He never ...

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"Let conversation cease. Let laughter flee. This is the place where death delights to help the living."

during his lengthy tenure as medical examiner of Cook County, Illonois, Dr. Robert Stein, one of the world's foremost forensic pathologists, performed more than 20,000 autopsies, each time meticulously searching for insights into the circumstances surrounding the victim's death, repeatedly his sharp eye for detail, his encyclopedic knowledge of the human anatomy and his uncanny investigative tuition helped this medical sleuth reconstruct the victim's violent demise, for him, dead men did tell tales - in fact, tales that would often bring justice to the living, medical evidence can be very crucial, it can determine whether a child died of abuse or an accidental fall, it can establish whether a person succumbed to natural causes or was murdered by someone who spiked the person's coffee with arsenic, it can uphold or dismantle a defendant's alibi by pinpointing the victim's time of death, using an ingenious procedure that measures the amount of potassium in the eyes of the deceased, and yes, even in the case of someone brutally executed on a Roman cross 2 millennia ago, medical evidence can still make a crucial contribution: it can destroy one of the most persistent arguments used by those who claim that the resurruection of Jesus - the supreme vindication of his claim to deity - was nothing more than an elaborate hoax

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the idea that Jesus never really died on the cross can be found in the Koran, which was written in the 17th century - in fact, Ahmadiya Muslims contend that Jesus actually fled to India, to this day, there's a shrine that supposedly marks his real burial place in Srinagar, Kashmir, as the 19th century dawned, Karl Bahrdt, Karl Venturini and others tried to explain away the Resurrection by suggesting that Jesus only fainted from exhaustion on the cross or he had been given a drug that made him appear to die, and that he had later been revived by the cool, damp air of the tomb, conspiracy theorists bolstered this hypothesis by pointing out that Jesus had been given some liquid on a sponge while on the cross (Mark 15:36), consequently, they said, Jesus' reappearance wasn't a miraculous resurrection but merely a fortuitous resuscitation, and his tomb was empty because he continued to live, while reputable scholars have repudiated this so-called swoon theory, it keeps recurring in popular literature, in 1929, D. H. Lawrence wove this theme into a short story in which he suggested that Jesus had fled to Egypt, where he fell in love with the priestess Isis, in 1965 Hugh Schonfield's best seller The Passover Plot alleged that it was only the unanticipated stabbing of Jesus by the Roman soldier that foiled his complicated scheme to escape the cross alive, even though Schonfield conceded, "We are nowhere claiming ... that [the book] represents what actually happened." the swoon hypothesis popped up again in Donovan Joyce's 1972 book The Jesus Scroll, which "contains" an even more incredible string of improbabilities that Schonfield's," according to Resurrection expert Gary Habernas, in 1982 Holy Blood, Holy Grail added the twist that Pontius Pilate had been bribed to allow Jesus to be taken down from the cross before he was dead, even so, the authors confessed, "We could not - and still cannot - prove the accuracy of our conclusion." as recently as 1992 a little-known academic from Australia, Barbara Thiering, caused a stir by reviving the swoon theory in her book Jesus and the Riddle of the Dead Sea Scrolls, which was introduced with much fanfare by a well-respected U.S. publisher and then derisively dismissed by Emory University scholar Luke Timothy Johnson as being "the purest poppycock, the product of fevered imagination rather than careful analysis." like an urban myth, the swoon theory continues to flourish, we hear it all the time in discussing the Resurrection with spiritual seekers, but what does the evidence really establish? what actually happened at the Crucifixion? what was Jesus' cause of death? is there any possible way he could have survived this ordeal? those are the kinds of questions it is hoped medical evidence could help resolve, by asking one prominent physician who has extensively studied the historical, archaeological and medical data concerning the death of Jesus of Nazareth - although it seems that, due to the mysteriously missing body, no autopsy has ever been performed

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looking for a basic description of the events leading up to Jesus' death, can we paint a picture of what happened to Jesus? it began after the Last Supper, Jesus went with his disciples to the Mount of Olives - specifically, to the Garden of Gethsemane, and there, if you remember, he prayed all night, now, during that process he was anticipating the coming events of the next day, since he knew the amount of suffering he was going to have to endure, he was quite naturally experiencing a great deal of psychological stress, here's where skeptics have a field day, the gospels tell us he began to sweat blood at this point, now, c'mon, isn't that just a product of some over-active imaginations? doesn't that call into question the accuracy of the gospel writers? not at all, this is a known medical condition called hematidrosis, it's not very common, but it is associated with a high degree of psychological stress, what happens is that the severe anxiety causes the release of chemicals that break down the capillaries in the sweat glands, as a result, there's a small amount of bleeding into these glands, and the sweat comes out tinged with blood, we're not talking about a lot of blood; it's just a very, very small amount, did this have any other effect on the body? what this did was set up the skin to be extremely fragile so that when Jesus was flogged by the Roman soldier the next day, his skin would be very, very sensitive, most of us have seen plenty of dead bodies - casualties of car accidents, fires and crime syndicate retribution - but there is something especially unnerving in hearing about someone being intentionally brutalized by executioners determined to extract maximum suffering, what was the flogging like? Roman floggings were known to be terribly brutal, they usually consisted of 39 lashes but frequently were a lot more than that, depending on the mood of the soldier applying the blows, the soldier would use a whip of braided leather thongs with metal balls woven into them, when the whip would strike the flesh, these balls would cause deep bruises or contusions, which would break open with further blows, and the whip had pieces of sharp bone as well, which would cut the flesh severely, the back would be so shredded that part of the spine was sometimes exposed by the deep, deep cuts, the whipping would have gone all the way from the shoulders down to the back, the buttocks and the back of the legs, it was just terrible, one physician who has studied Roman beatings said, "As the flogging continued, the lacerations would tear into the underlying skeletal muscles and produce quivering ribbons of bleeding flesh." a 3rd century historian by the name of Eusebius described a flogging by saying, "The sufferer's veins were laid bare, and the very muscles, sinews and bowels of the victim were open to exposure." we know that many people would die from this kind of beating even before they could be crucified, at the least, the victim would experience tremendous pain and go into hypovolemic shock, hypo means "low", vol refers to volume and emic means "blood", so hypovolemic shock means the person is suffering the effects of losing a large amount of blood, this does 4 things, first, the heart races to try to pump blood that isn't there; second, the blood pressure drops, causing fainting or collapse; third, the kidneys stop producing urine to maintain what volume is left; and fourth, the person becomes very thirsty as the body craves fluids to replace the lost blood volume, do we see any evidence of this in the gospel accounts? most definitely, Jesus was in hypovolemic shock as he staggered up the road to the execution site at Calvary, carrying the horizontal beam of the cross, finally Jesus collapsed, and the Roman soldier ordered Simon to carry the cross for him, later we read that Jesus said, "I thirst" at which point a sip of vinegar was offered to him, because of the terrible effects of this beating, there's no question that Jesus was already in serious to critical condition even before the nails were driven through his hands and feet

Alexander Metherell, M.D., PH.D.

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as distasteful as the description of the flogging is, even more repugnant testimony is yet to come, that's because historians are unanimous that Jesus survived the beating that day and went on to the cross - which is where the real issue lies, these days when condemned criminals are strapped down and injected with poisons, or secured to a wooden chair and subjected to a surge of electricity, the circumstances are highly controlled, death comes quickly and predictably, medical examiners carefully certify the victim's passing, from close proximity witnesses scrutinize everything from beginning to end, but how certain was death by this crude, slow and rather inexact form of execution called crucifixion? in fact, most people aren't sure how the cross kills it's victims, and without a trained medical examiner to officially attest that Jesus had died, might he have escaped the experience brutalized and bleeding but nevertheless alive? what happened when he arrived at the site of the Crucifixion? he would have been laid down, and his hands would have been nailed in the outstretched position to the horizontal beam, this crossbar was called the patibulum, and at this stage it was separate from the vertical beam, which was permanently set in the ground, nailed with what? nailed where? the Romans used spikes that were 5 to 7 inches long and tapered to a sharp point, they were driven through the wrists, about an inch or so below the palm, all the paintings show that the nails pierced his palms, in fact, it's become a standard symbol representing the Crucifixion, it was done through the wrists, this was a solid position that would lock the hand; if the nails had been driven throught the palms, his weight would have caused the skin to tear and he would have fallen off the cross, so the nails went through the wrists, although this was considered part of the hand in the language of the day, and it's important to understand that the nail would go through the place where the median nerve runs, this is the largest nerve going out to the hand, and it would be crushed by the nail that was being pounded in, what sort of pain would that have produced? let's put it this way, do you know the kind of pain you feel when you bang your elbow and hit your funny bone? that's actually another nerve, called the ulna nerve, it's extremely painful when you accidentally hit it, well, picture taking a pair of pliers and squeezing and crushing that nerve, that effect would be similar to what Jesus experienced, the pain was absolutely unbearable, in fact, it was literally beyond words to describe; they had to invent a new word; excruciating, literally, excruciating means "out of the cross", think of that; they needed to create a new word, because there was nothing in the language that could describe the intense anguish caused during the crucifixion, at this point, Jesus was hoisted as the crossbar was attached to the vertical stake, and then nails were driven through Jesus' feet, again, the nerves in his feet would have been crushed, and there would have been a similar type of pain, crushed and severed nerves wre certainly bad enough, but what about the effect that hanging from the cross would have had on Jesus? what stresses would this have put on his body? first of all, his arms would have immediately been stretched, probably about six inches in length, and both shoulders would have become dislocated - you can determine this with simple mathematical equations, this fulfilled the Old Testament prophecy in Psalm 22, which foretold the Crucifixion hundreds of years before it took place and says, "My bones are out of joint."

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the point has been made - graphically - about the pain endured as the crucifixion process began, but we need to get to what finally claims the life of a crucifixion victim, because that's the pivotal issue in determining whether death can be faked or eluded, what is/was the cause of death? once a person is hanging in the vertical position, crucifixion is essentially an agonizingly slow death by asphyxiation, the reason is that the stresses on the muscles and diaphragm put the chest into the inhaled position; basically in order to exhale, the individual must push up on his feet so the tension on the muscles would be eased for a moment, in doing so, the nail would tear through the foot, eventually locking up against the tarsal bones, after managing to exhale, the person would then be able to relax down and take another breath in, again he'd have to push himself up to exhale, scraping his bloodied back against the coarse wood of the cross, this would go on and on until complete exhaustion would take over, and the person wouldn't be able to push up and breathe anymore, as the person slows down his breathing, he goes into what is called respiratory acidosis - the carbon dioxide in the blood is dissolved as carbonic acid, causing the acidity of the blood to increase, this eventually leads to an irregular heartbeat, in fact, with his heart beating erratically, Jesus would have known that he was at the moment of death, which is when he was able to say, "Lord, into your hands I commit my spirit." and then he died of cardiac arrest, even before he died - and this is important too - the hypovolemic shock would have caused a sustained rapid heart rate that would have contributed to heart failure, resulting in the collection of fluid in the membrane around the heart, called a pericardial effusion, as well as around the lungs, which is called a pleural effusion, why is this significant? because of what happened when the Roman soldier came around and, being fairly certain that Jesus was dead, confirmed it by thrusting a spear into his right side, it was probably his right side; that's not certain, but from the description it was probably the right side, between the ribs, the spear apparently went through the right lung and into the heart, so when the spear was pulled out, some fluid - the pericardial effusion and the pleural effusion - came out, this would have the appearance of a clear fluid, like water, followed by a large volume of blood, as the eyewitness John described in his gospel, John probably had no idea why he saw both blood and a clear fluid come out - certainly that's not what an untrained person like him would have anticipated, yet John's description is consistent with what modern medicine would expect to have happened, at first this would seem to give credibility to John being an eyewitness; however, there seemed to be one big flaw in all this, when you carefully read what John said, he saw "blood and water" come out; he intentionally put the words in that order, but according to you, the clear fluid would have come out first, so there's a signficant discrepancy here, according to Greek scholars, the order of words in ancient Greek was determined not necessarily by sequence, but by prominence, this means that since there was alot more blood than water, it would have made sense for John to mention the blood first, at this juncture, what would Jesus' condition have been? there was absolutely no doubt that Jesus was dead

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the gospels say the soldiers broke the legs of the 2 criminals being crucified with Jesus, why owuld they have done that? if they wanted to speed up death - and with the Sabbath and Passover coming, the Jewish leaders certainly wanted to get this over before sundown - the Romans would use the steel shaft of a short Roman spear to shatter the victim's lower leg bones, this would prevent him from pushing up with his legs so he could breathe, and death by asphyxiation would result in a matter of minutes, of course, we're told in the New Testament that Jesus' legs were not broken, because the soldiers had already determined that he was dead, and they just used the spear to confirm it, this fulfilled another Old Testament prophecy about the Messiah, which is that his bones would remain unbroken, some people have tried to cast doubt on the gospel accounts by attacking the Crucifixion story, for instance, an article in the Harvard Theological Review concluded many years ago that there was "astonishing little evidence that the feet of a crucified person were ever pierced by nails." instead, the article said, the victim's hands and feet were tied to the cross by ropes, doesn't this raise credibility problems with the New Testament account? no, because archaeology has now established that the use of nails was historical - although it is conceded that ropes were indeed sometimes used, what's the evidence? in 1968 archaeologists in Jerusalem found the remains of about 3 dozen Jews who had died during the uprising against Rome around 70 A.D., one victim, who's name was apparently Yohanan, had been crucified, and sure enough, they found a 7-inch nail still driven into his feet with small pieces of olive wood from the cross still attached, this was excellent archaeological confirmation of a key detail in the gospel's description of the Crucifixion, but one other point of dispute concerns the expertise of the Romans to determine whether Jesus was dead, these people were very primitive in terms of their understanding of medicine and anatomy and so forth - how do we know they weren't just mistaken when they declared that Jesus was no longer living? it's granted that these soldiers didn't go to medical school, but remember that they were experts in killing people - that was their job and they did it very well, they knew without a doubt when a person was dead, and really it's not so terribly difficult to figure out, besides, if a prisoner somehow escaped, the responsible soldier would be put to death themselves, so they had a huge incentive to make absolutely sure that each and every victim was dead when he was removed from the cross

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appealing to history and medicine, to archaeology and even Roman military rules, every loophole has been closed: Jesus could not have come down from the cross alive, but still, is there any possible way - any possible way - that Jesus could have survived this? absolutely not, remember that he was already in hypovolemic shock from the massive blood loss even before the crucifixion started, he couldn't possibly have faked his death, because you can't fake the inability to breathe for long, besides, the spear thrust into his heart would have settled the issue once and for all, and the Romans weren't about to risk their own death by allowing him to walk away alive, so when someone suggests that Jesus merely swooned on the cross ... it's impossible, it's a fanciful theory without any possible basis in fact, let's speculate that the impossible happened and that Jesus somehow managed to survive the crucifixion, let's say he was able to escape from his linen wrappings, roll the huge rock away from the mouth of his tomb, and get past the Roman soldiers who were standing guard, medically speaking, what condition would he have been in after he tracked down his disciples? again, there's just no way he could have survived the cross, but if he had, how could he walk around after nails had been driven through his feet? how could he have appeared on the road to Emmaus just a short time later, strolling for long distances? how could he have used his arms after they were stretched and pulled from their joints? remember, he also had massive wounds on his back and a spear wound to his chest, now it's time to make a closing point that will drive a final stake through the heart of the swoon theory once and for all, it is an argument that nobody has been able to refute ever since it was first advanced by German theologian David Strauss in 1835, listen, a person in that kind of pathetic condition would never have inspired his disciples to go out and proclaim that he's the Lord of life who had triumphed over the grave, do you see what I'm saying? after suffering that horrible abuse, with all the catastrophic blood loss and trauma, he would have looked so pitiful that the disciples would never have hailed him as a victorious conqueror of death; they would have felt sorry for him and tried to nurse him back to health, so it's preposterous to think that if he had appeared to them in that awful state, his followers would have been prompted to start a worldwide movement based on the hope that someday they too would have a resurrection body like his, there's just no way

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Convincingly, masterfully, Metherell has established his case beyond a reasonable doubt, he did it by focusing exclusively on the "how" question: "How was Jesus executed in a way that absolutely ensured his death? here we will hear him give his opinion about something - not his medical opinion, not his scientific evaluation, just something from his heart - Jesus intentionally walked into the arms of his betrayer, he didn't resist arrest, he didn't defend himself at his trial - it was clear that he was willingly subjecting himself to what was described as a humiliating and agonizing form of torture, and the question begging to be asked is ... why? what could possibly have motivated a person to agree to endure this sort of punishment? Alexander Metherell - the man, not the doctor - searched for the right words:

Frankly, I don't think that a typical person could have done it, but Jesus knew what was coming, and he was willing to go through it because this was the only way he could redeem us - by serving as our substitute and paying the death penalty that we deserve because of our rebellion against God, that was his whole mission in coming to earth, so when you ask what motivated him, well ... I suppose the answer could be summed up in one word - and that word would be love ...

Metherell's conclusions - which persuasively established that Jesus could not have survived the ordeal of the cross, a form of cruelty so vile that the Romans exempted their own citizens from it, except for cases of high treason - are consistent with the findings of other physicians who have carefully studied the issue, among them is Dr. William D. Edwards, whose 1986 article in the Journal of the American Medical Association concluded, "Clearly, the weight of the historical and medical evidence indicates that Jesus was dead before the wound to his side was inflicted ... Accordingly, interpretations based on the assumption that Jesus did not die on the cross appear to be at odds with modern medical knowledge." those who seek to explain away the resurrection of Jesus by claiming that he somehow escaped the clutches of death at Galgotha need to offer a more plausible theory that fits the facts, and then they too must end up by pondering the haunting question that all of us need to consider: What could have possibly motivated Jesus to willingly allow himself to be degraded and brutalized the way that he did?

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Candy heiress Helen Vorhees Brach flew into the world's busiest airport on a crisp autumn afternoon, stepped into a crowd and promptly disappeared without a trace, for more than 20 years the mystery of what happened to this red-haired, animal-loving philanthropist has baffled police and journalists alike, while investigators are convinced she was murdered, they haven't been able to determine the specific circumstances, largely because they've never found her body, police have floated some speculation, leaked tantalizing possibilities to the press and even got a judge to declare that a con man was responsible for her disappearance, but absent a corpse, her murder officially remains unsolved, nobody has ever been charged with her slaying, occasionally bodies turn up in pulp fiction and real life, but rarely do you encounter an empty tomb, unlike the case of Helen Brach, the issue with Jesus isn't that he was nowhere to be seen, it's that he was seen, alive; he was seen, dead; and he wasseen, alive once more, if we believe the gospel accounts, this isn't a matter of a missing body, no, it's a matter of Jesus still being alive, even to this day, even after publicly succumbing to the horrors of crucifixion so graphically depicted in the preceding testimony by Metherell, the empty tomb, as an enduring symbol of the Resurrection, is the ultimate representation of Jesus' claim to being the Son of God, the apostle Paul said in 1 Corinthians 15:17 that the Resurrection is the very linchpin of the Christian faith, "If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins." Theologian Gerald O'Collins put it this way: "In a profound sense, Christianity without the Resurrection is not simply Christianity without it's final chapter. It's not Christianity at all." the Resurrection is the supreme vindication of Jesus' divine identity and his inspired teaching, it's the proof of his triumph over sin and death, it's the foreshadowing of the resurrection of his followers, it's the basis of Christian hope, it's the miracle of all miracles, IF it's true, skeptics claim that what happened to Jesus' body is still a mystery akin to Helen Brach's disappearance - there's not enough evidence they say, to reach a firm conclusion, but others assert that the case is effectively closed, because there is conclusive proof that the tomb was vacant on that first Easter Morning, and if you want someone to compellingly present that case, your best bet is to visit with William Lane Craig, widely considered to be among the world's foremost experts on the Resurrection

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before a crowd of nearly 8,000 people, Craig defended Christianity with countless others listening on more than 100 radio stations across the country, in a debate between Craig and an atheist selected by the national spokesman for American Atheists, Craig politely but powerfully built the case for Christianity while simultaneously dismantling the arguments for atheism, many discovered for the first time that Christianity can stand up to rational analysis and rugged scrutiny, in the end, it was no contest, among those who had entered the auditorium that evening as avowed atheists, agnostics or skeptics, an overwhelming 82% walked out concluding that the case for Christianity had been the most compelling, 47 people entered as non-believers and exited as Christians - Craig's arguments for the faith were that persuasive, especially when compared with the paucity of evidence for atheism, incidentally, nobody became an atheist, Craig speaks in cogent sentences, never losing his train of thought, always working through an answer methodically, point by point, fact by fact, yet he isn't a dry theologian, he has a refreshing enthusiasm for his work, his pale blue eyes dance as he weaves elaborate propositions and theories; he punctuates his sentences with hand gestures that beckon for understanding and agreement; his voice modulates from near giddiness over some arcane theological point that he finds fascinating to hushed serenity as he ponders why some scholars resist the evidence that he finds so compelling, in short, his mind is fully engaged, but so is his heart, when he talks about skeptics he has debated, it isn't with a smug or adversarial tone, he goes out of his way to mention their endearing qualities when he can - this one was a wonderful speaker; that one was charming over dinner, he isn't out to pummel opponents with his arguments; he's sincerely seeking to win over people he believes matter to God, he seems genuinely perplexed why some people cannot, or will not, recognize the reality of the empty tomb