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December 25, 2007
Reflecting on a legendary capital defendant
In a year in which New Jersey abolished its death penalty and the Supreme Court has blocked all executions for the last three months, it seems appropriate on this day to reflect on history's most famous capital defendant. Helpfully, Professor Mark Osler has done just this kind of reflecting in a series of papers available on SSRN (which I think are part of a forthcoming book). Here are the papers:
December 25, 2007 at 04:40 PM | Permalink
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Comments
Doug-- Thanks for the holiday shout-out. The book, "Jesus Christ, Defendant", is completed and under contract to Abingdon Press. It will come out next winter.
I'm in total agreement with the top three in your list of stories from the year, by the way, and nothing could make me happier than those outcomes. It was a very good year.
Posted by: Mark Osler | Dec 26, 2007 12:46:35 PM
The synopsis certinly raises red flags. It says "the debate over the death penalty in the United States is largely among Christians." I wonder what data there are to suggest that is the case, other than the fact that about 82 percent of Americans identify with Christianity. The conclusion that "the death of Jesus Christ, an innocent, indicts a modern death penalty system" seems quite the stretch and is certainly in contrast to the Apostle Paul, who willingly submitted to the same system. I wonder also if the author found it signficant that Christ asserted no "rights" throughout the process and, when directly asked, formulated no complaint?
Posted by: P.S. Ruckman, Jr. | Dec 27, 2007 1:50:44 PM
