Greco-Roman Religions
Did Christians Invent the Idea of “Atonement” / “Vicarious Suffering”?
My textbook, The New Testament: A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings is now out in its 8th edition, co-authored with my colleague Hugo Mendez. One of my favorite features of the book since I first wrote it in the mid 90s is the use of side-bar “boxes” that deal with issues that are – to me – particularly interesting but not directly related to what I’m talking about in the chapter. As a rule I use these boxes to deal with highly relevant but more “human-interest” kinds of things. For a long time I’ve thought about the Christian idea that Jesus’s death was a “vicarious atonement” for sins. It’s an unusual view, when you think about it. Why does God need someone else to die for you to forgive what you’ve done? Can’t he just forgive you? In one of the boxes in the book I point out that Christians were not the first to come up with the idea. Here’s what I say there in a box in my chapter 16. ****************************** [...]