Rendering unto Caesar: The Politics of Crucifixion‏

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

The weekend following Easter weekend, I made the acquaintance of a man who appeared to know very little about the Jesus legend. He professed to a lack of knowledge about the Crucifixion prompting me to explain it to him. Naturally I provided a very superficial explanation without going into detail about the role of the story in the Western experience. The one hint I provided was that Jesus was "supposedly" resurrected from death on the following Sunday.

In a completely different conversation with a self-professed Christian, the issue of the Crucifixion came up. The man asserted that he could not believe the story that Jesus was not really crucified. When I asked him why, he replied that it would mean that Jesus was not the son of the material Creator. Upon further probing, he said that it would mean that Jesus was a fraud.

All of this became food for discussion with students. One student pointed out that Jesus could not possibly be a child of the material Creator because the Creator was not fashioned until the fourth century. Another student wondered how anyone can espouse the idea that an idol could parent a child. Perhaps the Christian is unaware that the material Creator is a human invention. Yet another student said that rather than demonstrating that Jesus was a fraud, avoiding crucifixion would demonstrate extraordinary ability verging on the supernatural.

Judging by the writings associated with Paul of Tarsus, there were people at the time who did not believe that Jesus had been crucified. Some of these people may have been in his entourage whereas others may have been detractors of Jesus. The people who wanted to kill Jesus would have been pretty upset by news that he slipped the net. The only people who stood to gain from the Crucifixion story were those who could profit from the cult of the prophet.

Centuries later, the Crucifixion story served as a method for separating the wheat from the chaff. People with neither a moral nor a material interest in the orthodox legend could more readily subscribe to the alternative perspective. What mattered to them was living life to its fullest rather than obsessing over tales of brutality. They may have been amused by the immature way that the orthodox approached the matter. It fit so well into the paradigm of the Cave portrayed by Plato.

Once orthodoxy became the official religion of Rome, the Crucifixion story became a political hot button. People who professed to be followers of Jesus could be executed for the thought crime of doubting the Crucifixion. The alternative story was banned and burned. People who knew about it had to keep it secret lest they face persecution. Jews experienced the Crucifixion as a rationale for vicious pogroms. Islam distanced itself from Christian orthodoxy by incorporating denial of the Crucifixion in the Koran.

What are your perspectives on the intersection of politics and religion when it comes to matters concerning orthodoxy and free thought?

Related links: Mark Pierson on the controversy with Islam (http://pdfflare.com/read.php?url=http://www.phc.edu/UserFiles/File/_Other%20Projects/Global%20Journal/7-1/MarkPierson.pdf). Gerald Sigal on the Crucifixion and anti-Semitism.

Comments

[telemann.livejournal.com]

And another student suggested: "This post reads like a really bad hand drawn comic version of a Dan Brown novel!"

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

You only say that because you are a big fan of Dan Brown novels.

[rimpala.livejournal.com]

I never lost interest in something so fast since Son of the Mask

[404.livejournal.com]

[dwer.livejournal.com]

I expect that some christians would argue that there was always a material creator, just that flawed humanity didn't figure it out till the fourth century.

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

I have heard a whole host of assertions that confuse one deity with another. They are just as flawed today as they were in the fourth century.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

I think that the Crucifixion story does have very glaring problems of historicity, less in crucifying a troublemaking radical Jew in the paranoid climate of Julio-Claudian Judaea and more in the random solar eclipse and zombie outbreak that happened without attracting even a sneer in the "neener-neener credible dimbulbs" fashion. However like all religious stories its meaning is not necessarily in whether or not it actually happened.

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

What percentage of Americans would you expect would vote for a candidate who confessed to espousing a metaphorical interpretation of sacred literature?

[telemann.livejournal.com]

Most historians and archaeological specialists believe there was a crucifixion of the historical Jesus of Nazareth and more than likely he was executed over the incident at the Temple money changers' tables. There are some chronological issues in the Gospels as you pointed out, but these historians and specialists believe the general thrust of the Gospels was historically true: he was executed. The fact that the leader of a sect of Judaism was crucified was a tremendous burden for early Christians in trying to convert Gentile Romans, and was hardly a gold star, a fact Sophia seems completely unaware of.

[theplanfailed.livejournal.com]

As far as I know, all diety's in all religions are seperate. Islam doesn't even see Jesus as anything but a Prophet.
The thing about Jesus is that you have to believe that what happened in the Bible is true. There isn't any evidence because Jesus didn't mirculously get a new body. He died on the cross, was dead three days because he had to go to Hell and get the keys to the grave from Satan, and then he came back to the same body. He even had to show the wounds to Thomas who wouldn't believe Jesus had risen until he'd seen proof himself. He spent forty days on earth before the Accention and that's when he left the Holy Ghost as part of himself and God to help Believers in every day life.

Therefore, no evidence of Jesus Christ exists. And that's why the main teaching of Christianity is simply to Believe that Jesus was real and that he'll come back to earth one day to gather everyone who has ever believed in him. The dead go first, and then the living.

Okay. No one get on me about that. I am not trying to convert anyone. I'm one of those people who don't care what other's believe. We all have the right to worship whoever and whatever in any way we see fit - unless it's human sacrifice...I think that's against the law in the States. lol. :)

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

The modern term for human sacrifice is the death penalty. People are also asked to sacrifice their lives for their country by going to Afghanistan and driving over an IED.

[dwer.livejournal.com]

fwiw, Allah, Jehovah and God are all the same. Islam, Christianity and Judaism are all Abrahamic religions -- Judaism (and then Christianity) via Isaac, and Islam via Ishmael.

Islam reveres Jesus as a very major prophet, second only to Mohammed, and many muslim rules are identical or very similar to jewish law. As is so often the case, the similarities are ignored to focus on the differences.

[dwer.livejournal.com]

Also:

He died on the cross, was dead three days because he had to go to Hell and get the keys to the grave from Satan,

I don't remember THAT from Sunday School. get the keys from Satan?

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Actually Islam is a bad example. Islam sees Jesus as the Word of God, rejecting His crucifixion for reasons to do with the particular Islamic concept of God, while holding itself to be an improvement of Judaism and Christianity, hence why it protects them as the People of the Book.

[policraticus.livejournal.com]

Is the material Creator the creator of matter or is he, himself, material?

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

Good question. Another way to put it might be: Did the material Creator actually create matter or is he mistakenly given credit for it?

[jolly-roger.livejournal.com]

You deny the Crucifixion? Why only this? I think you might get rid of any part of story.

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

I question the Crucifixion and any need for it. There are certain parts of the story that serve as keys for deeper understanding. The Crucifixion is not one of them.

[kylinrouge.livejournal.com]

Is there any reason you're not inviting us to Sophia's Clubhouse? We could all be students!

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

I do not think you would have too much fun in our "clubhouse." There is a lot of serious work to do in addition to learning.

[oportet.livejournal.com]

Do people who doubt the crucifixion get a catchy group name, like the crossers?

[telemann.livejournal.com]

Yeah, they tried to blend with the group that doubts Judas existed, and their catchy name is "The double-crossers."

[fierceleaf.livejournal.com]

Also there is creed, a statement of belief.

Creed was also used as a political bash. For example during the Great Schism the main argument of Rome was "filioque", the small statement in creed, which was considered as an heresy by Eastern Church. Filioque means that the Holy Spirit procedes "from the Father and the Son".

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

And then in 1204 this turned into the crowning irony of the Crusades when the heroic Western Armies paved the way for the Islamic conquest of all of the Near East for certain, as opposed to in theory.

[rimpala.livejournal.com]

For what it's worth, I don't doubt Jesus was a real person, something pretty significant must have happened back then to create a religion that eventually took over Rome and the rest of Europe. Someone was obviously inspired by something back then.

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

I do not doubt that either. He fits the mold of the philosophical school of the Cynics. The religion was not truly created until the fourth century. Ante-Nicene Christianity was persecuted to extinction by the orthodox.