Sells has written a great deal of nonsense on this site over the years, but this one easily takes the first prize for its unmitigated delusional content.
That having been said these two references give an esoteric Spiritual Understanding of the significance of the cross, and the essential transformational sacrifice that every single human is obliged to go through sooner or later, either in this lifetime, or for how many life-times it takes for him/her to do so.
http://www.aboutadidam.org/articles/secret_identity/idol.html
http://www.aboutadidam.org/articles/secret_identity/sacrifice.html

Indeed Peter, there is no way of knowing if he said these words or the intent expressed therein? Given these word were actually written some 350-500 years after the event and based on purported she said he said hearsay!?

Furthermore, how can God literally personified, [the absolute cornerstone of a Christian belief system,] reject himself?

As seems your habit Peter, you seem to trot this stuff out as if it were factually proven, and you simply cannot claim that.

Look and it is a question of semantics, if you BELIEVE that Christ died on a cross, then in order to remain objective, and true to the mighty immutable truth, you must hold open in your mind the possibility of the opposite being true?

You are quoting from text only committed to paper, decades after the event and not by any eyewitness, but from hugely plagiarized hearsay. And for some that is good as corroborating evidence?

And that is just not so!

However if there is any semblance of truth in this account, it might just explain why the age of spontaneous miracles seems to be over?

With prayers the world over, falling on apparently deaf ears, as heinous atrocities are committed on the innocent, left, right and centre, by incredibly intense evil personified!

Surely there is no power greater than love, in this world, and nothing enough love can't solve?

But it has to be there and applied!

How many times can good folks turn the other cheek as they are lead like lambs to the slaughter!?

There's a season for everything, and now is the time to beat the plowshares into swords, [as opposed to thumping the lectern to deliver rank ideology,] and to fight a righteous war for the very survival of our Christian traditions and common human decency!
Rhrosty.

Shock of shocks, I, of all people, am going to say I understood the point he is making and relished the article.

I'm going to say this because if you can't understand what Sellick is getting at you will never understand human nature or your own set of beliefs, aspirations and motives if you claim to be a soc-dem, or see democracy and the living of life as the direction you take, stepping out.

As Nietzsche comprehended, Christianity is a fact and a reference point for civilisation. It is at the coal face of value and meaning and what's to die for and is an emphatic endorsement of the executed Socrates who earlier took a similar difficult course.

Xtianity may be disliked for its dour message, but to dislike the dialogue because it is inconvenient is only shooting the messenger and it also offers a vison of hope if you look in the right place.

If you think life is only about beer and skittles, you will disagree with me. If you think life is more complex than that, be not too severe in Sells- take what you need from him and leave the rest, without rancour- he is only another poor mug like us trying to make sense of things along the winding pilgrimage road of life.

Thanks Peter, for an interesting piece.

My take on Luke’s theology is a bit different. He is not toning down Jesus’ suffering, indeed Luke has the most graphic description of Jesus’ anguish on the night he was arrested. But Luke portrays that suffering as part of a divine plan that unfolds through and beneath the brutal human drama, a plan already prophesied in scripture (22:37; 24:25-26, 44-47). Only a suffering Messiah can bring forgiveness (22:46-47), and Jesus consents to that role when he prays, “your will be done”. So yes, Jesus is never abandoned by God. He continues God’s work to the end in several other acts reported only in Luke: healing the soldier’s ear, praying for his executioners, and promising the crucified criminal will join him in paradise. But he does suffer.

I also think that Mark having Jesus is quote psalm 22 is significant. Mark and his audience (and Jesus, come to that) would have known the source and also the rest of the psalm. It is part of a pattern of writing quite common in the Old Testament (Job, Lamentations, several psalms) which begins with a protest and lament about suffering and abandonment by God, but ends with a statement of hope and faith.

Psalm 22 begins:

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
Why are you so far from helping me, from the words of my groaning?
O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer;
and by night, but find no rest

But it ends:

Posterity will serve him;
future generations will be told about the Lord,
and proclaim his deliverance to a people yet unborn,
saying that he has done it

I believe Mark’s audience, hearing the start of the psalm, would infer its conclusion. Mark’s passion is still the bleakest of the four Gospels, but perhaps not quite as bleak as you suggest.

Rhrosty,
Mark is dated between 60 and 70 AD. At least get your facts right.

What more could we ask? posts Sells.

Well please try this, stop posting so much rubbish, Jesus may have been a historical figure (probably an Essene figure of some sect), but I think you are completely bonkers if you think he was any Sky Pilots representative on earth.

Yes Peter and apologies. Some of the "authoritative" historians I read as a much younger man have it seems been just a little generous with the truth?

However having obliged me to revisit this historical narrative, the gospels strictly speaking, only agree on just two elements, one of which seems to be the crucifixion.

And Mark's geography seems at odds with the facts, suggesting much of his narrative is invention.

Jesus seems to have claimed to not be God, nor his only son, just a man; and there seems to be no reference in Jewish texts to the foretold Nazarene or prophesized messiah as claimed by Mark? other writers have gone a far as to suggest he didn't die on that cross, but was taken down still technically alive and recovered well enough to be disinterred.Had he been buried in the ground according to modern custom, no such resurrection could have been arranged?

I've heard of some ancient medicines known to few in the middle east, can simulate the appearance of death. And have read one account (with every breath I take) where this ancient knowledge was used to fake a death, so a young woman could escape an arranged muslim marriage and, when later revived able to marry her Jewish lover?

Moreover the modern bible seems to have very little in common with the earliest known versions or the dead sea scrolls?

Yes by all means chastise me for being mislead and I will attempt at all times to get my facts straight, but never ever own my own facts Peter!
Rhrosty.