Jesus held on the cross with nails in his hands

[TaFox]

DD5 is in year 1 and has been learning about Jesus at school. Great stuff in the spirit of Easter.

The RE teacher told the class how Jesus was NAILED to the cross.

This is quite graphic for a little girl who believes that the Easter bunny will leave eggs in our garden.

Should I tell school that this is too much info for little ears?

They have a special assembly for stations of the cross at my DS' school where they tie a Year 5/6 child to a cross.

I remember being fascinated by the idea of crucifixion when I was in Reception nearly 40 years ago. It's actually the only bit of Reception I can remember at all.

If you don't want her to be Christian just say the Jesus thing is just a story, and of course noone gets nailed to crosses and dies and come back to life. But some people believe it, just like the Easter bunny. It's all nonsense and the main crux is you get chocolate.

Interesting- I always wondered about this as a young child, I couldn’t fathom how nails through the hands would work but it wasn’t something you could really ask!
Wrists make sense.

I think it’s ok @TaFox , DD will start at a CofE school this year and it’s what I expect her to be told.

Easters about a fluffy happy bunny spreading cheer to people with chocolate easter eggs! Were athiest in our house

I am unaware of any professional historians of the ancient world who dispute the overwhelming likelihood of Jesus’s existence. There is no primary evidence of almost anybody in the ancient world other than emperors, kings, generals etc (and a few famous writers of course). A figure called Jesus who was executed is as well attested as any figure in Palestine at the time, in fact remarkably so given his low status.

See this article from the Guardian, written by a professional historian, for a helpful overview.

Guardian article

70s Catholic schoolgirl here. Whole class made to feel stupid in RE cos 'of course he wasn't nailed through the palms? How do you think that would hold up a whole body?'
We were 7 or 8. Prob none of us were psychopaths who'f ever thought about the practicalities of crucifixion.

Which does also mean, awkwardly, that stigmatics typically get their stigmata in the wrong spots…

Fact fans, crucifixion is mostly likely to kill you via suffocation. If dehydration didn’t get you first.

Facts?

I can confirm I am no psychopath and I very much did ponder the practicalities as a little person!

Our village does a cross walk thingy between 2 churches at Easter, half tempted to go along and ask if they will be demonstrating the actual method including the nail placement.

I can assure you my son was deeply upset by the idea that god could bring Jesus back from the dead but wasn’t prepared to do the same for his loved one. Not an easy thing to explain to a very sad 5 yr old 🙄

Is this irony? Easter was originally a pagan festival celebrating spring, fertility and all that, so all about bunnies and eggs! It was hijacked by Christianity and ruined with all this sadomasochistic torture mythology, which actually never happened allegedly occurred around the Jewish festival of Passover.

I remember learning about this as a kid. Blood and gore is pretty par for the course with Christianity 😂

You could tell her it's all bollocks anywhere. Or that he was a magician who was able to dull the pain.

DD5 is in year 1 and has been learning about Jesus at school. Great stuff in the spirit of Easter

But it's not just in the spirit of Easter, it's literally what Easter is all about. Bunnies and eggs are pagan.

She’s obviously actually thought about what that means more than most children. I think it’s weird to teach young children gory stuff as if it’s fun and games before most of them can empathise fully, and when those that can don’t have the emotional maturity to process it. It’s desensitising. I don’t understand parents being proud of their kids finding gruesome books or torture mock ups in museums funny. We should take other people’s pain seriously, including, I’m assuming, Jesus’ pain if you’re a Christian. Finding it funny and fascinating as a gory extravaganza is the opposite of feeling the enormity of someone dying in pain to save others. Age appropriate detail to make it meaningful would be possible, I think it’s cheap and easy to chuck in shocking details to try and grab attention.

I think you do you - done children are more sensitive than others. If she wants to talk about it you should just let her lead the conversation and talk about it. Don’t speak to school, chat at home openly. She will move on soon enough

*some

Back in the 80's when I was about 6 I remember watching a film about Jesus being crusified. Not at school but at home with my mum and siblings. That was my first education of what people from another religion or culture can do to others. It didn't traumatise me more educated of how evil people can be to others just for existing.

Of course Easter is about chocolate and bunnies for a toddler ffs. I grew up in a catholic country with all the gore and I rather keep the fluffy version, thank you very much. The graphic details are unnecessary, even if you want to educate in the religious bit

I'm sure you're not a psycho!
The think that definitely didn't make sense to me was '3 days'.
Crucified Fri, up and about Sun, surely 2 days.

Actually there is very recent evidence that the Josephus text has been altered so it's now a lot more shaky

Exactly! The Christian festivals borrowed from much older pagan traditions. Bunnies and spring time renewal aren’t a million miles off.

I was raised Catholic and it’s very much the norm to include the blood and gore.
Objectively I do find it odd that schools teach kids about the devil and hell and torture, yet send panicked emails about Momo or sinister Peppa pig videos.
But yeah, never traumatised me or my kids. Kids are tougher than we take them for x

It's gross. There is such a grim obsession with torture and death in the church.

In most other European languages, the word for Easter is some version of Passover. Paques in French. Pascua in Italian. England didn’t go that route, and seems to have kept the name of the roughly coinciding pre-Christian festival. German also Oestern.