re: #196 steve_davis

Jesus was decidedly dead on the cross. He was scourged with a barbed whip, which would flat-out kill most people at that stage. He had a centurion pierce him with a spear, out of mercy, so that he would die more quickly. Dozens of people witnessed his return after his burial. Either they were all mad members of a cult, or Christ was something well beyond a carnival barker running Oz from behind a curtain.

The bit that puts me off is the mere 9 hours on the cross. And the fact that the guards most likely did not want to spend any more time waiting around for him to die; if he did not respond to a poke in the ribs, he was dead enough for them…

And again, the whole story in itself can be seen as an allegory of him overcoming death rather than a literal tale of the dead awakening.

I believe that if you are dead, you are dead by definition and cannot “come back”. If you appear to come back, it means you were not completely dead in the first place. We know enough now about long people can appear dead without being dead.