Steven Carr

Paul says the cross was a stumbling block to Jews.

This is usually taken to mean that Jews would reject the idea that a crucified man could be the Messiah.

It is like saying that the reason Americans rejected Saddam's claim to be the Great Liberator of Iraq is that Saddam had been hanged.

Actually, Saddam had been hanged because America rejected his claim to be the Great Liberator of Iraq.


The Jews clearly had not rejected Jesus as Messiah because he had been crucified.

After all, there was a period in his life when Jesus had not been crucified, and he was still rejected by the Jews.

What explanation does Paul give of why the Jews had crucified Jesus?


Paul must have known the reason why the Jews crucified Jesus.

What was that reason, and what apologetic does Paul produce to show that Jesus was innocent of whatever charge had lead to his crucifixion?

Toto

Paul doesn't blame the Jews for crucifying Jesus, except in one disputed passage. He blames the "rulers of this world." It is not at all clear that he thinks Jesus was charged with something, or was innocent of any charges for that matter.

Steven Carr

If the Jews, or Romans, had crucified Jesus for some reason, Paul would have had to mention that reason rather than merely stating that the cross was a stumbling block.

It is like saying the hangman's noose is a stumbling block to Americans accepting Saddam as the Great Liberator of Iraq. It goes deeper than that.

aa5874

Your statement is not actually true about why Saddam was hanged. He was found guilty of killing Iraqis unlawfully.


In the Jesus stories, Jesus was crucified because of blasphemy. A blasphemer is not a likely candidate to be deemed a Messiah to the Jews.

But, in actuality, the Jesus of the NT was never rejected by the Jews as a Messiah, he never lived. Jesus of the NT was a mythical God/man. It was really the Jesus stories that were rejected by the Jews as was confirmed with the arrival of Simon Bar Cocheba who was considered the Messiah.

The writers called Paul appear to believe or wanted their audience to believe that the Jesus stories were true, and claimed Jesus fullfilled the promise of Hebrew Scripture.

1 Corinthians 2.7-8

In the Jesus stories, Jesus was destined to die once he admitted he was a God or the son of One, and the Jews were obligated by law to execute blasphemers. Even in the Jesus stories, Stephen and the so-called brother/cousin of Jesus suffered the same fate. They were executed for blasphemy.

Jesus in effect basically committed suicide, he knew, in advance, that he was going to die for his blasphemous claims.

Mark 9:31 - In antiquity, especially in Judaea, a murderer and blasphemy could make the same prediction that they would be killed with reasonable success.

Toto

I don't see this.

The usual interpretation is that the crucifixion was a "stumbling block" because of the idea that anyone who hung on a tree is under God's curse. (Deuteronomy 21:23.) This holds whatever reason or lack of reason there was for the crucifixion.

I think that we can assume that Paul and everyone else felt that Jesus was condemned unfairly The actual charges by the authorities were probably not important. They might have been incoherent, as described in the gospels

I thought this thread would refer to Richard Carrier on why a crucified man could be regarded as the Messiah

ApostateAbe

The Jews didn't believe him during his life because he didn't prove himself. He didn't seem to have the military power to be the messiah. The Jewish leadership rejected him, but the primary power that crucified Jesus was likely Pontius Pilate. Pontius Pilate was, according to both Philo and Josephus, a cruel man who would kill anyone to strengthen his own power, and Jesus, with his own radical religious cult, posed a threat to that leadership. The gospels shift the blame to the Jewish leadership, and maybe they did have a hand, but the gospels were written by Greeks who had a prejudice against the Jews (the Jews were the primary threat to Christian belief), and the Pontius Pilate the gospels describe is not like the Pontius Pilate of even-handed historians. After Jesus was crucified, that would be just one more reason that Jews rejected him as the messiah. They knew their own prophecies, and Jesus didn't fit the bill.

premjan

Getting crucified was fairly common for Jews, so Jesus was nothing special.

aa5874

And Jesus was a blasphemer, so it was highly unlikely that Jews would even care about Jesus.

premjan

Besides they wanted a messiah who would kick ass, not talk crazy and run foul of authorities.

Diogenes the Cynic

He wasn't rejected because of the crcifixion per se, but because he didn't fulfill any of the expectations. It's just that simple. The Messiah was supposed to be an heir to David who would restore the Kingdom of Israel. The very least a Messianic claimant was expected to do was to get rid of the Romans. Jesus didn't do that. There never was, and still is not, any Jewish expectation that the Messiah is supposed to die, be resurrected, be a redeemer of sins or be God.

Messiahship is also not a birthright -- it's defined by fulfillment, not by per se idemtity. You're not the Messiah until AFTER you fulfill the expectations. Anyone who does without fulfilling the expectations is automatically disqualified as the Messiah regardless of how they die.