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The Death of Jesus
9
Things You Don’t Know About Jesus’ Death
He threatened a
corrupt, unofficial government that controlled the Temple and all of Israel.
The average man didn’t know about it,
but Jesus did and that’s why He constantly attacked them.
Threatened by His denunciations, they
took cruel action …
The Conspiracy to Kill the Messiah
“I’ve been studying
and researching the crucifixion of Jesus for about 30 years,”
writes Stephen Mansfield, author of Killing Jesus:
The Unknown Conspiracy Behind the World’s Most Famous Execution.
“When
I was an undergraduate, a theologian from the Vatican spoke to our theology
class. He said, ‘Whatever you think you know about the crucifixion of Jesus,
you don’t know.’
“’You just know what
you have been told,’ said the visiting theologian. ‘You know what you’ve
surmised from movies and from the text. It was far harsher, it was far
grittier, far bloodier, it was far nastier, it was far more corrupt than you’ve
ever imagined.’
“And then this eminent scholar began to take us through the
actual process of the crucifixion,” writes Mansfield, “the biology of it, the physiology of it, the legality of it, the Roman
laws that kicked in, the laws of the Sanhedrin that kicked in, and it was as
though every word in scripture just exploded with meaning.”
“I was fascinated with the crucifixion ever after.” And Mansfield found -
things you probably didn’t know about the crucifixion.
1. He had embarrassed corrupt officials. “The reality is that there was a tier of Jewish leaders who
were corrupt and who were using the Temple at the time for their own profit.
This wasn’t the average Jewish person on the street, of course, and it’s silly
to say only the Jews killed Jesus,” writes Mansfield.
2. They were
getting rich by abusing things holy. “But
what is true is that a corrupt layer of Jewish leaders, who were sold out to
Rome, definitely were using the Temple for their own purposes. They were
garnishing money out of the trade happening at the Temple and absolutely had
sold out to Rome.”
3. They were in league with the
Roman enemies. “In fact, they made sacrifices of bulls and other animals
every single day for the Emperor. So this was a corrupt system and, from a
Jewish perspective, a heretical system.”
4. He threatened their power. “At
the same time, these corrupt leaders were trying to hang on to control of the
nation, because they were concerned that Jesus’ preaching and the fact that
people wanted to make Him king would draw the attention of the Romans.”
5. They feared
the people would revolt. “They were afraid
that the Romans would come and take away the nation if they suspected the Jews
were electing or appointing their own king. This, of course, would have
unseated Caesar in the hearts of the people,” writes Mansfield.
6. It was like an ancient
mafia. Mansfield
continues: “So there was a great deal of underhandedness, a sort of
mafia structure within the Temple. There was political intrigue beneath the
surface. Most people think it’s very simple – Jesus preached something they
didn’t like, they killed him. The reality was he threatened the Sopranos.”
7. He repeatedly confronted
them. He threatened the corrupt underground
government. He threatened the secret coup that was controlling the Temple and
thus the nation. The average man didn’t know about it, but Jesus did and that’s
why he hammered the themes that he did. This ultimately led to his execution.
8. It was a political
murder. The Bible reveals sacred truth but it
does so through an often earthy, troubling, lewd, starkly human drama. We are
not meant to be embarrassed or rush quickly by.
9. A cold-blooded
assassination. “We have been
given the crass story of a political murder in a violent age, a murder
committed after the guardians of virtue decided to kill a man because he was
too much competition,” writes
Mansfield. “There is more here than we
usually see. There may even be more than we are willing to face. We should
ponder every word, envisioning the story as fully as we can.”
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