Why did Jesus die?

May I, a former fundamentalist christian respond by recommending a book titled "Who killed Jesus" by John Dominic Crossan, a Jesus Seminar scholar. The short answer to who killed Jesus according to Crossan is that the Romans in collaboration with the Jewish high priest did. The Bible asserts that the Roman governor Pontius Pilate wanted to let Jesus off with just a beating because he supposedly found nothing wrong with Jesus, but that the Jewish religious leader Ciaphas and eventually a "crowd" of Jewish people wanted Jesus put to death for claiming to be the Messiah or the son of God. Unfortunately for those who would take the Bible at it's word without consulting other more historical sources, Pontius Pilate probably never felt pity for Jesus, nor did he ever think of letting Jesus go. I can satisfactorally conclude this because of a quasi-historian named Josephus who described in his writings how good ol'e Pilate was a tyrant who had no problem with massacering hundreds of Jews at the slightest sign of trouble. This makes it problematic that Pilate ever made a "Jesus or Barabas" deal with any crowd of angry Jews and that there even existed such a crowd. Pilate would not have allowed such a demonstration to exist when his prime mission was to keep the peace during the one time of year when hundreds of thousands of Jews descended on Jerusalem for the Passover celebration. The first century history of Jerusalem as a Roman province also reveals that several person's claims to be the messiah were either ignore'd by the religious leadership, or the Romans destroyed such people and their followers with extreme prejudice. These facts were also recorded in Josephus' writings, and also make it very problematic that the Jewish religious leaders defined a blasphemer as one claiming to be the son of God or the messiah, and therefore worthy of death. The main point here is that it was against Roman law for somebody to set themselves up as a king or leader in any Roman province without the approval of the emporer, but that is exactly what the people tried to do upon Jesus 'triumphal entry' into Jerusalem on a colt with palm-fronds waving. Therefor, in my judgement, "No one person killed Jesus, we all killed Jesus" is really just a statement of faith with absolutely no basis in historical fact. Sin? According to the christian faith, sin is defined as anything contrary to what God wills for us humans, and so according to the Mosaic Law sin is the breaking of any of those laws; all the 'Thou shat nots...', etc., and christians in general(I believe) follow Mosaic Law to one degree or another. Now according to Paul the Apostle, in one of his letters he wrote that 'For the wages(payment) for sin is death'.... Paul used to be a Jewish Pharisee, and the Jewish religion used to teach that in order for sin to be forgiven by God, a blood sacrifice had to be made in the presence of the priests. I'll be back. I'm back. The earliest christians were originally Jewish. From these facts we can easily see how Paul and other Jewish christians came up with the brilliant idea that only a human sacrificial death, as opposed to an animal sacrifice would ever really satisfy God. Why? Because it was humanity who broke God's law, not animals. Therefore, as the story goes, Jesus became the sacrifice for sin that God would be satisfied with in order to forgive us humans. But Jesus is said to have 'risen from the dead' so that believers in him would no longer have to suffer 'spiritual death'=separation from God=hell. That's the theology, and the rst is history. I'm sorry about your little brother, and I hope that what I've written may help.[This message has been edited by Prozacman, 02-28-2004][This message has been edited by Prozacman, 02-28-2004]

Please correct me if I misunderstand what you are asking. As I see it, according to judeo-christian theology, which I personally no longer hold to, the destruction of a living being IS the mechanism that God uses (or used) in order to atone for sins. But perhaps you are asking what it is exactly that makes an animal or human sacrifice acceptable to God as a mechanism for atonement for sin. According to my previous belief it was my own faith in the sacrifice(of Jesus) that was the mechanism. It's very simple, if I understand you correctly; An animal/human becomes a substitute for one in order to die in ones place to pay for sin. The priests would say to poor old Blooperpoofereck(some ancient sucker):"You have commited a crime against 'Cromm' and therefore you must die a miserable, painful, hideous death in frightful torture! However, if you sacrifice ten cows, four lambs, seven lobster, and your niece's newborn kitty-cat on this-here slab of burning stone while we high-and-mighty priests dance around screamin' with banjo's playin', and eat the sacrifice, then Cromm will forgive you and welcome you into his jolly presence."

Good! That is what you are getting at. The mecha... I'll use a less confusing phrase; How about the means by which God forgives sin, OR what God requires of us humans to forgive our sins. I was taught that the means or the requirement by God to be forgiven was faith in the death of Jesus(and his resurrection by the way). Faith in what Jesus did in sacrificing his life in the place of ours was the way a person was forgiven by God. I hope that explains it a little better. Yes, God, in the Jewish Bible (I prefer not to use the term 'Old Testament' since I believe it is insulting to Jews)forgave sins if the destruction of a life occured. The details about how God required this are in the books' Deuteronomy and Leviticus. I'm not sure I know the reason(s) God(the priests) did it that way; I haven't studies those books in quite a while. However, I do understand the reason. I'll be back. Sorry'bout that, the Librarian said my time was up.[This message has been edited by Prozacman, 03-03-2004]

The "Jesus died for us all" stance, is in the New Testament where Paul says in so many words that "...christ died for sins once for all...". Many christians, I think take this to mean that Jesus died for the sins of ALL mankind. Of course the theology goes that scince Jesus was God the Son(and that idea wasn't finalized in the churches until the 4th century Nicean Council), then Jesus, being God could substitute his life in place of all humankind to pay for sins. I believe this stance was made church doctrine when the majority of Bishops at the Nicene Council agreed that Jesus was consubstantial(equal in substance) with God the Father. Otherwise Jesus would have been les than God and therefor unable to make a vicarious sacrifice. Remember, all of this doctrine was't "set in stone" until about 350 years after Paul and Jesus lived.

Scientists prefer not to have any say in wether or not God causes earthquakes, hurricanes, and other natural disasters, because #1. scientists aren't into proving or disproving the existence and/or influence of God in the physical world and, #2. Scientists have found and are finding perfectly natural reasons/causes for earthquakes, hurricanes, etc. People used to believe in storm-gods in ancient history, and two of them happened to be Baal and Yahweh of the Canaanite pantheon of gods. For a long time now the physical sciences have gotten along well without them. Are you defining earthquakes etc. as evil events caused by humans?? God is not necessarily mean, but your view of God is mean if you keep insisting that us "naysayers" are going to stand before God in judgement. Hmmm... Didn't Jesus say not to judge? Of course christianity changes lives! Anybody can follow Jesus and it may help them quit a whole bunch of self-destructive things and possibly become an unselfish and giving person. But any religion can do that if a person follows it honestly and doesn't condemn others for their own beliefs. Before I experienced the braintwisting wretchedness of fundamentalism I was Methodist, and I used to say the Nicene Creed every Sunday. Fine, but the apostles didn't have that creed, and the various groups that called themselves "christian" didn't either up until the time of the Nicene Council. One cannot deny the historical fact that there were many very large christian groups, such as the Arians, who saw Jesus as their messiah but refused the Nicene Creed.

You are looking at it through the lense of a particular theology, and I certainly respect that. However, if we consider the humanity of Jesus, and according to Christian theology Jesus was fully human just as you and I are, then we can look at the death of Jesus from a human and social perspective. You may say that Jesus went freely to his own death and that it provided a means of salvation; no problem, that is your theology, but if Jesus existed at all( and some on this forum would discount that), and if he did die a horrible death at the hands of the Romans, then wether or not God was in full control of the situation and might have changed it, it was the Romans who killed Jesus. Romans crucified people, not the Jews.

Hmmm... the differences of christian opinion; I used to think that Jesus death was so horrible because that's what it took to pay for the sins of all humankind in general, not because Hitler, Vlad the Impaler, Mussolini, Son of Sam, the Boston Strangler, David Berkowitz etc. were worse than the rest of us. [indent][indent]No you probably didn't leave anything out with the proviso that there may be several differences of opinion and interpretation about your ten points within christianity as a whole.
For example some christians (and jews) point to 1st century Jewish Midrash to show that Eve, the serpent, and the tree of knowledge were used by God to foster Adam's(humankind's) growth towards God.