FORD'S THEATRE, DEALEY PLAZA, AND GOLGOTHA
Finally O’Reilly and Dugard get to the payoff. One can only wonder whom they will “kill” next. My guess would be Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. We'll have to wait and see what the Holy Spirit tells them. Meanwhile, let's examine their inquest on the death of Jesus Christ.
The fictionalizing process continues unabated, as our “historians” feel entitled to deductively dump all their background research into the narrative. What usually happened at crucifixions must have happened in Jesus’ particular case. So it did happen. So we learn how many whippersnappers flogged Jesus, something the gospels never bother telling us. Apparently able to gaze back through the millennia like Rudolf Steiner or Edgar Cayce, O’Reilly and Dugard assure us that Jesus “has cried out in pain during his scourging, but he has not vomited or had a seizure, as many do” (p. 243). But, according to their “method,” we might have expected our authors to deduce that, if many did puke and seize up, then Jesus did, too. Of course, we know he didn't because he's our hero.
O’Reilly and Dugard are happy to retell “the old, old story” of Pilate's troops deriding Jesus as a clown-king. “Jesus does nothing as they drape that filthy purple cloak over his naked body, knowing it will soon stick to his wounds. The soldiers then make a false scepter from a reed and thrust it into Jesus's hands, again mocking his claim of being king” (pp. 243–44). But can we be so sure this happened? Granted, this part is found in the gospels; O’Reilly and Dugard didn't make this one up. But some of us think the story was first told about a different king of the Jews, and with a different set of mockers. Philo of Alexandria describes a bit of street theater by Alexandrian ruffians along the route of the visiting Herod Agrippa I (who also appears in Acts 12), returning through Egypt from Rome, where he had just been officially named king of Judea.
There was a certain madman named Carabbas…, the sport of idle children and wanton youths; and they, driving the poor wretch as far as the public gymnasium, and setting him up there on high that he might be seen by everybody, flattened out a leaf of papyrus and put it on his head instead of a diadem, and clothed the rest of his body with a common door mat instead of a cloak, and instead of a sceptre they put in his hand a small stick of…papyrus…and when he had been adorned like a king, the young men bearing sticks on their shoulders stood on each side of him instead of spear bearers…, and then others came up, some as if to salute him, and others as though they wished to plead their causes before him…. Then from the multitude…there arose a…shout of men calling out “Maris!” And this is the name by which it is said that they call the kings among the Syrians; for they knew that Agrippa was by birth a Syrian, and also that he was possessed of a great district of Syria of which he was the sovereign. (Flaccus. VI, 36–39)1
So here is a man who is actually the king of the Jews being mocked by being depicted as a royal street bum. The main difference is that the Alexandrian hooligans dress up another man in order to show their disdain for the Jewish king, whereas the Romans dress up the real king, Jesus, as a clown. But the clincher is the name: Carabbas. Remind you of anyone? It is as if, in the transmission of the story, the clown-king has been split into two characters (a common phenomenon):2 one the mock-king (who, however, in the gospels is also the real king) and the other the surrogate for the real king, who is executed in his place, Jesus dying on the cross intended for Barabbas.3 I'd say this particular Jesus story, his mockery as King of the Jews, stopped being history even before O’Reilly and Dugard got to it.
Next we read of Jesus’ coronation by the Roman toughs.
In an atrocious display, they begin to cut a tall white shrub. Rhamnus nabeca features rigid elliptical leaves and small green flowers, but its most dominant characteristic is the inch-long curving thorns that sprout closely together to form a crown. When they are done, this wreath makes a perfect complement to the reed and the purple cloak All hail the king! (p. 244)
Let's assume for the moment that our authors have identified the right plant, and that it has thorns. It seems more likely, given what Caesar's crown actually looked like, that what the soldiers did was to bend the branch into a circle and fit it onto the back of Jesus’ head, where a yarmulke would be or like the pope's white skullcap. The Roman crown was a tiara with spikes radiating out, like Lady Liberty's crown, only hers comes forward from behind her ears to enclose her forehead. The idea was a sort of halo, suggesting the dawning rays of the sun coming up over the horizon. This does not justify the crown of thorns pictured by millennia of maudlin pietism, which informs the narrative of Killing Jesus at this point.
Jesus is too weak to protest when the crown of thorns is fitted onto his head, and the spikes pressed hard into his skin…. They brush up against the many nerves surrounding the skull almost immediately and then crash into bone. Blood pours down his face. (p. 244)
All Mark says is, “plaiting a crown of thorns, they put it on him” (Mark 15:17b). That's it. There is no hint that the “crown of thorns” was like some kind of rigid hairnet or helmet, a miniature iron maiden for Jesus’ head. There is no suggestion in the text that Jesus was made to look like Pinhead in the Hellraiser movies, or that he was masked in flowing blood. This all comes from the gory devotionalism of medieval Catholicism.
But the text may not even mean to depict a crown of thorns at all. The same Greek word, 
, can just as easily denote “acanthus leaves.” This would mean the soldiers mocked up a laurel wreath for Jesus. Sorry if it's not as bloody as you want it to be.
LA DOLCE VITA
Let's have a little Bible knowledge quiz. Which gospel is it that says Jesus shouldered his cross but, weakened as he was by his flogging and beating, staggered beneath the weight of it, and a bystander was yanked from the crowd to carry it the rest of the way for him? Matthew? Mark? Luke? John? All of them? The answer is none of them, unless you want to consider Killing Jesus a gospel, and maybe you should. The Synoptic Gospels directly conflict with John, and that is not some minor goof or a matter of variant traditions. The fact is that Matthew 27:32, Mark 15:21, and Luke 23:26 all show Jesus unable from square one to hoist that cross and carry it to Golgotha, as can well be imagined. John 19:17 has Jesus carry the cross the whole way, with no mention of anyone taking over for him anywhere along the way. Why this difference? It is pretty obvious to anyone not blinded by a desire to have all the gospels agree. The Synoptics quote Jesus as saying, “If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me” (Mark 8:34 and parallels). John noticed what no one else had: that, given this saying, it wouldn't look too good if Jesus was not up to taking up his own cross! So he changed it. O’Reilly and Dugard, as they often do, follow Church tradition and split the difference. They are building on the sand of spurious harmonization. Building what? More sanguine grue: “Each stumble drives the thorns on his head deeper into his skull” (p. 247). Which gospel says that? Same answer.
“Jesus's vision has blurred” (p. 245). Odd thing: I can't find the word “blurred” in my concordance. Remember the old hymn “Were You There When They Crucified My Lord?”? Apparently, O’Reilly and Dugard were. As for me, when writing history, I'd prefer to stick with Jacob Neusner's rule of thumb: “What we cannot show, we do not know.”4
NAIL SOME SENSE INTO THEM!5
Quiz time again. Which gospel's crucifixion account says that Jesus got nailed to the cross? Same answer again! None of them. Sometimes people were just tied to the cross. It was not intended to be a particularly bloody death; the cross killed its victims through exposure and slow asphyxiation. It took days, or was supposed to. Where do we get the idea that Jesus was nailed to his cross? From one episode in one resurrection narrative. You know the one I mean: the story of Doubting Thomas in John 20:24–29. “Unless I see in his hands the print of the nails…” It sounds like an afterthought, and it is. This episode is a sequel to John 20:19–23.
On the evening of that day, the first day of the week, the doors being shut where the disciples were, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.” When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I send you.” And when he had said this, he breathed on them, and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”
This is the Johannine version of both Matthew's Great Commission (Matt. 28:18–20: “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you”) as well as the commission of church-legal authority to the disciples (Matt. 18:18: “Truly I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven”). Clearly, in John 20:19–23 we are witnessing the equipping and commissioning of the eleven disciples (no Judas) for their subsequent ministry. It is assumed that they are all present for it. And then comes the Doubting Thomas episode, where we read that Tom was out at the time! This is a different story that does not presuppose the scene in John 20:19–23. It only presupposes the general belief that the other ten had seen the risen Jesus, and not even a particular appearance. The Doubting Thomas story is just like this one told of the miracle worker Apollonius of Tyana.
The young man in question…would on no account allow the immortality of the soul, and said, “I myself, gentlemen, have done nothing now for nine months but pray to Apollonius that he would reveal to me the truth about the soul; but he is so utterly dead that he will not appear to me in response to my entreaties, nor give me any reason to consider him immortal.” Such were the young man's words on that occasion, but on the fifth day following, after discussing the same subject, he fell asleep where he was talking with them, and…on a sudden, like one possessed, he leaped up, still in a half sleep, streaming with perspiration, and cried out, “I believe thee.” And when those who were present asked him what was the matter; “Do you not see,” said he, “Apollonius the sage, how that he is present with us and is listening to our discussion, and is reciting wondrous verses about the soul?” “But where is he?” they asked, “For we cannot see him anywhere, although we would rather do so than possess all the blessings of mankind.” And the youth replied: “It would seem that he is come to converse with myself alone concerning the tenets which I would not believe.” (Life of Apollonius of Tyana 8:31)6
The purpose of both this story and that of Doubting Thomas is obviously to encourage latter-day readers to have faith even in the absence of sight. Sure, they weren't lucky enough to be there to see the living Savior himself, but really they aren't at a disadvantage. Someone just like them was vouchsafed sufficient assurance, and that ought to be good enough for you, too. “Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me” (1 Cor. 15:8). “Without having seen him, you love him; though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with unutterable and exalted joy” (1 Pet. 1:8). Or at least that's the idea. Of course, the Doubting Thomas story really only pushes the problem back one step instead of solving it; now you have to envy the certainty specially made available to Thomas, because you weren't there for that, either, were you?
The evangelist John just did not notice the inconsistency between his two successive episodes. He was concerned only to make two different points. In 20:19–23 his goal was to reinforce the apostolic credentials of the disciples, including Thomas, while in 20:24 the point is to use Thomas as a stand-in for the reader who wishes he had been present for a resurrection appearance like that in 20:19–23. Each serves its purpose; the trouble is that they don't fit together very well. And for our purposes, that means the sole reference to Jesus having been nailed to a cross is a secondary addition to the story.
But someone who reads the text more carefully than O’Reilly and Dugard do might point out that John 20:19–23 already implies that Jesus had nail wounds in his hands: “He showed them his hands and his side” (verse 20a). Good point, but this, too, is secondary. The whole episode has been rewritten from its original appearance in Luke 24:36–43.
And as they were saying this, Jesus himself appeared among them and said to them, “Peace to you.” But they were startled and frightened, and supposed that they saw a spirit. And he said to them, “Why are you troubled, and why do questionings rise in your hearts? See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself; handle me, and see; for a spirit has not flesh and bones as you see that I have.” And when he had said this, he showed them his hands and his feet. And while they still disbelieved for joy, and wondered, he said to them, “Have you anything here to eat?” They gave him a piece of broiled fish, and he took it and ate it before them.
Notice what has changed from Luke to John. For one thing, Luke lacks the imparting of the Holy Spirit. Perhaps John has taken Luke's reference to “a spirit” and rewritten it. At any rate, Luke has the Spirit imparted to the disciples forty days later, on Pentecost (Acts 2:1–4), so he's not going to include it here. For another, and this is really my point, in Luke Jesus shows his hands and feet, not his hands and side, as he does in John. Luke's purpose is to show Jesus as physically resurrected, with a substantial body. He is trying to refute a rival belief, present in 1 Corinthians 15:42–50 and 1 Peter 3:9, to the effect that Jesus experienced a purely spiritual resurrection.7 John takes this for granted but rewrites the scene in order to refute a different belief, namely that Jesus did not really die on the cross but was taken down alive and rescued. The point of changing Luke's reference to Jesus’ hands and feet to a mention of his hands and side is to accentuate Jesus’ mortal wound from the spear thrust on the cross: “one of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear, and at once there came out blood and water” (John 19:34). But this, too, is secondary, as you can see from the way it fails to fit the immediate context. Let's back up.
Since it was the day of Preparation [for the Passover], in order to prevent the bodies from remaining on the cross on the Sabbath (for that Sabbath was a high day), the Jews asked Pilate that their legs might be broken [to hasten death by asphyxiation], and that they might be taken away. So the soldiers came and broke the legs of the first, and of the other who had been crucified with him; but when they came to Jesus and saw that he was already dead, they did not break his legs. But one of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear, and at once there came out blood and water. (John 19:31–34)
Uh, wait a second here. In verse 33 the soldiers observed that Jesus was already dead and so did not break his legs. But in the very next verse they decide to ascertain that he's dead, which we were just told they already knew. Verses 34–35 are a secondary insertion, as are verses 36–37, “For these things took place that the scripture might be fulfilled, ‘Not a bone of him shall be broken.’ And again another scripture says, ‘They shall look on him whom they have pierced.’”
We can see now that John has added both the spear thrust in 19:34–35 and the post-resurrection reference to it in 20:20. The reference to Jesus’ hands is left over unchanged from Luke 24:39–40, where it did not denote nail wounds, only physical materiality, and therefore we cannot be sure John was implying a reference to nail wounds when he retained the Lukan mention of the hands. So was Jesus gruesomely staked to the cross like a vampire? No particular reason to think so, as long as we are trying to reconstruct the history of the matter and not just expanding the gospels, as they stand, into a novel.
CRUCIFIED ON A PSALM
Perhaps the most astonishing aspect of the oldest crucifixion account, Mark's, is that it is essentially just a transposition of Psalm 22. Think back to the list of “prophecies” that O’Reilly and Dugard claim were fulfilled by the life of Jesus. Two of them come from the Twenty-Second Psalm. Psalm 22:16 reads: “Yea, dogs are round about me; a company of evildoers encircle me; they have pierced my hands and feet.” Aha, they cry: surely this is a prediction of the crucifixion—at least of somebody. Thousands of poor wretches were crucified at the hands of Phoenicians (who invented the bloody game) and Romans after them. But it isn't even clear that this psalm refers to any of them. Notice the context: this man's enemies are closing in on him in some unspecified manner, and the psalmist metaphorically calls them wild dogs who growl and snap at him. But there is not a hint of his being nailed to a cross. Wouldn't we have to infer that his hands and feet are getting bitten and wounded as he tries to bat and kick the bloodthirsty hounds away? At least animals are mentioned; crosses are not, and it seems far-fetched to read crucifixion into the scene—unless one is heaven-bent on making this a prophecy of Jesus. And this is exactly what O’Reilly and Dugard, following their childhood catechism instructors, are doing.
The other verse from the same psalm reads: “They divide my garments [in the psalm this is synecdoche for “possessions”] among them, and for my raiment they cast lots” (Ps. 22:18). The psalmist's enemies (or those of the client for whom he sings) have so thoroughly triumphed over him, or think they have, that they regard him as being as good as dead—so who gets what? “He ain't gonna be needing ’em anymore!” The whole form of the psalm as a “one size fits all” composition presupposes that the predicament is common enough. Think of poor Scrooge secretly watching the laundress, the undertaker, and the charwoman selling off his possessions after finding his corpse one morning. It is not some rare and astonishing thing that must one day transpire as an unprecedented event. That is just absurd, and whoever says otherwise lacks any historical or literary sense. That is a severe judgment, but it must be made.
O’Reilly and Dugard are thinking, as you know, of Mark's crucifixion scene, where it says the Roman soldiers threw dice to determine who would get Jesus’ Ferrari, his iPhone, and his sunglasses. Of course Jesus was an itinerate mendicant who lacked even a piece of floor to lay his head on at night (Matt. 8:20) and would have had no possessions to divide.8 So the application of Psalm 22:18 at this point is not even apt.
It is striking that Mark 15’s crucifixion account parallels Psalm 22 at other points as well, not least of which is the cry of Jesus from the cross: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Mark 15:34; Ps. 22:1). Also, when Mark 15:29 says Jesus’ hecklers “wagged their heads” and hurled insults at him, this reflects Psalm 22:7–8: “All who see me mock at me, they make mouths at me, they wag their heads; ‘He committed his cause to the Lord; let him deliver him, let him rescue him, for he delights in him.’”) This is another one of those lament psalms, not a prophecy or prediction or prognostication in any way.
And this is the most interesting part: Mark never says that it is. There are a number of places in the gospels where an event in Jesus’ life is said to be a fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy (Mark 1:2, 7:6, 14:27; Matt. 1:22–23, 2:5–6, 15, 17–18, 23, 3:3, 4:13–16, 12:17–21, 13:14–15, 13:35–36, 21:4), but, strikingly, none of the parallels to Psalm 22 in Mark's crucifixion account are said to be fulfillments of scripture. What this suggests is that Mark was not trying to draw attention to Psalm 22 but was using it as a template upon which to construct his story of the cross. He had neither any earlier version to draw upon nor any memories from anyone who may have seen the crucifixion. Did anyone see it? Did it even happen?
The other gospels appear to be stricter or looser rewrites of Mark's version. Where they add to it, most of the new material also seems to be derived from scripture, not memory. For instance, Matthew 27:43 adds more mockery from the priests, scribes, and elders: “He trusts in God; let God deliver him now, if he desires him; for he said, ‘I am the Son of God.’” Matthew plainly derived these words from the Wisdom of Solomon 2:12–20 (which he obviously had to condense):
But let us lie in wait for the righteous man, because he makes it hard for us, and opposes our works, and upbraids us for sins against the law, and accuses us of sins against our training. He professes to have knowledge of God, and calls himself the servant of the Lord. He became to us a living reproof of our thoughts. He is grievous for us even to behold because his life is unlike that of other men, and his ways are alien to us. He disdains us as base metal, and he avoids our ways as unclean. The final end of the righteous he calls happy, and he claims that God is his father. Let us see if his words are true, and let us see what will happen at the end of his life! For if the righteous man is God's son, he will uphold him, and he will rescue him from the grasp of his adversaries. With outrage and torture let us put him to the test, that we may see for ourselves his gentleness and prove his patience under injustice. Let us condemn him to a shameful death; for surely God shall intervene as this fellow said he would!
First Peter 2:21–23 speaks of the interrogation of Jesus, but everything he says is derived, again, from scripture, Isaiah 53:9, 12. What, no memory of the “event”? One wonders if even this crucial episode might have been derived, in whole or in part, from contemporary stories about other well-known figures, such as Cleomenes, a radical Spartan king who was deposed and exiled for his land-reform policies and was finally crucified (already dead, having killed himself in anticipation of arrest) by the Alexandrian authorities.
And a few days afterwards those who were keeping watch on the body of Cleomenes where it hung, saw a serpent of great size coiling itself about the head and hiding away the face so that no ravening bird of prey could light upon it. In consequence of this, the king was seized with superstitious fear, and thus gave the women occasion for various rites of purification, since they felt that a man had been taken off who was of a superior nature and beloved of the gods. And the Alexandrians actually worshipped him, coming frequently to the spot and addressing Cleomenes as a hero and a child of the gods. (Plutarch, Agis and Cleomenes, XXXIX)9
Note the parallels with the gospels. A miraculous portent accompanies the crucifixion of the king. Here it is a snake protecting the face of Cleomenes from the ravages of carrion birds. Mark, of course, has the darkness at noon (15:33) plus the ripping of the Temple curtain (15:38), while Matthew 27:51–53 adds an earthquake for good measure. The onlookers, duly impressed, declare the dead man a son of God, as in Mark: “And when the centurion, who stood facing him, saw that he thus breathed his last, he said, ‘Truly, this man was a son of God!’” (Mark 15:39).
DEAD END
Who anointed the body of Jesus with scented unguents? According to John, it was Jesus’ secret admirers Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus, but in the Synoptics, it was Mary Magdalene and her associates who intended to do the job, though their discovery of the empty tomb made their plans moot. These accounts cannot be harmoniously combined, since in Mark we read that the women attentively observed Jesus’ burial by Joseph (who, however, does nothing but deposit the corpse in the tomb), and they resolve to return the morning after the Sabbath to do the anointing themselves. Had Joseph, with his twin Nicodemus, anointed the body with the extravagant amount of unguent John says they brought (John 19:39–40), and the women watched the interment (which Mark says, not John), they surely would have seen that the anointing of the dead had been accomplished, obviating any need for their return. And, sure enough, in John, the women do return to the tomb but not to do the anointing. O’Reilly and Dugard try to harmonize the contradiction.10 They tell us that their intra-narrative counterparts Nicodemus and Joseph did not have time, with the Sabbath beginning so soon, to anoint the body for burial, so all they could do was to pack it in a hundred pounds of spices to prevent the onset of decay-reek (p. 254). But, fellas, that is to anoint the body for burial. They pretend it isn't so they can have Mary Magdalene and the others arrive Sunday morning to really anoint the body (p. 259). Absurd.
O’Reilly and Dugard go back to the Akashic Records for another bucketful of fiction unhinted at in the historical sources:
Pilate is relieved. Soon he will be on his way back to Caesarea, there once again to govern without the constant interference of the Temple priests. But Caiaphas will not go away. Wearing expensive robes and linen, he postures before Pilate, not knowing how the Roman governor will report back to Rome. Caiaphas has much at stake, and he is uneasy over Pilate's hand-washing display, which makes it clear that the governor is trying to distance himself from this proceeding. He will lose everything if Emperor Tiberius blames him for the death of Jesus. So Caiaphas stands firm, looking for any sign of approval from Pilate. But the Roman governor has had enough of this arrogant priest. Without a word, he stands and walks away. (p. 257)
We can imagine such a scene taking place, but that's all. And that's all O’Reilly and Dugard are doing: imagining. The problem is, they are shamelessly passing it, and so much else, off as history.
One of the wildest embellishments Matthew made to Mark is his posting of Roman guards at Jesus’ tomb. This he did in order to co-opt and refute a contemporary rumor that, if Jesus’ tomb was, as Christians say, found empty, it was because Jesus’ followers absconded with his corpse in order to mount a resurrection hoax (Matt. 27:62–66). Matthew goes the detractors one better by saying, “Yeah? Well, did you know Pilate posted guards to prevent a stunt like that? And that Jesus rose anyway? Huh? Then why didn't they ever say anything about it? Um…, er, because those rotten high priests paid them to keep mum about it! Yeah, that's the ticket!” (Matt. 28:1–4). This is fiction pure and simple. You mean, if this happened, Mark, Luke, and John would somehow have neglected to mention it? Not a chance. The whole thing goes in the same X-file along with Matthew's moving star, his double demoniacs, and his “Night of the Living Dead” cameo in Matthew 27:52–53. O’Reilly and Dugard seem to understand that they cannot even maintain their pretense of impartial history writing if they include this episode, but they do borrow a detail from it. They have one single guard posted to prevent the mischievous theft of the body. When the women get to the tomb in the Killing Jesus version, not only the corpse of Jesus is gone but the Roman soldier is, too! Now what do you suppose could have happened to him?
PLAYING IT CUTE
To understand what O’Reilly and Dugard are really doing as they end their book, oh so impartially and objectively, we have to step back into the eighteenth century and look at the state of religious debate in those days. This was a time when many, even theologians, were much impressed with the Newtonian model of the universe. They viewed the cosmos as a gigantic mechanical system set in place by the Creator to purr along smoothly and efficiently on its own steam under the regime of natural laws. Many religious believers hailed this conception as proof that the world was the work of a Designer. But there was a pretty stiff price to pay. They could not consistently believe in miracles anymore. If God had planned everything adequately (and how could he not?), then it would be both blasphemous and superstitious to picture him suspending or violating the very laws of nature that he had put in place. This led to the Protestant Rationalist approach to the Bible.
Rationalist Protestants had inherited the old belief in the complete historical reliability of scripture, only they could no longer appeal to the traditional basis for it, divine inspiration. That, of course, would be a miracle, a divine intervention into the normal process of literary composition. They were not ready to go the whole way with the emerging Higher Criticism and admit that the Bible was filled with legend, myth, and contradictory accounts. So here's what they had to do. They posited (because it was the only thing they could think of) that the narratives of the Bible had been written by eyewitnesses. The accuracy of the stories was not guaranteed by divine inspiration (a matter of sheer faith anyway), but if the writers were on the scene, their reporting could be trusted. But the biblical “reporters” were ancient people, not modern. They had no knowledge of science. Therefore, when they beheld strange and astounding events, they could not surmise the actual causation involved, so, as men of their time, they jumped to the only conclusion available to them: a miracle had occurred. The Protestant Rationalists exercised considerable creativity in suggesting the “real” causal links that must have been in play. This is where we get what has now become a joke, that Jesus did not walk on the waves but only knew where the stepping stones were.
David Friedrich Strauss delighted in exposing the strained, implausible, and downright incredible character of these explanations.11 Strauss made a breakthrough when he suggested that the traditionally orthodox Protestants were right in insisting that the miracle stories made no sense without supernaturalism, but they were wrong in taking them as sober history. Instead, they were myths and legends. The story of the resurrection of Jesus must be understood as the story of a divine miracle of a dead man being restored to life, and therefore as a legend. The Rationalists were as little prepared to accept this as the orthodox were. What did the Rationalists make of the resurrection?
They believed that Jesus had not perished on the cross but had merely passed out. He was revived by his friends Joseph and Nicodemus (as well as whoever the “men” or angels at the tomb were, probably Essenes). The spices and unguents were really medicines. It was a question of how to connect the dots: Jesus was crucified and Jesus appeared alive a few days later. The Rationalists could not bring themselves to discount either “report.” They could not erase either of the dots. So how to connect them? Not by a miracle; there weren't any miracles. So the connection must be that Jesus did not die between point A and point B. Nor was he resurrected. He cheated death and appeared still alive.
If Strauss battled both the Rationalists and the orthodox, they did not neglect to battle one another. The orthodox argued against the Rationalists’ contrived explanations of what the orthodox still believed were miracles. If they could knock down all the silly rationalizations proposed by their opponents, then, by default, the traditional miraculous explanation would be vindicated. They were wrong, of course; they were committing the fallacy known as Affirming the Consequent: Even if you do debunk my explanation, that doesn't mean yours is automatically correct. There may be yet a third alternative that neither of us has thought of or that we both find unpalatable (such as Strauss's).
It is seldom noticed how, in all of today's debates on the resurrection of Jesus, like the one between William Lane Craig and John Dominic Crossan, recommended by O’Reilly and Dugard (p. 279), the conservative apologists continue to argue as if their opponents were the old Rationalist Protestants. The apologists tacitly take for granted that all the gospel scenes leading up to the empty tomb are accurate reporting. Who would deny that Joseph of Arimathea requested, then buried, the body of Jesus, that the women visited the tomb and found it empty, and that the disciples experienced visitations from the risen Jesus? We're all agreed on that, right? Then how best to connect the dots? Apologists proceed to (try to) knock down all possible non-supernatural explanations: the Wrong Tomb Theory, the Hallucination Theory, the Swoon Theory, the Stolen Body Theory, and so on. What's left? Why, Jesus must have risen miraculously from the dead!
Not surprisingly, no one seems to have read Strauss.12 It does not occur to apologists, as it never did to the Rationalists, that the gospel Passion narratives are designed to prepare the way for the miraculous resurrection. They are not open-ended, a bald-faced collection of facts, as O’Reilly and Dugard seem to think. They are like the cocked wheel on the supermarket cart, subtly steering you in the “right” direction. The Passion narratives are following the trajectory of a particular plot. The trials, the beatings, the spitting and mocking, are all part of the darkness before the dawn of the resurrection. No wonder the reader who takes them literally finds himself ineluctably drawn to a particular conclusion, just like the reader of a detective novel does. And that is pretty much what Killing Jesus is. When you get to the final sentence, “To this day the body of Jesus of Nazareth has never been found” (p. 259), you get the message. And it is a religious message, not a historical one.
There is no chapter in Killing Jesus recounting the resurrection, though none is really needed, given what I have just said. Let me suggest that, if O’Reilly and Dugard had elected to cover the resurrection in the same moment-by-moment pseudo-documentary style they employed in the preceding chapters, the result would be comical, just as the contrived miracle-explanations of the old-time Rationalists are. It would rightly look fully as preposterous as it would had they decided to include the moving of the Wise Men's star from Jerusalem to Bethlehem, and for the same reason. To make my point, I have supplied what O’Reilly and Dugard omitted: a chapter on the resurrection.