huxley:



1) What were the crimes for which Jesus was arrested, tried, convicted and executed?

2) According to the Jewish laws (and/or Roman laws) then in force, was Jesus rightly convicted as per the evidence presented in the Gospels?

3) If you, as a follower of Jesus, had been at the trial, would you have joined the Jewish crowd in calling for his execution or would you have called for his exoneration?

Bastage:

I don't see them as hard questions (although the 3rd doesn't really have an answer).

1) Probably trumped up charges of treason and sedition against the Roman state. Crucifixion was reserved for these crimes.

2) No. But then I don't see the Gospels as concentrating that much on the legal aspects of the trial.

3) That's unanswerable. But not for the reasons you are insinuating. Nobody can say unless they actually lived in those times and through the event. All we can do is give an answer as to what we would do now based on our present experiences thus making the question irrelevant.

May kelly:

Be proud of your identity as one who belongs to Jesus! He wasn’t ashamed to be publicly crucified for you, so you ought to stand up and be counted as a true, ardent uncompromising believer in Christ.

DeReloaded:

how come atheist are more obsessed with Christianity than any other religion?

huxley:

How come christians are not capable of answering simple questions about their religion but are wont to just follow stuff from books written by barbaric people many thousands of years ago?

huxley:


1) What were the crimes for which Jesus was arrested, tried, convicted and executed?
2) According to the Jewish laws (and/or Roman laws) then in force, was Jesus rightly convicted as per the evidence presented in the Gospels?
3) If you, as a follower of Jesus, had been at the trial, would you have joined the Jewish crowd in calling for his execution or would you have called for his exoneration?

Although you were not there at the time, it is not hard to visualise the nature of the trial and the sides taken by followers of Jesus.

Bastage:

I totally disagree. The Biblical account gives nowhere near enough information to be able to make a judgement.
In fact, it looks in places to be in error - Jesus was tried by the Romans over a matter that had nothing to do with them, ie: Jesus screwing with Jewish law. The Sanhedrin would have been responsible for the trial and execution if the Biblical account were true.
How can one make a judgement when one doesn't have the facts?

Tell me. What would have been your verdict and on what basis?

huxley:

While I agree that the gospel account is very scanty as far as details are concerned, it is still possible to know apriori what the consequences of the various options would have been. We have three possible outcomes, which I list above (and here below);

i) Voted for conviction - If you voted for conviction, it means that you have been convinced by the case of the prosecution, ie, that Jesus was a seditionist and posed a threat to public order. OR, you are not convinced, BUT maliciously voted for conviction anyway, just to eliminate what you consider a threat to public order, hence not really doing justice to the case.

ii) Voted for exoneration - If you voted for exoneration, it means that you are not convinced by the case of the prosecution and you believe that the charges have been wrongly applied and that conviction under such charges would amount to a travesty of justice.

iii) Abstain - You were not convinced you were given sufficient information to correctly assess the quilt/innocence or perhaps were not competent to make a judgment.



Can you think of any other outcomes besides these three?

Now, consider yourself one of his followers, say, Peter. Peter would have had exactly the same options as I have listed above. What are the implications for each of the options, should any have been chosen by Peter?

davidylan:

all the above twaddle are products of the 21st century mind taking advantage of modern law. No such terminologies and judicial intricacies existed 2000 yrs ago. Find something else to blab about.

Bastage:

@ Huxley.

As far as I am aware it was just guilty or innocent - there was no leave to abstain under Roman Law.

And I stick to my guns here - it is impossible to know if someone is innocent or guilty unless you know what crime they are charged with.

huxley:

Just what I predicted - that a mind addled by religion has been handicapped for ever to deal with questions regarding the very same religion.

huxley:

I am simply asking you to play out both scenarios - 1) guilty 2) Innocent


1) Guilty - If he was guilty as charged, what are the consequences of a guilty verdict?

2) Innocent - similarly, what are the consequences of a exoneration from such charges?

davidylan:

Your "questions" make no sense at all. Its like asking what a nuclear bomb looked like during the persian empire. Trying to force modern law into an event that occured 2000 yrs ago is a sign that its your mind that has the problem not the religious mind.

davidylan:

This is frankly stupid. We could not use 21st century laws to influence ancient roman and judaic laws. There are stark differences between how they interpreted the law then as against now.

For example - it was custom/law then that the Roman governor could do prisoner exchanges i.e. barnabas released so Jesus could be taken even though the same pilate found no fault with him.
They didnt have courts like we have today, no jury, no defence or prosecution lawyers to plead their case . . . so just what is the essence of your "question"?

I am simply asking you to play out both scenarios - 1) guilty 2) Innocent

Bastage:

And I am simply asking guilty or innocent of what crime and based on what evidence?
Your question cannot be answered until you've given a reply.

If we follow you line of reason and you knew then that these were trumped up charges, what verdict would you have given?

naijacutee:

Why the pre-assumption that the questions are hard? I'm a christian and they aren't difficult questions to answer - I'm slightly puzzled as to what your point is, but here goes :-

1. Simply put, Jesus was executed for blasphemy. He, on many occasions insinuated that he was, or was equal to God - a claim which is blasphemy by Jewish standards.

naijacutee:

2. Yes and No. According to Jewish laws, they were right to execute any odd person who claims to be God. However, in the light of the evidence provided by the gospels, Jesus ticked all the boxes to back up all his claims - Including fulfilling age-old prophecies over which he had no control.

naijacutee:

3. If I was living in Jerusalem at the time, Who knows? I probably would have joined in stoning him.

huxley:

There are two problems with this charge of blasphemy. A charge of blasphemy would have been the sole jurisdiction of the Jewish authorities and NOT the Romans. Secondly, the penalty for blasphemy would have been stoning to death and NOT crucifixion. This suggest that there must have been other issues beside blasphemy.

huxley:

In Jesus time there would have been prophets by the hundreds all claiming to fulfil this and that prophecies. Jesus would not have stood out as different and his "proof" of authenticity would not have been any more convincing than the next prophet.

huxley:

Now, imagine you were one of the 12, say Peter. And you had a casting vote. Would you have voted for his exoneration or would you have convicted him?

The penalty for blasphemy (crucifiction) was exclusively Roman jurisdiction, that is why the high priests (essentially the Jewish leaders of that time) had to bring Christ before Pilate.

Why did they largely ignore John the Baptist?

Bastage:

Totally and utterly untrue. The penalty for blasphemy against the Jewish god was not crucifixion and it was not tried by Roman Courts.

Bastage:

Errr, I don't know if you noticed, but John the Baptist was executed because of his religious views - namely those concerning Herod's marriage. I'd say that being executed for your beliefs is hardly being ignored is it?

davidylan:

There is a serious problem with this hubris . . . Israel at that time was a colony of Rome. The penalty for blasphemy (crucifiction) was exclusively Roman jurisdiction, that is why the high priests (essentially the Jewish leaders of that time) had to bring Christ before Pilate.

davidylan:

This is again daft. If this were true, the jews would not have been so fixated on killing Jesus rather than other "hundreds of prophets". Why did they largely ignore John the Baptist?

Again daft . . . how could Peter have had a vote to convict or acquit? As a follower of Christ he was just as liable to be killed as his master.

huxley:

You may be excused for NOT knowing, which is acceptable, but this is NOT true. The Romans, as colonial administrators of the regions allowed local Jewish law to preside over the affairs of the Jews, in religious and civil matters. One of the few areas in which the Romans would intervene was where there was risk of civil disorder or riots.

Blasphemy as a religious affair and was entirely within the jurisdiction of the Jewish authorities. This was one of the deals the Jews had with the Romans in order to maintain friendly relations - the Romans would stay out of their religion while the Jew would in turn be less troublesome. History records a number of instances where the Romans heavyhandedly stepped into the religious domain, much to the chagrin of the Jews, resulting in riots.

huxley:

The penalty for blasphemy was not crucifixion but stoning. Crucifixion was a Roman form of punishment and they were notorious for cricifying sometimes hundreds at a time and leaving the corpses to dry out in the sun along one of the major road in the regions - I think it was called Via Apiah.

huxley:

Problem is - you take the gospel account too literally and uncritically. The "prophets" were being killed all the time, some of whom have been recorded in contemporary extra-biblical sources. Bizarrely, the killing of Jesus is NOT recorded contemporaneously in any extra-biblical sources.

huxley:

Does the gospels record John the Baptist as blaspheming against the Jewish law?