Secular Pinoy

Is the crucifixion a method of execution used for common criminals, as Robert Funk alleges in Honest to Jesus or is it reserved for political criminals, as Paula Fredriksen claims in Jesus of Nazareth?

Peter Kirby

Can you provide the quotes from each book? Or at least page numbers; I have the books. That would help us in determining where exactly the disagreement is and what evidence it might be based on.

best,
Peter Kirby

Secular Pinoy

Ok. Will take a while though. I do not annotate the books I read, nor do I keep notes. Add to that my perpetual absentmindedness, and I probably will have to read whole chapters of their books to find the citations.

Edited to add: Argh! Why do they have virtually useless indexes? Even a popular book should have a half-decent index. Look at Dawkins or Eldredge!

Secular Pinoy

In p. 233 in Jesus of Nazareth (I have a UK copy, so I don't know if it's the same as the US version), as a caption to an image of a heelbone belonging to a crucified man, Fredriksen writes:And in p.240, she writes, Pilate crucified Jesus. He executed him, that is, specifically as a political insurrectionist.

Funk's position can be gleaned from the following lines in Honest to Jesus:

• In p. 17, After all, Jesus was not successful in any of the categories most people regard as marks of success; instead, he was executed as a common criminal.
• In p. 224, The passion narrative assumes that Jesus was executed as a common criminal. For the historian that is the first fact to confront and assess.
• In p. 232, In the absence of eyewitnesses, the delay in forming the story, and the need to explain why Jesus had been executed as a common criminal, early Christian scholars combed the ancient texts for clues.

Also, in p. 235, Funk states that The public display of an executed criminal was intended to bring shame on the guilty party and his family.

Peter Kirby

Gerard Sloyan indicates who merited crucifixion: "What types of persons were subjected to this cruel ending in the ancient world, and to whom was it seldom or never administered? The short answer to the first is: the slaves and lower classes; soldiers, even in command positions (but not generals); the violently rebellious and the treasonous. As to the second, citizens of the Greek city-states and of the Roman state were usually done away with more briskly, seldom by crucifixion. . . It was considered too cruel and, not least, too demeaning for the upper classes. Administered to any but slaves and those who threatened the existing social order, it would be an admission that the minority citizen class could be capable of such bestial conduct [so as to deserve crucifixion]." (The Crucifixion of Jesus: History, Myth, Faith, p. 18)

Martin Hengel writes: "The Metamorphoses of Apuleius and in the same way the Greek romances treat the profitable theme of 'robbers and crucifixion' in great detail. In the view of various Roman jurists, notorious robbers (famosi latrones) should be crucified if possible at the scene of their misdeeds (Digest 48.19.28.15). In the astrological literature and the ancient treatises on dreams it almost goes without saying that the just fate of the robber is to die on the cross. The imposition of the penalty of crucifixion upon robbers and rebels in the provinces was under the free jurisdiction of the local governor, based on his imperium and the right of coercitio to maintain peace and order. ... crucifixion was an instrument to protect the populace against dangerous criminals and violent men, and accordingly brought contempt on those who suffered it. Because the robbers often drew their recruits from runaway slaves, abhorrence of the criminal was often combined with disgust at the punishment meted out to slaves." (Crucifixion in the ancient world and the folly of the message of the cross, pp. 48-50)

Martin Hengel also writes: "Cicero speaks with rhetorical exuberance of the supreme and ultimate penalty for slaves ... The term 'slaves' punishment' (servile supplicium) appears in Valerius Maximus, a contemporary of Tiberius, in Tacitus, in two authors of the Historia Augusta and for cruel torturing to death in Livy. However, the matter is to be found portrayed in the crudest terms in Plautus (c. 250 to 184 BC). He is also the first writer, so far as we know, to give evidence of Roman crucifixions. At the same time, this poet who presents the world of Roman slaves in an inimitable way, describes crucifixion more vividly and in greater detail than any other Latin writer. The antiquity and frequency of the institution is evident from the much-quoted confession of Sceledrus in the Miles Gloriosus, which was probably written about 205 BC: 'I know the cross will be my grave; that is where my ancestors are, my father, grandfathers, great-grandfathers, great-great grandfathers.' For Plautus, slaves have been executed on the cross 'from time immemorial'." (Crucifixion, pp. 51-52)

It seems that crucifixion can be carried out against slaves for nearly any cause, against violent criminals such as highway robbers, and against those guilty of sedition.

best,
Peter Kirby

GakuseiDon

I've heard that the common way crucifixion in Roman times is portrayed, which is on a T shaped cross, is in fact wrong - people were crucified on an X shaped cross.

Does anyone know the truth of this? Was it "T" shaped (either as "T" or "t") or "X" shaped, or both?

Peter Kirby

The Romans used stakes, T-shapes, and X-shapes variously and posed the crucified in various contortions with nails or ropes as it pleased their fancy and impressed the populace.

best,
Peter Kirby

Secular Pinoy

Thanks for the quotes, Pete.

How would the Jesus-as-Wisdom-Sage proponents (typified by Funk) answer Fredriksen's question in p. 232: If Caiaphas wanted Jesus out of the way for whatever offense his action encoded, and Pilate consented to do the job, why not a simple, private murder? If Jesus wasn't agitating the crowd during the Passover with apocalyptic messages (or, OTOH, the crowd itself viewed Jesus fulfilling apocalyptic visions) then why was he executed via crucifixion? Where did the crowd get the idea of tying Jesus with the apocalypse, unless Jesus himself was an Apocalyptic prophet. Surely a noneschatological wisdom sage, who trades in parables and aphorisms, would not be capable of rising a crowd into open unrest. If he were merely a nuisance cynic philosopher, why did Pilate get involved with his death with a punishment reserved for slaves, violent criminals or seditionists? Overturning tables and scaring away money changers and pigeon mongers would hardly deserve a specific Roman punishment.

And even if Jesus did threaten the temple itself (Funk notes verses in GMark, GLuke and GThomas where Jesus may have said so, pp. 229-230), would that have been enough to move Pilate to meddle in internal Jewish affairs? Would that really be enough to publicly execute Jesus via crucifixion?

Peter, in his website, summarizes the case put forward by Fredriksen that Jesus was indeed an Apocalypticist, and the central point is the fact that Jesus was crucified:

Wayin

Secular Pinoy

From what I see:
It was in St. Jerome's Latin Vulgate that "cross" first crept into the New Testament. That's the "crux" of the matter. ("x" makes an "s" sound in Latin)

Aslo for consideration:
"stauros" pronounced "stahv-rohs", can mean stake or post, it can also mean cross and has been recognized since the earliest times of the Christian era. In the catacombs of Rome burial vaults, which date back to the first century, are decorated with pictures of doves, lambs, and crosses.

Thought you might be interested in the following URL:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontl...ucifixion.html


Such is life,
Wayin

GakuseiDon

]
Thanks for that, Peter.