Facebook apologizes to Jews for Facebook poll on Jesus

"Fox Latin America has apologized for a poll on whether Jews killed Jesus Christ that one of its staffers put on a Facebook page promoting the National Geographic Channel's Christmas special."

This is outrageous, don't you think?

http://xfinity.comcast.net/articles/news-world-latinamerica/20111229/LT.Fox.Nat.Geo.Jesus.Poll/

What is outrageous? the fact they the pull the poll or the fact they put it up in the first place?

edited 30th Dec '11 11:37:49 AM by joeyjojo

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I think the thread title has a bit of an error after I read your OP :P

It's not that unusual for a company to apologize for the actions of one of its employees, if that's what you're talking about. There's a need to save company face in situations like these. And wow, that was... an unwise thing to put on Facebook regardless of who you work for.

I thought the whole idea was that Jesus would be sacrificed no matter what.

I'm a skeptical squirrel

I never got the Jews killed Jesus deal: According to the Christian narrative, wasn't he nailed by the Romans, accused of sedition?

You exist because we allow it and you will end because we demand it.

I gave up trying to understand Christians. Remember the wacky Curse of Ham?

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Sorry! I meant to say, "Fox apologizes to Jews for Facebook poll on Jesus". My bad!

At least according to some versions of the story, the Jews (rabbis? Idunno) who advised Pontius Pilate told him to punish Jesus for whatever it was he was accused of. Supposedly, he was as much a threat to the rabbi's power as he was to the Romans. *shrug*

If the Jews had killed Jesus, Jesus would have been stoned. That would have been well possible. However, he was crucified, which was a Roman hallmark execution style, so it was pretty clearly the Romans who did it.

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The Romans weren't exactly around for Christians to ostracize for long, though, were they? In any case, the idea comes from the fact that the Jewish crowds and authorities apparently urged for Jesus to be put to death, not who did the actual execution. Guilt by association or some such thing.

Well, technically the Romans killed Jesus in the sense that they were his Executioners. According to texts Jesus was first tried by Jewish High Priests and then given to the Romans.

Bear in mind though that the whole texts we have on the issue has about so much credability to beeing a 100% true accord of what happened as a very badly edited Wikipedia article.

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Accusing the Romans of killing Jesus is kind of missing the point. It's not about who drove the nails, it's about who caused his death. Like how somebody who puts out a hit is still a murderer even though they didn't pull the trigger.

As is the hitman.

I know, but that doesn't really fit to what we know of Roman rule in the provinces. There were local courts trying people for local crimes, yes - but as I've said, if Jesus had really been condemned by the High Priests, he would have been stoned, normally.

edited 30th Dec '11 12:55:08 PM by Octo

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Everything above: Sorta. Here's the clumsy crash-course version...

Judea was a Roman-occupied satellite province, but a lot of local matters were run by the Sanhedrin, a group of Pharisees who had previously gained favor with the Romans, and promptly got very corrupt as favored political groups are wont to do. Throughout his preaching, Jesus actually did a pretty decent job of not pissing off the Romans, but he pissed off the Pharisees a lot by repeatedly calling them out on bullshit. This peaked during the whole throwing tables thing right after he walked into Jerusalem, which struck the Pharisees in the wallet.

Go figure from there; within a week, the Pharisees arrested Jesus on charges of blasphemy, passed him through their own kangaroo court, then submitted him to Roman officials. Since Sanhedrin blasphemy charges held no power in Roman courts, they trumped it up to sedition to bring things up to execution.

The local Roman prefect, Pilate, took one look at the case, facepalmed, and used the convenient excuse that Jesus was technically out of his jurisdictional area to send him to Herod*

instead to get it out of his own hair. Herod interrogated him and found nothing wrong, and sent Jesus back to Pilate. Pilate interrogated Jesus as well and found him a bit uncanny, but also nothing execution-worthy, and called BS on the Pharisees. Unfortunately, there was enough of a rabid mob going on that he went ahead and accepted the sedition charges to execute him rather than risk a revolt — which would've been a pretty nasty thing to put down that far away from the bulk of Roman power.

So yes, for all practical purposes a very particular group of Jews experiencing governmental corruption hardly unique to them did pester lazy officials of a backwater Roman territory badly enough to kill Jesus. Who was himself a Jew. As were pretty much all of his initial followers. And saying "the Jews killed Jesus!" while not exactly false, completely misses the point of...well...everything.

edited 30th Dec '11 1:06:14 PM by Pykrete

Except Pilate, according to independent sources was not the type to be pushed around by the people whose country he was in charge of, in fact his actions as governor provoked more than one riot. Keep in mind that the Gospels were written after the Jewish revolt and the destruction of the temple (thus the "preDition" of it's being destroyed in the Gospels) and the writers were probably trying to curry favor with the Romans since they were between persecutions at the time and would want it to stay that way.

As to the actual poll yes, it's apalling but not very surprising. I'd be interested in what the results were before it got pulled. Betting the "jews killed Jesus" mentality was ahead.

edited 30th Dec '11 1:09:43 PM by tricksterson

Trump delenda est

Yeah, fair enough. What I posted is the way the Gospels claim it, which is likely what anyone trying to be an antisemitic douche about it is going to care about more anyway.

Very interesting summation, Pyk. Thanks.

edited 30th Dec '11 1:18:28 PM by johnnyfog

I'm a skeptical squirrel

Awesome recap Pykrete

edited 30th Dec '11 1:37:56 PM by 3of4

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I always thought that the point was Jesus' sacrifice was a good thing since it enabled mankind to find Salvation; that it's not about who committed the act or why they did it, but why Jesus went along with it quite willingly.

Maybe I'm the one that's wrong - I'm not an expert, nor am I religious - but I always felt that the people trying to find blame twenty centuries after the event was supposed to have happened are the ones who are missing the point.

edited 30th Dec '11 1:49:34 PM by TheBatPencil

And let us pray that come it may (As come it will for a' that)

The Romans were notorious for crucifying provincials who got uppity and started rabble-rousing: If Jesus made claims to Kingship of the Jews, they might consider'im a rebel leader and nail'im without Jewish intervention whatsoever.

You exist because we allow it and you will end because we demand it.

Yeah, I was under the impression that God killed Jesus.

That's the perfectly reasonable and valid counter-argument to "the jews killed Jesus(!)," but "the Roman's killed Jesus(!)" is changing the subject alltogether and completely misses the point of why the argument came up in the first place.

I'm a skeptical squirrel

What Pykrete said. Good summantion, and that's how I understood the Gospel accounts to follow. Pilate acquiesed to avoid a possible revolt, as he didn't want that sort of thing on his record. It's been said (somewhere, i forget where) that Pilate was already in a bit of trouble with Rome. Judea wasn't exactly choice duty.

But in the end, He was supposed to die. Assigning blame for it is missing the point entirely, although if you want to get nitty-gritty, everyone had a hand in it, including people already dead at the time, and those not even born. The whole "dying for the sins of the world" thing.

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