What happened between Herod trying to kill baby Jesus and adult Jesus being crucified ...

[Boojatta]

that made Jesus ready for an execution that would provide a valuable service for all future generations?

[Drale]

1. Read the book

Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff it explains everything and its hilarious :sarcasm:

[ixion]

2. He had a large following, and was being declared a 'King' by this following

which the Romans would not tolerate. So in order to maintain the status quo, they crucified him. I think that's it in a nutshell. And it's the message of the Living Jesus that, ironically, the xians consider the least. They prefer to focus on the Baby Jesus or Jesus on the Cross. It's easier to manage the message that way. :evilgrin:

[jobycom]

3. Conservatives especially like his "Forgive them, they know not what they do" plea

Since they usually need forgiveness for something and have no freaking idea what they are doing.

[damntexdem]

4. Hey, c'mon -- the media has always known that violence brings the high ratings.

Even 2000 years ago.

[AlecBGreen]

5. Luke 4:18

"The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed..."

He was sent to deliver a message.

[DeSwiss]

6. Well actually Jesus wasn't crucified.

Because he was able to escape from Jerusalem before they could find him at the Garden of Gethsemane. He then made his way to Aomori, Japan, where he married, became a rice farmer, raised a family and died at the ripe old age of 114. And his descendants still thrive there on his old farmstead to this very day.

- http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/5326614.stm">True http://abcnews.go.com/International/story?id=81644&page=1">story.

[onager]

7. Herod didn't kill those rug-rats.

At least two Jewish historians in the area wrote a LOT about Herod the Great - Philo of Alexandria and Flavius Josephus. Neither mentioned a massacre of infants, and both were careful to record every negative Herod story they could find.

Herod served strictly at the pleasure of the Romans, and he absolutely could not have survived in office after such an outrageous act. Two of his main duties were to keep the peace and collect the taxes. To make sure he did that, he had a provincial Roman governor looking over his shoulder at all times.

As an example of how the Romans dealt with local kinglets who upset the populace - Herod's son, Archelaus, took over one-third of the kingdom after his father's death. Archelaus was a very unpopular ruler.

So unpopular that the Jews and the Samaritans (who despised each other) joined forces and went to the regional Roman governor in Damascus, to complain about him.

After hearing their complaints, the Romans yanked Archelaus out of office and exiled him about as far away from Judea as possible. They sent him to the Roman outpost in what is now Vienna, Austria.

Despite all his bad press in the Buy-bull, Herod The Great did a lot of good around Judea. To improve trade, he built a massive deep-water port in Caeserea using engineering principles that were way ahead of his time. It was eventually destroyed in a tsunami, but modern archeologists and engineers are amazed he was able to get it built at all.

Oh, as long as I'm here and boring people with real history...when Julius Caesar was in Egypt, outnumbered ten to one by the Egyptian army and bottled up in Alexandria, he sent out letters to anyone he thought might help him.

One letter went to Antipater, a wealthy Jewish merchant. Antipater not only sent Caesar money, he formed a committee to recruit Jewish men to fight with Caesar's army. Watching all this and getting an education in practical politics was Antipater's young son - who grew up to be Herod The Great.

(That story is in two contemporary sources - Flavius Josephus and The Alexandrian War, attributed to Caesar but most likely written by a couple of his staff officers.)

[Boojatta]

8. There should be a version of the Bible that includes this kind of information.

[dimbear]

11. You can greatly improve the historical accuracy of your NT with a pair of scissors.

Cut out and discard the first two chapters of Matthew and of Luke. Oh, and all of Revelations.

The more or less credible info about the big J starts with Mark. In medias res.

[Angry Dragon]

10. Not boring at all onager

bore away
Knowledge never hurt anyone

[golddigger]

9. Never happened.

Falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus!

Untrue in one thing, untrue in all things!