Did Jesus Suffer Enough?

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M*W: I read this commentary on Austin's Atheist Blog: Did Jesus Suffer Enough?

http://atheism.about.com/b/2010/05/10/did-jesus-really-suffer-enough.htm

I would like to know what your comments, feelings and opinions are.

 

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Was he married

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I don't really like the glorification of suffering aspects of Christianity. However this article seems fairly silly to me. If we are granting Jesus was God, then we reallyl cannot say how much suffering God managed to infuse his crucifixion with. While many people were crucified - and certainly there are even worse deaths - it could have been magically enhanced and used by God/Jesus to ritually take on all our sins, etc.

Again: it is not a message I like, at all! - the suffering is good, we owe Jesus set of ideas. But when non-religious people attempt to be logical and rational about religion I find the ideas fairly irrational, as I did with that essay.

 

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lol :d

 

Just to interpose a little fact here ( I do apologise!).

Crucifixion was actually worse than the churches normally illustrate. You look at an image in a church of Jesus being crucified and you see hands tied to the cross piece and feet on a foot rest with a nail through each. What a wimpish crucifixion!

In fact, the reality of Roman crucifixion has been outlined by archaeologists who have analysed skeletons of people who were crucified. The nails went through the wrists, not palms of hands, and worse - the feet were nailed to the sides of the upright. No foot rest. No nails through the feet. The nails were through the leg, just above the ankle, nailing them to the side of the cross.

The whole thing must have been utterly excruciating!

 

I know crucifixion is gory and all, but I would imagine the alienation and psychological weight of the burden he carried throughout his life was more torturous.

 

He suffered more than he should have. Man has proven to not have appreciated all the suffering/dying Jesus did for our sins. Man is mostly ungrateful.

 

Well, he wasn't married to M-W, so I'd say there was certainly more room for suffering on his part, just or otherwise.

 

Whose sacrifice was it?
If you sacrifice a lamb, the sacrifice is your's not the lamb's.

Surely, the crucifixion was God the father's sacrifice of his son, not Jesus's sacrifice of himself.

The pain of Jesus would have made the sacrifice worse for his father.

 

I was thinking of someone else .....any guesses

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It's not really a sacrifice if you take it back afterwards, is it? I mean, that's like calling it a sacrifice if I toss all my money into a beggar's hat, wait a few minutes and then reach in and take all my money back again.

Remember, the dude came back. And he knew he would.

 

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M*W: Then perhaps he did suffer enough.

 

Jesus was Crucified by the Romans? For what?

 

For careless talk.

 

Officially, treason, inciting of sedition, and disrupting the peace. Unofficially, making trouble for local religious authorities in Judea, which could cause problems for local and provincial government.

Well, there were different methods. The one you described was probably the most common. Another popular option was to tie the condemned criminal to the cross with rope and leave him there to die from exposure and dehydration.
The Romans were pretty much adept at all kinds of ways to kill people. That's why they eked out a massive empire. Humans are a proud warrior race, and the best warriors among them are able the do the most.

 

AFAIK nailing people to a cross was reserved for the worst offenders. ISTR from my history lessons that being tied was more common.
I also vaguely remember something about the actual "stance" of the crucifixee - they were positioned so they could either "stand" (use the leg muscles to take pressure off their arms and thereby relieve weight on the arms, and effects on the chest, and therefore breathe more or less normally) but the legs couldn't extend fully and tired quickly or hang by their arms and accept a slow "strangulation" due to the lungs being compressed by tension on the chest muscles.

Oh, edit: Also, AFAIK, nails were always through the wrist, between the two bones in the forearm. If a nail was through the palm the victim would end up face down in short order as the skin between the fingers parted under his own weight.

 

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M*W: You're just figuring this out now?

 

I know this suffering if a common belief the church has come to but, does it actually say in the Bible that Jesus suffered for the sins of the world?

I am not so sure it does say exactly that. It may say he dies for the world sins, but not suffered.

Does anyone have a passage that confirms or refutes this?

 

interesting reading..

For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures . . . (NASB) 1 Cor. 15:3-4

For Christ also died for sins once for all, the just for the unjust, so that He might bring us to God, having been put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit . . . (NASB) 1 Peter 3:18



. . . but He, having offered one sacrifice for sins for all time, SAT DOWN AT THE RIGHT HAND OF GOD, waiting from that time onward UNTIL HIS ENEMIES BE MADE A FOOTSTOOL FOR HIS FEET. For by one offering He has perfected for all time those who are sanctified. (NASB) Hebrews 10:12-14

(so it says his enemies will be in heaven?)

taken from this source

 

I guess so, so where does that leave hell?? Or are these enemies that have been forgiven?

The key theme in your source seems to be dying rather than suffering, maybe he didn’t need to suffer at all, just die (after all you cant be resurrected unless you die first), maybe the suffering was incidental.

The below excerpt is taken form your source;

“In order to rescue us from the penalty of our sin, a sinless individual had to die for us. Someone who did not deserve to physically die had to choose to die for us. Jesus did that for us.”