The Pre-resurrection Scene
JESUS WAS DEAD
Mark records the following narrative of the events after Jesus' trial:
"And wishing to satisfy the multitude, Pilate released Barabbas for them, and after having Jesus scourged, he delivered Him over to be crucified. And the soldiers took Him away into the palace (that is, the Praetorium), and they called together the whole Roman cohort. And they dressed Him up in purple, and after weaving a crown of thorns, they put it on Him; and they began to acclaim Him, 'Hail, King of the Jews!' And they kept beating His head with a reed, and spitting at Him, and kneeling and bowing before Him. And after they had mocked Him, they took the purple off Him, and put His garments on Him. And they led Him out to crucify Him" (Mark 15:15-20).
The whipping of a victim prior to crucifixion is described by John Mattingly:
"The adjudged criminal was usually first forcefully stripped of his clothes, and then tied to a past or pillar in the tribunal. Then the awful and cruel scourging was administered by the lictors or scourgers. Although the Hebrews limited by their law the number of strokes in a scourging to forty, the Romans set no such limitation; and the victim was at the mercy of his scourgers.
"The brutal instrument used to scourge the victim was called a flagrum. Of this device Mattingly comments: 'It can readily be seen that the long, lashing pieces of bone and metal would greatly lacerate human flesh.' "
Bishop Eusebuis of Caesarea, the church historian of the third century, said "Epistle of the Church in Smyrna) concerning the Roman scourging inflicted on those to be executed: the sufferer's "veins were laid bare, and...the very muscles, sinews, and bowels of the victim were open to exposure."
John Mattingly, citing John Peter Lange, says of Christ's sufferings: "It has been conjectured that [His] scourging even surpassed the severity of the normal one. Although the normal scourging was administered by lictors, Lange concludes that since there were no lictors at Pilate's disposal, he used the soldiers. Thus, from the very character of these low, vile soldiers, it may be supposed that they exceeded the brutality meted out by the lictors."
After suffering the most intense forms of physical punishment, Christ also had to endure the journey to the place of crucifixion - Golgotha. Of this stage of Christ's sufferings Mattingly relates:
Mark records the following narrative of Christ's crucifixion:
"And they brought Him to the place Golgotha, which is translated, Place of a Skull. And they tried to give Him wine mixed with myrrh; but He did not take it. And they crucified Him, and divided up His garments among themselves, casting lots for them, to decide what each should take. And it was the third hour when they crucified Him. And the inscription of the charge against Him read, 'THE KING OF THE JEWS.' And they crucified two robbers with Him; one on the right and one on the left. And those passing by were hurling abuse at Him, wagging their heads, and saying, 'Ha! You who were going to destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days, save Yourself, and come down from the cross!' In the same way the chief priests along with the scribes were also mocking Him among themselves and saying, 'He saved others: He cannot save Himself. Let this Christ, the King of Israel, now come down from the cross, so that we may see and believe!' And those who were crucified with Him were casting the same insult at Him. And when the sixth hour had come, darkness fell over the whole land until the ninth hour. And at the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, 'Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?' which is translated, 'My GOD, My GOD, why hast Thou forsaken Me?' And when some of the bystanders heard it, they began saying, 'Behold, He is calling for Elijah.' And someone ran and filled a sponge with sour wine, put it on a reed, and gave Him a drink, saying, 'Let us see whether Elijah will come to take Him down.' And Jesus uttered a loud cry, and breathed His last. And the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. And when the centurion, who was standing right in front of Him, saw the way He breathed His last, he said, 'Truly this man was the Son of GOD!' " (Mark 15:22-27,29-39).
Of the crucifixion itself, Mattingly says: "It cannot be overemphasized that the sufferings endured on the cross were extremely intense and severe. The abominableness of this torture was realized by Rome's most famous orator, Marcus Tullius Cicero, who said, 'Even the mere word, cross, must remain far not only from the lips of the citizens of Rome, but also from their thoughts, their eyes, their ears' [Marcus Tullius Cicero, Pro Rabirio, V, 16]."
Michael Green says of Jesus' physical sufferings: "After a sleepless night, in which He was given no food, endured the mockery of two trials, and ahd His back lacerated with the cruel Roman cat-o-nine-tails, He was led out to execution by crucifixion. This was an excruciatingly painful death, in which every nerve in the body cried aloud in anguish."
Farrar gives a vivid description of death by crucifixion: "For indeed a death by crucifixion seems to include all that pain and death can have of horrible and ghastly - dizziness, cramp, thirst, starvation, sleeplessness, traumatic fever, tetanus, shame, publicity of shame, long continuance of torment, horror of anticipation, mortification of untended wounds - all intensified just up to the point at which they can be endured at all, but all stopping just short of the point which would give to the sufferer the relief of unconsciousness.
"The unnatural position made very movement painful; the lacerated veins and crushed tendons throbbed with incessant anguish; the wounds, inflamed by exposure, gradually gangrened; the arteries - especially at the head and stomach - became swollen and oppressed with surcharged blood; and while each variety of misery went on gradually increasing, there was added to them the intolerable pang of a burning and raging thirst; and all these physical complications caused an internal excitement and anxiety, which made the prospect of death itself - of death, the unknown enemy, at whose approach man usually shudders most - bear the aspect of a delicious and exquisite release."
Professor E. H. Day relates: "It is St. Mark who lays stress upon Pilate's wonder at hearing that Christ was already dead, and upon his personal questioning of the centurion before he would give leave for the removal of the body from the Cross. The Roman soldiers were not unfamiliar with the evidences of death, or with the sight of death following upon crucifixion."
As Michael Green points out, crucifixions were "not uncommon in Palestine."
Pilate required certification of Christ's death. Of this Green remarks: "Four executioners came to examine him, before a friend, Joseph of Arimathea, was allowed to take away the body for burial."
Green says of these four specialists who were accustomed to dealing with death: "They knew a dead man when they saw one - and their commanding officer had heard the condemned man's death cry himself and certified the death to the governor, Pontius Pilate..." ["And when the centurion, who was standing right in front of Him, saw the way He breathed His last, he said, 'Truly this man was the Son of GOD' (Mark 15:39)!" "And Pilate wondered if He was dead by this time, and summoning the centurion, he questioned him as to whether He was already dead (Mark 15:44)."
John R. W. Stott writes: "Pilate was indeed surprised that Jesus was already dead, but he was sufficiently convinced by the centurion's assurance to give Joseph permission to remove the body from the cross."
Professor Day observes that "the account in St. Matthew's Gospel of the guarding of the sepulchre is clear evidence that the Jews, for their part, believed that Jesus was dead."
Day further points out that none "of those who were occupied with the taking down of the body, and its laying in the grave, [had] any suspicion that life remained."
Professor Day, speaking of the volume The Physical Cause of the Death of Christ, says of its author, James Thompson: He "demonstrates that the death of Christ was due, not to physical exhaustion, or to the pains of crucifixion, but to agony of mind producing rupture of the heart. His energy of mind and body in the act of dissolution proves beyond contradiction that His death was not the result of exhaustion; the soldier's spear was the means to exhibiting to the world that His death was due to a cardiac rupture."
Samuel Houghton, M.D., the great physiologist from the University of Dublin, relates his view on the physical cause of Christ's death:
"When the soldier pierced with his spear the side of Christ, He was already dead; and the flow of blood and water that followed was either a natural phenomenon explicable by natural causes or it was a miracle. That St. John thought it, if not to be miraculous, at least to be unusual, appears plainly from the comment he makes upon it, and from the emphatic manner in which he solemnly declares his accuracy in narrating it.
"Repeated observations and experiments made upon men and animals have led me to the following results -
"When the left side is freely pierced after death by a large knife, comparable in size with a Roman spear, three distinct cases may be noted:
"1st. No flow of any kind follows the wound, except a slight trickling of blood.
"2nd. A copious flow of blood only follows the wound.
3rd. A flow of water only, succeeded by a few drops of blood, follows the wound.
"Of these three cases, the first is that which usually occurs; the second is found in cases of death by drowning and by strychnia, and may be demonstrated by destroying an animal with that poison, and it can be proved to be the natural case of a crucified person; and the third is found in cases of death from pleurisy, pericarditis, and rupture of the heart. With the foregoing cases most anatomists who have devoted their attention to this subject are familiar; but the two following cases, although readily explicable on physiological principles, are not recorded in the books (except by St. John). Nor have I been fortunate enough to meet with them.
"4th. A copious flow of water, succeeded by a copious flow of blood, follows the wound.
"5th. A copious flow of blood, succeeded by a copious flow of water, follows the wound.
"...Death by crucifixion causes a condition of blood in the lungs similar to that produced by drowning and strychnia; the fourth case would occur in a crucified person who had previously to crucifixion suffered from pleuritic effusion; and the fifth case would occur in a crucified person, who had died upon the cross from rupture of the heart. The history of the days preceding our LORD's crucifixion effectually excludes the supposition of pleurisy, which is also out of the question if blood first and water afterwards followed the wound. There remains, therefore, no supposition possible to explain the recorded phenomenon except the combination of the crucifixion and rupture of the heart.
"That rupture of the heart was the cause of the death of Christ is ably maintained by Dr. William Stroud; and that rupture of the heart actually occurred I firmly believe..."
The apostle John records a minutely detailed description of his observations at Golgotha. Houghton concludes:
"The importance of this is obvious. It [shows] that the narrative in St. John xix could never have been invented; that the facts recorded must have been seen by an eye-witness; and that the eye-witness was so astonished that he apparently thought the phenomenon miraculous."
Michael Green writes of Christ's death: "We are told on eyewitness authority that 'blood and water' came out of the pierced side of Jesus (John 19:34,35). The eyewitness clearly attached great importance to this. Had Jesus been alive when the spear pierced His side, strong spouts of blood would have emerged with ever heart beat. Instead, the observer noticed semi-solid dark red clot seeping out, distinct and separate from the accompanying watery serum. This is evidence of massive clotting of the blood in the main arteries, and is exceptionally strong medical proof of death. It is all the more impressive because the evangelist could not possible have realized its significance to a pathologist. The 'blood and water' from the spear-thrust is proof positive that Jesus was already dead."
Samuel Chandler says: "All the Evangelists agree, that Joseph had begged the body of Jesus off Pilate; who finding from the Centurion, who guarded the Cross, that He had been...sometime dead, gave it to him."
Professor Chandler than asserts that "the remarkable Circumstance of wrapping up the dead Body in Spices by Joseph and Nicodemus, according to the Manner of the Jews in burying, is full Proof that Jesus was dead, and known to be dead. Had there indeed been any Remains of Life in Him, when taken down from the Cross, the pungent Nature of the Myrrh and Aloes, their strong Smell, their Bitterness, their being wrapped round His Body in Linens with a Roller, and over His Head and Face with a Napkin, as was the Custom of the Jews to bury, must have entirely extinguished them."
Paulus of Heidelberg, at the beginning of the last century, made a futile attempt to explain away the resurrection of Chris by asserting that Jesus didn't really die, but merely swooned or fainted on the cross. However, as bishop E. LeCamus of La Rochell, France, charges: "Medical science, which he invoked to sustain his thesis, was the first to destroy his system. He was informed that if Jesus had been taken down from the cross while still alive, He must have died in the tomb, as the contact of the body with the cold stone of the sepulchre would have been enough to bring on a syncop through the congelation of the blood, owing to the fact that the regular circulation was already checked. Besides, a man in a swoon is not revived ordinarily by being shut up in a cave, but by being brought out into the open air. The strong odour of aromatics in a place hermetically sealed would have killed a sick person whose brain was already seized with the most unyielding swoon. In our days, rationalists of every strip reject this hypothesis, which is as absurd as it is odious, and all agree that the Crucified Jesus really died on Friday."
As Professor Albert Roper puts it, "Jesus was crucified by Roman soldiers, crucified according to the laws of Rome, which the soldiers had to the very last degree faithfully carried out."
In conclusion, we can agree with the statement made by the apostle John concerning his observations of Christ's death as he validated his testimony of the event:
"He who has seen has born witness, and his witness is true; and he knows that he is telling the truth..." (John 19:35).
THE TOMB
Wilbur M. Smith observes that "the word for tomb or sepulcher occurs thirty-two times in these four Gospel records of the resurrection..."
The tomb of Joseph of Arimathea on Easter morning was indeed a subject of much interest tot he Gospel writers.
Concerning the burial given Christ, W. J. Sparrow-Simpson makes the following observation: "The Roman practice was to leave the victim of crucifixion hanging on the cross to become the prey of birds and beasts. But who would dream of saying that there were no exceptions to this rule? Josephus [Autobiography, ch. 75; Wars of the Jews, IV, v.2] induced the Emperor Titus to take down from the cross three crucified persons while still alive Would any one argue that this cannot be historic because the rule was otherwise? The Jewish practice, not doubt, was the burial of the condemned. This was the Jewish law. But Josephus assures us that even the Jews themselves broke the law of burial at times. In the 'Wars of the Jews,' he writes: 'They proceeded to that degree of impiety as to cast away their dead bodies without burial, although the Jews used to take so much care of the burial of men, that they took down those that were condemned and crucified, and buried them before the going down of the sun.'
"Loisy thinks that relatives might obtain permission for burial of one condemned. No relative, however, obtained it for Jesus' body: nor any of the Twelve. The three crucified men whom Josephus induced the imperial authority to take down from the cross were not relatives; they were only friends. He 'remembered them as his former acquaintances.' A strong case might be made out against the likelihood of Jospheus' request, still more of its being granted. No one, however, appears to doubt the facts. They are constantly quoted as if they were true. Why should not Joseph of Arimathea make a similar request to Pilate?"
Henry Latham in The Risen Master gives the following information concerning Jesus' burial. He first cites "...the description of the SEpulchre of our LORD when it was supposed to have been newly discovered by the Empress Helena. The account is that of Eusebuis of Caesarea - the father of Church History. It is taken from his Theophania - a work recovered during this century, and of which a translation was published by Dr. Lee at Cambridge in 1943.
"The grave itself was a cave which had evidently been hewn out; a cave that had now been cut out in the rock, and which had experienced (the reception of) no other body. For it was necessary that it, which was itself a wonder, should have the care of that corpse only. For it is astonishing to see even this rock, standing out erect, and alone on a level land, and having only one cavern within it; lest had there been many, the miracle of Him who overcame death should have been obscured.
"Extract from the Architectural History of the Holy Sepulchre, by Prof. Willis, formerly Jacksonian Professor in the University of Cambridge. The Holy City: G. Williams, Vol. I, p.150.
" 'In many instances the sarcophagus, couch, or other resting-place, is hewn out of the solid rock, and thus must have been lift standing out from the floor, or projecting from the sides, when this apartment was first excavated. When the stone couch was employed, its surface was either level, or merely hollowed out an inch or two in depth, to afford a resting-place; and a raised part is often left at the head, to serve as a pillow, or a round cavity cut for the same purpose. Such couches are found in the Etruscan rock-tombs, and in those of Greece and Asia Minor...In the Jewish tombs of Syria the recess in the side of the chambers appears to have been always employed. But even this admits of great variety. In its simplest form, it is a rectangular opening or cavity in the face of the rock side of the tomb, the bottom of it being usually higher than the floor of the chamber; and its length and depth just sufficient to admit of a human body being deposited in it. Often its upper surface or soffit is curbed into an arch, which is either segmental or semicircular; and this, too, is its usual form when a sarcophagus is deposited n it.' "
Professor Guignebert, in his work, Jesus, p. 500, makes the following utterly unfounded statement: "The truth is that we do not know, and in all probability the disciples knew no better, where the body of Jesus had been thrown after it had been removed from the cross, probably by the executioners. It is more likely to have been cast into the pit for the executed than laid in a new tomb."
Professor Guignebert makes these assertions with absolutely no supporting evidence for his claims.
He totally disregards the testimony to the events as preserved in Mattingly secular and ecclesiastical literature of the first three centuries. He completely ignores the perfectly straightforward narrative of the Gospel records:
Why are the following accounts given if Christ's body was not actually taken by Joseph of Arimathea?
"And when it was evening, there came a rich man from Arimathea, named Joseph, who himself had also become a disciple of Jesus. This man came to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus. Then Pilate ordered it to be given over to him" (Matthew 27:57,58).
"And when evening had already come, because it was the Preparation Day, that is, the day before the Sabbath, Joseph of Arimathea came, a prominent member of the Council, a man who was himself waiting for the kingdom of GOD; and he gathered up courage and went in before Pilate, and asked for the body of Jesus. And Pilate wondered if He was dead by this time, and summoning the centurion, he questioned him as to whether He was already dead. And ascertaining this from the centurion, he granted the body to Joseph" (Mark 15:42-45).
"And behold, a man named Joseph, who was a member of the Council, a good and righteous man, (he ahd not consented to their plan and action) a man from Arimathea, a city of the Jews, who was waiting for the kingdom of GOD, this man went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus" (Luke 23:50-52).
"And after these things Joseph of Arimathea, being a disciple of Jesus, but a secret one, for fear of the Jews, asked Pilate that he might take away the body of Jesus; and Pilate granted permission. He came therefore and took away His body" (John 19:38).
The records speak for themselves; the body of Christ was anything but thrown into a pit for the executed!
What about the accounts of the burial preparations?
"And Joseph took the body and wrapped it in a clean linen cloth..." (Matthew 27:59).
"And Joseph brought a linen sheet, took Him down, wrapped Him in the linen sheet..." (Mark 15:46).
"And when the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome, bought spices, that they might come and anoint Him" (Mark 16:1).
"And they [the women who had come with Him out of Galilee] returned and prepared spices and perfumes" (Luke 23:56a).
"He [Joseph of Arimathea] came...and Nicodemus came also...bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about a hundred pounds weight. And so they took the body of Jesus, and bound it in linen wrappings with the spices, as is the burial custom of the Jews" (John 19:38b-40).
Why are these accounts recorded if such preparations did not take place?
What of the women who watched while Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus prepared and entombed Jesus' body? They had:
"...followed after, and saw the tomb..." (Luke 23:55), and were "...sitting opposite the grave" (Matthew 27:62), and "...were looking on to see where He was laid" (Mark 15:47). These women surely knew there was a tomb. The records make this point very obvious.
How can one ignore the observations recorded concerning the tomb itself?
"And Joseph took the body...and laid it in his own new tomb..." (Matthew 27:59,60).
"...which had been hewn out in the rock..." (Mark 15:46).
"...where no one had ever lain" (Luke 23:53).
which was located "...in the place where He was crucified...in the garden..." (John 19:41).
Professor Alford, the Greek scholar, states his observations on the evidence contained in the Gospel accounts:
Matthew alone relates that it was Joseph's own tomb. John, that it was in a garden, and in the place where he was crucified. All, except Mark, notice the newness of the tomb. John does not mention that it belonged to Joseph..."
Of Joseph of Arimathea, he says: "His reason for the body being laid there is that it was near, and the preparation rendered haste necessary."
Concluding from Alford's comments, then, the evidence "that we can determine respecting the sepulchre from the data here furnished, is (1) That it was not cut downwards, after the manner of a grave with us, but horizontally or nearly so, into the face of the rock."
Why did the Jews ask Pilate to place a guard at Christ's tomb, if no such sepulcher existed?
"Now on the next day, which is the one after the preparation, the chief priests and the Pharisees gathered together with Pilate, and said, 'Sir, we remember that when he was still alive that deceiver said, "After three days I am to rise again." Therefore, give orders for the grave to be made secure until the third day, lest the disciples come and steal Him away and say to the people, "He has risen from the dead," and the last deception will be worse than the first.' Pilate said to them, 'You have a guard; go, make it as secure as you know how.' And they went and made the grave secure, and along with the guard they set a seal on the stone" (Matthew 27:62-66).
Indeed, the truth of the matter is plain, as Professor Major so clearly puts it: "Had the body of Christ merely been thrown into a common grave and left unattended, there would have been no possible reason for the anxiety of His enemies to spread the report that the body had been stolen."
What are we to think of the visit of the women to the tomb after the Sabbath?
"Now late on the Sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary came to look at the grave" (Matthew 28:1).
"And very early on the first day of the week, they came to the tomb when the sun had risen" (Mark 16:2).
"...On the first day of Mattingly week, at early dawn, they [the women who had come with Him out of Galilee] came to the tomb, bringing the spices which they had prepared" (Luke 24:1).
"Now on the first day of the week Mary Magdalene came early to the tomb, while it was still dark, and saw the stone already taken away from the tomb" (John 20:1).
If Jesus hadn't actually been entombed in Joseph's grave, records of such a visit would not appear in the Gospel narratives.
What are we to think of Peter's and John's visit to the tomb after hearing the women's report?
"But Peter arose and ran to the tomb; stooping and looking in, he saw the linen wrappings only; and he went away to his home, marvelling at that which had happened" (Luke 24:12).
"Peter therefore went forth, and the other disciple (John), and they were going to the tomb. And the two were running together; and the other disciple ran ahead faster than Peter, and came to the tomb first; and stooping and looking in, he saw the linen wrappings lying there; but he did not go in. Simon Peter therefore also came, following him, and entered the tomb; and he beheld the linen wrappings lying there, and the face-cloth, which had been on His head, not lying with the linen wrappings, but rolled up in a place by itself. Then entered in therefore the other disciple also, who had first come to the tomb, and he saw, and believed" (John 20:3-8).
The evidence of this narrative is likewise ignored.
Wilbur M. Smith makes the following statement concerning Guignebert's hypothesis:
"He denies the fact which the four Gospels clearly set forth, that the body of Jesus was placed in the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea. Denying this he presents no evidence to contradict it, but makes a statement which proceeds out of his own imagination. In fact, one would say his statement about the body of Jesus proceeds not alone from his imagination, but from his preconceived [philosophical, not historical, prejudice] determination..."
The evidence clearly speaks for itself, but Professor Guignebert refuses to acknowledge the evidence because it does not agree with his world view that the miraculous is not possible. The French professor draws his conclusions in spite of the evidence, not because of it. Indeed, as Smith says of his theory: "We dismiss it, as being utterly without historical foundation, and for this reason not deserving further consideration, in studying the four historical documents we have in front of us, known as the Gospels."
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