The Argument From Prophecy Should Be Brought Up In The Easter Context

I've discussed the neglect of the argument from prophecy. That's especially relevant to the Easter season, since so many of the best arguments from prophecy are closely associated with Easter. Go here for a collection of some of our posts on Messianic prophecy. See here for a collection of resources on prophecy more broadly.

One way to summarize some of the issues involved is to mention that the penal practices of the Roman empire, which were chosen by non-Christians rather than Christians, line up well with what's anticipated in passages like Psalm 22 and the third Servant Song in Isaiah 50.

Another good way of summarizing some of the issues is to mention how well the chronological factors in passages like Daniel's Seventy Weeks prophecy align with Jesus' life, in ways that the early Christians didn't control (Jesus' execution within the relevant timeframe, the destruction of both Jerusalem and the temple afterward, etc.).

I'm just providing some examples. Whether you use these or others, it's important to make use of the argument from prophecy, since it's so valuable and has been so neglected.

The Cumulative Case For A Christian Understanding Of Psalm 22

I want to put links to some of the relevant posts in our archives in one place:

Is Psalm 22 Messianic?
The Jewishness Of The Individual In Psalm 22
How Well The Psalm Aligns With Roman Crucifixion
How Verse 16 Should Be Rendered
The Individual In Psalm 22 Is Delivered From Death
The Events Of Psalm 22 Are Highly Influential Geographically And Chronologically
Is Psalm 22 too vague to have evidential value for Christianity?
How Well Psalm 22 Aligns With Other Old Testament Passages That Have Evidential Value For Christianity

Is Psalm 22 too vague?

One of the popular objections to Christian arguments for prophecy fulfillment is that the prophetic passages are too vague. Can Psalm 22 be dismissed that way?

Is Psalm 22 Messianic?

A common objection to Christian arguments for prophecy fulfillment is that the Old Testament passages don't identify themselves as Messianic. But they wouldn't have to in order to have evidential significance.

Prophecy fulfillment can have evidential value without the prophecy being Messianic, explicitly identifying itself as Messianic, or anything like that. The Messianic nature of a passage can be implicit rather than explicit. And a passage doesn't have to be Messianic to provide evidence for Christianity. Christians consider Jesus the Messiah, but there are many subcategories to the category of Messiah. A prophecy could refer to one of those subcategories without addressing the larger category. And, from a Christian perspective, Jesus is more than the Messiah. So, Messianic prophecy isn't all that's relevant.

With Psalm 22, what we have is a psalm that's attributed to David, but we don't know of anything in David's life that even comes close to fulfilling the passage, and the contents of the psalm are of such a nature that they're highly unlikely to have happened in David's life in some context that's not part of any of our extant records of his life. Then we have the fact that David is often assigned a lot of Messianic significance elsewhere in the Old Testament, such as being an ancestor of the Messiah. And the geographical and chronological influence of the figure in the psalm (verses 27-31) suggests a highly significant and influential individual. That doesn't require a Messianic understanding of the psalm, but a Messianic fulfillment helps make sense of those closing verses. It adds coherence to the psalm. Furthermore, we know that a later figure widely considered the Messiah, Jesus, died in a manner that aligns well with the psalm and was thought to have experienced a deliverance from that death (his resurrection). The themes of death and deliverance from it are prominent elsewhere in material Christians (and others) have argued is Messianic elsewhere in the Old Testament, and the psalm fits well with those passages (as discussed here, for example). For reasons like these, it makes sense to consider the passage Messianic, though implicitly rather than explicitly.

That's a secondary issue, though. The psalm doesn't have to be considered Messianic in order for Jesus' fulfillment of it to be evidentially valuable. Even if you identify the figure in the passage as a highly influential Jewish individual or whatever else other than calling him the Messiah, Jesus' alignment with the passage makes more sense as something supernatural than something natural. That's the primary issue, not whether the psalm should be categorized as Messianic.

The Closing Verses Of Psalm 22 Favor A Christian Interpretation Of The Psalm

One of the aspects of Psalm 22 that doesn't get enough attention is how the psalm ends. The individual in the passage is approaching death (verses 15 and 20-21), apparently at the hands of the enemies mentioned in the psalm, who are likened to animals. He asks for deliverance from those enemies, but says nothing of deliverance from some other manner of death, like an illness. And he is delivered. We're not told how he's delivered, but we're told that he is (verses 22-24). Verses 27-31 refer to the major significance of what's happened, how people across the world will hear about it and turn to God as a result of what's been accomplished. Those verses refer to widespread influence both geographically and chronologically.

That's happened on a large scale with Jesus. There have been widespread discussions of his execution in Christian and non-Christian sources from the first century onward.

By contrast, none of the many records we have of David's life describe anything even close to what Psalm 22 depicts. It seems unlikely, given what we know of David's life, that events such as those described in Psalm 22 happened to him. So, a fulfillment in David's life seems unlikely upfront, and it isn't referred to elsewhere in the oldest records we have of his life. An advocate of David's fulfillment of the passage could appeal to the psalm itself as evidence, but the widespread influence described in the closing verses of the psalm make more sense if they refer to something that would be discussed elsewhere as well.

The Christian understanding of the passage not only has the psalm itself recording the events, but also has the events being widely discussed from early on after the events, both geographically and chronologically, in contexts independent of Psalm 22. The closing verses of the psalm make more sense under the traditional Christian understanding.

New Projects From A Group That Funded Tom Schmidt's Book On Josephus And Jesus

I've written some posts that cite Tom Schmidt's recent book on Josephus and Jesus. He recently mentioned that an organization that funded his book is in the process of making a documentary about it, and they've referred to other projects they're working on. Here's something from a page at their web site about their projects:

"Other projects of ours span biblical times to well into the Christian era. They include new evidence regarding the extraordinary spread of ancient Christianity in East Asia, a new discovery of perhaps the earliest Christian artifact, new testimony concerning the famous darkness of the crucifixion, among others."

A Good Discussion Of Psalm 22 And Isaiah 53

Michael Flowers recently recorded a video with Joshua Pearsall about the two passages. They make some good points about the passages and respond to some objections raised by critics (Dan McClellan, Kipp Davis, Tovia Singer, Bart Ehrman).

Michael has also written a good article about Psalm 22:16, which I discussed in an earlier post.

You can find a listing of some of our posts on Messianic prophecy fulfillment, in canonical order, here. And here's a collection of posts on prophecy issues more broadly.

Evidence Of How Psalm 22:16 Should Be Rendered

Michael Flowers has produced a series of videos on Psalm 22:16, in which he makes a lot of significant points about the passage. He's also published an article discussing thirteen proposed renderings of the passage and assessing their strengths and weaknesses. Notice how easily most of the proposed readings can be reconciled with crucifixion. The traditional Christian view involving digging, boring through, or piercing is supported by the earliest versions of Psalm 22 that we have. As Flowers notes, "In an article from 1897 Henri Lesêtre observed that although Justin Martyr quotes Ps 22 for his Jewish interlocutor Trypho and appeals to it as a proof-text for Christ’s crucifixion, he never pauses to consider Jewish objections to the Septuagint rendering of v. 17 [verse 16 in Christian Bibles]. Since Justin is aware of other Jewish objections to Septuagint renderings – as in Dial. 67 where the term παρθένος in Isa 7:14 is discussed at length – Lesêtre hypothesized that כארו was still the established reading in the mid-second century." Justin's comments are in section 97 of his Dialogue if you want to read what he wrote for yourself. Furthermore, multiple other details in the psalm suggest a crucifixion, one with Roman characteristics, as I've discussed elsewhere. The language Christians appeal to in Psalm 22:16 was circulating in versions of that psalm in antiquity and seems to have been circulating widely, including in pre-Christian sources. If that language was a textual corruption, then was it a mere coincidence that such unusual textual mistakes so favorable to Christianity entered the manuscript record and became so popular? If somebody is going to advocate that sort of view, we should note how often he appeals to such unusual alleged mere coincidences in other contexts as well, such as with regard to other details in Psalm 22 and in other contexts related to prophecy fulfillment (Jesus just happened to be raised in Nazareth in the region of Zebulun in line with Isaiah 9:1, the flogging in the Servant Song in Isaiah 50 just happens to line up with the common Roman practice of flogging an individual before crucifixion, the Romans just happened to destroy both Jerusalem and the temple in line with Daniel's Seventy Weeks prophecy, etc.). And if the alternative reading of Psalm 22:16 that's adopted is one like the popular Jewish rendering involving a lion doing something to the hands and feet, we should ask what's being accomplished by going with that sort of reading. Even though it wouldn't support a Christian understanding of the psalm as much as a traditional Christian version of the text would, it's still singling out the hands and feet in a significantly unusual way and can easily be reconciled with crucifixion.

The Significance Of The Nakedness And Clothing In Psalm 22

I want to address some details of Psalm 22 that don't get discussed enough. My focus here is on verses 17-18.

Jesus' Fulfillment Of Psalm 22

One For Israel recently produced a video on Psalm 22 that makes a lot of good points. One of the issues that comes up is Jesus' use of the "brothers" language in the resurrection accounts, which probably was influenced by Psalm 22. For more on that issue, see my post here. And here's an overview of Psalm 22 that I wrote several years ago. It covers some issues not addressed in One For Israel's video. And the video covers some material I didn't discuss, so I recommend watching it and reading my two posts linked above. We should keep in mind that, under normal circumstances, a document written several centuries before the closing of the B.C. era shouldn't have been able to anticipate so many details of such unusual penal practices that would be implemented by the Roman empire and the results that would follow from one of its executions, with such close alignment with other prophecies (Daniel's Seventy Weeks prophecy, Isaiah's Servant Songs, etc.).

Another Reason Why A Resurrection Body With Wounds Wouldn't Be Fabricated

I've written about the significance of how Jesus is portrayed as having retained his crucifixion wounds after his resurrection in the gospels of Luke and John. Here's another reason why the early Christians are unlikely to have made up such a detail:

"They [critics of resurrection] also make eager use of all the deformities and blemishes which either accident or birth has produced, and accordingly, with horror and derision, cite monstrous births, and ask if every deformity will be preserved in the resurrection. For if we say that no such thing shall be reproduced in the body of a man, they suppose that they confute us by citing the marks of the wounds which we assert were found in the risen body of the Lord Christ." (Augustine, The City Of God, 22:12)

The Greatness Of The Gospel

How we view the gospel affects our relationship with God, our relationships with other people, our priorities, our objectives, the sense of urgency we have, and many other aspects of life. It should be a foundational motivating factor every day of our lives. It's important that we have a high view of the gospel and think about it often, deeply, and in a multifaceted way. Here are some examples of authors down through the centuries commenting on certain portions of the gospel:

Faith Alone
He Gives Himself
The Incarnation
Gethsemane
Put On Trial
The Cross
The Tomb
The Resurrection
The Defeat Of Satan
Imputed Righteousness
The Benefits Of The Gospel

"An idea has long possessed the public mind, that a religious man can scarcely be a wise man. It has been the custom to talk of infidels, atheists, and deists, as men of deep thought and comprehensive intellect; and to tremble for the Christian controversialist, as if he must surely fall by the hand of his enemy. But this is purely a mistake; for the gospel is the sum of wisdom; an epitome of knowledge; a treasure-house of truth; and a revelation of mysterious secrets. In it we see how justice and mercy may be married; here we behold inexorable law entirely satisfied, and sovereign love bearing away the sinner in triumph. Our meditation upon it enlarges the mind; and as it opens to our soul in successive flashes of glory, we stand astonished at the profound wisdom manifest in it. Ah, dear friends! if ye seek wisdom, ye shall see it displayed in all its greatness; not in the balancing of the clouds, nor the firmness of earth's foundations; not in the measured march of the armies of the sky, nor in the perpetual motions of the waves of the sea; not in vegetation with all its fairy forms of beauty; nor in the animal with its marvellous tissue of nerve, and vein, and sinew: nor even in man, that last and loftiest work of the Creator. But turn aside and see this great sight!—an incarnate God upon the cross; a substitute atoning for mortal guilt; a sacrifice satisfying the vengeance of Heaven, and delivering the rebellious sinner. Here is essential wisdom; enthroned, crowned, glorified. Admire, ye men of earth, if ye be not blind; and ye who glory in your learning bend your heads in reverence, and own that all your skill could not have devised a gospel at once so just to God, so safe to man." (Charles Spurgeon, The C.H. Spurgeon Collection [Albany, Oregon: AGES Software, 1998], The Park Street Pulpit, Vol. 1, pp. 113-14)

Jesus' Fulfillment Of The Seventy Weeks Prophecy

One of the themes I've been emphasizing about prophecy fulfillment is that a fulfillment can be evidential for Christianity even if the fulfillment is thought to be of a secondary or typological nature. For example, though I've argued that the Servant Songs in Isaiah are about the Messiah in their original context, Jesus' alignment with the passages is evidentially significant in support of Christianity even if the passages are about the nation of Israel, a Jewish remnant, or some other entity instead. See the article just linked for a further discussion of that example.

The same is true of Daniel's Seventy Weeks prophecy. See the article on that prophecy here by Robert Newman. I consider his interpretation of the passage the best one I've seen. I take it as the original meaning of the passage. But even if I'm wrong, it still seems evidentially significant that Jesus' life lines up so well with the passage in the manner discussed by Newman. Even if you think the passage in its original context refers to some entity other than the Messiah, that Jesus fulfilled it in some significantly different way than how Newman proposes, or whatever, it's still significant that Jesus was crucified during the sixty-ninth sabbatical cycle after the 445 B.C. decree to rebuild Jerusalem. And there are other ways in which Jesus' life lines up well with the passage. See the second-to-last paragraph of the post here for further discussion.

The more Jesus' life lines up so well with passages like the Servant Songs and the Seventy Weeks prophecy, the more difficult it is to deny that something supernatural has occurred. It's noteworthy that you don't even have to grant a Christian understanding of the original meaning of these passages to reach the conclusion that there's been a supernatural fulfillment of the passages.

Why do Mark and John appear to differ on the time of the crucifixion?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8mRNdGnQSOo

Women at the cross

Some critics allege a discrepancy between John and the Synoptics regarding the position of the women at the cross (Mt 27:55-6; Mk 15:40; Lk 23:49; Jn 19:25). 

Since it went on for hours, there's no reason to assume they didn't budge but stayed in one spot the whole time. Since the ordeal continued for about 6 hours, is it realistic to suppose the bystanders would remain frozen in place–or move around. 

These verses are still photography, not motion pictures. Not film footage of everything everyone did for 6 hours. It's not like a cameraman follows them around with a single continuous shot (as in the recent 1917 movie). Rather, we're given snapshots of where they were and what they did at key moments. Some readers need to develop a much more flexible understanding of historical narration.

What were the last words of Jesus on the cross?

Some critics say the Gospels give contradictory accounts of Christ's last words on the cross. A few observations:

i) On the face of it, this allegation is just a fallacy. It confuses the last words recorded by the narrator with the last words of the speaker. It isn't necessarily or even presumptively the last thing the speaker said, but the last thing the narrator quoted the speaker saying. That's where the narrator ends his account. 

ii) To take some comparisons: suppose I speak to a friend who died in a traffic accident the next day. I remember his last words to me. I can quote his final words to me. But it's unlikely that those are the last words he ever spoke.

Or suppose loved one is dying in a hospital. His bed is surrounded by family and friends. One of them has to leave. They remember the last thing they heard him say before they stepped out of the room. That's something they quote him saying, but it's probably not the last thing he said before he died.

Or take the "wit and wisdom" books of a celebrity. They may arrange quotes chronologically from his writings. But the last quoted statement is unlikely to be the last thing he said before he died. The book is selective to begin with. It may be his last public statement. Or his last wittism.

iii) Keep in mind that according to traditional authorship, only John was present at the crucifixion. Possibly Mark. But the other disciples had fled. Matthew and Luke probably got their information from the women at the cross. 

There's a distinction between the last thing they record Jesus saying and the last thing he said. The former doesn't entail the latter. It tells you when the narrator stopped quoting, not when the speaker stopped talking. That's where the narrator decided to wrap up his account of the Crucifixion. Maybe because he had no more information about what was said and done. 

Other than John, the Synoptics might well not know the original order of what Jesus said on the cross, if they depend on the women for their information. It would also depend on which women they consulted. For that matter, the women might not remember the original order. You don't know ahead of time if what they say the last thing they will ever say. You might expect more. 

vi) Bart Ehrman makes a big deal about mood shifts. Needless to say, someone in agonizing pain is prone to sudden mood swings. They may oscillate in and out of consciousness and lucidity. They may have moments of euphoria. They may slip back into despondency. This is realistic. 

Fatalism at the cross

There are different ways to define fatalism. Freewill theists use fatalism as a synonym for Calvinism or predestination, but that's confused. In Reformed theology, there's a predestined chain of events leading up to a particular outcome. In fatalism, by contrast, the outcome is the same regardless of the preceding events.

Another definition is where  people unwittingly fulfill an oracle by attempting to avert it. In that sense, the Bible has some fatalistic episodes. One example is the Joseph cycle (Gen 37-50) where his brothers try to thwart the prophetic dream, but their evasive actions ironically facilitate its realization.

A greater example is where Satan engineers the Crucifixion to defeat the Son of God, blind to the fact that Jesus wins in the long-term by "losing" at the cross. In the plan of God, the Crucifixion is a tactical loss. A way to achieve strategic victory. Although Satan may be a criminal genius, his evil blocks his ability to enter into the mind of God. In his effort to defeat Jesus he unwittingly defeats himself. God ironically  used Satan as a means to foil Satan. 

The Gospels Corroborated In The Letters Of Peter

Skeptics sometimes tell us that Paul is the only New Testament author who claims to have seen Jesus after he rose from the dead. But the fourth gospel also claims to have been written by a resurrection witness. See here, for example. And a document doesn't have to claim to be written by a resurrection witness in the main body of its text in order to justify the conclusion that the author is giving us his eyewitness testimony about seeing the risen Christ and other matters pertaining to the resurrection. If the traditional authorship attribution of the gospel of Matthew is correct, for example, then that document provides us with the testimony of an eyewitness of the risen Christ. If the evidence suggests that a particular individual was identified as a document's author by means of an oral report, a document title, a tag attached to a document, writing on the front or side of a codex, or some other means, we don't dismiss that author identification just because it doesn't appear in the main body of the document's text. For more about the evidence that the gospel of Matthew was originally attributed to that apostle and did come from him, see here.

Skeptics also sometimes claim that there isn't much corroboration of the gospels elsewhere in the New Testament. Supposedly, a lack of reference to gospel material in the letters of the New Testament, for example, casts a lot of doubt on the historicity of the gospels.

What I want to focus on in this post is what information we can gather from the letters of Peter regarding the subjects discussed in the two paragraphs above. The Petrine letters tend to be neglected in discussions of these issues.

I think both letters were written by the apostle Peter. But skeptics often reject Petrine authorship of one or both of the letters, and both documents would still be significant as early Christian sources if Peter didn't write them, so I won't refer to the author as Peter in what follows.

Both letters identify their author as an apostle named Peter (1 Peter 1:1, 2 Peter 1:1), which agrees with the testimony of all four gospels that Jesus had a prominent disciple named Peter. Since an individual had to at least be a witness of the risen Christ to be an apostle (Acts 1:21-22, 1 Corinthians 9:1), the implication is that the author of the Petrine letters is claiming to be such a witness.

And there's a reference to being an eyewitness in the context of the Mount of Transfiguration (2 Peter 1:16-18).

Jesus' crucifixion is mentioned as well (1 Peter 2:24).

The resurrection is mentioned prominently in 1 Peter (1:3, 1:21, 3:21). The phrase "from the dead" is used as a qualifier in 1:3 and 1:21. That qualifier makes the most sense as a means of emphasizing that what's in view is a return to life of the body that died. The resurrection the author has in mind isn't something like a non-physical resurrection or a resurrection involving a second body that replaces the one that died.

Both letters emphasize a high, traditional view of Old Testament prophecy and Jesus' fulfillment of it (1 Peter 1:10-12, 2 Peter 1:19-21). 1 Peter 2:21-25 is focused on Isaiah's Suffering Servant prophecy. That passage in Isaiah refers to a lot of details that are reported about Jesus in the gospels. Isaiah 53:9, which is quoted in 1 Peter 2:22, refers to the Servant's tomb and his being associated with a rich man in his death, and verse 10 of Isaiah 53 implies a physical resurrection. Notice that 1 Peter 2:21 introduces the references to Isaiah 53 by saying that Jesus set an example for us to follow. The implication is that the references to Isaiah 53 that come after that are about historical events in Jesus' life.

But what if 1 Peter 2 is only citing portions of the Suffering Servant prophecy without intending to apply all of it to Jesus? Maybe the author of 1 Peter thought Jesus only fulfilled part of the passage and did so in a secondary, typological way.

A few points should be made. First, even if 1 Peter 2 is only appealing to portions of the Isaiah passage without thinking that all of it applies to Jesus, we'd still have partial corroboration of what the gospels say about how Jesus' life aligned with what's in Isaiah. Secondly, the most likely meaning of the Suffering Servant passage in its original context is that it's about a future messianic, eschatological individual. See my post here about the first three Servant Songs and the other posts linked within that one. It's unlikely that an early Christian source who held such a high, Messianic view of Jesus, such as the author of 1 Peter, would have thought that only part of the Suffering Servant passage is applicable to Jesus. Third, the number and diversity of references to Isaiah 53 in 1 Peter 2 make more sense if the author of 1 Peter thought the entire passage applies to Jesus. It's less likely that the author would see so much of the passage as applicable to Jesus, yet reject the applicability of the rest of it. Fourth, other early Christian sources, sometimes individually and especially collectively, apply an even larger percentage of the Isaiah passage to Jesus (e.g., Acts 8:30-35). So, the point I just made about 1 Peter is even more relevant to early Christianity in general. And since 1 Peter was written in that early Christian context, that early Christian view of the Suffering Servant passage makes it more likely that the author of 1 Peter saw the passage that way as well. It seems likely, then, that the author applied all of Isaiah's passage to Jesus. And that involves a large amount of agreement between 1 Peter and the gospels.

Similar observations can be made about other Old Testament prophecies. Given the high view of Jesus' fulfillment of prophecy in the Petrine letters and given the high view of his fulfillment of Isaiah 52-53 in particular, what are the implications for his fulfillment of other prophecies, like the ones in Isaiah that are connected to the Suffering Servant passage (e.g., in chapters 9, 11, 42, and 49-50)?

2 Peter 3:15-16 refers to Paul's letters as scripture. Let's think about the implications related to one of Paul's letters, 1 Corinthians, as an example. There's widespread agreement that 1 Corinthians was written relatively early, sometime in the 50s, and we have evidence that it was broadly circulated and often discussed early on (e.g., ancient letter writing conventions; references in the Pauline letters to how those letters should be circulated; references to 1 Corinthians in First Clement, Ignatius, and other early patristic sources). So, it seems likely that 1 Corinthians was one of the documents the author of 2 Peter had in mind when he referred to Paul's letters. If 2 Peter 3 implies that 1 Corinthians is scripture, then it follows that what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15:5-7 about resurrection appearances to Peter is being affirmed by the author of 2 Peter. Similarly, there's an implication that 2 Peter 3 is affirming what Paul said about the physical nature of Jesus' resurrection, the empty tomb, the resurrection appearances to other witnesses, the crucifixion, Jewish involvement in Jesus' execution (1 Thessalonians 2:14-15), the Last Supper (1 Corinthians 11:23-25), that Jesus had brothers (1 Corinthians 9:5), his Davidic ancestry (Romans 1:3), etc.

Notice the implications of giving a late date to 2 Peter. The later the letter is dated, the harder it becomes to exempt one or more of the canonical letters attributed to Paul from the implications of 2 Peter 3 discussed above.

Atonement by crucifixion

Historically, many Arminians reject penal substitution. They agree with Calvinists that if Jesus died to satisfy God's justice on behalf of the redeemed, then all the redeemed must be saved, since there's no judicial basis for them to suffer eschatological punishment. In addition, progressive theologians like Randal Rauser find the idea of penal substitution repugnant.

Proponents of penal substitution quote and exegete the standard prooftexts. And I think those carry the day.

There is, though, a neglected, but straightforward argument for penal substitution that doesn't rely on the standard prooftexts. Hidden in plain sight is Christ's voluntary death by crucifixion. 

It can't be seriously doubted that the Gospels (indeed, the NT generally) present the Crucifixion in vicarious, sacrificial terms. If, however, Jesus didn't die a penal substitutionary death, then why did he choose death by crucifixion? Why did he undergo a type of death that's emblematic of vicarious sacrifice? If penal substitution is false, why did he die a violent death at all? If penal substitution is false, why did he have to undergo any kind of death? Whatever the alternative to penal substitution, it doesn't require death, does it? Much less a death with vicarious, sacrificial connotations.

Perhaps opponents of penal substitution will attempt to drive a wedge between vicarious atonement and penal substitution. If so, in what respect is his voluntary vicarious death not punitive in character?

A last-ditch argument might be to claim that Jesus never intended to die by crucifixion; rather, he was overtaken by events. His death, or mode of death, was due to unforeseeable circumstances.

But in the Gospels, Jesus deliberately and repeatedly provokes the authorities, knowing full well that he is courting execution. Moreover, he eludes the lynch mobs. He eludes death by stoning. So Jesus is very single-minded about how he will die. 

Likewise, at his trial, he makes statements that are incriminating from the viewpoint of his accusers and judges. And he refuses to defend himself before Pilate. So, by process of elimination, he leaves the authorities with no other recourse. He systematically engineers his death by crucifixion.  

But if penal substitution is false, he was sending a very confusing message to onlookers. How else could the disciples be expected to interpret his death? 

Astronomy and the date of the crucifixion

We have to be cautious about these correlations. It is, however, an interesting example of how extrabiblical data might illuminate the text. That would be obvious to the observer, but not to a reader who wasn't there:

https://www.asa3.org/ASA/PSCF/1985/JASA3-85Humphreys.html