In Matthew 27:27, soldiers drag Jesus into the "praetorium," where he is insulted and lauded as the King of the Jews. A praetorium was formerly a praetor's dwelling. I'm looking at it through the lens of Johannine Christianity. David Rhoads has shown, “virtually all of the Christian traditions were shared in formal and informal contexts o f storytelling and letter-sharing.” [1] From the biblical text it is found that the Jewish accusers of Jesus did not enter into praetorium because of fear of defilement (cf. Jn 18:28). Why would this have been true? Is it possible to use Logos to find the answer?
[1] David Rhoads, “Performance Criticism: An Emerging Methodology in Second Testament Studies— Part II,” BTB 36 (2006) 164-84
