Hello everyone, thank you for letting me join your forum.
I am trying to come up with a best guess of the origin of the Roman soldier who pierced Jesus' side with the spear during the Crucifixion. Obviously no one can ever find a definitive answer to this question.In doing online research for my book, I found a posting on this forum that was somewhat helpful, but can't locate the exact thread at the moment. St John's Gospel is the only one that mentions Jesus being pierced by a "spear" ( even the defintion of spear is open to discussion, was it actually a Roman pilum, etc.).
The soldiers in question were obviously assigned in some way to Pontius Pilate in the Prefect of Judea at the time ( circa 33 AD or BCE if you prefer). Someone suggested they were locals recruited into the Roman Army to protect the Prefect ( possibly Samaritans ).Someone else put forth that they could have come from Syria where a legion was posted at the time. What I am trying to establish is where could this soldier possibly have come from and what his prior experience in the Roman Army could have been based on actual historical data and Roman Army deployments. The Character is around 33 years old in 33 AD and has been a soldier since the age of 17. His back story was to include that he was a Roman Citizen, but I'm wondering if that premise would even fit for a soldier in Judea at 33 AD.
It's not that I'm lazy, but I'm having a hard time nailing this down (I'm at a library right now) and wanted to see if anyone had a definite up to date opinion on this topic. Thanks in advance to anyone who can help!
