Crucifixion In Antiquity

Gunnar Samuelsson questions our textual basis for our knowledge about the death of Jesus. As a matter of fact, the New Testament texts offer only a brief description of the punishment that has influenced a whole world.

This thorough study covers all the primary data on how early Jews and Christians perceived crucifixion. The author examines Second Temple and early rabbinic literature and material remains to demonstrate the range of ancient Jewish perceptions. He also surveys ancient Jewish historical accounts of crucifixion, magical literature, and the proverbial use of crucifixion imagery. The volume pays special attention to Jewish interpretations of key Old Testament texts and early Christian literature that reflects on Jewish perceptions of the cross in antiquity. Originally published by Mohr Siebeck and now available as an affordable North American paperback edition, the book provides indispensable background for scholarly work on the death of Jesus.

In a comprehensive and detailed survey on its remarkably widespread employment in the Roman empire, Dr. Hengel examines the way in which "the most vile death of the cross" was regarded in the Greek-speaking world and particularly in Roman-occupied Palestine. His conclusions bring out more starkly than ever the offensiveness of the Christian message: Jesus not only died an unspeakably cruel death, he underwent the most contemptible abasement that could be imagined. So repugnant was the gruesome reality, that a natural tendency prevails to blunt, remove, or deomesticate its scandalous impact. Yet any discussion of a "theology of the cross" must be preceded by adequate comprehension of both the nature and extent of this scandal.

John Granger Cook traces the use of the penalty by the Romans until its probable abolition by Constantine. Rabbinic and legal sources are not neglected. The material contributes to the understanding of the crucifixion of Jesus and has implications for the theologies of the cross in the New Testament. Images and photographs are included in this volume.

Originally presented as the author's thesis (doctoral)--G'oteborgs universitet, 2010.

The cross stirs intense feelings among Christians as well as non-Christians. Robin Jensen takes readers on an intellectual and spiritual journey through the two-thousand-year evolution of the cross as an idea and an artifact, illuminating the controversies—along with the forms of devotion—this central symbol of Christianity inspires. Jesus’s death on the cross posed a dilemma for Saint Paul and the early Church fathers. Crucifixion was a humiliating form of execution reserved for slaves and criminals. How could their messiah and savior have been subjected to such an ignominious death? Wrestling with this paradox, they reimagined the cross as a triumphant expression of Christ’s sacrificial love and miraculous resurrection. Over time, the symbol’s transformation raised myriad doctrinal questions, particularly about the crucifix—the cross with the figure of Christ—and whether it should emphasize Jesus’s suffering or his glorification. How should Jesus’s body be depicted: alive or dead, naked or dressed? Should it be shown at all? Jensen’s wide-ranging study focuses on the cross in painting and literature, the quest for the “true cross” in Jerusalem, and the symbol’s role in conflicts from the Crusades to wars of colonial conquest. The Cross also reveals how Jews and Muslims viewed the most sacred of all Christian emblems and explains its role in public life in the West today.

A brief but comprehensive account of the fateful changes which took place in Western society during the time when paganism was overtaken by Christianity.

"The authors of this volume set themselves one task, to trace the extra-biblical primary texts that are relevant for understanding Jesus' trial and crucifixion. With that goal in mind, the book is built on three major themes: (1) Jesus' trial / interrogation before the Sanhedrin, (2) Jesus' trial before Pontius Pilatus, and (3) crucifixion as a method of execution in antiquity. In chronologically sequential order (where possible), the authors select and arrange an overwhelming amount of extra-biblical primary texts -- 462 to be exact -- underneath these three categories (75, 46, and 341 texts respectively)."--Brian J. Wright in Religious Studies Review

The gospels and ancient historians agree: Jesus was sentenced to death by Pontius Pilate, the Roman imperial prefect in Jerusalem. To this day, Christians of all churches confess that Jesus died 'under Pontius Pilate'. But what exactly does that mean? Within decades of Jesus' death, Christians began suggesting that it was the Judaean authorities who had crucified Jesus--a notion later echoed in the Qur'an. In the third century, one philosopher raised the notion that, although Pilate had condemned Jesus, he'd done so justly; this idea survives in one of the main strands of modern New Testament criticism. So what is the truth of the matter? And what is the history of that truth? David Lloyd Dusenbury reveals Pilate's 'innocence' as not only a neglected theological question, but a recurring theme in the history of European political thought. He argues that Jesus' interrogation by Pilate, and Augustine of Hippo's North African sermon on that trial, led to the concept of secularity and the logic of tolerance emerging in early modern Europe. Without the Roman trial of Jesus, and the arguments over Pilate's innocence, the history of empire--from the first century to the twenty-first--would have been radically different.

The book, "" Antiquities of the Jews; Book - XVIII "", has been considered important throughout the human history, and so that this work is never forgotten we have made efforts in its preservation by republishing this book in a modern format for present and future generations. This whole book has been reformatted, retyped and designed. These books are not made of scanned copies and hence the text is clear and readable.