But Really, Why Was Jesus Crucified?

[Amergin]

Executions in Roman territories were typically crucifixion if the crimes were political, insurrectionists, rebel leaders, or dissidents claiming a royal throne in a Roman occupied territory. In cases of violations of religious law, local customs prevailed. In Roman occupied Israel, criminals who violated religious laws such as committing blasphemy, the penalty was being stoned to death. St. Steven was not crucified. He violated Judaic commandments by worshiping a human being (Jesus) as a new God. Steven was stoned to death.

If Jesus was executed for posing as God (which he did not), he would have been stoned to death and his body hung on a tree as a warning to blasphemers or heretics. However, Jesus was supposedly crucified, which suggest he broke a Roman law. Rome officially tolerated all of the hundreds of religions in the Empire. They would not have crucified him for blasphemy against a local tribal god. The Romans crucified Jesus for a perceived claim to be King of Israel, a political crime. They said so in placing a sign above his head on the cross saying, "Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews." It was clear he was crucified as a rebel pretender to the vacant throne of old Israel. Gospel writers went to a lot of trouble tracing the genealogy of Jesus back to King David. They would not do that to prove Jesus was a god but the rightful heir to the Israeli Throne.

Jesus followers did not use the cross, a Roman execution symbol, in the first century. The abstract fish symbol was the earlier icon for Christians. How the Cross or Crucifix became the Christian symbol is up to speculation. I note that the Cult of Sol Invictus used a symbol of the Solar Disk with rays of light projection in the four major directions, up, down, left, and right. It resembled a cross with a big circle in the centre. This symbol was not only of Sol Invictus but is seen on ancient Irish burial sites with a cross circling the centre of the cross but without a body on it. This was long before Christianity. When the Irish became Christians, they continued to use the Irish Cross in burials but added the figure of Jesus that we still see today. In any Irish grave yard, you will likely find a fancy sculpted stone cross with Jesus in the crucifixion position but surrounded by a stone circle.

Amergin

 

[Ben Masada]

And this is the same reason why God would never force the acceptance of a Savior upon anyone.

Well, you don't want to document your assertions to me in the only Scriptures that Jesus considered the Word of God, I'll do it. Here is why god won't force the acceptance of a Savior upon anyone, because God is absolutely One and the only savior of Israel. There is no other. (Isa. 43:3; 44:6, 24; 46:5)

On the other hand, you seem open to the notion that Christ dwells beyond the flesh - and perhaps you care nothing for this business of the blood sacrifice of Jesus, which is not at all what Christianity is about anyway.

No, I am not. Jesus dwells in the dust of the earth. If that's what you mean by "beyond the flesh," so, I agree with you.

Nothing about narrow-mindedness is meant by that phrase, and the man who cannot accept that his GAY brothers and sisters are just as loved by Christ (a play on the word `straight') is NO Christian.

To love is to have a part in something under the sun. Jesus died. Therefore, he no longer knows anything. The dead have no part in anything that is done under the sun. Read Ecclesiastes 9:5,6.

Anyway, I have fairly specific beliefs about the Personhood of Christ, so to speak, and Jesus (a different Soul) ...

You must be a follower of Paul's gospel, who was the one who preached about Jesus as Christ. That's why his followers started being called Christians first in Antioch where he spent a whole year preaching about Jesus as Christ. (Acts 11:26)

What's important to me, and what I think you're saying, is that Christ was NOT limited to the body or person of Jesus of Nazareth. If that's the gist, then HEAR-HEAR!!!

So, you are thinking wrongly. Jesus was a Jewish man and all men are limitted by the natural
limitations of the body.

Ben

 

[Ben Masada]

... (Well, ok, I did add the bit about the despoliation of the Egyptians, but I hope you get my drift.)

There was no despoliation of the Egyptians by the Israelites. What happened just prior to the Exodus was a self attempt at getting severance pay for the 400 years of slavery and constant hard work without pay in the constraction of the Egyptian infrastructure. IMHO, Moses should have taken the whole country for the Israelites in a revolution. What was Egypt without the work of the slaves?
Ben

 

[mojobadshah]

If any of you are familiar with Zalmoxis you would understand why Jesus was crucified. Jesus's crucifixion was more about his resurrection. If you can believe that someone can come back from the dead then you can believe anything. Zalmoxis who was tied to the Persians (and believed to have been Zarathushtra by some) according to Herodotus performed the same prestigious act and was tied to his belief system. Zalmoxis went into seclusion for, not 3 days, but 3 years. His followers believed he was dead. Then he came out of seclusion making his followers believe he had risen from the dead, and his followers believed everything he had said. That's it. Jesus's crucifixion was all part of an illusion to get you to submit to the Christian authority structure. No more no less.

 

[Ben Masada]

Executions in Roman territories were typically crucifixion if the crimes were political, insurrectionists, rebel leaders, or dissidents claiming a royal throne in a Roman occupied territory. In cases of violations of religious law, local customs prevailed. In Roman occupied Israel, criminals who violated religious laws such as committing blasphemy, the penalty was being stoned to death. St. Steven was not crucified. He violated Judaic commandments by worshiping a human being (Jesus) as a new God. Steven was stoned to death.

If Jesus was executed for posing as God (which he did not), he would have been stoned to death and his body hung on a tree as a warning to blasphemers or heretics. However, Jesus was supposedly crucified, which suggest he broke a Roman law. Rome officially tolerated all of the hundreds of religions in the Empire. They would not have crucified him for blasphemy against a local tribal god. The Romans crucified Jesus for a perceived claim to be King of Israel, a political crime. They said so in placing a sign above his head on the cross saying, "Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews." It was clear he was crucified as a rebel pretender to the vacant throne of old Israel. Gospel writers went to a lot of trouble tracing the genealogy of Jesus back to King David. They would not do that to prove Jesus was a god but the rightful heir to the Israeli Throne.

Jesus followers did not use the cross, a Roman execution symbol, in the first century. The abstract fish symbol was the earlier icon for Christians. How the Cross or Crucifix became the Christian symbol is up to speculation. I note that the Cult of Sol Invictus used a symbol of the Solar Disk with rays of light projection in the four major directions, up, down, left, and right. It resembled a cross with a big circle in the centre. This symbol was not only of Sol Invictus but is seen on ancient Irish burial sites with a cross circling the centre of the cross but without a body on it. This was long before Christianity. When the Irish became Christians, they continued to use the Irish Cross in burials but added the figure of Jesus that we still see today. In any Irish grave yard, you will likely find a fancy sculpted stone cross with Jesus in the crucifixion position but surrounded by a stone circle.

Amergin

Very good, Amergin! I can almost agree with you in everything. I just can't agree that the Sanhedrin condened Stephen to be stoned to death because the power to condemn one to death had be removed from the Jews and it rested upon Rome. This was everywhere in Roman conquered lands. Therefore, the execution of Stephen was a pious forgery fabricated by the Church in the 4th Century, just prior to the Church's admission as the religion of the Empire by Constantine in 312 ACE.
Ben

 

[Servetus]

Just as the Jews had done to Egypt.

Sorry, but you are absolutely ignorant of our history. I told you; if you find a way to read the book "Joseph and His Brothers" by Thomas Mann, you will have an idea of our role in this world ...

I don’t mean to interrupt, but Sigmund Freud, who can hardly be considered ignorant of Israelite history, even if he does in this case go in for a good bit of conspiracy theorizing, argued in support of Etu Malku in his highly controversial and disputed work, Moses and Monotheism. As I recall, and it’s been a long time since I was made to read it, Freud claimed that the Israelites were a reformist, puritanical lot of Egyptians (with a penchant for absolute monotheism) who not only followed their leader, Moses, into the desert but also, once they were there, rose up and slew him. Ouch! That’s a nice Freudian touch, isn’t it? I strongly suspect that, when he wasn’t suffering from castration anxiety and causing me to suffer it as well, Freud must have had patricide on the brain.

Anyway, as an aside and for what it is worth, Freud also claimed to have found evidence of that much vaunted and presumably “Israelite” custom of male circumcision in Herodotus as practiced among the Egyptians. With most religions being apparently syncretic, perhaps it can be said that the Israelites "borrowed" more than silver from their Egyptian neighbors after all. Anyway, Freud apparently says "affirmative" and bows out of Judaism in favor of what he considers "rationalism."

 

[Ben Masada]

If any of you are familiar with Zalmoxis you would understand why Jesus was crucified. Jesus's crucifixion was more about his resurrection. If you can believe that someone can come back from the dead then you can believe anything. Zalmoxis who was tied to the Persians (and believed to have been Zarathushtra by some) according to Herodotus performed the same prestigious act and was tied to his belief system. Zalmoxis went into seclusion for, not 3 days, but 3 years. His followers believed he was dead. Then he came out of seclusion making his followers believe he had risen from the dead, and his followers believed everything he had said. That's it. Jesus's crucifixion was all part of an illusion to get you to submit to the Christian authority structure. No more no less.

And to confirm what you say above, believe it or not, Luke in Acts 1:3, says that, when Jesus started appearing to his disciples for 40 days, it was after his passion and not after his resurrection. After one's passion is not proof even that one died; let alone that he resurrected. Jesus could very well have survived the cross. If Luke did not mean what he said, he did commit a terrible blunder. The faithfuls can't see that because of their Christian pre-conceived notions.
Ben

 

[Servetus]

... I just can't agree that the Sanhedrin condened Stephen to be stoned to death because the power to condemn one to death had be removed from the Jews and it rested upon Rome ...

So would you correct Maimonides when, in his section on the Sanhedrin, he says:

Even Jesus of Nazareth, who imagined that he was the Messiah, but was put to death by the court ... (p. 226)

And in his Epistle to Yemen says:

The sages, of blessed memory, having become aware of his [Jesus'] plans ... meted out fitting punishment to him. (p. 441)

 

[Ben Masada]

I don’t mean to interrupt, but Sigmund Freud, who can hardly be considered ignorant of Israelite history, even if he does in this case go in for a good bit of conspiracy theorizing, argued somewhat in support of Etu Malku in his highly controversial and disputed work, Moses and Monotheism. As I recall, and it’s been a long time since I was made to read it, Freud claimed that the Israelites were a reformist, puritanical lot of Egyptians (with a penchant for absolute monotheism) who not only followed their leader, Moses, into the desert but also, once they were there, rose up and slew him. Ouch! That’s a nice Freudian touch, isn’t it? I strongly suspect that, when he wasn’t suffering from castration anxiety and causing me to suffer it as well, Freud must have had patricide on the brain.

Anyway, as an aside and for what it is worth, Freud also claimed to have found evidence of that much vaunted and presumably “Israelite” custom of male circumcision in Herodotus as practiced among the Egyptians. With most religions being apparently syncretic, perhaps it can be said that the Israelites "borrowed" more than silver from their Egyptian neighbors after all. Anyway, Freud apparently says "affirmative" and bows out of Judaism in favor of what he considers "rationalism."

The problem with the Israelites, which would give rise to the exaggerations of Sigmund Freud, as well as Albert Einstein and Baruch de Spinoza, is that they were too anthropomorphic. They would refer to God in a personal basis; just as Christians do today with the plus for the Hellenistic style. Those three famous men did believe in God; only not that He was personal.
Ben

 

[Servetus]

The problem with the Israelites, which would give rise to the exaggerations of Sigmund Freud, as well as Albert Einstein and Baruch de Spinoza, is that they were too anthropomorphic. They would refer to God in a personal basis; just as Christians do today with the plus for the Hellenistic style. Those three famous men did believe in God; only not that He was personal.

You told Etu Malku that he was ignorant of your history. I suggested, as an antidote, that you take one big dose of Sigmund Freud, two small aspirins, digest it all, and call us in the morning . If this be ignorance, Freud, who was himself the founder of a sort of ersatz religion, Psychoanalysis, wrote a whole book upon the subject (of the Israelites' indebtedness to Egypt).

 

[Ben Masada]

So would you correct Maimonides when, in his section on the Sanhedrin, he says:

And in his Epistle to Yemen says:

Yes, I would. If Maimonides admitted that Jesus claimed to be the Messiah, he was not aware of Acts 11:26 which suports that Paul was the one who anointed Jesus as Christ, which means Messiah. And if Maimonides claimed that the Jewish Sanhedrin did condemn Jesus to crucifixion, he was not aware of the NT and its antisemitic charges against the Jewish People for having rejected Paul's gospel. Then, I can see why Maimonides would err in the exposition of his opinion about these Christian things because Jewish leaders are never ready to waste their time with them.
Ben

 

[Servetus]

Yes, I would. If Maimonides admitted ...

Would you also correct the great-grandfather of modern Jewish historians, Heinrich Graetz?

 

[Ben Masada]

You told Etu Malku that he was ignorant of your history. I suggested, as an antidote, that you take one big dose of Sigmund Freud, two small aspirins, digest it all, and call us in the morning . If this be ignorance, Freud, who was himself the founder of a sort of ersatz religion, Psychoanalysis, wrote a whole book upon the subject (of the Israelites' indebtedness to Egypt).

I insist on the indebtness of the Egyptians to the Israelites. 400 years of work without pay should be worthy the whole country to have been taken over by the Israelites. Regarding Freud in his book, he was bluffing. As for Etu Malku, well, he needs to learn a little more about Jewish History.
Ben

 

[Ben Masada]

Would you also correct the great-grandfather of modern Jewish historians, Heinrich Graetz?

I have never read him. I never accept one's views because he or she was or is an authority, albeit being Jewish.
Ben

 

[Etu Malku]

I insist on the indebtness of the Egyptians to the Israelites. 400 years of work without pay should be worthy the whole country to have been taken over by the Israelites. Regarding Freud in his book, he was bluffing. As for Etu Malku, well, he needs to learn a little more about Jewish History.
Ben

According to their tradition, the Jewish people originated from the Israelites of the Southern Levant, who had several independent states before being overtaken first by the Assyrian and Babylonian Empires and later the Roman Empire, with a large portion of the population being scattered throughout the world. According to the Hebrew Bible, all Israelites were descended from Abraham, who was born in the Sumerian city of Ur, and migrated to Canaan (commonly known as the Land of Israel) with his family.

Genetic studies on Jews show that most Jews worldwide do indeed bear a common genetic heritage which originates in the Middle East, and that they bear their strongest resemblance to the peoples of the Fertile Crescent, with only minor contribution from their host populations (historically due to the taboo on intermarriage in Jewish tradition, the low number of converts to Judaism, as well as the general isolations and persecutions of Jews throughout history). According to some Biblical archaeologists, however, Israelite culture did not overtake the region, but rather grew out of Canaanite culture.

 

[Servetus]

I have never read him.

Graetz, the famous 19th Century historian of the Jews, essentially supports Maimonides, whom you would correct.

... well, he [Etu Malku] needs to learn a little more about Jewish History

But apparently not from Moses Maimonides, Sigmund Freud or Heinrich Graetz.

 

[mojobadshah]

And to confirm what you say above, believe it or not, Luke in Acts 1:3, says that, when Jesus started appearing to his disciples for 40 days, it was after his passion and not after his resurrection. After one's passion is not proof even that one died; let alone that he resurrected. Jesus could very well have survived the cross. If Luke did not mean what he said, he did commit a terrible blunder. The faithfuls can't see that because of their Christian pre-conceived notions.
Ben

That does sound like the same kind of thing Zalmoxis was known for. But I to dispel the myth even further dying and coming back from the dead makes the other feats Jesus is said to have performed more miraculous. Addicts overdose and are revived all the time.

Yes, I would. If Maimonides admitted that Jesus claimed to be the Messiah, he was not aware of Acts 11:26 which suports that Paul was the one who anointed Jesus as Christ, which means Messiah. And if Maimonides claimed that the Jewish Sanhedrin did condemn Jesus to crucifixion, he was not aware of the NT and its antisemitic charges against the Jewish People for having rejected Paul's gospel. Then, I can see why Maimonides would err in the exposition of his opinion about these Christian things because Jewish leaders are never ready to waste their time with them.
Ben

This is true and not true. Take Revelation 3.9 which is show how Christians were anti-Semitic.

Behold, I will make them of the synagogue of Satan, which say they are Jews, and are not, but do lie; behold, I will make them to come and worship before thy feet, and to know that I have loved thee. - Revelation 3.9

But on the same note Jesus was a Jew and therefore Christians worship a Jew. You could probably pass it off as religious syncronism, but it really just came down to politics. There were a lot of Jews/Christians in the Irano-Afghan (Aryan) zone. The Parthians called themselves Ashkanians which means "Afghan or equestrian." The word Ashkanazi is derived from the same word. The Romans needed an ally. So Constantine converted to Christianity in so he wouldn't even have to invade the Aryan zone because in so doing he gained an ally which could threaten the Zarthushtrian authority structure internally. It makes me wonder whether the Muslim invasions into the Aryan zone were also planned.

 

[Ben Masada]

According to their tradition, the Jewish people originated from the Israelites of the Southern Levant, who had several independent states before being overtaken first by the Assyrian and Babylonian Empires and later the Roman Empire, with a large portion of the population being scattered throughout the world. According to the Hebrew Bible, all Israelites were descended from Abraham, who was born in the Sumerian city of Ur, and migrated to Canaan (commonly known as the Land of Israel) with his family.

Genetic studies on Jews show that most Jews worldwide do indeed bear a common genetic heritage which originates in the Middle East, and that they bear their strongest resemblance to the peoples of the Fertile Crescent, with only minor contribution from their host populations (historically due to the taboo on intermarriage in Jewish tradition, the low number of converts to Judaism, as well as the general isolations and persecutions of Jews throughout history). According to some Biblical archaeologists, however, Israelite culture did not overtake the region, but rather grew out of Canaanite culture.

Wow! Very informative post this of yours. Only that the Jewish culture, throughout the history of our People since Abraham till modern Israel did not grow from Canaanite culture. We always had a culture of our own aimed, especially at being distinct from that of the Canaanites and pagans in general.
Ben

 

[Ben Masada]

Graetz, the famous 19th Century historian of the Jews, essentially supports Maimonides, whom you would correct.



But apparently not from Moses Maimonides, Sigmund Freud or Heinrich Graetz.

What of Moses Maimonides? "Letter to Yemen" does not measure the size of the Rambam. Read "The Guide for the Perplexed" and "Mishneh Torah."
Ben

 

[Ben Masada]

That does sound like the same kind of thing Zalmoxis was known for. But I to dispel the myth even further dying and coming back from the dead makes the other feats Jesus is said to have performed more miraculous. Addicts overdose and are revived all the time.



This is true and not true. Take Revelation 3.9 which is show how Christians were anti-Semitic.

Behold, I will make them of the synagogue of Satan, which say they are Jews, and are not, but do lie; behold, I will make them to come and worship before thy feet, and to know that I have loved thee. - Revelation 3.9

But on the same note Jesus was a Jew and therefore Christians worship a Jew. You could probably pass it off as religious syncronism, but it really just came down to politics. There were a lot of Jews/Christians in the Irano-Afghan (Aryan) zone. The Parthians called themselves Ashkanians which means "Afghan or equestrian." The word Ashkanazi is derived from the same word. The Romans needed an ally. So Constantine converted to Christianity in so he wouldn't even have to invade the Aryan zone because in so doing he gained an ally which could threaten the Zarthushtrian authority structure internally. It makes me wonder whether the Muslim invasions into the Aryan zone were also planned.

IMHO, this message is against those who have deserted Judaism and keep on claiming the Jewish identity albeit practicing the tenets of another religion when they are no longer Jews. For instance, "Jews-for-Jesus" and "Messianic Jews." Just like the Jews for Baal of the time of Elijah. (I Kings 18:21) People who straddle the issue between God and Baal; between Judaism and Christianity.
Ben