Deliverance from the Cross — Page 95
but believing'. John 20:27-28) Think what you will of Thomas; he has become for all eternity the principal witness that Jesus existed with the same physical body as before the crucifixion. The same wounds which Thomas wanted to touch imply that it was the same body. On a further occasion Jesus again shared bread and fish with his disciples (John 21:12-13). Whether one is able to accept every detail of the reconstruction of the event of the resurrection set out above, its one undeniable feature is that after having been taken down from the cross, Jesus was resuscitated in his physical body. He moved about and met the disciples on several occasions in his physical body which bore the marks of injuries from which he had suffered and ate with them, which makes it clear that he was completely human and felt all the human needs, including the need of nourishment. Bernard Ellent¹ maintains that the ordinary view of the resurrection and his ascension to heaven with his physical body cannot be substantiated. In the Encyclopaedia Biblica², the view is expressed that nothing can be conjectured with any certainty, except that an appearance of Jesus to the disciples is described. 1 Ellen, Bernard M. , Story behind the Gospels, pp. 107-108 2 Encyclopaedia Biblica, Vol. II, p. 1881 95