What is
truth?
We know we
need it, and we expect to hear it from people in positions of authority. NBC
News anchor Brian Williams was suspended from his job earlier this year when he
lied about being on a helicopter in Iraq that was hit by enemy fire.
We want to
hear the truth from our elected officials, but we cannot always trust them to
give it to us. A website called PolitiFact.com now offers the service of
analyzing political statements and judging whether they are true, mostly true,
half true, mostly false or false. Their worst rating is “pants on fire,” as in “Liar,
liar, pants on fire!”
Truth can
be hard to find, although the search has been going on for thousands of years. “Truth
lies wrapped up and hidden in the depths,” said Seneca the Younger, a Roman philosopher
from the time of Jesus.1 “We sometimes discover truth where we least expected to
find it,” said Quintilian, another Roman of the first century.2
The Roman Empire was powerful and often cruel, but it
contained leaders who valued the search for truth. Because of this, we shouldn’t
be surprised when Pontius Pilate asks Jesus the question, “What is truth?”3
Pilate, the Roman governor, poses this question
before pronouncing the death sentence. Jesus has been brought to him because
only the Roman Empire can legally perform an execution. The Jewish priests want
Jesus to die, but they don’t have the authority to kill him.
So they
drag him to Pilate. The governor asks Jesus, “Are you the King of the Jews?” Pilate believes that a Jewish king would
be a threat to Roman authority. If Jesus says “no,” he stands a chance of being
released, but he would be telling a half-truth. If Jesus says “yes,” then he’ll
be convicted of treason against the Roman emperor and given an instant death
sentence.
Life and
death depend on his answer.
A wrapped up and
hidden truth
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