Varying Understandings of the Crucifixion

[cloudyday2]

The most common understanding of the Crucifixion seems to be this quote from Wikipedia

Christians believe that Jesus’ death was instrumental in restoring humankind to relationship with God.

Crucifixion of Jesus - Wikipedia

Just wondering if there are other ways of understanding the Crucifixion. For example:
(1) Maybe Jesus was telling his followers that martyrdom was the natural ending for those opposing the powers that be.
(2) Maybe Jesus was trying to fulfill prophecies about the Messiah.
(3) Maybe it was an act of covenant-breaking by the Jews.
(4) Maybe it was just bad luck that was remedied through the Resurrection.

 

[thecolorsblend]

I remember reading movie reviews for Passion Of The Christ and one which stands out comes from one of those pretentious "spiritual but not religious" types who viewed the entire Passion account as a valentine to pacifism. I guess kind of like Gandhi, but less so. "His followers could've kick-started a real uprising if He'd ordered them too but He chose the more noble path of non-violence and civil disobedience."

Another angle I've seen around is a variation on "No good deed goes unpunished", where Our Lord's desire to do good is what caused His martyrdom. If He'd just kept His head down and minded His own business, things probably would've gone a lot smoother.

All in all, these are mostly lessons that we don't really need texts written by fishermen 2,000 years ago to teach us.

The Christian view of the crucifixion as a redemptive act can really only be found in this particular story. Less fantastical, more prosaic lessons can be found from any number of other stories -- several of which are also non-fiction. So, with respect, I don't understand or relate to the temptation some people have of wanting Our Lord's Passion to be about anything other than what the scriptures say it's about.

 

[awitch]

Just thinking out loud here because it's late and I can't sleep...

When telling a story, you need a compelling character. Jesus doesn't have much of a character arc and his back story is missing a chunk of time. The reader may not be able to relate to him if he's god/man so I suspect he's the mentor archetype.

Scripture implies the reader is the hero to whom Jesus passes his information. The crucifix is the mechanic to kill him off so the reader can stand on his own as a Christian.

 

[juvenissun]

The most common understanding of the Crucifixion seems to be this quote from Wikipedia

Crucifixion of Jesus - Wikipedia

Just wondering if there are other ways of understanding the Crucifixion. For example:
(1) Maybe Jesus was telling his followers that martyrdom was the natural ending for those opposing the powers that be.
(2) Maybe Jesus was trying to fulfill prophecies about the Messiah.
(3) Maybe it was an act of covenant-breaking by the Jews.
(4) Maybe it was just bad luck that was remedied through the Resurrection.

"May be" is absolutely useless.
Either you reject it -- useful.
Or you verify it -- useful
Or you believe it -- useful.

Don't waste your time on "may be" on everything. You will ended up with nothing.

 

[cloudyday2]

Just thinking out loud here because it's late and I can't sleep...

When telling a story, you need a compelling character. Jesus doesn't have much of a character arc and his back story is missing a chunk of time. The reader may not be able to relate to him if he's god/man so I suspect he's the mentor archetype.

Scripture implies the reader is the hero to whom Jesus passes his information. The crucifix is the mechanic to kill him off so the reader can stand on his own as a Christian.

Sort of like Darth Vadar killing Obi Wan in the original Star Wars movie. Interesting...

 

[cloudyday2]

Another angle I've seen around is a variation on "No good deed goes unpunished", where Our Lord's desire to do good is what caused His martyrdom. If He'd just kept His head down and minded His own business, things probably would've gone a lot smoother.

I like that LOL.
I was thinking of a less negative spin on the same idea. Jesus lived His life in likeness to the Kingdom of Heaven. His parables were always "the Kingdom of Heaven is like" and then he would go on to describe something that seemed upside-down by human standards. So the inevitable outcome of living by these Kingdom of Heaven standards is often going to be martyrdom as angry human authorities put down the threat that they perceive in your behavior that seeks to please God instead of human society.

 

[Jane_the_Bane]

The most common understanding of the Crucifixion seems to be this quote from Wikipedia

Crucifixion of Jesus - Wikipedia

Just wondering if there are other ways of understanding the Crucifixion. For example:
(1) Maybe Jesus was telling his followers that martyrdom was the natural ending for those opposing the powers that be.
(2) Maybe Jesus was trying to fulfill prophecies about the Messiah.
(3) Maybe it was an act of covenant-breaking by the Jews.
(4) Maybe it was just bad luck that was remedied through the Resurrection.

Even Christians have VASTLY different interpretations of just what the Crucifixion means, theologically, even if we just stick to substitutionary atonement.

Some of the earliest theologians consider it a ransom payment to Satan, for example, while modern Protestant theology mostly holds that GOD is the one who must be paid off to stop him from committing atrocities against a human race that fails to live up to divine standards by virtue of being human.

 

[cloudyday2]

I wonder if the parables and sayings of Jesus recorded in the gospels might give an insight?

There is the parable of tenant farmers who won't pay the rent to the landlord and kill his son.

There is also the parable of the thief binding the strong man and robbing his house. (The thief I have heard is Jesus and the strong man is the devil and the property is humanity.)

 

[Jane_the_Bane]

The only thing that most Christian denominations seem to agree on is that humans are essentially Tolkienesque orcs: utterly rotten and unfit to receive any kind of respite without divine intervention. Really makes me wonder how they manage to sell themselves as a philanthropic world view. After all, even their often-cited agape-love is basically just saying: "Isn't God awesome? He loves and forgives us, even though we are utterly rotten creatures who deserve nothing but torture, suffering, and annihilation for our depravity!"

 

[Silmarien]

The only thing that most Christian denominations seem to agree on is that humans are essentially Tolkienesque orcs: utterly rotten and unfit to receive any kind of respite without divine intervention. Really makes me wonder how they manage to sell themselves as a philanthropic world view. After all, even their often-cited agape-love is basically just saying: "Isn't God awesome? He loves and forgives us, even though we are utterly rotten creatures who deserve nothing but torture, suffering, and annihilation for our depravity!"

No, most Christian denominations would agree on issues like the Nicene Creed, the Ecumenical Councils, and so forth and so on. Eastern Orthodoxy rejects the Augustinian interpretation of original sin altogether, so none of what you've said applies in any shape or form to an entire sector of the Christian world. It's even a caricature for Catholicism, where the stress is on human dignity and being made in the image of God, not the Fall.

Honestly, your take on it seems to only work for Calvinism, which I don't think anyone would ever mistake for being a philanthropic, humanist worldview.

 

[MehGuy]

Hmm.. common one I hear is that a perfect being needed to die to redeem mankind from his/her sins.

As for me, I thought suffering was required for divinity. The whole reason God created this universe and beings with fleshy bodies was to experience pain. And a reason Satan an angel who only inhibited a spirit was so threatened by mankind. Suffering for divinity was something even God himself partook in, which is why he made himself into a mere fleshy man and had such a violent end.

One of the more proud aspects of my faith. I looked pretty negatively at other religions who worshiped deities who never experienced pain. Like worshiping a shallow being in my eyes.

Of course that's a lot of assumptions on my part.. like spiritual beings can't feel pain.. at least emotional pain.

 

[cloudyday2]

Eastern Orthodoxy rejects the Augustinian interpretation of original sin altogether, so none of what you've said applies in any shape or form to an entire sector of the Christian world.

When I was Orthodox I sometimes read books making this claim ("we're so much smarter than those 'Western' Christians") but then there was never an explanation of what the Orthodox believe. So if you can explain this distinction clearly then I'm eager to hear it.

 

[Silmarien]

When I was Orthodox I sometimes read books making this claim ("we're so much smarter than those 'Western' Christians") but then there was never an explanation of what the Orthodox believe. So if you can explain this distinction clearly then I'm eager to hear it.

Well, you've got the different ways the East and West talk about sin in general. In the East, the idea is that it's more of a spiritual disease to be treated than an offense to be punished. The concept of hereditary guilt is absent as well--Orthodoxy recognizes a tendency to sin, but there's no burden of guilt that needs to be alleviated. The only curse that needs to be broken is death itself, which explains why the focus in Orthodoxy is so strongly on the Resurrection and the victory of Christ over death.

Western Christianity, in contrast, has managed to get very bogged down with legal metaphors. You can see it a lot with the development of different aspects of atonement theology--for example, the Satisfaction theory of atonement with its focus on honor is heavily based in the medieval feudal system. Scholasticism has its strengths, but I don't think its insistence on trying to make sense of the Atonement is one of them. There's a whole line of theology going from Anselm to Calvin that tries to explain Christianity in terms of contemporary legal theory while ignoring things like the Jewish context altogether.

Orthodoxy, on the other hand, is highly Platonized, which may or may not be a good thing depending on your point of view, but I think it escapes this problem, at least.

 

[cloudyday2]

The only curse that needs to be broken is death itself, which explains why the focus in Orthodoxy is so strongly on the Resurrection and the victory of Christ over death.

So how do they see the Crucifixion's role in breaking this curse? Why not let Jesus slip on a banana peel and die that way? The Resurrection would still be possible and show Jesus as the "first fruits" of a more general Resurrection. (I don't know if that is what the Orthodox believe or if it was some other denomination's theology that I'm remembering.)

Orthodoxy, on the other hand, is highly Platonized,

What does that mean ("platonized")? I am assuming it has some connection to Plato, but what specifically about that helps Orthodoxy avoid problems?

 

[Silmarien]

So how do they see the Crucifixion's role in breaking this curse? Why not let Jesus slip on a banana peel and die that way? The Resurrection would still be possible and show Jesus as the "first fruits" of a more general Resurrection. (I don't know if that is what the Orthodox believe or if it was some other denomination's theology that I'm remembering.)

I'm not actually sure. I know Saint Isaac of Syria explicitly says that the Crucifixion was not necessary for atonement, that it could have been achieved through an ordinary death, but that God wished for humanity to realize the nature of the mystery. The Cross has got an insane amount of symbolic power behind it that a banana peel obviously does not.

What does that mean ("platonized")? I am assuming it has some connection to Plato, but what specifically about that helps Orthodoxy avoid problems?

For some people it actually is a problem, since Early Christianity borrowed a lot of philosophical language from the Neoplatonists. There's a certain tendency amongst some people, particularly Protestants, to want to get rid of the Greek framework and return to a fully Judaic interpretation of Christianity. I'm not sure how possible or desirable this is, since Hellenistic influences go all the way back to the New Testament.

I think the fact that Orthodoxy has retained a lot of those early Neoplatonic influences is helpful in that it means the religion has not really transformed itself for every new era in quite the same way that Western Christianity has. As far as I can tell, it involves a Hellenistic interpretation of Jewish theology, but at least that interpretation hasn't been reinterpreted a half dozen times.

 

[Jane_the_Bane]

No, most Christian denominations would agree on issues like the Nicene Creed, the Ecumenical Councils, and so forth and so on. Eastern Orthodoxy rejects the Augustinian interpretation of original sin altogether, so none of what you've said applies in any shape or form to an entire sector of the Christian world. It's even a caricature for Catholicism, where the stress is on human dignity and being made in the image of God, not the Fall.

Honestly, your take on it seems to only work for Calvinism, which I don't think anyone would ever mistake for being a philanthropic, humanist worldview.

I confess there was some hyperbole involved, yet the idea that Jesus *had to* die for any of us to be saved, and each of us deserving nothing but death and torment without it is a universal belief, no?

(Well, the Orthodox church seems to have dodged that approach to a certain degree , but even they believe all the unsaved/non-Christians will suffer hell, no?

 

[danny ski]

By itself, crucification is a personal tragedy, one of tens of thousands in the Roman occupied Judea. It is only in the context of the Christian theology that it gains significance. Hence, varying understandings. Christians chose to believe in a cricified god because a death of a man, tragic as it is, has little meaning. A suffering god- that's a different story.

 

[Starcomet]

Since I am a Pelagian and do not believe in original sin, I do not believe the crucifixion was a payment for sin to God or the devil. I believe his death was just that of a martyr and thus I subscribe to the moral influence crucifixion theology.

 

[Starcomet]

By itself, crucification is a personal tragedy, one of tens of thousands in the Roman occupied Judea. It is only in the context of the Christian theology that it gains significance. Hence, varying understandings. Christians chose to believe in a cricified god because a death of a man, tragic as it is, has little meaning. A suffering god- that's a different story.

It could be argued that after the apostle Paul came into the picture the crucifixion became significant. Prior to him there is no evidence that the earliest followers of Jesus felt it was important theologically.

 

[cloudyday2]

(Well, the Orthodox church seems to have dodged that approach to a certain degree , but even they believe all the unsaved/non-Christians will suffer hell, no?

My impression is that Orthodox claim that nobody knows who is going to heaven and who is going to hell. You can't even know about your own self. I suppose the people who the Church names as "saints" are assumed to be in heaven, but maybe there is no guarantee even about them.