Clever quote. In the old days I read an article in a mainstream magazine that said that Jesus never died. In those days they already knew some drugs that could make a living man appear dead.
Jesus was made to die because basically he said "give the romans what they deserve (i.e. pay taxes) and give to God what He deserves. (Jesus was still ahead of the miraculous transformation to becoming God, otherwise he would have been rich by then.) Some historians think this was the operative statement that made Jesus a dead man, and survive his death at the same time.
In Judea people did not want to pay taxes. Jesus was probably a very respected man, a holy man, revered by quite a lot of people, and known by even more people. He was an influential man in spiritual matters. And sprituality and mullah (money) had mixed boundaries in those days, things were not that well defined and delienated from each other.
Pilate was supportive of Jesus, and Rome (the caesar's office) encouraged Pilate to keep this relationship sustained. When Rome heard that Jesus is on the side of the "let's pay taxes" group, they sent word to Pilate to help Jesus. But the locals wanted him dead. If it became known to Rome that Pilate had helped to crucify or in any way murder Jesus, his head would have rolled.
So he told some of Jesus friends that they will stage a mock-death. The drugs were brought in, Jesus was told of this, and when he drank the glass of vinegar, he drank the poison/drug that gave him the appearance of a dead man. So much so, that they pierced his chest to see, to prove, he's dead. But blood came out, since his heart was still beating.
At any rate, it was Friday very close to sunset, so they took him off the cross, and put his body in a cave. His buddies slipped in during the night, very likely with the aid given by Pilate. They somehow nursed Jesus back to life, with the antidotes of the poison. He came back. He came out of the cave on Monday, claimed resurrection, or maybe others claimed it for his sake. He walked around like a Zombie for a few days.
The story continues that Pilate probably had him travel to Alexandria (everyone went to Alexandria who was in the who is who of intellectual and spiritual elite at the time). Or else Jesus could not survive the poison and the injuries suffered, and simply died.
This is unprovable, but I find it likely and probably. The two guys, buddies of his, were seen walking around with little bottles of potions that week-end. Or so I hear the Bible says. I don't even know this part for sure. Pilate and Rome certainly would not want to anger the Jews by trying to save him from crucifiction. But even then there was strict law, secular law, enforced by the Roman Empire. Just like the Governor of Texas or the Governor of Florida could not get away these days with miscounting votes, because the law of the United States would forbid them from doing that, Pilate also had to observe the law in all his actions. He tried every possible legal route, he could not. The Jews wanted to see the infidel's blood. The infidel wanted them to pay taxes, and that was the biggest blasphemy in the entire Judea at the time.
His resurrection is suspicious, unless you are a Christian and can believe the impossible. His cry "my cup hath runneth full" is quizzical at best -- the drugs acted quickly, altering his cognitive faculties. He bled after he was believed to have died. My only addition to this story that helps its cause, is that Jesus died amazingly quickly, in a matter of hours. Nobody died that quickly on the cross, at least not from beign crucified. The type of crucifiction that they subjugated Jesus to, involved tying somebody's arms to the cross bar, giving him leverage but a poor one by way of a slippery or at least slanted foot-rest. The crucified person could not breath unless he made an effort to stand straight, which he had to do with the strenght in his arms, and a little by balancing on the slanted foot rest. When his arms got tired, he had to relax them. This made his body drop, and he could not breathe, at least not well. Think of waterboarding. A lot of torture depends on people having the illusion they can't breathe. So crucified people survived very long, and that's why crucifiction was started often on Fridays, since there was no way in hell that the victims would need to be buried on the Sabbeth. My addition is that it is not at all likely that a previously well-sustained man would die so quickly from crucificiton -- gives support to the poison theory.
I believe the version by the writer of this magazine article. It makes sense on so many levels, and definitely more sense than the Bible ever could convince me of, as far as the truth is concerned as claimed by the Bible.
Edited by
wux
on Mon 08/16/10 03:18 PM
