In his book The Son Rises, the Christian apologist William Craig raises three objections against the Swoon Theory:

Craig’s Objection #1: Jesus’ Physical Injuries
Craig’s Objection #2: The Deceptive Jesus Objection
Craig’s Objection #3: The Sickly Jesus Objection

Craig makes dozens of historical claims in support of Objection #1, but fails to provide historical evidence in support of those claims. This is sufficient reason to reject Objection #1 and to conclude that this objection fails.

However, there are good reasons to doubt the historicity or historical reliability of most, if not all, of the dozens of historical claims asserted by Craig. For example, the ten historical claims made by Craig concerning an alleged trial of Jesus before Pilate. Here are ten historical claims about the alleged trial of Jesus before Pilate:

…the Pilate of the New Testament has little in common with the Pilate of history.

[…]

All told, the Pilate picture of the Passion story [in the Gospels], is best held to be fiction, devised by the evangelists [the authors of the Gospels] with a view to currying favour with Rome, in whose empire the nascent Church was developing. Christianity being generally unpopular in Roman eyes…it was in the interest of the Gospel writers to placate the authorities.  Also, by the time of the recording of the Passion narratives the Jewish rebellion had been put down by the armies of Vespasian and Titus.  It was therefore politically doubly correct to blame the Jews for the murder of Christ and to absolve the Roman Pontius Pilate.[17]

Geza Vermes

The trial before Pilate is as complex as the earlier trial by the Sanhedrin.  Historical details, legend, and imagery drawn from lament psalms and from the suffering servant passages in Isaiah have been worked together in the narrative. …As prefect, Pilate was free to dispose of such a case [against Jesus] in any way he chose, but would have been unlikely to bother with investigating charges against an obscure Galilean.

[…]

   These accounts [by Philo and Josephus] give historians no reason to think Pilate would have been at all hesitant to execute Jesus.  Pilate, who condemned Jesus, was more likely to have exhibited contempt than concern.  …

    Mark presents Pilate in a more positive light than does Josephus by placing the Barabbas episode at the center of the trial before Pilate (vv. 6-15).  Mark creates the impression that Pilate considers Jesus innocent. …

[…]

   There is no evidence of the granting of an amnesty as a general custom outside the New Testament (v.8). …Mark or his source may have converted a story about a unique incident or occasional instance into such a custom.  Nor is there any reason to think Pilate would choose to cater to the wishes of the crowd if they had not reflected those of the Jewish leaders.  Since Mark wishes to make it clear that the Roman prefect thought Jesus innocent (v.14), he needs a reason to explain why Pilate handed Jesus over to be crucified (v.15). … [18]

Pheme Perkins

We know very few things for certain about the death of Jesus and the events that led up to it.  Most scholars agree that Jesus was executed by crucifixion on the authority of Pontius Pilate in Jerusalem, probably in connection with the Passover celebration.  Yet the addition of the word probably even to that minimal statement indicates how precarious our historical judgments are.

[…]

    Most of Jesus’ followers fled during or after his arrest, but a few, especially the women, and Mary of Magdala in particular, may have witnessed the crucifixion.  We do not know how their memories came to inform the creation of a passion narrative many decades later, if indeed that narrative reflects any eyewitness observations at all.

[…]

    The assertion that the Romans were innocent of, and the Jews responsible for, Jesus’ death is Christian propaganda pure and simple.  Such a claim was inspired by conflict between synagogue and church late in the first century, long after the events themselves.  The new Jesus movement was anxious at that time to curry favor with the Romans and to blame opponents for what happened to Jesus.

    Pilate did not wash his hands nor did Judeans accept responsibility for Jesus’ death, as the Gospels of Matthew and Peter [a non-canonical gospel] report.  The account of those events in Matthew is a piece of Christian fiction.  …

    Jesus was probably executed summarily as a threat to public order at a time when Jerusalem was crowded with pilgrims. …

    With so many pilgrims gathered in and around the holy city, festivals were a time of potential unrest and riot. …It is not likely that a Roman trial was held; Pilate probably acted on his own authority, with the backing of Caiaphas.  It is entirely probable that the trial before Jewish authorities was a fiction. [19]

Robert Funk

The appearance of Jesus before Pilate’s tribunal is related in the four Gospels. None of the four versions can be regarded as an exact account of the facts.

    Leaving aside the Barabbas episode…Mark’s account (15.2-15) has many historical improbabilities.  It begins abruptly, without an accusation or indication of why Pilate should have asked Jesus whether he was ‘king of the Jews’. We are surprised not to note any reaction from Pilate after Jesus has acknowledged his claim to this title, which would normally be tantamount to high treason, and to see Pilate continuing the session as though nothing important had happened.  In the end there is no sentence, but a capitulation on the part of the governor, who abandons Jesus ‘to please the crowd’. This session, is full of Christological, apologetic and indeed polemical themes, which go far beyond an objective account of the course of a trial.

    Luke’s version (Luke 23.2-5) has one special feature which will strike any reader: the session is interrupted by an interlude in which Jesus is presented to Herod Antipas (Luke 23.7-12). This is quite a significant feature which we shall have to examine carefully later…

     Matthew, whose account (27.11-26) is dependent on Mark, adds two episodes to Mark: one is the intervention of Pilate’s wife in favour of the accused (27.19); the other is the scene in which Pilate declines all responsibility by washing his hands in front of the crowd, which responds by taking responsibility for the death of Jesus (27.24-25). Neither of these two additions has any historical value: Pilate’s wife talks as if she were a Jew, and Pilate is following scripture: the whole passages [sic] is steeped in biblical and Matthaean themes. [20]

Simon Légasse

…the intervention of the crowd [of Jews] in the account of the first two Gospels is limited to the Barabbas episode. …the crowd’s demand for the release of Barabbas, comes up against serious historical difficulties, as we shall see.  That is why we can already express some doubt here about the vociferous throng in front of the governor’s palace which the Gospels describe, and must suppose rather that a delegation from the Sanhedrin followed Jesus, surrounded by bodyguards, to notify Pilate of the reason for the arrest and to hand Jesus over to him.  Probably this happened without any popular tumult.  Moreover such tumult would not have been to Pilate’s taste, and therefore would only have been an embarrassment for the accusers.  The hierocrats, who were on the best terms with the Romans and certainly were anxious not to compromise their enterprise, had no interest in involving the crowd. [21]

Simon Légasse

Pilate is almost as enigmatic a figure as Judas.  This is no doubt the result of a notable tension between the Gospel accounts and our knowledge of Pilate from Josephus and Philo. …There can be little doubt that he [Pilate] would have had no qualms about arbitrarily executing someone who could be plausibly accused of trouble-making or worse.

    …they [the Gospels] clearly evidence a strong tendency to shift responsibility for the execution of Jesus away from the Roman to the Jewish authorities. … He [Pilate] gave the crowd the option of saving Jesus or Barabbas (Mark 15.6-15). Luke emphasizes that Pilate sent Jesus to Herod (Luke 23.6-12). He declared Jesus innocent and wanted to let him off (Luke 23.14-15, 20, 22). Matthew has the story…of Pilate’s wife warning him to ‘have nothing to do with that just man’ (Matt. 27.19), as also the account of Pilate washing his hands and declaring himself ‘innocent of this man’s blood’ (27.24).  It was the chief priests and elders who wanted to ‘destroy’ Jesus (27.20), ‘all the people’ who accepted the blood guilt (27.25). …

    …the depiction of Pilate being in effect bullied by the high priest and his counsellors, to execute a man whose innocence he was convinced, almost certainly owes more to political motivation than to historical recollection.  Of course, the policy of excusing Roman injustice is understandable for a movement which soon sought to win converts through the eastern territories of the Roman Empire. …[22]

James Dunn

Nothing remotely resembling a court record of Jesus’ trial [before Pilate] has survived or can be reconstructed from the Gospel narratives.  Indeed we have no reason to think that the evangelists [authors of the Gospels] drew on such a record. …Nor do the evangelists claim that anyone sympathetic to Jesus was present at the Roman trial to supply an eyewitness account.  Whatever historical information they had about the trial would have ultimately been derived from hearsay, from explanations offered post factum by the Roman and Jewish authorities, and from shrewd guesses as to likelihood.[23]

Raymond Brown

In the New Testament gospel accounts Pilate is completely just and fair.  He wished to acquit Jesus but was forced, reluctantly and against his will, to crucify him because of the insistence of Jewish authority and Jerusalem crowd.  And he held lengthy discussions with Jesus during which he repeatedly proclaimed his innocence of any crime worthy of death.  Here, for example, is Mark 15:6-15:

[quotation is given here from the Gospel of Mark about Pilate offering to free either Jesus or Barabbas]

    I judge that narrative to be absolutely unhistorical, a creation most likely of Mark himself, and for two reasons.  One is its picture of Pilate, meekly acquiescent to a shouting crowd, is exactly the opposite of what we know about him from Josephus. Brutal crowd control was his [Pilate’s] specialty. Another, is that a custom such as open amnesty, the release of any requested prisoner at the time of the Passover festival, is against any administrative wisdom.[24]

John Crossan

The account in Chapter 15 of the Gospel of Mark about the alleged trial of Jesus before Pilate and the flogging and mocking of Jesus by Roman soldiers takes up nineteen verses (Mark 15:1-19).  The passage about Pilate offering to free either Jesus or Barabbas takes up ten of those verses (Mark 15:6-15).  So, if the story about Pilate offering to free Jesus or Barabbas is fictional, as many Jesus scholars argue, then at least 53% of Mark’s account of the trial of Jesus by Pilate is fictional.  In that case, this account in Mark is clearly historically unreliable.  Since more than half of this account would be fiction, we could hardly have great confidence in the remaining parts of this account.   This problem casts significant doubt on Craig’s ten claims related to Jesus’ alleged trial before Pilate.

Two of Craig’s historical claims related to Jesus’ alleged trial before Pilate reference Jesus being sent by Pilate to be interrogated by King Herod:

HC10. Pilate sent Jesus to the Jewish king, Herod.
HC11. Herod interrogated Jesus and then sent him back to Pilate.

These are NOT historical facts.  These are dubious historical claims about alleged events that are mentioned only in the Gospel of Luke, claims that many NT and Jesus scholars have significant doubts about. The following scholars, for example, have expressed doubts about the historicity or historical reliability of the interrogation of Jesus by Herod:

Robert Funk
Geza Vermes
Eric Franklin
Simon Légasse
Raymond Brown
David Balch

Here are some relevant quotes from these scholars:

Critical scholars are also wary of events and sequences that match too neatly the aims of the evangelists [authors of the Gospels] telling the story.  Matthew and Luke rewrite and revise their source, Mark, the better to advance their own theological programs.  That process is clearly in evidence in the passion narrative.  Scholars are accordingly skeptical of alterations made to the Markan [passion] account by either Matthew or Luke.

[…]

Additions by Matthew and Luke:

16. The incident of the two swords   (Luke 22:35-38)

17. The death of Judas   (Matt 27:3-10)

18. Hearing before Herod   (Luke 23:6-16)

19. The guard at the tomb   (Matt 27:62-66)

[…]

    In addition, items 16 through 19 in Table 9 [above] were inserted into the story by Matthew and Luke. None of them is likely to be historical.[25]

– Robert Funk

Geza Vermes does not declare the trial before Herod to be fictional, but he does offer a couple of reasons to doubt the historicity of this event:

Against the historicity of the Herod episode speaks the silence of the other three evangelists [Matthew, Mark, and John], and the fact that a visit to Antipas entailing a lengthy questioning by him and no doubt equally lengthy accusations by the chief priests are difficult to fit into the tight timetable of the Synoptics who place the crucifixion at nine o’clock in the morning.[26]

– Geza Vermes

In his reconstruction of the events surrounding Jesus’ crucifixion, Vermes lists eleven events (including the dubious Barabbas story) but makes no mention of the alleged hearing of Jesus before Herod, indicating that Vermes has significant doubts about the historicity of that event.[27]

Luke alone has Jesus appear before Herod (vv. 6-12) [Chapter 23]. As an event in history, it makes strange reading for, though it is possible that Roman justice would allow a man to be tried in the place where he lived (Acts 23:34), to hand over responsibility to a non-Roman would be unusual.  Pilate, however, seems to be associating Herod with his own involvement rather than handing over the case to him.  The purpose of this remains entirely obscure and the incident is therefore best interpreted as a Lukan story occasioned partly by the influence of Ps 2:1-2 which is quoted in Acts 4:25-6 where it is seen as fulfilled in the actions of Pilate and Herod…, and partly by Luke’s earlier references to Herod’s interest in Jesus.[28]

– Eric Franklin

However, the other New Testament authors, and thus the tradition and the written sources which they had at their disposal, know nothing of the appearance before Herod, since once can hardly see what would have led them to omit it.  In addition there are evident signs that this is a Lukan composition, and it is embedded in a context from which it cannot be detached. The whole passage, text and content, is part of a plan which is not free of apologetic, since Herod supports Pilate’s statement of innocence (Luke 23.15).  These two voices, one Roman and the other Jewish, are paralleled in Acts when Agrippa II, another ‘Jewish’ king, agrees with the procurator Festus in recognizing that Paul has done nothing to merit the punishment of imperial justice (Acts 25.18, 25a; 26.31-32).  For all these reasons it seems very difficult to detect the echo of a historical fact in the scene in question… [29]

– Simon Légasse

There are basically three possibilities. (1) Luke took over the whole story from an earlier source that scholars describe in various ways (Ellis, Grundmann, Hoehner, Perry, Rengstorf, Tyson, Wente); (2) Luke composed the scene himself on the basis of an early tradition about Herodian involvement in the death of Jesus, combined with material drawn from Mark, etc. (Dodd, Ernst, Fitzmyer, Kratz, Loisy, Pesch, Schneider, Soards); (3) Luke created the whole scene himself without drawing substantially on a source or early tradition relating Herod to Jesus (F.C. Baur, Beare, Bultmann, Cadbury, Creed, Dibelius, Finegan, Hendrickx, H. Klein, Klostermann, Leaney, K. Müller, Radl Sloyan).  Sometimes Luke is thought to have got the idea for the scene from Psalm 2 or from the involvement of Agrippa II in the trial of Paul.[30]

– Raymond Brown

Of the three possible views mentioned by Brown about Luke’s account of the alleged interrogation of Jesus by Herod, only view #1 leaves open the possibility that this account is historically reliable.  The other two views imply that this account is basically fictional.  Brown advocates view #2, implying that this story is a fictional creation by the author of the Gospel of Luke.[31]

Only Luke reports Jesus being questioned by Herod (23:6-12).  Acts [written by the author of the Gospel of Luke] 4:25-26 quote a Psalm (2:1-2) that mentions the opposition of both kings and rulers, then interprets this as a prophecy of King Herod’s (Antipas) and Pilate’s opposition to Jesus.  Later Paul is tried by both the Roman governor Felix and by King Herod (Agrippa II; Acts 24-25), possibly a reflection of the same prophetic pattern. In this case we may be seeing prophecy generate history.  Pilate assumes Jesus is Galilean (23:6, ignoring ch. 2, probably added later).  Herod wants to see some “sign” (v.8; see 11:29-30) and questions Jesus, who “answered nothing,” an allusion to another prophecy (Isa 53:7).  The chief priests and scribes are still accusing Jesus, fulfilling Jesus’ own prophecies (9:22, 32; 20:14, 19), as does Herod’s mocking (18:32).  Pilate and Herod become friends, possibly developed from Ps 2:1-2.[32]

– David Balch

These various “fulfilled prophecies” provide good reason to doubt the historicity of the events and details in Luke’s account of the alleged interrogation of Jesus by Herod. These events and details might well be examples of prophecy historicized, where the account is NOT based on eyewitness testimony or on a reliable historical source, but is creatively generated on the basis of a passage of scripture or on the basis of an alleged prediction made by Jesus.

I have previously shown that there are a number of good reasons to doubt the historical reliability or the historicity of the Gospel accounts of the alleged hearings or trials of Jesus before the Jewish authorities.  Now I have shown there are a number of good reasons to doubt the historical reliability or the historicity of the alleged trials or hearings before Pilate and before Herod. 

We now have good reasons to believe that the first eighteen historical claims of the forty-five historical claims asserted by Craig are either false or dubious. Given that Craig has provided almost no historical evidence in support of his historical claims, this is sufficient to cast significant doubt on all forty-five of his historical claims, so we now have good reason to conclude that Craig’s Objection #1 FAILS.

END NOTES

9. Gerard Sloyan, Why Jesus Died (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2004), p.58-60.

12. Paula Fredriksen, Jesus Of Nazareth, King of the Jews (New York, NY: Alfred A. Knopf,1999), p.258.

13. Marcus Borg, “Why Was Jesus Killed?” in The Meaning of Jesus (San Francisco, CA: HarperCollins Publishers, 1999), p.87-88.

17. Geza Vermes, The Passion (New York, NY: Penguin Books, 2005), p.120 & 121.

18. Pheme Perkins, “The Gospel of Mark” in The New Interpreter’s Bible, Volume VIII (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press,1995), p.717–719.

19. Robert Funk, Honest to Jesus (San Francisco, CA: HarperCollins Publishers,1996), p.220-222.

20. Simon Légasse, The Trial of Jesus (London: SCM Press Ltd, 1997), p.57-58.

21. Simon Légasse, The Trial of Jesus, p.59-60.

22. James Dunn, Jesus Remembered (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2003), p.774-776.

23. Raymond Brown, The Death of the Messiah, Volume One (New York, NY: Doubleday,1994), p.711-712.

24. John Crossan, Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography (San Francisco, CA: HarperCollins Publishers, 1994), p.140-141.

25. Robert Funk, Honest to Jesus, p.224-226.

26. Geza Vermes, The Passion, p.110.

27. Geza Vermes, The Passion, p.115-116.

28. Eric Franklin, “Luke” in The Oxford Bible Commentary (New York, NY: Oxford University Press Inc., 2001), p.956.

29. Simon Légasse, The Trial of Jesus, p.67.

30. Raymond Brown, The Death of the Messiah, Volume One, p.778-779.

31. Raymond Brown, The Death of the Messiah, Volume One, p.779-783.

32.  David Balch, “Luke” in Eerdmans Commentary on the Bible (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2003), p.1155.