# Anti-death penalty and Christ. **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 21, 2011, 3:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-death-penalty-and-christ/568414 "2011-01-21T03:24:06Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Don\_t\_Call\_Me\_Shirley](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f4b2a3/32.png) [@Don\_t\_Call\_Me\_Shirley](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Don_t_Call_Me_Shirley)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2011, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-death-penalty-and-christ/568414/21 "2011-01-21T21:07:37Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > Hi, **duffer**. > > There are very few people in the Bible who were guaranteed to go to heaven. One of them is the thief on the cross next to Jesus. [Cite.](http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke%2023&version=NIV) > > Note that the thief is making a distinction between himself and Jesus. The thief deserves to die, but Jesus doesn’t. Jesus’ death was innocent; that’s the point. > > But Jesus does not respond to the thief by telling him that the DP is wrong. Jesus tacitly agrees that the thief is correct in his assertions - the thief does deserve to die. But repentance means that the thief has been accepted into heaven. > > Granted, Jesus is in no position to discuss the death penalty at any length. And it is certainly possible to over-apply the principle and say that thieves deserve to be crucified. > > Jesus while on earth seems to have taken the legal structure of His day pretty much for granted. He spoke (a lot) against the over-emphasis on legalism vs. genuine devotion to God and the service of God. But He never states or implies that the civil or criminal laws of His day are wrong. He mostly addressed Himself to the issues of people living in a society where the prevailing structures were like they were under Jewish or Roman law. He seems mostly to have been speaking on how individuals should conduct themselves, and sometimes how the church should conduct itself, but very little on how society as a whole ought to be set up. > > We can speculate a good deal on the reasons, but FWIW Jesus seems to have accepted the death penalty as part of the society in which He taught and lived. > > Regards, > Shodan Way to ignore the woman taken in adultery. Jesus made his views on the death penalty very clear there. I’m sure you can give lots of reason why Jesus meant the exact opposite of what he said though, just like any good Christian. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2011, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-death-penalty-and-christ/568414/22 "2011-01-21T23:01:24Z")
> [@Don\_t\_Call\_Me\_Shirley](#): > > What about Isaiah 53? Not about the Messiah. The “suffering servant” is a poetic personification of Israel (the text says more than once, “you are my servant, Israel”). ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2011, 3:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-death-penalty-and-christ/568414/23 "2011-01-22T03:51:45Z")
Quoth **Blaster Master** : > [@](#): > > That is, obviously one cannot recieve more punishment than the death penalty, but to receive less would go against my understanding of both the concept of “an eye for an eye” and, particularly as noted in the OP, the theological concepts behind the crucifixion. You do realize, do you not, that Jesus explicitly rejected the concept of “an eye for an eye”? And that even in the original source for the quote, it was intended as an upper bound for punishment, not a lower one? ---
**Author:** ![devilsknew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4da419/32.png) [@devilsknew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/devilsknew)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2011, 5:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-death-penalty-and-christ/568414/24 "2011-01-25T05:19:08Z")
> [@monavis](#): > > According to Genesis the penalty for sin was death, no mention of a soul or eternal suffering , so it makes me wonder why a Loving Father or All Knowing Being would choose to kill, or have anyone die for the sins of others.! I think it all depends on your definition of sin. The more interesting question is what are “sins” as defined by the language of Genesis. What are the cultural, temporal, ethical, moral, and most important, relative values of sin in a tribal sense? ---
**Author:** ![fumster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e9c0ed/32.png) [@fumster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fumster)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2011, 6:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-death-penalty-and-christ/568414/25 "2011-01-25T06:14:28Z")
> [@duffer](#): > > So most of my life I was staunchly in favor of the death penalty. Through mellowing with age, my reconnecting with my Catholic faith and the realization of my own hypocrisy in light of being pro-life I’m now against the death penalty. However, I’m always playing Devil’s Advocate with myself. So here’s the question. > > Christ was given the death penalty, thus fulfilling Scripture and allowing salvation for believers. If TPTB were against the death penalty, the crucifixion never happens. Then where are we? IOW, for Christians, the death penalty was a good thing. I know that in my faith it would be considered a mystery of faith. But given the kind of people we are I’m looking forward to some great thoughts on this. > > If possible I’d prefer to avoid arguments on wrongful convictions, demographic disparities, etc. I’m interested in the subject only as it applies to Christ and faith/morality/etc. Might as well support torture too, because that’s what the Romans did to Christ. Maybe we can make prisoners drink vinegar and carry the electric chair on their back as well. People like you scare me. If you thought scripture said it was OK to steal candy from children would you do it? Do you have no innate sense of decency or morals apart from a book written two thousand years ago? And how can one possibly have a discussion about the death penalty and leave out the question of wrongful conviction? ---
**Author:** ![Naxos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/50afbb/32.png) [@Naxos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Naxos)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2011, 6:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-death-penalty-and-christ/568414/26 "2011-01-25T06:38:18Z")
> [@duffer](#): > > … So here’s the question. > > Christ … There’s no Christ. There may or may not have been a Jesus, but in no way a human had or will ever have any supernatural powers because nothing exists beyond Nature. Wake up. ---
**Author:** ![FriarTed](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/friarted/32/1052_2.png) [@FriarTed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FriarTed)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2011, 6:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-death-penalty-and-christ/568414/27 "2011-01-25T06:42:53Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > This is correct. There was no Scriptural expectation that the Messiah would be killed (or that he would be God orm that he would be a redeemer of sins). The Messiah of the Hebrew Bible (and of Judaism still) is just a human king, the heir to the throne of David (via direct, patrilineal descendancy, so sons of virgins are disqualfied from being the Jewish Messiah) with a much different set of expectations from how Christians conceptualize the Messiah. Jesus died without fulfilling any of the Scriptural expecations of the Messiah. Under Jewish traditional and scriptural rules, this meant he could not have been the Messiah, so the whole concept had to be re-imagined and re-formatted to explain it. Bits and pieces of OT scripture were cherry-picked, cut from context and re-pasted into “prophesies” that don’t actually exist in the original contexts of those verses. A lot of Christian theology will basically say that these passages had double-meanings, and that the Christian friendly meanings weren’t intended to be understood until after the crucifixion. This has to be taken on faith, because it’s not in the Hebrew Bible. > > In any case, there was never a scriptural prophesy that the Messiah would be put to death. Daniel 9:26- “After threescore and two weeks, an anointed one will be cut off and shall be no more.” JPS 1917. Very few OT Messianic prophecies use the actual word Messiah. Most say “The LORD”, “The King”, “David”, etc. This prophecy does say that at least that a messiah would be killed. You & the Rabbis may say that it’s not “the Messiah” but that’s a matter of debate. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2011, 7:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-death-penalty-and-christ/568414/28 "2011-01-25T07:08:04Z")
> [@duffer](#): > > Christ was given the death penalty, thus fulfilling Scripture and allowing salvation for believers. If TPTB were against the death penalty, the crucifixion never happens. Then where are we? IOW, for Christians, the death penalty was a good thing. I know that in my faith it would be considered a mystery of faith. But given the kind of people we are I’m looking forward to some great thoughts on this. I’m an atheist, so take this for what it’s worth, but I think I see a pretty big flaw in this argument. You’re suggesting that the death penalty is a good thing, because without it, Jesus could not have died for our sins. However, without our sins, Jesus could not have died for our sins either. Does it, therefore, follow that it is good to sin? Put another way, our propensity towards killing each other is what made the existence of Jesus necessary in the first place. The poignancy of the Jesus myth, I think, stems mainly from the idea that he was killed by precisely the thing that he came to save us from. ---
**Author:** ![devilsknew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4da419/32.png) [@devilsknew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/devilsknew)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2011, 8:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-death-penalty-and-christ/568414/29 "2011-01-25T08:32:49Z")
Seriously, I sometimes think in a theological sense the Triune “Holy Ghost” is the spirit of a trickster or the embodiement of irony. ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2011, 12:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-death-penalty-and-christ/568414/30 "2011-01-25T12:20:40Z")
> [@duffer](#): > > Christ was given the death penalty, thus fulfilling Scripture and allowing salvation for believers. If TPTB were against the death penalty, the crucifixion never happens. Then where are we? IOW, for Christians, the death penalty was a good thing. I know that in my faith it would be considered a mystery of faith. But given the kind of people we are I’m looking forward to some great thoughts on this. The Bible is full of paradoxes like this. At the same time Moses was saying, “Let my people go!”, God was “hardening Pharoah’s heart” so that he wouldn’t not let them go. Does that mean the Hebrews were wrong to struggle against bondage, seeing as how it was God who contrived it? ---
**Author:** ![monavis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e0b2c6/32.png) [@monavis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monavis)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2011, 1:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-death-penalty-and-christ/568414/31 "2011-01-25T13:02:47Z")
> [@Fear\_Itself](#): > > The Bible is full of paradoxes like this. At the same time Moses was saying, “Let my people go!”, God was “hardening Pharoah’s heart” so that he wouldn’t not let them go. Does that mean the Hebrews were wrong to struggle against bondage, seeing as how it was God who contrived it? Acording to the OT writer, God had also gave Moses over 600 commandments then narrrowed it down to 10, One was “do not Kill”, Yet the first thing Joshua did was go kill a whole town full of people, with the Hebrew God’s help;not in self defense,but for their land.Seem like a contradiction to me! Since all were said to be God’s children that were killed seems to be that God didn’t like some of His creations? ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2011, 1:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-death-penalty-and-christ/568414/32 "2011-01-25T13:54:00Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > This is correct. There was no Scriptural expectation that the Messiah would be killed (or that he would be God orm that he would be a redeemer of sins). The Messiah of the Hebrew Bible (and of Judaism still) is just a human king, the heir to the throne of David (via direct, patrilineal descendancy, so sons of virgins are disqualfied from being the Jewish Messiah) with a much different set of expectations from how Christians conceptualize the Messiah. Jesus died without fulfilling any of the Scriptural expecations of the Messiah. Under Jewish traditional and scriptural rules, this meant he could not have been the Messiah, so the whole concept had to be re-imagined and re-formatted to explain it. Valid point. I don’t want to try to argue Soteriology, a subject I eschew as much as possible, especially in GD, but there were two strands of Jewish thought on Messianic issues worth mentioning. What seems to be the majority perspective was that he would be _the_ Shophet, the Judge freeing his people (i.e., the Jews) from foreign rule by military means. But the other was that he would be The _Go’el_, the “Redeemer”, not in the Christian sense but in the Torah-law sense of the one who pays the price in behalf of another, “price” here being probably metaphorical but emphatically not with the Christian overtone of payment through his atoning death. But yes, in Jewish thought definitely not the Son of God, or an aspect or avatar of Gods, nor born of a virgin. > [@](#): > > Bits and pieces of OT scripture were cherry-picked, cut from context and re-pasted into “prophesies” that don’t actually exist in the original contexts of those verses. A lot of Christian theology will basically say that these passages had double-meanings, and that the Christian friendly meanings weren’t intended to be understood until after the crucifixion. This has to be taken on faith, because it’s not in the Hebrew Bible. For the information of others – **Diogenes** and I know and agree on this – the author of Matthew wrote with, among other purposes, the intent of proving to the Jews generally that Jesus was in fact the prophesied Messiah, fulfilling prophesies right and left, including some verses forcibly taken out of context and applied as prophesies. This discipline is called typology, and has its own specialized vocabulary. There is a certain amount of Jungian flavor to it – consider Frodo as Christ figure, for example. However, these are usually in the form of taking something like the Emmanuel quote completely out of context. > [@](#): > > In any case, there was never a Jewish-Bible scriptural prophesy that the Messiah would be put to death. Complete agreement, with the underscored addition to your quote. > [@](#): > > To actually answer the OP’s question in a way that will reconcile the crucifixion with opposition the death penalty, since Jesus’ death is essentially conceptualized as the ultimate Pascal sacrifice - the “unblemished lamb” to end all unblemished lambs - the actual manner of death is not important. What was essential was that he sacrifice himself in some way. It didn’t have to be the Roman death penalty, that’s just what Jesus chose. This also is very much on target, though the whole Atonement bit covers substantially more metaphorical ground than just the Passover lamb. Note too that Catholic thought – and I realize the OP didn’t specify it – also addresses specifically the death penality as an element of the pro-life ethic; a ‘just war’ or a justifiable killing in defense of self or others in one’s care is not necessarily an aspect of it. ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2011, 2:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-death-penalty-and-christ/568414/33 "2011-01-25T14:03:35Z")
> [@Naxos](#): > > There’s no Christ. There may or may not have been a Jesus, but in no way a human had or will ever have any supernatural powers because nothing exists beyond Nature. > > Wake up. Be so kind as to open a new thread and demonstrate the logical necessity of this, if you would, please. I don’t believe my own or anyone’s religious maunderings should be handed down as metaphysics that are mandatory on anyone. Including this one. ---
**Author:** ![raindog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/2bfe46/32.png) [@raindog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/raindog)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2011, 2:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-death-penalty-and-christ/568414/34 "2011-01-25T14:45:44Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > Jesus was actually guility of what the Romans ostensibly crucified him for, just for the record. Claiming to be the Messiah (i.e the “King of the Jews”) was an act of sedition against the Roman state. He wasn’t innocent. Legally, he had committed the crime he was condemned for. > > Also, nobody was crucified for being a thief. The Greek word for the “thieves” referred to in the Gospels is _lestes_, which means armed robbers, plunderers, pirates, highwaymen … violent robbers and bandits, not just thieves. This is not accurate. Jesus was “convicted” under Roman law. But look at the circumstances… 1. The charge was levied by the Jews, not the Romans. The Romans had shown little interest in Jesus, although Jesus had been active for 3+ years at that point. 2. The Jews had their own legal structure and had previously shown no interest in Roman law. 3. That the Jews had previously planned to have Jesus killed was well known. 4. The Romans had to be prodded into action, who at best were ambivalent about the charges. 5. And after prodding what was their reaction? The first was curiosity. Jesus was shipped back and forth to Herod who wished to see Jesus perform carnival-like miracles. 6. At his “trial” his judge found him not ‘not-guilty’ but **innocent.** In fact, Pilate sought to free him. The charges were a farce, and only brought because the Romans were the occupying authority and whose authority was needed to put a man to death. Jesus was killed in a mob-like action. The charges of “sedition” were made for their **utility** , not their **merits**. ---
**Author:** ![raindog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/2bfe46/32.png) [@raindog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/raindog)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2011, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-death-penalty-and-christ/568414/35 "2011-01-25T15:16:34Z")
> [@Tom\_Tildrum](#): > > But (also just for the record) did Christ actually claim to be the King of the Jews? As I recall, when Pilate asked him if he was such, Christ answered, “So you say,” or something like that. > > Claiming to be “the Messiah” is a more interesting question. If Christ meant “Messiah” as redefined in what we now call Christian theology, then he wasn’t actually claiming thereby to be King of the Jews in the way that Roman law would have understood and considered treason. However, if Christ reasonably should have expected that people hearing him describe himself as “the Messiah” would have ascribed a treasonous meaning to it, was he actionably inciting treason despite his own idiosyncratic understanding of the term? > > The New Testament would have been so much more airtight if Jesus had been allowed to have counsel. He didn’t need counsel. He was found innocent at trial. And…if he _was_ the son of God he could have summoned more than enough muscle to prevent the execution that followed, had he wanted to. ---
**Author:** ![Latro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a87d85/32.png) [@Latro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Latro)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2011, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-death-penalty-and-christ/568414/36 "2011-01-25T15:38:32Z")
> [@raindog](#): > > He was found innocent at trial. > . Yes, the Romans are known for their habit of nailing people to a cross after they are found innocent at trial. Orrrrr…maybe…the story is not accurate…maybe ---
**Author:** ![raindog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/2bfe46/32.png) [@raindog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/raindog)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2011, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-death-penalty-and-christ/568414/37 "2011-01-25T15:40:32Z")
> [@duffer](#): > > So most of my life I was staunchly in favor of the death penalty. Through mellowing with age, my reconnecting with my Catholic faith and the realization of my own hypocrisy in light of being pro-life I’m now against the death penalty. However, I’m always playing Devil’s Advocate with myself. So here’s the question. > > Christ was given the death penalty, thus fulfilling Scripture and allowing salvation for believers. If TPTB were against the death penalty, the crucifixion never happens. Then where are we? IOW, for Christians, the death penalty was a good thing. I know that in my faith it would be considered a mystery of faith. But given the kind of people we are I’m looking forward to some great thoughts on this. > > If possible I’d prefer to avoid arguments on wrongful convictions, demographic disparities, etc. I’m interested in the subject only as it applies to Christ and faith/morality/etc. There is virtually no hypocrisy in being being pro-life (or ant-abortion, or anti-choice or whatever your wordsmithing requires) and being pro-death penalty. ---
**Author:** ![raindog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/2bfe46/32.png) [@raindog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/raindog)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2011, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-death-penalty-and-christ/568414/38 "2011-01-25T15:46:13Z")
> [@Latro](#): > > Yes, the Romans are known for their habit of nailing people to a cross after they are found innocent at trial. > > Orrrrr…maybe…the story is not accurate…maybe Maybe the story is accurate… His trial judge was Pilate who said at John 18:39 _“I find no fault with him.”_ He **actively** sought to have Jesus freed. A second time he came out and said _“See! I bring him outside to you in order for you to know I find no fault in him.”_ John 19:4 Read the accounts. I can’t say whether they ‘made a habit of it’, but it is clear that he was found **innocent** at trial. ---
**Author:** ![raindog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/2bfe46/32.png) [@raindog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/raindog)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2011, 4:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-death-penalty-and-christ/568414/39 "2011-01-25T16:02:25Z")
ETA The account continues at \*\*John 19:6-12 \*\* > [@](#): > > " 6 As soon as the chief priests and their officials saw him, they shouted, “Crucify! Crucify!” > > But Pilate answered, **“You take him and crucify him. As for me, I find no basis for a charge against him.”** > > 7 The Jewish leaders insisted, “We have a law, and according to that law he must die, because he claimed to be the Son of God.” > > 8 When Pilate heard this, he was even more afraid, 9 and he went back inside the palace. “Where do you come from?” he asked Jesus, but Jesus gave him no answer. 10 “Do you refuse to speak to me?” Pilate said. “Don’t you realize I have power either to free you or to crucify you?” > > 11 Jesus answered, “You would have no power over me if it were not given to you from above. Therefore the one who handed me over to you is guilty of a greater sin.” > > \*\*12 From then on, Pilate tried to set Jesus free, but the Jewish leaders kept shouting, “If you let this man go, you are no friend of Caesar. Anyone who claims to be a king opposes Caesar.” \*\*" Highlighting mine. Does this look like Jesus was convicted at trial? ---
**Author:** ![Latro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a87d85/32.png) [@Latro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Latro)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2011, 4:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-death-penalty-and-christ/568414/40 "2011-01-25T16:02:55Z")
> [@raindog](#): > > Read the accounts. I can’t say whether they ‘made a habit of it’, but it is clear that he was found **innocent** at trial. Orrr… maybe the accounts aren’t accurate… maybe.. He was **crucified** for Pete’s sake. That’s a Roman punishment! Specifically for rebellion, at that. The INRI thingy is also a big hint. Stoning is the Jewish Punishment. If a “Jewish mob killed him” it would have been done by stoning. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-death-penalty-and-christ/568414.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-death-penalty-and-christ/568414.md?page=3)