Truth About The Crucifixion — Page 129
forsaken me?) He then went into a swoon. Darkness spread over the land and the curtain of the temple was rent in two. In the evening Joseph of Arimathaea came to Pilate and with his permission took the body of Jesus from the cross and placed it in a sepulchre hewn out of the rock. On the third day, that is to say on Sunday morning, certain women arrived at the sepulchre with perfumes and found that the stone at the mouth of the sepulchre had been rolled away and there was no one inside the sepulchre. Thereafter, Jesus met his disciples several times in secret. I shall now proceed to establish from the evidence of the New Testament that Jesus certainly did not die on the cross but had gone into a deep swoon, which the centurion on duty imagined was death. As Pilate had been opposed to the crucifixion of Jesus it is most likely that he leant himself to a plan to rescue Jesus from death, devised along with Joseph of Arimathaea, the physician Nicodemus, and other disciples of Jesus. Also, the legs of Jesus were not broken while the legs of the other two offenders were broken. I shall now draw your attention to the statements in the books of the New Testament which taken together place it beyond doubt that Jesus did not suffer death upon the cross. 1. When the Jews demanded a sign from Jesus, his answer was: An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign; but no sign shall be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the whale, so will the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. (Matthew, 12:39-40) This reply of Jesus which he gave to the Pharisees is decisive on the question under discussion. Jesus declined to show them any 121