Pathfinders Class: The Case for Christ
Class 5: The Death and Resurrection of Christ
Gregory Chao
May 29, 2011
1) The Medical Evidence for the death of Christ
a) Does our medical knowledge support the after-effects of flogging recorded in the
Gospels?
i) Roman floggings were known to be terribly brutal. They usually consisted of 39 or
more lashes. The soldier would use a whip of braided leather thongs with metal balls
woven into them. The whipping would have gone all the way from the shoulders
down to the back, the buttocks, and the back of the legs. Jesus showed evidence of
losing large amounts of blood as he staggered up the road to the execution site at
Calvary when he collapsed carrying the beam. Later, we read that he said “I thirst.”
ii) The loss of blood 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 the pericardial fluid. When the spear entered his lung, this
clear fluid would have escaped looking like water confirming John’s description of
“blood and water.”
b) How can our understanding of medicine help us in verifying Jesus’ crucifixion?
i) The Romans used spikes that were five to seven inches long. They were driven
through the wrists and feet. (The wrists were considered part of the hand in the
language of the day. The palm could not support the weight of the body.)
ii) Once the person is hanging in a vertical position, crucifixion is essentially an
agonizingly slow death by asphyxiation. The victim would have to push up on his
feet on inhale. In time, complete exhaustion would take over. Respiratory acidosis
due to too high concentration of carbon dioxide would cause acidity of the blood to
increase leading to irregular heartbeat. He would die of cardiac arrest.
c) What is the point of the Roman soldiers breaking the legs of the victims?
i) If they wanted to speed up death, the Roman soldiers would use a steel shaft to
shatter the leg bones so that the victims could not push up to breath thereby
accelerating death by asphyxiation to a matter of minutes.
d) How did the soldier know for certain that Jesus was dead with their primitive
understanding of medicine and anatomy?
i) Roman soldiers were experts at killing people. That was their job.
ii) It isn’t that difficult to establish death.
iii) If a prisoner escaped, the responsible soldier would be put to death.
2) The Evidence of the Missing Body (The Resurrection)
i) The resurrection is the ultimate representation of Jesus’ claim to being God. Paul, in
I Corinthians 15:1-17, understood it as the linch-pin of the Christian faith “If Christ
has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sin.” This passage is
believed to be an incredibly early and is a four-line formula. (1) Line 1 talks about
the crucifixion, (2) line 2 about the burial, (3) line 3 about the resurrection, and line 4
about the appearances.
ii) The Gospels were written after almost all the letters of Paul which probably began in
the 40’s. In addition, we find in Philippians 2:6-11, Colossians 1:15-20, and I
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Corinthians 15:3 creeds that were even earlier than Paul’s writings. Paul is using
these creeds during his ministry in the 40’s which means that they must have been
developed in the 30’s.
I Corinthian 15:1-11, 13-17 – ‘Now, brothers, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached
to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand. By this gospel you are
saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain.
For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance:
1) that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures,
2) that he was buried,
3) that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures,
4) and that he appeared to Peter, and then to the Twelve. After that, he appeared to more
than five hundred of the brothers at the same time, most of whom are still living, though
some have fallen asleep.
Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, and last of all he appeared to me also,
as to one abnormally born. For I am the least of the apostles and do not even deserve to be
called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God I am
what I am, and his grace to me was not without effect. No, I worked harder than all of them-yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me. Whether, then, it was I or they, this is
what we preach, and this is what you believed.
If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has
not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith. More than that, we are then
found to be false witnesses about God, for we have testified about God that he raised Christ
from the dead. But he did not raise him if in fact the dead are not raised. For if the dead are
not raised, then Christ has not been raised either. And if Christ has not been raised, your
faith is futile; you are still in your sins.’
a) What are the four or five reasons why the empty tomb is a historical fact?
i) The empty tomb is definitely implicit in the early tradition that is passed along by
Paul in I Corinthians 15, which is a very old and reliable source of historical
information about Jesus.
ii) Christians and Jews alike knew the site of Jesus. So if it weren’t empty, it would be
impossible for a movement founded on belief in the Resurrection to have come into
existence in the same city where this man had been publicly executed and buried.
iii) The simplicity of the language, grammar, and style in Mark’s description of the
empty tomb points to an earlier source. It is counter to the flowery narratives of the
fictional apocryphal accounts from the second century and unadorned by theological
reflection.
iv) The unanimous testimony that the empty tomb was discovered by women argues
for the authenticity of the story, because this would have been embarrassing for the
disciples to admit and most certainly would have been covered up if this were a
legend
v) The earliest Jewish polemic presupposes the historicity of the empty tomb. There
was nobody who was claimed that the tomb still contained Jesus’ body. They
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proposed the ridiculous story that the guards had fallen asleep. This starts with the
assumption that the tomb was empty.
3) The Circumstantial Evidence of the Resurrection of Christ
a) What is some circumstantial evidence that supports the fact that Jesus rose from the
dead?
i) The disciples died for their beliefs. They were willing to abandon their old life and
spend the rest of their days proclaiming that JC was the Messiah who died on the
cross, returned to life, and was seen alive by them. There was no payoff from a
human point of view. They faced a life of hardship and most were executed in
torturous ways. They must have been convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt that
they had seen JC alive from the dead. People will die for their religious beliefs if they
sincerely believe they’re true, but people won’t die for their religious beliefs if they
know their beliefs are false. Most people can have faith that their beliefs are true,
the disciples were in a position to know without a doubt whether or not Jesus had
risen from the dead.
ii) There was the conversion of hard skeptics who didn’t believe in Jesus before his
crucifixion. Two, in particular, are James the brother of Jesus and Saul of Tarsus.
James was recorded in the gospel as being embarrassed by Jesus during his life and,
after his death, became a leader in the church. Jesus appeared before him. Paul
was an enemy to the faith and turned 180 degrees because he saw the risen Christ.
iii) Christianity converted Jews steep in Jewish customs number 1000’s. These
adjustments were not minor. (1) There was no longer a need for animal sacrifices
since Christ was the ultimate sacrifice, (2) Obeying the law was not the key method
for righteousness rather a belief in JC and a relationship with Him through the Holy
Spirit. (3) Worship on the Sabbath was changed to worship on Sunday because that’s
when Jesus rose from the dead. (4) Christian equated JC with God thereby
developing the understanding of the trinity. (5) The Messiah was not a political
leader but a suffering servant.
iv) The sacrament of communion and baptism support the truth of the gospel.
Communion celebrates the death of Jesus in a regular way, an odd way to remember
a leader unless that leader has resurrected. Baptism was in the name of the God the
Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, a blasphemous doctrine to the Jews.
Baptism was a celebration of the death and resurrection of JC. These sacraments
are dated back to the earliest Christian community.
v) The emergence of the church within 20 years after the death of Christ is witness to
its truth. The movement triumphed over a number of competing ideologies and
eventually overwhelmed the entire Roman Empire.
vi) The ongoing encounter with the resurrected Christ that happens all over the world
to people of different personalities and cultures. People still claim to have a
personal encounter with Jesus Christ today.
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