Resurrection evidence index

How Can I be Sure Jesus really died?

Secondly, it was exceptional for anyone to live after being put to the cross. Flavious Jospehus, an early Jewish historian and writer, wrote about finding out that 3 of his friends were being crucified. He immediately required the Roman governor to take them down from their crosses. They were quickly brought down and given medical attention - but two of them died anyway. There is no suggestion that any of the 3 underwent the torture that Jesus endured. Josephus,
Life of 75.420-421

Fourthly, his friends also knew He was dead. His body was taken down and seen by His supporters; Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus. If they had any suspicion that He was still alive then clearly they would not have gone on to bury Him - but would have sought immediate medical attention. Instead they bound Him - including His face - with grave clothes, and then went on to cover Him with 70 pounds of spices. These are not the actions of men who suspected He may still be alive. Therefore, neither Jesus' enemies - nor His friends - had any suspicion He was still alive.

The Crucifixion: How did Jesus die?

Jesus was crucified. That is, tortured and executed by being fixed to a cross.

Scourging
Jesus was stripped of His clothing and His hands tied to a post above His head. It is doubtful whether the Romans made any attempt to follow the Jewish law in this matter of scourging. The Jews had an ancient law prohibiting more than forty lashes. The Pharisees, always making sure that the law was strictly kept, insisted that only thirty-nine lashes be given. (In case of a miscount, they were sure of remaining within the law.) The Roman legionnaire would step forward with the flagrum (or flagellum) in his hand. This is a short whip consisting of several heavy, leather thongs with two small balls of lead attached near the ends of each. The heavy whip is brought down with full force again and again across Jesus shoulders, back and legs. At first the heavy thongs cut through the skin only. Then, as the blows continue, they are cut deeper into the subcutaneous tissues, producing first an oozing of blood from the capillaries and veins of the skin, and finally spurting arterial bleeding from vessels in the underlying muscles. The small balls of lead first produce large, deep bruises which are broken open by subsequent blows. Finally the skin of the back is hanging in long ribbons and the entire area is an unrecognizable mass of torn bleeding tissue. When it is determined by the centurion in charge that the prisoner is near death, the beating is finally stopped. The half-fainting Jesus was then untied and allowed to slump to the stone pavement, wet with His own blood.

Non-Christian Sources about the Crucifixion of Jesus
1) Roman Historian Tacitus also made mention of the crucifixion, writing in AD 112. ".. people called 'Christians', hated for their abominable crimes. Their name comes from Christ, who, during the reign of Tiberius, had been executed by the procurator Pontius Pilate." Tacitus, Annals 15.44
Lucian of Samosata, a Roman satirist (c. 175 AD), said;"[Christ is] .. the man who was crucified in Palestine because he introduced this new cult into the world. .. Furthermore, their first lawgiver persuaded them that they were all brothers one of another after they have transgressed once for all by denying the Greek gods and by worshipping that crucified sophist himself and living under his laws."
2) Babylonian Sanhedrin, Jewish records 43a. Yeb. IV 3; 49a:, "On the eve of Passover they hanged (i.e. crucified on a tree) Yeshu [of Nazareth] and the herald went before him for forty days saying [Yeshu of Nazareth] is going forth to be stoned in that he hath practiced sorcery and beguiled and led astray Israel. Let everyone knowing aught in his defence come and plead for him. But they found naught in his defence and hanged him on the eve of Passover."
3) Flavious Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews 18:63-64, said; "About this time there lived Jesus, a wise man, if indeed one ought to call him a man. For he was one who wrought surprising feats and was a teacher of such people as accept the truth gladly. He won over many Jews and many of the Greeks. He was the Messiah. When Pilate, upon hearing him accused by men of the highest standing amongst us, had condemned him to be crucified, those who had in the first place come to love him did not give up their affection for him. On the third day he appeared to them restored to life, for the prophets of God had prophesied these and countless other marvelous things about him. And the tribe of the Christians, so called after him, has still to this day not disappeared."

Crown of Thorns
A small bundle of flexible branches covered with long thorns (commonly used for firewood) were plaited into the shape of a crown and this was pressed into Jesus' scalp. Again there would have been copious bleeding (the scalp being one of the most vascular areas of the body.) After mocking Him and striking Him across the face, the soldiers take the stick from His hand and strike Him across the head, driving the thorns deeper into His scalp. Finally, they tire of their sadistic sport and the robe is torn from His back. This had already become adherent to the clots of blood and serum in the wounds, and its removal, just as in the careless removal of a surgical bandage, causes excruciating pain ...almost as though He were again being whipped - and the wounds again begin to bleed. In deference to Jewish custom, the Romans return His garments.

Death by Suffocation
Crucifixion was designed as a method of torture, only eventually leading to death. With the victim hanging from the beam, it was raised and attached to a vertical post or stake.  Hanging from their hands, the victims could no longer breathe.  But to prolong the event, their feet were fixed to the cross.  This latter point is critical in that it allows them to press down on their feet and thus relieve the pressure on their chest.  Despite the agony, a man suspended with his feet fixed (especially a healthy and fit man) could survive for up to one or two days.  In fact some victims might take as much as a week to die -- from exhaustion, thirst, or blood poisoning from the nails.

Frederick Farrar described the intended, torturous effect: "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 suffer the relief of unconsciousness." One doctor has called it "a symphony of pain" produced by every movement, with every breath; even a slight breeze on his skin could bring screaming pain at this point.

There could be a number of reasons. Firstly, Jesus suffered a full scourging before undergoing crucifixion. Many people died as a result of the scourging alone, but Jesus was then beaten and forced to carry His cross for over 650 meters. This would, no doubt, have resulted in increased blood loss. Secondly, He had no sleep, no food and no drink. He would have been dangerously dehydrated - hence His cry "I thirst". He could no longer physically carry the cross. It is possible that He also lacked the strength necessary to continue to pull Himself up on the cross in order to breathe. Thirdly, Jesus' wrists and feet were also pierced through with nails. It is likely that these also punctured arteries causing further blood loss.

Many people felt that Mel Gibson's film about Jesus' final hours, `The Passion of the Christ`, was unrealistically and excessively violent. It has been described as grotesquely enjoying the violence at the expense of the meaning behind the crucifixion.

The empty tomb

How do you know that Jesus' tomb was empty?

The tomb in which Jesus was buried must have been empty, as the gospels attest. For anyone wishing to deny that the tomb was empty there are a great number of facts to be reckoned with.

1) The Gospel was first preached in Jerusalem. Is it really conceivable that so many people would have become Christians in such a short space of time if the body of Jesus lay rotting in a tomb nearby? Is it really possible that the faith went through such a massive explosion of growth when an easy piece of evidence to check out lay so close at hand? I struggle to believe that many people would have become, or remained, Christians if the tomb was not obviously empty.

Professor J N Anderson states; "The empty tomb stands, a veritable rock, as an essential element in the evidence for the resurrection. To suggest that it was not in fact empty at all, as some have done, seems to me ridiculous. It is a matter of history that the apostles from the very beginning made many converts in Jerusalem, hostile as it was, by proclaiming the glad news that Christ had risen from the grave - and they did it within a short walk from the sepulcher. Any one of their hearers could have visited the tomb and come back again between lunch and whatever was the equivalent of afternoon tea. Is it conceivable, then, that the apostles would have had this success if the body of the one they proclaimed as risen Lord was all the time decomposing in Joseph's tomb? Would a great company of the priests and many hard headed Pharisees have been impressed with the proclamation of a resurrection which was in fact no resurrection at all, but a mere message of spiritual survival couched in the misleading terms of a literal rising from the grave?"

2) The Jewish authorities did not produce the body of Jesus to refute Christianity. Why not? They had every reason to do so. When the Christian faith grew and became a problem why not just show to the masses the rotting body of Christ and put the whole matter to rest? Why did they not conduct an official examination of the sepulcher? There has never been any attempt to prove that, in fact, Jesus body did still lie in the tomb where He was buried. Instead the whole effort of denying the resurrection of Christ was focused on the suggestion that the disciples stole the body (Matthew 28v11-15). Why suggest this if His body still lay readily at hand?

3) Why did the tomb not become a place of early Christian reverence or pilgrimage? All over the world are Catholic shrines to the bones of saints. How much more then would the body of Jesus Himself have become a shrine to the faithful. Yet there is absolutely no suggestion that the tomb was treated in this way. Why? Because all and sundry knew that His body was not there.

J N Anderson states; "It is also significant that no suggestion has come down to us that the tomb became a place of reverence or pilgrimage in the early days of the church. Even if those who were convinced Christians might have been deflected from visiting the sepulcher their assurance that their Master had risen from the dead, what of all those who had heard His teaching , and even known the miracle of His healing touch, without joining the Christian community? They too, it would seem, knew that His body was not there, and must have concluded that a visit to the tomb would be pointless."

4) From the outset there was an extremely strong `empty tomb` tradition within the Christian community. This is embodied in all the gospels. How could this tradition have stood up to scrutiny within the Church at Jerusalem if the tomb was not, in fact, empty? Why was this tradition never the focus of attack or challenge by the Jewish authorities? If the tomb was not empty then it would have clearly been highly vulnerable to challenge and disproof - and the rest of the Christian message would have come tumbling down as well, like a house of cards.

5) A slab of stone 61cm tall was found in Nazareth (who else do we know that came from Nazareth, eh?) with the following inscription from Caesar Claudius c. 50 AD.

"It is my pleasure that graves and tombs remain perpetually undisturbed for those who have made them for the cult of their ancestors or children or members of their house. If, however, anyone charges that another has either demolished them, or has in any other way extracted the buried, or has maliciously transferred them to other places in order to wrong them, or has displaced the sealing on other stones, against such a one I order that a trial be instituted, as in respect of the gods, so in regard to the cult of mortals. For it shall be much more obligatory to honour the buried. Let it be absolutely forbidden for anyone to disturb them. In case of violation I desire that the offender be sentenced to capital punishment on charge of violation of sepulcher."

It is interesting that the ruler of the whole Roman empire, just a few short years after the crucifiction decides to legislate against the violation of tombs. It is especially interesting that this order was found in Nazareth. Is it likely that this unusual ordinance would have been made if Jesus' body still lay undisturbed in the Jerusalem tomb?

The simple fact is that the tomb was empty and both Christians and the enemies of Christ were unable to deny it.

How then can we explain the empty tomb?