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Porknpie
Guest
Thoughts and insights appreciated. Stephen died by stoning…why did the Jews not stone Jesus?
Pork
Pork
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Neofight
Guest
Jesus had a large enough following to make the Jewish religious establishment to fear a rebellion if they did the deed. So, they maneuvered to have the civil authorizes (the Romans) to condemn and execute him.
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CrispSnowflake
Guest
Because Jesus had to fulfill the Old Testament prophesies! 
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Jozefo
Guest
He was executed by the Romans as a criminal, that’s why.
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dronald
Guest
It actually was, they just didn’t realize it at the time. Why do you think Jesus shouted, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me.”
It’s to bring to mind what was said next:
6 But I am a worm and not a man,
scorned by everyone, despised by the people.
7 All who see me mock me;
they hurl insults, shaking their heads.
8 “He trusts in the Lord,” they say,
“let the Lord rescue him.
Let him deliver him,
since he delights in him.”
9 Yet you brought me out of the womb;
you made me trust in you, even at my mother’s breast.
10 From birth I was cast on you;
from my mother’s womb you have been my God.
11 Do not be far from me,
for trouble is near
and there is no one to help.
12 Many bulls surround me;
strong bulls of Bashan encircle me.
13 Roaring lions that tear their prey
open their mouths wide against me.
14 I am poured out like water,
and all my bones are out of joint.
My heart has turned to wax;
it has melted within me.
15 My mouth is dried up like a potsherd,
and my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth;
you lay me in the dust of death.
16 Dogs surround me,
a pack of villains encircles me;
** they pierce my hands and my feet.**
17 All my bones are on display;
people stare and gloat over me.
18 They divide my clothes among them
and cast lots for my garment.
Matthew 27:35 And they crucified him, and parted his garments, casting lots:
John 19:24"Let’s not tear it," they said to one another. “Let’s decide by lot who will get it.” This happened that the scripture might be fulfilled that said, “They divided my clothes among them and cast lots for my garment.” So this is what the soldiers did.
Also, Isaiah 42
“Here is my servant, whom I uphold,
my chosen one in whom I delight;
I will put my Spirit on him,
and he will bring justice to the nations.
2 He will not shout or cry out,
or raise his voice in the streets.
3 A bruised reed he will not break,
and a smoldering wick he will not snuff out.
In faithfulness he will bring forth justice;
4 he will not falter or be discouraged
till he establishes justice on earth.
In his teaching the islands will put their hope.”
And Isaiah 53Who has believed our message
and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?
2 He grew up before him like a tender shoot,
and like a root out of dry ground.
He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him,
nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.
3 He was despised and rejected by mankind,
a man of suffering, and familiar with pain.
Like one from whom people hide their faces
he was despised, and we held him in low esteem.
4 Surely he took up our pain
and bore our suffering,
yet we considered him punished by God,
stricken by him, and afflicted.
5 But he was pierced for our transgressions,
he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was on him,
and by his wounds we are healed.
6 We all, like sheep, have gone astray,
each of us has turned to our own way;
and the Lord has laid on him
the iniquity of us all.
7 He was oppressed and afflicted,
yet he did not open his mouth;
he was led like a lamb to the slaughter,
and as a sheep before its shearers is silent,
so he did not open his mouth.
8 By oppression[a] and judgment he was taken away.
Yet who of his generation protested?
For he was cut off from the land of the living;
for the transgression of my people he was punished.**
9 He was assigned a grave with the wicked,
and with the rich in his death,
though he had done no violence,
nor was any deceit in his mouth.
10 Yet it was the Lord’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer,
and though the Lord makes[c] his life an offering for sin,
he will see his offspring and prolong his days,
and the will of the Lord will prosper in his hand.
11 After he has suffered,
he will see the light of life[d] and be satisfied[e];
by his knowledge[f] my righteous servant will justify many,
and he will bear their iniquities.
12 Therefore I will give him a portion among the great,[g]
and he will divide the spoils with the strong,[h]
because he poured out his life unto death,
and was numbered with the transgressors.
For he bore the sin of many,
and made intercession for the transgressors.
The end of Isaiah 52:
13 See, my servant will act wisely;
he will be raised and lifted up and highly exalted.
14 Just as there were many who were appalled at him—
his appearance was so disfigured beyond that of any human being
and his form marred beyond human likeness—
15 so he will sprinkle many nations,
and kings will shut their mouths because of him.
For what they were not told, they will see,
and what they have not heard, they will understand.**
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Celtic_Maiden
Guest
Its called misread the times and the signs. They are in for one rude awakening.
And they are still waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting,
:bighanky:
Jewish Convert to the Catholic Faith.
And they are still waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting,
:bighanky:Jewish Convert to the Catholic Faith.
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Didascalia
Guest
I’m not sure, but did you know there are at least five different versions of his death in the Jewish Talmud?
Heres a peculiar account were it starts of with a stoning and then a hanging?
The Tractate Sanhedrin (43a) :
Jesus was hanged on Passover Eve. Forty days previously the herald had cried, “He is being led out for stoning, because he has practiced sorcery and led Israel astray and enticed them into apostasy. Whosoever has anything to say in his defense, let him come and declare it.” As nothing was brought forward in his defense, he was hanged on Passover Eve.
meltzerboy
New member
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Rete
Guest
The Romans crucified Jesus. It was a Roman punishment for treason.
meltzerboy
New member
But did not misread the Torah and the Talmud.Its called misread the times and the signs. They are in for one rude awakening.
And they are still waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting,
Jewish Convert to the Catholic Faith.
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Celtic_Maiden
Guest
That is your opinion and your entitled to it, but as a Convert my opinion is what I have said.
As far as I am concerned my fellow Jews have missed the boat BIG TIME.
As far as I am concerned my fellow Jews have missed the boat BIG TIME.
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powerofk
Guest
Okay - first of all, St. Stephen’s execution was for blasphemy (in Luke’s account in Acts, the Jews are covering their ears and screaming so that they don’t hear the blasphemy). In addition, St. Stephen’s martyrdom was pretty spontaneous - the Jewish leaders were so infuriated by his speech that they martyred him on the spot when he was speaking about Jesus. You could say that it was a sort of “mob justice”, as he had no trial.
On the other hand, Jesus had been infuriating the Jewish leaders for some time. After the Jewish leaders had arrested Him, they had a mock trial, but did not have the authority to sentence a person, as they were under Roman occupation. Only the Romans had the authority to officially sentence a person to death (the Jewish leaders themselves tell Pontius Pilate in the Gospels: “We do not have the right to sentence anyone to death.”) Pilate understood the gravity of the situation, and sentenced Jesus to the sentence reserved for slaves and other non-citizens who incited rebellion and/or revolt.
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Jozefo
Guest
Interestingly, Christ appeared before the Roman tribunal in the person of Pilate, and submitted to its jurisdiction. It was an administrative proceeding, and a legal one. While Pilate was inclined to release him, he yielded to public pressure. But the trial was a legal, and the sentence just in the eyes of Rome.
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KrazyKat
Guest
The Jewish leaders called for Him to be crucified.
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patrick457
Guest
There’s two possible ideas. One is that Jews did have limited right to give out death sentences, but only did so in the traditional methods (stoning, beheading, burning, and strangulating) and mostly in religious matters; secular cases being tried under Roman law. The other is that Rome had reserved the right of capital punishment to itself. I personally think the latter is more likely, since in other areas Rome usually withdrew the right of capital punishment or gave only limited use of it in order to prevent local courts from legally turning against sympathizers and collaborators to Roman rule. A decree of Augustus to the proconsul of Cyrene, dated 7-6 BC, which made provision for provincial courts to practice “delegated jurisdiction except in capital cases,” which are to be kept in the hands of the proconsul himself, shows just how picky the Romans were about restricting the power.
During the 1st century, the provincial ruler’s power was very considerable; it was only in the following century that authority was severely limited by the emperor himself. In these outposts of the empire, the prefect had to be able to do whatever he thought necessary for the good of Rome, and this included the power to discipline the army. The prefect’s right to sentence people to death was not only exclusive but also absolute; he could execute a citizen, and he did not have to formulate a charge that would stand up in a court at Rome.
Whichever camp you take, the only exception to this rule that we know of is when a non-Jew trespasses into the ‘Jews-only’ part of the Temple (non-Jews were forbidden to enter anything other than the outermost parts of Herod’s temple; the Court of the Gentiles was the furthest they could go): “No outsider shall enter the protective enclosure around the sanctuary. And whoever is caught will only have himself to blame for the ensuing death.” This is keeping in line with the Roman custom of granting provincial subjects as much freedom as possible in practicing their religion, and besides, the Jews would wish to maintain the purity and sanctity of the Temple hence, the special exception.
Assuming that the second possibility is correct, what are we then to make for Stephen’s death? One could argue that the stoning of Stephen is not so much an official execution as a lynching: at least as Luke records it, there was no verdict and no sentence (Acts 7:57-58). We need not go to lengths to assume as some people did that the passage of the death sentence was omitted by a copyist. Which goes to the question: why didn’t the Romans step in to stop this? The answer is simply because the Romans could not police the internal life of the provinces closely, and even if they could, they would have simply batted a blind eye. In other words, provincials frequently took matters into their own hands and illegally executed natives on criminal charges, but government officials simply ignored them - as long as Roman citizens were not involved.
To put things into perspective, Judaea was a province ruled by a prefect (or after AD 41, a procurator), who commanded auxiliaries recruited from peregrini, local non-citizens: being an equestrian, he was not of high rank enough to command a legion; his immediate superior, the legate of Syria, meanwhile, had four legions under his belt. And even then, unlike in standard retellings of the Jesus story where Romans are barbarians who roam, loot and pillage around the countryside, all the while kicking old men and forcing people to carry their loads, in reality the prefect and the majority of his soldiers stayed in the capital of Caesarea Maritima for most of the year far away from the sight of Jews, preferring instead to let native magistrates (in the case of Jerusalem, the high priest and his advisory council) run daily affairs for him. These locals were the responsible officials for the area and was normally in charge of ordinary police and judicial procedures, though the prefect would have the final word. All in all, the prefect only had 3,000 troops at his disposal, which is not sufficient to handle serious trouble, thus in emergencies he would need the aid of the Syrian legate and his legions.
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dronald
Guest
Although I do find this a rather convenient Jewish interpretation of this passage now that Jesus has come, suffered and died for us I’ll have to direct you to Acts 8:
30 Then Philip ran up to the chariot and heard the man reading Isaiah the prophet. “Do you understand what you are reading?” Philip asked.
31 “How can I,” he said, “unless someone explains it to me?” So he invited Philip to come up and sit with him.
32 This is the passage of Scripture the eunuch was reading:
“He was led like a sheep to the slaughter,
and as a lamb before its shearer is silent,
so he did not open his mouth.
33 In his humiliation he was deprived of justice.
Who can speak of his descendants?
For his life was taken from the earth.”**
34 The eunuch asked Philip, “Tell me, please, who is the prophet talking about,** himself or someone else?”** 35 Then Philip began with that very passage of Scripture and told him the good news about Jesus.
As we can see by this first century writing by the historian Luke, this was interpreted to be about a person and not a personification of a literal Israel 2000 years ago.**
meltzerboy
New member
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powerofk
Guest
Okay - first of all, guys, here’s the deal. Christians, especially Catholics, believe that such prophecy was meant both for the short-term and the long-term perspective. In other words, it is very possible, and even likely, that the prophet Isaiah was talking about the Jewish people at the time, but Christians believe that this fulfillment would have been only a partial fulfillment. The more complete fulfillment would have come through the suffering of Jesus Christ, who, “became sin though He had not known sin”. For another example, earlier in the Book of Isaiah, Isaiah prophecies the “virgin conceiving and bearing a son, to be called Immanuel” (this is paraphrasing, of course, but it’s a commonly known verse, cited in the Gospel of Matthew). The partial fulfillment was the birth of King Hezekiah, but Christians believe that the more complete fulfillment was in the birth of Jesus Christ.
meltzerboy
New member
I understand what you’re saying about the predominantly Catholic interpretation, using Jesus as the starting point and interpreting the Hebrew Bible in light of the Messiah. From the perspective of Judaism, the prophecy of Isaiah with regard to the redemption of Israel, the suffering servant, did not yet occur since the nations of the world have not realized the harm they have inflicted.
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adrift
Guest
It isn’t established when the Gospels were written only speculation. Traditionally Matthew was written first. This tradition was established closer to the the event than those who say that Mark was first
I am not sure what you mean by mid-moring but the gospel says the 9th hour which is not the same as 9 in the morning. The ninth hour was about three in the afternoon.
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