PILATE THE WHAT?

The Holy Bible takes place in an age of vast empires. Persians. Hellenism. Romans. Such states need a lot of organization: the royal or imperial court, the army, administration must be in the hands of many competent men, and this creates a vast assortment of ranks and offices.
The Catholic Church and the gentry took possession of vast tracts of land, each with its laws and regulations, during the Dark Ages.
Then, the Early Modern period saw a revival of the territorial state as the Crown took power from the feudal lords to give that power to itself.
And a useful instrument for the Crown was something called Protestant Reformation.
In the Dark Ages, religious services were Catholic and given in Latin. Which was really incomprehensible if you were born and raised in a Germanic-speaking country (or Finland, or Hungary, for that matter). The priest's words sounded like something out of this world, and they were even used in magical incantations.
Therefore, the Protestant Reformation supported the translation of the Bible into Germanic languages (and Finnish and Hungarian, for that matter). Hence the Luther Version, the King James Version, and the Gustavus Vasa Version, among many others (In Catholic Europe, by the way, translating the Bible was forbidden).
The fact that Protestant Reformers translate ranks and offices from Bible-era empires as ranks and offices from early modern territorial states is an interesting discovery I made in Sweden two years ago, and a perfect example of how hard a nut to crack an extinct rank/office may be.
Let's take a few examples, starting with Pontius Pilate. An irresponsible coward, who has become notorious for washing Christ's blood of his "innocent" hands, eh? What does this chap do? He's a procurator: he represents the Caesar's authority within the reach of a province (in his case, Judaea). And, how do early modern Bibles translate the office of "procurator"?
Luther has "Landpfleger", which translates to "land-carer" and refers to an administrator/bureaucrat.
King James has "governor", as in "province governor". It was used mainly of colonial magistrates (English colonies in the New World).
Dutch versions have "stadhouder", "placeholder". It was a fairly known office, referring to the representative of the Castilian Crown in the Netherlands, then a province of the Spanish Empire. The most famous man to hold this office was William of Orange, called "the Silent", who became a Protestant (Calvinist) and fought a violent war of independence against the Spanish Habsburgs. He is the ancestor of the current Dutch royals, and considered "father of the nation".
Hungarian versions have "helytartó", also meaning "placeholder". It was not so important an office in the Hungarian state. The governor of a province or of a fortress was called "kormányzó", literally "governor".
Scandinavian languages opt for "landshövding", literally "land-chieftain". It has always referred to regional representatives of the state, and it lives on to the present day to designate the ruler of a län (the Swedish equivalent of a French region or a German Bundesland).
Finnish has "maaherra", meaning "land-lord": the Swedish form of "landshövding" (Sweden was Finnish during the Early Modern Era).
I would opt for "Pontius Pilate the Placeholder (i.e. the Caesar's man)". It's even alliterative in English!
The next posts will give more examples of rank and office in early modern Bibles.