A Week at the Bath
an excerpt

The maid was getting testy. “They’re going to have to do something about that one. He’s causing too many problems – but stays right inside the law. Ciaphas says it’s like he looks for the edge of the Law and then walks directly on it. He’s not really breaking it, but he’s not really keeping it, either. At any rate, he’s setting a bad example for the people of the city. Almost like he think’s he’s above Ceasar’s Laws.”
“But wait a minute, that doesn’t make sense.” I hate it when things don’t add up. “He was standing where, saying what?”
“In the court of the Gentiles, screaming something about the Temple being for all people.”
“But the court of Gentiles IS for everybody – and it’s the temple, THE house of prayer. Is he upset because pilate diverted the water? Why would he set himself up in direct opposition like that?”
“He was quoting a passage from Jeremiah, sort of.” Ciapha’s maid knew that – of course. “By driving out the people there doing the daily business of the temple, he essentially shut it down. Like God said he would.”
............And they think I washed my hands because I was afraid of him. May the gods in heaven, or wherever, vindicate me for what I have done. Pontius Pilate afraid of a Jew? I think not.]