How did Jesus die?

It is ironic that you told us not to quote from the Bible when it is the Bible that tells how he died. He was arrested by the Jewish court. The Jews were upset because Jesus claimed to be God. The Romans didn't want to execute him, but the Jewish leaders insisted. It was passover and Jerusalem was filled with Jews who had come for that religious celebration. Pilate didn't want trouble from them. Some Jews supported Jesus. He had a large following. The Jewish council had to have him arrested in the middle of the night because if it had been done in day light, there would have been many Jews defending him.

Basically, he was executed for saying he was God.

Jabbed in the side with a Roman spear, held by a Roman.

He was tried and executed by the Roman authority, because, claiming to be a god, or son of said god, is disrespecting the authority of the Roman Emperor, who was viewed as a living god.

However, the New Testament states it was the Jewish authority that wanted Jesus executed for heresy and blasphemy. This the weird part.. How does anyone think that the Romans would do what the Jewish authority in Jerusalem wants?

The "Gospels" were adapted somewhat, to make the Jews look like bad guys and the Romans, who would later adopt Christianity as the Empire's official religion, appear sympathetic to Jesus.

During crucifixion, it typically took a long time to die. They left u up there for weeks sometimes. But if u do that, then one of ur loved ones could take u down before u die and nurse u back to health so for some roman crucifixions, like the crucifixion of Christ and the two criminals by his side, they would break ur legs so you'd die quicker. How does this make you die faster? Well on the cross people died of suffocation because the position of ur body compressed ur lungs. When u break the legs, ur body automatically loses support and ur body collapses on ur lungs and u die. Jesus was whipped and tortured brutally because Pilate (the roman in charge of executions) didn't see how his "crimes" were worthy of death so he just wanted to whip him. Jesus died on the cross from exhaustion -or God took him early to fulfill the prophecy of his bones not being broken, since u don't break the bones of sacrifices. When Jesus died, he opened the gates of heaven so we can go there if we're good.

Well, when you die by crucifixion it takes a while. With your arms outstretched like that your lungs fill with fluid and it gets hard to breath, and puts your heart under stress, and now you factor in the exposure to weather and no food or water, your electolytes get out of whack and the muscle cramps and contractures would be horrific lasting longer and longer with each onset, so, it is a slow process. NOT a matter of hours.

Nobody at the time could believe he was dead already after only 3 hours because a strong young man should have been making an example out there in the garbage pit for a few days at least.

So, in a nutshell, he was tortured to death.

The Jewish leaders wanted him dead because he said the Jewish folks didn't need to go through all that temple sacrifice to get a little closer to god, and recommended that they try a little kindness on each other. To not give if their hearts weren't happy with the giving and to not bother to go to temple at all if they didn't really believe and follow gods laws and the consequences of breaking them. Those were simple, dismemberment, death or damnation to a life separated from god.

The Romans wanted him to just shut up. He was making waves in an overcrowded city occupied by a hated government. They had no interest in his monotheism and were not threatened by that, but a riot couldn't be allowed to start.

So, the disciples tricked him, betrayed him and forsook him, the Jews had the Romans nab him in the garden where he went to pray.

From there he went to "court" with the Jewish leaders, and they couldn't make him commit blasphemy, so they sent him on to the Romans. The Roman leader couldn't find anything that Jesus had done against Rome and so, tried to grant Jesus clemency. The Jewish leaders whipped the crowd up into a mob and demanded that Jesus die.

So, they stuffed a crown of thorns on his head, beat his back to bloody ribbons with a bullwhip, and made him drag his crosspiece to the upright, right down the crowded streets where the angry mob threw insults and rotten food and the occasional punch as he progressed.

Then, when he got to the garbage dump, he was hoisted by his outstretched arms high enough in the air that he couldn't support his weight with his feet. And left there to die in the burning sun.

He cried out to his dad, and said why did you leave me here, I thought you loved me and would save me, but his dad didn't answer.

Heartwarming story isn't it. It is so sickening I could barely stand to write it down.

Jesus came down from heaven into his mother Mary's womb in order to become a perfect man. This was necessary because Adam, also a perfect man, lost perfection for all of his offspring. Because he and his wife sinned by eating the fruit in the Garden of Eden, a perfect life was needed to balance the scales for what Adam had done. No human could ever provide the proper sacrifice required by God, Who qualified to give his life? Well, Jesus agreed to give his life in exchange for our lives. (John 3:16) So a perfect life for a perfect life. Jesus death on a torture stake opened up the hope for all mankind to be able to get out from under sin and its effects such as crime, sickness, suffering, old age and death. We have the basis to have our sins forgiven because of the healing value of Jesus' shed blood on our behalf.

To answer your question about how Jesus actually died, he was found guilty of blasphemy by an illegal trial ( saying that he was the Son of God, which what he claimed was true.) He died by the Roman governor Pontius Pilate having him hang on a torture stake. His blood poured out until his life extinguished.

The story is that the Jewish priesthood wanted him killed as he was too popular and causing resistance to the Romans. They go to the governor and ask him to sort it out because they "have no law to put a man to death".

This is obviously false, the priesthood could have charged him with blasphemy - which carried the death penalty.

The story continues with the governor passing the case to King Herod (who died before this governor got the job) who passes the case back.

Story now says the Romans crucified him for sedition.

I think you partially don't understand the method of execution of crucifixion. Crucifixion was a painful method of execution invented by the Romans. The criminal was either nailed, tied, or both, hanging from a wooden cross. This suspension was not only extremely painful but resulted in the lungs of the victim slowly filling up with water, with the victim eventually dying by asphyxiation (suffocation/drowning). This usually took anywhere from several hours to a couple of days. So that is HOW Jesus died, but strangely, His death resulted after only a few hours, where it would normally take longer. As for WHY, there a couple different perspectives. From a purely historical/legal perspective, Jesus was executed for the crime of blasphemy...He claimed to be God, and this was a capital crime to the Jews. The Jewish leaders compelled the Roman governor to crucify Jesus (the Romans were the only ones who could legally crucify). The Roman governor Pontius Pilate likely complied with the request to avoid any Jewish dissent...He didn't want to start a revolution, so he did what the wanted. Although the excuse was that Jesus committed blasphemy, the Jewish leaders really wanted Him to be put to death because they disagreed with His teachings and spoke out against them, accusing them of hypocrisy and arrogance. As for WHY Christians believe He died on the cross, was to pay for our sins. Because we are sinful, we are incapable of pleasing God, repenting, and connecting with Him on our own. So our sins need to be paid for by someone who is sinless themselves...Jesus. Because He lived a sinless life and because He was God in the flesh (and thus eternal), He was able to bear the eternal punishment due to us for our sins on the cross. God poured out all His wrath against our sin on His own son, so that our relationship with Him can be restored. Then, God comes to live inside us and help us fight the desire to sin while we are alive, He makes a new to live for Him, He "saves" us, not from hell, but from sin. Since we are free from sin, when we die, we will be with God and thus alive spiritually, and when it is time, we will be resurrected like Jesus into new, sin-free, glorified bodies to live forever on a new perfect earth. That is WHY Jesus died on the cross.

EDIT: Oh, and you are very correct, humanity is still going downhill. Jesus did not die to make to world a better place, He died to save those who believe in and follow Him, which He often said would be relatively few. He even specifically says that He came not to bring peace, but a sword. This means that He didn't come to make the world a better place, but to separate those who believe (few) from those who don't (many). The reason the world is such a crappy place and is getting crappier is because very few truly follow Jesus and His teachings. But eventually, God will destroy all the crap and make everything new and perfect, and those who believe and repent will enjoy eternity with Him.

He was executed by the Roman authorities as a common criminal and trouble-maker. He was just one of a long line of victims of ruthless Roman oppression against non-citizens of their empire. If jesus had been a Roman citizen, he may have escaped that fate.

The story about Jesus's trial and execution in the New Testament is obviously made-up. No common criminal would be granted a private audience with a Roman governor, nor would a Roman governor release a murderer of Romans back to the crowd to be set free. The entire story is absurd.

Dear Wendy,

Since your question appears to be sincere I'll leave this answer here for you to consider.

Firstly Jesus did not die on the cross. The ancient Romans would use a torture stake, an upright pole, to crucify people. And that is the manner in which Jesus died. It was called a "torture stake" because it was one of the greatest forms of torture a person could experience.

Firstly his hands are held up and then probably at about the wrists a nail is driven through both of them together and driven into the stake. The same is also done to the feet.

Now the pain would be simply horrendous. Imagine Jesus shifting the whole weight of his body to his hands until he could stand the pain no longer, and then shifting it to his feet to give his upper body a tiny relief from the pain of having to hold his entire weight on the nail driven though him, as the stake stands upright.

A person in this condition can live a very long time too. Jesus though did not live that long. Why?

Because the night previous and during the morning he was severely tortured as well, including being flogged, among other things. So he was already in a weakened state.

He did not commit suicide nor did his Father, Jehovah God put him to death. Rather he was murdered.

Right before he died the connection he had to his Father, which he had since the beginning, when he was first created in heaven as God's only-begotten son was removed from him.

For the first time in his untold billions of years of existence he felt the emptiness of not having Jehovah's holy spirit (something that you and the majority of mankind live with). And he could not endure the feeling. At that moment all of the pains and sufferings and sins of the entire human family rushed in on him and he cried out in deep despair:

“E′li, E′li, la′ma sa·bach·tha′ni?” that is, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

And then he expired. Some say that he actually died of a broken heart at that point, his heart not being able to bear it any longer.

That Wendy, is what Jesus went through and suffered for you and for me.

Why did he have to die?

Mankind was created in perfection as was all other things. But he used his freewill to lose that perfection. Our ancestors, Adam and Eve lost perfection.

Because we are the offspring of the first human pair, conceived in sin, we too bare the mark of sin. That is why we get sick, are born with defects, grow old, and eventually die.

God is a God of love and of justice. The scales of justice require that a perfect human life be given in order to ransom humankind from sin.

Jesus was born perfect, because he was not a descendant of Adam. He descended from the heavens above and was born a human child and lived a perfect life and willingly offered up that life to ransom humanity. He reclaimed what the first man, Adam had lost.

Many people ridicule him and his story. But if you actually ever really take time to ponder it, and what he did, it is one of surpassing love, a beautiful story.

And the life that he lead, as told in the gospel accounts, the way he treated people, is one of a unique person of tremendous love and humility. Napoleon Bonaparte, a military genious, a leader of people, a stalwart in human history, a person who had armies at his command, and no doubt knew human nature once stated: "I know men and I tell you that Jesus Christ is no mere man. Between him and every other person in the world there is no possible term of comparison. Alexander, Caesar, Charlemagne, and I founded empires. But on what did we rest the creations of our genius? Upon force. Jesus Christ founded His empire upon love; and at this hour millions of people would die for Him."

Jesus was going around claiming to be the Messiah and the King of the Jews. Lots of other people did that before him. A notable example was Judas the Galilean who led a military revolt against Rome.

So the Romans were familiar with what "Messiah" entailed, and claiming to be one made you liable to death for treason.

And that's what happened to Jesus.