September 11, 2018 Tuesday
Bedtime Story
The Damning Discrepancies - 2
There is again a major discrepancy among
the four gospels as to who carried the cross on the way to Golgotha, the site
outside the Jerusalem for execution.
While in the three synoptic gospels it has
been stated that a man by the name of Simon from Cyrene was made to carry the
cross (in case you doubt it, please check it out in any Bible in chapters Mark
15:21, Matthew 27:32 and Luke 23:26) it is only in the fourth gospel of John
where it is stated that Jesus was made to carry the cross.
So the majority, that is three out of four,
do not make a claim that it was Jesus who was made to carry the heavy cross on
to this graveyard, and yet so appealing is this imagery of a tortured bleeding
man carrying his cross that it manages to find its way almost universally in
all the Western art forms.
Similarly the account of brutality of
flagellation (whipping) of Jesus by the guards in the court of the priests does
not find a mention in all the four gospels.
Though Mark (15:15), Matthew (27:26) and
John (19:1) clearly mention flogging of Jesus in the hands of Roman guards Luke
merely uses the word “mocking” after blindfolding him.
So of the four gospels three that are based
on each, principally on the first one Mark, mention flagellation but not the
fourth one that was written autonomously and much later.
This flagellation of Christ almost never
finds much of an attention in the Byzantine art and is extremely rarely seen in
the Eastern Orthodox Art.
Even the rendition of flagellation by Piero
della Francesca is somewhat enigmatic as the act is literally belittled by placing
it in the in the background almost at the vanishing point of the eye.
And yet the four canonical gospels of the
Bible the Matthew, Mark, Luke and John are all we have to get a complete
picture of the final moments of the life of Jesus.
They also tell a story of conspiracy of the
tribunal of rabbis of the ancient Land of Israel (Southern Levant of no proper
geographical description) to get rid of Jesus on the charge that he claimed
himself to be the King of Jews rather than for the claim to the son of the God
(though he seemed to have made both the claims).
Calling oneself the son of God would not
have contradicted any judicial stricture of the Roman jurisprudence and would
not be triable though he was certainly shown to be mocked and ridiculed by the
gospels for making that bizarre claim.
But to claim to be the ‘King of Jews’ would
certainly invoke the laws of treason as that could be proved to be a direct
challenge to the Roman authorities.
After all, Pontius Pilate the prefect of
the Roman province of Yehuda or Judea had to be seen doing justice and
conducting a fair trial even against a man who was claiming himself to be son
of God and king of Jews.
Pilate is a pivotal character in the trial of
Jesus of the New Testament.
We shall study this story of the greatest trial
ever held in the nights to come and the historical consequences that it led to.
Stay tuned to the voice of an average story storytelling
chimpanzee or login at http://panarrans.blogspot.com
Good night Mon Ami and my fellow cousin ape.
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Another great educator and a teacher that I am aware of is
Professor Subhashish Chattopadhyay in Bangalore, India.
While I narrate stories, Professor Subhashish an electronic
engineer and a former professor at BARC, does and teaches real mathematics and
physics.
He started the participation of Indian students at the
International Physics Olympiad.
Do visit him here:
All his books can be downloaded for free through this link:
For edutainment and English education of your children, I
recommend this large collection of Halloween Songs for Kids:
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