Erin Vearncombe, Brandon Scott, and Hal Taussig, After Jesus: Before Christianity: A Historical Exploration of the First Two Centuries of Jesus Movements (New York: HarperOne, 2021), 255:
The shame and humiliation of crucifixion were as intentional and intense as its cruel physical torture. But Jesus’s crucifixion ironically triggered the opposite of Roman intentions. The Romans’ anticipated destruction of both the body and memory of Jesus failed. Instead of silencing him, his death resulted in stories and songs of hope, inspiration, and a commitment to remembering him throughout the Mediterranean area. People who needed an expression of their own devastation found stories of Jesus filling those needs. The stories of Jesus – crucified and resurrected in body and spirit – opened up the possibilities of his divine, saving, guiding, healing, encouraging presence existing and comforting people more than a century after his death.
The Amateur Exegete 