From: sheaffer@netcom.com (Robert Sheaffer)
Newsgroups: sci.skeptic
Subject: Re: Focus on Crucifiction (was: Cruxed for Prophecy?)
Keywords: crucifiction prophecy sacrifice hebrew
Date: 3 Oct 92 19:40:50 GMT
Article-I.D.: netcom.1992Oct3.194050.1425
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services (408 241-9760 guest)

In article <roelle.718068597@uars_mag> roelle@uars_mag.jhuapl.edu (Curtis Roelle) writes:
>
>To be fit for sacrifice, an animal had to be perfect.  The following
>OT passage is similar to others, and is from Leviticus 3 (KJV):
>
>A sheep herder in the mountains may have a lamb that falls and breaks
>its leg.  He may as well use it next time he needs to sacrifice,
>right?  No, wrong -- an animal with broken bones makes not a suitable
>sacrifice. If Jesus had been stoned and had his bones broken, the
>sacrifice argument would not have been valid.

Yes, exactly right. John especially wanted to portray Jesus as the Passover
Lamb sacrificed for God. (The ritual sacrifice of a lamb was part of
the celebration of Passover.) To be this, Jesus could NOT have been stoned,
hence, another advantage to changing the story from "stoned" to "crucified".

>
>To help victims of crucifiction die more rapidly, their legs were
>sometimes broken.  This interferes with the respiratory system, as
>without the support of their legs they are left hanging by the arms
>and soon suffocate.

>As sunset approached, so did the sabbath.  The Hebrews wanted the
>bodies down before this time and suggested that Jesus' legs be broken.
>But if they broke his legs then prophecy could not be fulfiled,
>and the sacrifice argument would become invalid.  Pilate agreed to
>break Jesus' legs, but he was dead by then, and so no bones were
>broken.

This business about "breaking of legs" is CLAIMED to be true 
in the gospel of John. I am not aware of any independent
evidence that it in fact IS true; I suspect it's not. The Romans sometimes
crucified offenders, but they didn't CARE how long it took them to die; in
fact, the longer, the better. Typically, victim lived for several
days upon the cross, before dying of thirst and exposure. Jews, on
the other hand, were careful to never hold executions on the Sabbath
or on Holy Days, however they never crucified anyone. So this is a
strange conflation of Roman and Jewish practices. 

As for the unnatural suddenness of Jesus' death, after supposedly
being on the cross for just a few hours, there is no satisfactory
explanation. Note that Mark has Pilate express great surprise upon
learning that Jesus was dead so quickly, and that this verse was
DELETED from the two later Synoptics, Matthew and Luke. Since so
very few Marcan passages fail to appear in either one or both of
the two later Synoptics - only 31 verses out of 661, about 5% -
each unexplained deletion is worthy of great scrutiny. I maintain
that  Pilate's claimed surprise at Jesus' supposed untimely demise was deleted
because it calls unnecessary attention to the implausible time
frame of the cruci-fiction story. (Another significant deletion is
that of Mark's youth who fled naked in the garden, for reasons that might
best be discussed on "soc.motss".)
-- 
  
        Robert Sheaffer - Scepticus Maximus - sheaffer@netcom.com
  
 Past Chairman, The Bay Area Skeptics - for whom I speak only when authorized!

       "Beware when the great God lets loose a thinker on this planet.
        Then all things are at risk. It is as when a conflagration has
        broken out in a great city, and no man knows what is safe, or
        where it will end."
                               - Emerson: Essay, "Circles"