Why Was Jesus Crucified?

Slate magazine is hardly mistaken as a right-wing ezine. That's why it's a nice surprise to see a piece on the crucifixion of Christ that largely hews the orthodox line: "Why Was Jesus Crucified?" by Larry Hurtado, head of the School of Divinity, University of Edinburgh.

My one objection to the article is that he's much too generous in describing ancient heretical takes on Christianity as "other forms of Christianity." Mind you, he believes that the right convictions prevailed. Still, though cancer could be called another form of cell growth in the body, we don't tend to be so generous in describing cancer in this way. Neither should we be so generous in describing ancient heretical views as simply another take on Christianity.

That said, I think Hurtado does a good job challenging the Jesus espoused by some "historical Jesus" types (including some among the "Jesus Seminar" panelists, who made a whistle stop in Austin last week). The greatest weakness among many of said scholars is their inability to give us--in Hurtado's words--a "crucifiable" Jesus (read the Slate article).

I'll have to look into Hurtado a little more. You should spend a half-hour with him by watching the introduction to a video series called Devotion to Jesus: The Divinity of Christ in Earliest Christianity. I withhold my final verdict on him until I've read him some more. But the video is good stuff.

Hurtado gives a brief explanation of the historical forces that led to Jesus' execution in the Slate article. The Old Testament prophet, Isaiah, explained the higher force behind the historical circumstances. For your Good Friday meditation, here's Isaiah 53:3-6--

He was despised and rejected by men,

a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering.

Like one from whom men hide their faces

he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

Surely he took up our infirmities

and carried our sorrows,

yet we considered him stricken by God,

smitten by him, and afflicted.

But he was pierced for our transgressions,

he was crushed for our iniquities;

the punishment that brought us peace was upon him,

and by his wounds we are healed.

We all, like sheep, have gone astray,

each of us has turned to his own way;

and the LORD has laid on him

the iniquity of us all.