What is the Role of the Crucifixion in Christianity?
Posted on: April 12, 2007 - 12:40am
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What is the Role of the Crucifixion in Christianity?
what about the crucifixion is meaningful to christians? is it that jesus died on the cross? is it that he was resurrected after three days instead of one day or one minute or four weeks?
as i understand it, the logistics of jesus' story seem to be what impresses most christians, but to me, they seem to be unnecessary, if not distracting. employing the dramatic manner of your exit from earth as a means to communicate a divine message seems a bit juvenile to me.
is the manner of jesus' death important? what if jesus had died of food poisoning or a heart attack? or, if he tripped and fell on the way to the crucifixion. would his story be less meaningful to christians? would jesus still be jesus?
Ethics and aesthetics are one
-Wittgenstein
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Jonhn 18:33-38: 33 Pilate entered the praetorium again and called Jesus, and said to him, "Are you the King of the Jews?" 34 Jesus answered, "Do you say this of your own accord, or did others say it to you about me?" 35 Pilate answered, "Am I a Jew? Your own nation and the chief priests have handed you over to me; what have you done?" 36* Jesus answered, "My kingship is not of this world; if my kingship were of this world, my servants would fight, that I might not be handed over to the Jews; but my kingship is not from the world." 37* Pilate said to him, "So you are a king?" Jesus answered, "You say that I am a king. For this I was born, and for this I have come into the world, to bear witness to the truth. Every one who is of the truth hears my voice." 38* Pilate said to him, "What is truth?"
Where's the political part?
"With its enduring appeal to the search for truth, philosophy has the great responsibility of forming thought and culture; and now it must strive resolutely to recover its original vocation." Pope John Paul II
Well sir, I could do more had you not given me 5 verses of your choosing
But in it I see that Jesus claims to be a king. I know the details of this kingdom he's claiming, and I do recall prophecy of a certain messiah restoring Israel, conquering all the other nations of the world, and ruling the planet along with his supporters.
Were I a jew in occupied territory still pissed because the guy told me to 'give to caesar what is caesar's,' I'd relish the irony too.
Mike Gravel for president!
What then, was Jesus politcal agenda?
Establishing his future kingdom.
He also changed the way his followers looked at social interaction around them and how they related to the governments and countries they were under.
Mike Gravel for president!
This statement is false for two reasons. He is guilty of blasphemy, and was crucified as such. Likely the Romans and Jews both would have wanted him dead just to squash his cult. This, if Jesus was real, is probably slightly edited in the bible since when the Romans made everyone convert, they would want most certainly all the blame to fall on the Jews.
The second reason this statement is false is that Jesus likely did not exist as a historical figure, and is more than likely no more real than Zeus, Odin, or Allah.
In your defense, I'm sure there is a high probablity that an innocent man named Jesus was crucified for treason or blasphemy in the first century, and may have been a member or leader of a cult. You know, considering there were several thousand people named "Jesus".
However, in terms of view by the governing body and the laws of time time, if Jesus in fact did exist, he was not innocent.
YOU shut the fuck up! WE'LL save America!
I'll only address one reason here, since addressing the issue of Jesus' reality would get us into a whole different discussion which I'm sure is being addressed in at least one other thread.
First, and I know we're in disagreement on this one, Jesus wasn't guilty of blasphemy. He is/was the Son of God. Even if we look at the Gospel as merely myth, that's apparent from the story.
Second, there's a legal subtlety involved here. Jesus was convicted of a Jewish religious crime by a Jewish religious court, the penalty for which was stoning. He was executed by the Roman secular authority using the Roman secular punishment after a secular Roman court could find him guilty of no offense.
"With its enduring appeal to the search for truth, philosophy has the great responsibility of forming thought and culture; and now it must strive resolutely to recover its original vocation." Pope John Paul II