The History of Christianity: From the Disciples to the Dawn of the Reformation

(Rick Simeone) #1

The Manner of Jesus’s Death
• If the Resurrection of Jesus
was the good news, his death
seemed problematic to both
Gentiles and Jews, appearing
to disqualify him as a source of
divine life for others.


•    In 1 Corinthians 1:18–25,
Paul acknowledges that the
“message of the cross,” which
was for Christians the “power
of salvation,” appeared to
Greeks as foolishness and to
Jews as a stumbling block.

•    In antiquity, the manner of
death was proof of the quality
of a life, and Jesus’s violent
death by legal execution
disqualified him as a source of
divine life for both sides of the
cultural world.
o Paul says that the “Greeks seek wisdom,” meaning that a great
soldier or sage could join the gods—but crucifixion, the most
shameful of all deaths and one used mainly for slaves, could
appear only “foolish.”

o Paul further says that “Jews seek signs,” meaning signs that
Jesus was a genuine messiah for the Jews, but Jesus did
nothing to make things better for the Jews; he did not restore
the kingdom, the Temple, or the Law. In Jewish terms, he was
a failed messiah.

o The manner of Jesus’s life was that of a sinner; worse, his
manner of death was one cursed by God, for “cursed is anyone
who hangs on a tree” (Deut. 21:23).

Crucifixion was the most shameful
of all deaths, used mainly for
slaves and rebels against the
Roman order; the fact that Jesus
died in this manner disqualified
him as a source of divine life for
both Greeks and Jews.

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