WAS JESUS DEAD?“

WAS JESUS DEAD?“Marley was deader than a doornail, of that there was no doubt.” So begins Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol, the author not wanting anyone to be mistaken as to the supernatural character of what is soon to take place. In the same way, before we take on the role of CSI and piece together evidence for a resurrection, we must first establish that there was, in fact, a corpse. After all, occasionally the newspapers will report on some “corpse” in a morgue who was found stirring and recovered. Could something like that have happened with Jesus?Some have proposed that Jesus lived through the crucifixion and was revived by the cool, damp air in the tomb–“Whoa, how long was I out for?” But that theory doesn’t seem to square with the medical evidence. An article in the Journal of the American Medical Association explains why this so-called “swoon theory” is untenable: “Clearly, the weight of historical and medical evidence indicated that Jesus was dead. … The spear, thrust between His right ribs.

Atheist Bertrand Russell, who doubted Jesus’ very existence, assumed that the resurrection of the body was impossible. In 1926, Russell wrote, “I believe that when I die I shall rot, and nothing of my own ego will survive.”1 Well, that’s cheerful. Russell clearly bordered on the morose, but we’ve all wondered, with perhaps more optimism, what will happen to us when we die. Death has been called “the great equalizer.” Thousands of stone markers surrounded by spacious green lawns tell the stories. Nobel Prize winners. Beauty queens. Billionaires. Presidents. All die. Someday it will be our turn. Are we to despair with Russell, or is there hope? According to the New Testament, Jesus’ resurrection has given us hope for eternal life beyond the grave. All of Christianity hinges on that one promise.Theologian R. C. Sproul has stated, “The claim of resurrection is vital to Christianity. If Christ has been raised from the dead by God, then He has the credentials and certification that no other religious leader possess

Buddha is dead. Mohammad is dead. Moses is dead. Confucius is dead. But, according to … Christianity, Christ is alive.”So different and so abnormal is all this that a part of us would like to dismiss it as myth. But is the resurrection to be relegated to a Sunday school story—or is there evidence?Researcher Josh McDowell said, “After more than seven hundred hours of studying this subject and thoroughly investigating its foundation, I have come to the conclusion that the resurrection of Jesus Christ is one of the most wicked, vicious, heartless hoaxes ever foisted upon the minds of men, OR it is the most fantastic fact of history.”3 Right. So which is it?Let’s look at the evidence.CYNICS AND SKEPTICS But not everyone is willing to fairly examine the evidence. Bertrand Russell admits his take on Jesus was “not concerned” with historical facts.4 Historian Joseph Campbell, without citing evidence, calmly told his PBS television audience that the resurrection of Jesus is not a factual event.


WAS JESUS DEAD?But skepticism of this verdict may be in order, as this case has been cold for 2,000 years. At the very least, we need a second opinion. One place to find that is in the reports of non-Christian historians from around the time when Jesus lived. Three of these historians mentioned the death of Jesus.• Lucian (c.120–after 180 A.D.) referred to Jesus as a crucified sophist (philosopher).• Josephus (c.37–c.100A.D.) wrote, “At this time there appeared Jesus, a wise man, for he was a doer of amazing deeds. When Pilate condemned him to the cross, the leading men among us, having accused him, those who loved him did not cease to do so.”• Tacitus (c. 56–c.120 A.D.) wrote, “Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty … at the hands of our procurator Pontius Pilate.”


Please notice the Crucifix that Pope John Paul II is holding up to the people, at left. Study it closely, and you will realize that it is not a Traditional Crucifix, as we show below. Rather, this Crucifix is known as a "Bent Cross". But, what does that mean? For the answer to that question, let us turn to a Roman Catholic author, Piers Compton, writing in his book, "The Broken Cross: Hidden Hand In the Vatican", Channel Islands, Neville Spearman, 1981. This Bent Crucifix is "... a sinister symbol, used by Satanists in the sixth century, that had been revived at the time of Vatican Two. This was a bent or broken cross, on which was displayed a repulsive and distorted figure of Christ, which the black magicians and sorcerers of the Middle Ages had made use of to represent the Biblical term 'Mark of the Beast'. Yet, not only Paul VI, but his successors, the two John-Pauls, carried that object and held it up to be revered by crowds, who had not the slightest idea that it stood for anti-Christ.

"Suddenly it became unarguable that now during this papacy, the Roman Catholic organization carried a permanent presence of clerics who worshipped Satan and liked it; of bishops and priests who sodomized boys and each other; of nuns who performed the "Black Rites" of Wicca, and who lived in lesbian relationships . . . every day, including Sundays and Holy Days, acts of heresy and blasphemy and outrage and indifference were committed and permitted at holy Altars by men who had been called to be priests. Sacrilegious actions and rites were not only performed on Christ's Altars, but had the connivance or at least the tacit permission of certain Cardinals, archbishops, and bishops. . . In total number they were a minority—anything from one to ten percent of Church personnel. But of that minority, many occupied astoundingly high positions or rank.... The facts that brought the Pope to a new level of suffering were mainly two: The systematic organizational links—the network, in other words that had been established