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Additional Notes §55

23:26 / Because Luke omits Mark 15:16–20a, the passage that describes the Roman soldiers’ mistreatment of Jesus, it could be that the evangelist intends to leave the impression that the Jews themselves crucified Jesus. J. T. Sanders (p. 226) thinks so. This could be, but Luke does mention the centurion later in v. 47. Surely this is supposed to be a Roman centurion (and not a Jewish one). Sanders (p. 228) agrees. Because Luke leaves this Roman at the site of the crucifixion, one could argue that Luke has all along understood that the Romans crucified Jesus, and he no doubt assumed that his readers would know this. Who else had the authority to crucify people in the Roman Empire? I think that Luke has omitted the part about the abuse of Jesus not to implicate the Jews, but to mitigate Roman cruelty. Luke retains the centurion’s confession (modifying it, of course, to that of a pronouncement of Jesus’ innocence), just as he will in the Book of Acts provide other Roman pronouncements that favor Christianity.

23:26–31 / With the exception of the opening verse (v. 26, cf. Mark 15:20b–21), this passage is unique to Luke. J. T. Sanders (p. 226) comments that this episode “dramatically brings [Jewish] guilt into view.” True, Jerusalem’s guilt in executing Jesus is implied, but the main point of the passage consists of Jesus’ warning, not in finding yet more reason to condemn the Jews. The women should weep for themselves, for catastrophe will befall the city. The pathos of this scene belies an anti-Semitic orientation (see also 23:48). Tiede (p. 414) catches the import of the passage when he says that “the meaning of the oracle is its profound declaration that Jesus’ death is more a tragedy for Israel than for the Messiah himself.”

23:29 / The Gospel of Thomas 79b (see note on 11:27–28 above) has apparently picked up this otherwise unique Lucan saying: “For there will be days when you will say, ‘Blessed are the womb which has not conceived and the breasts which have not given milk.’ ” This saying has been combined with the similar saying found in Luke 11:27–28.

23:30 / The citation of Hosea is appropriate to the Lucan context. In Hos. 10:7–8 the prophet predicts the destruction of Israel’s high places and altars (i.e., Israel’s places of idol worship).

23:33 / The Skull: As to why the place of Jesus’ execution was called the Skull opinions vary. Fitzmyer (p. 1503) states that the “place was probably so called because of the physical shape of a hill, not because it was a place of skulls.” The exact opposite opinion is expressed in HBD, p. 150. Following a Jewish legend, a few early church fathers entertained the notion that Golgotha was the place where Adam was buried, and it was his skull that gave the place its name.

they crucified him: HBD (p. 194) provides this description of Roman crucifixion: “With a placard proclaiming the crime hung around the neck, the condemned prisoner carried the crossbar, not the whole cross, to the place of execution where the upright stake was already in place. There the offender was stripped and flogged. The prisoner’s arms were affixed to the crossbar with ropes or nails, and the crossbar was then raised and attached to the upright stake. A small wooden block attached to the stake beneath the buttocks supported the weight of the suspended body, which was bound to the stake with ropes. Often the feet were also affixed to the stake with ropes or nails. Because deterrence was a primary objective, the cross was always erected in a public place. Death came slowly, often only after several days, and resulted from the cumulative impact of thirst, hunger, exhaustion, exposure, and the traumatic effects of the scourging. After death the body was usually left hanging on the cross. Because of the protracted suffering and the extreme ignominy of this manner of execution, it was viewed by the Romans as the supreme penalty, the ‘most wretched of deaths’ (Josephus), and generally reserved for the lowest classes and the most heinous crimes” (see HBD, pp. 194–95 for further discussion). For further discussion of important archaeological data pertinent to Roman crucifixion see James H. Charlesworth, “Jesus and Jehohana: An Archaeological Note on Crucifixion,” ExpTim 84 (1973), pp. 147–50. When the victims were nailed to the cross, the iron spikes transfixed the wrists (not palms). For further discussion see J. A. Fitzmyer, “Crucifixion in Ancient Palestine, Qumran Literature, and the New Testament,” CBQ 40 (1978), pp. 493–513.

23:34a / The earliest manuscripts do not contain the first part of v. 34 (“Jesus said, ‘Father forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.’ ”). The saying may have been inserted as a parallel to Acts 7:60b where Stephen offers a similar prayer of forgiveness (see Fitzmyer, pp. 1503–4). If original (so Ellis, pp. 267–68; Marshall, p. 868; Schweizer, pp. 359–60; J. T. Sanders, p. 227), it presents Jesus as willing to forgive those who have committed an inexcusable crime against him. Jesus asks that they be forgiven on the grounds that they did not know what they were doing. According to Lev. 4:2 and Num. 15:25–29, atonement is possible for one who has sinned unwittingly. Perhaps this underlies Jesus’ prayer. Sanders (p. 63) thinks that the purpose of this prayer is only to make possible the initial offer of repentance to the Jewish people (as seen in the early chapters of Acts), an offer that is withdrawn after the martyrdom of Stephen. This line of interpretation is surely faulty. Since Stephen’s prayer (Acts 7:60) closely parallels the prayer of Jesus, should not the same function be assigned to it as well? Why would Jesus’ prayer of forgiveness make possible the offer of repentance to Jews, while Stephen’s similar prayer would not? The Lucan prayers of forgiveness are not clever devices that are designed, as part of an anti-Semitic agenda, to advance the plot of the Lucan narrative (as J. T. Sanders maintains). These prayers represent a genuine desire for reconciliation. It is hard to believe that if the evangelist were truly anti-Semitic, as Sanders supposes, he would go out of his way to supply two prayers of forgiveness in behalf of persons who have been presented as wrongly putting to death Jesus and one of his followers. Had Luke truly hated the Jews, and believed that there could be no forgiveness for them, he could have adopted a much harsher biblical precedent. Consider the words of an angry Isaiah: “Forgive them not!” (Isa. 2:6, 9). Compare also the unforgiving words of the martyred sons of the Maccabean revolt: “For you [i.e., Antiochus IV] there will be no resurrection to life!” (2 Macc. 7:14); “Keep on, and see how [God’s] mighty power will torture you and your descendants!” (2 Macc. 7:17); “Do not think that you will go unpunished for having tried to fight against God!” (2 Macc. 7:19; cf. the parallel versions in 4 Macc. 9:9, 32; 10:11, 21; 12:12, 14, 18; 5 Macc. 5:17, 23, 46–51). Nothing is more out of step with these embittered expressions than the prayers of forgiveness we find on the lips of two significant protagonists in the narrative of Luke–Acts.

23:35 / rulers: By this expression we are probably to understand members of the Sanhedrin, ruling priests, and other persons of influence.

23:38 / The inscription on Jesus’ cross presents some difficulties, for it appears in a variety of forms in the Gospels:

Mark 15:26	THE KING OF THE JEWS
Luke 23:38	THIS IS THE KING OF THE JEWS
Matt. 27:37	THIS IS JESUS, THE KING OF THE JEWS
John 19:19–20	JESUS OF NAZARETH, THE KING OF THE JEWS
	(written in Aramaic, Latin, and Greek)
Slavonic Josephus	[… at one of the gates leading into the temple] with inscriptions hung a … tablet with inscription in these [Greek, Roman, and Jewish] characters, to the effect: Jesus has not reigned as king; he has been crucified by the Jews because he proclaimed the destruction of the city and the laying waste of the temple (from the Slavonic version of War 5.5.2 [5.190–200, LCL]).

23:43 / in paradise: The word ultimately comes from the LXX translation of “garden” in Gen. 2:8 and 13:10. Eventually it came to refer to the abode of the righteous dead (see 2 Cor. 12:4 and Rev. 2:7). See HBD, pp. 749–50.