Christianity - A Journey from Facts to Fiction — Page 76
76 Christianity – A Journey from Facts to Fiction His perceived death was only the impression of an observer who was neither a physician nor had any opportunity to medically examine him. An onlooker, watching with such anxiety and concern lest death should overtake his beloved master, merely observed the dropping of the tired head with chin resting against the chest of Jesus as. And ‘Lo’, he exclaimed, ‘He gave up the ghost’. But as we explained earlier, this is not a treatise to discuss the merits and authenticities of the Biblical account from the point of view of genuineness or otherwise, or to dispute any interpretations attributed to them. We are here only to critically examine the very logic and commonsense of Christian philosophy and dogma. The point which is conclusively established therefore is that whether Jesus as swooned or died, his painful surprise at what was about to happen strongly proves that he expected otherwise. If death it was that he sought then the surprise that he showed had no justification at all. Our interpretation as Ahmadi Muslims is that Jesus as was only surprised because he was given a promise of deliverance from the cross by God during his supplica- tions the night before. But God had other plans: He caused Jesus as to merely swoon so that the sentries on guard could be misled to believe that he had died and as such to release his body to Joseph of Arimathea, to be delivered to his kith and kin. The surprise which we notice in the last words of Jesus Christ as was also shared by Pilate himself: ‘Already dead’, is what he exclaimed when the incident of death was reported to him (Mark 15:44). He must have had a long experience with crucifixion during his tenure as Governor of Judea and could not have expressed his surprise unless he was convinced that it is unusual for death to overtake a