The death of Jesus
An essay by: Adrian Barnett
The crucifixion, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ are probably the single most important event in the Christian religion. The crucifix itself, an instrument of torture and death, is the most common symbol associated with Christians. It is found in their churches, in their houses and often hanging around their necks. The problem I have is with the whole point of the crucifixion (assuming, for the sake of argument that it actually happened). What was it all for? What good did it do?
The Death
How does crucifixion kill you? According to the Bible, it seems you can just hang there indefinitely until you feel like "giving up the ghost". In fact (correct me if I am wrong) you die of asphyxiation*. Hanging by your arms makes it more and more difficult to expand your chest until you can no longer draw air into your lungs. One of the reasons that the Romans would break the legs of the crucified was to speed up their death - they could not take any weight on their legs and the whole body was hanging by the arms.
(As an aside, it should also be noted that the Romans probably tied the wrists to the cross, and nailed the hands on to make sure the victim could not pull his hands free. If nails were used with no rope, the weight of the body would simply rip the nails through the hands. It has been mentioned that the nails were usually placed between the Radius and Ulna bones in the forearm, as they could support the weight. Presumably, both the combination of the ropes and nails held the victim in place. Interesting that you never see Christian stigmatic’s showing rope marks on the wrist and nail marks on the fore-arms, and most images of Christ show him supported only by nails through the hand...)
The four gospels all give different accounts of (among many other things) Jesus' final words. Seems to me that he would hardly have been able to suck in a lungful of air, let alone make any sort of grand speeches.
*"[Y]ou die of asphyxiation", is not completely accurate; actually it is asphyxiation by drowning. The reason I state this is asphyxiation can imply a fairly quick and painless death. In the case of crucifixion, you very slowly drown as the chest and abdominal muscles tire and fluid collects in the lungs. This can take any where from several hours to several days. This, coupled with the heat stress and dehydration, it makes for a very bad day. Coupled with the above, it is stated that Jesus Christ was stabbed in the chest with a spear; it is assumed this was done to speed up the process of his death. There are three major organs in the area where tradition states he was stabbed (i.e. the heart, liver and lungs). It can be assumed that since he lingered for more than about 10 minutes, he was not stabbed in the heart or the liver. It can also be assumed that the stab wound did not penetrate the tissue wall that separates the lungs, thereby collapsing only the right lung, leaving one functioning lung (that was filling with fluid). A stab wound to the lung only, would account for the statements referring to the blood and fluid.
A stab wound to the heart would have killed him in not more than 5 minutes, in the liver upwards to an hour or more, to the lung only several hours.
Since the stabbing took place late in the procedure, there is adequate time for fluid to accumulate. It must be remembered that the Romans were very good at this procedure. The average Roman soldier had a surprising knowledge of human anatomy; they knew exactly where and how deep to stab someone to cause the desired effect. Based on the accounts of how and why Romans crucified people, it [the time taken to die] depended on how long they felt like allowing you to die and how much they wanted you to suffer. The intent of crucifixion is an object lesson to the masses. If their intent was to really show their displeasure with you and your actions, i.e. rebellious people, you would be attached to the cross in either the upright or inverted position (in Jesus Christ's case he was attached upright). There are two basic methods, either nailing the arms through the wrist or hands (the latter requires the wrist be bound the cross arm to prevent the body weight from tearing the tissue of the hand). These injuries are not in themselves fatal. In this position, over time it becomes more and more difficult to breathe as you tire the muscles of the chest; the abdomen and the lungs fill with fluid. What also must be considered are the environmental conditions. In the Middle East, the temperature routinely reaches 100 degrees F [38 °C] even in the spring; this would add the stress of dehydration and heat exhaustion. In addition, this method can and did take one to five days (a conservative estimate; the actual length of time would depend on your physical condition at the time).
The thighbones were broken to speed the process and increase suffering. Breaking the femur results in a large amount of internal bleeding and pain, because of involuntary and voluntary movement of the legs. The trick was to break the femurs' transversely and not cause a large amount of displacement in the bone ends. This would be very painful in itself, and as the person moved around the bones ends would cause more and more damage and bleeding. The best you could hope for would be a diagonal fracture, (creating two long and very sharp cutting edges inside the thigh), and hopefully to cut the femoral artery early in the process and bleed out quickly. It must be noted that the Romans were very good at this and were careful not to allow you this option.
I would like to remind the reader that as horrible as the above is, it pales in comparison the torture inflicted on millions of people in the name of religion during the dark ages.
The Sacrifice
I read on an IRC channel recently something like "The Lord sent his only son to die for me! How much more personal can you get?” also, I am sure you have all heard "He died for our sins" and so on. It seems that some people almost celebrate the awful death of Jesus. Was it some great selfless sacrifice, for the benefit of a world of sinners? So the story goes. Jesus died and this somehow absolved all of humanity's sins, past, present and future. He then spent three days dead (some say He went to the underworld or Hell), came back to his physical body and then floated up to Heaven. How was this, a selfless sacrifice? He was marched up the hill by a bunch of heavily armed centurions. Was he really saying things like "No, it's okay, I want to do this. It's part of The Plan, you see."? (It has to be said that many human sacrifices do willingly go to their deaths, sure in the belief that they are doing it for the good of their people, and that their deity actually exists. They do not usually magically manipulate events to ensure that it happens, however...)
Maybe it somehow was a selfless sacrifice. In this case, why was it necessary for Jesus to be killed by the state? Why not just say to his disciples "Well guys, it's time to say Goodbye." and throw himself under the nearest chariot? Death is death. Did the manner in which Christ died actually make any difference?
It has never been adequately explained how this death freed us all from sin. If the death freed us from the consequences of sin (hell, or eternal oblivion), it is still unclear as to why it had to happen in this particular way. Why didn't God just sort it all out during Creation? [On the other hand, any time after that]
If Jesus is God, then how do we know he really suffered? Is it possible to inflict physical pain on an immortal, omnipotent entity? Maybe he was just faking it for the crowd... If Jesus is God, then how was it a sacrifice? He only had to spend a few days "dead", then it was back home to Heaven (and he knew all this beforehand, being omniscient). A few days in the underworld can hardly have been a big deal for an eternal, omnipotent deity, can it? (And of course, being omnipresent as well, he would already have been there all the time anyway.)
What was he doing during those three days? (Some people say he was preaching to the lost souls in Hell.) Why three days anyway? Coming back to life after a couple of weeks would have impressed the superstitious locals much more.
If Jesus willingly went to the cross, was it then a suicide? Is suicide a Big Bad Sin? There seems to be a very fine line between sacrificing yourself and committing suicide... (Of course, in Jesus' case, he sacrificed himself to himself without actually dying, just to confuse matters further). Why did he not stay dead? Not much of a sacrifice if you spring back to life a few days later, is it (especially if that was your intention right from the start)?
If Jesus had it all planned from the start (if you believe in the older prophecies), then it certainly was not a sacrifice. He must have used his God-Magic to manipulate events and ensure that the crucifixion occurred. This would include making Judas betray him. Why is Judas so reviled? If he acted with Jesus' blessing, or even under divine coercion from Jesus, why is he portrayed as a bad person? Either way, he helped the crucifixion take place, so surely Christians should admire him. Without Judas, they might not have been “Saved”, or Jesus might have lived a lot longer and they would have a much less impressive ornament to hang round their necks as a symbol of his death. A runaway horse maybe, or a slippery banana-skin or perhaps a poorly cooked chicken leg.
Why did Jesus not let the disciples in on the big secret beforehand? If Judas had not given Jesus a big ol' smacker, would nobody have known who he was? Had he been preaching, healing and overturning tables with a mask on, so that the only way in which the "great multitude" that came for him could recognise him was through Judas' kiss? Perhaps Jesus had a twin brother, and only Judas could easily tell them apart? Perhaps the other disciples were all wearing "Jesus Masks" to divert the crowd. Judas' part in all this would seem to be quite redundant if Jesus were at all recognisable to his enemies...
We are told that Jesus died for our sins and his death on the cross, saved us all from Hell (or eternal death). So why do we still get all the sermons about sin, heaven and hell? If we are all going to Heaven anyway, why do priests keep pestering us? If our afterlife still depends on living a good Christian life [working for it] then what difference did Jesus' death make? How did it change anything?
If Jesus has already "paid the price" for our sins, then surely we can now sin as much as we like. If not, why not? Alternatively, if he only paid for Original Sin, that still does not explain why God needed a blood sacrifice to sort out something that could easily have been avoided in the first place. (Remember though, that the first murder in the Bible occurred because of God preferring a sacrifice of flesh to one of vegetables, for some obscure reason.)
If our getting into Heaven depends solely on accepting Christ as our personal Saviour, what about all those people who died without even hearing about him (for whatever reason)? If they get into heaven anyway, then Christ's death is irrelevant. In which case, why should the same not apply to everyone? If God had never sent Christ to Earth, everyone would get into Heaven and there would be a few less bloody wars in the history books...
The idea of God sacrificing himself to himself, in order to prevent himself sending us all to Hell for committing sins because of the way he made us, and which he knew we were going to do anyway, is a little hard to swallow...
The Suffering
A big thing is made about how much Christ suffered on the cross. While certainly quite nasty, there are much worse ways to die (and the followers of Christ have been quite inventive in thinking up new ones over the last couple of thousand years). If Christ's suffering were somehow supposed to be for our benefit, would we not benefit more if his suffering had been greater (e.g., he might have been hung, drawn and quartered; or keelhauled; or sent to a Maria Carey concert)? On the other hand, if he had suffered less (maybe quickly stabbed) would it have made any difference? All the other people who were crucified (and there were certainly plenty - the Romans were very big on crucifixions) would have suffered to a similar degree, if not more. How was Christ's suffering any different to theirs?
Crucifixion is obviously a particularly horrific way to die. However, being God, Jesus would have known not only the pain involved in crucifixion, but also the pain involved in every other possible manner of dying. God would be perfectly aware of tortures, diseases and injuries that make crucifixion seem like a picnic on a warm summer day. When people go on about how terrible His death was, how much he suffered and that it allowed Him to experience human suffering, I think "But if he was God, a few hours on the cross would have been utterly insignificant to Him and He would already know exactly what all possible forms of human suffering are like."
Some people argue that Christ suffered more than just physical pain - he suffered spiritual pain because he was taking all of our sins on himself. Unfortunately, this spiritual suffering did not seem to make enough of an impression on the writers of the Gospels for them to note it down... This also begs the question - If He suffered "spiritual pain", why was it necessary for Him to suffer physical pain also? Could He not have atoned and suffered without being nailed to a stick first? At what point did the spiritual pain begin and end, and why?
Presumably this atonement includes the sins of people in the past and future (including, I guess, all those whom He mercilessly drowned in Noah's Flood), as well as at the time of the crucifixion. In that case, why did God have to come to earth at all and be sacrificed (to himself)? Why not just sort it all out right at the time of Creation? What happened to those who died before Christ did? Were they just sort of floating around in limbo, waiting for the time of the Atonement?
So Christ suffered horribly and died (temporarily) for His beliefs? So what? How many people suffer far, far worse deaths every single year for no good reason whatsoever? (Ironically, sometimes at the hands of Christ's followers.) People were brutally murdered because of the colour of their skin, or their sexuality, or their beliefs, or simply because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Original Sin
If it simply freed us from (or paid the price for) Original Sin (Adam and Eve bringing sin into the world), does that mean that all those people who died before Jesus did not have a chance? Or, did his death retro-actively Save them as well? In which case, why did he have to die at all? Why not just remove Original Sin right at the start? Or, if God took Original Sin into account when judging people, and Jesus removed it, won't more souls go to Hell as a result? Before, God might have said "Well, you're a sinner but you're tainted by Original Sin, so I'll let you off lightly this time.", whereas now, a person who committed the same sins would not stand a chance! Very fair...
A fatal flaw in the Original Sin argument is this: There is no such thing as Original Sin. Adam and Eve, the Garden of Eden and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil are mere mythology. The evolutionary origins of all life, including humans, are well understood. We did not magically pop into existence several thousand years ago in a luxurious garden, complete with talking reptiles and magic apples. We have evolved over millions of years to reach our current state. This is scientific fact, in the same way that gravity is. Like it or not, there was no Eve to commit an Original Sin in the first place. It seems a little more likely that after Jesus' death, his followers had to think up some sort of supernatural justification quickly, and Original Sin seemed as good as any. Your Great-great-great ... great-great-grandparents were not called Adam and Eve.
In order to accept that Jesus' death washed away Original Sin (and therefore had any meaning at all), you are forced to subscribe to the young-Earth creationist view that the universe is about 6000 years old, and was created just as described in the Book of Genesis. This would mean that almost all sciences (including the sciences that allow us to generate the electricity that is letting you read this document) are completely wrong about everything. This is one of the main reasons why creationists object so strongly to evolution. It implies (or demonstrates) that the basic concept behind Christianity is simply false. There was nothing for Christ to atone for, so the crucifixion was meaningless.
[We have looked at “Original Sin” at the beginning of the book and will again in more detail later on in the book.]
