In observance of Easter, we have a special series on a book titled The Open Tomb: Why and How Jesus faked His Death and Resurrection (hereafter TOT) by David Mirsch. We're doing this for a couple of reasons. One is that it was requested by a reader. The other is that it is always good to check out what the latest thesis of this sort is, in order to see just how far down to the bottom of the barrel critics have to scrape to argue against the Resurrection.
And barrel bottom may be too high to rate this one. There is nothing to indicate that Mirsch has any serious qualifications or credentials; rather obnoxiously, he lists himself online as a "historian" in charge of "Mirsch Biblical Research," though his past employment is as a "pulmonary lab technician". The closest he ever came to credentials in history, by his own profession, is taking some history at a technical college. For Mirsch to call himself a historian is false advertising at its finest; one may as well call someone assigned to clean out hospital bedpans a "doctor."
Further, his listing of resources in TOT is pitifully short, and reads like a collection of books picked up at a used book jumble at a seminary library. Mirsch's main talent as a writer is saying in 500,000 words what could have been said in less than 500, and there is nary a footnote to be found within the main text.
The result is as you might expect. TOT is worthless historical rewrite, one in which Mirsch hypothesizes that the New Testament accounts are a coded message, behind which Mirsch's unbridled genius has discovered (while serious, credentialed scholars have missed) the reality that "Jesus was the son of a high priest and the scion of two of the wealthiest families in Jerusalem," whose mission was to "wield the sword of a nationalistic movement intent on driving the Romans from the land." This thesis is so wacky that I am not sure even Robert Price or Acharya S would endorse it, though I could be wrong! And this, by the way, we are to believe is the result of "ten years of research" (1) by Mirsch. I can only conclude that his definition of "research" is inclusive of ingesting hallucinogenic substances.
Nevertheless, Mirsch is trying his best to sell this idiocy; he has a Twitter page, for example (with all of 29 followers, which is about as many people as read one of my most obscure Tekton articles every month), a Facebook page, and has been leaving spam on Skeptical blogs advertising the tome. As far as can be seen, though, almost no one is paying attention, least of all anyone with serious credentials.
So with that in mind, let's survey this monstrosity of 459 pages over several entries, which may not be consecutive, but will be completed.
Mirsch of course is required to dispense with the work of authorities in the field in order to propound his ludicrous thesis, and he does so with the dispatch of the Roadrunner, but with all the grace of Wile E. Coyote. He declares to start that "[a]lmost everything written about Jesus" is "almost entirely speculation and theory." [2] Not that Mirsch has read even one quarter of one quarter of one quarter of one percent of "everything" written about Jesus, though as deluded as he appears to be, he likely thinks the tomes he picked up at the jumble sale represent a significant portion of that. In reality, Mirsch is simply not competent enough to address serious scholarship, and merely crafts this slogan as a way to easily dismiss it.
In the same way, he also dismisses ancient sources like the Gospels as "second hand" and "propaganda". [2] This too is merely sloganeering, as neither "second hand" nor "propaganda" means "inaccurate, and therefore we can ignore it." Mirsch merely makes affective use of these terms in order to sway the reader who already wishes to believe this to be the case. It is doubtful he could so much as defend the premise that any particular first hand NT account like Matthew or Mark is "second hand." Much less is it likely that he can explain why "second hand" allows us to offer an automatic or semi-automatic dismissal. "Propaganda," loaded word though it is, is even moreso an unjustified slogan. The word means something meant to present only one side. This opens two questions. The first is, how does Mirsch know the Gospels, for example, present only one side, and that there is another side that would differ, and do so honestly? Second, why would this mean we can simply dismiss a source as inaccurate, and feel free to come up with an insane rewrite of what it reported?
By Mirsch's own view, even his rewritten Gospel interpretation could be called "propaganda". Also, historians do not simply wave off sources that tell only one side. For example, I am now reading a book about Magellan's circumnavigation of the globe. Our main source is one of Magellan's own diarists who clearly was biased towards Magellan. Yet the reaction of historians is not to just throw out this diarist's account, or to rewrite his diary as a cover for a story of Magellan taking a rocket ship to Mars. Rather, they simply sift and use the diarist's work critically. But that seems to not suit Mirsch's ham-handed approach.
A hallmark of Mirsch's approach is that he finds what he thinks is some problem in the text, and then, assuming there is no good answer to the manufactured problem, proceeds to take this problem as a reason to rewrite the history. However, the "problems" he detects are the sort one would never uncover by reading from a jumble sale bin.
Mirsch is suspicious, for example, of how Jesus (in his view) micromanages certain details, even securing the room for the Passover meal. "Surely, there is no need for the Son of God to be concerned with where Supper will be eaten," he moans. [5] This assessment fails as an unjustified resurrection of the snotty deism of the Enlightenment, as represented by David Strauss, of whom we said:
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A minor focus for Strauss involves the miraculous catch(es) of fish described in the Gospels, in which Jesus instructed Peter and his fellow fishermen to let down their nets for a catch after getting nothing all day -- and having them end up with a net full of fish. Strauss not unexpectedly dismisses the miraculous aspect: under the presumption that this was a miracle of direction (in essence, Jesus calling the fish over to be caught) he objects that the idea Jesus "could influence irrational beings is impossible to imagine out of the domain of magic." [316]
What makes this "impossible to imagine" is not explained, but one suggests that it is only the limits of Strauss' imagination. On the other hand, on the idea that Jesus just happened to know where to find the fish (making this a "knowledge" rather than a "power" miracle) Strauss objects to this miracle (and many others) on the grounds that it was too petty of a miracle for God to soil His hands with. "Was this the preparation for engrafting the true faith? Or did Jesus believe that it was only by such signs that he could win disciples?" Surely, Strauss says, Jesus would have been too overwhelmed by weightier thoughts to figure out where the fish were. Really? Can the divine be overwhelmed thusly? What we have here is nothing more than Strauss' incredulous deism shining through. What matter is it if the catches of fish were the signs chosen to influence the disciples? They were fishermen -- this was something meaningful that they could relate to. In this day and age when actions spoke multitudes as messages, and when there would be much less surety where one's next meal was coming from, this was a highly appropriate "sign" to Peter and his friends to demonstrate Jesus' power. Strauss, in line with the god of deism and his position as a well-fed scholastic, simply did not recognize the significance of God being willing to descend to their level (is this not what the Incarnation involved?).
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A similar point can be applied to Jesus securing the room for the Passover. Fellowship meals are critical for the social health of an ingroup in a collectivist society. As ingroup leader, Jesus' role would always be to take charge of the preparations and provide direction. That he was the Son of God in no way lessens this obligation, or gives any reason why he should not perform it, unless one adopts the snotty deism of Strauss -- and that is not the picture of God offered in the Old Testament of the New Testament.
Mirsch's conception of history befits one whose credentials in it come from a technical school. He supposes that "stories are believed as fact simply because they have been handed down over the centuries," and "solely on the strength of the desire of believers to accept the tradition as true." [7-8] While this is no doubt the case for a majority who accept any view from history -- even that of the American Revolution -- it remains that above and beyond the matter there is serious, credentialed scholarship that Mirsch has barely sampled. Once again, this is little more than a breezy dismissal that Mirsch feels permits him to move on without incident.
Another alleged peculiarity, according to Mirsch, is that we have a strange and "profound" silence concerning what "the ruling Jews of Jerusalem thought of Jesus". [17] We will see later that he merely waves off the non-NT source that fills in this silence (Josephus), and of course, he merely reinterprets or ignores what is reported in the NT. But beyond this, why is this a problem? Mirsch fails to mention that when it comes to "the ruling Jews of Jerusalem" thought of anything whatsoever, all we have on that comes from Josephus and the NT -- they are the only sources that give us any insight into those people and what they thought at that time. They left no records of their own to this day. Thus Mirsch is not telling the whole story when he speaks of "the lack of record of contemporary Jewish sources," he misleads the reader when he thinks to answer this lack by positing the query of whether they did not think Jesus important enough, or else had some "agenda" for not doing so (which in fact is what he ends up arguing). The most he does is allow that records may have been willfully destroyed (though there is no evidence of that either), but the fact remains that this allegedly problematic "silence" he takes advantage of has the more prosaic and obvious explanation that virtually nothing has survived from that era to begin with. As one classical scholar remarked, what has survived from the first century could fit on a three foot bookshelf. So is Mirsch going to conveniently posit willful destruction to explain the loss of works by Seneca?
Yet another fake problem for which Mirsch offers false solutions relates to the "James ossuary". He initially relates an argument -- by who knows who -- that there is some significance to the ossuary being "found in Jerusalem" which suggests that James' home had become Jerusalem. I know of no scholar of archaeologist who argues such a thing, though if they did, it would make little sense; one of the big issues with the ossuary is that no one knows where it was dug up. So it is hard to see how anyone could adopt such a line of reasoning in the first place.
However, just as absurd is Mirsch's response, which is that if the ossuary was found in Jerusalem, "the argument becomes much stronger that (James) was from Jerusalem originally..." and that the contrary NT accounts can be dismissed as "agenda laden" attempts to distance James and Jesus from Jerusalem! Initially, this is idiotic because it is a non sequitur to argue from the (supposed) finding of the ossuary in Jerusalem to James living in Jerusalem. The simple fact is that people aren't always buried where they are born. They are often buried where they spent important parts of their lives. At the same time, many Jews would desire to be buried in Jerusalem precisely because it was the holy city of their covenant.
Finally, making James and Jesus come from Galilee wouldn't do anything to "distance" them from Jerusalem anyway! The NT record has Jesus doing a great deal in Jerusalem, including dying and rising from the dead, so it is more than a little idiotic to propose that he was turned into a Galileean to "distance" him from Jerusalem -- especially since it is clear that leaders like Joseph of Arimathea didn't need to be.
I'll add as well that Mirsch's hypothesis that the NT made Jesus from Galilee, and also "downplayed" the involvement of the Romans, in order to "win over pagan converts," [22] is exceptionally misinformed. Making Jesus from a backwards burg like Galilee, which had a reputation for sedition, would have been LESS appealing to pagans than making Jesus from a more prestigious city like Jerusalem. In terms of "downplaying" Roman involvement, this too is bunk: The NT picture fits precisely with the role of the Romans in administering local justice in their provinces; they handled only the sentencing in capital cases, and let the local authorities decide on the rest. This is yet another example of how poor Mirsch's scholarship is.
At page 27 we run into one of Mirsch's sparse reasons for rejecting the Gospels as they stand, and it's nothing new: "obvious contradictions and divergencies," "miracles and healings," "lack of corroboration with contemporary historical accounts." Each of these vague charges has been responded to repeatedly in the literature, but since here Mirsch delivers no specifics, not much more can be said in reply.
On pages 29-30, Mirsch delivers a summary of one of his imaginative rewrites: In the story of Jairus' daughter, Jairus is a "metaphor" for Herod Antipas. He offers no further details beyond saying this dates the story to before 39 AD. He uses this, though, as an introduction to his thesis of the dates and relationships of the Gospels, which will give any scholar, even perhaps Robert Price, apoplexy: He dates all the Gospels to the late 30s AD., and proposes that they were written in the order Mark, Luke, and Matthew.
He claims this is supported for Luke by "its intended recipient, Theophilus," who was "high priest, that is 37-41 CE". Now this is a view that I have seen on a few popular websites, but have not seen it taken seriously by any modern scholar. Of course, this is merely a designation of convenience for Mirsch, for while indeed the high priest of that date was named Theophilus ben Ananus, he does not defend this proposition other than for the reason that it supports his theory. The name Theophilus was a relatively common one, and it will require more defense than Mirsch provides here -- which based on the index, is his ONLY defense of the identification -- to support this. But let us, for the record, discuss the matter since it is also appearing on popular forums.
One of the chief arguments that Theophilus was a Roman official -- a view I prefer -- is that Luke addresses him as "most excellent," which is a designation reserved for officials of Rome elsewhere (Felix and festus). I found a blog entry by someone who denies this view, and adheres to Mirsch's (though seemingly with no knowledge of him), giving the following arguments:
1) Just because Luke uses this for Roman officials doesn't mean it wasn't used for other types of officials, like Jewish high priests. Well, then, it is the responsibility of the doubter to make a case by example, not merely speculate wildly because it is what they want to be true. As it is, the other examples we have show it used exclusively of important persons of Roman persuasion: Josephus addresses his patron Epaphroditus with the title (Against Apion, 1; Life, 74, 430), and although we know little about Epaphroditus, it is certain that he was a Roman who was one of Josephus' lead patrons. The word used by Luke was also used to address Romans of equestrian rank. I can find no evidence it was used of Jewish high priests, and in fact, it would likely offend them, since the meaning of the word (kratistos) is essentially, one who is mighty in deed or power -- a description a Jew would apply to God, not a mere human.
2) He does not call Theophilus by the title in Acts. It's hard to see why this makes a difference, since it would be the same if Theophilus were also a Jewish high priest, or even a grocery clerk. The theorists think this actually supports their view, though, since Theophilus the priest was deposed in AD 41, and they suppose Acts was written to him after he was deposed, and so no longer worthy of the title. But this does not really help matters. Acts would have been written after 62 AD, some 20 years after Theophilus was deposed. Why did Luke wait that long to write and send "volume 2" to Theophilus the priest? And since we also have no evidence that Theophilus was alive that long -- a very serious question, when lifespans were an average of 35 -- it will take more than this coincidence to establish a correspondence.
3) Luke mentions "inside knowledge" or gives casual references that a Roman official would not understand or fare about, like the "time if incense." This means very little, since it would need to be argued that the information Luke gives is insufficient to provide a basic understanding within a Roman's knowledge base. Modern English readers have little trouble getting basic understanding of what Luke refers to, so why should this be a problem for a Roman, even if we assume Theophilus was not in some way designated to handle cases involving Jewish affairs (as such officials would be needed among the Diaspora)? At the same time, this fails on the point that Luke's Gospel is an ancient biography, which means that it is intended, in the end, for readers beyond Theophilus.
That said, an analysis of Luke's contents actually debunks this argument. If any Gospel is suitable for a Jewish high priest, it is Matthew, with his rabbinic exegetical techniques and his focus on Jewish interests. Luke presents knowledge that would be suitable for a neophyte where the Gospel was concerned (Witherington, Acts commentary, 63), and it is for this reason that Witherington and others conceive of Theophilus as a "fairly recent convert" who came out of the synagogue, and had perhaps been a Jewish proselyte. As it is, then, Luke's presentation is actually too basic for a high priest.
Returning to Mirsch, we pick up on page 31, where he presents an involved and outlandish thesis of "spiritual progression" to validate his claims of Gospel order (Mark/Luke/Matthew). He selects the account of Jesus being baptized, and references to the Holy Spirit -- called "the spirit" in Mark, "the holy spirit" in Luke, and "the spirit of God" in Matthew.
Mirsch's initial error is in thinking that Luke would never have changed "spirit of God" to "holy spirit," on the supposition that no one would have "tampered with" a reference to God. This is simply nonsensical. The word used by Matthew, theos, was not sacrosanct, like the divine name; indeed it was a word used to refer to pagan deities. Furthermore, the holy spirit WAS the "spirit of God", so that the terms are synonymous. Finally, as far as Mark goes, Mirsch quotes Mark 1:10, which refers only to "the spirit," but he forgets that in Mark 1:8, reference is made to "the Holy Spirit," so that 1:10 implies the same thing. One of Mirsch's rhetorical tactics emerges on page 33, where he counsels the reader to be "open-minded enough to scrutinize all other alternatives." This is merely an attempt to claim the rhetorical high ground, and allow Mirsch to declare that anyone who designates his theory for the bunkum that it is, is thereby not "open-minded." It would never occur to Mirsch that his theory is being rejected because it is bunk, and is recognized as such by qualified commentators.
On pages 36-7 we have the first full exposition of a rewrite by Mirsch. He rapes the text of John 4, the story of the Samaritan woman at the well, and turns it into a story where the woman is actually a metaphor for Samaria itself, and Jesus is encouraging the Samaritans to join him in rebellion against Rome. To that end, everything in the story is forcibly reinterpreted, such that e.g., the "living water" becomes a metaphor for future political salvation .
It's very creative, but why should we believe it? Mirsch gives all of one argument for this, and it concerns the five husbands of the woman. He begins by professing to find problems with reading the story as literal. Unfortunately, the problems he finds amount to, "Doh!" He first asks why the woman should be surprised and impressed; that a stranger is telling her intimate details about her life -- as she plainly says later -- doesn't seem to be sufficient reason for Mirsch. Second, he asks why Jesus made the reference at all. Apparently he forgot that Jews respected prophets who showed they knew things they would otherwise not be able to know. Delivering a prophecy is Jesus establishing his prophetic credentials. As it is, it is apparent that Mirsch doesn't get this, as he says, "Surely her character has been well established in the story by the facts already mentioned..." That's where he goes wrong: he thinks this was done just as a "character reference"!
Having imagined these problems out of thin air, Mirsch proceeds with his forced re-reading, in which the five husbands are metaphors for five past leaders of Samaria: Hyrcanus II, Antigonus, Herod the Great, Herod Archaeleus, and "Rome". The reader can already smell the books being cooked with that one. Why count "Rome" as a collective, and the other four as individuals? Why not instead also count each of the Roman emperors after Archaeleus -- Augustus and Tiberius? Why not count all the prefects of Rome who ruled the area as separate individuals? Indeed, why not count the client-kings under Rome, the two Herods, as under "Rome"? The obvious answer: Mirsch needs to strain and smash that number to five so that he can hammer it into his theory. He may as well have rewritten John 4's five husbands as a parable of the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers.
Continuing now with Mirsch, we pick up on page 47, where he lays ground for his hypothesis that Jesus deceitfully faked his death. In this we can see at once that Mirsch has consulted only grade-school apologetics and not serious scholarship, for he thinks it will be news to Christians that it was possible to commit such deceit with worthwhile goals in mind. In reality, informed Christian scholars are familar with the notion; it's called the "honorable lie," and I have myself argued that even Jesus used this tactic. That said, faking his death and resurrection would not constiute such a lie, but would be a dishonorable one, as it would have presumed to "speak for God" falsely, and rated Jesus as a false prophet.
For that reason, when Mirsch appeals to the example of someone else faking their death for honorable purposes -- a Jewish teacher named Jochnan be Zakkai, who pretended to be dead in order to escape the destruction of Jerusalem -- his appeal is in fact irrelevant. Zakkai's deception would be considered honorable indeed: He was deceiving the hated Roman enemy by faking his death. Jesus would not qualify as an honorable liar under the situation Mirsch describes for him. Mirsch's ignorance of social science therefore delivers him a double whammy on this one.
Yet another example of Mirsch being taken in by grade school apologetics is his supposition that Christians would not accept that Jesus intentionally fulfilled OT prophecy. On the contrary, the supposition is that such is exactly what he would do, to the best of his abilities.
Mirsch then tackles the growth of early Christianity, and needless to say, he is completely ignorant of the social factors that would have stunted Christian growth, and he also supposes the "die for a lie" argument is as sophisticated as apologetics can get. About the only place he can be taken seriously here is when he refers to Rodney Stark and gives four reasons why Christianity would gain converts. But all four of these fail, not only to account for the strong negatives one can offer in comparison, but also for Mirsch's lack of knowledge:
1) "[A] strong personal connection with people who are already members". In other words, Mirsch argues that people became Christians because prior family members did. This is only partly true, however; this might follow only if the head of a household converted -- and it would not explain why that household head converted in the first place. Moreover, Mirsch is unaware that if it were another member that converted, like a wife, the husband would be overwhelmingly inclined to treat her as a deviant and try to win her back to the proper religion -- perhaps even using physical threats to do so. Mirsch's idea about family togetherness imposes modern sentimentalism on the text.
2) "[T]he group or organization offers benefits" like health care or a sense of community "that members cannot acquire elsewhere." Unfortunately for Mirsch, in the collectivist society of the New Testament, such things could and would be able to be acquired elsewhere rather easily -- whether from community support, or membership in any number of ingroups, whether cults or professional associations.
3) Similarly, some "spiritual benefit" is supposed. But the "spiritual benefits" Christianity offered were precisely one strong reason people would reject it.
4) Finally, it is supposed that a chief motivator would have been allowing women places of authority. Well, yes and no. For one thing, there were cults and groups available that already did that. For another, at best that only explains why some women would join, not men.
In any event, not even at their best do these four reasons overcome the vast negatives Christianity would have had to overcome.
In a chapter following, Mirsch makes much over the designation of Jesus as "Nazarene". He supposes this must mean something other than "someone from Nazareth"; he would rather it be some sort of reference to Jesus as a "nazarite".
Unfortunately, Mirsch's arguments for this view are particularly misinformed. One is a point we have alluded to as erroneous before; he supposes it would have been done to distance Jesus from Jerusalem, which as we have stated, would have been a wrong move. Another excuse offered by Mirsch is that Mark, as earliest Gospel, just says Jesus came from Nazareth (1:9), not that he lived there. For other references, he merely forcibly reinterprets the meaning to have to do with "nazarites" without any justification other than that he wants it to be that way; as is shown by the fact that he also feels free to hypothsize "Christian redactions" [74] to cover himself. He even has the nerve to say that "scholars and Christian apologists" [77] continue to make the mistake that he corrects, and only do so because of "the power of tradition to misdirect consensus and to obscure, if not outright destroy, serious scholarly study of the historical person." Lest anyone suppose this to be anything but bluster, it speaks enough of Mirsch's horrid scholarship that he even allows that Nazareth may not have even existed [79].
An especially ludicrous reason for "de-nazarething" Jesus is an extended explanation in which Mirsch proposes that carpenters like Joseph and Jesus would find no work in Nazareth, and would certainly not walk back and forth to Sepphoris every day. In this Mirsch displays typical ignorance of the social world of the NT, as we have related in another place:
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A critical distinction is to be made between two types of time in the Bible: Chronos, which is like our measured time, and kairos, which is more like "opportunity." The latter is explained by the authors with reference to a time in Indonesia when they hired a carpenter to make cabinets. The nearest carpenter lived on another island, some distance away. So to get the work done, the carpenter first had to wait until there was enough work in the area to justify him making the trip. Then, a month later, the carpenter showed up and set up "house" in the author's carport! He cooked his meals there and slept there. Then, once he got the author's projects done, he worked on several other projects in the area.
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By the same token, Mirsch has no knowledge of this being how carpenters from Nazareth would find work -- by being itinerants who moved around as needed. Thus Mirsch's most developed argument in this regard fails miserably.
We will bypass Mirsch's attempts to likewise strain out new theories from Capernaum and Magdala, and close this entry with a look at a series of non sequiturs in the service of proving that Jesus was actually part of a wealthy and powerful family in his own day. Basically these run as: 1) Jesus did/got/received this or that; 2) Only a wealthy, powerful person would do/get/ receive this or that; 3) therefore Jesus ws part of a wealthy and powerful family. Naturally step 2 is where Mirsch fails on every point.
In particular, certain elements Mirsch notes are explained just as readily by Jesus being regarded not as a Davidic king on earth, but as a great prophet of God and a king after the manner of God. [97-8] Thus for example, the triumphal entry requires no pretenses of the sort of merely military kingship Mirsch imagines. Nor does the use of so many spices by Nicodemus during Jesus' burial; this is exactly what Nicodemus would also do to honor one he considered to be a prophet of God, especially if he desired to in some way counteract the shame of the crucifixion. The same may also be said of Joseph making use of his own tomb, though here as well, Mirsch is oblivious to the scholarship of Byron McCane explaining exactly why Joseph's tomb would be used -- and why it would NOT be seen as a "royal burial" (because Jesus was buried shamefully in the tomb of a stranger). Other aspects require more explanation.
Mirsch doubts that the magi would have handed over expensive gifts to Mary and Joseph as poor people, because they "would have been robbed and beaten and killed" by thieves. Mirsch is apparently ignorant of the fact that ancient people normally travelled in large groups precisely in order to have protection from thieves. Since Egypt was a frequent destination for Jews of this period, there would have been little difficulty in Mary and Joseph finding a protective group to attach themselves to.
Mirsch also doubts that Herod would worry about an infant from a poor family. Here again Mirsch's ignorance is apparent: Herod's worry was engaged by the fact that the seekers of this baby were Parthian magi -- representatives of Rome's deadliest enemy at the time.
Mirsch also supposes that Jesus would not have been mocked with a purple robe and crown of thorns unless he truly were a king, and that Pilate would not have made the inscription say, "King of the Jews." Mirsch fails to recognize all of this as part of a status degradation ritual. Pilate's intent, in fact, was to humiliate Jews as a whole, by marking a disgracefully crucified man as their "king". At the same time, a messianic pretender did not require Davidic ancestry in order to have kingly pretensions.
Mirsch also asserts that Jesus would not have been given myrrh because it would be an "expensive mixture to offer a peasant." Mirsch needs to check his own comment on page 419, where he asserts that myrrh was present at every crucifixion.
Continuing our look at TOT by Mirsch, we pick up on page 102, where Mirsch hypothesizes some conspiracy over the Greek word tekton being rendered "carpenter" rather than "stonemason." Apparently in his limited view, the former term was used as a way to emphasize Jesus' rural roots and minimize his role.
This is simply nonsensical. Both activities in the first century would have been the province of the artisan class, people who worked with their hands and were looked down upon because of it. Cicero, for example, regarded such occupations as vulgar and comparable to slavery. No distinction of the sort Mirsch imagines would have been made in the first century. Nor, for that matter, would it have mattered if, as Mirsch imaginatively supposes, Jesus as a tekton worked on the stonemasonry of the Jerusalem Temple. It is not impossible that this could have happened, but that is not the point: The point is that doing so would have added nothing to Jesus' honor rating in the eyes of his contemporaries.
Mirsch then briefly comments on Paul, turning him into a "Herodian" (! - 103) who distorted Jesus' message of "violent rebellion" [104]. He gives no arguments for supposing this to be true as yet, but may do so later.
There is the usual canard about the Slaughter of the Innocents. Mirsch actually admits that it is argued that very few children were killed, and that this is why it is not recorded by someone like Josephus, but he does not answer this point at all.
The next major point has Mirsch trying to mangle Gospel chronology for his purposes. He abuses the comment of John 8:57, where it is remarked by Jesus' enemies that he is not yet fifty, and uses it as a reason to think Jesus must have been in his 40s, not his 30s as the usual chronology argues. He notes the argument that "50" was used by Jesus' opponents because it "represents a social milestone" of maturity. But he waves this off as something that "cannot be proved" [107]. Perhps Mirsch should check Numbers 4:3, where Moses is told, "Count all the men from thirty to fifty years of age who come to serve in the work at the tent of meeting,” as well as Numbers 8:25, which sets 50 as the age of retirement from Temple service. It was just proved that 50 was a milestone in Jewish thought -- just as “65” is in today’s world. (To his credit, though, Mirsch ends by admitting that his argument isn’t sufficient to overturn the consensus that Jesus was in his 30s.)
Much of what follows is merely Mirsch rewriting the Gospels based on his assumption that he was warrant to do so, so we can just pick out some isolated foolishness to comment on.
In Mark 5:1-20, he considers it odd that the people reacted to Jesus’ exorcism with fear. here again Mirsch is simply vastly ignorant of the social setting: Within that setting, Jesus’ power over spiritual powers implied a power as well to displace local political authorities -- and displease Rome.
Rather amusing is Mirsch’s supposition that Rome might have “managed to get their hands one [sic] of the written copies [of this story] that no doubt would have been disseminated throughout the countryside”. [111] Apparently he had not heard that 1) the literacy rate in this period was less than 10 percent; 2) the production of written documents involved a great deal of time and expense that would have made such “dissemination” impossible. Mirsch clearly knows nothing about ancient production of written material.
From somewhere Mirsch gets the idea that apologists argue that the exorcism of the man in Mark 5 occurred at some sort of small port city, which is why different geographic references are used. Who makes this argument, I do not know. Those scholars I have read say this was a pastoral area. In any event Mirsch does not touch my own view. He also opts for an idiosyncratic understanding of Luke 8:26, and it’s profession that Gerasane country is “opposite” (antipera) Galilee, to put the location of this event in an entirely different place suitable to his thesis. As there is no sign that Mirsch is in any way trained in Greek, much less enough to contradict serious scholars who maintain otherwise, his ravings on the matter may be taken with a grain of salt.
Just for yuks, though, Mirsch’s thesis is that the story is a cover for one in which the “tombs” are the city of Tiberias (built on a graveyard), and Jesus killed off all the bureaucrats of that city, specifically by tying them with pigskins and throwing them into the Sea of Galilee to drown. [127] It’s rather funny that Mirsch raised the usual canard against the Slaughter of the Innocents not being recorded elsewhere, while failing to see that this even more stupendous event would be far more stunning if left unmentioned by someone like Josephus.
Mirsch commits the usual error of placing the Zealots much too early. In the chapter he also makes several other errors we addressed in the article on Jesus’ trial re Judas Iscariot and other arguments that try to “Zealotize” Jesus.
Mirsch's next creative effort is to turn the story of Jairus' daughter into codespeak for violent rebellion. Doing so involves such contortions as reading Jesus' instruction for her to "rise up" as code for, "rise up and rebel against Herod Antipas," while the instruction to give her something to eat is said to be a "thinly veiled directive to inform the people about what is to transpire politically and to mobilize accordingly." [124-6] Such creative efforts require no real rebuttal; by the same sort of machinations I could easily turn Mirsch's book into a series of restaurant reviews in code.
The next great joke by Mirsch is converting half of the names of the Twelve into an "indication of violent trend": The name of Bartholemew is designated as violent as it comes from "bar Talmai," or son of Ptolemy, and "Ptolemy" means "warlike". The manifest idiocy of Mirsch's attempt to make much of this is shown in that while "Ptolemy" was a dynastic name for a set of kings, it was also the name of a leading Greek astronomer. Obviously to suppose that someone was "warlike" based on a name alone is an absurdity.
Next Mirsch tries to make much of the designation of James and John as "boanerges," which we address in the trial article; Mirsch however is so desperate to validate his thesis that he wildly speculates that there was an error in copying the Aramaic version of this word, one which originally referred to a more violent allusion. He also refers to Judas Iscariot as a member of the Sicarii, and adds in Peter because he wielded a sword -- once (again, see trial article).
Briefly we may note a few more inane questions by Mirsch, concerning Jesus' family being in Egypt. He says the account is "vague" (which is actually normal, according to how we read things, for an ancient biography concerning episodes of childhood), but this is only because it does not answer questions he contrives to make significant based on his assumption of conspiracy. In turn he takes this as approval to suppose that an effort was being made to "hide the truth" -- which just happens to be the truth he wants to read into the text, rather than something else.
In terms of inane questions, however, we have these [139]: Mirsch wonders why there were two separate divine warnings for Jesus' family to move -- why didn't the first angel just get them to the right place the first time? The only reply needed is, Why should that have had to happen? Just to satisfy Mirsch's modern sense of order? However, the actual reason for the seeming dual instruction is a literary one: The first warning is intended to allude to Exodus 4:19-20, and establish a thematic connection between Moses and Jesus -- which is something Matthew does throughout his Gospel. In this light, it is open to question whether Matthew is even saying there were two warning dreams. If the above is a thematic aside, then there was likely but one dream and one warning.
Mirsch repeats the standard canard asking how a pregnant Mary might walk from Nazareth to Bethlehem for a census. As we have remarked to past critics, modern creampuffs would do well to not underestimate the hardiness of ancient people who lived much harder lives than they do -- and who also know how to ride donkeys.
An extended section is then devoted to a re-reading of John 4, the encounter with the Samaritan woman. Mirsch makes a rather tortured case for Jesus as having been a Judean, not a Galileean, because the woman calls him a "Judean." But Mirsch seems to forget that Paul, born in Tarsus, also called himself a Judean. What escapes him here is that Galileeans were likely descended from Judeans who had been transplanted from Judea -- just as Paul's family would have been originally from Judea. Mirsch has no conception of the sharing of the identities, and his forays into dress and dialect as a way for the woman to identify Jesus as Judean are nothing but a diversion.
Just as absurdly, Mirsch tries to "de-Nazareth" Jesus by appealing to the usual canard about the site of Nazareth not having a "brow" from which Jesus could be thrown [142], a point we have answered in Shattering the Christ Myth:
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It is claimed in contrast that there is no such geographical entity as Luke describes in the vicinity of Nazareth, and no place from which to throw someone to stone them. But this is false. Nazareth was and still is partially situated in a hollow against the slopes of a mountain, so that it is enclosed on three sides by portions of the mountain. The “brow” likely refers rather to a 30-40 foot limestone cliff at the southwest corner of city, and this verse is read incorrectly as implying that the city was built on the brow of the hill, when it is actually saying that it was built on the hill, and the brow is part of the hill also. This brow is of sufficient height to throw someone down for stoning. (“Mountain,” we should add, is a poor rendition of the word used; it is better rendered “hill.” The same word is also used of the Mount of Olives, which is not particularly large.)
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I'll close this round with one final example of Mirsch's statistical naivete. He theorizes that Joseph (Mary's husband), Joseph Caiaphas, and Joseph of Arimathea are overlays for the same person; his one hard data argument for this fantasy is that, although (as he admits) the name "Joseph" was held by 14% of Jewish men at the time, it would "still seem statistically unusual" for a Joseph to play a role in three important events in Jesus' life; Mirsch compared this to someone named "Smith" being one's father, presiding judge in a trial, and parole officer. But Mirsch is comparing enormous apples with tiny oranges.
A simple survey of the Orlando personal white pages shows that out of 871 pages of entries, only 8 (rounded up) pages are listings for "Smith". That means we'd expect to run into a "Smith" with 1 out of every 108 people (men or women). In other words, "Smith" makes up less than 1% of the population in my home city. (This coheres with national stats too)
In contrast, given that 14% figure, we'd have it so that one in every seven men we ran into would be "Joseph". Under such circumstances, there is nothing "statistically unusual" at all about all three of these men associated with Jesus being named "Joseph". Mirsch has failed statistics as well as data gathering.
Our treatment of Mirsch's next 75 pages shall be comparatively and mercifully brief, as much of what he offers here is rebutted either by our previously referenced article on the trial of Jesus; by our note regarding carpentry as a profession of low honor, and by McCane's study on the burial of Jesus. The latter in particular resolves mysteries beyond Mirsch's scholarly comprehension, such as Joseph making a request of Pilate, and why the bodies of the thieves were not requested. That in turn erases Mirsch's substanceless ranting turning Joseph of A. into a version of Jesus' father Joseph. The trial article also arrests Mirsch's rather contrived attempt [176-7] to get around the prohibition on capital punishment by appealing to exceptions as though they established a rule (though he even admits that this could only happen "as long as the Romans did not know," thus undermining his own argument), and his outlandish idea that Caiaphas was a Zealot (! -- 189).
Beyond this, a few odds and ends.
Mirsch tries to disconnect Joseph of Arimathea from that town; he admits "scholarly support" [155] for a connection to Ramah, but waves off the connection as "contrived and linguistically awkward." Again, since there is no evidence that Mirsch has any expertise in Biblical languages, and he offers no explanation of WHY there is contrivance of awkwardness, this line may be taken with a grain of salt.
Mirsch then proceed to play the "name game" with NT figures named Simon, but like Joseph, Simon also was a common name in the NT period for Jewish men; in fact, it is the one men's name more common than "Joseph." He also tries the same game with "Mary" to turn all of the Maries known to Jesus into one person, but that name was even more common for women -- held by up to a quarter of Jewish women of the period, which means having three of four Marys at the cross would not be "unusual" [184] at all. (Notably, while Mirsch admits the name was "very common," he declines to tell his readers HOW common, which no doubt would spoil the effect.)
Having assumed several of the above things true, Mirsch embarks on an even more contrived thesis that in the Jewish document The Story of Joseph and Aseneth, we find an overwritten version of the story of Joseph and Mary. He creates a chart of nine "similarities," though most are not even that, but rather Mirsch placing divergent pieces of information in columns across from each other that have no similarities whatsoever, and then using his own words to force a match. For example: Aseneth was from the city of On, the "place of many pillars", while Mary was from Jerusalem (per Mirsch's contrived dismissal of Nazareth from before). You don't see the parallel? Well, it's obvious: The Temple was in Jerusalem, and it had a lot of pillars!
Mirsch also forces parallels by using his assumption that all the Maries are the same; and so he mixes in the above item on Mary mother of Jesus with Mary Magdalene, to force a parallel between the latter's "seven demons" and "seven virgins" who were Asenath's attendants. (Of course, as loose as Mirsch's criterion are, all he had to do was find seven of ANYTHING in Joseph and Asenath, and he could claim a match!) He also forces a parallel using his own backstory as evidence, claiming that as Aseneth was converted to Judaism, so Mary was converted to the Zealot movement.
For Mirsch though, the happiest coincidence is that Aseneth happened to bleed sweat at one point -- which Mirsch thinks he can use under the assumption that Mary passed to Jesus the genetics for hematohidrosis (bleeding sweat). Later Mirsch will use this to claim that both had a rare genetic disorder; and we will at that time hand over the reins to a physician in our consult for comment.
We close this round with note of Mirsch's obnoxious commentary that only "habit, tradition and desire" and "not facts" will cause someone to reject his inane theories, for they are "based upon the same sources and works" used by Christians. [199] There's a big difference though: Mirsch also adds lunacy into his sourcework.
We may now also treat a brief chapter in which Mirsch discusses certain miracles of Jesus, which he chooses to either 1) explain away as trickery or 2) rewrite as code for military rebellion. The first dealt with is the turning of water into wine, which Mirsch explains away -- rather vaguely -- as having been performed with the aid of what is called a "Heron's amphora," a sort of divided vessel, which would allow there to be water on one side and wine on the other.
Sadly for Mirsch, the explanation fails alone on the fact that in order for it to work, he must assume what we have already rebutted, that Jesus was a) wealthy and b) a Zealot. He must also add to the story a collection of behind the scenes stooges helping Jesus deceive a bunch of Zealot leaders at the wedding so that he can be elected their leader, which means that the appeal to the amphora is just a minor player in the larger conspiracy theory. Finally, Mirsch has to put Jesus and Joseph in Egypt and put them in touch with Heron, the inventor of the amphora, and speculate as needed to cover any loose ends -- e.g., what if Joseph and Jesus went to Egypt before Heron was there?? No problem! Maybe Heron "laid claim to an existing technology" [207]. Perversely, Mirsch also takes the expense required for the feat (the wine, building custom jars) as evidence for this thesis that Jesus was wealthy! When one must add epicycles of speculation as a prop, and engage in such blatant question begging, it is a sure sign that actual facts are in short supply.
Then we have the miracles of feeding with loaves and bread, and since he apparently can't find an amphora that multiplies fish, Mirsch opts for one of his sensational rewrites: The five loaves of bread become symbols for "the five provinces extant during Jesus' time" that made up "a large part of the territory of David's kingdom"; the two fish represent Tyre and Sidon, which are "contiguous to its borders"; the thousands fed represent a "conscription quota" [215-16] that Jesus the Zealot leader demanded from each territory. It again amazes how much history Mirsch must invent in order to explain away history.
Taking the same tour de force further, Mirsch proceeds to re-interpret miracles of healing as metaphors for Jesus enabling people to see the light and become converts to Zealotism. Aside from his own theory, Mirsch gives us no reason to accept this other than his bewilderment that Jesus does no miracles where missing limbs are replaced or gouged eyes are returned to sockets, or dead people are raised after corruption. The former two is little wonder to anyone with an ounce of historical knowledge; such medical phenomena are overwhelmingly products of the industrial age, when machinery would cause such injuries. The recent Boston bombings caused some lost limbs, but there were no "pressure cooker bombs" in ancient Judaea.
As far as returning people long dead from corruption, one wonders what the point is other than that Mirsch wants to arbitrarily raise the bar of evidence. He waves off the raising of Lazarus as a trick, on almost no grounds; the one "oversight" he thinks he can spot is that Martha and Mary obviously were not ritually impure from touching Lazarus' corpse, which is supposed to prove he was not dead. That the family might have hired someone to do the job -- which they were clearly wealthy enough to do, since they had an expensive tomb -- doesn't occur to Mirsch at all.
We'll pick up next time with Mirsch's take on the crucifixion, which is already a laugh since he places it in 37 AD. Apparently Mirsch forget to check on Pilate's reign, which ended a year earlier, and also forgot in the process how to deal with the clear statements not only of the Gospels, but also Tacitus and Josephus, that Pilate was in charge at the time of Jesus' death. But of course, we are sure the revisionist in Mirsch will come up with some excuse for ignoring the data of history for the sake of inventing history to which no one attests.
We now take up a rather large chunk of OT, over 100 pages, although much of it needs no coverage, being an extended chapter on groups like the Essenes. I do not assume that Mirsch had done the job right on those; I merely see no need to address those issues, as they are tangential to the main case concerning Jesus. Suffice to say Mirsch's coverage is not that of a qualified scholar, as usual.
We begin with the crucifixion, which, as noted, Mirsch dates to 37 AD. Most authorities date the end of Pilate's reign to 36; I have noted now that some few do try to extend it into early 37, but this will not help Mirsch even so, as Mirsch's thesis is that Pilate was removed from power because of Jesus' crucifixion, and there is an awful lot of event-making to fit into that narrow window -- which means Mirsch will have to justify his chronology with more details than he offers now.
Mirsch's bewilderment that anyone would crucify a non-threat like he supposes the usual view of Jesus would be [230] is answered in our trial piece. As noted, Jesus was (from the view of Pilate) merely a pawn in a game the priesthood was playing; in reality he mattered little to Pilate at all, as would be the case for any backwoods Jew, in Pilate's eyes.
Especially amusing is Mirsch's attempt to argue, as a prelude to his version of the swoon thesis, that Jesus was not savagely beaten with whips before the crucifixion. [235f] This was the very normal routine for crucifixion as part of a "status degradation ritual," so that Mirsch's attempt to wave off the preliminaries as an "educated guess" or "merely supposition" is little more than hand-waving, save for one rather ludicrous contrivance he offers [239]. Mirsch notes that in 32 AD, Tiberius issued an order that the Romans should "change none of the customs" of the Jews, as recorded by Philo. Based on this, and his contrived 37 AD date for the crucifixion, Mirsch argues that this decree would make Pilate hesitant to pronounce a death sentence, much less whip and crucify someone in Judaea.
As shown in our trial article there are far different reasons for that, but even so, Mirsch's application is thoroughly meritless. Let's take a broader look at that passage from Philo:
...things in Italy were thrown into a great deal of confusion when Sejanus was preparing to make his attempt against our nation; for [Tiberius] knew immediately after [Sejanus’] death that the accusations which had been brought against the Jews who were dwelling in Rome were false calumnies, inventions of Sejanus, who was desirous to destroy our nation… And he sent commands to all the governors of provinces in every country to comfort those of our nation in their respective cities, as the punishment intended to be inflicted was not meant to be inflicted upon all, but only on the guilty; and they were but few. And he ordered them to change none of the existing customs, but to look upon them as pledges, since the men were peaceful in their dispositions and natural characters, and their laws trained them and disposed them to quiet and stability.
The problem here is that this has to do with a specific act of Sejanus in which he accused Jews of treason falsely -- it has no bearing on any other incident whatsoever, and any instructions to the provinces would relate to this specific charge and incident related to Sejanus -- not to any later matters. The second problem is that, as our trial piece shows, Jesus essentially incriminated himself for a charge of sedition; and so he would be "guilty as charged" -- which in turn would fulfill the stricture laid down, even if it did apply beyond this particular incident.
Finally, note that the command was to "change none of the existing customs," not to not execute anyone. What this means is defined in the earlier context of Philo:
But he never removed them from Rome, nor did he ever deprive them of their rights as Roman citizens, because he had a regard for Judaea, nor did he ever meditate any new steps of innovation or rigor with respect to their synagogues, nor did he forbid their assembling for the interpretation of the law, nor did he make any opposition to their offerings of first fruits; but he behaved with such piety towards our countrymen, and with respect to all our customs, that he, I may almost say, with all his house, adorned our temple with many costly and magnificent offerings, commanding that continued sacrifices of whole burnt offerings should be offered up for ever and ever every day from his own revenues, as a first fruit of his own to the most high God, which sacrifices are performed to this very day, and will be performed for ever, as a proof and specimen of a truly imperial disposition.
Moreover; in the monthly divisions of the country, when the whole people receives money or corn in turn, he never allowed the Jews to fall short in their reception of this favor, but even if it happened that this distribution fell on the day of their sacred sabbath, on which day it is not lawful for them to receive any thing, or to give any thing, or in short to perform any of the ordinary duties of life, he charged the dispenser of these gifts, and gave him the most careful and special injunctions to make the distribution to the Jews on the day following, that they might not lose the effects of his common kindness.
Therefore, all people in every country, even if they were not naturally well inclined towards the Jewish nation, took great care not to violate or attack any of the Jewish customs or laws. And in the reign of Tiberius things went on in the same manner, although at that time things in Italy were thrown into a great deal of confusion when Sejanus was preparing to make his attempt against our nation...
What Tiberius referred to here was the religious practices of the Jews -- not judicial dealings with them! At the same time it is a bit of a joke that Mirsch sees Pilate bowing to pressure to crucify Jesus, in order to suit his theory, but not to have him whipped beforehand! Why the lack of consistency -- other than to support a theory in advance?
Mirsch does at least get right that crucifixion crosses were likely low to the ground [245]. He is also right that the wounds from crucifixion by themselves would not be life threatening. [249]. Curiously, he quotes Martin Hengel's excellent work on the Zealots [252] having ignored all of Hengel's scholarship that shows his conclusions about their dating to be wrong. We pick up with infamy again where Mirsch declares that the "kingdom of God" is "a euphemism for the re-established United Monarchy of King David" [253]. Such a definition would never withstand an analysis of the use of the phrase, though we are sure Mirsch would find a way to hem, haw, and interpolate his way out of it, so we will not pursue that further.
We will note the rather amusing attempt to militarize Jesus by pointing to Mark 4:26-9, where Jesus refers to use of a "sickle" to harvest. Mirsch points out that the word "sickle" has a "shared etymology with the small curved blades carried by the Zealots..." [256] That will become noteworthy as soon as someone proves that the Zealots spoke English; the Greek word for "sickle" used is drepanon, as Mirsch admits. There is therefore nothing but insane imagination in the idea that the word was meant to invoke the Latin word secula, much less the English word sickle.
We need not detain ourselves, further, with Mirsch's savage rewrites of parables; eg, the parable of the mustard seed is happily tooted away so that the "birds" become "the Jerusalem priesthood". [257] We also will not detail ourselves with an enormous chapter in the Zealots and Essenes; although I am sure the key points would be utterly rejected by scholars, the chapter builds on, rather than underlies, Mirsch's main arguments.
The chapter following has yet more tendentious rewrites; just to give an example, the parable of the Good Samartian is raped such that the robbers are the Romans, and the parable is a call to Samaria to join the Jesus revolution. [348] These may all be ignored as fantasy piled on fantasy.
We pick up again where Mirsch deals with Josephus, and find little that is not covered in our treament in Shattering the Christ Myth (chapter by Chris Price). Mirsch adds nothing new to the mix, other than first, a suggestion that no other passages in Josephus matches this one for "brevity of lack of purpose." The latter is simply nonsense; the obvious purpose would be to explain the origins of a well known deviant cult. In terms of brevity, Mirsch provides no comparative statistics to speak of, but it hardly makes a difference; Mirsch is judging "brevity" by the standard of the modern paragraph breaks. If he's going to use any objective measures, he needs to measure according to number of words devoted to a person by name -- and there are a great number of persons in Antiquities to whom Josephus devotes few words.
The one thing Mirsch does get right is that Josephus would devote few words to Jesus because he was "a minor character" in his view. In this Mirsch unwittingly echoes the arguments regarding "Remsberg's list." I should also note that Mirsch devotes only a couple of dozens words to Tacitus, and does not even deal with the importance of his reference to Jesus. Obviously Mirsch considers one of the best and most accurate historians in antiquity to be a "minor character." [363].
We may also briefly note that added absurdity that while Mirsch rejects Antiquities 18 as a reference to Jesus, he manages to find Jesus referenced in another part of the Antiquities, in code, as a rebel leader. This of course is merely reliant on Mirsch's creative rewriting scheme.
To close out our series on David Mirsch’s The Open Tomb, we have a record of observations on his chapter arguing that Jesus faked his death through the use of drugs. I’ll explain about about the contexts, then relate some points provided by Dr. Ted Noel, an anesthesiologist of many years’ experience.
Mirsch argues at one point that drugs have been applied transdermally (to the skin). Dr. Noel comments on this and other matters related to the administration of drugs:
His argument about transdermal application is a sign that he doesn't understand the method. Transdermal application is sensitive to area of application and duration of application. The only known toxin that could work as fast as needed to be swoonderful is tetrodotoxin, and it would kill in seconds. The hours on the cross negate that possibility as well as the unavailability of the toxin.
Capsicum is used to make some drugs move transcutaneously, but it's such an irritant (capsaicin - pepper spray!) that it's not useful in medicine. The other alkaloids don't move transcutaneously very well.
He also ignores the nature of anointing to try to make his point. Further, blood flow in the feet is significantly less than any other part of the body. He claims it's equal to the scalp which is patently false.
Just for fun, consider the Fentanyl Oralet. It's a lollipop with fentanyl, a narcotic 100 times more potent than Morphine. It is well absorbed across mucous membranes. Yet it takes a lollipop in the mouth for a number of minutes to get the drug absorbed.
Second, Gall was a common soporific given to most crucifixion victims. This means that the conversation between Jesus and the thieves would have been impossible.
Mirsch offered some arguments regarding the release of “blood and water” by the spear thrust. Dr. Noel comments:
Determining death is really easy. The spear in the side let fractionated blood flow out. The spear pierced the heart, and the blood in its chambers had been settling. A unit of blood left to sit will take some time to spontaneously fractionate, probably an hour or more. Jesus had been dead for a while when the spear went in. The bit about "pericardial fluid" is nonsense. He didn't have a pericardial effusion. BTW, he's right about effusions taking a while to develop. I'm surprised he survived a 900 ml effusion from pleural-pericardial syndrome. … Severely anemic people (and I've seen my share) bleed blood that is thinner and lighter red. It doesn't fractionate as he proposes.
Mirsch also wrongly calls the spear thrust a coup de grace. This is wrong: It was done to verify death, not cause it.
A "dissected lung" does NOT act as a sponge. [Mirsch] needs to watch thoracic surgery.
Mirsch also suggests Jesus had hemolytic anemia. Dr. Noel says:
"Hemolytic anemia" is special pleading. There's no evidence of anemia before the cross. Look at the geography of the Jericho road. An anemic man could not hike the 4000' foot rise from Jericho to Jerusalem… There are multiple causes, and tyramine (a bodily compound Mirsch notes as effective in the situation) affects only one of them.
Another of zMirsch’s critical points is that Jesus suffered from favism – a reaction to fava beans. Mirsch suggests that fava beans may have been part of the Passover bread Jesus ate. Dr. Noel points out that there the species of grain regarded as chametz (leaven) which are described in the Mishnah include three types of wheat and two types of barley. Fava beans aren’t known anywhere in the list; the translation of “beans” in Ezekiel’s bread is speculative.
One of Mirsch’s arguments is that Mark himself suggests Jesus at leavened bread (as noted above) and not unleavened bread. He bases this on a distinction between the words artos and azumos. I addressed this in a reply to anti-missionary Uri Yosef:
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Yosef's formerly third (now fourth) category is, "Celebrating Pesakh/Passover." Noting that the seder requires unleavened bread, Yosef objects:
Yet, as we read the Gospel accounts of the last supper, we find Jesus and his disciples eating ordinary bread...One may want to argue that the NT authors meant unleavened bread. However, upon checking these accounts in the Greek language, it is evident that the word for 'unleavened bread' is "azumos" (e.g., Mt 26:17; Mk 14:1,12; Lk 22:1,7). The Greek scriptures use the word for ordinary leavened bread, "artos", for what was consumed at the last supper (Mt 26:26; Mk 14:22; Lk 24:30). Of course one may ask, if this is so, who else violated some laws, since Jews were supposed to not even have such bread around for Jesus to buy. But this argument, which seems to appear often on anti-missionary sites, misses something important. Azumos is not a word for "unleavened bread" but just a word for "unleavened," period, as in 1 Cor. 5:7: Purge out therefore the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, as ye are unleavened. For even Christ our passover is sacrificed for us: Paul says to his readers, "You are unleavened"! Is he saying they are made of bread? Of course not. Artos is a word for all bread, with or without leaven, and does not tell us any such thing as Yosef suggests.
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Mirsch also suggests that Jesus "had taken an herbal anti-hemorrhagic." Dr. Noel replies:
That's again pure speculation. The only possible one I can think of is ephedrine, but that's derived from a Chinese plant that isn't found in Palestine. Another possibility would be ergot, but that's from a mold, and Passover bread would not be old enough to mold. None of these would have a material effect on a Roman flogging. They just aren't capable of reducing the bleeding from major open wounds.
Shepherd's purse (alos listed by Mirsch) is listed by WebMD. It says that is "might reduce bleeding." That means that the effect is small, if it is even present.
Mirsch also suggests a role for the belladonna plant. Dr. Noel responds:
He demonstrates a complete ignorance of the pharmacology of the belladonna alkaloids. Atropine and it close relatives don't cause a comatose appearance. They cause severe tachycardia and hallucinations, not the appearance of death. If they cause death, it's the real thing, not fake. As for the opium alkaloids, while they were known, they are slow in onset. Jesus died right after the second wine. A massive dose of opium is required to get an onset within ten minutes via the oral route. That large dose would case apnea and death shortly after.
Finally, Mirsch suggests a rapid revival by Jesus. Dr. Noel says:
We can't even do that now! During the early days of medicine there were lots of claims that didn't prove out. Peer review in medical journals was in its infancy. His source is simply wrong. We can get people to sleep quickly, but the ONLY way we can wake them up is to let the drugs wear off naturally. Period.
Thus closes our look at Mirsch’s Open Tomb. I think it should remain buried.