AHC and WI: Jesus not crucified

John Fredrick Parker

Donor
Since it's been well over two years since we approached this question, and since there have been notable literature on the historical Jesus since then, I thought it would be a good time to revisit the matter.

First, without changing Jesus or his[/His] ministry, how can the historical man be spared execution? Is it plausible that Pilate could decide not to crucify him, or would he have to avoid capture somehow (e.g. no betrayal)? If avoids crucifixion during that Passover, it is possible for him to avoid execution or assassination for the rest of his natural life? How would his ministry, and subsequently "Christianity", be affected?
 

Dfront21

First, we have to assume that Jesus was a real man. Second, the crucifixion is the event that makes Christianity possible. Without Jesus dying for our sins what good is he?
 

wildviper121

Arguably, Christianity would change entirely as a whole. The BASIS of the religion is that Jesus sacrificed himself for our sins. If he ended up NOT sacrificing himself, Christianity would become something more like an off-branch of Judaism than its own religion. Jesus would be interpreted as a holy man who came and told us to stop acting bad, sort of like any other prophet beforehand or afterwards. If he doesn't do anything super special, like sacrifice himself, I doubt people will start believing he's the Son of God.
What this means: Different religion takes hold in Europe. Maybe not even one as stable as Christianity. Whole of European history is fluttered away as holy wars are switched about history. Hell, maybe the Crusades don't even happen!

(Just gonna leave this here . . .
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gospel_of_Judas
tl;dr: In the Gospel of Judas, allegedly it is revealed that Judas allegedly betrayed Jesus because Jesus told him to.)
 

Herzen's love-child

wildviper121 said:
(Just gonna leave this here . . .
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gospel_of_Judas
tl;dr: In the Gospel of Judas, allegedly it is revealed that Judas allegedly betrayed Jesus because Jesus told him to.)
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Robert Graves (who wrote "I, Claudius") in an unjustly under appreciated novel, "King Jesus", took this tack.

Answering the OPs question:
"Christianity" would have been another in a line of reform movements which historically appeared within Judaism.
There is always the possibility that a reformed Judaism (say that advocated by a historical non-devine Christ) could have made a successful leap into the non-Jewish world. Particularly if certain stringent aspects of Judaism were deemphasized. Judaism, itself, OTL, was once a more proselytizing religion and significant numbers of converts were made in the classical era, in its more accepted forms.
Whether or not this branch of Judaism makes the big time a la Christianity as we know it, depends on butterflies and how it is marketed and propagated. That is, if one can look at the spread of a religion from a materialistic historical perspective.
 

CthulhuFhtagn

Banned
It's possible that Christianity would resemble OTL Islam a bit more, if it wasn't butterflied away completely. Rather than being seen as the son of God who sacrificed himself for mankind, he might be seen as an extremely important prophet, sort of the same way that Mohammed is in Islam.
 
oshron

oshron

Dfront21 said:
First, we have to assume that Jesus was a real man. Second, the crucifixion is the event that makes Christianity possible. Without Jesus dying for our sins what good is he?
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generally speaking, most historians agree that Jesus did exist historically and that most of the events of his life as described in the New Testament happened. whether He was God the Son is another matter entirely, and honestly is irrelevant to the discussion at hand--we're discussing the consequences of the Crucifixion on Jesus and His teachings, not whether or not He truly was the Messiah
 

Sian

Banishment out of Roman Empire (a known roman punishment), leading his own exudus to Babylon?
 

Zireael

oshron said:
generally speaking, most historians agree that Jesus did exist historically and that most of the events of his life as described in the New Testament happened.
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Without Crucifixion, he would need another epic scale moving event to inspire h/His followers. As for banishment from the entire Empire, I don't think it's plausible, although a banishment from Judea is almost certain.
 

Kolade

Zireael said:
Without Crucifixion, he would need another epic scale moving event to inspire h/His followers. As for banishment from the entire Empire, I don't think it's plausible, although a banishment from Judea is almost certain.
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Or Pilate could simply release Jesus on the grounds he could not find any guilt in him. Furthermore if you study the gospels, you will find out that Jesus was framed by the priests and the pharisees.
 

Velasco

Jesus survives.
His two priorities are bringing about the promised eternal kingdom and reconciling mankind with God.
As the only Prophet equal to Moses, he ought to bring about a new alliance, of which Moses' would only be a type or foreshadowing.
I'm guessing the theology would have to include some rejection of Israel for their sins and the reconstitution of the real, new Israel as both those descended from Abraham and those who truly follow God's (now reformulated) covenant with Abraham's heirs (both biological and otherwise), with both sacrificing and Jerusalem high in evidence.
The bloody execution of all the unholy and the expulsion of Romans, Greeks and the Hellenized would require an army, military action, and eventually, a theocratic monarchy.
As God incarnate Jesus might not want to marry (so as not to create a royal lineage semi-worthy of adoration too), so how the succession would be worked out, I have no idea.
Perhaps something of an elective one, where the throwing of lots etc singles out one of the faithful (who has met a long list of criteria) to be the new judge (only Jesus being "King").
 

Kolade

Velasco said:
Jesus survives.
His two priorities are bringing about the promised eternal kingdom and reconciling mankind with God.
As the only Prophet equal to Moses, he ought to bring about a new alliance, of which Moses' would only be a type or foreshadowing.
I'm guessing the theology would have to include some rejection of Israel for their sins and the reconstitution of the real, new Israel as both those descended from Abraham and those who truly follow God's (now reformulated) covenant with Abraham's heirs (both biological and otherwise), with both sacrificing and Jerusalem high in evidence.
The bloody execution of all the unholy and the expulsion of Romans, Greeks and the Hellenized would require an army, military action, and eventually, a theocratic monarchy.
As God incarnate Jesus might not want to marry (so as not to create a royal lineage semi-worthy of adoration too), so how the succession would be worked out, I have no idea.
Perhaps something of an elective one, where the throwing of lots etc singles out one of the faithful (who has met a long list of criteria) to be the new judge (only Jesus being "King").
Click to expand...

I agree with Velasco but I would like to add that Christianity would look more like Judaism. After all there is no crucifixion to blame on the jews. Altough I also think that Christianity is not that dominant in Northern and Eastern Europe.
 

Jbenuniv

Banned
I don't think we have sufficient reason to think that Jesus was crucified OTL. All we have to go on is a few wildly varying gospel accounts, which actually conflict with the historical record. Not to mention that they were written decades after the fact, after the Jewish Revolt.

The gospels have Jesus being executed by Pontius Pilate. This doesn't make sense, he was charged with blasphemy, not sedition. And if it were sedition, then the Sanhedrin, the religious court, would not have been involved.

What I'm saying is, events can very easily be made up out of whole cloth decades after the fact... I personally am not even persuaded by the evidence to believe that there was a popular preacher named Jesus in Judea around 30CE. It's not impossible, but the evidence just isn't sufficient.

So, what you're asking is, "What if the early Christians didn't invent the crucifixion narrative?"

As to that, I could only guess. Perhaps some other form of execution might be substituted, or Jesus becomes a slightly different form of savior figure.
 

Kolade

Jbenuniv said:
I don't think we have sufficient reason to think that Jesus was crucified OTL. All we have to go on is a few wildly varying gospel accounts, which actually conflict with the historical record. Not to mention that they were written decades after the fact, after the Jewish Revolt.

The gospels have Jesus being executed by Pontius Pilate. This doesn't make sense, he was charged with blasphemy, not sedition. And if it were sedition, then the Sanhedrin, the religious court, would not have been involved.

What I'm saying is, events can very easily be made up out of whole cloth decades after the fact... I personally am not even persuaded by the evidence to believe that there was a popular preacher named Jesus in Judea around 30CE. It's not impossible, but the evidence just isn't sufficient.

So, what you're asking is, "What if the early Christians didn't invent the crucifixion narrative?"

As to that, I could only guess. Perhaps some other form of execution might be substituted, or Jesus becomes a slightly different form of savior figure.
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The Bible gives us an account (whether it is true or not is a matter of faith) in which the Sanhedrin was plotting against Jesus. We all knew that the Romans were fairly tolerant in religious matters (Although due to many riots and uprisings the jews caused, the Romans were not too keen on judaism) So, the members of the Sanhedrin made up charges against Jesus on grounds on blasphemy for the jewish court. But to get Pilate to execute Jesus they needed to trump up charges of sedition.

Providing that Pilate knew what Jesus had preached then he had known that there were no grounds to execute Jesus. However Pilate might have sent Jesus to Rome or Egypt where the Jews were more tolerant.
 

Zireael

Kolade said:
Or Pilate could simply release Jesus on the grounds he could not find any guilt in him.
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There was a book describing it from Pilate's point of view, and it had Pilate's wife too, guh I forgot the title. I think if Pilate did it, he'd have a rebellion on his hands and Judea splitting from the Empire, which Rome could not afford.
 

Velasco

You have four biographies and a series of letters, written within a generation of his death, attesting his crucifixion. Biased, no doubt, but still extant.
 

Kolade

Zireael said:
There was a book describing it from Pilate's point of view, and it had Pilate's wife too, guh I forgot the title. I think if Pilate did it, he'd have a rebellion on his hands and Judea splitting from the Empire, which Rome could not afford.
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If Jesus was released there would be a small riot. But the Romans knew how to deal with a rioting crowd. A few charges with the sword and a few arrests would do the trick. Altough I doubt it that there would be such a crowd at Pilate's palace demanding an execution of a fellow countryman.
 
SlyDessertFox

SlyDessertFox

Well one has to remember the Gospels get more fanciful the further they are from the actual event. Pilate goes from being the sole man responsible for the execution of Jesus to, after the failed Jewish revolt, being entirely innocent and just duped by the Jews into falsely executing him (likely in order to separate the Christians from Jews in the eyes of the Romans and show that they too had beef against the Jews). What is clear, as shown in Zealot, is that Jesus was one of the many radical prophets at the time preaching about the overthrow of Roman rule in Judaea. It is no surprise he was executed like others, for he represented a danger to stability and Roman rule from the Roman perspective.
 
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