Kimball reveals that Jesus held status as a Roman citizen through his foster father Joseph of Arimathea, who was named Noblest of Curio by Tiberius Caesar. He describes how Pilate and Jesus shared a connection through the Druid universities of ancient Britain, and how Pilate ultimately converted to Christianity after reportedly encountering the resurrected Jesus in the streets. Kimball notes that early Christians celebrated Pilate's birthday as a religious holiday for two centuries and that he remains a saint in Byzantine and Coptic traditions.
The conversation extends to the political aftermath of the crucifixion, including accounts of the dead rising in both Jerusalem and Rome, the preservation of temple artifacts by Roman forces, and speculation about the current location of the Ark of the Covenant. Callers and Art share personal reflections on visiting biblical sites in the Holy Land.
Key Moments
Roman Empire and the United States as mirror images: Kimball argues that the hundred years around the birth of Jesus produced the freest economy the world had yet seen - a single passport from Egypt to France on a paved road - and that the Roman Empire saw itself the way Americans see themselves today. He ties that imperial parallel to the prophecy of a coming millennium of peace, claims it lines up with the Mayan, Inca, Hebraic, and Druidic dating around 2008-2012, and casts the United States as standing on the doorstep of an apocalyptic transition.
Pilate was blackmailed into the crucifixion: Kimball lays out his central thesis: Pontius Pilate, born in Seville, was the protege of the Praetorian prefect Sejanus, who was beheaded in 31 A.D. for a failed coup. Two Sadducean leaders, Annas and Caiaphas, knew of Pilate's incriminating ties to Sejanus and used that knowledge to threaten him. Jesus had become a political threat to the Sadducees because Tiberius Caesar's granddaughter was a Judaism-curious Jesus follower and the Roman Senate had already debated raising Jesus to the status of a god. Pilate was the patsy.
Pilate as Christian saint and martyr: Kimball drops a fact most listeners had never heard: for 200 years after the crucifixion, Christians celebrated Pontius Pilate's birthday as a religious holiday, named three holy mountains for him, and the Byzantine and Coptic churches still venerate him as a saint. Kimball's reading: Pilate met the resurrected Jesus, converted, and was executed by Tiberius Caesar in the praetorium for having handed Jesus over before Tiberius could obtain a healing from him.
Tiberius sealed Rome's tombs because the dead rose: Kimball claims that at the moment of the crucifixion, the earth quaked not only in Jerusalem but in Rome, and that the dead rose in both cities. Tiberius Caesar, terrified, ordered every crypt in Rome sealed and shipped officials to Palestine to investigate. He had personally favored Jesus and Joseph of Arimathea and had nearly seen Jesus declared a god by the Roman Senate.