WetFeet

Recently someone posted a comment about Jesus not actually dying on the cross and therefore there was no resuurection.  This is commonly known as the swoon theory and is used as an explanation for Jesus being seen alive after the crucifixion.  I want to take some time here to provide arguments for why I believe Jesus did actually die on the cross.

In order to discuss this we must be reminded of what physically happened to Jesus on that day.  Remember that He was subjected to mock trials the night before and was turned over by Pilate to be scourged.  The process of scourging is one of grousome detail but I believe it is important to realize just what Jesus went through before being crucified.  Roman scourging consisted of the prisoner being stripped of all clothing, chained to a post with their arms stretched above their head or to a stump or stone on which they would have been bent over and their hands and feet chained to the base. The instrument of the scourge was a whip that had braided leather strands that contained a metal ball on the end of each strand.  There might be up to 9 different strands to the whip.  Along the length of the brainded lether strand would be bits of metal or bone woven into the strands.  As the scourge was slammed against the body, the metal balls would cause bruising and contusions that would burst upong being hit again and again.  Also the bits of metal and bone would be embedded in the flesh of the victim and as the scourge was yanked back, peices of flesh, muscle, and sinew would be ripped form the body.

I refer to an interview of Alexander Metherell, M.D. by a journalist by the name of Lee Strobel.  Dr. Metherell has a Medical Degree from the Univeristy of Miami Florida and a Doctrate of Engineering from the Univeristy of Bristol in England.  He has studied the events of the scourging and the crucifiction and I will interject some of his thoughts on these subjects.

In the Book, The Case for Christ on page 195 Metherell relays another doctors description of the result 39 lashes of the scrouge would be:

“As the flogging continued, the lacerations would tesar into the underlying skeletal muscles and produce ribbons of bleeding flesh”

Metherell quotes Eusebius who was a third century historian in saying ,`The sufferer’s veins were laid bare, and the very muscles, sinews, and bowels of the victim were open to exposure’.

I just finished watching a YouTube video talking about how Joseph of Arimethea, the person who buried Jesus, put him in the tomb so that the “superficial wounds would heal”.  Now pardon me but having my sinews and bowels open for exposure go a little more beyond superficial and I do not believe a mixture of Aloe and Myrrh would be enough to stave off the devastating punushment endured from the Roman scourging.  Jesus’ body would have been torn to shreds from this neck to his thighs.  There is little doubt that Jesus, after the scourging, would be suffering from hypovolemic shock.  This is a condition due to extreme blood loss and the heart is working extra hard to pump what little blood there is through out the body.  Jesus was already in critical condition and He still had to be crucified.

Crucifixion was devised to be a very painful way of dying.  Our word excruciating came about in order to describe the pain that was experienced during crucifixion.  It was so terrible and painful they had to invent a word to describe it.  I will not go into the whole process of crucifixion but it is important to know why a person dies from crucifixion.  A person’s arms are nailed fully extended to the cross member.  The cross member is then raised and attatched to the post that is in the ground.  The person’s feet were then placed on on top of each other and a single nail driven through both ankles.  Dr. Metherell states that at the point a person is hanging on the cross the stress on the arms from the weight of the body would pull the solders out of joint and a person’s arms would have been stretched perhaps even up to 6 inches in length.  With the arms outstretched, the chest cavity would have been expanded much like you were taking a deep breath but because of the weight of the body the victim could not exhale.  In order to breath out, the victim had to stand on the nail that was driven through the ankles dragging the raw back laid open from scrouging along the rough surface of the cross, breath out, and then sink down again to hang from the arms.  There is no way for me to even comprehend how incredible painful this was.  Death would come when the prisoner was so fatigued they could not push up on the nail to breath.  As Jesus neared death, his heart already stressed from hypovolemic shock, would have beat faster and faster which would have resulted in a build up of clear fluid around the heart and lungs. In order to hasten death, Roman soldiers would come by and break the lower legs, the tibia and fibula, so that a person would not be able to stand any longer.

I say all of this in order for us to understand what was happening to the body of Jesus.  Some people cast doubt on His actual death because He died in such a quick manner (6 hours) while some people would take days to die.  But given that Jesus was already in critical condition from the flogging (many people did not survive that) and then the stress of the cross, I am not surprised at all.

Here are some of the reasons that I am convinced that Jesus physically died on the cross and did not just faint.  First, the Roman soldier was very well trained in the art of killing.  I do not think it a stretch to say that they could identify someone who had died.  It was what they were paid and trained to do.  For a Roman soldier repsonsible for the execution of a prisoner to let that prisoner off the cross without being dead would mean execution for them.  To make a mistake like that would have cost them their own life.  Were other prisoners taken down from the cross?  I really do not know but if they were I do not think it was because the Roman’s thought they were dead.  Secondly, a spear was shoved through the side of Jesus.  The spear would have traveled through one of the lungs and punctured the heart.  And this acurrately describes the statement found John 19:34 where it says”Instead, one of the soldiers pierced Jesus’ side with a spear, bringing a sudden flow of blood and water.”

Dr. Metherell is finally asked if it is at all psossible that Jesus merely swooned and his answer is “I tell them that it is impossible.  It is a fanciful theory without any possible basis in fact”.

The evidence found in history, the Scriptures, disciplines like pathology and medicine strongly support the physical death of Jesus on the cross.  I believe it takes a greater leap in faith and logic to believe in the Swoon theorey.