The following is from the article, “Crucifixion – Could Jesus Have Survived” Christian Apologetics UK:
Do examples of people surviving crucifixion mean Jesus could’ve survived his crucifixion ordeal?
Well no not really because as we have noted the means of which people could be crucified could differ greatly [With or without a scourging etc], especially in the case of which Josephus describes as the context is within that of a mass crucifixion which suggests that this was unlike the process of which Jesus went through. The particular passage that details a survivor of crucifixion is once again found in the works of Josephus;
And when I was sent by Titus Caesar with Cerealins, and a thousand horsemen, to a certain village called Thecoa, in order to know whether it were a place fit for a camp, as I came back, I saw many captives crucified, and remembered three of them as my former acquaintance. I was very sorry at this in my mind, and went with tears in my eyes to Titus, and told him of them; so he immediately commanded them to be taken down, and to have the greatest care taken of them, in order to their recovery; yet two of them died under the physician’s hands, while the third recovered.
However what critics may fail to take into account is that not only was it likely that these victims were not treated to the same prolonged process that Jesus was, even with the best medical care of the time 2 of the 3 still died! So in reality it really doesn’t function as a very persuasive argument for Jesus surviving his crucifixion ordeal.
It also fails to take into account that Jesus was also stabbed in the heart [John 19:31-34] by the Roman soldiers just to make sure that they were correct in their conclusion that he was indeed dead. I also don’t rate too highly the possibility of a crucified beaten, bloodied, bruised man was going to persuade anyone that he was the saviour of the world and had overcome death? Similarly it doesn’t nothing to explain away the more short-term sociological implications of a movement that based itself on a crucified man/God in the ancient world and actually succeeding!
Related Articles:
Remember this point; the Roman soldiers would have been under strict orders not to lethally harm Jesus. This would have violated a direct order from Rome; namely, that the convicted die by means of exposure by being crucified. No, how about this; the cut on his side was carefully made by the soldier, on orders by the official rabbi simply to determine if blood would flow, indicating life or death. Blood didn’t flow, therefore he was dead. However, the storm and rain turned the put the body into hyperthermia, shutting down blood flow down to the extremities and skin. Given permission to take him down now, convinced he was dead, the rabbi (was this the miracle?) handed him over to only people left on that cold, dreary day; his followers. Few days of recoup in a tomb, and off he
So even if Jesus was able to miraculously survive survive the crucifixion, how the hell can he recover from his injuries in three days? He aint Wolverine!
The answer is so simple that many people miss it completely. The answer is: Writers license, that’s how. By writers’ licenses, a serpent spoke and a donkey spoke to humans and vice versa, a wall of water standing two miles high didn’t flood the surrounding areas, the sun stood still and time went backwards and nobody noticed it, sloths and polar bears travelled thousand of miles to the ark, Jesus passed thru a solid wall and those, who deserted him were not alarmed, and Jesus came down from heaven and in his thirty-three years of existence on earth, no one asked him one very probative word about it! Writer’s license is a great creator of things unseen. If the truth matters, then let it be told.
“On orders by the official rabbi” – Roman authorities did not defer to rabbi’s, much less take orders from them. The point of crucifixion was not to kill within a day, it was a public spectacle to keep people suffering and to slowly die of asphyxiation over the course of several days. If you wanted a person dead within a day, there’s much easier ways to do this over crucifixion.
The condemned were left up for several days. When they eventually died they were left up as a public display of the power of Rome, and carrion eaters went to work on the corpse. Eventually, the corpses were pulled down and tossed into an anonymous communal grave site. There would be no washing or oiling of the body, no re-clothing, and no entombment. Those were honors given the bodies that Jewish law allowed for, but not Roman law regarding non-Roman citizens.
Eric Gorall, “Eventually, the corpses were pulled down and tossed into an anonymous communal grave site…”“In 1968 archeologists found four cave tombs at Giv‘at ha-Mivtar (Ras el-Masaref), just north of Jerusalem. One of the skeletons was of a man named “Jehohanan,” who was between twenty-four and twenty-eight years of age when he was crucified by the Romans in the A.D. 20s…” This is concrete evidence that burials for crucified Jews did occur.
Muslims have had some 1,400 years to give historical justification for their alternative view of the crucifixion, but they have not been able to come up with anything historically substantial. See also Was 3-6 hours enough time for Jesus to die on the cross?
Citation: Dennis, J. Death of Jesus. In J. B. Green, J. K. Brown, & N. Perrin (Eds.), Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels, Second Edition (p. 175). Downers Grove, IL; Nottingham, England: IVP Academic; IVP.
The soldiers could have been paid to take him down from the cross.
but “blood and water came out” (John 19:34). and there was no storm and rain on that day, just darkness after the crucifixion.
Jesus surely survived death as Roman crucifiction was designed to be slow lingering death. This explains Pilate’s surprise to hear that Jesus died.