The "Crime"

@fmf said
If you accept that the Romans crucified Jesus at all then you must accept that they did so for sedition.

Jesus was crucified by the Romans because the Jews insisted, even though Pilate said several times that he was a just man and could find no fault with him. No fault would mean that sedition was not an issue.

@rajk999 said
Jesus was crucified by the Romans because the Jews insisted, even though Pilate said several times that he was a just man and could find no fault with him. No fault would mean that sedition was not an issue.

Stirring up the local populace and local compliant leaders and making claims about having power and authority that transcends that of the Roman Empire was surely sedition.

@fmf said
Stirring up the local populace and local compliant leaders and making claims about having power and authority that transcends that of the Roman Empire was surely sedition.

Your opinion differs from Pilate's opinion.

If what you say is true, then Pilate would have found Jesus guilty, but he didn't.

@chaney3 said
Your opinion differs from Pilate's opinion.

If what you say is true, then Pilate would have found Jesus guilty, but he didn't.

That may be the fledgeling Christians' version of it when they started writing their non-eyewitness accounts of it in their efforts to form some narrative about the execution three or four of five decades later, but if the Roman Empire saw fit to execute Jesus, then it would have been for sedition.

@fmf said
That may be the fledgeling Christians' version of it when they started writing their non-eyewitness accounts of it in their efforts to form some narrative about the execution three or four of five decades later, but if the Roman Empire saw fit to execute Jesus, then it would have been for sedition.

The 'easier" story to have written is Pilate finding Jesus guilty of sedition.

What motivation did they have to change the story? A story that is basically unclear.

Note: you are now adding writers potentially lying when creating the Bible, which is a different topic altogether, yet intriguing.

@chaney3 said
you are now adding writers potentially lying when creating the Bible, which is a different topic altogether, yet intriguing.

I am sure that members of fundamentalist groups writing decades and decades after the events in question, and doing so based on group-forming breathless in-crowd hearsay, mostly did so in earnest.

@chaney3 said
What motivation did they have to change the story?

Decades of 'chinese whispers' passed on by all manner of people and groups, and sub-groups, all in many respects in competition with each other; dozens of other supposedly 'eye witness accounts' rejected; nothing finalized until literally hundreds of years later, when corporate Christianity had finally finessed its fastidiously assembled text.

I have no doubt that all manner of emotions and elements were in play: earnestness, hysteria, ambition, good-intentions, fervour, imagination, conjecture, melodrama, faulty memory, errors, omissions, assumptions, embellishments, fascination, zealotry, creativity and, yes, most likely deceit as well.

Countless people, over many, many years. What's the upshot of 'survival of the fittest' when accounts of magical things are competing for the hearts and minds of potential subscribers?

@fmf said
Decades of 'chinese whispers' passed on by all manner of people and groups, and sub-groups, all in many respects in competition with each other; dozens of other supposedly 'eye witness accounts' rejected; nothing finalized until literally hundreds of years later, when corporate Christianity had finally finessed its fastidiously assembled text.

I have no doubt that all manner o ...[text shortened]... st' when accounts of magical things are competing for the hearts and minds of potential subscribers?

I understand your point, but the Bible is supposed to have been inspired by God, and written by men.

That belief is likely the only reason that people can 'attempt' to believe any of it.

And again, it would have been easier to blame Rome and Pilate because that story makes sense.

@chaney3 said
And again, it would have been easier to blame Rome and Pilate because that story makes sense.

How so?

@fmf said
How so?

Jesus causing crowd uprising (sedition).
Roman soldiers arrest Him.
Pilate finds Him guilty.
Sentenced to death.

It's clear, and makes sense.

The narrative we have instead is Pilate finding Jesus not guilty of any crime, and quite puzzled why the Jews are so persistent in getting Jesus convicted.
(Of what crime)

@chaney3 said
Jesus causing crowd uprising (sedition).
Roman soldiers arrest Him.
Pilate finds Him guilty.
Sentenced to death.

It's clear, and makes sense.

The narrative we have instead is Pilate finding Jesus not guilty of any crime, and quite puzzled why the Jews are so persistent in getting Jesus convicted.
(Of what crime)

"Jesus was innocent but was executed anyway."

It's the heady stuff of post-Hebrew Christian mythology.

Your supposedly "easier" version is feeble and mundane by comparison.

@fmf said
If the Romans decided that Jesus was a troublemaker among the people they ruled, I don't see how a charge of sedition was "trumped-up". The Romans even attached a mocking 'title' to the cross. It was a message to the local people. It was a political message. Sedition is a political crime.

Going by the biblical account neither Herod nor Pilate saw a reason for the death penalty.

@rajk999 said
Christians now are the very same predicament.

“Christians are now in the same predicament”... as Pontius Pilate ?

@chaney3 said
I guess it comes down to tradition at that time. Along with the fact that the Pharisees were more interested in their own power than actually considering who Jesus actually was. In one case, they witnessed Jesus heal someone, but instead of taking a moment to realize that enormity, they immediately started to plan a way to kill Him. It seems unbelievable how closed minded and selfish they were.

Why is it so unbelievable to you?

Their attitude seems completely congruent with the Hebrew religious culture of the time.

@rajk999 said
Jesus was crucified by the Romans because the Jews insisted, even though Pilate said several times that he was a just man and could find no fault with him. No fault would mean that sedition was not an issue.

There is no evidence that the Sanhedrin “insistence” was what swayed Pilate. There would have been lengthy discussion with Pilate making his own mind up that the best course of action was execution. Once that decision was made then sedition would have been the crime allocated.