I’m taking the Gospels as eye witness testimony, and taking what is known historically, one can reconstruct a case. you’re going by what people told you it means. I’ve never taken that route.
Any late context has to be regarded with a level of suspicion. If you just take the texts and the history, ignoring the need to make Jesus anything, you end up pretty much with what I propose. To add the who is selling this idea takes the text out of eye witness testimony and into the realm of faith. No interest in that since it’s an empty game. What do the texts tell us against the
history of what we know was recorded by folk not interested in 1st Century Jewish activities? The Gospels as a whole, with Acts and the letters of both Pauls have to be taken as a tainted source of history. They have to be checked and rechecked with other, untouched, Roman and Greek sources.

Basically, taking the a priori position the texts are wholly true or wholly false is a bad position to start. I made a conscious effort to take the texts as ‘witness testimony’ that had been corrupted around the time they were records.
Some of the corruptions occurred more than 40 years after the events described, in a semi-literate, no mass media society, and in an alien tongue (Aramaic to Greek). Non vested interested texts carry more weight than the biased ones, since we’re after some semblance of what probably went down.

And I think we all know the ‘truth’ is a three edged sword.

Albion was a benighted island rich in tin and lead, with some copper and a little gold to both the Greeks and the Romans…

England? no way…

Peter and Paul in Rome? No evidence, just Catholic tradition

Having done a ‘days of the saints’ column, I quickly found
that nearly all the pre-Nicene saints have NO evidence, simply a loose collection of often contradictory and irreconcilable traditions. Case in point, you simply have to be dead and Christian during the reign of Diocletian to be accounted a saint and martyr.

Based on reports, the only martyrs who went singing to their graves were the Albigensians, who wound up as heretics and were exterminated by St. Athantheus of Alexandria, a man whose ’special talent’ seems to be death, and who himself died of old age in his own bed…

It’s been a long time since I did the analysis, and it’s late here…

I’ve seen some pretty weak apologetics to reconcile the contradiction, which shall doubtless be brought out by some body at some stage.

Thus you’re not going to do overly well trying to sell it as a paganised warm over of the religion of a soundly defeated people, which the Jews were post AD70

However, some scholars still buy the idea. Usually from Baptist ‘universities’…

Reading primary sources (from my admittedly indifferent Latin, but I dos have some resonable dictionaries) there’s not that much evidence outside of very late apologist texts, the bulk post dating 1500, that Jesus was singled out for any ’special’ punishment. Bear in mind, there’s a lot riding on it bring ‘the worst death in the world’. Over reliance on the Gospel as history is like relying on Nazi commentators on Jewish history… not terribly accurate.

**Disclaimer – this is my personal belief/opinion. I cannot quote sources or back it up, so DONT ASK!

I’m going to ask you to look at a major part of this story differently. It’s understood that Judas betrayed Jesus and led the authorities to him. No dispute. I do want to dispute the cause/motivation and why it had to happen, though. As I said before, Jesus could not arise and overcome Death if he had not at some point been dead. It was absolutely a vital part of the story/goings on that Jesus be arrested, beaten and crucified. Well, killed in some manner anyway.

Ok, here’s where I become a bit of a heretic. I don’t think Judas betrayed Jesus because he was a terrorist, evil, greedy, what have you, although greedy was likely involved and he was most likely touched by evil. I think Judas knew that Jesus was the True Messiah, and thought that he could force Jesus’ hand and make others accept and see this. If Judas could get Jesus’ life threatened, then surely, being Divine, He would use all of the power at His command to save Himself, right?? I think this was Judas’ motivation, twisted misguided and tainted though it may be. Jesus kisses Judas on the cheek before sending him off to betray Him. He knows what’s coming, and He could have stopped it right then and there, but He also knows that it has to happen and this is how it will happen.

*Readies fire extinguisher in case suit isn’t strong enough*

As a comment, trying to sell the Romans a religion in which they were the villains would be as easy as selling the Klan the idea that Slavery was a bad idea rather than the natural order of things. Thus the whole ‘Pilate as sympathetic character’ mytheme.

Having said that, if you go across the Gospels to get the narrative of the immediate run up to the trial and crucifixion, the authorities knew where he was for a good week before the arrest. He was camping in the Grove of Olives at Gethsemane, and during the day he was at the Temple, or just outside. If they’d thought he was a clear and present danger, they could have got him at any time. but were risking a riot.

Thus Judas told them something that gave them an opening to arrest him with something that no one was going to argue about. Thus, horse thief seems logical. They were pretty unpopular back in the day… Judas was sticking his neck out to get the message across, since he was Iscarii – a terrorist assassin, the prototype suicide bomber/ political hostage taker, if you will. The Romans tended to execute them on sight, without all that sordid trial stuff, simply because to leave one alive to trial could mean a dead ‘judge’ and some injured guards… although the Roman texts could have been over egging them.

Ride a painted pony let the spinnin’ wheel spiiiin….
You’re welcome for the earworm.

And yes, it was in the runup to the Crucifixion. If you really and truly buy the whole story, it was all a setup and had to be. Funny little nagging detail – the Messiah can’t arise from death if he isn’t dead. I don’t know that I explained my “set-up” comment well there, but I’m about to have to leave and can’t explain further. Another time, perhaps.

It turns neither on works nor on faith alone. It must be both. And good works for appearance’s sake doesn’t cut it either, although that’s most of what we see.

That’s true, but fogieness then can’t really be directly correlated to fogieness now as life expectencies have increased so. And I didn’t technically say old fogies, just fogies