Posts from April 2017

The flogging scene in The Passion of the Christ portrays the brutality of the beating Jesus endured more graphically than anything I’ve seen. It must’ve been awful, yet the gospel writers mention it only in passing, it seems. Here’s Mark’s account: “. . . and having scourged Jesus, he delivered him to be crucified” (Mark 15:15b). His description leaves me wanting more. He was scourged? What does that mean? How bad was it? Mark’s readers probably needed no explanation; they knew what…