Evangelion

Toto -

I didn't find it inflammatory, nor did I consider it "designed to cause discomfort to Christians."

But it's interesting that you believed it to be both of these, yet still allowed it to remain.

IIDB Rules:

• Please exercise tact and refrain from insulting others or disrupting ongoing discussions with inflammatory speech.

Oh well.

Evangelion

That's a blatant misrepresentation; widly generalised and wildly inaccurate. I can hardly believe you wrote it with a straight face.

Because (a) it is now clear that you didn't know he was an atheist (current evidence suggests you assumed that he was a Christian), and (b) you were openly sarcastic:

• Ahh...
  
  An unwarrented and unsupported a priori assumption.
  
  Par for the course in NT studies.

Toto followed suit with his own brand of sarcasm:

• The consensus of modern Christians seems to be that some Jews and some Romans were implicated in the execution of Jesus, and any attempt to extend this to blood guilt affecting any current adherents of the Jewish faith is very bad, very bad indeed, and they are truly sorry for everything the Christian church has done in the past 2000 or so years that might have implied otherwise.

Doctor X

Slowly opens the heavy doors. Peers outside. Gazes over the smoldering scene. . . .

I am sure the "did Junior really exist?" question has "been there, done that, buried the tour guide" on this board. All I can add to it is that the author of Luke-Acts--"Lk"--and Paul both refer to his brother. If his brother existed, he probably had existence.

This, of course, tells us diddly-over-squat about what he did/stood for/said/ate for dinner.

Did he die? Burton Mack's treatment of Mk--A Myth of Innocence--discusses some of the problems with the crucifixion in Mk regarding how things were actually done. He even wonders if Mk "made it all up."

Perhaps. . . .

Personally, I tend to agree with a mentor that the execution results as a "difficult" event that later writers had to deal with--I would include events such as his failure to win a wide support, destroy the Temple, Peter denying him as other examples. Thus, I think a "tradition" of execution existed.

"Wasn't he the guy who got executed as a criminal?" is a question, I think, early authors had to address. Indeed, each of the Synoptic writers place a "spin" on the event.

So . . . did he get executed? I would probably vote "yes," with the understanding that the evidence for the conclusion remains weak.

If executed . . . by whom? If my understanding of the period is correct, the Jews did not have the authority given to them by the Synoptic authors. I agree with those who feel that, in a Roman world, the Jews proved a better scapegoat than the guys in power.

--J.D.

Toto

Hi Ev,

I am not a moderator of this forum, and can't do anything. In any case, the question is a bit inflammatory, but it is not posed in inflammatory language, which is how I would interpret that rule. The OP does not insult anyone and is not disruptive. The rules do not forbid flippant questions, sarcastic answers, or the like. Any other concerns you have about moderation should be taken to the Bugs forum.

The entire question of Christian anti-Semitism, based on the idea that the Jews killed Jesus, should be uncomfortable for Christians. I suspect the OP was designed to be provocative in that direction.

godfry n. glad

Oh, it's specific and accurate and I wrote it with a huge smile on my face. Largely because it is so typical of you.

But you see, you misunderstood. I was not mocking the author of the OP, but you and the majority of those "scholars" engaged in NT studies. You're right, it's sarcasm. And it's so much sweeter because it's absolutely true.

godfry

Vorkosigan

Getting back to the OP, the question of Jewish involvement has been exhaustively discussed. If Jesus was killed by Herod, as Gospel of Peter argues, then that settles it, since Herod was more or less a Jew (as I understand it).

If you accept Josephus' Testamonium about Jesus, then we have a clear indicator that he was killed at the behest of high-ranking Jews. Tacitus does not mention Jews in his terse note on Jesus. If you do not accept Josephus, then we have to go with the NT stories. And they were written in a time of struggle with the Jews. Are they polemical or not? How can we decide? I have no idea.

Personally, if Jesus was killed, I believe it was unlikely that the Jews had anything to do with it.

Vorkosigan

Magus55

The Jews turned Jesus over to the Romans for going against their rituals and the Jewish leaders. The Romans officially crucified Him at the request of the Jews.

Doctor X

Magus:

Based upon what evidence? As above, the Josephus, Tacitus, and other later material may represent scribal additions. Other works such as the Gospel of Peter are late.

Indeed, Mk is late--post destruction of Jerusalem and Mt and Lk rewrite Mk.

More to point, how can we trust the non-eyewitness accounts? Lk and Mt cannot agree on genealogies or Birth stories. In one Judas hangs himself, in the other he sort of "explodes."

Sounds like an X-File:

Mulder: As you can tell by the scar, clearly Judas hung himself.

Scully: But Mulder! His guts are sprayed all-over the area.

If texts cannot get basics correct, by what criteria do we judge historicity?

--J.D.

[Edited to correct a poster's name.--Ed.]

godfry n. glad

So... To provide my perspective on the OP question:

There is no consensus on the responsibility for the reputed execution of the reputed historical figure who may have served as the model for the Jesus of the gospels in the Christian New Testament.

Of course, that must be obvious by now.

godfry

godfry n. glad

Uh... To be pedantic again, I don't remember Tacitus mentioning any Jesus. He did mention Christ and related that Christ's mortal demise in Jerusalem at the hands of one Pontius Pilate.

I think the standard skeptic approach to the cite is that Tacitus likely got his information from interrogated Christians, possibly second-hand.

Of course, a mere 20-25 years after he used the term, Reb Akiba applied it to bar Kochba.

godfry