‘For execution by crucifixion to become the criterion of holiness, and of God’s holiness at that, became the supreme scandal. It created havoc (and still does) with all other ideas of wisdom, power, salvation, God – and thereby of holiness. How could such havoc be overcome? It is easy enough to accept, in theory, the idea of God as the sole source and criterion of holiness; but it is anything but easy when such holiness is defined by the awful dereliction on Golgotha. Likewise, it has proved easy in retrospect to accept the idea of Jesus’ holiness; but, in the first instance, it was anything but easy when that holiness was measured by his execution as a traitor to Israel’. – Paul S. Minear, ‘The Holy and the Sacred’, Theology Today 47 (1990), 8.