With extra special thanks to the great Chaz Braman for allowing me to use his brilliant cartoons on my otherwise naff web blog.For more from Chaz view his fantastic site http://russellsteapot.com/comics/
Wednesday, November 7, 2007
Monday, November 5, 2007
The Death of Christ (how and why)
The late great Bill Hicks said about the symbol of the cross for Christians,
“A lot of Christians wear crosses around their necks. Do you think when Jesus comes back he ever wants to see a fuckin' cross? It's kind of like going up to Jackie Onassis with a rifle pendant on."
The crucifixion of Jesus is perhaps one of the best known of all the Biblical stories and the symbol of the cross is synonymous with Christian’s world wide.
But what exactly is crucifixion, how is it done, how does it work, how does that hold fact with biblical accounts of Jesus’ death and for what reason did Jesus actually die.
Crucifixion
Crucifixion is perhaps one of the most horrible ways to die, not that I know this from experience, but the mechanics of the process makes it impossible to be anything but horrible.
First of all you are tied by the wrist to a plank of wood, not a full cross as traditionally shown, the upright section it stationary and only the cross piece is lifted and attached to the upright (bare in mind these uprights were used again and again for numerous crucifixions and would remain in place). Once your wrists are bound to the plank, nails are hammered through your fore arms, not the hands as depicted on all the pictures of Jesus. The nail which is four to six inches long and an inch wide would be driven between the ulna and radius bones and often bent over the radius to hold it in place. If the nail were driven through the hands are normally depicted once raised up the weight of the body would just rip the nails through your hands.
So, now you are securely nailed to a plank, wrists bound and ready to go. You were then lifted up to the upright and made to stand on a small ledge on the upright while a couple of crucifixion attendants secured the cross piece to the upright. You are now stood on a ledge, up a pole nailed to a plank of wood. This sounds bad enough but just standing there with nails through your arms does not really achieve much as you could stand there a couple of days before dehydration and fatigue finally began to take its toll. Now the Romans did not want to waste time standing around several days waiting for you to die, guarding you to make sure no one rescues you. On occasion for really evil criminals or those they wanted to make examples of they did just leave you to die slowly, often giving the criminal water to sustain the dying process, but this scenario was quite rare. The Romans preferred you to die in a couple of hours, so they could all go home, so what they did was once you were securely perched on the crucifix, they broke your legs so that you could not stand and support yourself.
The result, slow asphyxiation (or more precisely you drown as fluid collects in your lungs) as the weight of your body pulls down on your arms preventing you from being able to breathe, that combined with the agony of two broken legs and the whole weight of your body dragging on two nails hammered through your fore arms.
Those are the facts of crucifixion.
So let’s assume that the method of crucifixion is not as above, but as depicted in the crucifixion of Jesus, what would this mean? Lets try to sort some of the facts from the fiction.
Jesus was made to carry his own cross to the crucifixion site. Well this is quite possible, occasionally full crosses were used in places where existing uprights were not available, but considering this was out side a large populated city it seems unlikely that an existing crucifixion site wouldn’t exist, so it would be more probable that Jesus would have to have carried the cross bar of the cross, but not the whole cross. So this is possible, but not probable.
Jesus was nailed to the “cross” through his hands. Obviously this would not work, unless the wrists were bound to the cross as well. People that show signs of stigmata never show signs of rope burns on the wrists or of holes in the fore arms. So the likelihood of Jesus just being nailed through the hands is not possible as the weight of his body would have pulled him free.
Would Jesus have been able to talk at length to his disciples? Not possible as the whole mechanics of crucifixion makes it almost impossible to breathe let alone carry out conversations. So not possible or at the very best only in tiny gasps. (although seeing as the four gospels can not agree on what Jesus said on the cross, it is highly unlikely that he actually said anything at all)
Ok, so that to some degree covers the How section of the Christ Crucifixion story, now lets have a little look at the Why.
“God sent his only son to die for us”, or “Jesus died for our sins” are two stock responses normally applied to why Jesus was crucified. Apparent it was a selfless act on both Gods and his son’s behalf.
Ok, Lets look at this “selfless act”
1, if Jesus had to die, why the whole charade of being frog marched up and down carrying a cross, the whole suffering and indignity of the crucifixion etc… Why couldn’t just jump off a cliff or something?
2, if Jesus willingly allowed himself to be crucified isn’t that the same as suicide?
Surely that is a sin?
Sins are bad aren’t they?
Some would say it was a sacrifice, but what is the difference? He basically sacrificed himself to, er himself, knowing that he was only going to be dead a few days anyway, so hardly a huge sacrifice seeing as he knew he was going home at the end of it.
3, exactly how does Jesus’ death free us from sin? I have read the bible and spoken to many people who claim to be Christians and neither seem able to explain clearly, or show where it is explained how the death of Jesus actually freed us from Sin. There just seems to be no sense in it at all, if it was such an issue God could have sorted it out with out the necessity of making his son suffer so much, unless he was actually punishing Jesus for something, perhaps his own sins!
4, As the son of god, and in turn God himself (remember the holy trinity), would Jesus actually feel any pain? As an omnipotent, omniscient deity, can he really feel pain? If he did feel the pain, why was in necessary and if he didn’t feel pain, then the whole thing must have been just for show.
5, if God is omnipotent and omniscient (all powerful and all knowing) then he already knew before he sent his son down to earth that this would be the outcome. As part of a part of the triune God, Jesus knew all along what his outcome would be, so this sort of negates the sacrifice as it was actually part of the whole plan, because if it wasn’t what he wanted, then he had the power to change it.
6, Why is Judas so reviled? If he acted with Jesus' blessing, or even under divine coercion from Jesus, why is he portrayed as a bad person? Either way, he helped the crucifixion take place, so surely Christians should admire him. Without Judas they might not have been saved, or Jesus might have lived a lot longer and they'd have a much less impressive ornament to hang round their necks as a symbol of his death. A runaway horse maybe, or a slippery banana-skin or perhaps a poorly looking kebab.
So seeing as Jesus died for all our sins, past present and future, anything we do now is basically sinless as Jesus has already atoned for them. If our acceptance into heaven still depends on us living a sinless lifestyle then surely the death of Jesus was pointless! As from that point onward no matter what we did, the death of Jesus atoned for it. Anything we do from that point onwards is technically already accounted for. As I have already explained previously, in another post, Jesus could not be paying for the original sin, as God permitted that one as part of his creation
So in conclusion to this part, basically we have God sacrificing himself to save us from a hell he created in the first place. Also if the reason Jesus had to die to atone for all mankind’s sins past, present and future what was the point of the Great Flood and Noah? Surely all the millions that died then were rendered pointless if God knew at a later point he would forgive them all anyway. Seems to me God just likes to see things die, after all he caused Cain to kill Abel because he preferred to see the murder of innocent animals over the growing of crops.
In order to accept that Jesus' death washed away Original Sin (and therefore had any meaning at all), you are forced to subscribe to the young-Earth creationist view that the universe is about 6000 years old, and was created just as described in the Book of Genesis. This would mean that almost all sciences (including the sciences that allow us to generate the electricity that is letting you read this blog) are totally wrong about everything. This is one of the main reasons why creationists object so strongly to evolution. It implies (or demonstrates) that the basic concept behind Christianity is simply false.
There was nothing for Christ to atone for, so the crucifixion was meaningless.
“A lot of Christians wear crosses around their necks. Do you think when Jesus comes back he ever wants to see a fuckin' cross? It's kind of like going up to Jackie Onassis with a rifle pendant on."
The crucifixion of Jesus is perhaps one of the best known of all the Biblical stories and the symbol of the cross is synonymous with Christian’s world wide.
But what exactly is crucifixion, how is it done, how does it work, how does that hold fact with biblical accounts of Jesus’ death and for what reason did Jesus actually die.
Crucifixion
Crucifixion is perhaps one of the most horrible ways to die, not that I know this from experience, but the mechanics of the process makes it impossible to be anything but horrible.
First of all you are tied by the wrist to a plank of wood, not a full cross as traditionally shown, the upright section it stationary and only the cross piece is lifted and attached to the upright (bare in mind these uprights were used again and again for numerous crucifixions and would remain in place). Once your wrists are bound to the plank, nails are hammered through your fore arms, not the hands as depicted on all the pictures of Jesus. The nail which is four to six inches long and an inch wide would be driven between the ulna and radius bones and often bent over the radius to hold it in place. If the nail were driven through the hands are normally depicted once raised up the weight of the body would just rip the nails through your hands.
So, now you are securely nailed to a plank, wrists bound and ready to go. You were then lifted up to the upright and made to stand on a small ledge on the upright while a couple of crucifixion attendants secured the cross piece to the upright. You are now stood on a ledge, up a pole nailed to a plank of wood. This sounds bad enough but just standing there with nails through your arms does not really achieve much as you could stand there a couple of days before dehydration and fatigue finally began to take its toll. Now the Romans did not want to waste time standing around several days waiting for you to die, guarding you to make sure no one rescues you. On occasion for really evil criminals or those they wanted to make examples of they did just leave you to die slowly, often giving the criminal water to sustain the dying process, but this scenario was quite rare. The Romans preferred you to die in a couple of hours, so they could all go home, so what they did was once you were securely perched on the crucifix, they broke your legs so that you could not stand and support yourself.
The result, slow asphyxiation (or more precisely you drown as fluid collects in your lungs) as the weight of your body pulls down on your arms preventing you from being able to breathe, that combined with the agony of two broken legs and the whole weight of your body dragging on two nails hammered through your fore arms.
Those are the facts of crucifixion.
So let’s assume that the method of crucifixion is not as above, but as depicted in the crucifixion of Jesus, what would this mean? Lets try to sort some of the facts from the fiction.
Jesus was made to carry his own cross to the crucifixion site. Well this is quite possible, occasionally full crosses were used in places where existing uprights were not available, but considering this was out side a large populated city it seems unlikely that an existing crucifixion site wouldn’t exist, so it would be more probable that Jesus would have to have carried the cross bar of the cross, but not the whole cross. So this is possible, but not probable.
Jesus was nailed to the “cross” through his hands. Obviously this would not work, unless the wrists were bound to the cross as well. People that show signs of stigmata never show signs of rope burns on the wrists or of holes in the fore arms. So the likelihood of Jesus just being nailed through the hands is not possible as the weight of his body would have pulled him free.
Would Jesus have been able to talk at length to his disciples? Not possible as the whole mechanics of crucifixion makes it almost impossible to breathe let alone carry out conversations. So not possible or at the very best only in tiny gasps. (although seeing as the four gospels can not agree on what Jesus said on the cross, it is highly unlikely that he actually said anything at all)
Ok, so that to some degree covers the How section of the Christ Crucifixion story, now lets have a little look at the Why.
“God sent his only son to die for us”, or “Jesus died for our sins” are two stock responses normally applied to why Jesus was crucified. Apparent it was a selfless act on both Gods and his son’s behalf.
Ok, Lets look at this “selfless act”
1, if Jesus had to die, why the whole charade of being frog marched up and down carrying a cross, the whole suffering and indignity of the crucifixion etc… Why couldn’t just jump off a cliff or something?
2, if Jesus willingly allowed himself to be crucified isn’t that the same as suicide?
Surely that is a sin?
Sins are bad aren’t they?
Some would say it was a sacrifice, but what is the difference? He basically sacrificed himself to, er himself, knowing that he was only going to be dead a few days anyway, so hardly a huge sacrifice seeing as he knew he was going home at the end of it.
3, exactly how does Jesus’ death free us from sin? I have read the bible and spoken to many people who claim to be Christians and neither seem able to explain clearly, or show where it is explained how the death of Jesus actually freed us from Sin. There just seems to be no sense in it at all, if it was such an issue God could have sorted it out with out the necessity of making his son suffer so much, unless he was actually punishing Jesus for something, perhaps his own sins!
4, As the son of god, and in turn God himself (remember the holy trinity), would Jesus actually feel any pain? As an omnipotent, omniscient deity, can he really feel pain? If he did feel the pain, why was in necessary and if he didn’t feel pain, then the whole thing must have been just for show.
5, if God is omnipotent and omniscient (all powerful and all knowing) then he already knew before he sent his son down to earth that this would be the outcome. As part of a part of the triune God, Jesus knew all along what his outcome would be, so this sort of negates the sacrifice as it was actually part of the whole plan, because if it wasn’t what he wanted, then he had the power to change it.
6, Why is Judas so reviled? If he acted with Jesus' blessing, or even under divine coercion from Jesus, why is he portrayed as a bad person? Either way, he helped the crucifixion take place, so surely Christians should admire him. Without Judas they might not have been saved, or Jesus might have lived a lot longer and they'd have a much less impressive ornament to hang round their necks as a symbol of his death. A runaway horse maybe, or a slippery banana-skin or perhaps a poorly looking kebab.
So seeing as Jesus died for all our sins, past present and future, anything we do now is basically sinless as Jesus has already atoned for them. If our acceptance into heaven still depends on us living a sinless lifestyle then surely the death of Jesus was pointless! As from that point onward no matter what we did, the death of Jesus atoned for it. Anything we do from that point onwards is technically already accounted for. As I have already explained previously, in another post, Jesus could not be paying for the original sin, as God permitted that one as part of his creation
So in conclusion to this part, basically we have God sacrificing himself to save us from a hell he created in the first place. Also if the reason Jesus had to die to atone for all mankind’s sins past, present and future what was the point of the Great Flood and Noah? Surely all the millions that died then were rendered pointless if God knew at a later point he would forgive them all anyway. Seems to me God just likes to see things die, after all he caused Cain to kill Abel because he preferred to see the murder of innocent animals over the growing of crops.
In order to accept that Jesus' death washed away Original Sin (and therefore had any meaning at all), you are forced to subscribe to the young-Earth creationist view that the universe is about 6000 years old, and was created just as described in the Book of Genesis. This would mean that almost all sciences (including the sciences that allow us to generate the electricity that is letting you read this blog) are totally wrong about everything. This is one of the main reasons why creationists object so strongly to evolution. It implies (or demonstrates) that the basic concept behind Christianity is simply false.
There was nothing for Christ to atone for, so the crucifixion was meaningless.
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