History Memes

Explanation: In the Christian Gospels, Pontius Pilate comes off as a reasonable-if-aloof figure. He, in a very Roman fashion, doesn't seem to care much about the religious quarrels of the Iudeans, and seeks legal cause for his actions and inaction. He is eventually pressured into crucifying a man whom he believes does not really merit the harsh punishment by the implicit threat of rebellion.

In other histories, however, Pilate comes off as... less sympathetic. He constantly treads on Jewish norms in favor of Roman norms, threatening the Jewish population and only relenting when sufficient pushback is presented, and in general running roughshod over the provincial Iudeans, including the Iudean king. In one notable incident, Pilate ordered legionaries in plainclothes to gather along with an angry Iudean mob and, at a preordained signal, begin beating the Iudeans with clubs to confuse and disperse them from within.

There is a certain amount of similarity in these depictions, insofar as Pilate is consistently portrayed as without much in the way of understanding or sympathy for Jewish culture, but in the Gospels, he comes off as distant; whereas in other histories, he comes off as more distinctly hostile.

I'm not sure why it says "Flavius and Josephus"; I suspect the original meme-maker meant "Philo and Josephus", a typo confusing Flavius Josephus's full name with another historian of the period.