Human culpability in jesus killing

Source: TW

They do not accept that Christianity is an apocalyptic Jewish sect whose founder was killed by the Romans for rebellion and was only later reworked into a separate religion by Peter and Paul. That is the “secular” interpretation.

Jewish killing

They (Christians) believe the Biblical narrative in which Jesus was God and was “killed” neither by the Jews and Romans. In the Biblical narrative, the Jewish pharisees and high priest demand that Jesus be crucified even though Pilate saw no fault in Jesus. Even when given the option to pardon a criminal, the Jews favored the murder/bandit Barabbas over Jesus.

Death by choice

Furthermore, according to the Bible, Jesus could’ve easily prevented the crucifixion (“Are you not aware that I can call on My Father, and He will at once put at My disposal more than twelve legions of angels?” - Matthew 26:53) but voluntarily laid down his life (“No one takes it from Me, but I lay it down of My own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again.” - John 10:18) for our sins so that we can have salvation as we would otherwise be tortured eternally due to our inherent sinful nature.

In other words, a greusome execution of a criminal/rebel by the Romans was essentially reinterpreted as an act of self-sacrifice in which the Romans are portrayed as neutral and the rabbinical Jews (with the exception of a few rabbinical Jews like Nicodemus, whose character was likely invented by the author of John’s Gospel just like other figures like Lazarus and Thomas) are portrayed as bloodthirsty.

When I say that Jesus was killed neither by the Jews and Romans, I don’t mean to imply that Jesus was not crucified under Pontius Pilate.

That fact is generally accepted not only by Christians, but even by secular scholarship (though not by Muslims, who believe that Jesus ascended prior to the crucifixion and a doppleganger was put in his place).

My point is that Christians do not believe the Romans and Jews killed him simply because they weren’t capable of killing him (though the Gospel narrative still holds Jews culpable via the Blood Curse in Matthew 27:24-25).

In a more metaphysical sense, human sin collectively caused his death, and Jesus voluntarily submitted. In that sense, the Romans and Jews were culpable insofar as they were human and sinful, but they weren’t uniquely culpable.

Resurrection

Christians also believe that Jesus resurrected/arose after three days (if they don’t, then their faith is useless, see 1 Corinthians 15:14) and that this resurrection was witnessed by his inner circle of followers, who were therefore convinced to risk their lives preaching on his behalf.

Fuctional martyrdom

Yet if you read the texts themeselves, they read more like literary romances, e.g. milk spurting from Paul’s carotids when he was beheaded, miraculous resurrection of smoked tuna and talking dogs from Acta Petri, etc.

I’d argue that aside from the stoning of Stephen (which is more likely to be historical than fictional), none of the other martyrdom accounts are historical. It’s extremely unlikely that the Romans would agree to Peter’s request to be crucified upside down and modern scholarship generally favors the theory that Paul either died in Spain or was murdered due to “jealousy” within the Christian community rather than executed by Nero.

Even the story of James the Just being thrown off the pinnacle of the Jewish temple and then clubbed to death is likely fictional.