They picked the wrong dude to lynch didn't they?

edited April 8 in Purgatory
Said to me by person who apparently thought Christianity was a bit of a mystery. Jesus was the best connected fellow ever and they didn't know it? and they didn't know there would be consequences? Why was this knowledge basically secret? Which got into the mild argument that it wasn't, except that there's really only the eventual NT and no documentation by anyone else of the events (the joke is why is it that only 4 of the disciples got book deals later?). And how it wasn't fair that he did all these miraculous things that would have easily demonstrated what he was all about, but didn't. The additional things raised was how the story about a father who's good with watching his child killed gruesomely is probably connected to Christianity as practiced being so cruel. Myself, I don't think the killing had anything to do with things other than the people, the story wasn't cast, it was ab lib. But it still begs the question of the most profane cruelty and awful, and the conduct of Christianity.
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  • TelfordTelford Shipmate
    Said to me by person who apparently thought Christianity was a bit of a mystery. Jesus was the best connected fellow ever and they didn't know it? and they didn't know there would be consequences? Why was this knowledge basically secret? Which got into the mild argument that it wasn't, except that there's really only the eventual NT and no documentation by anyone else of the events (the joke is why is it that only 4 of the disciples got book deals later?). And how it wasn't fair that he did all these miraculous things that would have easily demonstrated what he was all about, but didn't. The additional things raised was how the story about a father who's good with watching his child killed gruesomely is probably connected to Christianity as practiced being so cruel. Myself, I don't think the killing had anything to do with things other than the people, the story wasn't cast, it was ab lib. But it still begs the question of the most profane cruelty and awful, and the conduct of Christianity.

    It wasn't a lynching. It was a lawful execution ordered by Pilate

    What is the question
  • SojournerSojourner Shipmate
    Was it lawful?

    Go back to John’s account of the Passion which suggests that Pilate’s hand was forced
  • TelfordTelford Shipmate
    Sojourner wrote: »
    Was it lawful?

    Go back to John’s account of the Passion which suggests that Pilate’s hand was forced

    Other accounts are available.

    Blaming the Jews rather than the Romans was politically expedient
  • SojournerSojourner Shipmate
    Blame is not the issue

    Not that I subscribe to sola scriptura
  • I think your friend was confused--about a lot of things. But I'm not at all sure he wanted to know, if you see what I mean. I think he just wanted to criticize, based on what you've said--and if that's the case, there's not a whole lot of use in having the conversation then and there. (Someone who really wants to know will have the patience to sit still and have various misconceptions corrected, as well as to work through theological difficulties in a mature discussion rather than just Twitter one-liners.)
  • DoublethinkDoublethink Shipmate
    edited April 9
    I think the questions of a) why an all powerful God doesn't just demonstrate the truth of his existence unmistakably rather than ambiguously and b) why a loving God *needs* anyone tortured to death as a sacrifice in order to change how he treats humans are reasonable.

    Whilst you can say the crucifixion is a product of human choices - that fits awkwardly into a millon sermons in which we have been told his death fulfilled a purpose. He died for you, he was sacrificed, psa etc

  • I think the questions of a) why an all powerful God doesn't just demonstrate the truth of his existence unmistakably rather than ambiguously and b) why a loving God *needs* anyone tortured to death as a sacrifice in order to change how he treats humans are reasonable.

    Whilst you can say the crucifixion is a product of human choices - that fits awkwardly into a millon sermons in which we have been told his death fulfilled a purpose. He died for you, he was sacrificed, psa etc

    The understanding I take from the universe at large and the incarnation-life-death-resurrection-ascension of Christ is that God delights in rules and patterns and order. That meant God chose to work within the rules in order to reshape them, chose to become human because that was what could be done within the framework of creation. Christ is the height of humanity, pushing the limit of what can be achieved from within the created order. Christ is the true "God from the machine", rebuilding the engine even as he is crushed in the gears.
  • Martin54Martin54 Shipmate
    Perfect. The rules, patterns, order are of course prevenient of God.
  • So who invented them?
  • tclunetclune Shipmate
    So who invented them?

    I think @Martin54 was being facetious.
  • Bishops FingerBishops Finger Shipmate
    edited April 9
    Probably, but, given Martin's penchant for gnomic utterances, I'm not so sure...
    :wink:
  • BullfrogBullfrog Shipmate
    edited April 9
    Sojourner wrote: »
    Was it lawful?

    Go back to John’s account of the Passion which suggests that Pilate’s hand was forced

    Pilate was an agent of the law. As I understand it, that's how Roman law worked. He's the authority, what he does, regardless of circumstances, is legal.
  • TelfordTelford Shipmate
    I think the questions of a) why an all powerful God doesn't just demonstrate the truth of his existence unmistakably rather than ambiguously and b) why a loving God *needs* anyone tortured to death as a sacrifice in order to change how he treats humans are reasonable.

    Whilst you can say the crucifixion is a product of human choices - that fits awkwardly into a millon sermons in which we have been told his death fulfilled a purpose. He died for you, he was sacrificed, psa etc

    BIB...A good question and I have no good answer. The best I can come up with is that God would be entitled to be displeased with us if we did not acknowledge what Jesus had done for us

    I am unable to put it any better.
  • SojournerSojourner Shipmate
    Bullfrog wrote: »
    Sojourner wrote: »
    Was it lawful?

    Go back to John’s account of the Passion which suggests that Pilate’s hand was forced

    Pilate was an agent of the law. As I understand it, that's how Roman law worked. He's the authority, what he does, regardless of circumstances, is legal.

    But illegitimate

  • Telford wrote: »
    I think the questions of a) why an all powerful God doesn't just demonstrate the truth of his existence unmistakably rather than ambiguously and b) why a loving God *needs* anyone tortured to death as a sacrifice in order to change how he treats humans are reasonable.

    Whilst you can say the crucifixion is a product of human choices - that fits awkwardly into a millon sermons in which we have been told his death fulfilled a purpose. He died for you, he was sacrificed, psa etc

    BIB...A good question and I have no good answer. The best I can come up with is that God would be entitled to be displeased with us if we did not acknowledge what Jesus had done for us

    I am unable to put it any better.

    The sermonizers, and Christianity generally may have taken a human choice to lynch Jesus and made up a really stupid story about how God required it to pay for sins etc.
  • TelfordTelford Shipmate
    Telford wrote: »
    I think the questions of a) why an all powerful God doesn't just demonstrate the truth of his existence unmistakably rather than ambiguously and b) why a loving God *needs* anyone tortured to death as a sacrifice in order to change how he treats humans are reasonable.

    Whilst you can say the crucifixion is a product of human choices - that fits awkwardly into a millon sermons in which we have been told his death fulfilled a purpose. He died for you, he was sacrificed, psa etc

    BIB...A good question and I have no good answer. The best I can come up with is that God would be entitled to be displeased with us if we did not acknowledge what Jesus had done for us

    I am unable to put it any better.

    The sermonizers, and Christianity generally may have taken a human choice to lynch Jesus and made up a really stupid story about how God required it to pay for sins etc.

    Jesus was executed because they regarded him as a troublemaker
  • SojournerSojourner Shipmate
    Bullfrog wrote: »
    Sojourner wrote: »
    Was it lawful?

    Go back to John’s account of the Passion which suggests that Pilate’s hand was forced

    Pilate was an agent of the law. As I understand it, that's how Roman law worked. He's the authority, what he does, regardless of circumstances, is legal.

    But illegitimate

  • mousethiefmousethief Shipmate
    Sojourner wrote: »
    Bullfrog wrote: »
    Sojourner wrote: »
    Was it lawful?

    Go back to John’s account of the Passion which suggests that Pilate’s hand was forced

    Pilate was an agent of the law. As I understand it, that's how Roman law worked. He's the authority, what he does, regardless of circumstances, is legal.

    But illegitimate

    Possibly but that's orthogonal to the question. An illegitimate legal action is still not a lynching, which is by definition extralegal.
  • AdeodatusAdeodatus Shipmate
    Actually, they picked exactly the right dude to lynch. I mean imagine -

    Pilate: Whom do you want me to release, Jesus or Barabbas?
    Crowd: Jesus!
    Jesus: Wait, what?...

    The gospels would either never have been written, or would have had to be a lot longer (76 chapters in which Jesus makes enough of a nuisance of himself to get back to square one).
  • O - so it was all a put-up job, then?
    :open_mouth:
  • AdeodatusAdeodatus Shipmate
    O - so it was all a put-up job, then?
    :open_mouth:
    It was the required course of events. :smile:

  • Ah - pre-planned...therefore, a put-up job...

    I always feel sorry for Pilate, stuck between a Rock and a Hard Place.
    :naughty:

  • edited April 16
    Argument:

    There's no "required course of events". Those involved could have not lynched Jesus either then or ever. The biblical story would have been different because of the free will of those involved. They might have stoned Jesus, and we'd have a pile of rocks instead of a cross as a symbol for example. The lynching might have involved no Jews or no Romans.

    If Jesus had not been killed at all, don't you think God would have worked with that too? Of course God would have. The death of Jesus was a very human choice. Not a God-choice. It wasn't required then, and isn't required now. Nor is the blood thirsty theology and attributions to God, which project the human capacity for kindness and murder onto Deity.

    With this argument, God did not require disobedience in the Garden of Eden either, nor Cain to kill Abel, the golden calf, nor Paul to be an a-hole before turning into an enthusiast. None of these is required. It's human narrative materiel which God happily ad-libs to.

    Does any of that argument wash?
  • AdeodatusAdeodatus Shipmate
    Argument:

    Does any of that argument wash?
    Yes, but a version of Isaiah in which the Suffering Servant gets a ticking-off and is bound over to keep the peace doesn't quite have the same impact.
  • DafydDafyd Shipmate
    Adeodatus wrote: »
    It was the required course of events.
    It was the always highly likely course of events. Whether that particular course of events was required is another matter. It could be that the incarnation alone was sufficient and the crucifixion was just the reaction of sinful humanity to a sinless human doing what a sinless human would do under the circumstances.
  • yohan300yohan300 Shipmate
    Sojourner wrote: »
    Was it lawful?

    Go back to John’s account of the Passion which suggests that Pilate’s hand was forced

    Very interesting book on this by David Lloyd Dusenbury just out, "The Innocence of Pontius Pilate: How the Roman Trial of Jesus Shaped History"

    review: https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/who-was-to-blame-for-the-death-of-jesus-
  • Martin54Martin54 Shipmate
    edited April 22
    Martin54 wrote: »
    Perfect. The rules, patterns, order are of course prevenient of God.
    So who invented them?
    tclune wrote: »
    So who invented them?

    I think @Martin54 was being facetious.

    Ohhhhh no he wasn't. But weren't you @Bishops Finger? They are eternally prevenient of, to, on as in upon as in He's beholden to them, God. He has no choice but to comply with them, He can only instantiate them. Including the measurable only fundamental dimensioned (and dimensionless) physical constants I'll wager, unless God has to om in the keys of c, G & h (& k & K & epsilon & mu nought, & alpha and beta and other arcana like 15 fundamental particle masses).
  • TelfordTelford Shipmate
    yohan300 wrote: »
    Sojourner wrote: »
    Was it lawful?

    Go back to John’s account of the Passion which suggests that Pilate’s hand was forced

    Very interesting book on this by David Lloyd Dusenbury just out, "The Innocence of Pontius Pilate: How the Roman Trial of Jesus Shaped History"

    review: https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/who-was-to-blame-for-the-death-of-jesus-

    It was always expedient for the Christians not to blame Rome for the death of Jesus
  • Martin54 wrote: »
    Martin54 wrote: »
    Perfect. The rules, patterns, order are of course prevenient of God.
    So who invented them?
    tclune wrote: »
    So who invented them?

    I think @Martin54 was being facetious.

    Ohhhhh no he wasn't. But weren't you @Bishops Finger? They are eternally prevenient of, to, on as in upon as in He's beholden to them, God. He has no choice but to comply with them, He can only instantiate them. Including the measurable only fundamental dimensioned (and dimensionless) physical constants I'll wager, unless God has to om in the keys of c, G & h (& k & K & epsilon & mu nought, & alpha and beta and other arcana like 15 fundamental particle masses).

    Actually, I wasn't being facetious - although I'm not sure I fully
    understand your explanation...
  • ETA: it's the old Sunday School conundrum - *if God made the world, who made God?*
    :wink:
  • Marvin the MartianMarvin the Martian Admin Emeritus
    The death of Jesus was a very human choice. Not a God-choice. It wasn't required then, and isn't required now.

    Jesus’ death was required so that he could go to hell and break open its gates - hence the incarnation happening in the first place. The specific means of death was not required - dying from old age would have worked just as well.
  • ??? I mean, how do you know that? I'd rather think God could bust the doors down any time he pleased.
  • ??? I mean, how do you know that? I'd rather think God could bust the doors down any time he pleased.

    Which is my hyperbolic point. Truth, I think Jesus was on a collision course with the authorities. The timing of the run in and what they might have done is the choice of the people involved. As above, it could have been stoning. He could have been in a prison for a very long time. Whipped to death. Lynched by random people on the way from being arrested. The god-human interaction is always full of real and genuine free will.

    My biggest concern with the story as we have it, is the contrast between the gentle, kind, loving message, and the blood thirsty theology that requires a most horrid death, steeped in blood. Not persuaded any longer that God actually needed such a thing. The gospel stories- how reliable- we'll never resolve it. Some accept "as is", some reject, some contextualize. I'm trying to focus on the kind, loving parts. Defocussed on the redemption and heaven parts.
  • Might help if you investigated other models of the atonement--I mean, what the cross was actually doing/about. PSA is not too helpful for most people, as you doubtless realize. But it's also not the only or even leading image in the Bible for what happened. (If it's there at all, which is a thing I'm not entirely sure of)

    Or maybe I have hold of the wrong end of the stick, and your references to blood and gore are about something else.
  • HugalHugal Shipmate
    Here we are again. We always go round in circles with this question. Maybe it should be in Dead Horses.
    Sacrifice was required for forgiveness of sin. The day of Atonement tells us that. Jesus was the ultimate sacrifice all sins sorted. Jesus was God and though he died he rose, defeating death. There that is my answer.
  • Why did an omnipotent God *require* a sacrifice ? Surely, this is the exercise of the deity’s free will ? God chose there should be a sacrifice, but could have chosen otherwise.
  • RuthRuth Shipmate
    I wish I could require a sacrifice when I'm supposed to forgive someone.
  • Nick TamenNick Tamen Shipmate
    edited April 24
    Ruth wrote: »
    I wish I could require a sacrifice when I'm supposed to forgive someone.
    :naughty: :lol:

  • I don't have a problem with the issue of sacrifice; it seems to me very deeply embedded in the human psyche, and I suppose that is for good reason. But I can only cope with these atonement theories (substitution, sacrifice, even PSA maybe) IF it is kept firmly in the foreground that we are talking about God sacrificing himself (2nd person of the Tri-Unity) and not make it appear that this is some sort of transaction between two separate people, which makes it into a form of cosmic child abuse or worse. I have to deal with this issue all the time in my real life writing; and do my best to make sure I never touch on it in a way that implies some sort of sick deal-making.
  • Ok, I would ask why does God need to harm himself in order to forgive ? Again, it appears to be the deity’s choice not an externally imposed demand,
  • I'm not at all sure he does.

    What follows is just speculation, obviously, my musing as I try to understand stuff that is doubtless too deep for me.

    I'm thinking by analogy of a situation that arose several times when my son was a toddler. He was at that stage where all a kid wants to do is exert his own will, regardless of consequences--you know, the time when they will scream "No! No! NO!" even to an offer of ice cream. And as parents must, I was working on civilizing him, and teaching him basic safety rules--"Don't hit people. Don't run into the street. Don't push other children down on the playground." and etc., and etc.

    Now it was very very clear on several occasions that he did not see the situation with any seriousness at all, and would run into the street again the moment my eyes were off him for half a second. No surprise, he was a toddler. And yet his age meant first of all that he could get into deadly trouble very very quickly, AND that there was no reasoning with him--he had not yet reached the age where mere words were enough to create a healthy fear of traffic. Nor did he have enough imagination or empathy yet to grasp why we don't take our metal trucks and bash our acquaintances over the head with them. Add to that an inability to imagine death or any other state of permanent harm, and well...

    So how do you get the seriousness of the situation across, given his limitations and the absolute necessity of him wising up ASAP? How do you convey to such a person that some of his choices could have incredibly serious, even life-threatening consequences?

    I did not want to spank him or use other corporal punishment on him. But clearly nothing short of it was going to work, at least in the short or medium term. (Don't tell me to put him on the naughty step, that sort of thing takes quite a long time before it has the deterrant effect he needed to have yesterday. It doesn't have the severe and immediate impact that pain does.)

    So I made sure the pain fell on myself. (You may now commence blaming me for my parenting choices.) What I did was give him his scolding, and then take his hand in mine, and then slap myself on the wrist with a sufficiently dramatic sound that it made his eyes go wide. Only once, mind you. That was enough to get it across that This.Was.Serious. And it was amazing how quickly he learned to stop pulling the cat's tail, or whatever dangerous thing he had been doing. I don't recall having to do it more than once for any given class of misdeeds. (And I didn't pull it out for stupid things like simple whining or a refusal to eat one's peas.)

    Pain communicates. It communicates to almost everybody, regardless of age and education. It tells you that something serious is happening and you'd better pay attention and stop fucking around.

    I don't THINK he is scarred for life. I'm not even sure he recalls these toddler lessons, to be honest. I do see that he has grown into a very conscientious young man who thinks about what he does.

    And I wonder if some similar principle lies behind the cross. I'm sure that's not all that's going on. But certainly I take sin--dangerous sin, the kind that is willful, knowing, and on the short road to making life a living hell, that kind--far more seriously because I see what it cost God. And I'm not at all sure I would have ever made the distinction between that and the ever-popular lie of calling everything "mistakes" and "just being human" if God had simply waved his hand and said, "No problem, go in peace."



  • KarlLBKarlLB Shipmate
    @Hugal - the sacrificial model and PSA are two different things.
  • Nick TamenNick Tamen Shipmate
    Why did an omnipotent God *require* a sacrifice ? Surely, this is the exercise of the deity’s free will ? God chose there should be a sacrifice, but could have chosen otherwise.
    Yes. I think the prophets make clear that God doesn’t “require” sacrifices, per se. Rather I think, God seems to have required in the Torah that the people of Israel offer sacrifices because of their own needs, because of what the sacrifice represented—the complete offering of themselves.

    For some years now, I’ve found myself pondering the thought—perhaps bordering on heretical, I suppose—that the cross is as much about God sacrificing Godself to humanity as it is about a sacrifice to God.

    That said, I’m content for it ultimately to be a mystery—a mystery more to be entered into than understood intellectually.

  • Penny SPenny S Shipmate
    I get really worried about the emphasis on the text from John "God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son..." currently adorning a church on the South Circular. As LC said above, it is Himself, not a separate entity who ends up on the cross.
  • HugalHugal Shipmate
    KarlLB wrote: »
    @Hugal - the sacrificial model and PSA are two different things.

    Yes I know but this question has been doing the rounds a lot lately
  • HugalHugal Shipmate
    Penny S wrote: »
    I get really worried about the emphasis on the text from John "God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son..." currently adorning a church on the South Circular. As LC said above, it is Himself, not a separate entity who ends up on the cross.

    But Jesus was fully God and fully human. In some ways he was God and I’m some ways his son. He is a special case.
  • TelfordTelford Shipmate
    Penny S wrote: »
    I get really worried about the emphasis on the text from John "God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son..." currently adorning a church on the South Circular. As LC said above, it is Himself, not a separate entity who ends up on the cross.

    You appear to be arguing with the author of the gospel
  • Penny S wrote: »
    I get really worried about the emphasis on the text from John "God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son..." currently adorning a church on the South Circular. As LC said above, it is Himself, not a separate entity who ends up on the cross.

    The thing is, IMHO, that this verse is all about the context. If you are preaching to an audience of people who know and believe--really believe--in the Tri-UNITY, as opposed to a vague tritheism, then you're probably okay. But to just stick that verse out there with no context from the Gospel or other Christian learning, in a world where abuse is common, well... I think a lot of people are going to misread it. I'd prefer to use the one about "God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself," personally.
  • TelfordTelford Shipmate
    Penny S wrote: »
    I get really worried about the emphasis on the text from John "God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son..." currently adorning a church on the South Circular. As LC said above, it is Himself, not a separate entity who ends up on the cross.

    The thing is, IMHO, that this verse is all about the context. If you are preaching to an audience of people who know and believe--really believe--in the Tri-UNITY, as opposed to a vague tritheism, then you're probably okay. But to just stick that verse out there with no context from the Gospel or other Christian learning, in a world where abuse is common, well... I think a lot of people are going to misread it. I'd prefer to use the one about "God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself," personally.

    The same person who wrote John 3.16 also wrote "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God."
  • Telford wrote: »
    Penny S wrote: »
    I get really worried about the emphasis on the text from John "God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son..." currently adorning a church on the South Circular. As LC said above, it is Himself, not a separate entity who ends up on the cross.

    The thing is, IMHO, that this verse is all about the context. If you are preaching to an audience of people who know and believe--really believe--in the Tri-UNITY, as opposed to a vague tritheism, then you're probably okay. But to just stick that verse out there with no context from the Gospel or other Christian learning, in a world where abuse is common, well... I think a lot of people are going to misread it. I'd prefer to use the one about "God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself," personally.

    The same person who wrote John 3.16 also wrote "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God."

    Not quite. The author of the Gospel is, in chapter 3, quoting Jesus' words, not his own. The Johannine Prologue is, one assumes, in the author's words.

    I agree that neither passage is easy to understand...
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