John 3:61

[_huckelberry]

Californiakid, "Jeffery, Avey ,Sach."

For me no recognition. Google suggested a book by these with a Piper introduction. I have read some Piper so know the general area of thought. I am much more aligned with New Testament Wright than Piper. I have some impression that Piper has been enlisted to help keep Wright out of some circles. Well I have thought well of some of Pipers work.

Exodus 12, the passover would've course be inportant in early Christian thought. However despite rereading it again after seeing the online beginning of this book, I remain unable to see substituionary atonement in the passover. Looks more like a sacrifice establishing, renewing a covenant relationship with God. It is a meal with subdued celebration. I find no evil being paid for. To be truthful I see much the same with other sacrifice rules. For a sin offering a poor person sacrifices pigeon. I cannot imagine such a bird paying for anything. I think something else is going on and is worth searching out.

ps51
Thou carest not for sacrifice
else I would give it
Thou hast no pleasure in burnt offerings
The sacrifice of God are a broken spirit
a broken and contrite heart.
Oh God thou will not dispise.

[_Bond James Bond]

I can't help but think that the OP represents a kind of failure to think about the historical context thoroughly enough. The question is not what such a spectacle looks like to a modern interpreter, but what it signaled in the Roman Empire to its inhabitants. Is a reading out of context a fair reading here?

@Prof. Kish,

Forgive me for asking (since I haven't looked at Roman history in a few years the thought popped into my head) but during Roman times weren't the legs of a person being crucified usually broken? If so wasn't them not being broken meant as extra punishment/suffering?

Also Roman citizens could not be crucified? It was only for non-Roman citizens right?


/Bond...Bothering his Betters Bond

[_CaliforniaKid]

I can't help but think that the OP represents a kind of failure to think about the historical context thoroughly enough. The question is not what such a spectacle looks like to a modern interpreter, but what it signaled in the Roman Empire to its inhabitants. Is a reading out of context a fair reading here?

Pretty much the entire point of this thread is putting the atonement into context (particularly its Jewish theological context), so I find your comment puzzling. What exactly is it that you think I've missed?

[_Kishkumen]

@Prof. Kish,

Forgive me for asking (since I haven't looked at Roman history in a few years the thought popped into my head) but during Roman times weren't the legs of a person being crucified usually broken? If so wasn't them not being broken meant as extra punishment/suffering?

Also Roman citizens could not be crucified? It was only for non-Roman citizens right?

Crurifragium and crucifixion were distinct punishments that were inflicted on slaves and non-citizens. There is evidence of crurifragium being added to crucifixion, but I don't believe that the two always went together. To be honest, I am not an expert on crucifixion, but this is what I have read in various places over the years.

[_Kishkumen]

Pretty much the entire point of this thread is putting the atonement into context (particularly its Jewish theological context), so I find your comment puzzling. What exactly is it that you think I've missed?

I am sorry I was not sufficiently clear that the context to which I was referring was the Romen imperial context.

[_Bond James Bond]

@Prof. Kish,

Forgive me for asking (since I haven't looked at Roman history in a few years the thought popped into my head) but during Roman times weren't the legs of a person being crucified usually broken? If so wasn't them not being broken meant as extra punishment/suffering?

Also Roman citizens could not be crucified? It was only for non-Roman citizens right?

Crurifragium and crucifixion were distinct punishments that were inflicted on slaves and non-citizens. There is evidence of crurifragium being added to crucifixion, but I don't believe that the two always went together. To be honest, I am not an expert on crucifixion, but this is what I have read in various places over the years.

Wasting way too much time on the Internet that could have been used on something productive lol:

It seems that under the Roman empire crucifixion was used for non-citizens exclusively. Examples of non-citizens included slaves (ex. Crassus's crucifixion of Spartacus army slaves around 71 BC, pirate outlaws (ex. Caesar's tale of recapturing and crucifying the pirates who captured him off the coast of Asia Minor) and other enemies of the state/treasonous people.

Roman citizens were usually executed via strangulation (for nobles) or decapitation (for disgraced citizens). In the Roman city itself some Romans were thrown from a hill/cliff called the Tarpian Rock. Not sure when each was acceptable, but crucifixion seems to have been reserved for the "baddest" of criminals and as a threat of obedience. I guess the leg breaking was actually considered an act of mercy (thanks!) since the criminal would not be able to push up and breath as easily once up on the cross and would die faster. With legs unbroken the criminal would be able to push up from whatever leg rest their feet were on and breath easier, allowing the person to live for several days and be more apt to die of dehydration.

(Talk about a way to go. "Please at least break my legs!")

[_CaliforniaKid]

I believe that Jesus is propitiation to the Father by being the true righteousness that God desires. ... I think it is important in John to follow how human sin and darkness produces hostility towards God. Jesus accepts all of that hostility and dies from it.

One of the interesting things about these alternative theories of the atonement is that they are based on a selective misreading of aspects of the Jesus story that were originally intended to evoke the sacrificial cult.

Take for example the "moral example" theory, which says it is Jesus's sinless life that saves us by showing us the way to live. The main significance of Jesus's sinlessness for the New Testament authors, by contrast, was that he was ritually pure and "unblemished" (Heb 9:14), just as priests and sacrificial animals are supposed to be. As Hebrews 7:26 says, Jesus was "a high priest [who] meets our need - one who is holy, blameless, pure, set apart from sinners, exalted above the heavens." And in 1 Peter 1:18-19 we read, "you were redeemed ... with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect."

As for the idea that the salvific event was the transfer of sin to Jesus rather than the sacrifice itself, this ignores the fact that the very concept of a transfer of sin comes from the sacrificial cult. Before offering a sacrificial animal, the communicant laid his hands on the animal's head to transfer his sins to it. When John says Jesus is "the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world," he's evoking the whole sacrificial ritual, including the killing part. It makes no sense to rip the sin-transfer out of its sacrificial context and give it some kind of independent, ultimate significance of its own. As far as I'm concerned, if you're into the sacrificial cult for a penny, you're in for a pound.

(As a side note, if ransom or merely the transfer of sin were how the New Testament authors understood Christ's atonement, they surely would have likened it to the Jewish ritual of the scapegoat. In that ritual, the sins of the people are transferred to a goat which then is cast out of the community as an offering to the goat-demon Azazel. That comparison is made by the Church Fathers, but not in the New Testament, where Jesus is described not as a goat but as a sacrificial lamb.)

Exodus 12, the passover would've course be inportant in early Christian thought. However despite rereading it again after seeing the online beginning of this book, I remain unable to see substituionary atonement in the passover. Looks more like a sacrifice establishing, renewing a covenant relationship with God.

Yes, I agree. When the image of the Passover Lamb is applied to Jesus, it signifies the establishment of a new covenant people, not the expiation of sin. But this of course is not the only significance attributed to Christ's sacrifice in the New Testament or in the Christian tradition. Christians universally understand it to have had something to do with removing sin. Without the removal of sin, Christianity would be a completely different religion.

ps51

I actually have a lot to say about this passage, the one Nightlion quoted, and others like them. But it will have to wait for another day. Too much Internet already today.

[_CaliforniaKid]

I am sorry I was not sufficiently clear that the context to which I was referring was the Romen imperial context.

Okay, so how does the Roman context mitigate or alter the Jewish theological meaning of Christ's atonement?

[_Kishkumen]

Okay, so how does the Roman context mitigate or alter the Jewish theological meaning of Christ's atonement?

I think there are some interesting lines of discussion that one could have here. Some of them, of course, work better or worse depending on your theological perspective. Since I don't believe in an omniscient deity who intervenes personally in the affairs of the world, they work OK in my view.

I think it is possible to look at the crucifixion from the viewpoint of those who were "victims" of Roman imperialism. As such, the crucifixion story is hopeful in that it demonstrates the compassion of Jesus in being willing to endure the worst of what other subjects and enemies of the empire might have to endure. If compassion is too anachronistic a concept, maybe it would simply be the ability victims of empire had to identify with Jesus in his victimization that was important.

The crucifixion also has a hopeful outcome. Although the empire might subject you to the worst it can dish out, God will save you in the end. Here, the fact that Jesus actually dies on the cross is an important fact. Christians early on probably did not have much hope that they would evade punishment. It was not until the second century that you see more of the "escape of punishment" tales.

One could say more, but I am busy. I understand that these solutions do not work very well in terms of systematic theology. I also understand that I have not presented any solid evidence. I would, however, leave room for these or similar popular interpretations as having been present in the early Christian community, before more systematic theological thinking demanded that the Jesus' death be reconciled logically with a more sophisticated vision of Deity. Docetism is probably an example of how you would wrestle with the problem on a narrative-mythological level.

Finally, I think there is much more that can be done with theory involving the body and imperialism to try to make sense of the crucifixion. Although I have briefly encountered discussions that I think could be productive, I have not had time to pursue them.

[_Jason Bourne]

Indeed. Like New Order Mormonism, the kind of liberal Christianity that removes all the strong doctrines (admittedly sometimes mutually incompatible) that have been taught through the centuries and still command much belief today is an entirely parasitic phenomenon on the actual Christian religion (in which, by the way, I no longer believe). Liberal Christianity could never have got itself started as a religion on its own, in the same way that New Order Mormonism, which shuffles aside as embarrassing huge swathes of the teachings of past prophets, could ever have attracted any believers if it had not had the pre-existing Mormon church to draw them from.

These are religions for people who like the atmosphere, aesthetics and modes of sociability of main-stream religions, while wanting little that they offer doctrinally apart from a generalised 'spiritual' uplift that does not commit one to much by way of belief.

New Order Mormons also understand the the religion that takes up so much of their life has had a lot of BS in it and they choose to reject it while still participating for other reasons. Perhaps a lot of liberal Christians have come to similar conclusions about Christianity.

I want to say this is a great thread and I thank all for their thoughtful comments. Even when I TBM I wondered about the nature of Christ's atonement and why it was needed. Why does God demand payment in blood or death for sin? Why can't God just forgive us if we truly are sorry for our mistakes, just like I forgive my kids and they me when we screw up. Is there some higher law God is bound by that requires this? If yes does that mean God is not all powerful and does that taint him as being worthy of worship? If no and God thinks He is just to holy to have scummy sinners in his presence with our beating the hell out of someone then what does that say about God's attributes?

There are a lot of good comments here for me to think on.

Thanks