Jesus just left Chicago
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The Death of Jesus—Historical Certainties
First, there is no doubt that Jesus was killed by the Romans, not the Jews, and that his execution was for political treason – for calling himself the king of the Jews.
Jesus was not the only Jew from antiquity who claimed to be the messiah; the Romans reacted violently against all such messianic claimants, routinely killing them for political insurgency.
But what is striking is that Jesus is never recorded as calling himself king of the Jews in any of his public proclamations. We are repeatedly told in the Gospels that Jesus taught his own disciples privately. And we have a good indication of one thing he taught them: a saying that appears in Matthew and Luke (meaning that it comes from the early source Q) that no later Christian would have made up; thus, this teaching is almost certainly historical.
Jesus told his disciples that they would be the rulers of the Twelve Tribes of Israel in the future kingdom.
But if the disciples were rulers, who would rule them? The answer was that Jesus was their leader now. He was the one who had called them. It was by following his teaching that they would enter the kingdom. It appears that Jesus taught the disciples that just as he ruled them now, so too would he rule them later when the Son of Man arrived, Jesus himself would be made king of the coming kingdom. And this would happen within their own lifetimes, when he was made messiah of the coming kingdom.
This is the secret that Judas betrayed. Judas told the authorities that Jesus was calling himself the future king of the Jews.
For this reason, when the authorities became fearful of a riot, they had Jesus taken into custody and handed him over to Pontius Pilate for trial.
Pilate would not have cared if Jesus disagreed with the Jewish authorities on matters of the Jewish religion or if he had ever committed religious blasphemy. Pilate was a Roman governor of a Roman province, and he cared only for threats to Rome.
The charge against Jesus was that he was claiming to usurp the power of Rome, claiming to be the future king when only the Romans could appoint the king.
Pilate evidently questioned Jesus about whether he called himself the king of the Jews, and Jesus either did not respond or answered truthfully, that he was to be the future king.
That is all Pilate had to know. He ordered Jesus to be crucified, Jesus was flogged and taken to the cross, and according to our earliest records, he was dead within six hours.
Source credit: Dr. Bart D. Ehrman, Ph.D., Professor of Religious History and New Testament Scholar
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
First, there is no doubt that Jesus was killed by the Romans, not the Jews, and that his execution was for political treason – for calling himself the king of the Jews.
Jesus was not the only Jew from antiquity who claimed to be the messiah; the Romans reacted violently against all such messianic claimants, routinely killing them for political insurgency.
But what is striking is that Jesus is never recorded as calling himself king of the Jews in any of his public proclamations. We are repeatedly told in the Gospels that Jesus taught his own disciples privately. And we have a good indication of one thing he taught them: a saying that appears in Matthew and Luke (meaning that it comes from the early source Q) that no later Christian would have made up; thus, this teaching is almost certainly historical.
Jesus told his disciples that they would be the rulers of the Twelve Tribes of Israel in the future kingdom.
But if the disciples were rulers, who would rule them? The answer was that Jesus was their leader now. He was the one who had called them. It was by following his teaching that they would enter the kingdom. It appears that Jesus taught the disciples that just as he ruled them now, so too would he rule them later when the Son of Man arrived, Jesus himself would be made king of the coming kingdom. And this would happen within their own lifetimes, when he was made messiah of the coming kingdom.
This is the secret that Judas betrayed. Judas told the authorities that Jesus was calling himself the future king of the Jews.
For this reason, when the authorities became fearful of a riot, they had Jesus taken into custody and handed him over to Pontius Pilate for trial.
Pilate would not have cared if Jesus disagreed with the Jewish authorities on matters of the Jewish religion or if he had ever committed religious blasphemy. Pilate was a Roman governor of a Roman province, and he cared only for threats to Rome.
The charge against Jesus was that he was claiming to usurp the power of Rome, claiming to be the future king when only the Romans could appoint the king.
Pilate evidently questioned Jesus about whether he called himself the king of the Jews, and Jesus either did not respond or answered truthfully, that he was to be the future king.
That is all Pilate had to know. He ordered Jesus to be crucified, Jesus was flogged and taken to the cross, and according to our earliest records, he was dead within six hours.
Source credit: Dr. Bart D. Ehrman, Ph.D., Professor of Religious History and New Testament Scholar
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
anonymoose
Classical Liberal
There is no historical certainty about any of that.
Ehrman says it’s so, therefore it is? What’s his source?
Ehrman says it’s so, therefore it is? What’s his source?
You're welcome to believe that every single factoid, story, and sentence in the four gospels are lies, fabricated by a committee of men sitting around a table in the late first century.
There are no reputable scholars of antiquity I know of who would agree with that view.
Bart Ehrman and other scholars of antiquity use the extant sources for Jesus, and use three criteria of literary analysis to sort what could be historically reliable from that which isn't: namely, the criterion of multiple independent attestation, the criterion of dissimilarity, and the criterion of contextual credibility.
Geeko Sportivo
Verified User
I do not even believe for a moment that Jesus was buried in an imagined Tomb of some kind. And then allegedly protected by a huge boulder rolled in front of it.
The Romans would leave the executed hanging from Crosses until the buzzards ate the bodies, left there as a warning to others- THIS COULD HAPPEN TO YOU.
Jesus was probably removed from the cross in the night after he died, by his brother James, and buried under his mother's Mary's dwelling- which was customary in that day and age. Tombs were for the rich and privileged class to begin with, not for peasants, and most certainly not for the politically persecuted and executed.
I believe that the disappearance of Jesus's body, and him being lifted up to heaven by angels story, was concocted by his followers and close loved ones to give Pontius Pilat and his Pilatards something to think about, and to create empathy for the Christian religion.
It worked, as Pilat was soon yanked from the ranks and sent home to a maddening crowd of new believers and grass root Christians back home.
The story about the tomb and boulder was most likely crafted by John who chose to write about this story many years after- making up witnesses to give the sensationalistic TABLETOID story more merit and dramatic effect.
Oh well, PROVE ME WRONG!
The Romans would leave the executed hanging from Crosses until the buzzards ate the bodies, left there as a warning to others- THIS COULD HAPPEN TO YOU.
Jesus was probably removed from the cross in the night after he died, by his brother James, and buried under his mother's Mary's dwelling- which was customary in that day and age. Tombs were for the rich and privileged class to begin with, not for peasants, and most certainly not for the politically persecuted and executed.
I believe that the disappearance of Jesus's body, and him being lifted up to heaven by angels story, was concocted by his followers and close loved ones to give Pontius Pilat and his Pilatards something to think about, and to create empathy for the Christian religion.
It worked, as Pilat was soon yanked from the ranks and sent home to a maddening crowd of new believers and grass root Christians back home.
The story about the tomb and boulder was most likely crafted by John who chose to write about this story many years after- making up witnesses to give the sensationalistic TABLETOID story more merit and dramatic effect.
Oh well, PROVE ME WRONG!
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anonymoose
Classical Liberal
Well that’s just peachy. Sounds like total speculation. Whatever keeps him out of trouble I guess.
Jesus was never recorded . Period. In fact, nothing in the OP was ever recorded.
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There weren't journalists in the first century AD to record information in real time, and even if there were their newspapers wouldn't last two thousand years for use to read today.
We don't have any eyewitness accounts of the Greco-Persian wars, our surviving historical sources about it comes from Herodotus writing decades after the events.
Almost everything written two thousand years has long since disappeared because parchment, paper, papyrus are fragile materials that don't last that long except under certain conditions. The only writing that survives is that which was deemed important enough to pay scribes make fresh copies century after century.
Your assertion that the only thing that counts are eyewitness accounts and writing that happens in real time would doom any attempts by historians to understand antiquity.
One of my favorite ZZ Top songs off the Tres Hombres album back in the day.
Reminds me of cruising to and from the waves back in high school.
anonymoose
Classical Liberal
Wow you equate a major historical event, a war, to events surrounding one guy 2000 years ago.
Tres Hombres was a remarkable album, and it's stood the test of time
There is more written documentation about Jesus and the early Christian movement then there is about the Greco-Persian wars.
I noticed you sidestepped the fact that it is completely generally unreasonable to expect that eyewitness accounts and real time reports of events two thousand years would survive for us to read today.
anonymoose
Classical Liberal
Ah. So you equate sheer volume with historical accuracy. Accounts of war is not related to religion .
It is completely generally unreasonable to expect that eyewitness accounts and real time reports of events two thousand years would survive for us to read today. Feel better?
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