fulfillment” (Bruner, John, 1066).
27. Barrett, John, 536; Carson, John, 592. Cf. Martinus C. de Boer, “The Narrative Function of Pilate in John,” in Narrativity in Biblical and Related Texts, 141–58 (147–48).
28. Cf. Lincoln, John, 461. See also Bart D. Ehrman, “Jesus’s Trial before Pilate: John 18:28–19:16,” BTB 13 (1983): 124–31 (128).
29. See Christopher M. Tuckett, “Pilate in John 18–19: A Narrative Critical Approach,” in Narrativity in Biblical and Related Texts, 131–40 (135).
30. The term “handed over” in the Gospel has become a term of betrayal involving both Judas (see 6:71; 12:4; 13:2, 11, 21; 18:2, 5) and the Jews (see 6:64). Cf. Ernst Bammel, “The Trial before Pilate,” in Jesus and the Politics of His Day, ed. Ernst Bammel and C. F. D. Moule (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984), 415–51 (415–16).
31. The following is adapted from Reimund Bieringer, “ ‘My Kingship Is Not of This World’ (John 18,36): The Kingship of Jesus and Politics,” in The Myriad Christ: Plurality and the Quest for Unity in Contemporary Christology, ed. T. Merrigan and J. Haers; BETL 152 (Leuven: Leuven University Press, 2000), 159–75 (161–65).
32. See Beasey-Murray, John, 330. Cf. Michaels, John, 922.
33. Schnackenburg, John, 3:249.
34. Hoskyns, Fourth Gospel, 520. Cf. Bultmann, John, 654.
35. For a helpful discussion (and warning) of the political issues involving this verse, see Ridderbos, John, 594–95. For example, according to Martin Hengel, “Reich Christi, Reich Gottes und Weltreich im Johannesevangelium,” in Königsherrschaft und in der hellenistischen Welt, ed. Martin Hengel and Anna Maria Schwemer; WUNT 55 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1991), 163–84 (182): “The Gospel of John is the end of all political theology” (“Das Johannesevangelium bedeutet das Ende aller politischen Theologie”). For others, like Calvin, this is simply the start of a very different kind of “politics” (John 11–21, 166–67).
36. BDAG 736.
37. Hoskyns, Fourth Gospel, 520–21.
38. Cf. Lincoln, John, 463; Culpepper, Anatomy of the Fourth Gospel, 143.
39. Cf. Andreas J. Köstenberger, “ ‘What is Truth?’ Pilate’s Question in Its Johannine and Larger Biblical Context,” JETS 48 (2005): 33–62 (60).
40. Cf. Haenchen, John, 2:180.
41. BDAG 31.
42. Cf. Brown, Death of the Messiah, 1793–95; Keener, John, 2:1115–17.
43. Carson, John, 595.
44. Ridderbos, John, 598.
45. See Helen K. Bond, “Barabbas Remembered,” in Jesus and Paul: Global Perspectives in Honor of James D. G. Dunn, ed. B. J. Oropeza, C. K. Robertson, and Douglas C. Mohrmann; LNTS 414 (London: T&T Clark, 2009), 59–71.
46. Cf. Brown, Death of the Messiah, 1:686–88.
47. Brown, Death of the Messiah, 1:798.
48. Bruner, John, 1064.