JeromeW

One thing I never understand is the idea that "Jesus died for your sins." Okay. I assume that the idea is that before Jesus you had to bear the burden of your sins... But why did god / jesus want to absolve our since? Couldn't you just do the jewish stuff to absolve them? Even if I understood that Jesus wanted to absolve our sins, why would him dying do anything for it? Can someone explain this to me. Thanks. :huh:

Vinnie

You are in luck. I have a big article up on penal substituiton and all its absurdities!

http://www.after-hourz.net/ri/ps1.html

JeromeW

Thanks.

How did this bizarre rationalization come about?

I assume the early Christians came up with it after Jesus' death? Why did they feel the need to have Jesus sacrifice himself? Was it a way to make his death meaningful? It just seems so bizarre... What was their impulse to go this route? In other words, it seems like they are doing some real acrobatics here. What is the idea they are trying to make work by contorting so much?

Godless Wonder

This is my favorite explanation of it all:
http://www.extian.org/home.htm

Oops. Just noticed this was BC&H forum. My post, being only as serious as Hell, is probalby not serious enough.

Dave Roberts

Imagine this if you will.
JESUS IS GOD, he can't die!!! So either Jesus/God did die, which would mean God is dead or some MAN died. After all if the whole point of Jesus coming to Earth was to die for the sins of man, then why all the whining once on the cross???

Casper

I don't see anything absurd about it at all.

The crucifiction is as hebrew (to my limited knowledge) as the Abrahamic sacrifice tradition. The lamb is slaughtered and offers repentance with blood. Even the intervention and substitution motif is there. What is so diffcult to comprehend? You don't shear a sheep's wool and then let it go and call it a worthy sacrifice....

rlogan

Sacrifice is ancient. So this is an ancient rationalization applied in a new context.

"Christ crucified" as a religious theory in the spiritual realm probably preceeded Jesus the historical personage. Google Doherty. Jesus puzzle.

Several things going on at once.

Resurrection of the dead is a pre-existing theory the Jesus story has to embrace.

Sacrifice for atonement of sins is a pre-existing theory the Jesus story has to embrace.

The Christ of course is the centerpiece of all the action and so:


The Christ comes, is sacrificed, and is raised from the dead. Our sins are forgiven. Yay!

lulay

you know that saying 'be careful what you wish for"?...well after my explanation, you might change 'wish' to 'ask' for...heh

a summary from what i have grokked. As you know christianity is connected to Juadism right? hence usually the amalgamation is thus 'Judaic-Christinity'

In Hebrew cultur there had been a culture of actual bloody sacrfice to 'God'.....its all in the O.T
as well as...there were stifling laws and regulations and customs the Jews had to follow so as to follow their 'god's authority

what the Christians did--after appropriating Hellenistic pagan ideas, was create amyth that did away with all the 'legal' crap...all the rituals etc. and have thier 'hero' die for our sins. that's the SUR-FACE story

the deeper tale is strngly connected with pagan earth religions. this is where the celebrants actuall eat and drank hallucinogens. they saw this as eating their god's blood and body. And then they became 'possessed' of the god
So that event was a kind of sacrifice of any blocked-feeling that blocked out inclusvity of community and environment/Nature....ie., you had yourself beCOME god

doing so meant healing for oneself, the community and Nature

what happened to the Christian myth is that it became hoplessly literlized. and now we got nearly 60 million fukin red necks in the States putting this 'born agin' christian, who is gonna carry on doing LOTs of terrible things to flesh and Nature etc

Chili

let'r rip girl.

I think the gawd awful blood sacrifices were their to test their stupidity and see how long they would put up with if before they looked for the reality behind the metaphor.

JeromeW

I wasn't seeing the sacrificial connection. Thanks guys. I forgot about the lamb of god idea.

But that leads me to another question. The rationalization thus seems to rely on the assumption that you can make good by killing something. I understand the old testament has a lot of that kind of thing. Does the Old Testament explain how sacrifice works (i.e. how killing something in the name of god can help you)?