(November 10, 2022 at 10:39 pm)Angrboda Wrote:(November 10, 2022 at 3:38 pm)BrianSoddingBoru4 Wrote: I’ve always wondered why Jesus felt it necessary to go through all the rigamarole of getting himself crucified. Since he was meant to die for our sins anyway, throwing himself under any passing oxcart would have worked just as well.
Boru
It's all tied up in rituals about blood sacrifice. As the scapegoat that the Jews let loose in the desert to suffer and die was supposed to expiate their sins, so the passion of Christ is a form of ritual purging, with all this going back to the long tradition of blood magic. I saw an interesting documentary where they cut open an animal and splattered its blood around the tires and corners of a military truck, to bring good luck in battle. Blood magic is way old.
The evidence from Mark is that Jesus did not see his death as being sacrificial:
Quote:And at the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, “E′lo-i, E′lo-i, la′ma sabach-tha′ni?” which means, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” (Mark 15:34, RSV)
What happened is that Jesus was an apocalyptist who, like his illiterate followers, believed in a flat Earth. Believing that Yahweh would deliver the Jewish people through an angelic being who would descend from Heaven, the Son of Man, Jesus went to Jerusalem from his birthplace in northern Galilee, the former widely believed to be the center of the World, and as a messenger of this deliverance, Jesus believed that Yahweh would guide and protect him. The Romans, immediately recognizing Jesus as "yet another religious loon", arrested him, and after a quick trial, he was summarily found guilty of sedition against the Empire and condemned to crucifixion. It was, finally, during his execution that Jesus publicly decries God's "betrayal", which Mark recorded.
It was years after his execution that Jesus' followers began to rewrite the story of his life, characterizing his life and death as being "sacrificial".
