Okay, look I've been feeling this tension as we're going through the physical violence that starts to happen to Jesus,

this crossing of the Rubicon moment where we go from Jesus being untouched

and unscathed to punched in the face and then roughed up and then flogged and

then publicly humiliated and taken on its way to the cross.

And there's just a certain tone that I think you have to strike when you're talking

about something like this with a character like Jesus that has to involve a degree of respect because this is crazy stuff,

it's injustice, it's sorrowful. At the same time though, when we talk about some of these

practices in general, I think the only way to really get through

it without losing our minds is a little bit of gallows humor.

And what we're talking about today is the ancient world, particularly the Roman notion of execution, the role it played in society

and specifically the different torture methods and execution methods they used for different offenses so as to make particular

points.

Some of them are so offensive that I think I can only use euphemisms given how broadly acceptable for all

ages audiences I want this program to be but the Romans did not invent cruel and unusual punishment. In fact everybody did cruel and

unusual punishment up until very recently. It was very weird and innovative in our founding

documents, our being the United States of America to preclude cruel and

unusual punishment. The idea there was that now we're going to be a society of

laws and through civic virtue and checks and

balances and the separation of powers we are going to handle our business and

deal with really broken messed up stuff that happens in society without having to resort

to these cruel punishments that date all the way back to forever.

Obviously in Matthew 27, Jesus is about to be hers in the process of being subjected to cruel and unusual punishment

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