Did Jesus fake his death?
“Did Jesus fake his death?” Over the course of history this question has been commonly asked and has brought forward many different theories from both believers and non believers alike. There are many people who believe that Jesus never existed. Some believe he existed but did not die on the cross and therefore was not resurrected, another belief is that Jesus purposely faked his death! It is my belief along with many christians that Jesus did die on the cross and was resurrected. Through my readings and research I found evidence to support my belief.
The swoon theory states that Jesus was still alive when he was removed from the cross and that he just appeared dead because he had been stunned and was in a state of shock. In the popular book “The Passover Plot” they state the belief that Jesus enlisted the help of few important variables to help him accomplish an elaborate hoax fooling the Romans into believing he had actually died. They believe that the Jesus could have been drugged when he was given a sponge with liquid on it while he was on the cross. The liquid or drug could have been something to put Jesus in a coma like state.
Could any of these above theories be true, did Jesus fake his death? In order to disprove these ideas you have to look carefully at all the historical events surrounding Jesus’s death. Especially the details of his flogging and Crucifixion. The idea that Jesus tricked people into believing he had died goes against what most people believe because all the stories of Jesus in the bible portray him to have been a highly moral person. Thus I do not think it would have been in his character to do this.
Could Jesus have survived the flogging and the crucifixion and have been just stunned or in a coma? It is hard to imagine someone surviving these horrible acts as they are very harsh and violent and were carried out by roman soldiers. The Roman Soldiers were very experienced at their jobs. They performed numerous crucifixions daily and had to identify when people were dead on a daily basis. They were brutal soldiers who carried out their duties with confidence. The flogging was a ruthless form of whipping in which the soldiers used short whips with sharp pieces of metal, rocks or bones tied to the ends in order to lash their victims. Jesus would have endured many many lashes which he would have likely been close to death even before his crucifixion. When Jesus was on the cross, the nails went thru his wrists likely severing nerves and arteries and it is explained that once someone can no longer push up with their feet they cannot breath and die a slow death by asphyxiation. Even if Jesus had been alive up till this point, one of the roman soldiers put a spear in Jesus side. It was witnessed by the apostle John that he saw blood and water come out of the spear wound. The blood and water is indication of a life threatening injury as the watery fluid coming out indicates that the spear entered Jesus lung causing a medical injury which is named “pericardial effusion.”
Following all the brutality Jesus was put into the tomb with a rock slab over him that weighed a ton. If he had been alive at this point he would have had to escape the burial wrappings and roll away the extremely heavy stone as well as get passed numerous guards unnoticed. After suffering all the trauma Jesus came to the disciples who witnessed him in full healthy form with no blood or injuries. Not one disciple but many witnessed this. For all the above reasons I believe that Jesus did not fake his death and that he died on the cross and was truly resurrected from the dead.
Bibliography:
@AiG. "The Resurrection of Jesus Christ: Faking Death." Answers in Genesis. N.p., 29 Mar. 2013. Web. 27 Nov. 2016.
Cut2thetruth. "Did Jesus Fake His Death?" Cut2TheTruth. N.p., n.d. Web. 21 Nov. 2016.
Strobel, Lee. The Case for Christ: A Journalist's Personal Investigation of the Evidence for Jesus. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1998. Print.
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