Why did God need Jesus to be killed?

[Machadaynu]

Not much to add to the title I suppose.

It's just never made sense to me that an omnipotent God would need to do anything he didn't want to, therefore he must have wanted to have Jesus killed.

He could have forgiven us without him being killed - or he isn't omnipotent.

He could have made a world that remained without sin, rather than letting Satan mess this one up in the first week - or he isn't omnipoitent

He could have invented another way of making a symbolic gesture that didn't involve murdering his son - maybe he could have made the earth spin backwards or something to signify a new start.

I just don't understand God thinking "well, I don't need to murder my son, but I think I will anyway because that will show people how loving I am"

So why did he claim to need to have Jesus killed?

Not meaning to be patronising, no, Seeker - my apologies.

YMMV = 'Your mileage may vary', I.e. You might not go very far along with this.

Crikey, I've not been misinformed. That's all I'm going to say about that! (to quote Forrest Gump) :)

Shame you're unwilling to back any of that up, Holo. We could have had an interesting discussion.

Was watching Forrest Gump with my DS earlier, weirdly. "He's so smart, Jenny", had me sobbing for the gazillionth time.

Well yes, I'm quite interested in the Jesus Seminar (of which Robert Miller is a member) but I am a bit critical of their methodology. I would link to something about them but can't right now. I've read a big of Robert Miller from the Society of Biblical Literature papers he's given, but I see him representing a particular approach rather than giving the definitive answer. Same with Bart Ehrman; he's treading a well-trodden path, not saying anything new particularly but re-iterating something that was ground breaking about 100 years ago (sorry if this sounds patronising or rude, it's just my honest assessment of his more popular work; his earlier stuff I think is more research-led and therefore more interesting).

I guess that's the thing for me; the prior question has to be about methodology; how we assess the various writings which may be deemed evidence of the historical Jesus, how we decide what gets to even be called 'evidence' (or not, as the case may be.) have a lot of sympathy for Jewish scholars who try to assess the historical
plausibility of Jesus as a Jew. Sorry if all of this sounds patronising; I don't mean to be patronising at all but I think it's good to be as clear as possible about what we mean when we talk about stuff like the historical whoever, evidence for whatever and so on.

Ehrman is not saying anything new because there's not really anything new to say. His chief concern (as a former evangelical Christian himself) is to acquaint Christians with the history of their own religion - which so many of them seem to be woefully ignorant about.

He, incidentally, has just written a whole book in which he sets out a case for the existence of Jesus - which he firmly believes in. But he freely admits that there's no actual, verifiable evidence for Jesus.

There is a difference between establishing the historicity of Jesus (whether he existed at all) - and studying him as a historical figure. The latter necessarily presupposes his existence, and it's into this camp that the Jesus Seminar fits.

I couldn't personally care less about understanding the man. He wasn't God and never said anything much of interest anyway (Confucius was far wiser) so I care not a jot what the JS have to say.

I AM interested in whether he actually existed in the first place because, well, it's interesting. And the only real conclusion that can be reached is that it's impossible to say with any certainty. With absolutely no contemporary data of any kind, there's nothing to work with. All that can be done is to look at what we do have (the gospels & there are a lot of problems with them), look at who may have written them & with what purpose and make inferences from that.

The best example of this is Luke & his census. That Luke invented the census is without question - it never happened, and even if it had, Joseph would never have been expected to go to his tribal homeland. But Luke knew that the Messiah had to be born in Bethlehem, so he had to come up with a plausible way of getting a pregnant Mary there. That Luke had to invent anything at all suggests that he already had someone's life story in mind. If he was writing pure fiction he could just have said, "Jesus was born in Bethlehem" and leave it at that - no need to faff around with obvious inventions. But he probably knew that Jesus was born in Nazareth, which didn't fit the prophecy - so, hey presto, one census later & the prophecy comes true. This strongly implies the existence of somebody that Luke believed was the Messiah.

There are many, many examples like this that historians have used to infer the existence of Jesus. It's evidence of a kind, but it's entirely circumstantial, although quite compelling when you think about it.

Sorry for the essay. And any typos, I'm tired. :)

Yes, it is all very interesting. What kind of contemporaneous evidence of Jesus' life would you expect to find, or accept as historically plausible? I haven't read Ehrman's book on the historical plausibility of Jesus; does he go through all the potential categories of evidence one could reasonably expect to find of a non-elite Jewish male on first century Palestine? As far as I've read, there are no exhaustive records of people killed by Roman authorities, only records of specific deaths, so it'd be historically implausible to find Jesus' name on an official list somewhere. So if the litmus test is 'contemporaneous evidence', what might count? Who might write about Jesus during his lifetime? Does Ehrman compare this with evidence for other non-elite, non-scribal Jews in the first century (eg we have loads of evidence that this man x who fits the same social profile as Jesus lived, but none that Jesus lived?) Does he / do you think that literacy and orality have to be factored into this scenario when assessing historical probability? Sorry, loads of questions. I'm just not one to take things on face value. :)

"I'm just not one to take things on face value." And neither should you.

Well, I think it's fair to point out that billions of people have lived and died throughout human history and not left any evidence of their existence - and this clearly doesn't mean we should conclude they didn't exist at all. It is reasonable to expect (to answer your first question) that the average non-elite Jewish male in 1st century Palestine would have left no evidence of themselves - at least none that could last for 2000 years.

But - and it's an awfully big but.....

Was Jesus actually average? Not according to most Christians, he wasn't. He was God. He raised the dead, preached to thousands, performed miracles & walked on water. People came from far and wide to listen to him speak or ask him questions. His following was such that it made the Roman authorities nervous enough to hunt him down, bribe his friends to betray him then hold a public trial and execution. At the moment of his death, the Temple In Jerusalem fell to bits (or parts of it) and all the graves in the city opened up and dead people climbed out and started walking around.

Extraordinary stuff.

Obviously, there were no newspapers & literacy was not widespread. But it existed and we have a long list of contemporary historians who were in the right place at the right time. Thanks to them, and the enormous Roman record, this is one of the best attested eras in history. We hear about all sorts of religious uprisings, messiah claimants who were annoying the Romans (there were lots of them). We learn about King Herod (although no mention of the slaughter of the innocents), Pontius Pilate & John the Baptist - all real people.

But not the tiniest hint of anyone called Jesus. No mention of the zombie invasion of Jerusalem, no mention of the public trial, the sermons that attracted thousands. Absolutely nothing.

In fact, no one even bothers to mention this miracle man until (at least) 40 years after his death. And his biographer (Mark) never actually met Jesus himself, or even spoke to anyone who had. Not only that, he was writing this "gospel" in a language that Jesus & his followers didn't speak, and from a country they'd never visited. Matthew & Luke, showing up several decades later with their "gospels" only manage to confuse the matter further by contradicting Mark & each other on details or plagiarising.

At best, the gospels are hearsay. Foreigners passing on stories they've heard. Not evidence at all.

For this reason, it is reasonable to conclude that, if Jesus did exist, then he made very little impact on anyone when he was alive - rather at odds with the biblical accounts of him.

I think it makes a difference which Jesus we are talking about: Is it Jesus who is God and could make dead people come to life? Or Jesus, a fairly ordinary Palestinian preacher, who was no more divine than me, but who, through a accident of history, had a bunch of myths grow up around his (rather vague) memory.

One of this men quite clearly did not exist. One of them may well have done.

But, again, I stress - there is NO evidence that Jesus existed. If he was just an ordinary man, this is to be expected. If he was God, it most assuredly is not.

Jesus was not God, therefore.

(I reckon, anyway ).

So much there, Crikey! Am just cooking dinner for my loverly family so to be really brief:

I am interested in Jesus as the Christian faith sees him, yes. I'm a Christian so it would be odd if I weren't. But I'm also interested in 'the historical Jesus' and the writings of the Bible, from a more academic POV. I'm not a biblical inerrantist so have no problem with the thought that the Gispels are apologetic, not history. You didn't mention Paul, btw, the earliest person whose writings about Jesys we have. So I'm happy to put all the later developments of belief about Jesus to one side for a moment so that we can focus on the question of whether there us any evidence for him.

Your answer seems to suggest that if Hesus were God then there would be stuff written about him- is that right? But the thought of Jesys being God only came about after the resurrection - if there had been no resurrection there would be no Christianity. So no, in Jesys' lifetime there were loads of holy men attracting followers and teaching versions of the kingdom of god. So the question still stands, what type of evidence would count as historically plausible for such a person?

I know I keep writing you long, long dissertations! Just want to answer you as fully as I can. Thank you for reading :)

I didn't mention Paul, because he's the very last person we should talk about when discussing evidence for an historical Jesus. Not only did he never meet or speak to a living Jesus, he doesn't appear to have even known that he lived on Earth as a human being. It's clear that, for Paul, Jesus was a "sky god".

So, again, Paul cannot be used to determine historicity. In fact, he's a good witness for the other side.

The gospels, as we've already discussed, cannot be anything other than (at best) hearsay.

Other sources that most Christians cite when debating this are: Tacitus, Pliny the Younger, Seutonius, Jospehus and The Dead Sea Scrolls.

None of the above historians were alive at the same time as Jesus supposedly was, so again, it's hearsay. And they don't tell us anything at all about Jesus anyway - just fleeting mentions of what early Christians were up to. (And the fact that Christians existed is not evidence that Christ did - anymore than the existence of Tom Cruise is proof that scientology is based on fact).

Josephus is the closest & best evidence with the Testemonium Flavium. But that falls apart very quickly when it becomes clear that that passage is an outright forgery (probably by Justin Martyr 300 years later) - and not even a very good one.

The Dead Sea scrolls say nothing whatsoever about Jesus - and I'm never quite sure why they are always (wrongly) cited.

The simple fact of the matter is that there are no eyewitness accounts of Jesus, he appears nowhere in the enormous Roman record or in the very comprehensive histories of the era that we have. There are no busts or likenesses of him, he left no writings of his own, no inscriptions, no tombstone. There exists absolutely nothing that even hints at his existence.

You also have to take into account the remarkable similarities between Jesus and rather a lot of the other gods that were worshipped at that time. It's a myth to say that he's a copy of anyone - but he did nothing original at all. Lots of gods were born of virgins, died on crosses & were resurrected three days later, turned water into wine, raised the dead and healed the sick. There was even one who walked on water, and another who held a last supper - with his 12 followers!

I'm off out tonight, so won't reply till tomorrow. But thank you for reading, Holo - and hope your lovely family enjoyed their dinner :)

So the question still stands, what type of evidence would count as historically plausible for such a person? How about....anything? We have evidence for John the Baptist, Pontius Pilate, King Herod - and yet nothing for a man who could make people who had been dead for long enough to start to smell, come back to life????

Is that plausible to you? How on earth do you explain that?

There is evidence for none of it.
Zilch,zero.
Do millions still believe, yes.

If Jesus came and stood in front of you right now,it wouldnt make any difference whatsoever to most people.

It certainly may have been that we wanted Jesus to be divine, so we applied age old myths and stories to him to make it so.

I am always struck by the Prometheus analogy, for example.

I am very ignorant when it comes to Christianity. I keep meaning to read a book that explains it but never get round to it.

I read that one of the reasons that there are so many converts to Islam is because it offers a more simplistic faith and isn't complicated by the Trinity.

How can you be the son of God and God? It doesn't make any sense.

Off to read the rest of the thread to see if answers my questions.

Dont worry about the Trinity.
Most Chrisitians dont particularly understand the Trinity either.

If you can,get a copy of the Good News Bible.Or say the New Revised Standard Version Bible.

If people waited till they understood all the bible before they became Chrisitians,there simply wouldnt be any Chrisitians at all!

Thank you too, Crikey! It is good to thrash it out. Hope you had a good evening out! :)

So, Paul: you're right, he didn't meet Jesus, rarely quotes Jesus and makes scant references to the life of Jesus. He's not a historian, he's a sporadic writer writing to churches to answer specific situations or crises.
1 Corinthians 11:23-26, though; what do you do with that in terms as assessing it as historical evidence for what people believed about Jesus? It seems to me that this passage is great evidence that a Christian ritual meal had developed pretty quickly (assuming a date for 1 Cor in theearly 50s). Regarding Paul seeing Jesus as a sky-god, what do you make of Philippians 2:6-10, as welll; God has given him the name what is above every other name; this can only be the name of Yahweh. The only way this passage makes sense from a Jewish POV is that Jesus shares in the divine identity.

Gospels: have you read much about pre-gospel Jesus traditions? They didn't just appear from nowhere. I'd say that the letter of James is arguably good evidence of pre-gospel Jesus traditions (this statement needs lots of unpacking which could take a long time so I'll move on! But it is historically feasible). Have you also read much about the effecxt of the fall of the Jerusalem temple on the practice of rabbinic writings? Think about why the rabbibnic writings flourished after 70CE. Also, ask yourself, in a culture which was overwhelmingly oral and had at very best a literacy rate of 10%, why was anything written down at all? Paul's letters make it clear that he saw writing as a poor substitute for being with people.

As for the other sources youmention, let's leave them for the moment. I know quite a bit about the Dead Sea Scrolls and there are enough parallels or near-parallels to suggest that some NT writers may have moved in similar circles to the Essene Community, but that's as far as I'm prepared to go with that.

Again, think about who Jesus was from a human POV - he was low-born in a rural backwater, he doesn't seem to have visited the cities in Galilee but just stuck to rural places except for, obviously, Jerusalem, wher he got into trouble for dishonouring the temple. It wasn't until after his death that he took on a huge significance. Why would anyone want to write about Jesus in his lifetime? Who would even be able to? Why would his discioples, who were withhim all the time, write about him? We don't have any other writings by disciples of holy men from pre-70 - why should we expect that of Jesus' disciples? And, as I said, the Romans don't seem to have kept long lists of whom they executed; the crucifixions we know about are particular ones for particular reasons.

So what you have, if you accept 1 Cor as evidence of early Christian practices, is a string of thought and contemplation about Jesus that goes back to about 10 years after his death (dpending on how you date Galatians). For a low-born person in rural nowheresville, that's quite something.

Anyway, that was my great long essay! Where did you get your dates for Jusin Martyr, by the way? You're out by a century or two...!

Morning Holo :)

Paul: I'm aware that the Christian explanation for why Paul never talks about the earthly Jesus is that that wasn't part of his remit, as it were. He was writing to and visiting groups of Christians, answering questions and offering support. OK. But, seriously? The single most important fact about Jesus, that makes him different from all of the other gods being worshipped, is that he was born and lived as a man. If people know nothing else about him, they should at least know that much. And yet it's the one thing that Paul chooses not to mention? This really makes no sense at all.

Paul was relatively close in time to a living Jesus. He could conceivably have visited Mary & Joseph (it's possible they were still alive). Other members of Jesus' family and followers would have still been around, but they are never mentioned. Paul could have visited the tomb, and given it's location or even the stable where the nativity took place. But no - no aspect of Jesus' time on Earth is even hinted at. This requires an explanation, I feel. The simplest (and therefore most likely) is that Paul simply didn't know about this kind of thing - because it hadn't been invented as a story yet, and wouldn't be for several decades.

The problem with using any passage from the Bible to pin down historicity is that we have to sort through the masses and masses of edits and later interpolations that have happened through the years. We know, for example, that many of the prophecies in the Bible that Christians talk about are, in fact, fraudulent. An event happens, somebody goes back to the Bible and sticks in a "prophecy" predicting that event - and 2000 years later people are impressed that, an event that did indeed happen, was predicted in the Bible! Actually, the prediction came after the event. Very frustrating.

That the Bible has been edited in this way is beyond question. And that, I'm afraid, is the explanation for the Corinthians passage. As Christianity was forming an identity over the next few hundred years, aspects of the myth, like the last supper, were inserted to round out the story.

I'm happy to concede that Christianity predates the gospels. There may well have been all sorts of Jesus connected rituals & traditions. So what? How does this prove Jesus existed. Most of the cults at the time (actually all of them, and there were hundreds) did not have holy books, and thrived through oral tradition - this is clearly how Christianity began. But the cult of Mithras does not prove that Mithras existed, does it?

What does single out Christianity is that it established some rather wonderful Holy Books (the gospels) comparatively early on. And their message was overwhelmingly one of love and peace - probably a real rarity back in those bloodthirsty times. I imagine it was hugely comforting to people to hear about being loved by God (after the OT made it clear he hated everyone & wanted them dead).

This is why Christianity shrugged off it's ordinary oral tradition beginnings early on - and almost certainly the reason it still survives today. It also had the remarkable good fortune to be born at a time when books & literature were just starting to become important to everyone, not just the odd scribe.

Why would anyone want to write about Jesus in his lifetime? Exactly - the probably wouldn't, that's why they didn't. He wasn't remarkable enough to want to write about - suggesting, very strongly indeed, that he had no following, made no impact, performed no miracles & was never hailed as God in human form. Which begs the question - why do you now believe that he was?

Justin Martyr - yes, sorry. I had a date in my head of about 300 AD for him. Probably got him confused with someone else. Still, the point I made about him messing about with Josephus (probably!) stands. Another interesting point about Justin Martyr is that he never mentions the gospels. Bit odd that, given that's he's the first recognised Christian apologist - you'd think he'd reference them at least once.

Hello :) Lots again in your post, Crikey! I'm just off put with the fam so I'll try and be brief but...

Justin Martyr: read Dialogue with Trypho chapter 35. Jesys is quoted there, a saying that is very much in the synoptic tradition. Bear in mind that Dialogue with Trypho is about trying to convince people that Jesus is the Messiah, so it's absolutely saturated with Old Testsment quotes and has comparatively few NT refs...but they are there. He certainly knows the book of Revelation!

Paul: again, historical plausibility. If you look on a map of the 1st c and see where Tarsus is, and where Galilee is, it's quite a long way! You'd have to be both wealthy and motivated to make that journey. Paul wasn't a follower of Jests during Jesus' lifetime, so why would he go all the way to somewhere insignificant to meet a low born family of dubious marital status?

As for edits and interpolations in NT texts, that's assessed by historical plausibility. The bits that are deemed to be later (which, tbh, are quite few) are deemed such because they are historically implausible. The best that scholars can do is to assess on the basis of the best, most detailed historical knowledge. 1 Corinthians only has one verse that is deemed to be later (and it's not the bit I quoted!) :) Phil 2 also deemed to belong to the very early Jesus movement.

So I'm not very swayed by your arguments, tbh. For me there's just too much speculation and not enough awareness of what is historically plausible, which for me us the only sensible way of looking at this period of time. What do you think?

Just seen all the typos - sorry!

The only argument I'm making, Holo is that there's no evidence that Jesus the man existed. I'm not saying he definitely didn't (I wasn't there, how would I know?), just that we have no evidence to say that he did.

You disagree and are presenting what you think is evidence - and that's really where we diverge. Doesn't matter what Paul or Justin Martyr have to say - they weren't there. So it's hearsay, nothing more. And we normally recognise fully that hearsay is not evidence and we don't even allow it to play any part in court cases, in recognition of the fact that it's not reliable evidence.

Let me lay one of my highly tedious analogies () on you to hopefully show you what I mean.

I could tell you that 100 years ago, a whale gave birth to a mermaid. You would say bollocks nonsense. You'd want me to prove such an outlandish claim. You know that we live in a universe where whales don't give birth to mermaids, so you're not going to just accept what I say, but being open minded you'll give me a chance to prove it.

How about if the very best I could offer was an account written 20 years after the event by someone who hadn't actually witnessed it themselves, and can't name anyone who had - and four stories written even later by anonymous people, all wildly contradicting each other & none of whom even lived in the same country that this miraculous event took place.

You just wouldn't buy it, would you? No one would. And it wouldn't be enough to just say - "Oh, but what evidence could we expect?"

Well, the Christian claim that a person who'd been dead for three days came back to life is no less extraordinary to me than a whale giving birth to a mermaid. Everything I know about reality tells me that this just doesn't happen. I AM open minded, and if anyone could prove to me that this happened, I'll believe it. Of course I would, I'm interested in knowing the truth. But without evidence, I am completely justified - in fact, I'm intellectually obliged - to dismiss it out of hand. And I do.

You are a believer because you have faith - and faith, by definition, means belief without evidence. If a Christian had evidence for their beliefs, they wouldn't need "faith".

There simply isn't any evidence, compelling or otherwise, that Jesus ever existed. Vague references written decades later, by people who didn't witness this stuff themselves, in suspect texts that have been edited again and again and again in the intervening years simply don't cut the mustard for me. It doesn't even come close. I need rather better than that if I'm going to toss aside everything I know about science & reality to believe that dead people can walk and talk three days after they've died.

Hi Crikey! :) I'm not so much presenting evidence as suggesting a few ways of contextualising what has already been claimed (that there was a Jew called Jesus who was killed). Evidence of any kind needs interpretation, and to interpret evidence you need the context. So that's what I'm suggesting here. I am suggesting that it is entirely historically plausible that Jesus died, and furthermore, that if Jesus had not died, other things would be historically implausible (the ritual meal, baptism spreading v v quickly, the spread of faith in Jesus). Putting my faith aside and looking at this as a solely historical question, it seems very naive for the bottom line to be 'but there's no evidence that Jesus lived.'

As I've said in a few posts, it's anachronistic to expect that there would be anything written about Jesus in his lifetime. As I've said, most people were illiterate and writing was seen as a substitute for presence. Rabbinic writings only really took off after the fall of the Jerusalem temple; again, writing as substitute for presence.

Your analogy...I see what you mean, but the difference is that in what i am saying here, there is a plausible core statement; there was a Jewish man called Jesus who was killed. That's what we're arguing about here, so let's put the rest to a side. As for the biblical texts, have you read much about their formation? If not, you should! Bedsides anything else, you sound like the kind of person who'd find it interesting. :)

Ritual meal and baptism were practised before Christianity and so I can't see how they were dependant on Jesus dying on the cross.

Similarities between Christianity and Essenes

And this article shows a a Jewish background to baptism

Yes, I know that, Juule :) of course the Christian ritual meal is based on the Passover, and yes, if you read the start of the gospels you see John the Baptist baptising. No problem there. Christianity was a firm of Judaism, so I have no problem with any if that.

What i am saying is that from very early on, these two Jewish practices were given a Christian meaning; people were baptised 'into Christ', and heard 'this is my body'(i.e. Jesus' body) at the ritual meal.

Hi Holo

Let me first clear up another mistake of mine - it was Eusebius (AD 263) who is suspected of doctoring Josephus, not Justin Martyr. Sorry. This is what happens when I type from memory & don't check names and dates. But, it makes no odds to the overall point.

I have already conceded that there probably was some guy called Jesus (or Yeshua/Joshua) around at the time. He was probably a teacher (possibly apocalyptic) and was put to death by the Romans. This conclusion is NOT based on any evidence, because none exists - but it can be inferred by looking deeply at how, when and why the gospels are written. The Luke example is a good one - here's another:

The gospels all give different accounts of the resurrection, in particular who it was that actually saw the risen Jesus. But they seem to be unanimous in that women were involved. Now, remember that back then women were very, very much second class citizens & considered inferior to men in every way. If someone was writing a fictional account intended to convince others that it had all really happened, they wouldn't choose women as the witnesses. That would be like me choosing to claim that 3 year old toddlers were the witnesses of my whale/mermaid miracle. It seems likely that the writer had to write that it was women - and that only makes sense if he was trying to write down fact, not fiction.

Also, if you were going to pick a death for your god to go through - you wouldn't choose crucifixion. That was a highly ignoble, unheroic, demeaning death - a sordid way to die. That this is the death Jesus was supposed to have died does imply a root in fact rather than fiction.

But do you understand that none of this amounts to evidence? There are other explanations for all of these issues - and it's entirely possible to make a convincing case that Jesus never existed at all.

Bottom line - if Jesus was just an ordinary man, the lack of evidence for his existence is to be expected (as you have already said).

If Jesus was divine & bore any relation at all to the gospel Jesus, the lack of evidence is quite astonishing and requires some explanation.

And the fact that Christian traditions began very quickly is not evidence of anything - other than that there were a bunch of people who believed and wanted to start them.

And yes, I have read about the formation of the Biblical texts. I've also read the other gospels that were tossed aside - for embarrassment purposes, if nothing else. Jesus the child killer is not an image many Christians could embrace - and the wooden cross walking out of the empty tomb is laughable. But no more laughable than the cursing of a fig tree or the zombie invasion of Jerusalem.