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YES AND NO
I responded to JollyJeff's query in one of his posts by posting:
WHO WAS JESUS . . . er . . . YESHUA? -
22 May 2008 IN RESPONSE TO JOLLYJEFF -- DID JESUS REALLY DIE FOR OUR SINS?
I said yes and no there too.
Ultimately, Jesus did not have to "die" for our sins.
But the ancient old world believed at that time that sacrifice was necessary for propitiation of sins. The story of Abraham and Isaac is a description of departing from the original practice of human sacrifice, which, it has been surmised from certain evidence, began when humans first developed agriculture, yet still had to migrate. Somehow, it was discovered that crops grew better with human flesh in the midst, so the practice began that developed into sacrificing the eldest son, perfect, without blemish, and chopping his flesh into pieces and members of the tribe eating the flesh and drinking the blood before dispensing the rest among the crop that they had just planted (in the spring, of course) before moving on in their hunting endeavors. Then, in the fall, returning to find a crop for harvest.
This developed into religious systems (The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil) that told the people that their particular belief was necessary for the people's salvation.
First Century Judaism's religious system told the people that they needed to bring animal sacrifices to the Temple every Spring (connection to early humans?) for Passover, and perform certain rituals also every Fall (connection?) in order to have the salvation offered.
Whether before the destruction of the temple, Christians also participated in these rituals I do not think is related historically, although the writings of the New Testament indicate that Jesus' death replaced the sacrifice of lambs on the Temple grounds, thus the need for the pilgrimage.
With the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem, there was no place to sacrifice. Thus, the idea of Jesus' suffering and death as sacrifice fit Christian thought rather nicely, since Christians had distanced themselves considerably from their Jewish counterparts. Instead of Temple sacrifice of lambs, one sacrifice, that of the Son of God, was the all time sacrifice.
People needed it then. Many people need it now. So Jesus needed to die for the sins of those people who need the sacrifice.
Also, he needed to "die" to break religion from the past. However, religion still is the same as it ever was. The System tells people that they need it for salvation.
Jesus was saying that people don't need the system. That's what got him crucified in the first place. I iterate that (almost per The Passover Plot) that the idea was that he would "feign" death, with Roman (and some prominent Jews') collaboration, so that, instead of a living, breathing Messiah that would be killed anyway, he would be dead and raised to Heaven where he couldn't be touched, so that suddenly he became Messiah, but he couldn't be touched because he was "dead", in contrast to certain Jewish rabbis who proclaimed themselves or were proclaimed by others as Messiah and got killed for their trouble.
But the issue here is freedom from religious strictures in achieving salvation. And I have mentioned salvation some -- it is "I'm OK, you're OK."; that is, we each stand guiltless and we hold others equally guiltless.
I think this is what Yeshua was trying to say. When we understand this, he didn't need to die. Our old self dies. We make the sacrifice. That suffices.
posted by
Xeno-x
on June 24, 2008 at 6:58 AM
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kooka_lives - on the surface, it really is a bizarre story
Here, I'll lend you my only son, you kill him and we're even for all the things you and your children might do that pisses me off? Not to mention the timing. Some people didn't hear about this sacrifice until 1,500 years later. Yet, we hear people say all the time, that Jesus died for "our" sins. I don't know about you but I haven't done anything so wrong in my life that would warrant that type of deal.
posted by
gomedome
on June 23, 2008 at 10:47 PM
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