Did Jesus really die on the cross?

[Ranchoth]

I think Diogenes is right…we have to remember that we’re getting the accounts of the Crucifixion & Ressurection from a single, biased, source. It’s like analyzing the final years of the Vietnam war just from reading Nixon’s autobiography.

And it’s too little information to go on…we don’t have a medical examiner’s report on the injuries suffered by Jesus. We don’t have an report filed by an Acta Diurna correspondant who was there at the scene. We have what’s probably an nth-hand account of the event, told by people loyal to Jesus and his religion.

Of course, given the limited information, and the amazing extent that people have been known to live through, it’s possible that Jesus wasn’t hurt bad enough to kill him, and he was buried while in a coma, and he really did manage to claw his way out of his tomb after awhile. Who knows what happened to him after that…maybe he just succumbed to his wounds. Or he survived, decided to cut his losses, and retired in Egypt under an assumed name. Or maybe he some Roman soldier saw him, thought he was a zombie, and re-killed him as he crawled out of his tomb. (If that last scenario happened, that might explain the stories about other dead people coming to life around the time of Jesus’ ressurection. Just imagine what a little panicy gossip could do…

“Did you hear? A corpse came to life in the potter’s field!”

“Sgt. Vitrius said he killed it, himself!”

“Say…isn’t that where Jesus was buried? Maybe someone should check it out…”

After a few hours, a hot afternoon, and a little hysteria…

“Did you hear? An army of corpses came back to life in the potter’s field, and they’re marching in Jerusalem! The Roman garrison’s fighting them right now!”

“Oh my God, Jesus’ tomb is empty, too! He must have come back to life…I bet he’s behind all of this!”

)

Though…to be blunt, if you really want to apply Occam’s Razor, I’d guess that Jesus’ body was either:

a) Removed from the crypt by his followers. (I’ve heard one interesting varient on this, saying his disciples misunderstood the whole “flesh and blood” thing, and actually ate his corpse. :eek: It makes you wonder who got to eat the brain and heart. Or if they made soup.) The “ressurection” was just a hoax, or a collossal misunderstanding.

or

b)Jesus is still laying in some forgotten crypt somewhere, buried beneath the sands of Israel. His followers just lied about his coming back to life. And, again, The “ressurection” was just a hoax. Not neccesarily started by his inner circle…maybe it was some sort of “wishful thinking” hoax, started spontaniously by his followers. (Kind of like in the Kevin Costner movie, The Postman—the deception starts as a scam, but it grows to a life of it’s own because it gives the people something to beleive in.)

I can’t think of anything else to add, except that I’m very tired, and it’s possible that I might just by typing gibberish in a sleep-deprived stupor right now. I guess I’ll find out in the morning.

[cichlidiot]

@duality72

How is a piece of artwork from the 14th century valuable for information about crucifixion?

Easy, if you look at my statement you quoted, you will see I stated the findings from scholars. Whether the Shroud is authentic or not, some of the experiments performed as a result of studying it, seem pretty informative.

[cichlidiot]

@Nightwatch Trailer

Also, I’ve also always heard that asphyxiation is the cause of death in crucifixion. However, if it happened as Gibson’s movie portrayed it - with the victim’s feet braced and their forearms tied to the cross - would that prevent the weight of the body from suffocating the person?

The site I linked to, talks a little about this:

When the hands and arms are raised above the head to support the weight of the body, it is an entirely different situation than that of a person suspended at an angle of 60-70 degrees with the stipes (upright). If Jesus was suspended with his hands directly above his head, then there indeed, would be difficulty breathing but not if the victim is suspended with his arms spread apart to create an angle of 65 to 70 degrees. Even Barbet concludes that Jesus was suspended at an angle of about 70 degrees. This is also borne out on the photo of the cadaver he suspended in his book Le cinq plait du Christ and on the crucifix sculpted by Villandre1, 2 according to the specifications given by Barbet. The results of Moedder’s experiments are frequently used to support the asphyxiation hypothesis but he suspended students by the wrists with their hands above their heads and with the hands less than 40 inches apart on a horizontal bail. It may be of interest to note that Dr. P.J. Smith disagreed with Barbet’s asphyxiation theory in appendix two of Barbet’s own book.2

I thought the experiments Dr. Zugibe conducted were pretty interesting, particularly the, “They were also requested not to attempt to lift the body up at any time by straightening their legs.” part.

[JThunder]

@Diogenes the Cynic

In point of fact, the Romans did make it a point to leave the bodies on the crosses. If they took them down at all they disposed of them by burning or dumped them in lime pits. What they did not do was hand them over for a proper burial.

Once again, you’re overstating your case. Wikipedia says that the bodies were not usually turned over for burial, but this does not preclude them from being buried. In Jesus’ case, an influential Sanhedrin member was responsible for his burial, so it’s hardly implausiable that the Roman authorities would acquiese in that case.

Moreover, even if we grant your claim, the point remains that Tenar’s objection is still speculative. The Romans might have chosen to leave the body hanging as an example to the people, or they might not. As Zagadka said, Jesus was not some prominent military leader, but a relatively minor rabble rouser with a small following at the time. He certainly did not have widespread support, as evidenced by the multitude who called for his death.

[RedDawgEsq]

@Diogenes the Cynic

If we’re really going to apply Occam’s Razor then a fictional account of a resurrection is infinitely more likely than the physical recussitaion of a dead body.

Thank you Mr. DtC, this is exactly the connotation I was attempting to infer with the OP and reference to Ockham’s Razor (correct spelling). The ensuing discussion, while enlightening and entertaining, distills to counting the number of angels dancing on the head (or was it the point?) of a pin. The answer, of course, is 42.

OTOH, did everyone miss my reference to this site or did the subject matter there not reach the threshold of commentability?

[clairobscur]

@RedDawgEsq

Thank you Mr. DtC, this is exactly the connotation I was attempting to infer with the OP and reference to Ockham’s Razor (correct spelling). The ensuing discussion, while enlightening and entertaining, distills to counting the number of angels dancing on the head (or was it the point?) of a pin. The answer, of course, is 42.

OTOH, did everyone miss my reference to this site or did the subject matter there not reach the threshold of commentability?

If it was what you mean, why didn’t you state it clearly, then? : “a fictional account of a resurrection is infinitely more likely than the physical recussitation of a dead body”.

Your OP wasn’t infering anything of the sort (which is discussed every other day here) it was explicitely about a particular theory re the death (or lack thereof) of Jesus. So, posters, quite logically, argued about this particular hypothesis, not about whether it was more likely to assume that ressurection took place rather than not.

As for the link you provided in your OP, I assumed it was explaining what Occam’s razor was. Since I know what it is, I didn’t clicked on it. And probably many posters didn’t, either, for the exact same reason.

Now, if this link is the same that the one you’re providing in your last post (I checked it), I’ve several other comments to make :

1)In what way is this link relevant to the topic at hand?

2)You should have included a warning with your link. Some people could not like visiting this site

3)What are we supposed to debate about regarding this link, exactly?

4)AFAIK, this link (or a similar one) has already been mentionned here, and debunked as a hoax.

[FriendRob]

@JThunder

Once again, you’re overstating your case. Wikipedia says that the bodies were not usually turned over for burial, but this does not preclude them from being buried. In Jesus’ case, an influential Sanhedrin member was responsible for his burial, so it’s hardly implausiable that the Roman authorities would acquiese in that case.

Moreover, even if we grant your claim, the point remains that Tenar’s objection is still speculative. The Romans might have chosen to leave the body hanging as an example to the people, or they might not. As Zagadka said, Jesus was not some prominent military leader, but a relatively minor rabble rouser with a small following at the time. He certainly did not have widespread support, as evidenced by the multitude who called for his death.

In fact, we know of one sure case where a crucified man was buried in a tomb.

[JThunder]

Thanks for the cite, FriendRob. That was very informative.

Additionally, let’s not forget that Pontius Pilate did NOT consider Jesus to be a threat. In fact, he said that he could find no fault in Jesus, and washed his hands of Christ’s death. Also, despite the protests of the chief priests, Pilate also insisted on placing a sign on Jesus’ cross, calling him “JESUS OF NAZARETH, THE KING OF THE JEWS” (John 19:19). Clearly, Pilate respected Jesus greatly.

So Pilate would have had no reason to make a public example of Jesus by leaving him hanging for days after his death. Pilate respected Christ, and did not consider him a threat. So this makes it all the more plausible that Pilate would agree to let Jesus be respectfully buried, especially since request was made by Joseph of Arimathea, a respected Sanhedrin member (John 19:38).

[Diogenes_the_Cynic]

@JThunder

Once again, you’re overstating your case. Wikipedia says that the bodies were not usually turned over for burial, but this does not preclude them from being buried. In Jesus’ case, an influential Sanhedrin member was responsible for his burial, so it’s hardly implausiable that the Roman authorities would acquiese in that case.

Joseph of Arimathea was an invention of Mark’s. For one thing, there was no such place as “Arimathea” in Judea, for another it would have been impossible either for the Sanhedrin to sanction the burial of a victim who they themselves had condemned or for the Romans to to release an insurgent for burial. In the case of the Sanhedrin, if they had indeed convicted him of “blasphemy” and condemned him to death (highly doubtful but let’s roll with it) then, by law, they could not allow him to be buried. To do so was to admit that he was innocent.

It was much the same with the Romans, they simply did not ever release insurgents for burial. Once again, if the Romans had permitted a burial, they were as much as admitting that Jesus was innocent. Basically, anyone who had enough clout to get the remains of an executed insurgent for burial would have had the clout to prevent the crucifixion in the first place. A member of the Sanhedrin, even a rich member, would have had no such clout.

Moreover, even if we grant your claim, the point remains that Tenar’s objection is still speculative. The Romans might have chosen to leave the body hanging as an example to the people, or they might not. As Zagadka said, Jesus was not some prominent military leader, but a relatively minor rabble rouser with a small following at the time. He certainly did not have widespread support, as evidenced by the multitude who called for his death.

You give to much credit to the Gospel accounts of a multitude calling for his death. That is almost certainly an apologetic story device designed to minimize culpability for Pilate.

In any case, the choice was between leaving the victims on the cross to rot or to (maybe) take them down and burn them or dump them in a lime pit. In fact the Secret Gospel of James states that Jesus was buried “in the sand,” which was to say that he was buried without honor in a shallow and probably communal grave. Secret James is a mid 2nd century work so that would indicate that no tradition of an “Arimathean” or an empty tomb had yet been firmly established even then.

There is no tradition of an empty tomb before Mark. There is no mention of such a tradition in Paul or any of the pre-Markan epistolaries, nor is there any mention of Joseph of Arimathea.

The empty tomb starts with Mark and the other Canonicals are dependent on Mark. It’s a literary creation which shows no evidence of having had any oral tradition in early Christianity. Joseph of Arimathea also has no life before Mark or independent of Mark and is highly implausible for reasons already mentioned.

[Diogenes_the_Cynic]

@FriendRob

In fact, we know of one sure case where a crucified man was buried in a tomb.

From your own link:

Giving the victim a proper burial following death on the cross, during the Roman period was rare and in most cases simply not permitted in order to continue the humiliation. Thus the victim was in many cases simply thrown on the garbage dump of the city or left on the cross as food for wild beasts and birds of prey.

The Jehohanan case is notable precisely because it is unique. He is, in fact, the only crucifixion victim whose remains have ever been recovered. If classical accounts can be believed, hundreds of thousands of people were crucified by the Romans but only one skeleton has ever been found. That in itself attests to the rarity of entombment for the victims.

And I reiterate-- there was no exception for anyone who had been executed as a n insurgent as Jesus was, nor would anyone in the Sanhedrin have had the influence to recover the body, nor would anyone in the Sanhedrin have been allowed to bury a criminal who had been condemned by the Sanhedrin.

[JThunder]

@Diogenes the Cynic

Joseph of Arimathea was an invention of Mark’s. For one thing, there was no such place as “Arimathea” in Judea,

Again, you’re extrapolating beyond the actual evidence. “Arimathea” was most likely a pun on the “Aramathaim,” a well-known city.

for another it would have been impossible either for the Sanhedrin to sanction the burial of a victim who they themselves had condemned or for the Romans to to release an insurgent for burial.

But the New Testament accounts do NOT say that his burial was sanctioned by the Sanhedrin. It only says that this was done by Joseph of Arimathea, who had become a follower of the Christ. This type of sloppy scholarship pervades the objections that people raise to the mere notion that Jesus was buried, instead of being left to rot on the cross.

It was much the same with the Romans, they simply did not ever release insurgents for burial.

Once again, an excessively grandiose claim. At best, you can say that they were not in the habit of releasing insurgents for burial. Even if this turns out to be true, we already have good reason to believe that Pontious Pilate would take a different view – ESPECIALLY since he did not consider Jesus to be an insurgent!

Ditto with the burial of a crucified man. Yes, this was relatively uncommon, but FriendRob’s link showed that it did happen – and in Jesus’ case, there was ample reason for it to have occurred. Additionally, I don’t think we have nearly enough evidence to conclude exactly how rare this was – especially since there is no way of knowing how many crucified men were left unburied. The strength of your claims go far beyond the strength of the actual evidence.

[BobLibDem]

Regarding the existence of Arimathea, the Catholic Encyclopedia states “He was born at Arimathea – hence his surname – “a city of Judea” (Luke, xxiii, 51), which is very likely identical with Ramatha, the birthplace of the Prophet Samuel, although several scholars prefer to identify it with the town of Ramleh.”

The question of whether Jesus died on the cross raises first this question: is it conceivable that the Romans would have allowed someone to come down from the cross alive? I think that is far less likely than their allowing Joseph of Arimathea (or Ramatha or wherever) to take the body. From the Gospel of John we have this: “But when they came to Jesus and saw that he was already dead, they did not break his legs, but one soldier thrust his lance into his side, and immediately blood and water flowed out. An eyewitness has testified, and his testimony is true; he knows that he is speaking the truth, so that you also may (come to) believe.” What I’ve always thought extraordinary about this passage is the repeated insistance on its veracity. From The New American Bible “John probably emphasizes these verses to show the reality of Jesus’ death, against the Docetist heretics. In the blood and water there may also be a symbolic reference to the Eucharist and baptism.”

[Diogenes_the_Cynic]

[QUOTE=JThunder]
Again, you’re extrapolating beyond the actual evidence. “Arimathea” was most likely a pun on the “Aramathaim,” a well-known city.
Not likely. I’m aware of several attempts to identify Arimathea with this or that town that sounds vaguely like it. Your link claims that Arimathea can “readily be identified as Ramatha” but gives no reason why other than to hypothesize a pun. on “Best disciple town.”

Like I said, there was no such place as Arimathea. There were towns with similar sounding names. The name of Arimathea is far from the only reason that serious scholars regard Joseph as a fiction, though.

But the New Testament accounts do NOT say that his burial was sanctioned by the Sanhedrin. It only says that this was done by Joseph of Arimathea, who had become a follower of the Christ. This type of sloppy scholarship pervades the objections that people raise to the mere notion that Jesus was buried, instead of being left to rot on the cross.

It is impossible that a member of the Sanhedrin would bring the corpse of a victim condemned by the Sanhedrin into his own family tomb (which just happened to be within strolling distance of the site of the crucifixion…how convenient). It is just as impossible that the Romans would have ever allowed an insurgent to be buried…and most definitely not at the request of a member of the Sanhedrin.

Once again, an excessively grandiose claim. At best, you can say that they were not in the habit of releasing insurgents for burial. Even if this turns out to be true, we already have good reason to believe that Pontious Pilate would take a different view – ESPECIALLY since he did not consider Jesus to be an insurgent!

If Pilate crucified Jesus for saying he was the King of the Jews then he considered him to be an insurgent. Period. Even if he privately thought otherwise (a completely implausible and apologetic fiction) he could not have contradicted himself publicly by allowing a proper burial. To do so would be to admit that his own actions were wrong in ordering the crucifixion.

Ditto with the burial of a crucified man. Yes, this was relatively uncommon, but FriendRob’s link showed that it did happen – and in Jesus’ case, there was ample reason for it to have occurred. Additionally, I don’t think we have nearly enough evidence to conclude exactly how rare this was – especially since there is no way of knowing how many crucified men were left unburied. The strength of your claims go far beyond the strength of the actual evidence.

There is no reason whatever to think that Jesus could have been buried other than the Bible says so and you want it to be true. The reality is that the Romans did not realease insurgents for burial.

Moreover, a basic literary analysis shows us that no such tradition was documented before Mark and that there was at least some oral tradition that Jesus was given a dishonorable burial.

Another argument against the empty tomb having any authentic historicity is that there was no veneration or seemingly any knowledge of the whereabouts of this tomb in the first couple of centuries of Christianity. This is significant because the tombs of Jewish martyrs and prophets were popular sites of veneration at that time. Any tomb where Christ was “resurrected” would have been a definitive site of worship for early Christians yet they showed no awareness that such a place even existed.

Once again-- there is no tradition of either an empty tomb or Joseph of Arimathea before Mark or independent of Mark. We don’t see references to such things even if places where we would most expect to see them (like Paul). We see fairly late literary traditions which contradict the Markan one, and this shows that there was no strong oral tradition of an empty tomb even in the mid 2nd century. We would expect that if the tomb had any historicity that it would have been common knowledge for all Christians from the beginning.

[Staale_Nordlie]

Why I Don’t Buy the Resurrection Story by Richard Carrier might be worth reading.

(No, I don’t have anything original to add…)

[cichlidiot]

@clairobscur

If it was what you mean, why didn’t you state it clearly, then? : “a fictional account of a resurrection is infinitely more likely than the physical recussitation of a dead body”.

I’d be interested to hear a response to this as well. Regarding the link in the OP, as you surmised, I didn’t click on it, assuming as you did, it was an explanation. You were correct.

[Cartooniverse]

@Cervaise

One of the author’s major throughlines, as you might expect, is recounting the fierce debates among medical men and theologians and others with a vested interest about how, exactly, one is to say that somebody is in fact irretrievably dead.

Interesting book to peruse, I’m tempted to find it. As an E.M.T. I can tell you that there are times when a person is experiencing Pulseless Electrical Activity, or P.E.A..

From This Link
PEA is most frequently the end result of a major cardiac insult and commonly is caused by respiratory failure with hypoxia.

In short, if Jesus was suffocating on the cross, he may have been taken down off of it before he was physically dead. However, this was 2,004 years ago and I wager that there wasn’t a lot of Advanced Life Support gear around to try to bring him back.

Note- this is in no way meant to be offensive or smart-mouthed. For those who faithfully believe in the Resurrection, offering medical commentary may be hard on the eyes. I mean no insult, I am just offering some factual info vis a vis the O.P.

Cartooniverse

[Diogenes_the_Cynic]

@Cartooniverse

However, this was 2,004 years ago…

[Pedantic nitpick] The BC/AD system of dating ostensibly dates from the birth of Jesus, not the crucifixion but it’s not even accurate about that. Jesus was probably born sometime around 4-6 BCE and could not have been born after 4 BCE.

This means that if Jesus was crucified at the age of 33, the event would have occurred sometime around 27-29 CE (but no later than 29) and that would mean that it happened about 1975 years ago relative to 2004 CE, [/nitpick]

My nitpick in no way invalidates the rest of your post, of course. Even if someone was not quite dead after being taken down from the cross, 48 hours in a cave on a cold slab of rock with no medical treatment would finish the job for sure-- especially if said person had been previously flayed alive before he was even crucified. People sometimes died just from the scourgings alone.

[jimmmy]

Thanks for the info on people being taken down alive** Diogenes**. Josephus yet. Once I had that, I googled around and there are apparently a few other cites (none that I could access) that mentioned it happening occasionally too.

Regarding Pilate allowing burial, Iscariot’s linked author (Kirby) terms it not unlikely that he allowed burial (by the Romans or Joseph - or whomever) to (paraphrasing) avoid desecration of a body stirring the pious Jews on Passover (The Thieves would need to be taken care of too under this scenario of course).

Dovetailing with this I have often thought, with it being the most explosive time of the year in Jerusalem, with the city bursting at the seams and seething just waiting for a match to touch it off, Pilate may well have decided that discretion was the better part of valor in this case, in this time and place and decided letting an insurgent and/or cult leader, certainly popular among some, to hang rotting wouldn’t send the “right” message and may actually instead stir stuff up. Just a thought.

[Diogenes_the_Cynic]

Jimmmy, you should read the Kirby piece again. What he says is that the bodies of some victims may have been taken down at the request of some Jews (in this case, the enemies of Jesus) so that they could be given a criminal’s burial in shallow grave. The page before that one (damn pdf, I can’t quote it) clearly makes the case that Pilate would not and could not have allowed an honorable burial for the reasons I’ve already stated.

Beyond that, the entire piece makes an extremely strong case against the empty tomb narratives as having any historical authenticity.

[jimmmy]

I agree Diogenes, I didn’t mean to say anything differently except, perhaps re Pilates motives.

But since this is GD I will offer:
FWIW I think this is where Kirby breaks down a bit – as you have pointed out stating categorically that Pilate could not let dead bodies be taken down during Passover w/o a tremendous loss of face. He doesn’t offer much to support that. Why not Pilate, to avoid further inciting the populace had to take the bodies down? In fact, Kirby goes to pretty far lengths, on an admittedly (from him) slim limb to demonstrate that there is a thread of tradition that just that happened and JC was buried by his enemies in the sand or elsewhere.

No knocking that I like what he does/how he writes: This is the sketchy evidence, this is what I think it says, not saying it is rock solid*. I like that