Jesus' Crucifixion is Largely Based on Psalm 22

[MrMacSon]

..what is your idea about the origin of the crucifixion idea ?

Psalm 22.

The crucifixion passage in Mark, vv. 15:24-39, is based on Psalm 22, using lines from that Psalm in reverse order. See rgprice, Deciphering the Gospels, chapter 3.

There is a little use of other OT scriptures, such as Amos 8:(8-)9, which is elaborated on by Matthew (and Matthew also uses Psalm 69 and a little Isaiah: see rgprice, Jesus, a very Jewish Myth).

While the John crucifixion passage does not appear to rely on Mark 15:24-39 as much as the Matthew and Luke crucifixion accounts - though it largely does - John explicitly alludes to use of the OT scripture with Jn 19:24b, 28, and 36a, and 37a, all referring to scripture being fulfilled, eg. Jn:24b, "This was to fulfill what the scripture says". Jn 19:28 refers to Amos 2. And, while not giving the explicit pointer, ''fulfilling scripture", Jn 19:34, where "one of the soldiers pierced Jesus' side with a spear, and at once blood and water came out," uses more of Psalm 22, ie. 22:14, "I am poured out like water ... my heart is like wax, melted within my breast" (and immediately prior Ps. 22:12-13 has, "Many Bulls circle me ... they open wide their mouths at me, like a ravening and roaring lion." From the NRSV version in contrast to 'the Passion Translation' linked to next)

And see https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?s ... ersion=TPT - Psalm 22, a Prophetic Portrait of the Cross -

Footnotes

1. Psalm 22:1 Thirty-three 'prophecies' from this psalm were 'fulfilled' when Jesus was on the cross.
2. Psalm 22:1 This could be an amazing picture of Christ giving birth at the cross to a generation of his seed. They are like children of God born in the dawning of that resurrection morning.
3. Psalm 22:1 When Jesus quoted these words while dying on the cross, he was identifying himself as the one David wrote about in this psalm. It is a breathtaking portrayal of what Jesus endured through his suffering for us. The psalm ends with another quotation of Jesus on the cross: “It is finished!”

etc., etc.

eta: rgprice notes,

"Whoever wrote Luke was clearly sympathetic to the Jewish people and sought to absolve them of the blame for the Crucifixion, so they wrote the people merely "stood by" while the leaders mocked Jesus. In addition, Luke has the soldiers mocking Jesus, while in Mark it is a Roman soldier who says, "Truly this man is the son of God!" This has completely changed the meaning of the story ..."

[and Luke] "copied the core narrative from Mark: the casting of lots, the mocking, the tearing of the temple curtain, and the darkness at noon all clearly come directly from the text of Mark. It's obvious that whoever wrote Luke merely too the passage from Mark and changed key elements in order to make it more sympathetic to the Jews ad less sympathetic to the Gentiles.

"From a complete analysis of the Gospel called Luke, my [rgprice's] conclusion is that the author of Luke most likely thought that the Markan text he was copying from was a basically historically true account of a real-life Jesus. It appears that whoever wrote Luke was using multiple soruces, including perhaps the Jewish writers Josephus and Philo, among others, to piece together what they thought to be a historical document. As such, the author of Luke appears to have no understanding of the literary allusions in Mark* whatsoever. The alterations to the Markan narrative by the author of Luke appear completely indiscriminate in relation to the literary allusions.* The literary allisions are kept, excluded, altered, and reworded in ways that make it clear that there was no attempt to give them any special treatment."

* I presume rgprice means the literary allusions to the OT scriptures. eg. the use of Psalm 22 for the Markan crucifixion passage.

[MrMacSon]

... Ps. 22:12-13 has, "Many Bulls circle me ... they open wide their mouths at me, like a ravening and roaring bull." From the NRSV version

Psalm 22:12-15a in full (NRSV) -

.
12 Many bulls encircle me,
.....strong bulls of Bashan1 surround me;
13 they open wide their mouths at me,
.....like a ravening and roaring lion.

14 I am poured out like water,
.....and all my bones are out of joint;
my heart is like wax;
.....it is melted within my breast;

15 my mouth [strength(?)] is dried up like a potsherd,
.....and my tongue sticks to my jaws;
.

1 The commentary at (f) at https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?s ... ersion=TPT might interest Giuseppe -

.
f. Psalm 22:12 Many translations have here “strong bulls of Bashan.” The root word for “bull” means “to break or destroy.” The word Bashan, although known as a fertile land northeast of the Sea of Galilee, is also a word for “serpent.” These represent the many demonic spirits who came against the Son of God as he was being crucified.
.

[MrMacSon]

The crucifixion passage in Mark, vv. 15:24-39, is based on Psalm 22, using lines from that Psalm in reverse order.

Mark 15:
23 And they offered him wine mixed with myrrh; but he did not take it.
24 And they crucified him, and divided his clothes among them, casting lots to decide what each should take.
25 It was nine o’clock in the morning when they crucified him. 26 The inscription of the charge against him read, ‘The King of the Jews.’
27 And with him they crucified two bandits, one on his right and one on his left. 28 [Some manuscripts include here words similar to Luke 22:37].

29 Those who passed by mocked him, shaking their heads and saying, ‘Aha! You who would destroy the temple and build it in three days,
30 save yourself, and come down from the cross!’

31 In the same way the chief priests, along with the scribes, were also mocking him among themselves and saying,
.....‘He saved others; he cannot save himself.
..32 ‘Let the Messiah, the King of Israel, come down from the cross now, so that we may see and believe.’

.....Those who were crucified with him also taunted him.

33 When it was noon, darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon.
34 At three o’clock Jesus cried out with a loud voice,
.....‘Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?’ which means, ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’

35 When some of the bystanders heard it, they said, ‘Listen, he is calling for Elijah.’
36 And someone ran, filled a sponge with sour wine, put it on a stick, and gave it to him to drink, saying,
.....‘Wait, let us see whether Elijah will come to take him down.’

37 Then Jesus gave a loud cry and breathed his last. 38 And the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom.
39 Now when the centurion, who stood facing him, saw that in this way he breathed his last, he said, ‘Truly this man was the son of God!’

.
[Mark 15:36, giving Jesus a drink, albeit sour wine, might be reference to and use of Ps. 22:15 -

......15 my mouth [strength(?)] is dried up like a potsherd,
..........and my tongue sticks to my jaws]
.

This, as we can see, pulls heavily from Psalm 22, referencing lines from Psalm 22 in reverse order.

Psalm 22:

1 My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from helping me, from the words of my groaning?
2 O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer; and by night, but find no rest.
---
6 But I am a worm, and not human; scorned by others, and despised by the people.
7 All who see me mock at me; they make mouths at me, they shake their heads;
8 ‘Commit your cause to the Lord; let him deliver-let him rescue the one in whom he delights!’
---
17 I can count all my bones. They stare and gloat over me;
18 they divide my clothes among themselves, and for my clothing they cast lots.
.

So again we have a scene in which the details are clearly drawn from scriptural references, which means that they aren’t historical observations. Christians have long claimed that it’s possible that Jesus really said, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” because he himself could have been quoting from Psalm 22. A long-accepted scholarly explanation for this obvious literary allusion has been that Jesus quoted from Psalm 22, which then caused the Gospel writers, or members of the early Christian community, to refer back to Psalm 22 and use it as motif for their narrative. The even more faithful explanation is of course that Psalm 22 was a prophecy and that the events of Jesus’s Crucifixion fulfilled biblical prophecy. We’ll explore that more later.

However, the problem with all of this is the fact that Psalm 22 isn’t an isolated case of literary allusion. This is literally how the entirety of the Gospel called Mark is written. Virtually every scene is a literary allusion using similar patterns to what we see here.

But these aren’t the only literary references in the Crucifixion scene in Mark.

Mark 15:
23 And they offered him wine mixed with myrrh; but he did not take it.
24 And they crucified him, and divided his clothes among them, casting lots to decide what each should take.
---
33 When it was noon, darkness came over the whole earth until three in the afternoon.
34 At three o’clock Jesus cried out with a loud voice,
.....‘Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?’ which means, ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’

These lines allude to passages from the book of Amos.

.
Amos 2:

12 But you gave the nazirites wine to drink, and you commanded the prophets, saying, Prophesy not.

Amos 8:
1 This is what the Lord God showed me—a basket of summer fruit.
2 He said, ‘Amos, what do you see?’ And I said, ‘A basket of summer fruit.’
.....Then the Lord said to me, ‘The end has come upon my people Israel; I will never again pass them by.

3 ‘The songs of the temple shall become wailings on that day,’ says the Lord God;
.....‘the dead bodies shall be many, cast out in every place. Be silent!’
---
7 The Lord has sworn by the pride of Jacob: Surely I will never forget any of their deeds.
8 Shall not the land tremble on this account, and everyone mourn who lives in it, and all of it rise like the Nile,
.....and be tossed about and sink again, like the Nile of Egypt?

9 On that day, says the Lord God, I will make the sun go down at noon, and darken the earth in broad daylight.

10 I will turn your feasts into mourning, and all your songs into lamentation; I will bring sackcloth on all loins, and baldness on every head;
.....I will make it like the mourning for an only son, and the end of it like a bitter day.

Amos 8:10, "I will turn your feasts into mourning," could explain why Passover was co-opted

I believe that the context of the passage referenced in Amos 8 leaves little doubt that the author of Mark intended for the literary allusions to give greater meaning to this scene. We see once again the use of literary allusions to passages from the Hebrew scriptures that talk about God punishing the people of Israel through destruction, which again relates to the First Jewish-Roman War and the sacking of Jerusalem in 70 CE. This ties the cursing of the fig tree, the temple scene, and the Crucifixion together. When you look at the literary allusions to Hosea 9 in both the fig tree/temple scene and the allusions to Amos in the Crucifixion scene, you see the common theme of condemnation between them.

We see the temple being reintroduced in the Crucifixion scene by saying, “Those who passed by mocked him, shaking their heads and saying, ‘Aha! You who would destroy the temple and build it in three days, save yourself, and come down from the cross’,” and the tearing of the temple curtain. This is all very symbolic and meaningful; and would have been very relevant to an audience who was aware of the recent destruction of the temple by the Romans. But all of the symbolism, foreshadowing, and meaning that we find throughout the Gospel called Mark indicates what Mark really is: a very well-crafted and well-thought-out fictional allegorical story, not a chronicle of real historical events or collection of disparate anecdotes. When you understand the literary allusions, and put the story in the context of the First Jewish-Roman War, it is clear that the symbolism and meaning of the story are really about the Jews and the war, using Jesus as a literary device.

Price, R.G. Deciphering the Gospels: Proves Jesus Never Existed. Lulu Publishing Services.

[mlinssen]

I'll still point to the observation that none of this has to do with any cross or crucifixion

So this doesn't answer Giuseppe's question at all

The question should be: is this a sensible question?
My answer is "No"

There is no crucifixion in the NT, only death on a pole - the entire crucifixion idea got spinned much later

Should we assume that only the Tanakh is decisive here, with regards to the means of killing? Or should we include the various "fulfilling of scripture" such as the gall and the wound as well?
Chicken and egg there, of course...

[MrMacSon]

I'll still point to the observation that none of this has to do with any cross or crucifixion

Sure, which is why i started another thread.

So this doesn't answer Giuseppe's question at all

I guess not, though while not explicitly addressing the very origin of the crucifixion idea, which may be impossible to determine (at present at least), I think it addresses a significant aspect of it - that it's highly likely to be a new midrashim, which is your comment -

the entire crucifixion idea got spun much later

- addresses, and I think rgprice's comments which, given the way I've posted implying Mark's and other gospel authors' use of passages as a new midrashim, aren't as stand-out as addressing origins as I could have made them -

.
--- we have a scene in which the details are clearly drawn from scriptural references, which means that they aren’t historical observation ... A long-accepted scholarly explanation for this obvious literary allusion has been that Jesus quoted from Psalm 22, which then caused the Gospel writers, or members of the early Christian community, to refer back to Psalm 22 and use it as motif for their narrative ...

I believe that the context of the passage referenced in Amos 8 leaves little doubt that the author of Mark intended for the literary allusions to give greater meaning to this [crucifixion] scene [as a whole]. We see once again the use of literary allusions to passages from the Hebrew scriptures that talk about God punishing the people of Israel through destruction, which again relates to the First Jewish-Roman War and the sacking of Jerusalem in 70 CE. This ties the cursing of the fig tree, the temple scene, and the Crucifixion together. When you look at the literary allusions to Hosea 9 in both the fig tree/temple scene and the allusions to Amos in the Crucifixion scene, you see the common theme of condemnation between them.

We see the temple being reintroduced in the Crucifixion scene by saying, “Those who passed by mocked him, shaking their heads and saying, ‘Aha! You who would destroy the temple and build it in three days, save yourself, and come down from the cross’,” and the tearing of the temple curtain. This is all very symbolic and meaningful; and would have been very relevant to an audience who was aware of the recent destruction of the temple by the Romans. But all of the symbolism, foreshadowing, and meaning that we find throughout the Gospel called Mark indicates what Mark really is: a very well-crafted and well-thought-out fictional allegorical story, not a chronicle of real historical events or collection of disparate anecdotes. When you understand the literary allusions, and put the story in the context of the First Jewish-Roman War, it is clear that the symbolism and meaning of the story are really about the Jews and the war, using Jesus as a literary device.
.

[davidmartin]

why does John give Jesus different words on the cross than Mark?

although the psalm is clearly a powerful scripture it does raise the problem of Jesus saying he is forsaken, which favours a docetic interpretation (the Christ left him on the cross). Perhaps Mark was cool with that understanding originally and lacked a resurrection narrative at one time
On the other hand, if even for historicists there is suspicion these words from the psalm are literary, then what of the words in John? Are they more believable, does it lend credibility to John which already has gained credibility over the synoptics in other areas
Doceticism may once have been quite orthodox and only later associated with flaming heretics and gnostics!

[MrMacSon]

why does John give Jesus different words on the cross than Mark?
... what of the words in John? Are they more believable, does it lend credibility to John which already has gained credibility over the synoptics in other areas.

The bible hub Greek interlinear, https://biblehub.com/interlinear/john/19.htm, gives Isaiah 50:4-11 for the first part of John 19:1-5 (alongside relevant passages in Mark, Matt., & Luke); Psalm 69:1-36 for John 19:16-27 (alongside relevant passages in Mark, Matt., & Luke);; Psalm 22:1-31 for Jn:28-30 (ditto); Zechariah12:10-14 for Jn 19:31-37 (ditto); and Isaiah 53:9-12 for John 19:38-42 (ditto).

Zech 12:10 is interesting -

And I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and compassion: and they shall look upon me, because they have mocked me, and they shall make lamentation for him, as for a beloved friend, and they shall grieve intensely, as for a firstborn son. https://studybible.info/LXX_WH-Brenton/ ... ah%2012:10

- with reference to mocking; and that they shall make lamentations; that they shall grieve as for a firstborn son; and reference to God pouring upon the House of David and the House of Jerusalem the spirit of grace and compassion.

[davidmartin]

hmmm, i think some caution is advised in tracing back things to the Hebrew scriptures?
They are pretty rich and filled with all sorts of goings-on. Unintended connections wouldn't be difficult to find but for sure there are many ones that are undeniable. I think there's little doubt the church father's spent most of their weekends seeking references to Jesus in the scriptures. I nearly bought a book once by a Catholic scholar on how these scriptures prefigure and contain every aspect of the virgin Mary, to assist protestant converts getting used to her prominent role. Seek anything in the scriptures you believe in and ye shall find it!

Hey the one i like this in Mark ""But I tell you, Elijah has come, and they have done to him everything they wished, just as it is written about him"
Jesus is quoting the scriptures about John in the way the same scriptures would later be quoted about him?!

[mlinssen]

So this doesn't answer Giuseppe's question at all

I guess not, though while not explicitly addressing the very origin of the crucifixion idea, which may be impossible to determine (at present at least), I think it addresses a significant aspect of it - that it's highly likely to be a new midrashim, which is your comment -

the entire crucifixion idea got spun much later

- addresses, and I think rgprice's comments which, given the way I've posted implying Mark's and other gospel authors' use of passages as a new midrashim, aren't as stand-out as addressing origins as I could have made them -

.
--- we have a scene in which the details are clearly drawn from scriptural references, which means that they aren’t historical observation ... A long-accepted scholarly explanation for this obvious literary allusion has been that Jesus quoted from Psalm 22, which then caused the Gospel writers, or members of the early Christian community, to refer back to Psalm 22 and use it as motif for their narrative ...

I believe that the context of the passage referenced in Amos 8 leaves little doubt that the author of Mark intended for the literary allusions to give greater meaning to this [crucifixion] scene [as a whole]. We see once again the use of literary allusions to passages from the Hebrew scriptures that talk about God punishing the people of Israel through destruction, which again relates to the First Jewish-Roman War and the sacking of Jerusalem in 70 CE. This ties the cursing of the fig tree, the temple scene, and the Crucifixion together. When you look at the literary allusions to Hosea 9 in both the fig tree/temple scene and the allusions to Amos in the Crucifixion scene, you see the common theme of condemnation between them.

We see the temple being reintroduced in the Crucifixion scene by saying, “Those who passed by mocked him, shaking their heads and saying, ‘Aha! You who would destroy the temple and build it in three days, save yourself, and come down from the cross’,” and the tearing of the temple curtain. This is all very symbolic and meaningful; and would have been very relevant to an audience who was aware of the recent destruction of the temple by the Romans. But all of the symbolism, foreshadowing, and meaning that we find throughout the Gospel called Mark indicates what Mark really is: a very well-crafted and well-thought-out fictional allegorical story, not a chronicle of real historical events or collection of disparate anecdotes. When you understand the literary allusions, and put the story in the context of the First Jewish-Roman War, it is clear that the symbolism and meaning of the story are really about the Jews and the war, using Jesus as a literary device.
.

Yes

We see the temple being reintroduced in the Crucifixion scene by saying, “Those who passed by mocked him, shaking their heads and saying, ‘Aha! You who would destroy the temple and build it in three days, save yourself, and come down from the cross’,” and the tearing of the temple curtain

Yes again. Hence why John twists it into "oh no he was talking about himself, when he said destroy and rebuild in 3 days"

Mark is all about matching scripture with events and vice versa, and Matthew exaggerates that beyond all when he makes up events so he can make up scripture - which is puzzling because at least one half of both sides of that coin should be a little true.
Or is it just the real events like the total destruction of everything Judaic, again, that necessitated the story of Judeans killing an innocent, nor a prophet this time but a Messiah?
Imagine the wrath of Gawd for doing that!

Very much like the Tanakh is written to explain historical events, the gospels are doing the exact same. And all story telling does, much like http://www.native-art-in-canada.com/turtleisland.html

But I'm not telling anything new, I suppose. I just would like to change the word 'crucifixion' to 'death', because everybody was pretty pleased with the impaling up until John, who introduces the nails - still no cross beam, but you can't get a pole in you and get nailed to it at the same time

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impalem ... ian_Empire

[Giuseppe]

My dilemma is between two possible choices:

• The SERVile supplicium for the Suffering SERVant of Isaiah.

• Numbers 21:9: the crucifixion of the Genesiac Serpent. Debt to Magne and Mergui's view for this.

My problem is that Mergui seems a Christian apologist when he explains why a pious Jew would have compared Jesus to the Genesiac Serpent.