Sacrifice

[Wootah]

Hi all,

Any Girard fans here?

The Bible is the only book I am aware of where we are meant to identify with the crowd and not with the hero.

Apparently sociologically humanity has always scapegoated someone (we still do it) but in the Bible we finally see that the sacrificial victim was innocent and was God.

Are you sure you want to tear this story down? Do we really want to stop honouring victims and go back to worshiping super humans?

[theophile]

Hi all,

Any Girard fans here?

The Bible is the only book I am aware of where we are meant to identify with the crowd and not with the hero.

Apparently sociologically humanity has always scapegoated someone (we still do it) but in the Bible we finally see that the sacrificial victim was innocent and was God.

Are you sure you want to tear this story down? Do we really want to stop honouring victims and go back to worshiping super humans?

Not an expert in Girard by any means, but I think the bible agrees on the importance of the scapegoating mechanism in the history of human development. And that the crucifixion should break the cycle and reset us on the path of Gen 1-2, prior to the original blame game of Gen 3 that ushered in the fallen world you describe (where as you say, "humanity has always scapegoated someone").

Definitely some wisdom there if we care to see it.

[1213]

...sacrificial victim was innocent and was God.
...

Hi, why do you think he was God?

[TRANSPONDER]

Hi all,

Any Girard fans here?

The Bible is the only book I am aware of where we are meant to identify with the crowd and not with the hero.

Apparently sociologically humanity has always scapegoated someone (we still do it) but in the Bible we finally see that the sacrificial victim was innocent and was God.

Are you sure you want to tear this story down? Do we really want to stop honouring victims and go back to worshiping super humans?

I'm not so sure about that. Jesus is the hero for sure. The Jews are a crowd that we absolutely are NOT supposed to identify with. Even the disciples are little more than stooges for super- Jesus, the bestest evah, to play off to display his superiority. We may be invited to become one of the adoring crowd cheering and clapping our hero, but they are extras, and we don't identify with them. Jesus is the man, and of course, Super-man as well.

[Difflugia]

The Bible is the only book I am aware of where we are meant to identify with the crowd and not with the hero.

Apparently sociologically humanity has always scapegoated someone (we still do it) but in the Bible we finally see that the sacrificial victim was innocent and was God.

The problem I have is that Girard conflates the New Testament as it is and as a whole with the harmonizing theology of orthodox Christianity. His analysis may have meaning for modern Christianity, but since there isn't a unified theology of the scapegoat across the New Testament, an analysis based on such a unified theology must fail.

Paul's Christ, for example, isn't a scapegoat. It isn't the crowd or society at large that crucifies Jesus, but the "rulers of this age" doing so with the intention of thwarting God's purposes. Paul's Jesus isn't a scapegoat in the Old Testament sense, but is a more classic hero in the battle of good versus evil. He does draw on sacrificial themes from the Old Testament, but focus is never on Jesus as innocent victim, but is on Christ as victor, preordained by God against the machinations of the forces of darkness. That's the opposite of the psychological image that Girard is trying to project onto the New Testament.

Mark's Jesus is a slight modification of a tragic hero. His tragic flaw is his faith in his disciples' trustworthiness, leading to his betrayal by Judas, denial by Peter, and finally the women fleeing the tomb without passing on his message. The catharsis is in the knowledge that all Jesus was and worked for was apparently erased because he relied on failed disciples. The post-cathartic implication is that the message has been rescued in the form of Mark's Gospel. The next set of disciples, the readers of Mark, now have the opportunity to not fail Jesus as the first set had.

Matthew and Luke offer similar literary features to each other. The crucifixion of Jesus isn't scapegoating in any substitutionary sense, but is again an attempt by the powerful and evil to subjugate those that are good, but powerless. Rather than dying in anguish with a loud cry, this Jesus returns from the dead to claim at least temporary victory, preparing his followers for the battles to come. That's not a scapegoat, but a classic hero again.

John's Gospel may fit Girard's analysis, but only John's Gospel. but even then, only imperfectly. Jesus is unambiguously the Passover sacrifice in John, but John's Jesus is never a victim. John's Jesus not only fully accepts God's plan, but exerts his power over those arresting him before allowing himself to be led away. There's no idea of "may this cup pass," but the exact opposite, "shall I not drink this cup?" In order to arrive at Girard's concept of sacrificial victim, one must combine the substitutionary atonement offered by John's Lamb of God with the tragic catharsis of Mark's tragic hero. We see that combination in Christianity as a modern theological construct, but the Bible itself doesn't connect those two quite different ideas of Jesus by any other means than mere proximity.

[TRANSPONDER]

That's very good. The idea is or becomes (apparently) a human blood sacrifice as a sin offering (which isn't quite the scapegoat which was an actual animal picked to carry the sins of the people out of the city). But it's more a parallel to the working of a sin -offering rather than being what the crucifixion was.

But you point up what has been seen: "Jesus was slightly inconvenienced for your sins". Crucifixion is not pleasant, but people have had worse than that, and they didn't get resurrected three days later. It is not a blood sacrifice, when (say, as an analogy) you take it back before the priest can actually put the knife to its' throat. Why does God need to cheat himself with a sacrifice that really isn't to make a loophole in a law that he passed himself? It makes no sense at all and never did.

[Wootah]

[Replying to Difflugia in post #5]

We see that combination in Christianity as a modern theological construct, but the Bible itself doesn't connect those two quite different ideas of Jesus by any other means than mere proximity.

Matthew 13 This is why I speak to them in parables:

“Though seeing, they do not see;
though hearing, they do not hear or understand.

14 In them is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah:

“‘You will be ever hearing but never understanding;
you will be ever seeing but never perceiving.
15 For this people’s heart has become calloused;
they hardly hear with their ears,
and they have closed their eyes.
Otherwise they might see with their eyes,
hear with their ears,
understand with their hearts
and turn, and I would heal them.’[a]

Whole of Matthew 13 is worth reading for the parable of the sower.
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?s ... ersion=NIV

--

The Bible story is the beginning and end of all stories. Jesus is the logos, the all in all, where mercy and justice meet, where the centre and the outside are reconciled, where opposites like God and man are reconciled. So to nit-pick about it not meeting fully with someone's analysis when that person who made the analysis can see it in the Bible is a bit ludicrous.

Yes, there is a scapegoat story, Yes there is a returning hero story. Jesus fulfils all righteousness cannot be understated and should be taken literally.

Difflugia, rather than coming from ignorance, you seem to be one that can see all this and reject it.

[The Nice Centurion]

Hi all,

Any Girard fans here?

The Bible is the only book I am aware of where we are meant to identify with the crowd and not with the hero.

What about Tommy ?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tommy_(1975_film)

[The Nice Centurion]

And it comes to my mind that in every detective novel the reader is supposed to identify himself not with the sleuth genius, but with the awing crowd.

A detective novel seeds clues to make it possible for the reader to solve the riddle before the detective, but this is rarely accomplished.

Rarely one identifies with Sherlock Holmes, Nero Wolfe, Doctor Fell, Hercule Poirot, Miss Marple, Nancy Drew, Laura Bow, Shirley Holmes, Detective Conan and the Lot. Rather one feels with the awing people around him!