Why Was Jesus Crucified?

Near the end of Ben Hur, as Judah Ben-Hur and Balthasar stand broken and weary at the feet of the crucified Jesus, Balthasar explains how in this act of self-sacrifice Jesus took upon himself the sins of all mankind. This may have been powerful moviemaking but it was terrible history. Okay, he was a wise man, but how exactly he worked out over two centuries of Christian theology in just two minutes was never adequately explained. But given the context of the times, maybe William Wyler didn't have to do much explaining; that Jesus died for our sins was a social given in 1959. One of the strengths of recent historical Jesus scholarship is its insistence on understanding the "Jesus event" in its own social/political/religious context -- a context that knew nothing of Christian theology.