So, why did Jesus have to die?

[Gatorbait]

Some of the more uninteresting lessons, I've found, are about the atonement. Never understood that one. My list of things I don't get about it are these:

1. Why did Jesus have to die if the atonement was made while he was still alive?
2. What's this business about great drops of blood oozing out of every pore? Every pore? What's that- 5 million or so drops of blood? That would be some bloody mess. Never got that one. No need for the cross. He'd bleed out in a few seconds, that is unless the drops didn't come all at once. Even still, it would be like old Nephi lopping off Laban's noggin. Plenty blood.
3. Why are the four Bible gospel accounts so different regarding the atonement or events leading up to it?
4. Why didn't Paul talk about the atonement in his letters to the saints?
5. Why did the Jewish people want him dead? He'd never harmed a fly. Certainly not them.
6. Why'd they need Judas Iscariot as the betrayer? Thousands of people could pick Jesus out of a line up- why depend on one man? What did he know that the other thousands didn't. Give a guy thirty pieces of silver for what? Save your money pal, people around him flocking to him. Follow the crowd.

[dogbite]

2 is a late forged addition to Luke. It's a fake. That revealed scripture doubles down on it only proves the falseness of the Mormon claim.

[alas]

Why does an all powerful God need an atonement to begin with? If I as a flawed and selfish human can write off my children’s misbehavior as just misbehavior, why does God need the mistakes of his children to be paid for in some way.

I can see restitution to those hurt by another’s sin, but Jesus’ atonement doesn’t bother with that. Payment is made to the Father, as if he was harmed by the sin but no thought of payment is given to the fellow human harmed. It is like making restitution for slavery by giving huge sums of money to the children of slave owners because of the huge sums of money they lost when their property was taken away.

[Rob4Hope]

2 is a late forged addition to Luke. It's a fake. That revealed scripture doubles down on it only proves the falseness of three Mormon claim.

This is new info to me. Can you share more?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

[jfro18]

2 is a late forged addition to Luke. It's a fake. That revealed scripture doubles down on it only proves the falseness of three Mormon claim.

This is new info to me. Can you share more?

There's a new Bart Ehrman podcast about Luke and it addresses this that just came out recently: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4_BYUkmnttk

[Just This Guy]

2 is a late forged addition to Luke. It's a fake. That revealed scripture doubles down on it only proves the falseness of three Mormon claim.

This is new info to me. Can you share more?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

Our own "Mike" did a podcast on the Long Ending of Mark as part of the LDS Discussions series with Mormon Stories.

https://www.mormonstories.org/podcast/l ... g-of-mark/

[oliver_denom]

Sometimes these discussions feel like a Marvel movie. You have an in universe explanation and a meta explanation.

I've thought about the atonement as you have, and have never been able to come up with a theological argument for why Jesus' death and suffering was necessary to the process. It make sense symbolically from an ancient perspective, but not a lot from a modern one. I'm not going to cite each thing I say here, but the ideas come from reading Carl Jung, Joesph Campbell, and Rene Gerard. There may be some others mixed in.

From what we've found in cave paintings and accounts of hunter gather societies, there seems to be common rituals surrounding the hunt and care of animal remains. There exists a theme, or idea, that the blood carries the essence and being of the entire species. This is a similar idea to Plato's archetypes in the "World of Forms". Rituals are necessary to commune directly with the essence or form of that species to ensure that anything you kill can be reborn into another. Not abiding by those rituals or killing without the correct practice is equivalent to murder because the animal's rebirth would become impossible. The idea itself may harken to a deeper guilt felt by humans who were required to sustain life by taking life. But the main idea is that within the blood there is essence and spirit that is shared by all of that species.

From rituals of the hunt meant to ensure that the death of a single animal doesn't lead to the death of the entire species, or anger the archetypical form of that animal so that its availability is withdrawn, it is not a far step to suggest that all humans carry an essence in their blood common to the entire species which holds similar significance and power. If we can ritually maintain the eternal rebirth of our prey, then what could be done about the human condition? If transgressions can anger the spirits or gods so that they withhold rain or food, then can those transgressions be ritually placed into the blood of a person or an animal? Could we collectively create a scapegoat and give a life for a life in order to set right the balance and restore life's necessities to everyone? Perhaps by sacrificing one with the correct rituals, an entire village or civilization could be saved.

The Hebrew scriptures have a few references to human sacrifice, and there have been scattered pieces of evidence that human sacrifice did occur anciently in the region. The use of animals instead of people was likely an advance, and during the Axial age, animal sacrifice was transformed into a symbolic practice. Christianity was developing right in the middle of this transition and the use of Jesus as the sacrifice to end all sacrifices makes a certain amount of sense, especially since the destruction of the Jeruselem temple would have made those sacrifices inaccessible. Jesus, a person that Paul described as a second Adam, is one that holds the essence of all humanity in his blood. His sacrifice, only possible by a god, was seen as taking the guilt and sin of the human species caused by the fall into his blood. By spilling that blood, he ritualistically brought about a final forgiveness that would no longer need repeating.

Why did he need to die? It's because it ritually fulfilled the necessary rites to make Jesus into the ultimate human sacrifice for the entire species or form of humanity. The rituals developed over millennia required blood to be spilled and the life to be taken in order to magically enact the alleviation of guilt and ensure the reincarnation or eternal life of the species. The blood was required because it was likely associated with hunting rituals where the death of the victim was the entire point of the exercise.

[dogbite]

Ehrman's How Jesus Became God addresses and answers many of your questions.

It's fairly short and easy to read

[dogbite]

Now that I'm at a keyboard, I'll say more.

It wasn't so much that Jesus had to die. It's more about how the hell do we explain that he died --was killed ignominiously--and without ushering in God's Kingdom to rule in righteousness as he said he would.

The personal divinity and subsititionary atonement were all later ideas grafted on to a story becoming legend become scripture.

But this is also interesting to to view from the ideas Spong discusses in Biblical Literalism: The Gentile Heresy. There he says that the early Chrisitans were Jews and worshipped alongside Jews in Synagogue until the destruction of the temple. The Jewish practice read the scriptures and discussed them in synagogue throughout the calendar year in sync with the religious holidays in a repeating yearly liturgy. The Gospels were developed to parallel the themes of the Jewish topics in sequence but with Chrisitian stories. Jews --and therefore the earliest Christians also--are well steeped in story and allegory. They are about the lessons to be learned more than they are about the actual events happening as portrayed. So the gospels aren't originally about Jesus' life, but about Jesus' lessons. The silly lineages are to show that the Gospel is open to all, not just Jews and so on. But it took cultures that didn't have the religious practice of allegory, but the practice of literalism to turn Jesus into God needing to atone. And the later gospels were embellished for and by these cultures taking the liturgy as literal.

[dogbite]

6 Judas. This is often theorized as an addition to blame the Jews. His name means the Jewish people.

If the titulus is authentic, Jesus crime was sedition. He claimed he was king of the Jews. This is sedition against Rome. Further it was rebellion against the Jewish leadership and their relationship with Rome. There are ways it was a violation of Jewish law such as not having been anointed king. He subverted the preferred scriptural interpretation. So there is no shortage of reasons he would have been wanted eliminated assuming the content of the gospels are accurate. But that seems largely too big an assumption. And so your can also go to the extreme of the mythicists who view Jesus as fabrication.

4 Paul seems not to have known much of anything of Jesus purpoted life and miracles. There are strong arguments his view of Jesus is completely visionary and about a realm separate from earth. He wrote before the gospels were written, and it's important to remember only 6 or 7 of the letters of Paul are considered authentic. The new testament wasn't written by the people whose names are attached to the books generally. But that's true of the old testament as well.

[Hagoth]

Why did he need to die? It's because it ritually fulfilled the necessary rites to make Jesus into the ultimate human sacrifice for the entire species or form of humanity. The rituals developed over millennia required blood to be spilled and the life to be taken in order to magically enact the alleviation of guilt and ensure the reincarnation or eternal life of the species. The blood was required because it was likely associated with hunting rituals where the death of the victim was the entire point of the exercise.

First of all, it's great to hear from you Oliver!

Another way to look at it is to ask why did Jesus' death have to be symbolically significant? When a messiah, who was sent by God to redeem a nation, gets defeated by a piece of wood and a couple of nails, his followers must find a way to reinterpret that tragedy as part of the plan. So, they proof text their scripture and rewrite the story with a new meaning. Their object of affection is not really dead, but his death was a gift to them and he'll be back soon to reward those who didn't give up on him.

[RubinHighlander]

It was a manufactured event used as a tool by religionist to continually abuse their followers into submission with guilt and fear. Therefore, the logic of it does not matter because gods ways are not your ways unless you are trying to control a lot of people at a very low level and get them to pay you money.

[Hagoth]

It was a manufactured event used as a tool by religionist to continually abuse their followers into submission with guilt and fear. Therefore, the logic of it does not matter because gods ways are not your ways unless you are trying to control a lot of people at a very low level and get them to pay you money.

[Hagoth]

I don't know about you guys, but I was taught that the reason Jesus died is because God sent him to earth, and we're the only people in the entire universe wicked enough to kill him. He would have been just fine on Perelandra or Rigel 9.

[Cnsl1]

I don't know about you guys, but I was taught that the reason Jesus died is because God sent him to earth, and we're the only people in the entire universe wicked enough to kill him. He would have been just fine on Perelandra or Rigel 9.

Yessir, preach it. Hagoth! Jesus was the savior of many worlds and it was only a group of jerks on the planet Earth who would actually kill him. No one else was that wicked. I don't know about you, Hagoth, but I also heard folks posit that this was why God allowed those awful Jews to suffer a holocaust. Yeah sure, it wasn't the SAME Jews but God was so pissed that he took it out on their posterity.

As a seminary student I used to imagine how difficult it might be living on another planet, hearing missionaries tell you, "a long time ago on a planet far far away this dude named Jesus died for your sins." But of course, being from that other planet, I'd be pre loaded with more faith so it wouldn't really be a problem.

[dogbite]

posting weirdness, see below.

[dogbite]

Dogbite's current Historicity probabilities. I've flipflopped my views on Jesus and the New Testament a number of times. I've even held mythicist views. So given what's been discussed here, I'll share my current state of historicity.

For me, I have to start with Paul. Paul seems to be the best attested (and only attested) author of some of his attributed works.

Paul, 90% + confidence of historicity. This is because of the volume of consistent writing across the letters generally attributed to him and some interesting potential matches to the traditions. But mostly the letters having a likely common author and consistent view and style.

I start with Paul because he is the most likely of all the parts of the New Testament. My logic works like this:

If Paul:

then Paul did join an extant belief system based in Jerusalem--I believe this belief system was in flux and without unified beliefs, but it did exist--99% confidence.

Paul attests to Peter and James (the Just, not one the original 12) I don't give this as high a confidence as Paul's existence as Paul's writings could be for his own ends or of his own vision, So Peter and James probably about 78% confidence they existed, though I don't think we have any of their writings if they wrote at all. I lean towards the original church leaders committing nothing to writing early on.

Paul meets peter in Jerusalem--Acts and Galatians accounts usually placed in the mid to late 30s AD. I think this happened as above, but the question I wonder about is why? Galatians is thought to have been written in the mid 50s generally, about 10-15 years after this meeting in Jerusalem. Acts is written even later. Prior to this meeting Paul has been preaching for a few years based solely on his vision(s). I would suspect that Peter is interested in who is preaching Jesus in competition with him(them). Ehrman describes this period as full of different Christianities and the issue of Jesus resurrection is still not a common nor universal belief. It's questionable that Paul even thinks Jesus was resurrected into our world.

I think this meeting was an attempt to pull the expanding set of believers and beliefs together, to hitch Peter's and Paul's followers together. It gives Paul the stamp of credibility and Peter some more potential power and followers. It does seem that they accepted each other as something like equals.

What does this tell us of Jesus' historicity? almost nothing. Paul only has visions, we have no writings of actual witnesses. But the idea of a Jesus is clearly present; that he taught and had some significance.

I don't think we can take the Gospels as history. They aren't based is witness accounts, the Q document is only a theory without actual support. It requires more for the Q source to exist than for the idea of the primacy of Mark. And there are reasons to think that Mark (and the rest of the gospels) is an allegorical set of moral stories rather than an account of events. And what we do know of history matches up poorly with the Gospels.

So Jesus. I think there was a Jesus--60% confidence--just more likely than not. I don't think Jesus was a moral preacher per se. I think he was a political agitator for himself. Now at this time, there isn't really a distinction between a church agitator and a political agitator as church and state were one and the same. My point is that Jesus was proclaiming a divine kingdom of heaven on earth with himself in power. And so the sedition of Jesus against Rome. This sedition is why I don't think Jesus nor the apostles wrote about their views. It would only have killed them sooner if they did so.

Paul is preaching a divine kingdom of god with Jesus raised to power in it in heaven. And that God would bring this kingdom to earth sometime soonish. Thus the likely disagreement between Peter and Paul. By making claims about Jesus in heaven and God acting, they avoid the charge of sedition. They split church and state, at least in the present active tense.

Together Peter and Paul change the political effort to a religious one saying the kingdom would come but from God above, not from a person now. This is mostly conjecture. But we know Paul continued to preach a coming kingdom different from what the Gospels seem to claim about a coming kingdom with Jesus in charge. I think the gospels contain some of the remnant seditious thrust of the original Jesus.

If the gospels are allegorical liturgy, they need to appeal to the Jew and Gentile. They need to recapitulate Judaism to appeal to the Jews and sync up with the Jewish synagogue. They need to paint Jesus and his coming kingdom to accept all peoples, not just the chosen people.

Further, we know that Christianity was very fractured and Paul wrote to try to unify belief though not particularly successfully. We know that the other letters were written (forged) in the name of prominent "apostles" to push other variant beliefs, most of which were not canonized and became heresies. Same with the current and other non-canonical gospels.

So we shouldn't expect the Gospels to match anything really. It's probably more a product of the rewriting and copying of popular ideas that they match as much as they do. Plus how they were selected for canonizatiom. It's not that they're history. They're as much fan fiction of their times as the Book of Mormon is of JSjun.

[Gatorbait]

Interesting perspective by many of you. Many thanks.

The idea of Jesus being sent from God the Father to be sacrificed has never really set well with me or made any sense. How this concept ever got woven into Mormonism is beyond me. Sort of why I wanted your views and enjoyed very much reading and re-reading your comments.

Can't help but go back to the portion of the 50th section of the D&C regarding reason. The wording in that section, where the Lord, who is speaking, is reasoning with men, so to speak, face to face, as a man would reason with a man and not a god. The whole idea is based on thinking, and not simply believing things as they are given to you as being true. In other words- things need to be examined. They need to be questioned.

As it has been said, and I like this, "In our church we are not required to believe anything which is not true." Don't know who came up with that originally but Henry Eyring has used it from time to time. Think he got it from his grandpa, it doesn't matter. I agree. Why should we believe lies? Does not matter the source of the lie.

In any case, none of this Christ killing business rings true to me. The blood all over the ground in the garden, oozing from all of Jesus's pores makes not a lick of sense either.

Why does this "doctrine" continue to be spoon fed on and on, year after year, when it makes no sense? It goes against everything the 50th section discusses regarding reason.

I've not believed in an atonement ever, and do not now. One person in the billions and billions takes on sins for all? Have to have this for repentance to kick in and be legitimized. Seems silly to me.

Hoping to get some good feedback on this from the group.

[deacon blues]

I don't know about you guys, but I was taught that the reason Jesus died is because God sent him to earth, and we're the only people in the entire universe wicked enough to kill him. He would have been just fine on Perelandra or Rigel 9.

Yeah, I believe there is even a quotation regarding that. Here's something that seems related.
Moses 7:36
36 Wherefore, I can stretch forth mine hands and hold all the creations which I have made; and mine eye can pierce them also, and among all the workmanship of mine hands there has not been so great wickedness as among thy brethren.

[Hagoth]

The idea of Jesus being sent from God the Father to be sacrificed has never really set well with me or made any sense. How this concept ever got woven into Mormonism is beyond me.

I think it hitched a ride on the Protestantism that Mormonism grew out of.

St. Augustine kind of solidified the narrative in the 4th century that because Adam ate the fruit all men live in a fallen state until we do special magic that allows Jesus to redeemed us with his blood. That became central to Protestantism and took precedent over papal authority, and was part of the package that Mormonism accepted as fundamental.

Then, like everything else, Joseph and friends took it up a notch with the idea multiple probationary states, that is only spoken of in whispers. Now, if you sufficiently prove yourself worthy, you get to be an Adam in another universe, then a Jesus, and then you get to be an Elohim in the universe that you build and send your own kid to die. One eternal freakin' round.