The Crucifixion of Christ “wasn’t as bad as it’s been painted”, an outspoken Marxist academic will claim on the BBC this month.
Christ on the Cross: ‘He got off pretty lightly’ because it only took him three hours to die, says Professor Terry Eagleton, Professor of Cultural Theory at the University of Manchester.
He adds that Jesus’s scourging was a “blessing in disguise” because it hastened his death. He also attacks modern Christianity for siding with the rich and abandoning the poor.
In his talk, the 64-year-old professor recalls being taught at his Roman Catholic school that the Crucifixion was the most excruciating form of torment any human had ever endured, but he said this was “absurd”.
“The Crucifixion of Jesus wasn’t as bad as its been painted,” he says. “All things considered, he got off pretty lightly…If the New Testament account is to be believed it took him only three hours to die whereas a lot of those killed by this hideous mode of execution thrashed around on their crosses for days.” He concludes his talk with an attack on contemporary Christianity, which he says has abandoned the poor and dispossessed in favour of the “rich and aggressive”.
He continues: “It’s horrified by the sight of a female breast but nothing like as horrified by the obscene inequalities between rich and poor…By and large, it worships a god fashioned blasphemously in its own image and likeness.”
Responding to the remarks last night, Bishop Wright said: “It is all a bit tired, this rhetoric. It is all a bit sad…Of course, caricatures of Christianity are all over the place, but they do not reflect reality. He should get out more.”
Tony Kilmister, a vice-president of the Prayer Book Society, said: “Terry Eagleton is totally belittling of Christianity. How would he like it if he was strung up and scourged, let alone nailed to a cross? You would think that the BBC would let Christianity have a free run in the run-up to Easter, rather than handing the microphone to a Marxist.”
The BBC has, of course, been criticized but they say that in the run up to Easter talks will be given by six other well-known figures offering a range of perspectives. The program will be broadcast on Radio Four on Feb 20.
February 3, 2008 at 10:20 pm
In his talk, the 64-year-old professor recalls being taught at his Roman Catholic school that the Crucifixion was the most excruciating form of torment any human had ever endured, but he said this was “absurd”.
I think the word “excruciating” actually originates from the word “crucify”. That is the word means “like the crucification” So the statement he is calling absurd is really flows right from the definition as a logical tautology.
February 4, 2008 at 8:38 pm
Randy,
Verily, your attention to detail is exquisite. An excruciating crucifixion is a crucifixion that has a level of pain comensurate with a crucifixion.
And this Marxo-atheist-free thinker doubts the logical certitude of that proposition?
Excruciating is the adjective from the latin noun: crux, crucis, meaning cross. Yes, an excruciating crucifixion is a tautology (or in greek, a pleonasm).
I realize that this is not the marxist’s point. What he is saying is that some crucifixions were much worse than other’s and that Jesus wasn’t so bad off because some guys had it worse than him. Therefore, (he jumps to the conclusion) Jesus isn’t really all that special after all, and maybe he was something of a fake if he couldn’t take the worst kind of pain available to mankind at the time. Somehow the Marxist feels that this argument undercuts the central claim of christianity, which claim is (to the Marxist): Jesus Christ died a more horrible and painful death than anyone in the history of the world, past, present, or future (I haven’t looked in the Catechism but something tells me this proposition is not there). The marxist believes that he has completely undermined the reasons for a christian existence through his brilliant deduction: “some had it worse than Jesus.”
Well, maybe some had it worse than Jesus in that their crucifixions were longer lasting or more painful, but something tells me that Jesus having ALL the sins, pains, and weakness (including this bozo’s theories) of the world heaped upon him at that moment was a little bit worse than a few more hours on the cross. You won’t find me running away from the “opiate of the masses” any time soon because some professor has astutely pointed out that some might have had it worse off than Jesus.
Yes, and Jesus may have been a stone cutter, not a carpenter…Christmas falls on an ancient pagan holiday…Christians are sinners…they found an ancient tomb with the name “Jesus” on it…On and on.
These arguments are very tired, although they get new legs in every generation.
February 6, 2008 at 9:11 pm
Does ANYBODY believe in Marxisim outside of a college campus?
Don’t quit your day job buddy.