Block 7 - Crucifixion, Borg, Pages 261-274

As Borg points out at the beginning of chapter ten (page 261), in the Gospels, what began as a string of episodic narrative pieces switches to continuous narrative when we get to the events surrounding the death of Jesus. (Scholars often refer to the events surrounding the death of Jesus as his "passion", which is the Latin word for suffering. Therefore, the story of Jesus' arrest, trial and crucifixion are often referred to as the "Passion Narrative"). As Borg mentions, Jesus' activities of that last week are a day by day narrative and by Friday morning it is literally an hour by hour account of these events. Indeed, some scholars in the mid-20th century referred to the Gospel of Mark as a Passion Narrative with an extended introduction. Not exactly accurate, but it does make the point that the death of Jesus is the key event in Mark's gospel.

Borg is really rather vague in his comments on the events of Jesus' last week on earth. Borg mentions the variety of ways that the gospel writers describe what transpired. But Borg strangely does not make a judgment about which events he believes have a greater likelihood of actually having occurred and which may have been made up by the early Christians. On page 263, Borg does note that the high priest's questions and Jesus' responses sound (to Borg) more like something that would have come from the early church than what probably transpired at Jesus' trial (especially the references to Jesus as Messiah and Christ and Son of the Blessed One). Though Borg does not come right out and state it, he obviously doubts that Jesus had a real "trial" with the high priest after his arrest.

The events described in the Gospels concerning Jesus and the high priest are contrary to anything that would have been the proper procedure for holding a trial. Every scholar knows this. The more skeptical ones say: this is evidence that this so-called trial probably never happened as narrated. The more believing scholars say: goes to show how eager the chief priests were to eliminate Jesus that they would hold an illegal trial. The more skeptical scholars think that most of the responsibility for Jesus' execution rests on the Romans, not the priests. And the clincher for the more skeptical scholars has always been: who was there taking notes while Jesus was being examined by the chief priests? The disciples had all fled. Of course, there is always the outside possibility that an observer to these proceedings later became a Christian and provided the details. But many historical critical scholars doubt such a trial ever happened, and Jesus was simply detained overnight by the high priest (there was a large jail in his basement, so say the archaeologists), and Jesus was turned over to Pilate in the morning.

On page 265, Borg discusses in some detail Mark's crucifixion narrative, and implicit in his comments is the belief that the narrative is so replete with metaphorical allusions that there is no way of telling how much is representative of what really happened (other than the fact that we can be very sure Jesus died by crucifixion). Historical critical scholars have noticed for a long time that the reference to the tearing of the curtain in the temple is such a loaded theological statement that (and so convenient for Christian apologists wanting to show that Jesus is the final sacrifice) that the chances this really happened are slim at best (in their opinion). It seems rather odd to me that Borg does not analyze the historical probability of the events surrounding the death of Jesus. This makes me think that he has serious doubts that any of it can be known with any certainty.

In the section on Why Did It Happen (pages 267-271), Borg offers his opinion on why he believes the substitutionary atonement theory is bad theology. Traditional western European Christianity (both Roman Catholic and Protestant) has always held that interpreting Jesus' death as a substitutionary atonement is a fundamental datum of the faith. However, this has not been a central theme in the theology of the Eastern Orthodox churches. Indeed, because of the doctrine of the substitutionary atonement, a number of Eastern Orthodox theologians (especially Russian and Greek Orthodox) go so far as to say Roman Catholicism has more in common with Protestantism than with Eastern Orthodoxy.

In the section on Did It Have to Happen (page 272), Borg explains why he does not believe that Jesus' death was part of some grand divine plan of salvation. But then, it would seem that for Borg, God does not make and grand plans that he will make sure come to pass as planned. Borg's God simply does not work that way. Of course, if a person (like Borg) does not believe that Jesus' death was an atonement for sin, then that means he does not consider human sin as serious a matter for people to worry about regarding their eternal destiny, as has been the case traditionally in Christianity. In the end, (for Borg) Jesus died because he challenged the domination system in place at the time, and the brutal domination system responded predictably.