Truth About The Crucifixion — Page 241
or attacks by birds of prey or other wild animals (cited after Hase: Geschichte Jesu). The thieves who were cnicified together with Jesus had to be clubbed to death so that the execution could be completed and the bodies taken down from the cross before the Sabbath eve. In the case of Jesus, on the other hand, the mental and physical shock resulted after only six hours in fainting and a state of deep unconsciousness which was difficult to distinguish from death. That Jesus was still alive when the soldier speared his side is, according to Toll, incontestable, as blood flowed from the wound, which would not happen after death. The "water" that ran out, according to the narrative, is interpreted by Toll as a discharge of lymph, which had been formed under the skin through the scourging, and he supposes that the soldier, when he walked past the cross, from pure mischief made a small superficial stab in one of these water-blisters, which he couldn't leave alone. Thus according to Toll it need not be assumed that the spear wound was deep and of any significance for the question of life or death. In a separate chapter Toll gives an account of medicoscientific aspects of life and death, fainting and "apparent death", and goes on to a discussion of the refutations of the hypotheses of apparent death concerning the death of Jesus, which time and again have appeared in the literature. He pays special attention to the criticisms of the view that Jesus did not die on the cross put forward by Hase (Geschichte Jesu, 1872). Weiss (Das Leben Jesu, 1882) and Delff (Grundziige der Entwicklungsgeschichte der Religion, 1886), in particular, and points out on what weak grounds their "counter-evidence” is based. Toll states that to judge from the Gospels Jesus was not anointed; if this had been testified, the hypothesis of apparent death would of course have 233