Even Evil Has Standards/Oral Tradition


 * Jesus mentioned that even an evil father would not give his son a stone, when the son asked for bread, or a serpent when the son asked for a fish, when he compares them to how the Father in Heaven is willing to give good gifts to those who ask Him.
 * There is a theory that Pontius Pilate's reaction to the charges against Jesus was intended as Irony. Apart from the Bible, most evidence suggests that Pontius Pilate was a cruel bastard (was there any Roman who wasn't?), a reputation that would have been fresh in the mind of much of the Gospels' first audience. Yet according to the Gospel writers, Jesus was so innocent that even Pontius Pilate didn't think Jesus was guilty, which made Caiaphus and the Jewish leadership look like even bigger scum.
 * Another theory claims that Pilate was just as disgusted at Caiaphus and the Jews bringing him and the rest of Rome into what should have been a Jewish internal matter (all for the sake of a method of execution), though that doesn't seem to detract from his not finding Jesus guilty.
 * Some depictions of that story even claim Pilate went out of his way to keep Jesus from being crucified, both through the legal system and through political manipulation. The most prominent example was exercising a legal tradition of releasing one Jewish prisoner on Passover, in which he gave the Jewish leadership a choice between Jesus and the mass murderer Barabbas. When that went south, he tried to hold Jesus in captivity, which caused the Jews to threaten to riot, to which Pilate counter-threatend to bring Roman reinforcements. It was only when he was told Rome would not be able to provide reinforcements did he "wash his hands".
 * This tropper came across an argument in reverse...somewhere...that it was in fact the Pharisees who had standards, because they still had a residue of religious zeal underneath all the political intriguing while Pilate basically did it from cowardice.
 * One alternate hypothesis for the cause of Lucifer's rebellion is his disgust at the duties of his position as God's Satan (literally Opposer, which can carry a legalistic meaning similar to Prosecutor), causing otherwise good people to commit sins for which they are condemned.