Or at least that’s what we know to be conventionally true.
Each of the Gospel writers give a lot of details in the account of Jesus’ arrest, torture, and execution. All of which helps to illustrate one basic important fact: Dead is dead. Roman soldiers were extremely good at their business. And their business was death. No one could survive all that the Empire had to dish out.
A final spear to the side served as confirmation.
All this brutal detail, of course, is meant to set us up for the big surprise of Resurrection. And to dispel any possible suggestion that Jesus wasn’t actually dead when they laid him in the tomb. The prospect that he had somehow barely survived the crucifixion and only appeared to be dead but was in fact hanging on to life by a thread might just be a bigger miracle than the resurrection itself.
Which then, of course, goes on to mean so much more about the Great Resurrection. The overcoming of death and the impartation of new life for all of Jesus’ followers. As the New Testament writers go on to reveal, the great Christian hope is this: Dead is not dead.
