A Swooning Saviour? - Part 1

From 2004 to 2006 ‘The Davinci Code’ phenomenon swept the western world. In case you had forgotten, the Christian faith was apparently under siege. In his fictional novel, Dan Brown purports that Jesus of Nazareth did not die and was therefore never resurrected.

The resurrection of Jesus is at the very core of the Christian faith. The Apostle Paul himself wrote in 1 Corinthians 15:17: “If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins.” It is Jesus' resurrection that is the ultimate evidence of His divine identity and inspired teaching.

However, suppose that Jesus did not actually die on the cross. The resurrection story is instantly discarded as pure legend. If Jesus did not die, the accounts of his reappearance are hardly remarkable and the empty tomb is to be expected.

Over centuries, many theories have been popularised suggesting that Jesus did not in fact die. Some have suggested that Jesus merely fainted on the cross due to his exhaustion or as the result of a drug. He then later revived from the damp, cool air in the tomb. This and other similar theories have been called ‘the swoon theories’.

The questions that demand answers are these: What really happened at the Crucifixion? Did Jesus actually die? Is there any way that Jesus could have survived the ordeal?

Firstly, what really happened at the Crucifixion?

Before His crucifixion, Jesus was flogged with a whip of braided leather, with metal balls and pieces of bone woven into them. The metal balls caused deep bruising while the bones would tear the flesh.

In his book "The Case for Easter", Lee Strobel quotes:

“As the flogging continued, the lacerations would tear into underlying skeletal muscles and produce quivering ribbons of bleeding flesh…The sufferer’s veins were laid bare, and the very muscles, sinews and bowels of the victim were open to exposure.”

“…many people would die from this kind of beating even before they could be crucified. At the least, the victim would experience tremendous pain and go into hypovolemic shock.”

“Hypo means ‘low’, vol refers to volume, and emic means ‘blood’, so hypovolemic shock means the person is suffering the effects of losing a large amount of blood… This does four things. First, the heart races to try to pump blood that isn’t there; second, the blood pressure drops, causing fainting or collapse; third, the kidneys stop producing urine to maintain what volume is left; and fourth, the person becomes very thirsty as the body craves fluids to replace the lost blood volume.”

Evidence of these symptoms can be seen in the gospel accounts of Jesus’ flogging.