What would have happened if Jesus hadn't been crucified?

Great Debates
41

Probably the most radical and attractive aspects of his ministry were his rejections of cold legalisms and ritual purity in favor of a more compassionate and inclusive philosophy. Who a rabbi, associated with, ate with, or even touched had the potential to render him “unclean” by his contemorary standards.

Jesus said to hell with it, and waded right into the thick of the most desperate and “unclean” people. This wasn’t just a “nice” thing to do in Jesus’ culture, it was actually seen as unclean and immoral. Dining with prostitutes and tax collectors was an unspeakably shocking thing for a rabbi to do.

“Healing” was also highly ritualized. It was believed that afflicted people were being punished by God for something, and were therefore marginalized and isolated as being morally unfit to associate with. “Healing” represented a spiritual exercise rather than a physical one. It did not mean to cure the physical affliction, (there is a different word for cure) but to heal the soul, to accept someone as a “clean” person. This process was to be done only by priests (for a fee of course) and poor people basically had no chance.

Jesus just went out willy-nilly “healing” anyone who asked, which undermined priestly authority and also made Jesus himself unclean.

This, IMO, is the true mark of Jesus’ appeal and his heroism. He put his own reputation and status on the line. he forced people either to accept the “unclean” people that Jesus ministered to, or to reject Jesus himself. Whenever Jesus had a choice between law and compassion, he always chose compassion.

This obviously would have won him tremendous devotion and loyalty from the outcasts and the poor. In addition, he doubtlessly had a remarkable personal charisma and a profound and memorable oratorical style.

He was executed for causing a disturbance at the temple during Passover. The Romans were exceptionally nervous during Passover because Jerusalem was packed with thousands of extra people at that time. The Romans were greatly outnumbered and they did not want even a hint of civil unrest. Anybody causing a stir such as Jesus did was quickly and routinely taken away and crucified as a warning and a deterrent. There was nothing unusual about doing it to Jesus. Casual executions were part of the Pax Romana.

The gospels’ attempts to infer a Jewish led impetus for the execution of Jesus was born of an attempt to minimize Roman culpability. They were, after all, trying to convert ROMANS.

42

This, however, is really not a big deal. A person who was tamei (“unclean” for lack of a better English translation) could not go to the Temple grounds, nor eat from sacrificial or consecrated foods. Otherwise, however, being tamei had no effect on a person’s life.

Zev Steinhardt

43

Which supports my assertion that he was not doing or teaching anything radical enough to warrant a death sentence from the Sanhedrin.

44

[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Nerrie *
**I was wondering, assuming no Christianity, what the state of the world’s religions would be. I, too, thought that maybe Islam would fill the void, but didn’t Islam arise from Christianity? That being the case, if Christianity was not as widespread, surely Mohammad may not have taken the path he did?

N.

Harry Turtledove, one of my favorite Sci-Fi authors has examined sort of the opposite question. Whst would have happened the the Byzantine Empire without the rise of Islam?

In “Agent of Byzantium”, “Mahmood” is one of the most beloved Saints and liturgists of the Church. His best known statement is “There is no God but God, and Jesus is His Son”. Saint Mahmood finished his days in a monastary in Spain.

I highly reccomend nearly of Turtledove’s Alternate fiction.

Martin

45

Not necessarily ture.

Even if being tamei had little effect on a person in his daily life, it is still a halachic ruling that, if ruled upon by the Sanhedrin could cause a death sentence to a sage who ruled otherwise.

In Jesus’ case, there’s no evidence that the matter went that far (as to have a formal Sanhedrin ruling on the matter) and that Jesus was warned to stop teaching as such ( a necessary pre-condicdtion for a death penalty).

Zev Steinhardt

46

Well, Zev, I don’t know as “there’s no evidence” – though I certainly don’t expect you to hold this as, uh, “Gospel” :

One of the points made in regard to the whole story of Jesus’s arrest and trial is that all four Gospels agree in having him go to the Garden of Gethsemane, across the Kidron Valley from the city of Jerusalem at the time, to pray. It was there that he said to God the Father, “If it be possible, Lord, let this cup be taken from me. Nevertheless, not my will but yours be done.”

The key point here, as noted by a friend to me years ago, is that in Jesus’s day and to a large extent still today, the land beyond the rise on which Gethsemane sits is wilderness. It would have been the easiest thing in the world for Jesus to have bugged out over the hill and out into the wilderness, rather than going to his arrest and what he was at least fairly sure at this point was going to be his death.

He chose to stay.

47

What if he hadn’t, I beleive the question was originally… though I might have lost it a while ago amidst the wonderful responces… what would have happened if Jesus hadn’t chosen to stay?:confused:

48

What about Psalm 22? “They pierced my hands and my feet”. This sounds like crucifiction to me. David wasn’t crucified as far as know.

Also Isaiah 53. “Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteen him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he **was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him: and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.”**verses 4-6

This sounds pretty much like Jesus dying for our sins to me. It matters not that it’s listed as past tense. It’s a done deal from eternity past as far as the Father is concerned. No one else was ever wounded for our transgressions. No one else had all our iniquity laid on him. Only Jesus.

49

[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by martin_ibn_martin *
**

I’ve read a different Turtledove book (guns of the south) and I have to say that I recommend his alternate fiction as well.

50

I think what Dio is aiming for is a specific prophecy. The first passage you suggested (Psalm 22) sounds pretty on the money in that regard. But I have to ask, what’s the whole passage? Is this taken out of context?

The second passage (Isaiah 53) could apply to anyone who would be a savior, also it looks pretty interpretable to me. You are looking at the passage from a very Christian standpoint (nothing wrong with that), but if you take a step back, you might realize it’s a little vague.

51

Actually I don’t think this is true at all. My understanding is that free will is never discussed or even alluded to in the Bible, but rather was a notion conceived much later to explain away some of the inconsistencies in the Bible.

52

I wouldn’t expect Christ’s moral teaching to be wholly original and revolutionary. The moral laws of the universe are set up by God, just like the physical laws, and, like the physical laws, can be worked out by the exercise of human intelligence. Lots of non-Christian people have worked out those laws and led perfectly moral lives, without input from Christianity.

For me, what distinguishes Christ’s teaching is the emphasis on the personal relationship with God. Christ is God with a human face; not a remote Creator whose face can’t be shown, but an ordinary human being that you can talk to every day. It’s that reconciliation of the mundane with the ineffably divine that speaks to me in my soul; God wants us to come to him, but is willing to meet us halfway; not as Creator, Judge and Father, but as a friend.

That, and the recognition, at the very heart of Christianity, that love is all that matters. There is no need for rules, no need for organized priesthood; all we need to do, as Christians, is love God, realize that He loves us, and love each other. Everything else proceeds from that: “on these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”

53

[segue to Monte Python] Oh, wait! That’s three commandments! Very well. We have three commandments. They are: love God, realize that He loves us, and love each other but not in the physical sense. Augh!. That’s four!… We have four commandments… no …Of the four commandments…um…Among our arsenal of commandments are the following…

54

Calm down, bnorton. The “realize He loves us” bit is my own, unauthorized, interpolation. The “two commandments” bit comes from here (Matthew 22. 35-40):

… which gets quoted so often in these debates that I kind of assume people will be familiar with it.

55

His, it’s been noted by Biblical scholars since the second century (if not earlier – see the Epistle to the Hebrews) that there are a lot of passages in the Old Testament that certainly look to a Christian like they prophesy who Jesus was and what He did and suffered through. However, many of these speak of God (who in the Jewish view did not become incarnate as the stepson of a carpenter) or of the Jewish people, or have other points to make. In this last category is the famous Emmanuel prophecy from Isaiah:

In short, King Ahaz of Judah is being threatened by the Kings of Syria and Israel, and to hearten him, God, speaking through Isaiah, points out a young woman of the court, says that she’s pregnant, and will have a son whom she will name Emmanuel (which means “God [is] with us”), and that by the time that baby boy is old enough to know good from bad, the two kings of whom Ahaz is afraid will be pushing up daisies in their graves. And this in fact happened. But, interestingly, the word Isaiah used for “young woman” is almah, which in later years took on the connotation “virgin” or “(unmarried) maiden.” And we believ that the son whom a Virgin bore several hundred years later became God With Us in a very special way.

Anyway, this sort of secondary meaning invested in scripture is called “typology” and it is hotly disputed in Bible-scholarly circles to what extent typology is valid.

From the perspective of the Jews, the only prophecies that literally predict the Messiah were not fulfilled in Jesus – they are the sorts of ones that led them to expect a person who would lead them militarily and establish a kingdom of righteousness, not a person who would teach righteousness and compassion and then humbly go to the Cross.

56

Meatros and polycarp have addressed some of this already, but let me respond to your specific quotations.

The 22nd Psalm is the lament of a person (not David) suffering from physical illness. At that time, illness was considered to be sign of God’s displeasure. The Psalmist describes his condition and the harrassment and mocking he receives on account of it. The “piercing” of hands and feet is part of the abuse such people used to recieve. This line was seized on by later Christian writers because it seemed like it might refer to Jesus. In context of the entire Psalm this is completely unsupportable.

The passages from Isaiah, are a description of a “servant of the lord” which is a metaphor for Israel itself. The suffering is about the suffering of the Jewish people. The “we” is the rest of the world describing their treatment of the Jews. Here is a more accurate translation of your passage from the Hebrew:

The narrator is saying that the Jews were punished for the benefit of others and not for anything that they, themselves had done.

Here is a link which presents a more detailed commentary on the Jewish interpretation of Isaiah 53. (which is also where I got the translation)

57

What about the scenario that Jesus might not have died on the cross anyway because maybe he never lived? There’s no real evidence that a man named Jesus ever walked the Earth. If he really did all those miracles wouldn’t historians of the day had written about him?

58

I don’t know if I’d go that far. There is some evidence that he was around during that time period, where or not it constitutes “real” evidence I suppose is subjective. If I remember correctly, I believe that Jesus had his name in a few Roman books or some such thing.

59

The Master Knows All.

60

Ah, yes, he most certainly does. For reference, this is what I was talking about:

“The Roman historian Tacitus, writing in his Annals around 110 AD, mentions one “Christ, whom the procurator Pontius Pilate had executed in the reign of Tiberius.” The Jewish historian Josephus remarks on the stoning of “James, the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ.””

Now, I don’t know if this constitutes “real evidence”, but for my money, it’s good enough.