If you\u2019re living in the Mediterranean world of the 1st century and you want to promote your religion, a \u201ccrucified god\u201d is not your headline.<\/p>\n
Yet that is exactly what we find in the New Testament.<\/p>\n
A couple of summers ago I read a little book by Martin Hengel, Crucifixion<\/a><\/strong> I just thought you might like some excerpts from\u00a0the book that made me think.<\/p>\n The only possibility of something like a \u2018crucified\u00a0god\u2019 appearing on the\u00a0periphery\u00a0of the ancient world of gods was in the form of a malicious parody<\/strong>, intended to mock the arbitrariness and wickedness of the father of the gods on Olympus, who now had become obsolete.\u00a0<\/em>(p. 11)<\/p>\n Hengel goes on to discuss as an example Lucian\u2019s\u00a0Prometheus, <\/em>the story of\u00a0<\/em>the crucifixion of the god Prometheus by Zeus. Hengel\u00a0continues\u2026<\/p>\n It does not seem to me to be a coincidence that the author<\/em>\u00a0[Lucian]\u00a0of this biting parody in his\u00a0<\/em>De morte Peregrini, mocks Christians as \u201cpoor devils. . . who deny the Greek gods and instead honour that crucified sophist and live according to his laws<\/strong>.\u00a0<\/em>(p. 12)<\/p>\n Several pages later\u2026<\/p>\n With its paradoxical contrast between the divine nature of the pre-existent Son of God and his shameful death on the\u00a0cross the first Christian proclamation shattered all analogies and parallels to christology which\u00a0could\u00a0be produced in the world\u00a0of\u00a0the time<\/strong>, whether from polytheism or from monotheistic\u00a0philosophy. We have points of comparison<\/em>\u00a0[between Christianity and other ancient religions] for the conceptions of exaltation,\u00a0ascension\u00a0and even resurrection. But the suffering of a god soon had to be shown to be\u00a0mere\u00a0simulation, rapidly followed by punishment for those humans who had been so wicked as to cause it. .<\/em> . . (p. 15)<\/p>\n By \u201cmere simulation,\u201d Hengel means,<\/p>\n On many occasions in the Graeco-Roman world we come across the idea that offensive happenings should not be ascribed to revered divine beings or demi-gods themselves, but only to their \u2018representations.\u2019\u00a0<\/em>. . . . Jesus should have demonstrated his divinity by being transported either at the time of his capture or later, from the cross<\/em><\/strong> (p. 16, my emphasis).<\/p>\n Christianity makes sense in the ancient world\u2014it reflects the Jewish and Greco-Roman cultures of the times. But there is also a weirdness to Christianity that Hengel describes here.<\/p>\n \u201cHi everyone! The one we worship\u00a0was crucified by the Romans. Come follow us.\u201d<\/p>\n That opening line did not \u201cfit\u201d among Greco-Roman religions. Claiming a divine figure was helplessly beaten, tortured, and gruesomely\u2014shamefully\u2014executed, would have been proof positive that such a religion was joke worthy only of the late-night monologs\u2014whatever the ancient analog is for Jimmy Fallon.<\/p>\n The ridiculousness of the crucifixion of the Son of God can easily be lost on modern people, including Christians. But without grasping firmly the \u201coffense of the cross\u201d (Galatians 5:11), we miss an important reversal that so typifies the gospel.<\/p>\n For I am not ashamed<\/strong> of the gospel; it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who has faith, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.<\/em> (Romans 1:16)<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com\/e\/ir?t=inspirandinca-20&l=as2&o=1&a=080061268X\")