Did the Resurection Actually Happen

the third chapter and start reading there instead of at the beginning, you know


Let’s run through this as I was taught it as a Catholic: God is the creator of all, h is all powerful, all knowing and is everywhere at once. Because he is the creat he made man. In fact, we are his nest work, but God’s nest work would be subjected to sin. Simultaneously, God made Hell, which is a place where he chooses to send sinners who have not repented to him as well as all of the nonbelievers which includes those who believe in the wrong god, such as the Hindu gods that the 1.4 billion people in India believe in - they are all going to burn in Hell forever unless they nd Jesus, which is going to be difcult based their geographics and demographics, but nonetheless, they have the internet a if that doesn’t help them, they could travel to a Christian area and start learnin before it’s too late.

In the early years, around 4 to 6 BC, God developed a plan to forgive us for our sins. Prior to this, it is unknown how God dealt with sinners. This new plan involved impregnating a virgin who gave birth to God’s son, Jesus. Jesus, because he was the son of God, was without sin. This was necessary for what would happen next.
God has always been fond of blood and sacrices (Leviticus, Deuteronomy 12; 1
Kings 8, especially verses 62–64; Ezekiel 40–46, Genesis, to name a few) so wh Jesus became an adult, he had to make the ultimate sacrice for His Father - h had to be killed. Jesus submitted to horric torture and crucixion. When his blood spilled, it made God happy and God accepted the murder of his son as repayment for our sins.
God then raised Jesus from the dead and brought him to Heaven where he sha remain until Judgement Day when he will return to earth and destroy everyth God once created. In the meantime, we have to follow the teachings of the Bibl accept Jesus as our savior and try not to sin. If we do sin we need to ask for forgiveness because only Our Father can grant us salvation. If we don’t seek forgiveness, when we reach the end of our lives, or if Judgement Day arrives (whichever comes rst), we could end up in Hell, burning forever, right next to the trillions of people from India who died before us. - That was how it had bee taught to me over my four decades of being a Catholic. Why Catholic? Because like the people of India, it was what I was raised in. Just like those people, I kn no other religion and my religion is the true religion because Jesus is the true savior.
RESEARCH
(There are far too many links to insert in this article so check out the Sources section at the bottom of the page for tons of info on this topic). Crucixion was indeed a punishment and it was indeed a Roman punishment, but keep in min this process was labor intensive and time consuming so it wasn’t an every day punishment and it wasn’t even a common method of execution. It was reserve for slaves who attempted to escape and enemies of the State (insurrectionists and those captured during war). Crucixion was used “to set an example”, per say. As we discussed in Part 2, there are many issues surrounding Pilate, the governor of Judea, sentencing Jesus to death via crucixion, but let’s say he w indeed sentenced to die and forced to endure the torture leading up to it.
THE CRUCIFIXION
After being sentenced to death, Pilate sentenced Jesus to be beaten (scourged)
•    …after having Jesus scourged, he handed Him over to be crucied. (Matthe 27:26)
•    …after having Jesus scourged, he handed Him over to be crucied. (Mark 15:15)
•    Pilate then took Jesus and scourged Him. And the soldiers twisted togethe crown of thorns and put it on His head, and put a purple robe on Him; and they began to come up to Him and say, “Hail, King of the Jews!” and to give Him slaps in the face. Pilate came out again and *said to them, “Behold, I a bringing Him out to you so that you may know that I nd no guilt in Him.” Jesus then came out, wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe. Pila *said to them, “Behold, the Man!” So when the chief priests and the ofcers saw Him, they cried out saying, “Crucify, crucify!” Pilate *said to them, “Tak Him yourselves and crucify Him, for I nd no guilt in Him.” (John 19:1-6)
Other than the Bible telling us about the suffering of Jesus, additional information came from a mystic who had mystical visions and informed us “t Roman soldiers rst whipped Jesus’ back and then turned Him around. They proceeded to whip the front of Him. The physical effects of the beating went fa beyond the considerable pain it inicted—with His esh torn into on either side...”.
A second mystic conrmed the rst mystic’s visions and was able to add to the story. When speaking of the scourging Jesus endured, she added “as each [stro cut across the Master’s torn shoulders, small particles of His Sacred Flesh fell from the knotted leather whip-knots to the pavement, which was now covered with His Precious Blood”.
Christ was given his cross and ordered to carry it to a hill outside Jerusalem where he was to be crucied. (In my church we would perform the ‘Stations of the Cross’ ritual every year to remember what Jesus went through for us).


As far as what the Bible says, it was a long, painful journey. In some of the
Gospels, a stranger named Simon helped carry the cross (Matthew 27:31–44,
Mark 15:21–32, Luke 23:26–38) but in John 19:16–22 there is no mention of Sim
Other than the Bible and the mystics, there is surprisingly very little informati about this part of the event. This made me realize what I had believed to be tru history came from sermons at church, church tradition and Hollywood movies like The Passion of the Christ - and those sources were all pulling their information from the Bible then lling in the blanks. Back to the story:
Jesus was hung and left to die. After six hours of tortured breathing, the end w near. As Jesus took his nal breaths, he looked up to Heaven and said one of th three following statements:
1.    Eloi! Eloi! Lama sabachthani” which means, “My God! My God! Why have y forsaken me?” (Mark 15:34).
2.    “It is nished” — and He bowed His bloodied head and died. (John 19:30)
3.    "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do" (Luke 23:34) followe by "Father, into your hands I commit my spirit" (Luke 23:46)
Then he died and the sin of humanity had been paid in full by the blood of Chr hence it is he “who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29).
Now that the death part of the crucixion had come, we run into more irregularities; the post-crucixion practices. You see, because this punishment was used to set an example, when people were afxed to the cross, they were essentially permanently afxed - there was no intention of removing them to give them a burial. Although we are shown images like this:

A nail was not driven through stacked feet. Instead, one foot was placed on either side of the cross and a nail was driven through the ankle area on each s with xtures attaching the forearms to the crossbeam:


Many scholars of ancient crucixion state additional xtures were used to bin the torso to the cross.
After people were attached to the cross, they were left hanging, with their bodi rotting and being ravaged by scavengers. Once the body had been demolished whatever was left of the corpse was thrown into a pit (mass grave). No decenc was permitted for these individuals (remember, it was to set an example). But when it comes to Jesus’s crucixion, we have more exceptions to the rule. According to the Bible, it was the day of Preparation and the Jews didn’t want bodies hanging on the cross on the Sabbath, so the Jews demanded Pilate brea their legs and take the bodies down (John 19:31, ESV).
According to the Gospels, with Pilate's permission, Joseph of Arimathea, a sec disciple of Jesus, and Nicodemus took Jesus' body down from the cross after h crucixion. They then put it in a tomb belonging to Joseph of Arimathea.
One problem here is that Arimathea, like Nazareth, didn’t exist until much late time and tombs were typically reserved for elites. Poor were either placed into mass graves called potter's elds or, if given a Jewish burial, they were wrappe in a shroud and placed in a cofn. It would have been most likely that Jesus’ body would have been tossed into a pit because he was crucied. But the story here seems to be that Joseph of Arimathea was a Jewish elite who donated hi unused cut-stone tomb. It would have been odd for the elites who hated Jesus much they wanted him killed by torture to then gift a tomb for honorable buria purposes, but being that he was a “secret follower” of Christ, it ts the story.
After Jesus was placed in the tomb Matthew 27:65-66 outlines Pilate ordering tomb to be guarded (by Roman soldiers but it isn’t specically stated who stood guard).
THE RESURRECTION
There are no biblical claims that anyone actually watched Jesus rise from the dead, so what we are working with here is people arriving at the tomb and discovering Jesus’ body isn’t there. If you compare the Bible’s stories of the resurrection, they are different. The differences begin with who went to visit th tomb:
•    “After the Sabbath, as the rst day of the week was dawning, Mary
Magdalene and the other Mary went to view the tomb.” (Matthew 28:1)
•    “When the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James   bought spices, so that they could go and anoint him.” (Mark 16
•    “On the rst day of the week, very early in the morning, they came to the tomb, bringing the spices they had prepared…Mary Magdalene,   M
the mother of James,   with them were telling the
apostles these things.” (Luke 24:1,10)
Whomever went, they then arrived at the tomb. There are no guards guarding tomb upon these arrivals:
•    And they were saying to one another, “Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance of the tomb?” And looking up, they saw that the stone h been rolled back—it was very large. (Mark 16:3-9) The women who entered the tomb saw a young man sitting on the right side, dressed in a white rob and they were alarmed. “Don’t be alarmed,” he said. “You are looking for Je the Nazarene, who was crucied. He has risen! He is not here. See the plac where they laid him.”
•    And they found the stone rolled away from the tomb…(Luke 24:2). They saw two men in shining garments who told them that Jesus had risen.
•    At the end of the sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the rst day of the week, came Mary Magdalene and the other Mary to see the sepulcher. And behold, there was a great earthquake: for the angel of the Lord descended from heaven, and came and rolled back the stone from the door, and sat up it. His countenance was like lightning, and his raiment white as snow: An for fear of him the keepers did shake, and became as dead men. (Matthew 28:1-4)
•    In the book of John, the women see the empty tomb then ran to get John a Simon Peter who then accompany them back to the tomb. When they arrived, Simon Peter rushed in and saw linen laying on the ground. John then went in and saw the same. Then the disciples went back to where the were staying (John 20:10). This is followed by John 20:11-13 which states “Now Mary stood outside the tomb crying. As she wept, she bent over to lo into the tomb, and saw two angels in white, seated where Jesus’ body had been, one at the head and the other at the foot.”
There are many more inconsistencies, and again, none of these things are a big deal on their own, but they matter when all of the little issues are combined. T bottom line is, every which way you look at it, what is stated in the Bible doesn seem to t with fact or evidence (See 

This research led to more thinking…
MORE QUESTIONS ABOUT MY RELIGION
1.    Let’s say I take out a bunch of credit cards, rack up a bunch of debt, then repay that debt. That debt is paid in full. I now owe nothing. Alternatively, let’s say I rack up so much debt I cannot pay it so I go into a “debt consolidation” program. The program takes all of my credit card debts, combines them, then says “Ok, you owe us $80,000 but we will forgive this debt if you pay $8,000”. I then pay the 8k and my debt is forgiven, I now ow nothing and have no further actions I need to take because a debt forgiven the same as a debt paid.
With that in mind, being that Jesus died for our sins and God accept his spilled blood as repayment for our sins, why are our sins not eliminated? According to my religion, I will not be saved unless I go to church and acce the sacraments, tithe, repent (which includes going to confession), accept Jesus as my savior - there’s a list of additional duties. Why did Jesus need die and I also need to fulll a checklist to have my sins forgiven? This may sound silly, but I Googled it and the resounding answer was “Jesus died fo us to have the opportunity of salvation” - but that isn’t what I was taught. I was specically taught he was murdered for our sin and because Jesus m the ultimate sacrice, we are forgiven, hence Jesus is “the lamb of God wh  ” (John 1:29). If the debt has been paid in fu (forgiven), how to we still owe on the debt?
The second answer provided online is, “it’s because we keep sinning!”, but this is the reason, then Jesus dying only took away the sins of the world leading up to that point? And if we all collectively cease sinning, there wo be no sin to forgive so the issue would be moot, would it not?
The third answer is Jesus’ death only forgave “Original Sin”, meaning Ada and Eve (God’s creations) eating the apple (God’s creation) in the Garden of Eden (God’s creation) which was provided to them by a snake (also God’s creation). Ok, but then that would mean because God knows all, he knew they were going to sin which would have to mean the whole thing was a setup to get them to sin so we would inherit said sin and Jesus would be murdered as repayment for those sins yet we would continue to sin thus needing church and the checklist and risking eternal ery Hell as punishment?
2.    Were there no other options? Why did God choose the most morbid thing imaginable? Why couldn’t the checklist to get to Heaven be stuff like being good person, caring for elders, being a great parent, doing one good deed a day that positively impacts the life of another? Why did it need to include spilled blood as repayment for anything? Of course the answer here is, like my mom would say, “It is not our job to understand God’s decisions. He always does what is righteous”, but as I said in  , after 40 years of this religion, I now think it   our duty to understand something if we are tellin people they are going to burn in Hell if they don’t believe in it too.
If we look at this topic not as religion but as anything else; if I was to tell y that you absolutely must travel to Idaho if you don’t want to get cancer and you say “What? How does that work?” and I reply, “It’s what this book says It’s not our job to understand it, just do it if you want to be saved”, you wou think I’m nuts.
3.    Being that God is God, why couldn’t he just choose to forgive us and skip th rest? My church ingrained in my brain that “it had to be this way”, but the truth is, it didn’t. This was what the God in the Bible chose. This is what made him happy, according to Christianity. God required his only son to be tortured to death in order for him to choose to forgive our sins.
Being that all of this seems confusing and sometimes evil, the next logical step in this research was to try to track down where exactly the Bible came from. T is an important step in any investigation and, as I said previously, I vowed to treat this research no different than any other topic…
NEXT READ: WHO WROTE THE BIBLE? The
Answer May Surprise You [Part 4]
But rst, if you appreciate
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NEXT READ:
Who Wrote the Bible? - Questioning My Religion [Part 4]
AGENT131711 · APR 11


It began with me having some questions about my religion, questions which many Christian probably have, like “Why did God kill innocent people?”. Throughout my childhood, my veryCatholic mother would reply “It is not our job to understand God’s decisions”. I wrote about th questions that led to this research in
Read full story  
If you missed Part 1:
Questioning My Religion [Part 1]
AGENT131711 · APR 2

This is not an entry-level truth article. This is for people who are in the same boat as me and want to know what the full truth is, whatever that may be, no matter how painful it may be. T is for people whose minds are open enough to take an objective look at religion and ask some tough questions. This post isn’t for everyone and will indeed offend many despite my intentio being pure - I am just trying to make sense of my childhood and life, throughout which religio has played a large role. If you are not yet at the stage where you are open to discussing topics this nature, then it is best you skip over this article and meet me back here when this series i over.
Read full story  
Or check out my archive for tons of other topics!
SOURCES, NOTES & OTHER STUFF
Was the God of the Bible a “Blood God”? This is a topic that is often debated because the Bible says “Without shedding of blood there is no forgiveness” (He 9:22), yet the New Testament steers away from sacrices. Like everything in th Bible, it seems to have been not explained clearly enough so people argue over how it is supposed to be interpreted, many pointing to the Bible also saying sacrices are not required. Regardless of how you would like to interpret it, her are some examples of sacrices:
Examples in the Old Testament of sacrice include the   (Exodus
12), whose blood marked Israelite homes, sparing them from divine judgment i Egypt. The   (Yom Kippur, Leviticus 16) involved two goats: on
sacriced, its blood cleansing the sanctuary, and the other symbolically bearin sins into the wilderness.   of a rstborn ock animal (Genesis 4: was favored by God, contrasting Cain’s grain offering, highlighting blood’s theological signicance early in Scripture. Other instances include  
 (Exodus 24:5–8), where Moses sprinkled blood on the altar and people, sealing Israel’s bond with God.   (Exodus 29)
required ram’s blood applied to Aaron and his sons. Even narrative episodes lik   for his children (Job 1:5) reect the cultural norm of seeking
divine favor through blood rituals.
Genesis and Leviticus feature numerous sacrices.
cerat. Tempus porta purus facilisis. Fusce integer potenti mi odio. Massa ante ultrices posuere bibendum.