Historical sources outside the Bible inform us that Governor Pontius Pilate did not hesitate to suppress any threat to Roman rule in his imperial province of Judea. Pilate likely had a network of informers looking for signs of rebellion, no matter how insignificant.

That might explain his perplexity when Jesus of Nazareth was presented to him as a dangerous man worthy of execution. Jesus' name was not on any "most wanted" lists.

If there had been any report, it might have noted these things: Jesus was a friend of tax collectors (Luke 15:1; 19:1-10). He had stated publicly that people should give to Caesar what they owed to Caesar (Mark 12:17). As a healer, Jesus had drawn crowds of mostly down-and-out (and politically unthreatening) followers. One of the persons Jesus had healed was the servant of a Roman centurion (Luke 7:1-10). These were not crimes!

From the biblical record of Pilate's legal interrogation of Jesus, we can sense that Pilate's evaluation of Jesus might have checked off this way: "Delusional, misguided—maybe; pitiful—certainly; but criminal or dangerous—no way!"

So Pilate came back with the most obvious finding from the accumulated evidence: "I find no basis for a charge" against this man.