Steven Carr

As we all know, crucifixion was an embarrassment, because it meant that Jesus died a shameful death.

Nobody would make up a story where their leader praised a crucified criminal who died a shameful death and who had even admitted to being justly punished ‘ We are punished justly, for we are getting what our deeds deserve.’

So there really must have been two thieves crucified at the same time, and Jesus really must have praised one of them.

Unless early Christians actually felt no embarrassment about praising crucified criminals, even criminals who the early Christians themselves claimed fully deserved to be crucified?

mountainman

Equally, nobody would make up a story in which it would have been embarrasing to put up a fight against the enemies of Jesus until the time was right when it was not embarrasing to put up a fight against the enemies of Jesus.

When did the unembarrassed servants of Jesus fight for his kingdom on planet Earth? Let me see ....

Doug Shaver

Here's what I don't get. Taking into consideration the observed behavior of modern Christian apologists . . . why should we think that anything could have embarrassed early Christians?

Solo

Actually that is one of the oft-overlooked keys to the mysteries of early Christianity. People don't realize how often a negative epithet becomes the rallying cry, and a moniker proudly worn in a calculated act of defiance.

A few examples: the word feminist was coined by a French utopian socialist thinker Charles Fourier , but never came to be used by the early women emancipation ideologues (Elizabeth Stanton Cady was a Fourierist for a while). It was first deployed in France by post-Commune socialists and imported into the English language world shortly after as a way to point to excess and belligerence in the women emancipation movements. Rebecca's West famous complaint : 'people call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a doormat or a prostitute' relates to this early understanding of the term.

The n-word has been deployed in by the African American community in the U.S. as a slang term of affection and endearment. Nigga is used that way in Quentin Tarantino's movies, with the honkey director appearing in a cameo role in Pulp Fiction to deliver a line with the forbidden slur. But the usage has a long history. Louis Armstrong shocked the Britsh Royals in the 1930's by refering to himself as nigger during a reception at Buckingham Palace.

Finally, the designation chetnik in Tito's Yugoslavia became a synonym for degenerate village butcher and related to the known war-time excesses of the Serbian monarchist guerillas fighting the Nazis, their Croatian Ustashe-Bosniac allies and Tito's communist partisans. After the country fell apart, the name was revived under Milosevic in 1990's as an honorific title for any full-bloodied Serbian fighter. In the long-standing Balkan insurrectionist traditions one would be considered a wilting lily if lacking in fondness for mutilating enemy corpses.

So, indeed, there are many examples of turning of a hostile epithet into a proudly worn sub-cultural badge of honour. Luckily for Christianity, there was Paul who had little patience for the cultic nonsense and crude exhibits of antinomian fervor.

Jiri

aa5874

Early Christians did NOT understand that Jesus was SACRIFICED and RESURRECTED on the THIRD day?

Was the author of gMark an EARLY CHRISTIAN?

Mr 9:31 - Mark 10And now, was the author of gMatthew an EARLY Christian?

Well, he wrote the same things as gMark. The supposed Jesus TAUGHT his disciples that his DEATH would be EMBARRASSING but he would RESURRECT.

Matthew 20Was the author of gLuke an EARLY Christian?

Well he wrote the same thing.

Lu 9:22 - WHO were the EARLY Christians? Was it the author of Matthew, Mark, and Luke?

They all wrote that Jesus did RESURRECT and EMBARRASSED the JEWS.