The Jews killed Jesus? A question.

[Blue_Chill]

The Jews killed Jesus!

I keep reading this and even hearing some of it at my work place. I can’t for the life of me understand this nonsense. Unlike most people however I don’t see it as a question of - ‘did they or didn’t they’ – I’m wondering where the heck is the faith these people claim to have. Let’s look at this in a Christian context…..

Who is Jesus according to the Christian religion? He’s the son of God but also God (the trinity thing). Now let me ask you – do Christians really believe that Jews COULD kill God? I mean I thought the guy was the man, the big bad I can burn you or drown you on a whim God that inspires them to call themselves ‘God fearing’.

How could anyone have killed the guy if he hadn’t allowed it to begin with? You see this is why blaming the Jews thing makes no sense to me. I don’t get how people that believe in the savior and the all powerful lord could at the same time assume a group of people could make a victim out of this being.

Your thoughts? Does any of this make sense to you?

So in closing the only answer I have for the question "Did the Jews kill Jesus?" is "No, it was Gods plan so.....God set the whole thing up and allowed himself to die"


And for any lurking freepers –

" no slave can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth." – Jesus

[dbt]

1. God killed Jesus. Get over it.

Any Father who would send His son into a world to die for the Father's Will is a murderer any way you slice it.

Discuss.

:evilgrin:
dbt
Christ goes into a Holiday Inn and asks, "Can you put me up for the night?"

[Blue_Chill]

4. God = Jesus = God

So did he commit suicide by planning his own death?

[boilerbabe]

9. not really..

more like he was trying to tell everyone else something. Like those that remain, listen to me? here's what's going on?

[Mick Knox]

8. This is how I see it...

First let me state.. Several times now on DU.. I have been sucked into what could be a legitimate question from some one who wants to know an opinion on religion only to have that be turned around in someway to bash christians... if thats this.. I'll bail..

I have no intent to save you.. I dont care to save you... and i'm not a fundie... my experience in answering your question comes from growing up in a very christian family.. that said I havent been to church in YEARs.. I can tell you .. i've been reading the bible for hours tonight.. Homework basically for a talk with my daughter before we go to see passion as I'm rusty.


"Jesus died for our sins" .. Period. It is the "mantra" if you will.

It is not:

"Jews Killed Jesus for our sins"...

Every Christian I know believes this.. Jews and romans are irrelevent to the act of Jesus dying for our sins..

That said... the jew haters of the world are jew haters.. and thats that.. which is redundant as Jesus was himself a jew. They will dream up any reason to justify their blind hatred.. much like other types of haters dream up all kinds of reasons to hate a certain group.. Anyone who lumps _any_ group and hates them all is the same type of person as a jew hater or a muslim hater.. etc IMO... its the same personality flaw and weakness.

To lump average good christians with idiots like that church who posted that sign would be quite unfair... not implying you are doing that.. that is a stand alone statement.

Edit: I meant to reply to the main thread.. not a sub thread... I was not addressing your comments.

[boilerbabe]

12. I agree with you totally! and having seen the movie...

it's beyond a jew-vs_gentile thing. entirely. it's more like a brute v.s. human. check it out and you will say the same, I hope. I am not religious, and would not care to be associated with any kind of religion, faith, or whatever....it's all down to a power thing...just look and see, i don't have to hurt you to make you see this. /

[Mick Knox]

16. I cant wait...

If it wasnt snowing i would have went tonight...

I'll add on to that.. Jesus not only died and endured his tribulations willingly, he knew it was going to happen and in fact it was the entire reason he came here. Certianly, IMO, he could have smote the hell out everyone there had he chosen too....

This is the Christian perspective.. from my point of view.. others who have other points of view.. that it entirely your right... I guess we all "pick our team" and hope we chose the right one :) I guess thats the best we can do.. live a good life.. and do the best we can...

[DuctapeFatwa]

2. Depends on whom you ask ;)

And because of their saying: We slew the Messiah, Jesus son of Mary, Allah's messenger - they slew him not nor crucified him, but it appeared so unto them; and lo! those who disagree concerning it are in doubt thereof; they have no knowledge thereof save pursuit of a conjecture; they slew him not for certain.

Koran 4:157

[boilerbabe]

13. I like the quote you have from the Koran...

the only problem I would have is that I am a female and that doesnt equate with the koran too much, seeing as how I am too independant///the rest is ok though, if I let it be so...

[DuctapeFatwa]

19. It is interesting to compare what different scriptures say about women

When you have some time, there are worse ways you could spend an afternoon. :)

[IrishBloodEngHeart]

21. Of course that was written 500 years after the gospel accounts

by people who were neither there, nor heard the first hand accounts of people during that age. The passages in the Koran are a response to an already established Christian message, written down by Mohammed, either under the inspiration of Allah, or not, depending on your religous point of view.

From a strictly historical perspective, the gospels have some historical value regarding these events, the Koran, in regards to what was happening in first century palestine, has very little or none.

The Koran has as much historical value in determining what happened prior to the 7th Century as the bible texts do when they describe anything pre Moses. Getting accounts from the people who were there can form a starting place to create a historical record. But, just as the bible is not historically relevent in describing events which occured prior to the lives or oral tradition history of its authors, neither is the Koran. It has a religous value to its adherents, but no real historical value to anyone studying the history of those era or events outside the oral tradition or actual experiences of the writers.

[DuctapeFatwa]

28. The Christian bible was selected by a bunch of old men in 333

or thereabouts, from a pile of old scrolls.

The Koran was first written down from written and oral recollections of a bunch of old men in 632

My years may be off a little bit, thanks for your tolerance.

Whether the Christian Bible is in fact the work of contemporaries of Jesus, and whether Jesus or Mithra were different, the same, or variations of an even older mystery cult or a manifestation of a supreme being, and whether the Koran was dictated to the Prophet by the Angel Gabriel are all questions of religious faith, not unlike the question of the Immaculate Conception and the Night Journey to Jerusalem.

Separating out the divinely inspired from the human is kind of like putting a band-aid on somebody's finger.

Even if you have faith that the band-aid company sold you a sterile band-aid, once I open the package and take it out, by the time it touches your finger, it is no longer sterile, but it will protect your finger from cookie crumbs.

[Fight_n_back]

3. He haggled over the bill at the Last Supper

if he would have just paid the damn thing we would have gone easier on him.

[boilerbabe]

15. It was because maybe his buddies ate too fucking much?

[fortyfeetunder]

5. Christianity came after his death

Jesus was popular, but certainly no rock star. IIRC, everyone was Jewish then. Jesus was trying to buck the trend, kind of like an early evangelist. We know what can happen to people who buck the trend. The apostles who thought he was worth following started the church...no big deal..

No I don't blame the Jews, not one iota.

[aquart]

24. Everyone was NOT Jewish.

Most of them in that little area, probably. But it had been Roman-owned for a good bit and the Romans were polytheistic and religiously tolerant. You're for Mars and I'm for Venus, but we're okay. Not so the monotheistic Jews.

Then the Roman Emperor decided he was God. Everything went downhill from there. Josephus records history's first sit-in was a bunch of Jews lying in the road preventing Romans from bringing their eagle standards into the city for worship.

Things were tense in that neighborhood. The Maccabees would kill you for not being circumcized, for instance.

[question everything]

6. First, every religion killed those it considered heretics

Look at the Inquisition, the Crusaders, all the "holy war" in human history. So, from the POV of the high priest at the time, Jesus was a heretic and deserved to die.

Second, the death of Jesus is the main theme and reason and cause of Christianity. Had he not died (and then resurrected) there would be no Christianity, at least, not the one that we know.

So what's the question?

[Fight_n_back]

11. He wasn't killed for heresy

Its a story about Jews so you have to look at it from a Jewish perspective. Claiming to be the Messiah is not a big deal. There have been a lot of guys who have claimed to be a messiah and they weren't killed for it. "Messiah" just means annointed and refers to the King of Israel. The Jews not only didn't have the power to kill Jesus they didn't have a justification. If you don't believe me then go to any Orthodox Temple and claim to be the Messiah, people will just ask you if you need help or a pill or something.

If the story is based on a real figure then he was executed by the Romans for sedition. They executed a lot of people for sedition. Pilot crucified a lot of guys because it gets the point across. He killed so many that Rome made him come home and explain himself. He killed other guys that people thought were the Messiah.

To think that the occupied people forced the Roman Governor to kill an innocent man is a little silly. Its like accussing the prisoners of San Quentin of executing the guys on death row.

[regnaD kciN]

32. Actually...

If the story is based on a real figure then he was executed by the Romans for sedition.

Most likely, he made himself quite unpopular both with the Temple priests and the Romans by his takeover (a.k.a. "cleansing") of the Temple earlier that week. The priests could either have interpreted it as an attack on their ethics or a acted-out prophecy that the Temple would be destroyed. The Romans almost certainly saw it as an attempt to start a rebellion. Neither interpretation would have guaranteed him a long life-span.

My personal interpretation: the Roman authorities and the Temple priests (who were pretty much Roman collaborators anyway) agreed that this guy needed to be eliminated. Pilate, however, was not only vicious, but clever. Jerusalem was filled with pilgrims at the time; an uprising that might have been easily quashed by Roman troops in normal times might have been overwhelmed had all the pilgrims been moved to action together -- and Pilate still didn't know how many of those pilgrims would side with Jesus. So, at what was supposed to be a pro-forma, pre-scripted "trial," Pilate double-crossed the priests and put on an act of being uncertain, of wanting to save Jesus's life, until he finally had to be "persuaded" to do what he had always planned in the first place: order Jesus's execution. That way, if the death sentence did indeed spur the beginnings of an uprising, Pilate and the Romans could always duck the blame, ("Hey, we tried to save him, but your own leaders insisted!") and turn it into a inter-Jewish dispute instead of an instance of Roman oppression. Pilate's plan worked...too well, as anyone who has studied the last two thousand years knows.

:-(

[boilerbabe]

20. The question is...why ...as regards to religion...

WHAT A WASTE.

[Another Bill C.]

7. This is a silly discussion point.

According to the scriptural legends, it was a preordained matter and the demographic environment meant very little. Had Christ been born among the Huns or the Mongolians, they would be getting the blame.

[buckeye1]

10. This is all stupid.

There is nothing written in the Bible by anyone that was ever there. Mel Gibson can have his fantasies but its just a fraud.

[Fight_n_back]

22. They were there

they just weren't where they said they were

[loudnclear]

14. The Romans nailed him to the cross at the request of the Jews.

The Scripture speaks for itsself.

[Blue_Chill]

18. But wasn't that the plan?

I mean could anyone nail God to anything if he didn't allow it?

[guitar man]

27. More heresy

When Jesus was nailed to the cross,he was a man,as he was for his entire life here on earth.Yes a man,fully human,with all the weaknesses,frailty and other characteristics of any other human being.
If he was Superman,his accomplishments here on earth wouldn't have any meaning.

The signifigance of his time here on earth wasn't how he died,but who he really was and how he lived,as one of us. Our brother.

[guitar man]

17. A heretic's take

Jesus was killed because his teaching was in opposition to the Pharisees. Who were the Pharisees? Columbia Encyclopedia as this to say about them:

<snip>
Pharisees(fâr´sz) (KEY) , one of the two great Jewish religious and political parties of the second commonwealth. Their opponents were the Sadducees, and it appears that the Sadducees gave them their name, perushim, Hebrew for “separatists” or “deviants.”

Link: http://www.bartleby.com/65/ph/Pharisee.html


Just what did he do to piss them off? Here is a sample:

Matthew 23:14 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye devour widows' houses, and for a pretence make long prayer: therefore ye shall receive the greater damnation
<see also Luke 20:47>

Hmmm,"devour widows houses".....their social security checks,perhaps to pray for them,pray over a cloth and mail it to them.Who does this sound like?

The rich and powerful Pharisees liked to mix religion,politics and wealth. The humble Jesus preached compassion,charity and good works.

And there you have it.Jesus,a liberal,threatened to upset the applecart of the Pharisees,or more aptly put,the rich,religious right wingnuts of their day,and was executed for it.

[aquart]

26. You're saying fundie Republicans killed him?

And they'd do it again, trust me.

[guitar man]

29. You bet they would

The Pharisees(Fartwell,Robinson and co.) would go crying to Pilate(Asskroft) to send him to a tribunal in Gitmo.

[regnaD kciN]

33. Your "take" is inaccurate...

Although Jesus engaged in some fairly-heated verbal disputes with Pharisees, those actually involved in the trials and execution of Jesus were the high priest and (presumably) Temple administrators, who were Sadducees -- the enemies of the Pharisees.

[guitar man]

34. Pharisees,Saducees

Democrats,Republicans.....hell,it's all politics. I bet they had their share of Zell Millers back then too. I believe his growing following was percieved to be a serious threat to the "powers that be"

[IrishBloodEngHeart]

23. Early translation of the new testament (the vulgate, for example)

would often translate what we now call "jewish leaders" as simply "the Jews" A learned reader of the text would understand that in that context the term "the jews" means the leaders of the jewish religous system, who were threatened by what they considered Jesus' heresy. And to a first century religous leader of that time, jews included, heresy was generally punishable by death.

Add that into the anti-semitic feelings already existing in Dark Ages Europe because of the lack of understanding of different religions and customs, and jealousy over success in certain forms of trade and finance, and you can see where this goes.

As most type of hate filled religious interpretation, it is proof texting, meaning that people have an idea of what they want to see (in this case an excuse for their anti-semetic feelings) and they prove it with the text by interpreting the text in the light of what they want it to say, rather than in the context of the story and culture itself.

that happens accross all times, religions, philosophy, politics and peoples.

[MinnFats]

25. Scorsese's "Last Temptation of Christ" far better film, I think.

I admit I have not seen the Gibson film, and probably won't.
I read the book. I don't need to see a film that is 80 percent explicit violence.

Though "Last Temptation" has been lambasted and labeled blasphemy, it is only one interpretation of Christ's last days, in which Jesus and Judas Iscariot discuss the imminent future. Judas (Harvey Keitel, at first glance an odd casting choice) confesses his love for Jesus but they both know that if Judas does not fulfill his role in all of this, the crucifixion and resurrection will not happen.

In the end, Satan tempts Jesus with his most ingenious temptation yet: The opportunity to live solely as a man, a human freed from his own divine nature to enjoy the earthly company of a loving woman and to be father to laughing children.
Now that's got to be harder to turn down than the kingdoms Satan offered when Jesus was fasting in the desert.

If you're interested in a provocative account of Jesus' life, go with Scorcese.

[guitar man]

30. I agree

It has been since the film came out (1987?) since I saw it,but I remember the uproar over it. As I remember,the opposition was supposedly over the film's sexual content,but I believe what really ticked off the fundie clergy was the films portrayal of Jesus with the qualities of a regular human,which he was while he was here,instead of "Super Deity"

[demconfive]

31. Hmmmm...

Let's see.Based on intelligence gained from "sources close to the suspect",the police arrest the leader of a band of Middle Eastern men who are intent on overthrowing the existing government.The leader is taken to an undisclosed location and held without legal assistance. After a lengthy interrogation, (there were reports of abuse, which were later dismissed by a Senate inquiry) the suspect
( or "terrorist") is found guilty of sedition by a military tribunal (approved by the local commander).
The suspect is then executed according to standards of the time. The soldiers who executed him were considered heroes , defenders of the Roman way of life, if you will.

The whole thing was perfectly legal and logical.However, it did create a bit of resentment among his followers, who doggedly did their best to keep his revolutionary ideas alive. So, it turns out later that the followers finally did overthrow, in a fashion, the Romans. Being in control, they took out some deeply held anger on the people they thought had cooperated with the Romans in the investigation of their leader.

Did the Jews kill Jesus? Who knows? Who cares. Water under the bridge. Get over it. Move on. Quit dwelling on it. Its been 2000 years, you're starting to scare me. Have you thought about seeing a therapist?

[Vernunft II]

35. Crucifixion was a punishment exclusively reserved for those

who stirred political unrest. Jesus (who I consider a historical figure blown way out of proportion) was uncomfortable to the establishment and so they sold him to their roman buddies who nailed him up.
The bible states that he didn´t have his limbs broken which was the customary way to inflict death upon the delinquent. Getting nailed up is really "just" torture but it´s not life threatening, at least not to a healthy man in his early 30s. No wonder he came back, he wasn´t dead in the first place.

[Mick Knox]

36. According to other sources.....

Crucifixion was a punishment exclusively reserved for those who stirred political unrest.

You are forgetting the two thieves crucified with him..

Jesus (who I consider a historical figure blown way out of proportion) was uncomfortable to the establishment and so they sold him to their roman buddies who nailed him up.

this is not what happened.. the "establishment" did not have the power to sentence to death.. they cried for it and had to do so through the romans.

The bible states that he didn´t have his limbs broken which was the customary way to inflict death upon the delinquent.

Do a google search on another wonderful custom known as Scourging... this was likely the cause of the death of his body so quickly.. the other two had their legs broken.. Jesus was dead, to Pilate's suprise.. so it was not necessary.

Getting nailed up is really "just" torture but it´s not life threatening, at least not to a healthy man in his early 30s. No wonder he came back, he wasn´t dead in the first place.

Death on the cross is by asphxiation and other things.. not the least of which was the scourging, blood loss, speering..etc. Your opinion on his resurrection is your own... which is fine.. but I was just addressing your invented account which is not accurate according to the bible and how the christians believe it.

Good night DU.. its been an experience today to say the least... I feel like I've been scourged just reading the posts today.

[Vernunft II]

37. Well, if you prefer a fairytale over hard historical facts...

Rest well and dream evil :-)

[Moderator]

38. Locking

From the Forum description:
"This very popular forum is for discussion of miscellaneous political topics"

Please take religious discussions to another forum. Thank you.