jules?

Has this been discussed before? redirect if so, but the simple question what was the purpose of describing a implausible crucifixion?

Amaleq13

It might help if you explained exactly what you consider to be implausible about the depiction of the crucifixion.

Toto

Nothing in the gospels is especially plausible, and I don't think any of it was meant to be. Why should the crucifixion be different?

Malachi151

Because the symbolic is what is important...

jules?

The basics

Jewish crime = Jewish punishment, stoning etc
Involvement of Pilate and custom of release.
Roman crucifixion designed to be brutal, long, unforgiving and without mercy. Being removed early would be extraordinary as would being allowed burial.
Location seems a bit iffy, outside the city in public view was the trend.

I don't know how well known the act of crucifixion was within the empire but would people dismiss it as implausible? Of course as a play it makes sense being drama with a degree of dramatic licence. The end even has 'god from the machine explaining the rather lame ending but that is another story.

Malachi151

Paul described Christ as having been crucified. Obviously there was at least this tradition prior to the writing of the Gospels.

Meant to portray the Jews as horrible people.

Fits in with scriptural verses and traditions.

The event is portrayed as the centerpiece of the Passover festival in the story, since Jesus of course is symbolic of the Passover sacrifice.

Also:

The trail of Jesus basically violated all of the customs, laws and procedures for trials at the time. This was meant to portray the trial and the Jewish authorities as particularly unjust.

Also, just the fact that the crucifixion is held during the Passover festival is perhaps the most unbelievable aspect of the whole thing, again for obvious symbolic reasons.

DCHindley

The form of execution would follow from any claim that Jesus was in some way "King of the Jews". Appointing client kings was something Romans did not take lightly. Herod's dad was a Roman appointed procurator over the Judean ethnarchy formally headed by a Hasmonean prince as High Priest, and Herod himself was procurator of Galilee for the Romans, before he was elevated to the rank of a formal king. And he worked hard to earn that honor - it wasn't just handed to him nor did he dare take control of a region and try to force the Romans to accept him as ruler-in-fact as the Hasmonean rulers did with the Syrian kings.

If Jesus was found by the Romans to be making any kind of royal claim, or not vociferously declining such an honor if popularly bestowed upon him by the locals, as the gospels are forced to admit the Romans formally claimed he did (the titulus over his cross is acknowledged by the gospel writers), then crucifixion would be the kind of execution this kind of crime would merit.

Don't confuse what the gospel writers said, as a means of softening the stigma they faced at being followers of a crucified man, with what really happened. By the time the gospels were written, many Jewish people in Judaea and the general region of Coele-Syria had revolted and their revolt humiliatingly crushed. What better foil than to blame Jesus' unfortunate means of death on Jewish trechery and misunderstanding of what Jesus was "really" all about.

All that crap about Pilate trying to get Jesus off the hook because he wasn't really seditious is all Christian backpedalling. Pilate had been removed from office under a cloud in 36 CE an exiled, and likely dead by the time the gospels were written, hardly someone who could be called on as a witness to the contrary. If the authors of the gospels were not making it all up as they went, at very least they were creating explanations of what they honestly thought MUST have happened. They couldn't have misunderstood what he stood for, could they? There MUST have been a greater significance!

DCH

jules?

Of course that makes perfect sense if you see Mark as fiction [faction perhaps i.e this drama is based on the myth of the true story with additional material by Homer] but what would the average empire member think of the description would they see the drama rather than a poor description?

andrewcriddle

I'm not sure what yiou mean here.

It seems implicit in the synoptics and explicit in John (John 19:20 "...for the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city..") and Hebrews (Hebrews 13:12 "So Jesus also suffered outside the gate...") that Jesus was crucified outside the city in public view.

Andrew Criddle

jules?

Oh, I thought there was possibly more to it, place of the skull and all that, women afar, and then able to talk. [did they sing.. always look etc].

More importantly, Paul citing crucifixion is more interesting. Mark [appears] to use the suffering servant as a model for the Passion with the crucifixion being an update of being peirced and hung from a tree. But does does Paul cite crucifixion because of the importance of the cross [Tertillion [sp?] mentions that crossing the body is the christian way but does not connect it to the crucifixion]. if Paul is not citing a real event why crucifixion why not a prophesied method?