TheReadMenace
24th September 2005, 00:02
I was just recently involved in a discussion, that I think every Christian needs to know about. My mate has been studying the Bible for the past six years, and just finished his Masters on the book of Mark. Basically, he's a reliable source for Biblical information.
We were talking about Jesus' claim to be the 'son of God,' and he wrote this after attending a lecture.
In this lecture the professor discussed the fact that Octavian (better known as Caesar Augustus) changed his name to IMPERATOR CAESAR DIVI FILIUS AUGUSTUS, which means “victorious general Caesar the son of a god Augustus (while I don’t know the exact meaning of Augustus it refers to his divinity). Although he lived under Tiberius, Augustus’ step son who claimed to be a son of god, it struck me that Jesus could not have possibly lived in the Roman world without understanding the political significance of adopting a title that was used by emperor himself.
Sitting in a Roman history class, it came to me that Jesus’ claim to be son of God, or more accurately the claim that the gospel writers put into Jesus’ mouth, was not a claim to literally be divine, but was a direct challenge to Rome. Jesus was literally claiming to be a new Caesar, who would start a kingdom that would take over Rome – the kingdom of God.
Even traditionally “Christian” words such as gospel are often attributed to the political aspirations of emperors. For example, the words EUANGELION (usually translated “gospel) and SOTER (usually translated “savior”) are used of Augustus in a calendar inscription found at Priene which states “that the gods sent Augustus to earth as a savior," and then goes on to state that “the birthday of the son of God (Augustus) was the beginning of good news (euangnelion) for the world.” Thus it is hard to believe that when Mark opens his gospel, “the beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ the Son of God” that he had no political aspirations.
The title “savior” and “son of God” as well as the description of Jesus’ deeds as the “good news,” was a fuck you to Rome. Jesus was claiming to be greater than the emperor. Jesus was not just a religious leader. He was politically motivated to start a new kingdom on earth which would replace Rome, and which would be socially and economically just.
Question:
I believe it was Pilate himself who had the INRI placed on the tablet/board/whatever it was; and I know he was a governor, but a governor in service to Rome and Caesar. Now, as "King of the Jews", would the Romans really not have cared, because it wasn't political? You yourself said that claiming to be greater than Caesar was like giving the middle finger to Rome, so…why wasn't it done more boisterously?
Response:
Jesus is described as being crucified with lhsths. This is usually translated as thief or bandit but it also often means political insurrectionist. Barrabas was not a thief. He was a rebel leading open revolt against Rome. In fact crucifixion was a punishment reserved for insurrectionist. Thievery was not punishable by crucifixion. The only reason that Jesus could have been crucified was if Pilate believed that Jesus was a political threat to Rome by either engaging in or encouraging other to engage in revolt against Rome, or even claiming to be the leader of a competing political party (the kingdom of God). The fact that Pilate chose to crucify him, demonstrates that he saw Jesus was a political threat to Rome, no matter how small.
And no it wouldn't have been that big a deal. At this point Jesus had 1-2 dozen followers. And you have to remember that at this time the Jews were not happy about Roman occupation, and open revolts, and resistance movements were a common occurrence. It was much more unstable then than now. So the fact that Pilate didn't make a huge deal about crucifying another political threat doesn't surprise me.
Question:
I hadn't thought about Barrabas as being an insurrectionist. That's interesting, because if Pilate had seen a threat in Jesus from a political stance, wouldn't he have just crucified both, rather than releasing Barrabas?
You said that thievery was not punishable, but Matthew mentions that two robbers were crucified with him. Not sure about that, your thoughts?
Also, what were the crimes punishable by crucifixion at the time?
Response:
The robbers are actually lhsths, which can be translated robber or insurrectionist. They wouldn't have been robbers. This is an example of bad translation. They were insurrectionists.
I have done A LOT of research on this word. So much so that I literally have about 20 pages written down about uses of the word lhsths. Sadly none of it is online and all of it uses Greek fonts that I can't copy and paste. You can look here (http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?layout.reflang=greek;layout.refembed=2;layou t.refwordcount=1;layout.refdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A19 99.01.0155;layout.reflookup=lh%7Cstw%3Dn;layout.re fcit=book%3DMark%3Achapter%3D11%3Averse%3D17;doc=P erseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0057%3Aentry%3D%2362984;la yout.refabo=Perseus%3Aabo%3Atlg%2C0031%2C002) if you want but that is the classical definition. My translation is based on Josephus' use of the word, which is much more contemporary to the NT than classical Greek, and the fact that Romans crucified people for insurrection not thievery. Therefore, the logical conclusion is that those next to Jesus were not robbers but insurrectionists and the logical conclusion is that Pilate saw Jesus as nothing more than a political threat to Rome.
My whole point is that Jesus, while certainly a spiritual leader, was not solely spiritual and other worldly. Jesus did not come to save people for eternity. Jesus fought to save people from the injustices here and now. His salvation was not the modern Christian view of eternal salvation that is being in heaven forever. Jesus' salvation was a social, political, and economic salvation from the injustices of the world. I know this will be extremely hard for people who have grown up in the church and have been conditioned to think about the text only spiritually and eternally to grasp, but my 6 years of studying the bible and its historical, social, political, religious and economic context has lead me to conclude that the salvation of Jesus has nothing to do with eternity, but was meant for the people he interacted with. It was a salvation for rural Galillean and Judean Jews.
Andrew
We were talking about Jesus' claim to be the 'son of God,' and he wrote this after attending a lecture.
In this lecture the professor discussed the fact that Octavian (better known as Caesar Augustus) changed his name to IMPERATOR CAESAR DIVI FILIUS AUGUSTUS, which means “victorious general Caesar the son of a god Augustus (while I don’t know the exact meaning of Augustus it refers to his divinity). Although he lived under Tiberius, Augustus’ step son who claimed to be a son of god, it struck me that Jesus could not have possibly lived in the Roman world without understanding the political significance of adopting a title that was used by emperor himself.
Sitting in a Roman history class, it came to me that Jesus’ claim to be son of God, or more accurately the claim that the gospel writers put into Jesus’ mouth, was not a claim to literally be divine, but was a direct challenge to Rome. Jesus was literally claiming to be a new Caesar, who would start a kingdom that would take over Rome – the kingdom of God.
Even traditionally “Christian” words such as gospel are often attributed to the political aspirations of emperors. For example, the words EUANGELION (usually translated “gospel) and SOTER (usually translated “savior”) are used of Augustus in a calendar inscription found at Priene which states “that the gods sent Augustus to earth as a savior," and then goes on to state that “the birthday of the son of God (Augustus) was the beginning of good news (euangnelion) for the world.” Thus it is hard to believe that when Mark opens his gospel, “the beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ the Son of God” that he had no political aspirations.
The title “savior” and “son of God” as well as the description of Jesus’ deeds as the “good news,” was a fuck you to Rome. Jesus was claiming to be greater than the emperor. Jesus was not just a religious leader. He was politically motivated to start a new kingdom on earth which would replace Rome, and which would be socially and economically just.
Question:
I believe it was Pilate himself who had the INRI placed on the tablet/board/whatever it was; and I know he was a governor, but a governor in service to Rome and Caesar. Now, as "King of the Jews", would the Romans really not have cared, because it wasn't political? You yourself said that claiming to be greater than Caesar was like giving the middle finger to Rome, so…why wasn't it done more boisterously?
Response:
Jesus is described as being crucified with lhsths. This is usually translated as thief or bandit but it also often means political insurrectionist. Barrabas was not a thief. He was a rebel leading open revolt against Rome. In fact crucifixion was a punishment reserved for insurrectionist. Thievery was not punishable by crucifixion. The only reason that Jesus could have been crucified was if Pilate believed that Jesus was a political threat to Rome by either engaging in or encouraging other to engage in revolt against Rome, or even claiming to be the leader of a competing political party (the kingdom of God). The fact that Pilate chose to crucify him, demonstrates that he saw Jesus was a political threat to Rome, no matter how small.
And no it wouldn't have been that big a deal. At this point Jesus had 1-2 dozen followers. And you have to remember that at this time the Jews were not happy about Roman occupation, and open revolts, and resistance movements were a common occurrence. It was much more unstable then than now. So the fact that Pilate didn't make a huge deal about crucifying another political threat doesn't surprise me.
Question:
I hadn't thought about Barrabas as being an insurrectionist. That's interesting, because if Pilate had seen a threat in Jesus from a political stance, wouldn't he have just crucified both, rather than releasing Barrabas?
You said that thievery was not punishable, but Matthew mentions that two robbers were crucified with him. Not sure about that, your thoughts?
Also, what were the crimes punishable by crucifixion at the time?
Response:
The robbers are actually lhsths, which can be translated robber or insurrectionist. They wouldn't have been robbers. This is an example of bad translation. They were insurrectionists.
I have done A LOT of research on this word. So much so that I literally have about 20 pages written down about uses of the word lhsths. Sadly none of it is online and all of it uses Greek fonts that I can't copy and paste. You can look here (http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?layout.reflang=greek;layout.refembed=2;layou t.refwordcount=1;layout.refdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A19 99.01.0155;layout.reflookup=lh%7Cstw%3Dn;layout.re fcit=book%3DMark%3Achapter%3D11%3Averse%3D17;doc=P erseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0057%3Aentry%3D%2362984;la yout.refabo=Perseus%3Aabo%3Atlg%2C0031%2C002) if you want but that is the classical definition. My translation is based on Josephus' use of the word, which is much more contemporary to the NT than classical Greek, and the fact that Romans crucified people for insurrection not thievery. Therefore, the logical conclusion is that those next to Jesus were not robbers but insurrectionists and the logical conclusion is that Pilate saw Jesus as nothing more than a political threat to Rome.
My whole point is that Jesus, while certainly a spiritual leader, was not solely spiritual and other worldly. Jesus did not come to save people for eternity. Jesus fought to save people from the injustices here and now. His salvation was not the modern Christian view of eternal salvation that is being in heaven forever. Jesus' salvation was a social, political, and economic salvation from the injustices of the world. I know this will be extremely hard for people who have grown up in the church and have been conditioned to think about the text only spiritually and eternally to grasp, but my 6 years of studying the bible and its historical, social, political, religious and economic context has lead me to conclude that the salvation of Jesus has nothing to do with eternity, but was meant for the people he interacted with. It was a salvation for rural Galillean and Judean Jews.
Andrew