dreamer_easy: (Genesis)
dreamer_easy ([personal profile] dreamer_easy) wrote2004-11-15 09:30 pm

tehological insight

I am so pleased with the typo in the Subject line that I'm keeping it. Anyway, it suddenly occurred to me that the Crucifixion occurred because God promised not to repeat the Flood. Am I right?

[identity profile] zazuomgwtf.livejournal.com 2004-11-15 03:32 am (UTC)(link)
I thought it was because the Romans gave Jesus this really nice cross as a gift and he did not say thank you.

[identity profile] trinalin.livejournal.com 2004-11-15 03:57 am (UTC)(link)
Jesus pissed off the Romans. People who pissed off the Romans were crucified. Not sure God had much of a say-so there. (Please don't hit me with sticks for saying that!)

[identity profile] infinitarian.livejournal.com 2004-11-15 04:44 am (UTC)(link)
Some possible answers:
1. This presupposes a degree of continuity (of genre, authorial intention etc) in the Bible which really isn't there.
2. Taking the story on its own terms, and assuming that it has internal consistency, you could argue that God's covenant with Noah limited His[*] later options -- but He was happy enough to use disaster afterwards as a punishment against specific groups, as at Babel, Sodom, Gomorrah etc. Nothing about the covenant commits Him to a later show of mercy as such.
3. I'd make a distinction between the Atonement -- which I tend to see as residing in the Incarnation -- and the Crucifixion, which (like [livejournal.com profile] trinalin) I tend to think of as an historical accident.

I'll admit that none of those answers comes from a terribly orthodox theological perspective, though.

[*] I'm not normally comfortable with calling God "he", but this is specifically the character in the Old Testament whom we're discussing...

[identity profile] vindaloo-vixen.livejournal.com 2004-11-15 04:57 am (UTC)(link)
Well, I'd have to repeat Infinitarian's criteria (assuming the Bible with internal consistency, and taking it on its own merits rather than externals etc, etc), but also...

It seems in the Flood story that God thinks everyone but Noah & Co is a total write-off, and so sends the Flood to kill them. (This is very strange to write after playing Halo, by the way!)

On the other hand, lots later in the New Testament, God sees a whole bunch of evil and sin in the system again. This time, however, He (again, like the Infinitarian, I don't think of God as 'He', but we're talking about the OT) thinks that humankind might be worth saving, and sends Jesus down to do it.

So I don't think He's got caught out on his 'no more floods' thing. More that He sees more potential this time round, and acts accordingly.

[identity profile] rj-anderson.livejournal.com 2004-11-15 05:07 am (UTC)(link)
Interesting thought, Kate -- check out 1 Peter 3:18-22 (http://www.biblegateway.com/cgi-bin/bible?language=english&passage=1+Peter+3%3A18-22&version=NIV) for a New Testament flood/Christ parallel.

In response to [livejournal.com profile] infinitarian, nobody in the Bible, including King David (Psalm 22) and the prophet Isaiah (Isaiah 53), thought of the Crucifixion as an accident.

As Peter said in the book of Acts, it may have been done by the hands of evil men, but it was God's will and purpose that Christ should suffer and die for the sins of the world.

Also, without the Crucifixion there could be no Resurrection, and it's the Resurrection most of all that was the beginning and is the great hope of the Christian faith. As Paul said, "If Christ has not been raised, you are still in your sins..." and according to him Christians are "more to be pitied than all men" for clinging to a dead leader and a dead faith.

[identity profile] alryssa.livejournal.com 2004-11-15 05:11 am (UTC)(link)
God hates reruns too?!

[identity profile] outsdr.livejournal.com 2007-04-07 02:38 am (UTC)(link)
Subject Line typos lead to wonderful things... like planets named "Teso Peope" ;)