Was Crucifixion of Jesus an Accidental Error of Justice?

Was the Jesus of history a benign teacher so lacking notoriety that his execution was probably unprovoked and an accidental error of justice?

Two active members of the Jesus Seminar, an ongoing scholarly analysis of sayings credited to Jesus, hinted at that picture in remarks during the group’s most recent meeting in Redlands.

Burton Mack, New Testament professor at the School of Theology at Claremont, said his research into the form and content of Jesus’ sayings leads him to believe that Jesus was primarily a purveyor of wisdom and aphorisms.

Jesus, though Jewish, resembled the Cynic philosopher of the pervasive First-Century Greek culture more than he did an apocalyptic prophet, Mack said. “Galilee, Jesus’ home region, was a much more culturally mixed population and accommodating than was Judea,” Mack said.

Mack said he believes that the descriptions of Jesus in the New Testament as an apocalyptic figure destined to return in power and glory were not true to the Jesus of history.

Mack said the Jesus sayings that mainstream scholarship considers historically reliable show “a playfulness, exuberance and cleverness typical of Hellenistic philosophers who were critical of social conventions and seeking a free and iconoclastic style of life.”

Some scholars suggested that Mack was falling into the trap described by physician-philosopher Albert Schweitzer early this century; namely, that scholars in the quest for the historical Jesus tended to have Jesus reflect their own prejudices. Marvin Meyer of Chapman College said that some colleagues feel that Mack’s approach is much like the Cynic philosophy, but Meyer added that Schweitzer himself had a bias toward an apocalyptic Jesus and many socially liberal scholars today perceive Jesus as a social radical.

“If (Mack’s picture of a benign Jesus) is true, then the Romans made a bigger mistake than I thought they did,” said Dennis R. MacDonald, currently a visiting professor at Harvard Divinity School. (The New Testament Gospels indicate that Jesus’ teachings and growing following raised fears of social instability in Jerusalem, causing him to be sentenced and crucified.)

Ron Cameron of Wesleyan University, Middleton, Conn., responded:

“The death of Jesus was like a car wreck; it’s an accident of history.”

Appear Startled

The statement appeared to startle seminar participants. Robert Hamerton-Kelly, dean of Stanford University chapel, wryly requested reporters not to put that statement into headlines.

Cameron later said, “I’m not sure why the Romans killed Jesus, but the Gospel stories are not historical in the modern sense of the word. I don’t take the death of Jesus as unimportant. But loading it with Christian theological freight, as generally is done by Christians, of which I am one, strikes me as bad theology. Am I really to imagine that God is more concerned about Jesus’ death than others’?

“I don’t think Jesus had the notoriety that the Gospels say he had. His sayings don’t anywhere give evidence that he was trying to found a church or a reform movement.”

Jesus is quoted in the Gospel of Matthew (16:18) as saying that with Peter “I will build my church,” but Cameron said those passages were “obviously creations of the early church.”