By Amitabh Singh

(Exerts from a debate between Josh McDowell & Ahmed Deedat that took place in August, 1981, in Durban, South Africa, on the topic of “Was Christ Crucified.”)

“These are some of the facts that I found as I tried to refute Christianity and I couldn't.” – Josh McDowell

The first fact I found is that Jesus was not afraid to die. In fact, He predicted His own death and resurrection. He said, "Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem." He said to His disciples, "The Son of Man is going to be delivered up to the death. And they will deliver Him to the Gentiles to mock and to whip and to crucify Him. And on the third day He will be raised up" (paraphrased from Matthew 17:22-23).

The second fact I learned as I studied the life of Jesus Christ is that Jesus was willing to die. In Matthew 26, He said, "My Father, if it is possible, let this Cup pass from Me." But what a lot of people leave out is the context of what Jesus said. He said, "Yet not as I will, but as Thou wilt, Father" (Matthew 26:39).

Now Jesus did not hide Himself. He is very clear about where He is. It says in John 18 that He went to the place where they usually found Him. He didn't want to hide from the authorities. He knew what was going to happen. In John 18, verse 4, it says, "Jesus therefore. knowing all the things that were going to come upon Him." He knew it! And He was ready for it.

The third fact that I learned is that the Jews were not guilty of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. I was very surprised. Mr. Deedat, that you needed to be the defender of the Jews. There are Muslims and Christians that have gotten that distorted all through history. Jesus said in Matthew 20, verses 18 and 19, "We are going up to Jerusalem, and they will condemn Me to death and will deliver Me over to the Gentiles, to mock and whip and crucify Me." Jesus said, "I lay down My life." If anyone was guilty, Jesus was. He said, "I have the power to lay it down, I have the power to take it up." The Bible says, "For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" (Romans 3:23). It was our sins that drove Jesus Christ to the cross.

The fourth fact that I learned is that the Christians are called to an intelligent, intellectual faith - not a blind faith. 

The fifth fact that I discovered was the historical accuracy of the Christian Bible. The Christian New Testament is exceptional in its reliability and trustworthiness and survival down through history. It is unrivaled in manuscript authority. A manuscript is a hand-written copy over against a printed copy. Men and women, of the Christian New Testament alone, there are more than 24,000 manuscripts. 

First of all, the manuscripts were so well-accepted as being authoritative, with everyone knowing who wrote them, they did not need names placed on them. You might say it was the writers' way of not distracting from the purpose of making Jesus Christ the central issue. Also, the work of these authors, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, went through the apostolic age. They went through the test of the apostolic period of the first century to confirm their accuracy, authenticity and reliability. Other people, through limited reading and absence of any type of research, say that the documents of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John are hearsay because the writers were not eyewitnesses of the events surrounding the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

The greatest eyewitness testimony is not found in the gospels. It is found in I Corinthians, the epistle by the apostle Paul, chapter 15, and was written in A.D. 55 to 56. I have yet to find a reputable scholar who would deny that. Paul says (now it's 20 years earlier, right after his conversion - he had met with the leaders. He had met with James, the brother of Jesus in Jerusalem), that the tradition was passed on to him that there were over 500 eyewitnesses of the resurrection. If you take that into a court of law, give each eyewitness just six minutes, that would make 3,000 minutes of eyewitness testimony, or 50 hours of eyewitness testimony.

The sixth fact that I discovered was that Christ was crucified. What does the historical, reliable record show? It is clear, not only from the Christian's biblical historical record, but also from secular sources, which are documented in the back of my book, “Evidence That Demands a Verdict”, that He not only predicted His death by crucifixion, but that He was actually crucified. Jesus said that He would be whipped and delivered over to be crucified. And then, in John 19:17, 18, "They took Jesus therefore, and He went out, bearing His own cross, to the place called the Place of a Skull.... There they crucified Him, and with Him two other men, one on either side, and Jesus in between."

The next fact that I discovered was that Christ was dead… The Jews knew that Jesus was dead. In Matthew 27 they went to the Roman leader and said, "Sir, we remember that when He was still alive. ..." In other words, what is He now? Dead! "When He was still alive He said, 'After three days I am to rise again.' "I believe Mr. Deedat has his books saying that the Jews realized they'd made a mistake. He really wasn't dead, so they thought they wouldn't make a second mistake, so they go and get a guard unit put there. Well, the Jews themselves said He was already dead. "We just want to make sure no one takes His body so there won't be any deception." The Jews have been accused of a lot of things, but very seldom have they ever been accused of stupidity. They knew He was dead.

The next fact I discovered was the burial procedure of the Jews. Some people say they were hurrying because of the Sabbath coming, and they had to carry Him back. Men and women, I checked this out in detail. And I documented in my “Resurrection Factor” book that the burial procedure was so important they could even do it on the Sabbath. They didn't have to worry about the Sabbath coming up. They didn't want the body to hang on the cross once the Sabbath began, but they could take their time burying Him. They would put spices around the body - in this case, 100 pounds of aromatic spices - along with a gummy, cement substance.

They would stretch the body out or straighten it out. They'd take a piece of linen cloth 30 centimeters wide. They would start to wrap the body from the feet. In between the folds, they put the cement consistency and the spices. They wrapped the body to the armpits, put the arms down, started below the fingers again, wrapped to the neck, and put a separate piece around the head. In this situation, I would estimate an encasement of 117 to 120 pounds.

The next fact that I discovered is that they took extreme security precautions at the tomb of Jesus Christ. One, it says that they rolled large stone against the tomb. Mark says the stone was extremely large. One historical reference going back to the first century says that 20 men could not move the stone. Now, I think it was exaggerated a little bit there, but he was making a point about the size of the stone. Two engineering professors, after they heard me speak on the stone, went to Israel. As non-Christian engineering professors, they calculated the size stone needed to roll against a four-and-a-half to five-foot doorway of the Jewish tombs. They wrote me a well-documented letter, and said it would have to have a minimum weight of one and a half to two tons.

When you take the time to study the evidence, the death and resurrection does not look like a conspiracy theory to me.

Happy Easter!