Did Jesus survive the crucifixion on Good Friday? A thesis by historian Johannes Fried causes massive criticism.
- On Good Friday, Christians worldwide commemorate the crucifixion and death of Christ.
- Historian Johannes Fried caused a stir with a book about the crucifixion of Christ.
- Did Jesus survive the crucifixion on Good Friday?
In a university seminar at the LMU in Munich, the author of this article was once lectured by a professor of ancient history (for non-historians: Greco-Roman antiquity): "There are exactly two ways of making a name for yourself in science do! A: You are solving a problem that no one has been able to solve before. B: You advocate a totally offbeat thesis. The latter has the advantage that they are mentioned in every research overview on the topic as a 'different opinion'. “Keep that in mind when we look at a book below that caused a stir at Easter 2019!
Historian Johannes Fried was previously a category A scientist. He is considered an expert on the history of the Middle Ages and published many well-known works on "The Topicality of the Middle Ages" and on Charlemagne. As a specialist in antiquity, he has so far not made an appearance.
He made the headlines for this in Easter 2019 with a book about the crucifixion of Christ. One can congratulate him that his book could appear in time for the highest Christian festival. After all, for the rest of the year, the media are of little interest in the biblical reports on the death and resurrection of Jesus ( link to Merkur.de * ).
Did Jesus survive the crucifixion? Controversial book appears (of course) in time for Easter
But at Easter, as is well known, stories always go according to the motto "It wasn't all that way!" How about the “revelation” in 2007, according to which bone boxes containing the bones of Jesus and Maria Magdalena were allegedly found - which ultimately turned out to be quite a pipe shredder. At the time, James Cameron, the director of Aliens, Titanic and Avatar, was behind the sensational TV documentary on the subject.
But hey: member of a spectacular “Jesus seminar” that once wanted to reveal the really absolutely real words of Jesus and because of its methodology - let's say it carefully! - criticized by quite a few scientists, Paul Verhoeven, who as director of RoboCop and Basic Instinct was not necessarily an expert on the New Testament, also sat.
"No death on Calvary": Jesus is said to have survived the crucifixion
Back to Johannes Fried, who is after all a renowned historian. In his new publication "No Death on Calvary" (CH Beck, 187 pp .; 19.95 euros) he comes up with the thesis that Jesus survived the crucifixion, apparently dead. The resurrection had never been so, instead he woke up after the supposedly successful execution, got up and fled to the east. This theory is not that new. The so-called "apparent death hypothesis" that Jesus survived the crucifixion was already advocated by scholars like Friedrich Schleiermacher in the 19th century (and was given considerable headwind).
Johannes Fried fears that his work on the supposed resurrection, which was not one, will “bring him endless opposition and hostility”. Well, is it really going to be so bad in 2020? A scandal book about Mohammed could have been more dangerous. Salman Rushdie could tell him a lot about that. In view of his otherwise impeccable scholarly vitae, Fried will be able to live with the fact that Munich's Mercury , for example, “no death on Golgotha” tears as “straying a historian”.
Good Friday is a Christian holiday - and represents a day off for school children. A German school in Istanbul changed that in 2019 - because of Turkey President Erdogan?
Jesus is said to have survived the crucifixion: This is how Johannes Fried justifies his thesis
How does Johannes Fried come to his thesis that Jesus survived the crucifixion? The source is the Gospel of John of all people, which probably only emerged after the other three synoptic gospels. So the historian justifies his thesis:
- Jesus was removed from the cross after a few hours and declared dead. Which is astonishing, because the death of the crucifixion could take a day for many of the convicts.
- Jesus' legs were not broken, as was the case with the criminals crucified next to him.
- The lance blow on Jesus' side, with which a Roman soldier wanted to determine his death, was actually not a death blow.
- Blood and water flowed from the wound. But what the Roman soldier really caused: The sting did not hit the heart, but only the "pleura", the pleura. As a result, a relief puncture was performed with the lance, which relieved the breathing difficulties of the still living Jesus.
- That Jesus did not react at the crucifixion and lance stab and gave no sign of life was due to "deep anesthetic-like carbon dioxide impotence".
- Fried: "The saving lance stab prevented - although brutally, but as effectively as a saving cannula - the exitus".
- Because of the forthcoming Sabbath, Jesus was hurriedly removed from the cross, his body washed and buried in a rocky grave, "the coolness of which eased the stress of torture."
- Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus ensured that Jesus was looked after and was able to flee to the east.
- Starting from Jerusalem, the apostles spread the teaching of the risen Son of God.
Did Jesus survive the crucifixion? This is how experts criticize Johannes Fried's theses
Theologian Thomas Söding, professor of New Testament exegesis at the Ruhr University Bochum, describes Johannes Fried's theses against Cologne's Domradio as "nonsense". The theories that Jesus survived the crucifixion show above all an uneasiness about the biblical tradition. This had expressed this horror in the first place: "It cannot be that the son of God died so miserably."
Prof. Söding emphasizes: All biblical sources, but also other ancient reports, assumed the death of the Jewish rabbis. It is also completely inconceivable that Jesus should have survived the brutal torture of flagellation and crucifixion.
Söding also contradicts Fried's claim that the Gospel of John, the only one containing the report of the lance, is much closer to historical events with its sources than the Gospel of Mark, for example. The author of the Gospel of John has good knowledge of Roman procedural law and the locations in Jerusalem. However, the overwhelming part of the research continues to assume that the Gospel of Mark, Luke and Matthew are significantly better historical sources.
The Domradio quotes Söding: "The expert in medieval history went down on the slippery surface of Bible exegesis - and fell to the floor with a crash." Johannes Fried's theory was "nonsense" and an "airy construction that could not withstand any scientific examination ".
Did Jesus survive the crucifixion? Historian Michael Hesemann thinks that is out of the question
Did Jesus survive the crucifixion? "Certainly not," says historian Michael Hesemann, who in his new Jesus book "Die Jesus-Tafel" also assumes an eyewitness to the fourth Evangelist Johannes (on which Johannes Fried also relies).
Hesemann considers Jesus' death on the cross to be a historical fact. “The quarry exegesis of the historian colleague Fried does not change that. Because picking out any detail for a medical diagnosis from the Gospels, but ignoring the context does not apply. Either everything is right or nothing. "
Michael Hesemann emphasizes: “The crucifixion was a death penalty for traitors in the Roman Empire. The Romans used them so excessively in troubled provinces that they knew for sure what they were doing . It is inconceivable that a convicted rebellion could survive his crucifixion, escape, spread the myth of his resurrection and then perhaps strike. Especially since Jesus did not simply disappear after his crucifixion, but according to Paul (1 Cor 15, 1-8) literally appeared to hundreds of eyewitnesses, most recently also to him, the agent of the Sanhedrin. "
Historian Hesemann assumes that Jesus would not have survived the crucifixion without consequences: “ If Jesus had actually survived the crucifixion, he would at least have become a cripple. With pierced feet and wrists - nails through the palm of his hand could never have held his body weight - he was certainly not in a position to take the long walk to Emmaus the next day. Nails through the wrist injure the median nerve that controls the thumb motor system. For the foreseeable future, he would certainly not have been able to break bread or grill fish. But the evangelists attribute all this to him for the days and weeks immediately after his crucifixion. There was no time for rehab. Thus, the complete healing of Jesus after three days would be a little less miracle than his resurrection from the dead.
But how does Fried want to explain that even his closest friends and relatives did not initially recognize Jesus - neither Maria Magdalena, who thought he was a gardener, nor the Emmaus disciples, his uncle Cleopas and his son Joses. How that he apparently could even go through closed doors? And finally: Where should the survivor of the crucifixion have settled so silently and without sound? To India, perhaps, as the Ahmaddiya Muslim sect claims, whose founder would have loved to trace his family tree back to the Nazarene? Definitely not!"
Why did Jesus die on the cross after a relatively “short” time? In this context, historian Hesemann points out that even before the crucifixion due to the torture he suffered, he was on the brink of a physical breakdown: “ Those who take the descriptions of the Gospels seriously understand that Jesus was already on the brink of physical collapse upon arrival in Golgotha. Pilate had not had him scourged only seven times, as was the case before the crucifixion of Usus, but had been flagellated excessively to meet the masses. The maximum of 39 strikes from two directions, with three-tailed whip whips with double lead balls attached to their leather straps, is likely. After that, Jesus was so weak that he was no longer able to carry the approx. 35 kg crossbar of his cross to the place of execution.
In the third fall, a man from the people, Simon of Cyrene, had to step in and carry the beam to Golgota. According to the American coroner Prof. Dr. Frederic Zugibe of Columbia University in New York already pointed out the falls to a hypovolemic shock, a circular collapse due to the flagellation, which led to a slow accumulation of pulmonary fluid, so-called pleurisy. The extreme pain of nailing to the cross with its injury to the median and plantar nerves led to a so-called causalgia trauma, which was exacerbated by the agony of death on the cross for hours, the excruciating pain and cramps even with the slightest movement.
The relatively rapid death, according to Zugibe, was the result of a total circulatory collapse combined with cardiac and respiratory arrest due to the gradually developed pulmonary edema. This diagnosis coincides exactly with the observation by Evangelist John (19:34), which Fried also cited as evidence: when a legionnaire, to determine death, pushed his lance into the side of Jesus, 'blood and water immediately flowed out'. In fact, the lance that hit the heart had previously pierced the fluid-filled lungs. Blood poured from the auricle and lung fluid ('water') from the lance wound. A 'puncture of the pleura', as Fried assumes, is carried out with a fine needle, not with a 3-4 cm wide, lethal weapon. A small puncture wound can immediately close again, but air penetrated into the chest of the lance wound and caused a lung collapse. If the crucified had not already been dead, he would die at the latest now if the injured heart fills the lungs with blood. ”
Hesemann summarizes his negative opinion on Johannes Fried's theses as follows: “ There is no doubt about the death of Jesus. His resurrection may be a matter of faith, but his death is not. A cheap handheld trick is not enough to support a credible scenario. If you want to shake the faith of two billion Christians, you should put a little more effort into it. ”
Did Jesus survive crucifixion? Peter Kreeft against the apparent death hypothesis
An internationally known critic of the apparent death hypothesis is the US theologian and philosopher Prof. Peter Kreeft, who taught at Boston College and King's College in New York City.
According to Kreeft, this speaks against the fact that Jesus survived the crucifixion:
- The Romans tried to rule out that anyone could survive the crucifixion. Roman law even provided the death penalty for any soldier who let a convict escape. And not to forget: the execution was carried out at the behest of the Roman governor Pilate.
- The fact that the Roman soldier did not break Jesus' legs as he did with the other two crucified men indicates that the soldier was certain that Jesus was dead. The breaking of the legs accelerated the death of the crucified so that the body could be torn down before the Sabbath.
- The apostle John, as an eyewitness, confirmed that he saw blood and water flowing from the pierced heart of Jesus. This shows that Jesus' lungs had collapsed and he was already suffocated. This is a situation that actually raises few doubts for medical professionals.
- Jesus' body was completely covered with shrouds and was quite immobile.
- Only the “glorious” apparitions reported by the disciples convinced them of the resurrection. Even the doubting Thomas. Should the disciples speak of a medical emergency that just fainted? Would they really have worshiped a half-dead, swaying, injured man who was just escaping as "divine lord" and "victor over death"?
- Were the Roman guards at the grave overwhelmed by a half-dead, wavering figure? Or from unarmed disciples?
- How could a half-dead man move the big stone in front of the entrance to the grave? According to the biblical accounts, an angel was needed for this - which indicates that the stone was quite massive. Both the Jews and the Romans had no interest in the stone being rolled away. The Roman soldiers would even have been threatened with the death penalty if they "let" the body escape. Finally, a group of soldiers had the task of guarding the tomb of Jesus - according to the Gospels, ordered by Pilate. The Jewish high council was afraid that after three days the disciples could "fake" a resurrection - as Jesus had announced.
- In fact, the Jews also claimed that the body was no longer in the grave. They accused the disciples of the corpse robbery when the Roman soldiers fell asleep. Could you have rolled a huge stone so noiselessly without the Romans noticing? And would the Roman soldiers really have fallen asleep as easily as the Jews claimed? After all, if the body is lost, they face the death penalty.
- There are absolutely no accounts of the life of Jesus after his crucifixion in any source - whether from friends or enemies. Kreeft: "A man with such a past would have left traces."
Did Jesus survive the crucifixion? Resurrection remains a matter of faith
Ultimately, the resurrection of Jesus will always remain a matter of faith for which the reports of the crucifixion, the empty tomb, the apparitions proclaimed by the apostles and their testimonies of faith as martyrs can be important milestones. Rejecting an adventurous interpretation of the biblical texts is entirely up to scientists.
fro
* Merkur.de is part of the nationwide Ippen-Digital editors network.