rahrens

Given the premise you suggest, and the additional condition of rejecting the supernatural portions of the NT, I would have to ask:

If the supernatural claims of Jesus' actions prior to the crucifixion are off the table, just that are we left with as a reason for the Romans to crucify him FOR?

Either he was a nobody that lived a below-the-radar life, or he was a rabble rouser that they would have wanted dead, but rabble rousing by itself wouldn't have been enough - rabble rousers were a dime a dozen, and the Romans were used to religious nuts running around the Jewish countryside.

The Romans didn't just crucify people for nothing, there was at least an issue of a public insurrection if they were just pulling people off the streets, which the Gospels do not allege. So we are left with that question at the very least. What actions are we left with in the NT tales about Jesus that would have constituted a capital offense to the Romans if we leave off the supernatural events that so roused the ire of the Jewish Sanhedrin?

The reason would have a relevance as to whether the condemning authorities would have wanted him to die slowly as an example or if he was unimportant enough that the commanding centurion would have had the discretion to kill him quickly just to end the disagreeable duty to get back to his quarters or off to other less messy tasks. Here the Gospels are silent, the Romans were only there as essentially window dressing to flesh out the story.

Your answer is necessary to decide just how easy it would have been to get him off the cross alive, or if it would have been very unlikely.

Amaleq13

Why do you think the supernatural claims about Jesus' actions prior to the crucifixion are relevant to the reason he was executed?

rahrens

Didn't say they were, but IF they were, what would be left? Why, do you think they were, or weren't?

Sheshbazzar

According to the narrative He performed a series of miracles, healing the sick, and the lame, restoring sight to the blind, and speech to the mute,
raised up the dead daughter of a public official, fed 5000 people on one occasion with only 2 fish and 5 loaves, and at another time fed 4000.
With each miracle his fame spreads wider and wider, attracting more and more followers.
Even Herod hears of his works and begins to worry whether He might be John the Baptist come back from the dead.
And with each additional miracle the priests and the Pharisees become more and more incensed and opposed to him.

Till, in John 11, he raises up Lazarus, and in 11:47-53 the chief priests and the Pharisees finally "took counsel together for to put him to death."
He had attracted thousands of admirers to his ministry, and these would have been among that crowd that threw the palm branches in front of Him on His Triumphal entry into Jerusalem, shouting "Ho'shua'na la'ben Da'weed, ba'ruch ha'ba b'shem...."
The saying that even further offended the Pharisees.
So these miracles were -according to the narrative- the primary reason that he was arrested and brought to trial.
As I have attempted to point out, the performance of the miracles are the very underpinnings of large portions of the texts;
The explanation for why the people and the priests conduct themselves as they do.

The arrest, trial, and crucifixion, become inexplicable and meaningless without the -reasons- the narrative gives for them to have happened.
Also many of Jesus' sayings would be of little consequence if they were not presented, given import, and made understood, by being presented within the context of the miracles that he was performing.

There is no way to discard the supernatural elements and maintain the identity of the main character. Without the His "special" qualities, he would have been a nobody, and his death and burial of no consequence, of no more interest or significance that the death and burial of John Doe of Anywhere USA.
Now "John Doe of Anywhere", might have been a preacher or a prophet, but as we know nothing about him, there is no reason to believe anything in particular about him.
Same with "Jesus of Nazareth" if we are going to believe (or acknowledge) anything about Him, it is necessary that we examine the information that we have on Him, omitting any information, will only leave us less informed.
We cannot "find" or "discover" the real or a "historical" Jesus by simply excluding the supernatural claims.

Transient

Not to mention that the miracles recorded were but a tiny fraction of what was performed by "Jesus" - even all the books in the world back then could not have held all stories of his doings (in 3 years - a very busy guy) - almost everyone in Israel would have known about him and have witnessed at least one miracle or maybe dozens.

Amaleq13

Asking the question implies the claim. IOW, the question makes no sense unless you think that Jesus was executed because of alleged supernatural acts.

That isn't what the Gospels describe so that would be a "weren't".

Amaleq13

That seems to describe what lead to the reason for his execution rather than a primary reason, itself, but assuming the miracles weren't real actually changes nothing as long as one allows that they may have been perceived as real by 1st century people.

The resulting fame, conspiracy and execution in the stories continues unchanged without pretending that magic is real.

Sheshbazzar

Fine by me, I am not a believer, and do not believe that these miracles ever happened, or pretend that the magic was/is real.
To me it is only a quaint story. I can discuss the contents of the texts, and their implications without a need to believe the events ever took place, or that there ever was such an individual, just as I can discuss the plot lines in Superman comics without a need to prove (or disprove) that there was a real historical Clark Kent, of some type, at sometime, somewhere.

I stated that the miracles were, -according to the narratives- the primary reason for his execution, based upon what I understand the narratives to be saying.
I am curious as to what you would consider to be the primary reason he was executed?

rahrens

My question, though, remains. IF one assumes that the "magic" wasn't real, then why was he arrested and killed? There is little in the non-supernatural account left after that assumption that would account for the Romans being willing to arrest him and punish him with crucifixion. As someone mentioned above, when you remove things from a text, you must also examine the other elements and see what is affected by that omission. Take away those supernatural activities, and lots of scenes, conversations, and other actions of various characters would be puzzling in nature without them. Why would he have been punished for simply preaching? the Romans didn't care about theology, as long as it didn't involve sedition or outright treason. They would have had no reason to crucify him for just pissing off the local religious bosses. They would have left him to those local authorities to deal with according to local laws and customs.

Crucifixion was reserved for treasonous actions and violations of the Pax Romana such as banditry, etc. Religious nuts were seldom so dealt with unless their activities ventured into the realm of sedition or incitement to violate the peace. The Romans mostly left local religious activities alone and did not interfere.

Crucifixion was a labor intensive punishment; it required guards to ensure that the victims were not rescued before they died, which could take up to three days if properly carried out, and those guards were therefor not available for other duties during that time. A back of nowhere garrison like Palestine would not have been exactly flush with large numbers of troops, and the population wasn't exactly friendly.

The NT itself is clear that Pilate was not convinced that Jesus' actions were enough of a violation to warrant death at all, much less crucifixion. So take away the supernatural stuff, and what is left?

Do you care to present some suggestions? You seem to have some ideas, I'd love to hear them.

Joan of Bark

Yes.

I accept (and I thought this was implicit in the OP), that someone came to the tomb and found it empty. Obviously I reject the parts in which an angel announces JC's resurrection. Do I accept the rest word-for-word? No. Nor do I think it all matters for the sake of this discussion. For the sake of this thread, we are simply assuming that the Romans tried to crucify Jesus, but he survived, and escaped the tomb as a result. Is such a thing possible? Is it likely? Are Holger's arguments defensible? Whatever passages you think bear on this discussion, well, by all means bring them up and we'll discuss them. If you want to say: "it's all rubbish", well, fine, but that's not going to add much to this discussion (In the same way that on a Christian board someone would say: "It's the absolute word of God and must be perfectly accurate").

Or we could claim that space aliens came down and abducted him. If you've got any evidence for either aliens or a mass grave, we're listening. (And no, I'm not being sarcastic. Everything theoretically possible is up for discussion).

There's an analogy here with the story of my namesake. In historical circles there are some doubts as to whether Joan of Arc actually led the French armies into battle against the English, or whether she was simply an inspiring 'mascot'. This is a question that can be debated without getting into the issue of how Joan got command of the army in the first place, which I'm sure the Church insists was due to her visits from two angels who gave her crucial information designed to impress the French dauphin. The latter question is a complete mystery, with a lot of speculation and no hard evidence. That doesn't stop historians from debating the question of her actual role in battle.