. . . (snip) . . . But you left out item 3, the next paragraph:
3. Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man; for he was a doer of wonderful works, a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him both many of the Jews and many of the Gentiles. He was [the] Christ. And when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men amongst us, had condemned him to the cross, (9) those that loved him at the first did not forsake him; for he appeared to them alive again the third day; (10) as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him. And the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct at this day. . . . snip) . . .
I see know problem with Pilate not finding any guilt with Jesus. Item 2 above portrays the Romans and Jews as enemies. There is a saying that "the enemy of my enemy is my friend". And Jesus was definitely an enemy of many of Jewish religious leaders of the day.
First, let's deal with the
Testamentum Flavianum or as it is more simply known, the "Testamonial," item 3 quoted above. There are a host of reasons most scholars, whatever their theological bent, consider this passage to be intrusive material inserted by a later scribe. First of all, consider the hilited areas. Supposedly, Josephus, who remained a Jew and a Pharisee to the end of his life, is here affirming that Jesus was the
Christos, "anointed one" or in Hebrew, the
Meshiach or in Aramaic, the
Meshihah. which we anglicize as "Messiah." He is further affirming the truth of the resurrection. Yet, there's no further mention of Jesus in either the
Antiquities or in
Wars of the Jews except for a reference to the execution of James, who is referred to as the brother of Jesus, "who was called the Christ," (this last phrase, by the way, is disputed). It's as if Josephus said, "About this time, the Messiah showed up, and now, back to our story," and didn't bother further with Jesus. All this, of course, is highly unlikely. Some have considered that only the material I hilited above was added by a later scribe. If that material and anything referring to supernatural happenings is removed, we would have this:
Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him both many of the Jews and many of the Gentiles. And when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men amongst us, had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him; and the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct at this day.
Could this have been written by Josephus and only doctored by later scribes? The answer to that question is, "No." Consider the end of item 2, in which Pilate had used brutal tactics to disperse an angry mob. If we delete the Testimonial entirely and go from item 2 to item 4, we have this (items 2 and 4 connected by a boldface elipsis):
. . . and since the people were unarmed and were caught by men prepared for what they were about, there were a great number of them slain by this means, and others of them ran away wounded; and thus an end was put to this sedition.
. . . About this same time also another sad calamity put the Jews into disorder; . . .
As you can see, the text flows smoothly with the Testimonial cut out. Put the Testimonial back in, and it's not clear to what the opening of item 4, "About this same time also another sad calamity put the Jews into disorder," refers.
As to Pilate's response, you seem to have missed the point I was making, that Pilate, a man used to taking brutal measures when crossed by a mob, is supposed to have released to such a mob Barabbas, a man guilty of insurrection, and, out of fear of that same mob to have condemned Jesus to death.
denote the position of the survivor when there are initially n people (and k=2). The first time around the circle, all of the even-numbered people die. The second time around the circle, the new 2nd person dies, then the new 4th person, etc.; it's as though there were no first time around the circle. If the initial number of people was even, then the person in position x during the second time around the circle was originally in position 2x - 1 (for every choice of x). Let n=2j. The person at f(j) who will now survive was originally in position 2f(j) - 1. This gives us the recurrence
