Mrs. Clark’s 7th Grade Bible Class Discusses:

Playing Dead: The Swoon Myth

Popularized centuries ago, the swoon myth insists that after being brutally beaten, brutalized and crucified, Jesus… fainted, rather than died. If this myth were true, the central event of Christianity, the Resurrection of Christ, would be lost.

But it takes a lot more faith to believe Jesus only fainted after what was done to him.

For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance:

that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 

that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures

1 Corinthians 15:3-4

Study Sessions

Read John 19:30-35. Why did the soldiers not break Jesus’ legs?

How many Roman soldiers (at least) knew Jesus to be dead?

Who is “the man” mentioned in verse 35? What does he know to be true?

Read Mark 15:42-47. How many eyewitnesses of Jesus’ death are mentioned in these verses?

Some people don’t believe in Jesus’ resurrection. They don’t believe that it is possible to come back from the dead.
They believe that he swooned (fainted) and the Romans thought he was dead and he woke up 3 days later and left–but they are wrong. Jesus did not faint or survive somehow in any way.

We know this because it is scientifically proven that it is physically impossible to survive the crucifixion that Jesus suffered.

In the book “Don’t Check Your Brains at the Door,”  it explains that Jesus went through excruciating pain, including things that could not humanly be survivable.
It also explains in the book that a Roman centurion had checked the bodies to make sure that they were dead before burying one and if he had missed a live body and they buried it, they would have faced major consequences.
This is why the Jesus’ crucifixion is real.

Katy, age 13

In this week’s chapter the theory and myth was about the crucifixion of Jesus and how many claim the death was false and set up–but from scientific research we can detect that it was completely real.
We can come up with many reasons that the crucifixion was real and that Jesus’s death was real because the Roman soldiers were masters at that. They did this (put people to death) so often and if they had got it wrong they probably would have been executed or even worse punishment.

Also, thanks to scientific research and knowledge in the health department we can detect since when they stabbed Jesus in the side and not just blood but water also came out–that’s scientific proof that Jesus was completely dead.

When you die a little sack around the heart separates the water from the blood.
So in conclusion, this week’s myth was about Jesus’ crucifixion and how he wasn’t completely dead…we can know that is false.

Matthew, age 12