Something I noticed in my teens was how the Gospels had a big pro-Roman narrative, “give unto Caesar…” Pilate wanting to spare Jesus, the Centurion at Calvary, it simply isn’t the sort of thing written by people who were being repressed , it’s more like a Collaborator’s account 1/n
More accurately, later gospels are quite sympathetic to the Romans. Mark is not so charitable to them, saying how the Romans abused Jesus in custody. Luke never mentions this. Pilate is also much kinder in Luke (wanting to spare him), while he seems to barely care at all in Mark.
When I first came across Josephus’ accounts of the Roman War, which he wrote literally under threat of crucifixion, the narrative seemed similar to that of Pilate at the crucifixion. “We really don’t want to be so cruel but the Jews were such crazy fanatics that we had to!” 2/n
The gospels were written when the early Church was trying to survive being persecuted by Rome. To me it seems clear that they twisted the story to be acceptable to the authorities and absolved them of blame for Jesus’ crucifixion at the expense of the Jews. 3/3
I am not aware of the gospels making any mention of a centurion at Calvary. That was Hollywood