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According to the canonical Christian Gospels, Pilate presided at the trial of Jesus and, despite stating that he personally found him not guilty of a crime meriting death, handed him over to crucifixion. Pilate is thus a pivotal character in the New Testament accounts of Jesus.
According to the New Testament, Jesus was brought to Pilate by the Sanhedrin, who had arrested Jesus, and questioned him themselves. The Sanhedrin had, according to the Gospels, only been given answers by Jesus that they considered blasphemous. The Gospel of Luke records that members of the Sanhedrin then took Jesus before Pilate where they accused him of sedition against Rome by opposing the payment of taxes to Caesar and calling himself a king. Pilate's main question to Jesus was whether he considered himself to be the King of the Jews, and thus a political threat. Mark 15:2 in the NIV translation states: "Are you the king of the Jews?" asked Pilate. "It is as you say," Jesus replied.
Following the Roman custom, Pilate ordered a sign posted above Jesus on the cross stating "Jesus of Nazareth, The King of the Jews" to give public notice of the legal charge against Him for His crucifixion. See Matthew 15:25-27 and Luke 23:35-38. According to John 19:18-22, the chief priests protested that the public charge on the sign should read that Jesus claimed to be King of the Jews. Pilate refused to change the posted charge, most likely emphasizing once again Rome's supremacy in crucifying a Jewish king.
The Gospel of Luke also reports that such questions were asked of Jesus, in Luke's case it being the priests that repeatedly accused him, though Luke states that Jesus remained silent to such inquisition, causing Pilate to hand Jesus over to the jurisdiction (Galilee) of Herod Antipas. Although initially excited with curiosity at meeting Jesus, about whom he had heard, Luke states that Herod ended up mocking Jesus and so sent him back to Pilate. This intermediate episode with Herod is not reported by the other Gospels, which appear to present a continuous and singular trial in front of Pilate.
Unlike the synoptic gospels, the Gospel of John states that Jesus said to Pilate that he is a king and "came into the world ... to bear witness to the truth; and all who are on the side of truth listen to my voice", to which Pilate famously replied, "What is truth?" (John 18:38)
The Synoptic Gospels and John then state that it had been a tradition of the Jews to release a prisoner at the time of the Passover. Pilate offers them the choice of an insurrectionist named Barabbas or Jesus, somewhat confusing because Barabbas had the full name Jesus Barabbas, and Barabbas (bar-Abbas) means Son of the Father, so the crowd had been given the choice of Jesus Son of the Father or Jesus. The crowd may not have understood whose release they were asking for, and were particularly susceptible to suggestions from the Jewish leaders. The crowd states that they wish to save Barabbas (i.e., Jesus Son of the Father).
Pilate agrees to condemn Jesus to crucifixion, after the charge is brought that Jesus is a threat to Roman occupation through his claim to the throne of King David as King of Israel in the royal line of David. The small crowd in Pilate's courtyard, according to the Synoptics, had been coached to shout against Jesus by the Pharisees and Sadducees. The Gospel of Matthew adds that before condemning Jesus to death, Pilate washes his hands with water in front of the crowd, saying, "I am innocent of this man's blood; you will see."
In all New Testament accounts, Pilate hesitates to condemn Jesus, but changes his mind when the crowd insists and the Jewish leaders remind him that Jesus' claim to be king is a challenge to Roman authority.
Some suggest that this may have been an effort by Early Christian polemicists to curry favor with Rome by placing the blame for Jesus' execution on the Jews and exonerate the largely Italian Roman Empire. Yet Pilate's ability to be swayed by the crowd and his subsequent unjust decision to execute the innocent man hardly seem complimentary of Rome. So perhaps to save face, he "washed his hands", said that his death was not on his hands (an action of doubtful effect), and let the crowd decide.
Roman magistrates had wide discretion in executing their tasks, and some readers question whether Pilate would have been so captive to the demands of the crowd (Miller, 49–50). (And see, Nettervile, "Jesus, etc pp. 22-23) Summarily executing someone to calm the situation would, however, have been a tool a Roman governor could have used, and Pilate's reputation for cruelty and violence in secular accounts of the era makes it quite plausible he would have had no hesitation in using this tool.
Some historians familiar with Roman politics find in Pontius Pilate's words a shrewd political "dance" or ceremony enticing the Jewish leaders to admit the supremacy of Rome. Being a skilled political leader, Pilate suggests that the Jewish leaders punish Jesus Himself, knowing full well that they were not permitted to put anyone to death under Roman occupation. Thus, when the Jews admit that they do not have the authority, they are confessing publicly once again that Rome is supreme over them. Similarly, Pilate rejects the religious charges brought by the Jews, enticing the Jews to finally identify the one charge that the Roman Empire was concerned with: challenging the authority of Rome. Thus, Pilate again forces the Jewish leaders to admit that only Rome's interests are important for the administration of their nation.
With the Edict of Milan in AD 313, the state-sponsored persecution of Christians came to an end, and Christianity became officially tolerated as one of the religions of the Roman Empire. Afterward, in AD 325 the First Ecumenical Council at Nicaea promulgated a creed which was amended at the subsequent First Council of Constantinople in 381. The Nicene Creed incorporated for the first time the clause was crucified under Pontius Pilate (which had already been long established in the Old Roman Symbol, an ancient form of the Apostles' Creed dating as far back as the 2nd century AD) in a creed that was intended to be authoritative for all Christians in the Roman Empire. The main reason for this clause was to state the belief in Jesus as a real person, living in a precise moment and place, that is a historical Jesus. It is less clear that it was intended to implicate Pilate in Jesus' death. In modern times Western traditions regard Pilate as guilty, but those of Eastern Orthodoxy argue that he was clearly exonerated, and did all that he could to release Jesus.