Doctor X

I think in all seriousness it is progressive mythmaking. Once you decide to make Junior a god, then his execution becomes "problematic" to write the least.

So . . . you have to make his execution "impo'tant."--Mark

Well . . . how can anyone control a god? So you have Jn where EVERYTHING is controled--Junior purposely tarries so Lazarus can bite the dust so he can raise him from the dead.

Thus, the reality of it all is questionable.

Too much mythadventures. . . .

--J.D.

Biff the unclean

Okay now you are just getting silly. You've switched your claim from that of the bible (that the Jews weren't allowed to put any man to death) to a unverified (and somewhat illogical) claim that local authorities could use capital punishment but only for minor offences.

What you have to keep in mind is that this story isn't history, it's a novel. And a poorly written novel at that. This is one of it's many plot flaws. It's a story that was written after the destruction of Israel and the author needs the Jews to be the villains of it.
The Jews have to hate the hero and they have to kill him, they are, after all, the bad guys. This should be no problem as the hero is guilty of blasphemy and of causing a riot in the Great Temple. The problem that arises is one of methodology. The Jews execute people by either letting a mob of civilians beat in their skulls with rocks or by having the local constabulary chop off their heads. This would never do because the story line makes the hero a "Christ." A Christ being a specific type of Hellenistic demigod/hero who dies at the spring equinox and then, like the new moon, comes back to life after three days. This is an ancient form of hero/god (as you can tell by the equinox agrarian connections) and there were many cults to different ones from India to Britain. These "Christs" always died by either being gored by an animal (a boar or a bull) or they were crucified.
Plot flaw: the Jews didn't crucify people. So the author writes that the fair and decent Romans don't allow the blood thirsty Jews to execute people, conveniently forgetting that he has been having the evil Jews execute people left and right from the beginning of the novel (remember all those innocent babies the Jews executed while the Romans were busy being census takers?).
A good copy editor would have caught this before it ever hit the presses.
The Romans don't want to execute the hero, Pilate does a little hand washing ceremony to show he really has nothing to do with it. The villainous Jewish mob insists that the hero be killed. But golly gee, what's a poor decent Roman to do, they have to keep civil order after all?
Personally I think the coming back from the dead scene would have been more dramatic if the hero had had his head chopped off and came back holding it under his arm. But all of these demigod cults are quite specific about how the demigod has to die so the author was stuck with the long established form.

tdekeyser

As Dr X said in my defense, it is 100% rational. I feel pity for ANY human being mistreated because of unrational religions.


"Most successful?" Success in what? Hate?