Ramirez, Eduardo Miguel F.

Christology | Summary Paper 1 | October 18, 2019

Sloyan, G., “CRUCIFIXION, AND WHY JESUS WAS SENTENCED TO IT”

The existence of a certain Jesus, who lived, died on the cross, and resurrected on the third

day is no doubt. Gospel writers attest to it, but so do extra-biblical documents, such as the

histories of Josephus, Tacitus, Suetonius, and Pliny the younger. In this summary we will outline

Sloyan’s investigation of Jesus’ passion and death. We shall do this in four parts: (1) the origins

of Crucifixion, (2) the New Testament view of crucifixion, (3) the reasons behind the crucifixion

of Jesus, and (4) how the cross came to be seen as redemptive.

1. The origins of crucifixion are quite unsure. Except that it is considered an obscene form

of punishment by meted out to slaves, and lower classes, soldiers (even those in command

positions), the violently rebellious and the treasonous. As early as 348 BC, in Plato’s writings,

we see different “forms” of crucifixions—hanging people until death, hanging the dead for

exhibition, using crossbeams, impaling with a stake, and others. In Jesus’ era, we read of Roman

soldiers capturing offending Jews, and crucifying them, sometimes just for the sport of it.

2. In the New Testament, we see in John 19:6 that Pilate told the high priests to “...take him

yourselves and crucify him. I find no guilt in him.” Did the Jews crucify Jesus? We should not be

quick to conclude. What we do know is that when Jesus was executed, his disciples didn’t appeal

to Jewish sympathy to defend them against the Roman state. Instead, the disciples identified “the

jealousy of the learned class, and the plotting from the high priesthood,” as reasons for his death.

Sloyan even goes to note that “the fears of the temple priests were reductively political, a matter

of tithes and taxes. The hatred of the common folk for the high priesthood (which acted as

Rome’s fiscal against them), was greater than the ultimate oppressor, Rome.”

On the other hand, it is also questionable having the Jewish authorities as suspect, since

this is against Mosaic Law. What we do know are: (a) Pilate had to legally “cover up” the mob
action that was already fomenting among the Jews, (b) the Jews hardly inflicted the punishment

(of crucifixion) to themselves, because that was what was inflicted on them, and (c) we cannot

know the possible actions of an incited Jewish mob in first century Palestine. If so, Sloyan

suggests, that John 19:6, be read as a “Johanine irony”, wherein John makes the characters say

more or other than what they realize. Thus, this could mean that “Pilate is telling his priestly

inciters to do what they cannot do because of Mosaic Law, but what they in fact, still manage to

achieve—crucifying Jesus.”

3. The historical reason for Jesus’ execution is hard to identify as well. The early Christian

community, already had a theology of redemption based on the “cross” (Mk. 8:34). What

happens now to the historical dependability of the Gospels? Scholars swing from two extremes:

one, those who hold everything as dogma, and two, those who posit that the evangelists

possessed few facts about the event. In this second group, we have the Maximalists who say that

the Gospel writers garnered all the information they could, and passed it along as a body of

authentic reminiscence; and the Minimalists, who posit that some details can be seen as truth,

but some are legendary and theological—thus they need to be identified as such.

4. How has the Christian community seen the cross as redemptive? Paul is the first to make

this claim. He interprets the event apocalyptically and not historically, and places his interest not

on the men who carried it out, but to the salvific actions of a good God. We have an innocent

man freely giving up his life as an offering, equated to the innocent animal sacrificed as an

offering for sin. Hence, the “eating of the body and drinking of the blood” is seen as solidarity

with the crucified One, as He reseals the ancient covenant between God and Israel. Much is still

left to Mystery. But this is salvific for us because Jesus’ crucifixion, death is a human, although

God-authored atonement for human sin.