Joan of Bark

I'm just reading Jesus Lived in India (or via: amazon.co.uk)by Holger Kersten. I'm not interested in debating the central thesis of his book here, but instead want to focus on one chapter in which Kersten makes the claim that Jesus was not dead when placed in the tomb (not an original claim for JC, I know).

The thrust of his argument is based on the following points taken from GJohn, which Kersten regards as the most accurate of the resurrection stories. Kersten claims that GJohn can be read on two levels, one which describes Jesus as dead, the other in which it is obvious (for followers?) that Jesus was not properly crucified.

1) GJohn reads like an eyewitness account of the burial, which is described quite differently from the burial of Lazarus -- implying that Jesus' accomplices knew He wasn't dead.

2) Jesus 'died' after just three hours on the cross, a ridiculously short time to expire compared to other crucifixions.

3) Jesus burial description contradicts the standard procedure for a Jewish burial.

4) Jesus' 'dead' body was treated with healing herbs and substances.

5) Jesus' body bleeds after being punctured by the spear, whereas corpses were known not to bleed.

6) His legs were left unbroken, contradicting a Roman procedure that was used to make sure of a victim's being dead. Kersten claims that the centurion tending to Jesus was actually a secret follower.

7) The 'vinegar' given to Jesus was actually a combination of opiates and drugs used to slow vital signs and give the impression of death.

8) Jesus cried out just before dying -- highly implausable if he died from suffocation.

9) The rolling aside of the stone in front of the tomb does not seem necessary since Jesus is often shown passing through locked doors after the miraculous 'resurrection'. Of course, if he was still alive, this would have been necessary (although this raises the question of why His rescuers didn't roll the stone back in place to fool the authorities).

10) In the Gospel of Peter, three men emerge from the tomb, two of them supporting the third, who may have been groggy after a drug-induced coma.

11) A theologian is claiming that the word 'resurrection' is a mistranslation of the Aramaic word for 'resuscitation'.

There's more, but the above covers the gist of it ...

Kersten also uses the Shroud of Turin to support his hypothesis, but that's a controversy for another thread.

I'm sure readers here will be eager to pick apart Kersten's arguments.

Ken Carman

The Shroud is considered bogus; not "the" shroud." (Really, after 2000 plus years; if we are to believe standard theologically correct time lines pushed by Christians, to expect any shroud to last that long is more than a bit irrational. But as you said: another topic.)

Could he have survived? Yes. The Passover Plot also suggests this and that he was executed again: did not survive. My guess is that whatever actually happened has been lost amongst attempts to control the message and biblical alteration: intentional and translation errors.

Huon

According to Holger Kersten, is Jesus a man, who can die, or an aspect of God, who cannot die, even on a cross ?


The rope supports the hanged man.

aa5874

But hundreds of texts have survived about Jesus, born of a virgin.

There is no need to guess.

Jesus was just simply a story of fiction that was believed to be true.

QuestionMark

Vus you dere?

QM?

Amaleq13

What specific evidence is given to support this claim? That the punishment could last a long time does not mean it always or even usually did. IOW, I don't think there is any amount of time that could be accurately characterized as "ridiculously short". I'm sure some victims could have died with the shock of the first nail.

IIUC, that is incorrect. The procedure was used to hasten death rather than ensure it.

ApostateAbe

I just got done with some homework in statistics. The topic was probability.

What is a probability that any victim of crucifixion survives the thing? Were the Romans bribed? Were they sympathizers. If so, then what are the chances of that? If not, then the probability I would guess would have to be around 0.02. Victims of crucifixion were intended to die.

Assuming that, what are the chances that the myth would claim that he died? My subjective estimate is 0.2.

What are the chances that the myth would claim that he resurrected and probably went up to heaven, leaving no more trace of his resurrected time on Earth, almost as if he stayed dead? My subjective estimate is 0.1.

You multiply each of those probabilities together and you get 0.0004, or 0.04% chance the author is correct.

DNAReplicator

I have often wondered if the account of the crucifixion could be read such that Jesus did not die on the cross but of his injuries 3 days later. I have also conjectured that original ending of Mark is absent from the NT canon because it did not treat the non-death of Jesus on the cross as miraculous.

However in the absence of any good supporting evidence I have not posted such musings here. I do however always find it refreshing how the same lack of useful data does not prevent others from advocating similarly speculative ideas.

Toto

It is worth reading Robert Price's review of Schonfeld.

Price explained once in a lecture that all of these attempts to find some naturalistic explanation for the Bible go back to a brief period of Protestant Rationalism. The Protestant Rationalists held to two principles: that God made a perfect world with no necessity for any divine intervention, so the world was naturalistic and followed the laws of physics; but that the Bible was an accurate record of history. They therefore spent a lot of time trying to find naturalistic explanations for apparent miracles or other evidence of God intervening in his creation.

The idea that the Bible is an accurate representation of history has been discarded by every modern critic. The idea that gJohn represents an eyewitness account, in particular, is so far off the radar that it is not clear why it should be taken seriously. Bringing the Shroud of Turin, an obvious fake from the 14th century, into the argument clinches the deal.

And note that in the Gospel of Peter, a cross also walks out of the tomb and speaks. The likelihood of this being eyewitness testimony? Only of those eyewitnesses were on some sort of drugs.

Joan of Bark

Kersten's argument is that the Romans wanted the victim to suffer as long as possible, so they devised crucifixion as a method that would usually not kill someone quickly. They had a lot of practice in making torture last as long as possible; therefore it would be unusual for someone to expire after just three hours. Obviously it would be difficult to test this claim scientifically in the modern world.

Okay, but why were the legs of the criminals around Jesus broken while His were left alone?