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On the Physical Death of Jesus Christ

Article  in  JAMA The Journal of the American Medical Association · May 1986

DOI: 10.1001/jama.1986.03370200054011

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 To the Editor.\p=m-\I was astonished to
read the article entitled "On the
Physical Death of Jesus Christ."1 It
purported to "offer additional in-
sight" based on "knowledge of science
and medicine not available in the first
century." I feel compelled to respond
to at least a few points.
I wonder about the propriety of this
work appearing in this journal. The
use of the name "Jesus Christ" has a
specific theological connotation,
namely, that Jesus is the Christ, or
Messiah (ie, savior). This is a point
fundamental to Christian belief; it is
not merely a name but also an explicit
claim. I was surprised to find it used
in the title of the article.
The authors admit that a major
problem with attempting any analy-
sis is that "the credibility of any
discussion of Jesus' death will be
determined primarily by the credibil-
ity of one's sources."1 The authors
were obviously not present, and
autopsy was performed; thus, they
rely on information from biblical and
extrabiblical texts.
Ten references are made to Josh
McDowell's24 work, especially Evi¬
dence That Demands a Verdict: His¬
torical Evidences for the Christian
Faith. This work is used to establish
the "reliability and accuracy of the
ancient manuscripts.'" McDowell is a
"traveling representative for Campus
Crusade for Christ" who writes to
"help my brothers and sisters in
Jesus Christ to write term papers,
give speeches, and inject into class¬
room dialogues their convictions
about Christ, the scriptures and the
relevancy of Christianity in the 20th
century."2 He does not consider him¬
self a secular biblical scholar2; such
scholars generally ascribe to the
extrabiblical citations less authority
than does McDowell. At the most the
ancient historians may confirm that
Jesus did exist, but more probably
they reflect Christian traditions
about Jesus as opposed to being inde¬
pendent witnesses. The source to
which the authors turn most (26
times)' for information regarding
Jesus is the New Testament, and
specifically the four Gospels of
Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.
Several problems arise for one who
uses biblical text as material for
medical judgments. The major one is
that the text, written as it was to
inspire and convert, cannot be taken
at face value to reflect historical
events accurately. (The text was also
used, of course, to document selected
events and defend selected ideas.)
One result is that even a simple
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question seldom yields simple an¬
swers. For example, the Gospels dif¬
fer on what the sign over the cross
said,5 the last words of Jesus before
he died,6 and many other details.
Whatever one's perspective is when
studying the New Testament, "dates
remain disturbingly fundamental
data."2 Much has been written about
the timing of authorship; the most
generally accepted dates are 70 to 90
ad for Matthew, Mark, and Luke and
about 80 to 100 ad for the Gospel of
John." The earliest dates I could find
that a reputable scholar dates gospel
authorship are Matthew, 45 ad; Mark,
57 ad; Luke, 57 ad; and John, 60 ad.
Robinson7 makes clear that the whole
pursuit is full of problems. Edwards
et al' state that "the shortness of the
time interval between the events and
the extant manuscripts" contributes
to "a reliable testimony from which a
modern medical interpretation . .
no may be made." This is one of the most
unusual claims, since the texts were
written 15 to 40 years later, and the
oldest surviving manuscripts were
copied much after that.
Edwards et al' refer to the third
Gospel by saying, "As described by
the physician Luke, his [Jesus'] sweat
became like blood." While the derma-
tological references seemed impres¬
sive, and hematidrosis a remote pos¬
sibility, closer inspection of the text
simplifies the diagnosis. Having been
a physician, should Luke be somehow
more believable? We should remem¬
ber first that medicine has changed
since the first century and also that
Luke admits that he was not there
but was repeating what he had been
told.10 The text reads, "In his anguish
he prayed with all the greater inten¬
sity, and his sweat became like drops
of blood falling to the ground."" The
reference to blood may have been to
show the intensity with which he was
praying. It would seem that in this
case the authors are drawing conclu¬
sions from information supplied by a
document written at least 30 years
after the fact by someone who admits
not having been there.
Finally, with regard to the "credi¬
bility" of the biblical account, there is
a qualitative difference between sci¬
entific data and religious literature;
we must not confuse one with the
other. We cannot forget that in the
same book, we read about Jesus walk¬
ing on water, casting out demons, and
rising from the dead. These events
are viewed as fact by many funda¬
mentalist Christians, but whether sci¬
entific explanations need to be con¬
structed based on them is question-
by The Queen's Health System, Rustin Berlow on 08/31/2015
able.
The authors conclude that "it
remains unsettled whether Jesus died
of cardiac rupture or of cardiorespira-
tory failure. The important fea¬
. . .
ture may not be how he died but
whether he died." They decide that he
indeed died on the cross. Restating
that Jesus was dead when taken down
from the cross may be trivial: the
Gospel source texts state such unam¬
biguously and those texts are the
basis for the discussion. The implica¬
tions of such a statement are theolog¬
ical, not medical. The theological
importance of Jesus' physical death
stems from the pivotal nature of the
resurrection in Christian theology.'214
The intent of this article is not
difficult to discern, and its impact
will be considerable. We may expect
this article to be among the most
quoted in the literature of Christian
. conversion efforts. In addition, the
article refers to (and thereby ac¬
knowledges as authoritative) several
works of questionable scholarship
that may henceforth obtain new cred¬
ibility. The question that I am left
with is, how did this get into JAMA?
RUSTIN BERLOW
New York
1. Edwards WD et al: On the physical death of Jesus
Christ. JAMA 1986;255:1455-1463.
2. McDowell J: Evidence That Demands a Verdict:
Historical Evidences for the Christian Faith. San Ber-
nardino, Calif, Here's Life Publishers, 1979, p iii.
3. McDowell J: The Resurrection Factor. San Bernar-
dino, Calif, Here's Life Publishers, 1981.
4. McDowell J: More Than a Carpenter. Wheaton, Ill,
Tyndale House Publishers, 1977.
5. Matthew 27:37; Mark 15:26; Luke 23:38; John 19:19.
6. Matthew 27:46; Mark 15:34; Luke 23:46; John 19:30.
7. Robinson J: Redating the New Testament. London,
SCM Press Ltd, 1976.
8. Perrin N, quoted by Robinson J: Redating the New
Testament. London, SCM Press Ltd, 1976.
9. The New American Bible. New York, Catholic Book
Publishing Co, 1977.
10. Luke 1:2.
11. Luke 22:44.
12. I Corinthians 15:14.
13. Colossians 2:12.
14. Ephesians 2:6.
To the Editor.\p=m-\Thearticle on the
death of Jesus Christ is interesting.1
It is theological, since Christ is only
used as a postresurrection title. More-
over, the authors seem to be largely
unaware of the nature and results of
New Testament scholarship over the
last 200 years. This results in some
degree of historical distortion and
distant (admittedly not malevolent)
echos of anti-Semitism. The extent of
New Testament study and the careful
scholarship with which it has been
done need to be briefly examined.
Moreover, the current understanding
of the historical man Jesus, without
which his death is unintelligible, also
needs to be touched upon.
New Testament scholarship relies
on a carefully developed historicocrit-