CarolC, if Remark's account had the effect of inciting the population to rebellion against Rome, you think the Romans would have encouraged its spread? you think the Romans would not have made an example of Remark and his followers in order to keep the rest of the population in line?

Jack, I don't understand your remarks. The song (the one stanza, anyway) says (on my reading) that the people who objected to the (perceived) desecration of the sabbath (and those people would have to be some or all of the Jews of the time) killed Jesus. That stanza presents an antisemitic belief, and the question of whether antisemites believe that the Jews are or were the holy people doesn't enter into it.

I don't know what is silly about suggesting that of two accounts of the martyrdom of Jesus only one was likely to survive to our time, but perhaps I am misunderstanding your second remark.

So, let's talk about Pontius Pilate. Here's what Mahlon H Smith, a Christian Bible scholar, has to say about Pilate at http://virtualreligion.net/iho/pilate_2.html

"The Pilate described by Josephus & the Roman historian Tacitus was a strong willed, inflexible military governor who was insensitive to the religious scruples of his Jewish & Samaritan subjects & relentless in suppressing any potential disturbance. This stands in sharp contrast to the impression conveyed in the Christian gospels which, for apologetic reasons, portray him as reluctant to execute Jesus. Pilate's decade long tenure (26-36 CE) testifies to both his relative effectiveness in maintaining order & to the aging emperor's lack of personal attention to administrative affairs. The ruthless slaughter of thousands of Samaritan pilgrims by Pilate's cavalry (ca. 36 CE), however, led to such a strong Palestinian protest that Pilate was eventually recalled to Rome."

I like the part about Pilate being so ruthless that even his Roman superiors thought he went too far.

The Jewish Encyclopedia - I don't know how much credibility this source will have in this discussion, but here it is, anyway - says of Pilate,

"According to Philo ("De Legatione ad Caium," ed. Mangey, ii. 590), his administration was characterized by corruption, violence, robberies, ill treatment of the people, and continuous executions without even the form of a trial.... Pilate appropriated funds from the sacred treasury in order to provide for the construction of an aqueduct for supplying the city of Jerusalem with water from the Pools of Solomon; and he suppressed the riots provoked by this spoliation of the Temple by sending among the crowds disguised soldiers carrying concealed daggers, who massacred a great number, not only of the rioters, but of casual spectators."

It's things like this that put me off whenever I see advertisements for the Pilates Method. I have to remind myself that it's about physical fitness and not a massacre of spectators. Anyway, it suggests to me that Pilate needed no encouragement from Jewish leaders or Jewish mobs or anyone else to send Jesus to his death. He was quite capable of doing it on his own.

Now it has been suggested in this discussion that the Romans didn't care about the religious beliefs of their subjects and that therefore Pilate would not have wanted to do Jesus in. The Jewish Encyclopedia has a different take on the issue:

"Many of the Jews suspected of Messianic ambitions had been nailed to the cross by Rome. The Messiah, "king of the Jews," was a rebel in the estimation of Rome, and rebels were crucified (Suetonius, "Vespas." 4; "Claudius," xxv.; Josephus, "Ant." xx. 5, section 1; 8, section 6; Acts v. 36, 37). The inscription on the cross of Jesus reveals the crime for which, according to Roman law, Jesus expired. He was a rebel. Tacitus ("Annales," 54, 59) reports therefore without comment the fact that Jesus was crucified. For Romans no amplification was necessary. Pontius Pilate's part in the tragedy as told in the Gospels is that of a wretched coward; but this does not agree with his character, as recorded elsewhere (see Suchrer, "Gesch." Index, s.v.)."

More to come, by and by.