Crucifixion? It Wasn't That Bad, Says British Professor

Apparently Jesus got off pretty easy and crucifixion isn't all that bad according to marxist professor Terry Eagleton. The Telegraph reports:

The Crucifixion of Christ "wasn't as bad as it's been painted", an outspoken Marxist academic will claim on the BBC this month.

Terry Eagleton, Professor of Cultural Theory at the University of Manchester, will say on Radio 4's Lent Talks that Jesus "got off pretty lightly" because it only took him three hours to die, The Daily Telegraph has learned.

He adds that Jesus's scourging was a "blessing in disguise" because it hastened his death. He also attacks modern Christianity for siding with the rich and abandoning the poor.

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Comments

[E. I. Sanchez]

I hear hell doesn't burn too bad. It just feels like an eternity...

All these experts and their relativism...

[The Prodigal Son]

Of course! Marxism has worked sooooo well in the past it only makes sense that we repeat the same idiotic ideologies! Now onto America: anyone who is rich is a self centered Republican and cares nothing for the poor man! If this is true please explain any politician that has any weight to throw around, you know, regardless of party. Has anyone read the Communist Manifesto? It is straight from the bowels of hell and the left --- not party but the left-type people in general -- have taken the bait; this is sad. I guess I fit into that small minority: the poor “religious-right” who are all the evil and white.
Oh, Rev. Dr. Jeremiah Wright has reminded me of my “rich white man trying to spread the HIV virus to eradicate all ‘negros’” meeting; I almost forgot!

Oh, and I haven’t responded to the Jesus "got off pretty lightly" because the statement is so ill educated it could gag a maggot.

Sorry, this type of foolishness irritates me. You know, the “We’ll consolidate all the wealth” so that all people can live in abstract poverty and do away with public reps (or, as we know them, politicians), and replace it with the all affectionate Big Brother! Yeah, I feel all warm and fuzzy! Is that a spiritual experience? Should call Patricia King?!

1 Samuel 8: 5-9
5And said unto him, Behold, thou art old, and thy sons walk not in thy ways: now make us a king to judge us like all the nations. 6But the thing displeased Samuel, when they said, Give us a king to judge us. And Samuel prayed unto the LORD. 7And the LORD said unto Samuel, Hearken unto the voice of the people in all that they say unto thee: for they have not rejected thee, but they have rejected me, that I should not reign over them. 8According to all the works which they have done since the day that I brought them up out of Egypt even unto this day, wherewith they have forsaken me, and served other gods, so do they also unto thee. 9Now therefore hearken unto their voice: howbeit yet protest solemnly unto them, and shew them the manner of the king that shall reign over them.

[merry]

He didn't spend as much time on the actual cross before dying as many criminals did, is what I think the professor is saying. Some people would die just from the flogging itself, so the fact Jesus survived that part is amazing. And if people were alive on the cross for too long, soldiers would go around and break their legs so they didn't have support and would die sooner. So God's timing in the death of Jesus was pretty amazing.

[Jim W]

If it wasn't so bad, I suppose the professor wouldn't mind going through it himself.

[merry]

One other thought- perhaps the Christians criticizing Eagleton's thoughts should exercize a bit of humility and take his thoughts into consideration--he makes some good points, even if he may have some tiny details wrong. If we Christians act uppity every time a non-believer criticizes our religion, how are we going to lead anyone to Christ? Obviously Eagleton is not a Christian, and we should treat him like a precious "lost sheep", not scum at the bottom of a swamp.

[Christy]

The problem is, Jesus' "blessing in disguise" that helped him die quicker was to basically have the skin ripped off his body by the Roman scourge.

[James]

Actually, an interesting thought, because indeed people did live longer than Christ did. Nevertheless, I can't think that going through a scourging, then carrying a cross, then being nailed to it, and then being hung up, is getting off easy.

And Jesus yielded up his life, didn't he? I thought he laid it aside, rather than being killed.

I'd agree with the guy that I'm always puzzled that Christians are so offended by naked women (admittedly, a temptation to sin) but not nearly so offended by injustice, mercilessness, and inequality. Not to mention Guantanamo Bay.

[Shma]

Jesus gave his life - it wasn't taken from him! I would dare say most people couldn't take the beating. Blasphamy is Blasphamy no matter who is making the statement.

[ty]

The physical pain of the scourging and the crucifixion was horrible, but I believe the worst part was the separation from God the Father and the sin of the world that Jesus had put on Him. No one knows what that was like. He didn't get off easy at all.
Class envy again. SIGH!!!!!!!!! Even Jesus said that there would always be poor people. Guantanamo Bay? Where did that come from? Yes, I agree that the terrorists should be sent to their punishments as soon as possible.

[Evolved]

Although I'm not a Marxist myself, thankfully there are still rational and reasonable people left in this world.

[Chadm]

merry- They treat fellow christians with different views as scum at the bottom of the swamp, how do you think they will treat Eagleton? But you know what? Eagleton will never even read any of these posts. He may not even know that this site exist. Thats alright though , this site is only to talk about people, not talk to them personally and help them see their wrong. They just show the wrong in everyone else and then talk about it and make fun of them,laugh and make jokes etc. In the meantime noone is reaching out to these people who are in error. merry if you don't believe me about being treated like scumm at the bottom of the swamp, well hang around and read the response to me...........

[James]

Chadm,

What are you talking about. I've been reading this site for almost a year. This site challenges false teaching and makes fun of stupid "Christian" merchandise.

I think it is perfectly okay to make fun of tacky bad merchandise and question the motives of those people pushing this garbage on us.

The curator also seems to go out of his way to back his position up with scripture whenever he exposes false teaching or bad practice. The ax he seems to be grinding is a Biblical one and I've never seen an exhibit that crossed the line when it comes to properly exposing false teaching.

I think you miss the point of this website and if you don't like it then don't visit.

[ty]

Chadm,

Why don't you send a link to this site to Eagleton
yourself? You can do it just as easily as anyone else. Maybe he can learn something and get scripture straight.
When you disagree with the curator and the responses, you set yourself up for opposition. You seem to enjoy being the martyr.

[Elizabeth G]

The true suffering on the cross was that Christ became accursed for us. God poored out his incredible wrath that rightfully belonged to us onto Jesus. No physical punishment could ever begin to compare to that. Mr. Ealeton (as well as all unbelievers) must repent and believe on Jesus or he will learn the true nature of suffering, that is suffering the wrath of a Holy and Just God.

[Logan Paschke]

@chadm

There is great power in satire, look at how the media reacted when SNL did sketches on how much the media loved Barack Obama and were nearly worshipping him. It got them to change and now they're running stories against him.

That is the ultimate goal, that people would see this, repent and not commune with the Jesus Junkers of the world, but hold to the old paths.

@ everyone

The last sentence of the shortened article tells all. He smacks in the face a few times and then we get to the root of the problem, he's mad at us for siding with the rich rather than the poor. That's his axe to grind. (which incidentally fits in with his philosophy)

[merry]

I was referring to the Christians quoted in the article, not the Christians at this site.

[Mrs. Pilgrim]

You know, I have to wonder this, and please forgive me for seeming unkind in so doing:

The writer of the article suggests that Jesus "got off easy," but I don't think he's fully aware of just how much suffering he's really talking about.

There's a point at which you simply don't feel pain anymore. Your brain shuts it down. (Childbirth taught me that; it smarted like crazy up to a point, but then there wasn't any pain at all. And I didn't have any anesthetic.) Jesus probably didn't live long enough for the dampening effect to take hold; He felt EVERY LAST BIT OF IT.

...As far as the question of his relativism, he's trying to use one failing to justify another. It's like saying that convicting a man for murder is wrong if you aren't also convicting another for stealing a car.

[Evolved]

Jesus didn't live long enough to feel the dampening effects of it?! Have you even read your own Bible?

Christians - go figure.

[Jay Hawk]

No, Evolved

We rely upon higher organisms such as yourself to read it and interpret it for us. What gets me is when highly evolved apes such as yourself think you are so knowledgeable about the Bible just because you can regurgetate something you read off of some web site. The truth is most of the time folks like you will take something out of context and try to make a point out of it. Actually, the theory of evolution kind of fits into that category as well. Here is a classic example - I heard someone say the other day that Solomon wasn't that wise because he wanted to cut a baby in two. However, that isn't the whole story is it. He came up with the idea to see which mother would stop it, thus proving who the real mother was.

Evolved, May God Bless you with an abundance of favorable genetic mutations.

[Jay Hawk]

No Merry, Acting uppety would be like, oh I don't know, starting riots, killing people, burning cars, and destroying businesses. You know just the way that the muslims responded over some very funny cartoons. Relatively speaking, posting a rebuttal on a web-site isn't acting uppety.

[Kirby L. Wallace]

Regarding the bit about "Jesus got off lightly"...

I actually said something similar to this in an article I wrote about "The Passion" movie. I still stand by it. While Jesus most certainly did not get off lightly, by any stretch, it is still true that he did not suffer, physically, as badly as some.

To quote (because I already said it once and don't want to type it again):

May I be blunt with you for a moment? When it comes to suffering and dying, Jesus does NOT have the corner on the pain and suffering market - at least not in the physical pain and suffering realm. LOTS of people died by crucifixion. And lots of people didn't even get that far but died with their wrists still tied to the scourging post. Have you ever read about why there were customarily 39 lashes instead of 40?

Everyone who died on a cross shed their blood. Some of them shed it all before even getting to the cross. Lots of people suffered physically as bad, and WORSE than Jesus. And to add to their misery, they didn't even have the satisfaction of knowing that they were GIVING themselves to die willingly, or the comfort that they would rise again, or even that their death would mean something.

Many people took MUCH longer to die, so long in fact that it was common that people would get tired of waiting for them to die and would break their legs to get it over with. People could hang for DAYS on a cross before they died. And then, someone would come along with a large wooden mallet and smash their shin bones to make them die even more horribly and in even more pain. Not Jesus. Roughly six hours and his work was done.

Does that sound flippant? Does that sound condescending? If so, it's because you are working on a false assumption: thinking that Jesus' work was a physical work of pain and suffering.

It was not.

The point of Jesus' death is his RESSURECTION, and not just his suffering. Anyone can suffer. Lots did. And lots of them did it longer and harder and more violently than Jesus did.

That's why focusing on his physical pain and suffering is to miss the mark.

http://www.kirbywallace.com/KirbyWallaceIndex.asp?action=&articleid=13

Sorry if I violated any "link" policy there. Please read the whole article before flaming me.

[merry]

Thank you, Jay Hawk, for that perfect example of 'acting uppity'. The sarcasm was not necessary. Your response really wasn't any better than Evolved's was, and you claim to be a Christian and he doesn't . . . I'm not impressed. BTW, it is possible to state a rebuttal without being rude, sarcastic, or condescending. Let's try to act more Christ-like with our comments, shall we? Otherwise, what's the point?

[Elizabeth G]

Mrs. Pilgrim,
I trained as a midwife and assisted or managed over 80 natural childbirths. Some were short, some were VERY long (several days), some were much harder than others. Some women didn't have much pain at all. A very few women did experience what you did, but it was very rare. Some women felt a lot of pain throughout. With the birth of my daughter, I hurt a very great deal until pushing, which is a different stage of labor entirely. I don't think that everyone comes to a dampening or "shut down point."

[Jake]

"The last sentence of the shortened article tells all. He smacks in the face a few times and then we get to the root of the problem, he's mad at us for siding with the rich rather than the poor. That's his axe to grind. (which incidentally fits in with his philosophy)"

Logan,

Please, please tell me that you understand, whatever you may think about Eagleton's Marxism, that "siding with the rich rather than the poor" was clearly against the "philosophy" of Jesus, the Old Testament prophets, and pretty much the rest of the biblical authors as well.