"(UNDATED) For all of Pontius Pilate’s faults, one was distinctly damning: he didn’t listen to his wife.Daniel Burke has written an interesting piece on Pilate's wife who is unnamed in Scripture, but played a role in the events of Jesus' life. As Scripture is silent on what motivated her to speak to her husband as she did, most of the tradition surrounding her is speculation. It is, nonetheless, interesting to contemplate the possibilities.
According to the Gospel of Matthew, the Roman governor of Judea received a note from his spouse during the trial of Jesus. “Have nothing to do with that just man,” she writes, “for I have suffered many things today in a dream because of him.”
Pilate, of course, failed to heed his wife’s warnings, and sentenced Jesus to die. Though he famously tried to wash his hands of the act, the result was centuries of infamy, and perhaps a few nights sleeping on the couch. ..."
Note -- the date of this article on the Religion News Service web site was April 2, 2009, and it was reprinted by Presbyterian News Service on April 6, 2009. The RNS posting was, as far as I can determine, the original source for the article.
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The April Touchstone has a reflection by Patrick Henry Reardon connecting Pilate's wife with the Magi. After all, they are Gentiles who through dreams (and remember all the dreams in the first two chapters of Matthew) come to find the Messiah in Jesus the Jew. Dreams bookend the life of Jesus in Matthew, and the expansion of salvation to the nations is a running theme in the Gospel.
I'd write more, but I left it at home on the kitchen table, but an interesting take on one of the more obscure characters in the Bible.
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