Jesus died for us! But he got better.
January 27, 2020 9:33 PM Subscribe
I have never understood why Jesus' ressurection was as big a deal as everyone assumes. Yes, he suffered on the cross, but many people endure worse daily. Yes he died, as people also do; but he came back to life, and knew he would. Enduring a humiliating and painful surgery under general anesthesia is about comparable. Why is this all that was needed to save humanity from "sin"?
I attended an Episcopalian school for ten years, and Sunday school, and Easter/Christmas church. It was always just taken as fact that Jesus did this for our sins and therefore we owe him eternal worship. No one has ever explained to me why this was something so powerful, when 1.People who aren't even God go through worse all the time and 2. Why was it even a "sacrifice" when he didn't even stay dead? I'm not trying to religion-bash here, I just don't understand the logic here.
I attended an Episcopalian school for ten years, and Sunday school, and Easter/Christmas church. It was always just taken as fact that Jesus did this for our sins and therefore we owe him eternal worship. No one has ever explained to me why this was something so powerful, when 1.People who aren't even God go through worse all the time and 2. Why was it even a "sacrifice" when he didn't even stay dead? I'm not trying to religion-bash here, I just don't understand the logic here.
The context is the Old Testament practice of animal offerings and sacrifices for sin. The crucifixion is God (the father) making an offering of His son on behalf of the entirety of humanity—hence the term ‘Lamb of God’. For Christians, it’s the last sacrifice that ever needs to happen. The resurrection, along with the other Gospel miracles, is proof of divinity. The concept is developed by Paul in particular as a way of saying this salvation, through Christ, is offered to everyone.
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 10:46 PM on January 27, 2020 [14 favorites]
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 10:46 PM on January 27, 2020 [14 favorites]
you are asking three questions, confusingly blended together.
1. crucifixion, what's the big deal:
but many people endure worse daily
spoken like someone who's never died! people who have been tortured don't usually brush it off so casually.
how many of those who suffer worse -- and nobody endures it daily, one time and you're through-- how many of them sign up for it knowing how bad it's going to be? even among people who want to die, many back out halfway through because they can't stand the process or get scared, and many more would do that if their methods allowed. part of the crucifixion deal is it's harder for him than it could be for any human, because he could have stopped it at any time and had to choose suffering instead all the way through. it's important both that he's allowing it to happen and that he doesn't want it to happen.
2. why do we have to pay for this creepy crucifixion show we didn't even order
then, you have the cause and effect backwards. humanity isn't supposed to worship jesus as payment for the crucifixion; the crucifixion was the payment. like jesus is both the crumpled-up pawn ticket and the man who finds that ticket in his old overcoat pocket. humanity is what he is buying back via his payment (sacrifice.)
3. the third part of the question is the mystery part, how someone can pay for your sins without your knowledge or consent, by dying, how someone else's atonement can mystically affect your sins. since I am not and never have been nor will be a christian, I can't help you there. obviously it can't and they can't.
posted by queenofbithynia at 10:57 PM on January 27, 2020 [12 favorites]
1. crucifixion, what's the big deal:
but many people endure worse daily
spoken like someone who's never died! people who have been tortured don't usually brush it off so casually.
how many of those who suffer worse -- and nobody endures it daily, one time and you're through-- how many of them sign up for it knowing how bad it's going to be? even among people who want to die, many back out halfway through because they can't stand the process or get scared, and many more would do that if their methods allowed. part of the crucifixion deal is it's harder for him than it could be for any human, because he could have stopped it at any time and had to choose suffering instead all the way through. it's important both that he's allowing it to happen and that he doesn't want it to happen.
2. why do we have to pay for this creepy crucifixion show we didn't even order
then, you have the cause and effect backwards. humanity isn't supposed to worship jesus as payment for the crucifixion; the crucifixion was the payment. like jesus is both the crumpled-up pawn ticket and the man who finds that ticket in his old overcoat pocket. humanity is what he is buying back via his payment (sacrifice.)
3. the third part of the question is the mystery part, how someone can pay for your sins without your knowledge or consent, by dying, how someone else's atonement can mystically affect your sins. since I am not and never have been nor will be a christian, I can't help you there. obviously it can't and they can't.
posted by queenofbithynia at 10:57 PM on January 27, 2020 [12 favorites]
1. Religion is not based on logic. Not any of it. It's about faith. Even in the face of blatant fallacies or contradictions.
2. Your premise, even with regard to logic, is flawed. His last words according to Matthew and Mark are "My God, why hast Thou forsaken me?" Which does not indicate to me that he knew he would be reborn, or that he was having even close to an ok time.
Also why do you assume his crucifixion is painless? He didnt get a magic pass on how awful it was. There is nothing in the Bible saying that he didn't suffer, quite the contrary. Crucifixion was the *worst* punishment. It's still practiced in some places and it is gruesome and horrific.
And, like, resurrecting from the dead is a fairly big deal. Not many people get to do that, except for Lazarus and he was an exception for some reason.
posted by ananci at 12:00 AM on January 28, 2020 [10 favorites]
2. Your premise, even with regard to logic, is flawed. His last words according to Matthew and Mark are "My God, why hast Thou forsaken me?" Which does not indicate to me that he knew he would be reborn, or that he was having even close to an ok time.
Also why do you assume his crucifixion is painless? He didnt get a magic pass on how awful it was. There is nothing in the Bible saying that he didn't suffer, quite the contrary. Crucifixion was the *worst* punishment. It's still practiced in some places and it is gruesome and horrific.
And, like, resurrecting from the dead is a fairly big deal. Not many people get to do that, except for Lazarus and he was an exception for some reason.
posted by ananci at 12:00 AM on January 28, 2020 [10 favorites]
Yes, he suffered on the cross, but many people endure worse daily.
Those three days in hell, tho.
Seriously, that was the headcanon that came out of my erratically lutheran childhood-- that Jesus knew things were going to be okay for him, because he reassured the thief they would be together in Paradise. "Why hast thou forsaken me?" was a cry of agony as he was cast out of the presence of his father and into hell, and that unspoken time is where Christ really earned the salvation of humanity.
posted by Sauce Trough at 12:29 AM on January 28, 2020 [11 favorites]
Those three days in hell, tho.
Seriously, that was the headcanon that came out of my erratically lutheran childhood-- that Jesus knew things were going to be okay for him, because he reassured the thief they would be together in Paradise. "Why hast thou forsaken me?" was a cry of agony as he was cast out of the presence of his father and into hell, and that unspoken time is where Christ really earned the salvation of humanity.
posted by Sauce Trough at 12:29 AM on January 28, 2020 [11 favorites]
Think of the best person you know. A real, specific person, a friend or family member or a great community leader. Someone who works tirelessly for other people, always does the right thing, and makes the world a better place just by being in it.
Now, imagine you’ve committed a terrible, horrible crime. In a moment (or a lifetime) of awful hubris, you’ve done something really really bad. You are 100% guilty and you know it. You deserve what’s coming to you. You’re sentenced to death by torture for your crime, and you kind of agree that you deserve it.
Then, the best person you know, the one who makes the world better just by being in it, offers to take your punishment for you. They are completely innocent and you are completely guilty, but they knowingly (knowing both exactly how guilty you are and exactly how awful and painful the punishment will be) step in your place. You get to go free. The best person you know will be tortured to death in your place.
That person will endure the following - first a beating, then a whipping. Then humiliation in front of a crowd. Then they have to drag a heavy piece of the cross that will kill them up a big hill, while unfriendly people laugh and jeer and watch. Then they’ll be nailed to the cross - a long piece of metal will be pounded into each of their wrists and their feet. They’ll be hoisted up in the hot sun to slowly suffocate to death as a crowd watches and hurls insults and rocks. As the weight of their body drags them down, they’ll have the choice to sag there, unable to breathe, or pull themselves up against the nails in their bleeding wrists to get another breath. And if they don’t die fast enough, the guards will break their legs, throw them in jail for about 36 hours, and then put them back up to suffocate some more.
It’ll take them three hours of hanging on the cross to suffocate, with many more hours since their torture began. At any point, they could proclaim their innocence. They’d be saved and their hurts would be healed. You’d die instead, as you deserve. Instead, they choose and keep choosing to take your place, even though they don’t deserve to suffer and they didn’t do anything wrong.
Or turn it around. The worst, most guilty person in the world is sentenced to an awful death for their crimes. Would you step in, right now, today, and take their punishment for them, so that you’re tortured to death and they go free? Jesus did, for us.
Both these scenarios assume two humans - a guilty human sinner and a good human who sacrifices themselves for the guilty one. In the case of Jesus, the good human was also the God who made heaven and earth and us. God came down from heaven in the person of Jesus to be tortured to death for the bad things we’ve done that we’re 1000% guilty for.
We don’t have to worship Jesus. He paid all our debts for us on the cross. We are free to walk away and never think about it again. We worship Him because we’re grateful that His love for us is so awesome and powerful that He was willing to take our place, to die for us so that we and everyone we love can live forever together. God and Jesus’s Goodness and power and majesty and love for us inspire us to worship them in a similar way to the way a gorgeous sunset or a mighty waterfall inspire us to stop and stare and smile and slowly say “Wow!”
posted by bananacabana at 1:03 AM on January 28, 2020 [31 favorites]
Now, imagine you’ve committed a terrible, horrible crime. In a moment (or a lifetime) of awful hubris, you’ve done something really really bad. You are 100% guilty and you know it. You deserve what’s coming to you. You’re sentenced to death by torture for your crime, and you kind of agree that you deserve it.
Then, the best person you know, the one who makes the world better just by being in it, offers to take your punishment for you. They are completely innocent and you are completely guilty, but they knowingly (knowing both exactly how guilty you are and exactly how awful and painful the punishment will be) step in your place. You get to go free. The best person you know will be tortured to death in your place.
That person will endure the following - first a beating, then a whipping. Then humiliation in front of a crowd. Then they have to drag a heavy piece of the cross that will kill them up a big hill, while unfriendly people laugh and jeer and watch. Then they’ll be nailed to the cross - a long piece of metal will be pounded into each of their wrists and their feet. They’ll be hoisted up in the hot sun to slowly suffocate to death as a crowd watches and hurls insults and rocks. As the weight of their body drags them down, they’ll have the choice to sag there, unable to breathe, or pull themselves up against the nails in their bleeding wrists to get another breath. And if they don’t die fast enough, the guards will break their legs, throw them in jail for about 36 hours, and then put them back up to suffocate some more.
It’ll take them three hours of hanging on the cross to suffocate, with many more hours since their torture began. At any point, they could proclaim their innocence. They’d be saved and their hurts would be healed. You’d die instead, as you deserve. Instead, they choose and keep choosing to take your place, even though they don’t deserve to suffer and they didn’t do anything wrong.
Or turn it around. The worst, most guilty person in the world is sentenced to an awful death for their crimes. Would you step in, right now, today, and take their punishment for them, so that you’re tortured to death and they go free? Jesus did, for us.
Both these scenarios assume two humans - a guilty human sinner and a good human who sacrifices themselves for the guilty one. In the case of Jesus, the good human was also the God who made heaven and earth and us. God came down from heaven in the person of Jesus to be tortured to death for the bad things we’ve done that we’re 1000% guilty for.
We don’t have to worship Jesus. He paid all our debts for us on the cross. We are free to walk away and never think about it again. We worship Him because we’re grateful that His love for us is so awesome and powerful that He was willing to take our place, to die for us so that we and everyone we love can live forever together. God and Jesus’s Goodness and power and majesty and love for us inspire us to worship them in a similar way to the way a gorgeous sunset or a mighty waterfall inspire us to stop and stare and smile and slowly say “Wow!”
posted by bananacabana at 1:03 AM on January 28, 2020 [31 favorites]
So the above answers have addressed the big deal about why the crucifixion was a big deal, and the way that it's a sacrifice in our place. As to why it still counts even though he came back to life, think about double jeopardy- we don't make people go to jail again and again for the same crime. Once and done.
Why was this even necessary, though?
God is perfect. As above, even without the crucifixion he still would be worthy of all worship. So he can't abide with sin, because he is perfect. Therefore, we, sinners, can't be with God. BUT he desperately wants to have a relationship with us because he loves us deeply. So God made a way by coming as a man, Jesus, and dying unjustly, in our place. The whole relationship* with God part is kind of the whole point, according to a Christian.
So that's a pretty cool and amazing part of the story- we're not condemned. But! The resurrection is a crucial part of this. Because Jesus conquered death, we can also expect everlasting life with Jesus if we believe in him. Also, the fact that Jesus rose from the dead shows that the death was enough to pay. And finally, Jesus rising from the dead shows his authority over everything, even death, and thus proving his divinity.
(I've googled around a bit and this article on Christianity.com lays it out pretty simply- sorry, ads.)
(your post title reminds me of a Sunday School style kids program, where my sister had a puppet very upset during a retelling of the crucifixion story at the fact that Jesus was dead- and a little voice in the audience said "it's OK, he comes back!")
*how that works on a day to day basis now that Jesus isn't on earth any more involves the Holy Spirit, which is beyond the scope of this question.
(Also apologies if I come across as obnoxiously super keen here- this is something I personally believe in and part of that is talking about it. If you do want to chat about it I'm open to me-mails!)
posted by freethefeet at 1:49 AM on January 28, 2020 [8 favorites]
Why was this even necessary, though?
God is perfect. As above, even without the crucifixion he still would be worthy of all worship. So he can't abide with sin, because he is perfect. Therefore, we, sinners, can't be with God. BUT he desperately wants to have a relationship with us because he loves us deeply. So God made a way by coming as a man, Jesus, and dying unjustly, in our place. The whole relationship* with God part is kind of the whole point, according to a Christian.
So that's a pretty cool and amazing part of the story- we're not condemned. But! The resurrection is a crucial part of this. Because Jesus conquered death, we can also expect everlasting life with Jesus if we believe in him. Also, the fact that Jesus rose from the dead shows that the death was enough to pay. And finally, Jesus rising from the dead shows his authority over everything, even death, and thus proving his divinity.
(I've googled around a bit and this article on Christianity.com lays it out pretty simply- sorry, ads.)
(your post title reminds me of a Sunday School style kids program, where my sister had a puppet very upset during a retelling of the crucifixion story at the fact that Jesus was dead- and a little voice in the audience said "it's OK, he comes back!")
*how that works on a day to day basis now that Jesus isn't on earth any more involves the Holy Spirit, which is beyond the scope of this question.
(Also apologies if I come across as obnoxiously super keen here- this is something I personally believe in and part of that is talking about it. If you do want to chat about it I'm open to me-mails!)
posted by freethefeet at 1:49 AM on January 28, 2020 [8 favorites]
I think the context is ancient near eastern religions, actually. The idea of a son god that dies and is reborn was a part of most religious practice. Usually this would be an annual thing and the rebirth would be connected to the fertility of the land (see Easter). This would have had a lot of resonance for people.
No religion comes from nowhere.
posted by Salamandrous at 3:40 AM on January 28, 2020 [6 favorites]
No religion comes from nowhere.
posted by Salamandrous at 3:40 AM on January 28, 2020 [6 favorites]
They hammer NAILS through your hands and feet
I think they often tied the arms. It's an issue how much weight nails through the wrists (not hands, that is a no go, and, it seems, a translation issue from Greek ) could take. The archeological evidence, which there is not much of, shows foot nailing (one in each ankle, not feet crossed like in gory art).
People focus on the nailing and I'm sure it is very painful, but it's just an enhancement. It's not like crucifixion wouldn't be so bad, except for the nails. There's plenty of gruesome apologia + pathology speculation on the Internet if you want to chase after the details of death by crucifixion. Basically, it was good news if they decided to break your legs to speed things up.
posted by thelonius at 4:13 AM on January 28, 2020 [4 favorites]
I think they often tied the arms. It's an issue how much weight nails through the wrists (not hands, that is a no go, and, it seems, a translation issue from Greek ) could take. The archeological evidence, which there is not much of, shows foot nailing (one in each ankle, not feet crossed like in gory art).
People focus on the nailing and I'm sure it is very painful, but it's just an enhancement. It's not like crucifixion wouldn't be so bad, except for the nails. There's plenty of gruesome apologia + pathology speculation on the Internet if you want to chase after the details of death by crucifixion. Basically, it was good news if they decided to break your legs to speed things up.
posted by thelonius at 4:13 AM on January 28, 2020 [4 favorites]
I may be remembering this a little wrong but you might want to look into the two books by Jack Miles that examine the Bible as if it’s a biography of this guy, God, who keeps creating all kinds of universal laws because he is (unlike many of his predecessors) sole deity. In that sense, Jesus is God and his crucifixion is kind of like a reset button. God dies, and with him all the laws of the Old Testament, and instead he pretty much is like “be nice to each other and believe in me.” In that view (and I may have made some of this up since reading the books), part of the agony is the undoing of the old relationship, God as protector/smiter, and it’s letting humanity do its worst - the betrayal of Judas, getting put on trial, paraded, horribly killed, by essentially your kids/favourite pets/worshippers.
I hesitate to share this but here goes, I was “crucified” as a kid, tied up on a tree and left alone for what was probably 10 minutes but felt like forever, as a lesson. (This is why I may be fuzzy on the Jack Miles stuff.) It’s pretty awful. There is something about the height that messes with your head, feet without purchase, the exposure of your pain to the air, the abandonment yes but also the unnatural ness of it - and it hurts a lot. It’s very primal, the tribe leaves you exposed like meat hung up. I actually am left with different questions like why does humanity suck so hard that it comes up with these things and why would God have a child, let him feel human things, and then not protect him. Of course that’s my cry in the night, no? And confronting that hopefully makes me aware of others’ pain and to be better.
I’m not really that Christian though.
posted by warriorqueen at 4:28 AM on January 28, 2020 [4 favorites]
I hesitate to share this but here goes, I was “crucified” as a kid, tied up on a tree and left alone for what was probably 10 minutes but felt like forever, as a lesson. (This is why I may be fuzzy on the Jack Miles stuff.) It’s pretty awful. There is something about the height that messes with your head, feet without purchase, the exposure of your pain to the air, the abandonment yes but also the unnatural ness of it - and it hurts a lot. It’s very primal, the tribe leaves you exposed like meat hung up. I actually am left with different questions like why does humanity suck so hard that it comes up with these things and why would God have a child, let him feel human things, and then not protect him. Of course that’s my cry in the night, no? And confronting that hopefully makes me aware of others’ pain and to be better.
I’m not really that Christian though.
posted by warriorqueen at 4:28 AM on January 28, 2020 [4 favorites]
I'm a non-practicing Catholic, but as for the "why was it even necessary" part of your question, intellectually I like C.S. Lewis' take on it.
posted by AndrewInDC at 4:29 AM on January 28, 2020 [4 favorites]
posted by AndrewInDC at 4:29 AM on January 28, 2020 [4 favorites]
There are many "theories of atonement" (not sure about the linked site as a whole; didn't look, but the link itself seems helpful).
A couple of points that sometimes get emphasized and sometimes don't, are to claim Jesus's whole life and death as salvific, rather than just his death. Also, the idea that if one guy can come back to life, then people can come back to life, and he knows how. Which means that death isn't as final, and now the threats of the Romans aren't as scary because they can't kill you forever.
posted by Huffy Puffy at 4:29 AM on January 28, 2020 [5 favorites]
A couple of points that sometimes get emphasized and sometimes don't, are to claim Jesus's whole life and death as salvific, rather than just his death. Also, the idea that if one guy can come back to life, then people can come back to life, and he knows how. Which means that death isn't as final, and now the threats of the Romans aren't as scary because they can't kill you forever.
posted by Huffy Puffy at 4:29 AM on January 28, 2020 [5 favorites]
Historically obedience and deference to authority was the thing. Hundreds of thousands of years of history have not had a whiff of egalitarianism in them. Whipping your servants and apprentices was required, slaves sometimes outnumbered free people, spare the rod spoil the child, if you saw a member of the noble class you got down on your knees. When kings and lords traveled they went to whatever house they arrived at when they wanted to stop and the inhabitants brought all their food out and then cleared out themselves leaving the kings and lords to sleep in the warmth and eat several weeks worth of food, which left the villagers at significant risk of death by starvation. Bowing and scraping was real. Obedience and submission to authority was real.
This level of respect and obedience was so extreme and so ingrained and so high that prayers were said every day in every church for the well being of the king. Magical beliefs meant that people were actually terrified that the people at the top would get sick or hurt or fail because if something bad happens to them something bad happens to all of us. Treason to wish ill upon the king.
That's for context. So much more so for the god(s).
This means that harm to the most high is way more important than harm to us peons. Ordinary men are expected to die in battle, the king is expected to be rescued by men who die to defend his retreat. The death of a god turns this trope upside down. Everyone of the medievals and classical era people knew it was their duty to die for the king or the god if called for, and they weren't even owed thanks or respect for it. So for them the idea of a king who died for his people - that was a bit of a mind-blower but also, oh so affirming because when you were utterly dependent on the king or the god to protect you, actual evidence that this king cared enough to take any personal harm on your behalf. It was heart-breakingly affirming.
Jesus, as God, could simply save everyone and give them eternal life by choosing to do so. He could have done so with a hand wave, which is the part about the devil tempting him to use his powers. He chose to do so by becoming human. He chose to do so by becoming one of us, which meant going through all the ghastly stuff we go through. Most humans die painfully. To be human is to understand that and go through with that. But Jesus chose to experience it. This is kind of like if you are going to go through chemo and feeling so alone and scared... and your best friend doesn't just shave his head to show you his solidarity, doesn't just go to the hospital with you when you get chemo - he takes all the drugs too, and goes through the same torment you do, all so that you don't feel alone, so that he can be with you every step of the way. And when you die... he dies too because he doesn't want to live without you. That's the kind of intimacy and understanding that Jesus showed by dying with/for us.
Of course if your friend did this it would be a stupid waste and pathological, but when Jesus did it he was resurrected - and this means that your death is not a stupid waste, the same way his death is not a stupid waste. You and he are both resurrected.
There is a story about a concentration camp where they decided to punish the prisoners for some group infraction by executing about a dozen prisoners in front of everyone. They hanged them. One of the prisoners was just a boy, undersized, in his teens, and when he was hanging on the rope he was so light weight that he didn't die. Instead he suffered. He was twitching, kicking, drooling, in intense pain and it just went on and on. And the prisoners watching, praying, were crying, "Where are you Jesus? Where are you?" Jesus is always with us, right? So where was Jesus? He was at the end of that rope.
posted by Jane the Brown at 5:15 AM on January 28, 2020 [3 favorites]
This level of respect and obedience was so extreme and so ingrained and so high that prayers were said every day in every church for the well being of the king. Magical beliefs meant that people were actually terrified that the people at the top would get sick or hurt or fail because if something bad happens to them something bad happens to all of us. Treason to wish ill upon the king.
That's for context. So much more so for the god(s).
This means that harm to the most high is way more important than harm to us peons. Ordinary men are expected to die in battle, the king is expected to be rescued by men who die to defend his retreat. The death of a god turns this trope upside down. Everyone of the medievals and classical era people knew it was their duty to die for the king or the god if called for, and they weren't even owed thanks or respect for it. So for them the idea of a king who died for his people - that was a bit of a mind-blower but also, oh so affirming because when you were utterly dependent on the king or the god to protect you, actual evidence that this king cared enough to take any personal harm on your behalf. It was heart-breakingly affirming.
Jesus, as God, could simply save everyone and give them eternal life by choosing to do so. He could have done so with a hand wave, which is the part about the devil tempting him to use his powers. He chose to do so by becoming human. He chose to do so by becoming one of us, which meant going through all the ghastly stuff we go through. Most humans die painfully. To be human is to understand that and go through with that. But Jesus chose to experience it. This is kind of like if you are going to go through chemo and feeling so alone and scared... and your best friend doesn't just shave his head to show you his solidarity, doesn't just go to the hospital with you when you get chemo - he takes all the drugs too, and goes through the same torment you do, all so that you don't feel alone, so that he can be with you every step of the way. And when you die... he dies too because he doesn't want to live without you. That's the kind of intimacy and understanding that Jesus showed by dying with/for us.
Of course if your friend did this it would be a stupid waste and pathological, but when Jesus did it he was resurrected - and this means that your death is not a stupid waste, the same way his death is not a stupid waste. You and he are both resurrected.
There is a story about a concentration camp where they decided to punish the prisoners for some group infraction by executing about a dozen prisoners in front of everyone. They hanged them. One of the prisoners was just a boy, undersized, in his teens, and when he was hanging on the rope he was so light weight that he didn't die. Instead he suffered. He was twitching, kicking, drooling, in intense pain and it just went on and on. And the prisoners watching, praying, were crying, "Where are you Jesus? Where are you?" Jesus is always with us, right? So where was Jesus? He was at the end of that rope.
posted by Jane the Brown at 5:15 AM on January 28, 2020 [3 favorites]
Perspective of an atheist who was raised as a conservative Christian, who's spent more time than the average American trying to read and understand the bible (though it's been a few years at this point).
Based on what I've read and my own opinion, Jesus likely did exist and was probably executed by the Romans. His death was retroactively given meaning by Christianity, in a way that works within the context of Jewish tradition.
You really have to go back to the Old Testament and understand (as well as a modern mind can) the importance of blood sacrifice as atonement for sin. Here's the first chapter of Leviticus in the Skeptic's Annotated Bible if you want a starting point. Different sacrifices were required for different circumstances - sacrifices were not only for sin, but, for example, when a woman had a menstrual period, she would have to sacrifice two doves or pigeons the 8th day after the bleeding stopped. There are passages that literally describe the people transferring their sins to the animal, which will be killed, which will kill their sin and allow them to be cleansed.
What springs to mind for me is that all of this empowers the priest class. To be part of that world, you have to make ritual sacrifices not just for serious sins but for any number of normal life events - it's expensive to the point that the OT even has alternative sacrificial requirements for the poor. Christianity - which arose after the death of Jesus - labelled Jesus as the ultimate sacrifice. No more pigeons, doves, goats, sheep, etc for every menstrual period, illness, nocturnal emission, birth, etc. Now there was a single sacrifice for all of humanity's sins.
And as someone who has had surgery under general anesthesia, I can assure that it's not equivalent. Falling off my bike as a kid and skinning my knee was more painful. I have always found the crucifixion story horrifying. Here's a take from a Christian doctor.
posted by bunderful at 5:22 AM on January 28, 2020 [7 favorites]
Based on what I've read and my own opinion, Jesus likely did exist and was probably executed by the Romans. His death was retroactively given meaning by Christianity, in a way that works within the context of Jewish tradition.
You really have to go back to the Old Testament and understand (as well as a modern mind can) the importance of blood sacrifice as atonement for sin. Here's the first chapter of Leviticus in the Skeptic's Annotated Bible if you want a starting point. Different sacrifices were required for different circumstances - sacrifices were not only for sin, but, for example, when a woman had a menstrual period, she would have to sacrifice two doves or pigeons the 8th day after the bleeding stopped. There are passages that literally describe the people transferring their sins to the animal, which will be killed, which will kill their sin and allow them to be cleansed.
What springs to mind for me is that all of this empowers the priest class. To be part of that world, you have to make ritual sacrifices not just for serious sins but for any number of normal life events - it's expensive to the point that the OT even has alternative sacrificial requirements for the poor. Christianity - which arose after the death of Jesus - labelled Jesus as the ultimate sacrifice. No more pigeons, doves, goats, sheep, etc for every menstrual period, illness, nocturnal emission, birth, etc. Now there was a single sacrifice for all of humanity's sins.
And as someone who has had surgery under general anesthesia, I can assure that it's not equivalent. Falling off my bike as a kid and skinning my knee was more painful. I have always found the crucifixion story horrifying. Here's a take from a Christian doctor.
posted by bunderful at 5:22 AM on January 28, 2020 [7 favorites]
To be clear - as an atheist and a modern person, I think the idea that one's sins can be covered by the death of another being is primitive and strange. If you're coming at this from the perspective of "does Christianity even make sense" that's a conversation I can have.
posted by bunderful at 5:25 AM on January 28, 2020 [6 favorites]
posted by bunderful at 5:25 AM on January 28, 2020 [6 favorites]
As I understood it, Christ is a link between humanity and God. We don't (or we didn't; present atheist) worship him the same way that we worship God or the Holy Spirit. He suffers like we suffer (and we know through our faith that we'll live after death too), he knows what it is to live in a physical body that grows and hurts and dies; he knows what it is to want to do things that you must not, to be hungry, to be tired. God knows everything and in a sense knows those things but has not lived in a fleshly body on earth.
We don't "owe" Christ worship because he suffered and died as humans suffer and die; Christ's suffering is a link between humans and the incomprehensibly other nature of God.
I'd always taken "and for his sake forgives us all our sins" to be about the mercy part of the new covenant - God forgives us all our sins because our lives are more closely linked to him through Christ.
posted by Frowner at 5:33 AM on January 28, 2020 [3 favorites]
We don't "owe" Christ worship because he suffered and died as humans suffer and die; Christ's suffering is a link between humans and the incomprehensibly other nature of God.
I'd always taken "and for his sake forgives us all our sins" to be about the mercy part of the new covenant - God forgives us all our sins because our lives are more closely linked to him through Christ.
posted by Frowner at 5:33 AM on January 28, 2020 [3 favorites]
Go with me a minute - you may actually find reading Roger Ebert's review of the movie The Passion Of The Christ to be helpful. Or, hell, even watching the film.
Ebert makes some really interesting points about how modern Christianity regards the Crucifixion in the course of his review - early on he states that it is "the most violent film I have ever seen". But he goes on to speculate that maybe that's part of its power - many Christians say, as you say above, that "Jesus did this for our sins and therefore we owe him eternal worship", but they don't really think about exactly what He did, or really ponder it. At least, most Christians don't - not always because of indifference either, sometimes it's just ignorance (we don't crucify people today, so while we've heard the word, we don't really know what it means). We also have had many years of Biblical epics that sanitize everything. That was what makes Mel Gibson's statement so powerful, he says - in essence, Mel Gibson was saying "a'ight, we Christians state that this is what we believe, so let's really take a minute to look at it so we all really get what happened."
Ebert speaks about growing up hearing about the Crucifixion all his life - he was even an altar boy - but in the review he says that "what Gibson has provided for me, for the first time in my life, is a visceral idea of what the Passion consisted of."
I'm harping on that review because Ebert makes a good point - we sometimes don't really have that visceral an idea of what the Passion was, and that can stop us from really getting "oh, that's why Christians think the Crucifixion was such a big deal." The really hardcore Christians also go on to say "and the reason why Jesus endured all of that torment is for my own sake, because if He hadn't done that I'd have had to undergo that in perpetuity. And He did that because that's how much He loved me, even though I suck." Back to the film - there's a specific shot in The Passion of The Christ when they're nailing Jesus' hands down - one of the shots is just of an arm swinging one of the hammers, and in that shot, it's Mel Gibson's own arm. He made a point of putting that in as a just-for-himself testament of faith that "I believe Jesus died for me too".
If you think you can stomach the movie, maybe seeing it can help lead to more of a visceral sense of "oh, okay, this is why Christians think this was a big deal." Even Ebert says that it's super-violent, and some of even the most pious Christians may wanna think carefully about seeing it. But even if all you do is read the review, he makes a very good case about how we've gotten to a sort of disconnect between what Christians state is their faith and how much they understand it at a gut level.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 6:17 AM on January 28, 2020 [3 favorites]
Ebert makes some really interesting points about how modern Christianity regards the Crucifixion in the course of his review - early on he states that it is "the most violent film I have ever seen". But he goes on to speculate that maybe that's part of its power - many Christians say, as you say above, that "Jesus did this for our sins and therefore we owe him eternal worship", but they don't really think about exactly what He did, or really ponder it. At least, most Christians don't - not always because of indifference either, sometimes it's just ignorance (we don't crucify people today, so while we've heard the word, we don't really know what it means). We also have had many years of Biblical epics that sanitize everything. That was what makes Mel Gibson's statement so powerful, he says - in essence, Mel Gibson was saying "a'ight, we Christians state that this is what we believe, so let's really take a minute to look at it so we all really get what happened."
Ebert speaks about growing up hearing about the Crucifixion all his life - he was even an altar boy - but in the review he says that "what Gibson has provided for me, for the first time in my life, is a visceral idea of what the Passion consisted of."
I'm harping on that review because Ebert makes a good point - we sometimes don't really have that visceral an idea of what the Passion was, and that can stop us from really getting "oh, that's why Christians think the Crucifixion was such a big deal." The really hardcore Christians also go on to say "and the reason why Jesus endured all of that torment is for my own sake, because if He hadn't done that I'd have had to undergo that in perpetuity. And He did that because that's how much He loved me, even though I suck." Back to the film - there's a specific shot in The Passion of The Christ when they're nailing Jesus' hands down - one of the shots is just of an arm swinging one of the hammers, and in that shot, it's Mel Gibson's own arm. He made a point of putting that in as a just-for-himself testament of faith that "I believe Jesus died for me too".
If you think you can stomach the movie, maybe seeing it can help lead to more of a visceral sense of "oh, okay, this is why Christians think this was a big deal." Even Ebert says that it's super-violent, and some of even the most pious Christians may wanna think carefully about seeing it. But even if all you do is read the review, he makes a very good case about how we've gotten to a sort of disconnect between what Christians state is their faith and how much they understand it at a gut level.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 6:17 AM on January 28, 2020 [3 favorites]
God (the father) making an offering of His son
A lot of the (fascinating) answers above approach the question from the perspective of Jesus, but you can also think about the sacrifice through the lens of God as a father—a father who planned for his perfect son to suffer and die, knowing his son would feel his father betrayed him. This can sound masochistic and cruel—but I’ve also seen the idea of God as a suffering father bring significant comfort to religious parents dealing with the loss of a child. In this perspective, God himself has experienced firsthand one of the most brutal types of pain a human can feel, and the fact that Jesus’ life was cut so short and looked so different from a typical life path (no marriage or children, a wandering existence with only a few people he appeared to influence) and yet made such a difference both in an historical sense (the birth of Christianity) and in a symbolic one within the religion (saving humanity) shows that external accomplishments or the length of a life don’t measure its value.
posted by sallybrown at 6:53 AM on January 28, 2020 [2 favorites]
A lot of the (fascinating) answers above approach the question from the perspective of Jesus, but you can also think about the sacrifice through the lens of God as a father—a father who planned for his perfect son to suffer and die, knowing his son would feel his father betrayed him. This can sound masochistic and cruel—but I’ve also seen the idea of God as a suffering father bring significant comfort to religious parents dealing with the loss of a child. In this perspective, God himself has experienced firsthand one of the most brutal types of pain a human can feel, and the fact that Jesus’ life was cut so short and looked so different from a typical life path (no marriage or children, a wandering existence with only a few people he appeared to influence) and yet made such a difference both in an historical sense (the birth of Christianity) and in a symbolic one within the religion (saving humanity) shows that external accomplishments or the length of a life don’t measure its value.
posted by sallybrown at 6:53 AM on January 28, 2020 [2 favorites]
The formal name for the study of OP's question is The Doctrine Of The Atonement. Theologians are still not in perfect agreement about how it can be explained.
As a life-long church-goer, I've felt since childhood that it was under-explained, which is to say, frequently referenced but never analyzed to a satisfactory degree. Along about age 70, I did have an insight. The Bible references religious sacrifice pretty much throughout the story of the Hebrew nation, beginning with Abraham and Isaac, and still common in 1st century Jewish practice. Some of the folks that Jesus drove out of the temple were selling small animals for sacrifice. So the notion that one could/should make a sacrifice to gain favor with God was very real to them in a way that it is not for us. We just don't think of or make sacrifices in the same way. It's not part of our contemporary culture.
So, the first step to enlightenment is to step two centuries in how you think.
posted by SemiSalt at 7:01 AM on January 28, 2020 [5 favorites]
As a life-long church-goer, I've felt since childhood that it was under-explained, which is to say, frequently referenced but never analyzed to a satisfactory degree. Along about age 70, I did have an insight. The Bible references religious sacrifice pretty much throughout the story of the Hebrew nation, beginning with Abraham and Isaac, and still common in 1st century Jewish practice. Some of the folks that Jesus drove out of the temple were selling small animals for sacrifice. So the notion that one could/should make a sacrifice to gain favor with God was very real to them in a way that it is not for us. We just don't think of or make sacrifices in the same way. It's not part of our contemporary culture.
So, the first step to enlightenment is to step two centuries in how you think.
posted by SemiSalt at 7:01 AM on January 28, 2020 [5 favorites]
At least from a Catholic perspective, the version you're presenting is a bit of a weird kiddie/ naive/ strawman account of the significance of the Crucifixion in Christian theology-- kind of like saying "Why does Science believe that cells have all their instructions written in little colored strings that they read without eyes, that doesn't make sense??"
I'm not aware of any Christian sect that holds Christians should worship Jesus eternally as a quid pro quo for the Crucifixion, to kind of, what? make it up to him? because it hurt so much? A lot of traditions will encourage reflection on the Passion as a way of strengthening oneself against one's own "crosses", and there's a common sentimental appeal to your personal sense of gratitude to Jesus in order to motivate a believer to do the right thing in a particular situation. However, Catholicism, at least, believes that we should worship God because God made the universe, us, and intellect/ existence itself, and because therefore seeking to understand and obey God's plan is the best way of being ourselves.
As I understand it, the significance of the Christ's death and resurrection has to do with the wider metaphysics of death and decay in the natural world-- the way everything grinds down to chaos, the way beautiful things fall apart and decay, the way we, everyone we love, everything we work for and create and think, are inexorably crumbling into pain, ugliness, and death every minute. I think we get around that problem these days mostly by being rich enough to create a comfy illusion of control, distracting ourselves with nice things, and siloing away actual dying people and animals in specialized facilities where we don't have to think too much about what's happening. However, for the most part, the testimony of people who have bothered to come into contact with death suggests that it's a very important thing indeed; and that therefore, an instance where the apparent logic of the universe worked backward for once makes a huge difference in the way we see the world.
If you're interested in getting a more nuanced sense of a somewhat Christian perspective on death and suffering, but without digging into a lot of theology, I'd definitely recommend Tolstoy's The Death of Ivan Ilyich!
posted by Bardolph at 7:05 AM on January 28, 2020 [5 favorites]
I'm not aware of any Christian sect that holds Christians should worship Jesus eternally as a quid pro quo for the Crucifixion, to kind of, what? make it up to him? because it hurt so much? A lot of traditions will encourage reflection on the Passion as a way of strengthening oneself against one's own "crosses", and there's a common sentimental appeal to your personal sense of gratitude to Jesus in order to motivate a believer to do the right thing in a particular situation. However, Catholicism, at least, believes that we should worship God because God made the universe, us, and intellect/ existence itself, and because therefore seeking to understand and obey God's plan is the best way of being ourselves.
As I understand it, the significance of the Christ's death and resurrection has to do with the wider metaphysics of death and decay in the natural world-- the way everything grinds down to chaos, the way beautiful things fall apart and decay, the way we, everyone we love, everything we work for and create and think, are inexorably crumbling into pain, ugliness, and death every minute. I think we get around that problem these days mostly by being rich enough to create a comfy illusion of control, distracting ourselves with nice things, and siloing away actual dying people and animals in specialized facilities where we don't have to think too much about what's happening. However, for the most part, the testimony of people who have bothered to come into contact with death suggests that it's a very important thing indeed; and that therefore, an instance where the apparent logic of the universe worked backward for once makes a huge difference in the way we see the world.
If you're interested in getting a more nuanced sense of a somewhat Christian perspective on death and suffering, but without digging into a lot of theology, I'd definitely recommend Tolstoy's The Death of Ivan Ilyich!
posted by Bardolph at 7:05 AM on January 28, 2020 [5 favorites]
I think they often tied the arms. It's an issue how much weight nails through the wrists (not hands, that is a no go, and, it seems, a translation issue from Greek ) could take.
Yep--but for Christians, their narrative is the relevant story, I think. Still not a way anyone would want to go!
posted by praemunire at 7:57 AM on January 28, 2020
Yep--but for Christians, their narrative is the relevant story, I think. Still not a way anyone would want to go!
posted by praemunire at 7:57 AM on January 28, 2020
Denny Weaver's The Non-Violent Atonement, explains that the idea of "satisfaction atonement" must be jettisoned in favor of a nonviolent approach. Jesus' death, says Weaver, was not planned or sanctioned by God the Father; it was the inevitable result of sinful humans taking matters into their own hands.
Or take a look at Salvation as At-One-Ment
posted by SyraCarol at 8:48 AM on January 28, 2020 [2 favorites]
Or take a look at Salvation as At-One-Ment
posted by SyraCarol at 8:48 AM on January 28, 2020 [2 favorites]
Response by poster: Thanks for all the info so far! It's already been leaps and bounds more helpful than "don't ask those questions!" which is all I ever got as a kid...
posted by Pastor of Muppets at 8:48 AM on January 28, 2020 [3 favorites]
posted by Pastor of Muppets at 8:48 AM on January 28, 2020 [3 favorites]
They hammer NAILS through your hands and feet
I think they often tied the arms.
In the particular instance we're thinking of here, the writers make a point to say two people crucified at the same time as Jesus had their arms tied to the cross while he himself was nailed.
posted by glasseyes at 9:47 AM on January 28, 2020 [2 favorites]
I think they often tied the arms.
In the particular instance we're thinking of here, the writers make a point to say two people crucified at the same time as Jesus had their arms tied to the cross while he himself was nailed.
posted by glasseyes at 9:47 AM on January 28, 2020 [2 favorites]
So regarding the crucifixion, bear in mind that His suffering started long before, in the garden of olives. His agony in the garden while He prayed was so extreme that He sweat blood. Then He was taken and tortured. He was scourged- beaten with a metal-tipped, many-tailed whip, likely until His back was shredded. He was spat upon, beaten and mocked, and a crown made of thorns was shoved onto His head. He was forced to carry His cross in this condition. He was in so much pain and exhaustion that He fell three times while carrying His cross and Simon had to help Him carry it. Then He was crucified, nailed onto the cross. He was dehydrated and begged for water, but they gave Him vinegar. Then the centurion's spear peirced His side, puncturing His lung and heart. Blood and water (pericardial fluid) gushed out.
While all of this physical torture was happening though, a much more significant spiritual torture took place. Christ, being a perfectly innocent and sinless human, willingly took on the weight of all of humanity's sins, past, present, and future.
He takes on the psychic and spiritual agony that those sins would/do/will cause and by this perfect sacrifice, gives humanity a means to be free from sin. By entering into His sacrifice, individual humans can participate in His work and be freed from the slavery of sin themselves. He died one human death, but spiritually died millions.
You may ask why, then, does anyone go to Hell? The reason is that individuals have free will and have the choice to reject His work and to reject the love of God. In fact, all sin is the rejection of the love of God, and that pain is part of the suffering of His crucifixion. So like... People go through horrible torment all the time, but nobody has ever gone through the level of torment He did.
The ressurrection is significant perhaps more for humanity than for Him. His ressurrection demonstrates to us that He wasn't a lunatic or a liar. He claimed to have the means of eternal life. Then He actually came back to life, not in an ordinary body, but in a glorified body. By this we can know that He told us the truth, that He does actually know the way to eternal life in glory, that He really is who He says He is.
As to why we owe God worship- we owed God worship before the crucifixion! God deserves worship because He's God. He is truth, life, and love.
posted by windykites at 12:35 PM on January 28, 2020 [1 favorite]
While all of this physical torture was happening though, a much more significant spiritual torture took place. Christ, being a perfectly innocent and sinless human, willingly took on the weight of all of humanity's sins, past, present, and future.
He takes on the psychic and spiritual agony that those sins would/do/will cause and by this perfect sacrifice, gives humanity a means to be free from sin. By entering into His sacrifice, individual humans can participate in His work and be freed from the slavery of sin themselves. He died one human death, but spiritually died millions.
You may ask why, then, does anyone go to Hell? The reason is that individuals have free will and have the choice to reject His work and to reject the love of God. In fact, all sin is the rejection of the love of God, and that pain is part of the suffering of His crucifixion. So like... People go through horrible torment all the time, but nobody has ever gone through the level of torment He did.
The ressurrection is significant perhaps more for humanity than for Him. His ressurrection demonstrates to us that He wasn't a lunatic or a liar. He claimed to have the means of eternal life. Then He actually came back to life, not in an ordinary body, but in a glorified body. By this we can know that He told us the truth, that He does actually know the way to eternal life in glory, that He really is who He says He is.
As to why we owe God worship- we owed God worship before the crucifixion! God deserves worship because He's God. He is truth, life, and love.
posted by windykites at 12:35 PM on January 28, 2020 [1 favorite]
Augh, I realize that I mis-phrased what Mel Gibson's "arm cameo" meant in my comment above. It wasn't just a statement of faith that "Jesus died for me too" - it was more of a confession. Lemme see if I can explain it, because I think it also may add another perspective:
So, the dogma is that "Jesus died for our sins". Now, part of that goes with the dogma of "original sin" (the bad juju that human beings collectively had racked up since the whole Garden of Eden thing), but part of that goes with the baser elements of human nature. None of us is perfect, after all - we all fuck up, we all have weak moments. No matter how pious and faithful we are, there are all moments when we may give in to temptation of one kind or another, and we commit some kind of sin (could be venial, could be mortal, but it's sin). And those sins all add up as red marks in our ledger (so to speak), that we would in the afterlife have to have made up for and suffered for, either temporarily or permanently. Jesus' Crucifixion was His way of saying "you know what, lemme take all that punishment on so you don't have to."
Now, you can look at that kind of thing and say "awesome, I get off easy, thanks, Jesus!" Or, you can look at that kind of thing and say "Oh shit, someone else is suffering in my stead voluntarily. If I hadn't committed those sins He wouldn't have had to do that. Oh, man, I suck and He's awesome." That's closer to what Mel Gibson's arm cameo was about - not simply "Jesus died for me too", it was also "I am one of the sinners that Jesus died for, and my sins lead to this being something Jesus felt He had to do".
Yeahhhh, there's a bit of guilt mixed up in there ("if I'd been a better person Jesus wouldn't have had to go through that, ugh"), but it may point to where some of the reverence comes from - people who entertain those kind of self-critical thoughts may follow through into "and nevetheless Jesus was willing to go through all that anyway because He loves me anyway."
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 1:28 PM on January 28, 2020
So, the dogma is that "Jesus died for our sins". Now, part of that goes with the dogma of "original sin" (the bad juju that human beings collectively had racked up since the whole Garden of Eden thing), but part of that goes with the baser elements of human nature. None of us is perfect, after all - we all fuck up, we all have weak moments. No matter how pious and faithful we are, there are all moments when we may give in to temptation of one kind or another, and we commit some kind of sin (could be venial, could be mortal, but it's sin). And those sins all add up as red marks in our ledger (so to speak), that we would in the afterlife have to have made up for and suffered for, either temporarily or permanently. Jesus' Crucifixion was His way of saying "you know what, lemme take all that punishment on so you don't have to."
Now, you can look at that kind of thing and say "awesome, I get off easy, thanks, Jesus!" Or, you can look at that kind of thing and say "Oh shit, someone else is suffering in my stead voluntarily. If I hadn't committed those sins He wouldn't have had to do that. Oh, man, I suck and He's awesome." That's closer to what Mel Gibson's arm cameo was about - not simply "Jesus died for me too", it was also "I am one of the sinners that Jesus died for, and my sins lead to this being something Jesus felt He had to do".
Yeahhhh, there's a bit of guilt mixed up in there ("if I'd been a better person Jesus wouldn't have had to go through that, ugh"), but it may point to where some of the reverence comes from - people who entertain those kind of self-critical thoughts may follow through into "and nevetheless Jesus was willing to go through all that anyway because He loves me anyway."
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 1:28 PM on January 28, 2020
Crucifixions make southern state executions look humane in comparison.
This doesn't answer the question. Countless people were crucified. Their suffering wasn't sufficient to cleanse an entire planet of its sins, and they didn't have the privilege of an overlapping existence with the creator of the universe, absolute certainty about the existence of an afterlife, or an upcoming resurrection. What was so special about the crucifixion of this one guy?
So why was a mundane punishment widespread at the time a sufficient level of suffering to absolve the world of sin? Other religions have people pushing boulders uphill for eternity, or getting their livers pecked out. This religion has entire worlds drowned, fathers forced to slaughter their own sons, cities wiped from the earth, an entire nation's babies dead overnight, women turned into salt. I'd take crucifixion over any of them, especially if I knew what Jesus knew.
posted by some little punk in a rocket at 2:22 PM on January 28, 2020 [2 favorites]
This doesn't answer the question. Countless people were crucified. Their suffering wasn't sufficient to cleanse an entire planet of its sins, and they didn't have the privilege of an overlapping existence with the creator of the universe, absolute certainty about the existence of an afterlife, or an upcoming resurrection. What was so special about the crucifixion of this one guy?
So why was a mundane punishment widespread at the time a sufficient level of suffering to absolve the world of sin? Other religions have people pushing boulders uphill for eternity, or getting their livers pecked out. This religion has entire worlds drowned, fathers forced to slaughter their own sons, cities wiped from the earth, an entire nation's babies dead overnight, women turned into salt. I'd take crucifixion over any of them, especially if I knew what Jesus knew.
posted by some little punk in a rocket at 2:22 PM on January 28, 2020 [2 favorites]
I absolutely think there are worse ways to live and die than Jesus had. Crucifixion was brutal but other people have and did suffer worse physical violence. Children have lived harsher lives. Jesus was raised with love, had friends and a life of joy as well as struggle.
The crucifixion matters because it wad at that time the legal punishment for a criminal and he was innocent of the charges. It matters because of the symbolism and that he did not fight back or refuse. Those following him are aware that he has enough people to cause a riot, or that he himself can cause miracles and leave and yet to his own death, he meekly submits. A humiliating death of the lowest. The man who days before they hoped would bring about their new Jerusalem is left almost abandoned by all to a criminal's death. And he had spoken of returning, but they hadn't understood, not clearly. None of them were expecting him to return.
The harrowing of hell is dealt with quite differently theologically in various traditions. Protestants tend to move over it quite fast, and there's more of an emphasis on the legal covenant of exchange in Catholicism for sin with sacrifice, from what I understand. The gnostic stuff is fairly weird around the thre days in a delightful way. My very limited orthodox understanding is that it is essentially God living the human experience - the father in the prodigal son not running down to meet him only halfway, but going all the way to the city to the pig pen and scooping him up, his friends and everyone who will come back because he wants to see his children so much.
The physical pain is very much not the point. It was the humiliation and isolation that counted. For the people reading at that time, a deity who suffered a slave's death was simply unthinkable. Slain in battle, drowned, vanished, ripped apart by lions, yes. But to die on a cross after a court case? Willingly? That was just disgusting.
posted by dorothyisunderwood at 4:19 PM on January 28, 2020 [1 favorite]
The crucifixion matters because it wad at that time the legal punishment for a criminal and he was innocent of the charges. It matters because of the symbolism and that he did not fight back or refuse. Those following him are aware that he has enough people to cause a riot, or that he himself can cause miracles and leave and yet to his own death, he meekly submits. A humiliating death of the lowest. The man who days before they hoped would bring about their new Jerusalem is left almost abandoned by all to a criminal's death. And he had spoken of returning, but they hadn't understood, not clearly. None of them were expecting him to return.
The harrowing of hell is dealt with quite differently theologically in various traditions. Protestants tend to move over it quite fast, and there's more of an emphasis on the legal covenant of exchange in Catholicism for sin with sacrifice, from what I understand. The gnostic stuff is fairly weird around the thre days in a delightful way. My very limited orthodox understanding is that it is essentially God living the human experience - the father in the prodigal son not running down to meet him only halfway, but going all the way to the city to the pig pen and scooping him up, his friends and everyone who will come back because he wants to see his children so much.
The physical pain is very much not the point. It was the humiliation and isolation that counted. For the people reading at that time, a deity who suffered a slave's death was simply unthinkable. Slain in battle, drowned, vanished, ripped apart by lions, yes. But to die on a cross after a court case? Willingly? That was just disgusting.
posted by dorothyisunderwood at 4:19 PM on January 28, 2020 [1 favorite]
What was so special about the crucifixion of this one guy?
He was God. Who need never die, never suffer, who was incapable of doing anything that would merit suffering. Voluntarily suffering a violent, humiliating, extended death despite his perfect innocence on behalf of a disobedient, sinful humanity--at the hands of representatives of said humanity. Imagine Mr. Rogers stepping in to take a bullet for Donald Trump, and dying in total agony, lying on the street for hours, spat on and jeered at by Trump. Times infinity.
For the people reading at that time
(Side note: no one would have been reading it at the time, the Gospels weren't written down until decades after the events in question.)
So, Old Testament God is very angry and wrathful, and he often asks humans to do things that don't seem to make much sense. I mean, sure, the things he asks might make sense to *him*
I would use this take with caution, though it's common enough. Many feel it's anti-Semitic.
posted by praemunire at 4:28 PM on January 28, 2020 [1 favorite]
He was God. Who need never die, never suffer, who was incapable of doing anything that would merit suffering. Voluntarily suffering a violent, humiliating, extended death despite his perfect innocence on behalf of a disobedient, sinful humanity--at the hands of representatives of said humanity. Imagine Mr. Rogers stepping in to take a bullet for Donald Trump, and dying in total agony, lying on the street for hours, spat on and jeered at by Trump. Times infinity.
For the people reading at that time
(Side note: no one would have been reading it at the time, the Gospels weren't written down until decades after the events in question.)
So, Old Testament God is very angry and wrathful, and he often asks humans to do things that don't seem to make much sense. I mean, sure, the things he asks might make sense to *him*
I would use this take with caution, though it's common enough. Many feel it's anti-Semitic.
posted by praemunire at 4:28 PM on January 28, 2020 [1 favorite]
You may ask why, then, does anyone go to Hell?
Just a quick side note that some Christians believe that the sacrifice of Jesus has saved all humankind, whether they are believers or not. See also Christian Universalism.
posted by bunderful at 7:21 PM on January 28, 2020 [3 favorites]
Just a quick side note that some Christians believe that the sacrifice of Jesus has saved all humankind, whether they are believers or not. See also Christian Universalism.
posted by bunderful at 7:21 PM on January 28, 2020 [3 favorites]
Here's a take from an animist who was raised Christian evangelical...
Jesus was a radical and a revolutionary. He rose to prominence during a time of oppressive Roman occupation. The rich got richer, the poor got poorer, and there were many destitute people who resorted to thievery and prostitution just to get by. Many people were sick because they lived in terrible conditions and couldn't afford healthcare. They had no power and were unable to advocate for themselves.
Jesus became their voice, he made them feel hopeful and loved and cared for when the powers-that-be ignored them and were only concerned with massing more wealth. He spoke their language, understood the history of the area and knew the Old Testament as well as they did. He used common allegories to get his message across, much like how the ancient Hellenistic god and goddess archetypes were used to show actions and consequences. When Jesus spoke of God, he was speaking about us. God is with us. God made all life in her image ("her" because it is the female sex that births life). Our consciousness is the spark of life attributed to God.
I believe the game-of-telephone that the Bible goes through with every translation and the manipulation of theology by the patriarchal church state to control the masses and gain territory (loads of trauma patterning within the church) over the millennia has greatly contributed to the general belief of Jesus as a supernatural personal savior and humans as natural sinners. Sin does not exist. "Sin" is a lack of love and often is behavior rooted in fear and a reaction to trauma conditioning (it has been scientifically proven that experiencing trauma alters our DNA and is passed down through generations). It is not something that a man dying on a cross two thousand years ago can absolve.
On the other hand, I do believe the crucifixion did happen and I do believe that Jesus knew that's probably how it was going to go down, considering he was standing up in defiance of the oppressors (tossing tables, anyone?). I see the crucifixion as an allegory for the life/death/life (or birth/death/rebirth) cycle of every living thing. Jesus lived an amazing life, died a horrific death standing up for his truth, and became a spirit free from pain and oppression.
It's a huge concept and to make it easier to swallow for myself, I use this allegory whenever I'm going through a particular time of personal growth where I'm dismantling damaging learned behavior, or I have to have a difficult conversation with someone, or there's a task on my schedule that I just really don't want to do but need to do anyway. When I think about Jesus' story, I am reminded that 1) he had it way worse than me, so whatever shit I'm working through, I can do this, 2) by the power of spirit I can call on Jesus for comfort and guidance and strength because I know he's got it to give, and 3) it is always better to work through the discomfort and fear, do what I know is right and authentic, and I come out the other side freer than I was before.
posted by E3 at 7:24 PM on January 28, 2020 [2 favorites]
Jesus was a radical and a revolutionary. He rose to prominence during a time of oppressive Roman occupation. The rich got richer, the poor got poorer, and there were many destitute people who resorted to thievery and prostitution just to get by. Many people were sick because they lived in terrible conditions and couldn't afford healthcare. They had no power and were unable to advocate for themselves.
Jesus became their voice, he made them feel hopeful and loved and cared for when the powers-that-be ignored them and were only concerned with massing more wealth. He spoke their language, understood the history of the area and knew the Old Testament as well as they did. He used common allegories to get his message across, much like how the ancient Hellenistic god and goddess archetypes were used to show actions and consequences. When Jesus spoke of God, he was speaking about us. God is with us. God made all life in her image ("her" because it is the female sex that births life). Our consciousness is the spark of life attributed to God.
I believe the game-of-telephone that the Bible goes through with every translation and the manipulation of theology by the patriarchal church state to control the masses and gain territory (loads of trauma patterning within the church) over the millennia has greatly contributed to the general belief of Jesus as a supernatural personal savior and humans as natural sinners. Sin does not exist. "Sin" is a lack of love and often is behavior rooted in fear and a reaction to trauma conditioning (it has been scientifically proven that experiencing trauma alters our DNA and is passed down through generations). It is not something that a man dying on a cross two thousand years ago can absolve.
On the other hand, I do believe the crucifixion did happen and I do believe that Jesus knew that's probably how it was going to go down, considering he was standing up in defiance of the oppressors (tossing tables, anyone?). I see the crucifixion as an allegory for the life/death/life (or birth/death/rebirth) cycle of every living thing. Jesus lived an amazing life, died a horrific death standing up for his truth, and became a spirit free from pain and oppression.
It's a huge concept and to make it easier to swallow for myself, I use this allegory whenever I'm going through a particular time of personal growth where I'm dismantling damaging learned behavior, or I have to have a difficult conversation with someone, or there's a task on my schedule that I just really don't want to do but need to do anyway. When I think about Jesus' story, I am reminded that 1) he had it way worse than me, so whatever shit I'm working through, I can do this, 2) by the power of spirit I can call on Jesus for comfort and guidance and strength because I know he's got it to give, and 3) it is always better to work through the discomfort and fear, do what I know is right and authentic, and I come out the other side freer than I was before.
posted by E3 at 7:24 PM on January 28, 2020 [2 favorites]
Oddly enough, I say this with no snark whatsoever: Jesus was a hippie?
posted by jenfullmoon at 10:39 AM on January 29, 2020
posted by jenfullmoon at 10:39 AM on January 29, 2020
I say this with no snark whatsoever: Jesus was a hippie?
This is indeed a very credible argument one could make, yes. Likewise you could also argue that Jesus was a Communist. And a feminist (the first person He appeared to after the Resurrection was Mary Magdalene as opposed to any of the Apostles, and the very very early church women were pretty equal). The Game-of-Telephone E3 refers to above may explain how a lot of the more radical stuff may have been smoothed out, going back as far as the Apostle Paul himself (any of the verbiage that gets trotted out about women's roles is most likely from some of the letters Paul wrote following the Resurrection in the early days of the church).
That may speak to why people revered Jesus in the first place - for His time, He was way more radical than most people are aware, and one of the reasons why we're not aware is that a lot of the records that would have told you thus have been either quietly shelved or were not even included in the Bible - the book we know of as "The Bible" today didn't exist until about the 4th Century, and in the early days of the Church the scriptures were a much more chaotic mish-mash of different oral history accounts, other shorter books, letters, collections of proverbs, collections of song lyrics, and the like. But everyone had slightly different takes on things, including some writings that were pretty much just fanfiction, and in the 4th Century the Church fathers finally had a big convention to sort out for once and for all "which stuff is legit and which is BS". Of course, by that time society had rolled back on some of the more radical elements of Jesus' message, and that probably unconsciously influenced what was given the green light. But they couldn't completely eradicate the fervor from the downtrodden for Jesus' message, which points to how He came to be so revered.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 1:51 PM on January 29, 2020 [4 favorites]
This is indeed a very credible argument one could make, yes. Likewise you could also argue that Jesus was a Communist. And a feminist (the first person He appeared to after the Resurrection was Mary Magdalene as opposed to any of the Apostles, and the very very early church women were pretty equal). The Game-of-Telephone E3 refers to above may explain how a lot of the more radical stuff may have been smoothed out, going back as far as the Apostle Paul himself (any of the verbiage that gets trotted out about women's roles is most likely from some of the letters Paul wrote following the Resurrection in the early days of the church).
That may speak to why people revered Jesus in the first place - for His time, He was way more radical than most people are aware, and one of the reasons why we're not aware is that a lot of the records that would have told you thus have been either quietly shelved or were not even included in the Bible - the book we know of as "The Bible" today didn't exist until about the 4th Century, and in the early days of the Church the scriptures were a much more chaotic mish-mash of different oral history accounts, other shorter books, letters, collections of proverbs, collections of song lyrics, and the like. But everyone had slightly different takes on things, including some writings that were pretty much just fanfiction, and in the 4th Century the Church fathers finally had a big convention to sort out for once and for all "which stuff is legit and which is BS". Of course, by that time society had rolled back on some of the more radical elements of Jesus' message, and that probably unconsciously influenced what was given the green light. But they couldn't completely eradicate the fervor from the downtrodden for Jesus' message, which points to how He came to be so revered.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 1:51 PM on January 29, 2020 [4 favorites]
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(a) Crucifixion was actually a really fucking horrible form of death. I can tell you came up Episcopal rather than Catholic because you've apparently been looking at sanitized crosses all this time rather than the gruesome depictions the Catholics often go in for. They hammer NAILS through your hands and feet (this would take more than one little tap). Then they stand you up so that your entire weight is hanging off the wounds. You bleed out in the hot sun all day long with a jeering, rock-throwing crowd beneath you. No food, no water, no relief. In Christ's case, he also had a ring of thorns jammed into his forehead and a big old spear wound in his side. Crucifixions make southern state executions look humane in comparison. And Christ would have had the full physical experience--not anesthetized.
(b) This is God undergoing this. Not only completely innocent, but so far beyond the humanity that He made that it's incomprehensible that He could be "chastised for our transgressions, bruised for our iniquities." Imagine having some buggy computer code you wrote arraign you for a crime and torture you to death, slowly, in front of your loved ones and a bunch of hostile randos. And God did this, in theory, to rescue us from the consequences of our own shitty and rebellious behavior. Unimaginable! (Christ here is more or less in the same position as the dog in "Sandkings.")
Side note: It was always just taken as fact that Jesus did this for our sins and therefore we owe him eternal worship. Everyone who ever attempted to teach you theology should be fired; this is not why Christians worship God. Had the Crucifixion never happened, from the Christian point of view, God would still be due worship from all creation.
posted by praemunire at 10:06 PM on January 27, 2020 [37 favorites]