Col. Rose Mary Sheldon <http://warontherocks.com/2016/02/jesus-as-a-security-risk-intelligence-and-r...> [...] Roman intelligence had done its job correctly. They had detected a public figure stirring up the people; they had watched him create public disturbances and preach things contrary to Rome’s interests. He was rounded up and eliminated. They did not wait to see how things would play out if they left him on the streets. Scholars will continue to argue on the precise nature and meaning of the Triumphal Entry, the Cleansing of the Temple, the disciple’s swords and the arrest of Jesus, the Barabbas episode, and the trial or trials. No consensus is ever likely to be reached based on the available evidence. But the attitude of Jesus to the Temple, as well as his sayings concerning social injustice would have had to bring him, sooner or later, into conflict with the authorities whose task it was to maintain order and to whom every national movement appeared suspicious. Witnesses may have included individuals willing to sell information to the Romans. In a poverty stricken province like Judaea, it would not have been hard to find what local sources called “a mouth willing to talk.” Reports from various agents may have been confused or contradicting as happens with all such reports. Agents may have exaggerated the accounts to make themselves seem more important. Some of the intelligence may have been useful, some not. Whether or not Jesus actually claimed to be king, intelligence may have reported only that people were saying he did. What matters in this case is not the literal truth, but rather how the situation appeared to the Roman administration based on the intelligence it had at hand at the time. From the point of view of Rome’s immediate security needs, Pilate had Jesus crucified for a justifiable reason: He was a security risk. Pilate was acting in Rome’s self-interest. In the context of the first century occupation of Palestine, this meant nipping any revolutionary action in the bud. Like many decision-makers, Pilate made a judgment on the basis of the intelligence he had, even if that intelligence was fragmentary. Whether the threat to Roman security was real or imagined is, in some ways, irrelevant. [...]