Comments on: What Does the Whole ‘Atonement’ Thing Actually Mean?

By: Richard Lewis via Facebook

Richard Lewis via Facebook — Fri, 06 Apr 2012 21:35:20 +0000

I wonder if the concept of blood atonement, i.e., requiring the innocent to shed blood for the sins of another, is a holdover from bronze age morality? God has had a close relationship with me since before I even knew anything about Christ or Christianity. And that spiritual closeness continues even now. I’m not sure.

By: Derrick Perry via Facebook

Derrick Perry via Facebook — Fri, 06 Apr 2012 20:54:15 +0000

I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to suggest that your interpretation was invalid or that it shouldn’t work for you. It’s just that for me (as you mentioned) the entirety of the chronicles of Jesus were written well after his death. That and it is uncertain that the authors that we attribute to certain books actually wrote them. And even if they did, their own interpretation of old testament scripture was worlds different then their Jewish contemporaries or the orthodox today. In judaism the messiah is a warring king like David and an infidel slayer like Moses and Elijah who will give peace to the Jews. This idea of human sacrifice is anathema to Judaism, let alone calling a man god…Did I digress?

I think what I’m saying is, for me, I can’t find an anchor to hold on to Christianity because there are an abundance of inconsistencies, errors, contradictions, holes and unanswered questions. I feel like belief in any religion is an all or nothing thing. And with all the basic issues of the faith being disagreed upon (and with some either ethical or logical failings) I can’t get the conviction to believe. And I really want something to believe in…:-(

By: Linnea Sommer via Facebook

Linnea Sommer via Facebook — Fri, 06 Apr 2012 19:54:36 +0000

Keep in mind, though, that much of what we consider to be Christianity was a much later development, and that includes the “traditional” view of the atonement. Also, though I respect some of what Paul has to say, not all of the letters attributed to him were actually written by him. Also, he was writing well after Jesus died; scholars think he wrote his letters a good 20 years or more later. So there’s a lot of room for changing interpretations of his death and resurrection in that time. Same goes for the Gospels; they were written long after Jesus died.

I’m not saying others can’t hold to the traditional interpretation, but it doesn’t work for me.

By: Derrick Perry via Facebook

Derrick Perry via Facebook — Fri, 06 Apr 2012 17:22:22 +0000

The traditional view of the atonement is a biblical one. The earliest new testament writings are attributed to Paul who generally agrees with (and is likely the progenitor of) this view.

I’d hardly call the bible inerrant, but it is certainly a guide post for Christian theology as there is little written about Jesus outside of the biases of new testament authors (Flavius Josephus being the only one I can think of, whose work probably had Christian interpolation on the subject of Jesus).

I would likely agree with your assessment that Jesus was executed as a socio-political threat. But then there ends the story. Many a prophet were even threatened or killed before him, so why treat this prophet especially well by raising him from the dead? Is it that he is god? If so, what did he come here for in the first place when he had a message supposedly identical and fulfilling of the law and prophets? What was accomplished then? Why call him god? Why base and change the Jewish faith into something solely about this Jesus (whom I might add is not the only one in the bible to be called messiah or Christ)?

By: Linnea Sommer via Facebook

Linnea Sommer via Facebook — Fri, 06 Apr 2012 15:34:12 +0000

See my comment on the page…

By: Linnea Sommer via Facebook

Linnea Sommer via Facebook — Fri, 06 Apr 2012 15:34:12 +0000

See my comment on the page…

By: Linnea

Linnea — Fri, 06 Apr 2012 15:31:48 +0000

This is the part of Christianity I really have a problem with. Seems to me like the traditional view of Jesus’ death on the cross is just cosmic child abuse. How can you reconcile the idea that God loves us all unconditionally with the idea that “sin” is such a problem that God is helpless in the face of it, and the only way it can be dealt with is through a horrific “blood sacrifice”?

I prefer to think that Jesus was killed *not* because God wanted it to happen, or planned for it, but because the political powers-that-be were terribly threatened by Jesus’ message of radical equality and justice. So, they condemned him to death as a revolutionary, a political threat.

But that wasn’t the end of the story. God took what should have an awful moment, and instead turned it into one of the great triumphs of history, basically flipping the bird to the earthly powers-that-be, showing that injustice and violence and death would *not* have the last word in reality. *This* is the “good news” that God has for us!!

By: Derrick Perry via Facebook

Derrick Perry via Facebook — Fri, 06 Apr 2012 14:51:42 +0000

I really wanted to ask this same question. But I still feel like it’s not answered. The ‘why’ part is still missing to me.

By: Jason Engel via Facebook

Jason Engel via Facebook — Fri, 06 Apr 2012 13:44:56 +0000

Engaging in a cute way, then dramatically undermined by the seriousness of the people posting comments to it.

By: Matthew Tweedell

Matthew Tweedell — Wed, 27 Apr 2011 01:55:40 +0000

“And, to fulfill scriptural prophesies, he had to go out persecuted, so he did.”

He did it so as the prophecies were fulfilled, but that is not *why* He did it so. Rather, because He was to do it that way is why the prophesies happened to say so, not the other way around.

Jesus’ birth would not have any great significance for man except as a part of a chain of events that leads through His death—with which all that had to be done was accomplished—to the resurrection—with which begins the revelation of all that He had accomplished.

Of course, disagreeing doesn’t make you or me hell-bound!