Where Did Jesus Die? — Page 38
? 38 he disappeared, there stood before them, clothed in white, the two dignified figures, who were really among the secret adherents of Jesus in Jerusalem. These men exhorted them not to stand waiting there but to be up and doing. Where Jesus really died, they never knew, and so they came to describe his departure as an ascension. 2. Mr. Ernest Brougham Docker, District Court Judge, Sydney, has written a valuable book on this subject (‘If Jesus did not Die on the Cross’ 1920), in which he has scrutinised the whole evi- dence of the Gospels as a judge examines the evidence of a case. Below I reproduce his opinion concerning the resurrection. The idea that dead bodies may be reanimated was prev- alent in the time of our Lord, and for many hundreds of years, both before and after; in fact, wherever scientific investigation has been undeveloped. We have one instance in the history of Elijah, two in that of Elisha; there are three recorded in the gospels, besides that of Jesus him- self and two in the Acts (1:18). Irenaeus speaks of frequent instances where ‘the spirit has returned to the ex-animated body, and the man has been granted to the prayers of the Church’. An interesting instance of this belief, at the present day in an unscientific people is to be found in an article by the Rev. W. Montgomery, entitled Schweitzer as Missionary ( Hibbert Journal , July, 1914, p. 885): ‘…The things which impress natives most is the use of anaesthetics, the girls in the mission school write letters