Traditionally, Christians have believed for centuries that the vicinity of the Antonia Fortress was the site of Pontius Pilate' praetorium, where Jesus was tried for high treason.

This was based on the assumption that an area of Roman flagstones discovered beneath the Church of the Condemnation and the Convent of the Sisters of Zion was 'the pavement' which John 19:13 describes as the location of Jesus' trial.

Pierre Benoit, former professor of New Testament studies at the École Biblique, reexamined the results of all previous surveys of the north-western escarpment of the Haram, of the archaeological studies of the sites owned by the Catholics in the area (Convent of the Sisters of Zion, Flagellation Monastery and St Anne Convent of the White Fathers), as well as the digs north of the Struthion Pool area,[2] and published in 1971 his conclusions: Archaeological investigation indicates that about a century after the presumed time of Jesus' death, this area was rebuilt as the eastern of two forums belonging to the new city initiated by Hadrian in around 130 CE, the Aelia Capitolina,[2] and it is conceivable that following the destruction of the Antonia Fortress during the siege of 70 CE, its pavement tiles were reused at Hadrian's forum.

[5] Archaeologists therefore conclude that in the first century, the praetorium—the residence of the praefectus (governor)—was in the former royal palace on the Western Hill, rather than at the Antonia Fortress, on the opposite side of the city.

Herod Antipas, who came for the holiday from Galilee to Jerusalem, disappointed and angry because of Jesus’ silence, "sent him back to Pilate" (23:11), who then "called together the chief priests and the rulers and the people" (23:13).

in American Literature, Brigham Young University) and Dr. Robert Cornuke (Ph.D. in Bible and Theology, Louisiana Baptist University), have expanded on research by Dr. Ernest L. Martin (1932–2002, meteorologist, college professor, amateur archeologist), who offered evidence that the compound on what is commonly called the Temple Mount did not house the Jerusalem Temple, but is instead the remnants of a more massive Antonia Fortress, and that the rock inside the Dome of the Rock is not the Foundation Stone, but was inside the Praetorium of Pontius Pilate where Jesus was judged.

[12] Jerome Murphy-O'Connor, however, argued that this theory "cannot be sustained", as it cannot be reconciled with Josephus' description, and it "does not account for the archaeological remains in the western section of the north wall".

[13] Augustus trusted Herod and would not have built a controlling fortress towering over his capital and Temple, but no emperor would have gone so far as to entrust a legion to a client king.

[13] The position and dimensions of those porticos can still be in part discerned, thanks to three surviving roof beam sockets carved out of the living rock of the rocky outcrop which once held the Antonia, north-west of the esplanade.

[13] Josephus' statement that all the porticos surrounding the Temple complex measured six stadia "including the Antonia" (JW 5:192) is off by a large margin (six stadia represent about 1.11 km, whereas the sides of the Haram esplanade today measure together about 1.55 km), but it clearly suggests that the fortress was contiguous with the Temple complex with no need for a "double causeway" to connect the two by spanning a distance of one stade (c. 150 m), as claimed by Martin.