Bible 101

Lesson 8: Why does the Bible end?

What if Jesus didn’t really die?

This theory is sometimes referred to as the “Swoon Theory”.

It asserts that Jesus did not really die on the cross, but that His supposed death was only a temporary loss of consciousness brought about by the physical trauma He had suffered together with the loss of blood, and that His Resurrection was simply a return to consciousness. While the theory in itself is interesting, it is hard to imagine a man who had been physically tortured and then subjected to the of crucifixion for three hours, and then lastly received a wound by being pierced in side, will wake up from mere swoon. His real death (2) is attested to by the centurion and the soldiers (who by virtue of their profession were very familiar with death and dying), by his friends and even by his most bitter enemies. Further, if, for the sake of argument, He had still been alive when taken to the tomb, he would have been sealed in for about thirty-six hours, breathing in the fumes of a hundred pounds of spices (brought by Nicodemus), which would have itself sufficed to cause death.

In addition to the foregoing, how would He have gathered the strength to move the stone rolled before the tomb and heavily guarded by Roman soldiers? Additionally, if Jesus had faced the disciples weak and sick, they would have surely helped him get well, yet the outcomes of their lives would have been those of sympathy to their fallen leader, rather than those of joy and triumph. Jesus would have lived out his life in solitude and inglorious obscurity, another man who claimed to be the Messiah and wasn’t. Yet, on the contrary, the disciples received the proof they needed to built the church Jesus spoke of, and to this day the church has survived every kind of persecution.

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