Who Killed Jesus?

[achtung_circus]

is the name of the book I'm currently reading.

So, I'm sitting in the office of the Ear, Nose and Throat specialist, waiting my turn, reading the book and this nimrod clears his throat at me, smiles in a totally sickening fashion, leers at the book and says "have you accepted Jesus into your heart?"

I said I hadn't. He asks if I read the Bible, I reply "cover to cover" (which I did years ago). He asks "do you know the ending?"

and I respond
This book is subtitled "Exposing the Roots of Anti-Semitism in the Gospel Story of the Death of Jesus". It's thesis is that the Passion stories were initially self defense by one Jewish sect against other sects, but when that sect became Christianity and then the official religion of the Roman Empire and then the dominant European religion those stories became the cause of a great deal of evil culminating in the Holocaust. The author holds that Christians need to understand the pain and suffering their fairy tales have caused.

That shut him up.

[LiviaOlivia]

1. The Romans.

Many people(Christians) still don't understand that Jesus was a Jew.

[achtung_circus]

4. Exactly.

But the New Testament goes out of its way to blame Pharisees, or the people of Jerusalem, setting the stage for people like Mel Gibson's dad to say it's a conspiracy.

[dave123williams]

36. I like the old Richard Jeni joke about this...

"People still blame the Jews for killing Jesus; we didn't kill him...we just sold the Romans the lumber at wholesale.

[Lilith Velkor]

61. The Pharisees were one sect, not "the people."

They were powerful, and hated, for sucking up to the Romans. If it were really all them he woulda been stoned, not crucified.

[BillZBubb]

8. That reminds me of the old Kinky Friedman line:

"They don't make Jews like Jesus anymore!"

[ngGale]

33. No they don't , and I like to say...

you are going to be surprised when Jesus returns - as a Jewish Rabbi!
They say, no - Jesus is a Christian, I say no we made that part up!

[meow2u3]

65. The Romans were the "triggermen"

But the big shots of the Pharisees, the Fundamentalist Right of their time, were the ones who ordered the "hit."

I just put it in terms Americans would understand.

[theboss]

2. Very old joke that may offend some; you have been warned

An Italian, a Jew and a Polish fella all applied for a job as the next deputy sheriif of a small town. The sheriff comes in and says, "Boys, you all impressed me and scored real well on your tests. So I have a tie-breaker qusetion: who killed Jesus?"

The Italian guy says, "Well, that's easy. The Jews killed Jesus."

The sheriff says, "Okay...anyone else have an anwswer?"

The Jewish guy says, "Everyone knows that the Romans killed Jesus."

The sheriff says, "All right...good answer. How about you?"

The Polish guy says, "Boy, that's tough one. Can you let me sleep on it and answer it in the morning?"

The sheriff says, "Fine. You all meet me here at 9 and have an answer."

The all leave. The Polish guy goes home and his wife greets him. "Honey," she says, "did you get job?"

"Did I get the job? Shit, they've already got me on a murder investigation!"

[Melynn]

69. Funny

Yes, its an ethnic joke but a good one and relatively mild.

It made me: :rofl:

[Ladyhawk]

3. Hmmmm, my ear, nose and throat specialist doesn't believe...

...in evolution. :) I found that out as I was leaving and I don't plan to go back. How can doctors get through school without losing that fairy tale crap? In my case, I bet the doc went to an Adventist school. Sigh.

[achtung_circus]

5. Let's see if I understand this.

Medical Doctor= science= wingnut?

Ok math isn't my strongest subject but how does this compute?

[Ladyhawk]

18. The Adventists must not make their medical students study the theory of...

...evolution except to discredit it. I had many "science" classes in my fundy school that only addressed evolution in order to make fun of it. :shrug:

[LostinVA]

45. I just found out my Sports Med Guy I LOVE is a Whacko

He's a member of that RW doctor's group -- someone posted a link to the website here a while ago. So, I looked up my area, and lo and behold, there was my Sports Med guy. He's a great doctor, bit after reading the tenets of that group, no way. I called up my primary care and asked to be transferred to another Sports Med guy. When they asked why, I told her. She told me I wasn't the first person to say that. Apparently he had been handing out tracts. Maybe Chick tracts! A quick read of "Someone Loves Me" while you're getting a bit of Runner's Knee therapy, I guess...

[PaDem]

50. oh the horrors..........

a doctor who believes in intelligent design. The world has rotated off it's axis.

[iamjoy]

6. God, Of Course

I mean, if you are a Christian, did God not send his son (or God himself come down in human form/the Trinity) as a gift to humanity, to save us all?

So God killed Jesus and whether it was Hebrews or Romans they were acting according to God's will.

Growing up Jewish, I never understood anti-Semitism for killing Jesus from people who called the day he died "Good" Friday. If his dying was so good, why do you hate me for it?



:hide:

[DelawareValleyDem]

48. From Wikipedia's entry for that day

in Early Modern English, Good had a meaning of "holy". A "good tide" is, for example, Christmas or Shrove Tuesday.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_Friday

[onager]

7. A more direct approach from a movie...

Last weekend I was watching the movie Octane. In one scene, Madeleine Stowe is sitting in a truck stop.

A guy wearing a suit...and the leer you mentioned...oozes into her booth and asks: "Are you familiar with the words of Jesus Christ?"

She replies: "Are you familiar with the words 'fuck off'?"

I nearly fell off the couch laughing.

[karlrschneider]

11. LOL! I warn you, I -will- be using that reply in future.

:D

[Fenris]

9. God

[soothsayer]

12. Precisely! Thus, er....He killed Himself? in a sense

[kentuck]

10. Have you found Jesus ?

"Uh, I didn't know he was lost.." :)

[smirkymonkey]

56. LOL! Reminds me of this one...

"Jesus is coming...Look Busy."

[Dancing_Dave]

13. I did it!

Ask a stupid question...:)

Actually, that sounds like a pretty good topic for historical deconstruction as you summerize it.

[achtung_circus]

14. It's pretty dense, he needs a better editor, but

"as long as Christians were the marginalized and disenfranchised ones such passion fiction about Jewish responsibility and Roman innocence did nobody much harm. But once the Roman Empire became Christian, that fiction turned lethal. Think, now, of those passion-resurrection stories as heard in predominantly Christian world. Did those stories of ours send certain people out to kill?"

John Dominic Crossan

[reprobate]

63. It's been said that they were Adolph's main reason for the Holocaust.

[Coexist]

15. Col. Mustard in the billiard room

with the wrench - was I right???

[DURHAM D]

16. Wrong - it was the conservatory.

[Coexist]

17. Dag - I thought I crossed that off when I made

the guess in the kitchen.

[DURHAM D]

20. I love Clue - haven't played it in over 40 years.

But it was/is a great game.

Also I loved Gusher. It was somewhat like Monopoly but you bought land and then paid to drill oilwells. The way you drilled for oil was to put this little oilwell derrick over a hole and plunge a pin down into the hole - if the pin when all the way down you had a dry hole. If the pin stayed up you had a Gusher! If you got a producing well when it came around to your turn you got paid $2000 for each well. The objective was to accumulate all of the money and bankrupt the other players.

If you grew up in an oil producing state you probably know all about Gusher - if not, I'm pretty sure you've never heard of it. Oh, those were the days.

[MidwestMomma]

19. Better notify Homeland Security

This Col Mustard sounds like a terrorist. :)

[DerekG]

21. In a sense, we all did

The human incarnation of God offered us a new paradigm--a call to non-violence and universal love--but because we are greedy, self-serving and brutal, we opted to nail Him to the Cross instead. Yet despite our wretchedness, Christ did not reject us. He died for the Jews, He died for the Romans, He died for all His children. And thus we have grace, and that is the crux, isn't it?

[Besq]

23. If He didn't die, then what?

As I understand it, He came to earth TO die. If He didn't die, the whole plan would have crashed.

[DerekG]

24. Yes, God chooses to suffer: therein lies the poignancy

In the early books of Scripture, Yahweh, the warrior-god, slaughters disobedient individuals, enemy armies, even depraved civilizations. And yet, with the Christ story, victimhood is upturned; God Himself becomes the Paschal Lamb, suffering for those He loves, even criminals and soldiers of empire. This is indicative of a radical shift in the Biblical narrative, turning everything we know about justice and mercy on its head. (Of course, one only needs to read the prophetic books to see glimmers of this.)

[The Magistrate]

28. No Change, Sir, Merely Postponement....

Till the End of Days....

[DerekG]

30. The Book of Revelation?

As he was translating the Bible into German, Martin Luther was plagued over whether or not to include Revelation--an undesirable prospect, since he deemed that "the Holy Spirit was not in it." Alas, he did not follow his instincts, and thus the Prince of Peace transmogrified into the Warrior Messiah.

[The Magistrate]

35. Luther, Sir

Is hardly authoritative for the earliest prosetylizations of the sect in question. Revelation was included in the canon even when Christianity became the oficial order of the Roman Empire precisely because the teaching at its heart had been the true core of Christian expansion in its early days, and could no more be wholly denied without catastrophic loss of credibility than could many of the idolatries and human sacrifices of heroes in the Old Testament be expunged wholly: if you took out erecting that pillar, grand-dad wouldn't have recognized the story; he always talked about that, it was his favorite part....

This fact may be an uncomfortable one, from some points of view, but that does not alter the actual history of the first century spread of this particular Messianic sect.

[DerekG]

38. I am aware of the book's gestation, Magistrate

Forgive me, I'm Lutheran. I suffer under the delusion that if anyone could have expunged Revelation, it would have been ol' Marty. He was at one hell of a juncture.

[The Magistrate]

40. No Offense To Your Confession Intended, Sir

My point is not one of what is proper doctrine, but of historical accuracy concerning the first century or so of Christian expansion, and whether or not the book was carried forward in the Protestant canons after the Reformation would not make any difference to that. The teaching that the End of Days was near at hand, and that any moment Rome and its works and rulers would be punished with flame for their evil was one a great many people afflicted within that empure were very glad to hear. Nor did those who heard it take it as symbolism or spiritual illustration or any such whitewash, but rather took it straight up, no chaser, and shivered to the thrill of the literal prospect of incinerated officials and masters. Revelations is only the sole survivor of its order, that once flourished in extravagant abundance, a sort of platypus of Gospels, if you will....

[Besq]

70. We were learning

In the early days God was showing people what He was capable of. The people were primitive and needed to see God would go to battle for them or against them. Also they were under the old covenant when breaking the Law meant death. Showing the need for a savior and forgiveness. We, mankind, have seen what can be and what is, in order to show us the benefit of obedience. Whatever we wish, we are God's property. If we are duds, we will be disposed of because we will be useless in God's plan whatever it is.
With the new covenant, there is forgiveness on repentance. We are knowledgeable and can make decisions instead of merely reacting. I believe God is the same but is forming us, building us into the people He meant us to be. In the end, judgement day, all will be judged. Judged, not condemned. I believe all those who lived under the old covenant Law will have the opportunity to learn to live under a forgiving God.
I do think the majority of all who have existed on this earth will live in the next age, at least for the thousand years. Then if they can't hack it, they will be destroyed humanely.
I try to live by the Law and have found I am a better person for it. If only we could all see the benefit of that. And not display it in a mawkish, embarrassing manner, it is a valid way of life. I don't go around praising Jesus and trying to "save" anyone but people who know me see me as an example and respect me for it.

[reprobate]

64. Actually, Jesus was only the last in a long line of christ figures....

...who were born miraculously, and died for their followers. Read some of Joseph Campbell's works. He explains it better than I could. It's actually the oldest myth of humanity. And all Death Cults.

[WilliamPitt]

22. The Italians

Christ-killing cannoli-eating bastards. ;)

[Disturbed]

26. The story,

God ordered Jesus to die on the cross, according to the writings. The Pharasees turn him into the Roman Govt., claiming that Jesus was an Insurgent but Pontius Pilot couldn't find any charges to crucify him for so he left it up to the mob to decide between three criminals and Jesus. The mob let Barabas go and chose Jesus to die.

It's an interesting story but why do I have to be forced to believe it?

[Besq]

37. Free Choice

I don't think you are forced to believe anything. Its your choice. Its up to you to learn what happened, don't listen to those who tell you what to believe. Find out for yourself.

[MollyStark]

43. Who is forcing you?

[reprobate]

66. The really strange twist to this story is that Barabas translates to....

Son of the Father. So just who did they releaseL: the theif or the one claiming to be the son of god (the father)?

There's a whole bunch of these little in group jokes in that book.

[yvr girl]

27. Take that back or I'll get my cousin Guido to make you take it back

[Must_B_Free]

32. Easy for you to say...

because you know you are secretly an Italian underneath that "I'm really not an Italian... no, honest" persona that you work so hard to project. I've even seen you use italics in your writing, so there's no fooling me, Pitt... or should I say "Pittizzicato"? ;)

[smirkymonkey]

57. Hey! Careful there!

:evilgrin:

Actually, there were no such people called the Italians at that particular point in time. :)

[Liberal In Texas]

25. And these same people predicted the APOCOLYSPE or the END OF THE WORLD

about a thousand times.

As my dad might say, hoooy and bunk.

I frimly believe religion was invented to keep the serfs serfs. The power elite the elite.

This still exists to this day.

[lastliberalintexas]

54. My favorite quote

Religion is what keeps the poor man from murdering the rich. - Napolean

It seems you and I agree on quite a bit- religion, user names... :)

[entanglement]

29. I know who

Romans = White
Jews = White

So either way it was White men! Yes, White guys killed Jesus :evilgrin:

:hide: :hide:

[jdj]

31. please be careful.

don't make yourself vulnerable medically to these wingnuts.

seriously, it's not safe.

[porphyrian]

34. God killed Jesus.

What a hateful bastard.

[SheepyMcSheepster]

51. indeed, it was the plan

for there was no other way to save god's children from god's sin and god's damnation. god's son must be killed as the ulitamte sacrifice by god for god. thank god for god's son's blood that washed god's sin away from god's children.

[porphyrian]

52. Sure, if you believe that. - n/t

[SheepyMcSheepster]

53. what, you mean that doesn't make sense to you?

it makes perfect sense to me! :sarcasm:
:silly:

[leftofthedial]

39. It was the Romans alright, but it was Constantine

not Pilate.

[Junkdrawer]

47. Obscure, but true...

Spirituality dies and is fossilized as "religion" when it is used as a vehicle of government.

[Warren DeMontague]

41. It was either the sniper team on the triple overpass, or that ginkus

behind the fence on the grassy knoll.. I forget which.

[NoPasaran]

44. Bosh!

Oswald acted alone.

[Warren DeMontague]

55. Maybe killing Jesus, but if you're talking about JFK, you're out of your

mind... respectfully speaking.

"Oswald" was a patsy and even 40 years later even Tycho Brahe could smell that the Kennedy assasination stank to high heaven. I'm certainly not going to sit here and debate it, but the Warren report couldn't have been more of a fairy tale if it had included a wicked stepmother and seven dwarves.

[LostInAnomie]

42. Fried foods, heavy smoking, and hard drinking.

Oh wait you said Jesus. I thought you said my grandpa.

[Junkdrawer]

46. Hey..Didn't they write a book about that? Long story I'm told...

Lots of players...

[freestyle]

49. Fundamentalist conservatives in concert with corrupt government

sound familiar?

[XemaSab]

58. The Jews killed Jesus

as well as the Romans. And God.

It was a vast conspiracy.

No, seriously, according to my reading of the Bible, the Jews were definitely involved, but the problem with most reading of the Gospels (which I have bitched about to my pastors to emphasize, mind you) is that everyone's a Jew.

Jesus, Mary, Joseph, Judas, John, Thomas, Mary Magdalene, all of them were Jews.

The Romans appear to be the ones who actually carried out the crucifixion, but the Jews went along for the ride.

So Judas, procuring a band of soldiers and some officers from the chief priests and the Pharisees, went there with lanterns and torches and weapons. 4 Then Jesus, knowing all that was to befall him, came forward and said to them, "Whom do you seek?" 5 They answered him, "Jesus of Nazareth." Jesus said to them, "I am he." So the band of soldiers and their captain and the officers of the Jews seized Jesus and bound him. 13 First they led him to Annas; for he was the father-in-law of Ca'iaphas, who was high priest that year. 14 It was Ca'iaphas who had given counsel to the Jews that it was expedient that one man should die for the people. 15 Simon Peter followed Jesus, and so did another disciple. As this disciple was known to the high priest, he entered the court of the high priest along with Jesus, 16 while Peter stood outside at the door. So the other disciple, who was known to the high priest, went out and spoke to the maid who kept the door, and brought Peter in. The high priest then questioned Jesus about his disciples and his teaching. 20 Jesus answered him, "I have spoken openly to the world; I have always taught in synagogues and in the temple, where all Jews come together; I have said nothing secretly. 21 Why do you ask me? Ask those who have heard me, what I said to them; they know what I said." 22 When he had said this, one of the officers standing by struck Jesus with his hand, saying, "Is that how you answer the high priest?" 23 Jesus answered him, "If I have spoken wrongly, bear witness to the wrong; but if I have spoken rightly, why do you strike me?" 24 Annas then sent him bound to Ca'iaphas the high priest. Then they led Jesus from the house of Ca'iaphas to the praetorium. It was early. They themselves did not enter the praetorium, so that they might not be defiled, but might eat the passover. 29 So Pilate went out to them and said, "What accusation do you bring against this man?" 30 They answered him, "If this man were not an evildoer, we would not have handed him over." 31 Pilate said to them, "Take him yourselves and judge him by your own law." The Jews said to him, "It is not lawful for us to put any man to death." 32 This was to fulfil the word which Jesus had spoken to show by what death he was to die. 33 Pilate entered the praetorium again and called Jesus, and said to him, "Are you the King of the Jews?" 34 Jesus answered, "Do you say this of your own accord, or did others say it to you about me?" 35 Pilate answered, "Am I a Jew? Your own nation and the chief priests have handed you over to me; what have you done?" 36 Jesus answered, "My kingship is not of this world; if my kingship were of this world, my servants would fight, that I might not be handed over to the Jews; but my kingship is not from the world." 37 Pilate said to him, "So you are a king?" Jesus answered, "You say that I am a king. For this I was born, and for this I have come into the world, to bear witness to the truth. Every one who is of the truth hears my voice." 38 Pilate said to him, "What is truth?" After he had said this, he went out to the Jews again, and told them, "I find no crime in him. 39 But you have a custom that I should release one man for you at the Passover; will you have me release for you the King of the Jews?" 40 They cried out again, "Not this man, but Barab'bas!"



Also, google the word "john." I got a big kick out of the first search result, and so will all y'all.

[Cuban_Liberal]

59. The Romans did, of course.

No real dispute about that...

:shrug:

[aeolian]

60. Oddly enough, it was the Australians.

Oh...wait....hmmmmmmm

*backs out of thread*

[Nevernose]

62. Santa Claus killed Jesus Christ!

To quote Kinky Friedman...

[agincourt]

67. No sense debating a murder,

of one whom is alive.

[Pepperbelly]

68. Shit! I was expecting CSI Jerusalem ... nt

[bush_is_wacko]

71. BOTH the government (Romans) and HIS religious leaders called for

his death. And Christianity as we know it today occurred as a result of his death. The Romans version of Christianity was a much more pagan version of what we are left with today although it is surely related to Christianity.

The true message of the Bible is found in almost every single Bible story. To find God you must think for yourself and realize that BOTH religion and government are corrupt. To stay pure in God's beliefs you must avoid the rhetoric of both that is designed to give them power over you. It never ceases to amaze me how a person can read the Bible and fail to see the message.

POWER leads to corruption.

[Igel]

72. I think #65 and #71 get it right.

"The Jews" (best seen as referring not to everybody, but to the leadershi in most instances) had a hand in it, and a somewhat larger set of Jews were apparently given a choice as to who should be set free; but since the local population didn't have the authority to execute anyone, the Romans did the deed ... for their own reasons. Just as some Muslims get references to "the Jews" in the Qur'an to mean all Jews, not just those (I think) in Madina, so did medieval and later Xians. It's had the same consequences.

The pain and suffering to Jews through the centuries wasn't caused by the writings; they were interpreted reasonably during the writers' lifetimes, I would think. The suffering was caused by later interpretations.

The easiest reading of the OT/NT is that God sent his son knowing he'd be killed, but not requiring that the people kill him. This they did of their own will. The Suffering Servant passages from Isaiah aren't a command, but a prediction.

It's theologically important for Christianity that Jesus went to his own--those he said he was sent to--was rejected by them, and had his blood on their hands. Just as there's nothing in the OT saying we are our brother's keeper, so there's nothing in the NT saying the guilt was heritable or extended to all Jews forever.

What most of the Jew-baiting Christians have overlooked is the rather old teaching that Jesus needed to die so that our sins could be forgiven. Therefore whatever "the Jews" did was secondary to the real need for the death: our sins. In a church where sin is secondary or unimportant, where it can be undone by paying money to the church or the poor, where sin is a fairly trivial concept, or where people just didn't like looking at their own flaws, this is not a palatable point of view. There are two more pleasant views: (1) it was the Jews' fault; (2) Jesus really didn't die on the cross.