Thursday, April 2, 2020

Acts17apologetics seek a mobile; why was Jesus wanted for execution?

In answer to the video "The Significance of Jesus' Resurrection"

When Jesus was apprehended and judged by the Romans, with the complicity of the Jewish leaders who wanted to get rid of him for his denouncing their sins as past prophets did, he did not claim to be the king messiah, neither to the Jews who were seeking a pretext to make him arrested, pressing the question to have him confess Matt26:63-64,Mk14:62,Lk22:70 nor in front of the authorities, who eventually sent him to be crucified.

By doing so, and acceding to the request of the Jews, the romans validated the Jewish charge against him of messianic kingship which is punishable by death under state laws. Now that Jesus and his band became official outlaws wanted by the state, his close apostles are reported to have fled with Peter even denying he knew Jesus 3 times. The Romans, lobbied by their Jewish stooges, deemed the allegation against him enough for him to be crucified.

This punishment was most often reserved to those who threatened the political status quo, regardless of their background motives (religious or else). Jesus was a typical person the Romans would go after in those days, a charismatic leader who proclaimed a kingdom "with God" not "with Caesar" at its head was seen as an immediate threat. The person didnt even have to present a violent danger to be inflicted with such punishment, nor tangible evidence, especially a non-Roman citizen or a slave. Simple suspicion, in this case instigated by their Jewish minions, or even non-violent anti-government talk such as the promised rule of God's kingdom, was enough to trigger the authorities.

As to Pontius Pilate washing his hands of the decision to execute a political agitator, a man known for his brutality against his subjects, is obviously a scribal corruption with an agenda. The Greeks were writing the Gospels after the Roman legions had returned to crush the Jewish rebellion of 66CE and did not want to antagonize Roman power and attract their hostility at that point in time. What is insteresting to add is that, contrary to similar cases where accomplices would be tracked down and killed to crush a potential rebellion, the Romans left Jesus' disciples to freely preach their gospel.

This shows that, as said above, Jesus was seen as inconsequential in terms of posing a violent threat, that the savage Roman police would easily be triggered on simple basis of suspicion and that they would readily accomodate their local puppets to safeguard their own dominion in the distant regions of the empire.

As Paul candidly admits,
1Corin15:17"If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins".
In essence, the validity of Christianity stands or falls on this claim. Yet the admittedly crucial nature of that event is contrasted by the scarcity of material related to it within the Gospels. Barely 5 people witnessed the risen Jesus, and when analyzed critically, these testimonies are contradictory and inconsistent. In Mark, Matthew and Luke, Jesus' message is centred not on the resurrection, but on the establishment of God's kingdom on earth, a metonym in those days for God's rule of justice and restauration of JEwish glory among the nations, with the defeat of the Romans. It is only with the development of Christology with John's Gospel and Paul's writings, as well as the Greek Church fathers, their rich Hellenistic background of mythologies and legends of deified leaders, that supplied the fertile ground for the short story of Jesus' resurrection, his interpolated deification.

This Hellenistic perspective however isnt on par with the Jewish background which the writers and early Christian scholars claim provide proof for their beliefs on Jesus. In Jewish understanding, the resurrection of the dead is a common theme that has already occured in the past and that shall happen again in the messianic era, without any divine connotation or connection with atonement for sins.

These men were formulating their ideas, interpreting inherited traditions while still infused with stories of demigods, Achilles, Dionysus or Heracles to name but a few. By the time they expressed their thoughts and the Gospels were put to writing, the Jerusalem Temple had been destroyed in 70CE, and the centers of Christian thought were spread around the Mediterranean. This opened the way for non-Jews and foreigners to Jesus' socio/cultural/religious background to take the reigns of power in the early church.

When challenged by the Pharisees to display a miracle, Jesus promised them his resurrection after being dead for 3 days Matt12:39. Once he is supposedly resurrected, he doesnt appear to those who specifically asked him for the sign and to whom he said he will reappear. Instead, Jesus' followers come to the Pharisees, claiming that the sign had occured.

Neither is there any claim that the risen Jesus ever appeared to anyone but believers. There is only the word of a mere handful of "witnesses" whose stories vary from person to person, and we dont even know who transmitted those biased accounts until they were eventually put to writing by scribes whom nobody knows.

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