No, just crap spelling. I wish ide ment it.
Crap spelling? No, it was just subconscious.
Well, SentientMeat, I use the phrase “judicial murder” because - at least according to the Biblical account - it describes what happened; the mechanism of the law used unjustly (by the religious authorities of the time) to put a political/philosophical opponent to death. If we accept the Biblical account, Jesus was not, in fact, guilty of any crime for which he could legitimately be executed (and, in fact, Pilate pretty much says so). Of course, this begs the question of how far we can trust the Biblical account to be historically accurate, but I think that’s a different topic for discussion.
Or, if you want me to condemn the death penalty, and state my absolute opposition to it, in any time or place, for any reason whatsoever, then I’m quite happy to do that. But that, too, seems to me to be a different topic.
His4Ever, if we accept that Jesus was born as a mortal man, then we have to accept that He would have died, as all mortal men do … if you believe His death to be necessary for our salvation (which point has, I think, been debated), then does it matter how, specifically, that death comes about?
Nerrie, I suspect that whatever religious philosophies influenced the later Roman Empire would have had a significant effect on subsequent European history. IIRC, mystery cults like that of Mithras, and philosophical movements like Neoplatonism were influential at that time - it’s interesting to speculate as to how they’d have developed in the absence of Christianity.
Agreed, ** Steve . However, I still think he went looking for it (crucifix**ion I mean).
Crucifixion? Good. Up the stairs, line up on the left, one cross each…
none of our sins would be forgiven.
I have to say that, before I read this, I thought if jesus hadn’t been cruxified, there would be no saving, no christianity, etc.. However, now I’m not to sure.
Did Jesus have to die the way he did, in order for their to be salvation?
I would wager so, since it was predicted many years before it happened.
The prophets were not wrong.
A lot of Christians view the manner of Christ’s death as fulfilling lots of Old Testament prophecies (notably Isaiah 53), whether a natural death would have fulfilled others or disqualified him as the Messiah (in the sense of the Christian view, which has arisen after the event and I know Judaism sees things rather differently) is arguable.
Hmm, that’s an interesting question. I’d probably have to say that a natural old age death isn’t what the Father had in mind to purchase our redemption. There’d be no suffering or punishment for our sins if He’d just lived out a normal life. All of our sins were put upon Him which, for that moment in time, divided Him from the Father, which was suffering in itself, not to mention the physical suffering. It was the express purpose for which He came so I don’t know that a normal life span and death would have accomplished that.
Any other thoughts on that idea?
IMHO, it was the fact that He was put to death under the law, even though he was innocent, that was meant to symbolize the fact that He was taking the rap for us, so to speak.
His tantrum in the Temple, a conspicuous public-order breach including criminal damage, might not have warranted a death penalty - a public flogging might have been normal under Roman rule.
Further allowing rumours to spread that you are “King of the Jews” will obviously mark you out to the Romans as a potential revolutionary leader, and winding up the Pharisees with blasphemous language is certainly not the way out of trouble.
As ** Steve ** points out, he probably was * not * “put to death under the law”. However, he was certainly not “innocent” in a criminal or political sense.
Well, aren’t we all born innocent, and put to death under the law? That is, the natural law, which tells us all mortal things have to die.
And, if you accept that the prophets are inspired by God, then you would expect them to predict the manner of His death, however it occurred. (Or, if Jesus had been run down by an ox cart, that’s what you’d see predicted in Isaiah. Not that I place too much stock in prophecies … human beings have shown far too much flexibility in interpreting them.)
I agree with what you have to say about prophecies.
Also His4Ever, vanilla, (or anyone who knows), is their any backing in the bible to Jesus’s death by something other than old age?
I do not have my Bible on me, but by the time I get back online tomorow, someone else will have come up with the relevant verses.
Huh. Now I have this picture of Christians throughout the world making the Sign of Heart Failure: during solemn ceremonies, they clutch their chests and say “My left arm’s gone numb!” And wearing little symbolic representations of clogged arteries around their necks.
Well don’t forget, Jesus himself forgave them:
Jesus was executed by the Romans as a public nuisance, not by “religious authorities” out to get an “opponent.”
Crucifixion was an exclusively Roman method of execution. The Romans didn’t care about internecine religious squabbling between Jews, they just wanted everybody to obey the Pax Romana and to pay their taxes.
Furthermore, Jewish religious authorities did not require permission from the Romans to execute somebody for religious reasons (remember the attempted stoning of the adulterous woman?). If the Sanhedrin had really wanted to kill Jesus, they could have simply taken him outside and stoned him at any time.
One final point: Jesus wasn’t teaching anything which was really that radical or even particularly original. The “golden Rule” for instance had already been stated by Rabbi Hillel long before Jesus. The teaching of the Pharisees was not dramatically different from that of Jesus. Religious argument and debate was, and is, an essential part of Jewish worship. It would be a fundamentally unjewish act to murder a Rabbi for debating the Torah.
There are no prophesies of the crucifixion in the Hebrew Bible.
Ah, I can always count on Diogenes to come through with pertinant information!
{hijack}
Then what was radical about Jesus? Why was he picked to be followed?
*I’m looking for a short version, I’m fully aware that this could become a debate in and of itself, but that’s not my intent.
The fact that Jesus forgave them doesn’t mean it wasn’t a wrong thing for them to do. (Can you forgive someone for doing the right thing?)
And, if Jesus was a threat to public order in Judaea, it was only as a result of his conflict with the Jewish religious authorities - which did go a little bit further than simply debating the Torah. So, if the scribes and the Pharisees hadn’t been opposed to him, there would have been no legal pretext for His execution.
The fact is, that there are simply no OT predictions whatsoever about Jesus. Most verses or passages which Christians purport to be prophesies of Jesus have been yanked out of a very specific historical and literary context and twisted to fit a Christian one.
A few other prophesies were “fulfilled” retroactively when gospel writers inserted elements designed to fit OT expectations (birth in Bethlehem, riding into Jerusalem on a donkey).
The authors of the gospels were not being deliberately dishonest, they simply did not know very much about Jesus. They were writing long after the crucifixion, and none of them had ever met or known Jesus (or, indeed, probably even been born at the time of Jesus’ ministry). Information was hard to come by. All they had were basically some sayings and parables passed down orally, and possibly a handful of pericopal anecdotes. In order to find more information, they read the Hebrew Bible. Since the Messiah was expected be in the line of David, that’s what was written, not as an attempt to mislead, but from a belief that it MUST be true.
The gospels were not intended to be accurate biographies (there are plenty of contradictions between the gospels as to chronologies, geneologies, and characterizations of events) but to prove that Jesus was the Messiah, or God, or whatever a particular author’s religious agenda was. Using “prophesies” was a useful method to accomplish this, however tenuous, specious or contrived those prophesies may turn out to be on close inspection.
**
Yes and no. True, Hillel taught the “Golden Rule” before Jesus (but hey, “Love your neighbor as yourself” goes all the way back to Leviticus, so it didn’t originate with Hillel either…). However, Jesus had radical ideas about other subjects, the Sabbath (note that he violated the Sabbath even when life was not at stake), being one, that were not supported by the vast majority of sages in his day.
[quote]
**
The teaching of the Pharisees was not dramatically different from that of Jesus. Religious argument and debate was, and is, an essential part of Jewish worship. It would be a fundamentally unjewish act to murder a Rabbi for debating the Torah.
[/qutoe]**
Well, yes and no. True, debate on matters of Jewish law was alive and well then (as it is today) and was encouraged.
However, there is, however, an case where a sage can be executed for teaching radical interpretations. In short, once the Sanhedrin (which was the Supreme Court) decided a matter of Jewish law, it became forbidden for one to teach in the manner rejected by the Sanhedrin. After proper warning, a rebellious sage who continued to teach otherwise could be exectued. However, there is no indication that this is what happened with Jesus (for starters, he would not have been crucified).
Zev Steinhardt