Deliverance from the Cross — Page 96
According to Kirsopp Lake: In the earliest tradition there was no account of the actual resurrection, but only statements as to the grave and the appearance of the risen Lord. ³ The earliest record which has come down to us from the beginning of the Christian Movement, apparently is that body of material represented in the common non-Marean sources of Matthew and Luke,. . . It is a very surprising fact that there is not a single reference to Jesus in all that material. 4 Now that the evidence of the Shroud emphatically confirms the conclusion to be drawn from the material available on the subject in the Gospels, to the effect that Jesus did not die on the cross, the question of resurrection loses all importance. We are left with the consequential situation that Jesus had not died when he was taken down from the cross, and when he was wrapped in the linen cloth and was placed in the sepulchre. All that happened, therefore, was that through the effects of the aloes and spices with which the linen cloth was impregnated and which may have been applied to the body of Jesus also, his breathing was restored and he gradually regained consciousness. This was a case of resuscitation, not of resurrection in the sense of a dead body coming back to life again. 3 Kirsopp Lake, The Historical Evidence for the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, 1907, p. 231 4 S. V. McCasland, The Resurrection of Jesus, 1932, p. 131 96