I won this ARC in a GOODREADS giveaway - Pontius Pilate: Deciphering a Memory by Aldo Schiavonne - Using various sources to extrapolate a character from history and writing about the results is definitely a labor of love. Any research compilation using past/ancient history has its flaws but this was very well put together and brought the man to life. ( )

This book seems to fall between two chairs. On one hand, it is too technical. It is filled with references to works that the average reader is unlikely to have read. On the other hand the thesis of the book, as I read it, is unprovable. Schiavone seems to believe that Pontius Pilate reached some personal illumination while questioning Jesus. He notes that the Gospels as they come down to us betray a desire to shift blame for the cruxifiction from the Roman state to the Jewish people as a whole. His examination of the fallacies about the functioning of Roman law in the accounts of the arrest and condemnation is useful. However, this books seems very like a scholarly monograph extended to book length. ( )