For all my flaws…mental illness and a hard life…decades of child abuse…bitterness often creeping deep into my heart though I’m supposed to forgive…I’m still a Christian.

And wow. Someone has linked a post I wrote back in March. That means I have to tell you why I’m a Christian and what I think of the ongoing attacks people in the studies of world history, archeology and science mount against the Christian community, whether Catholic or Protestant.

I believe With Faith, Not Evidence

The attacks on the Bible are unrelenting. Sometimes it’s for a legitimately questionable part of it. Theological debate is one thing, but to attack believers is out of line. Persecution is vile even if only verbal. You hurt people with words, sometimes so severely that the damage is permanent. Of course I’m not referring to fake Christians, the money-grubbers like Pat Robertson and Joel Osteen.

I realized a long time ago that the Holy Bible is flawed. It has been edited. Books thrown out and books included-the Catholic canon is different from that of the Protestant.

When Henry VIII, Wesley and Luther went their own ways, the repercussions were severe. Add to that some popes who shouldn’t have been popes, the intrigue over the Borgias, the pope who looked the other way when Hitler came calling, and you have plenty of ammunition to argue with to any Christian leader. But that doesn’t mean you’ll be right.

In the first and second chapters of Genesis, there’s a glaring error. It doesn’t necessarily mean two creations, but people take it that way. If there were two creations of humans, and the first woman was Lilith, who rebelled and left Adam because she wanted to be his equal, causing God to create another woman named Eve, then there were also two Adams. One came from mist, the other from dust.

It’s a great story, the saga of Lilith. Spooky, sad, tragic and, in the end, she has been used in literature ever since the Epic of Gilgamesh. The Talmud, the book of the Hebrew laws, refers directly to her as a succubus, coming in the night to lie with men, to get into their dreams as beautiful women, different according to men’s different fantasies, and then gets them to impregnate her. She can bear children, so it’s said, but she also steals children and eats them or throws them into a pit. In this way she’s often associated with Molech, a demon god whom Caananites and Hebrews sacrificed their children to.

I don’t believe in Lilith (she was probably used in the Talmud for men to make excuses for wet dreams, as those were considered evil in themselves). But the story is so good that I used it in my novel. And that’s really funny because as I wrote it, several characters I’d pictured in my mind and described actually crossed my path. One was so unattractive that when I saw her, and she looked exactly like the character, I could’ve fainted. It was chilling and, worse, just like the character, never looked at anyone else, never spoke, seemed unaware of the real world, and would stop in front of me. As my character had done, she stood still, like a statue, for long periods before moving on.

The scariest part was that she was based on an illusion I saw, a trick of the light in a neighbor’s yard at night. I easily found a back story, a name, and an evil mission for her.

But since writing about Lilith, that woman whose looks change, who most often torments me in nightmares, won’t go away. Won’t leave me alone. Her visits are relentless now.

Going back to 2019, my posts have laid out my childhood in more detail than most could handle. A small shadow on my wall would actually move, darting from one fixed spot to another as if to get my attention. You should feel free to go back and read these articles, but for now I’ll say I’ve had experience with supernatural evil, and not because of mental illness. Fallen angels, demons, whatever you want to call them, are very real. And if you don’t believe in them, that’s okay with me. But they have, many times, influenced you or those around you. Like, have you ever done something, and it was not merely out of character, but you did it seemingly spontaneously, no thought given to it, and suddenly were the bad guy, and if you were lucky you didn’t get arrested, but only lost a job or your fiancee? A demon was probably there.

There are mysteries psychology can never explain, just as there are mysteries historians, archeologists and anthropologists cannot solve.

Dating points in history– the Exodus, the reign of David, exactly when Isiah lived, can be guessed, but they left scant evidence behind. And Biblical archeology is not usually faith-based. They want evidence, and they search for it endlessly.

But isn’t that the whole point of having faith? To believe when the world keeps telling you it’s unreasonable?

That’s exactly what faith is.

Yeshua of Nazareth

His name, Yeshua in Aramaic, and Iesvs in Latin (pronounced “Jesus”), was the spirit of God born into the world as a human. The son of God. We know next to nothing about his early life. Even as we approach Christmas, the day we celebrate his birth, no one can be certain that it’s even close to the proper date. We’re told in one gospel that he was born in a house. In another, that it was a manger. In one gospel three wise men interpret that a bright star heralds a newborn king. In another, it is lowly shepherds who are visited by an angel, and it is they who come to worship the Baby Jesus.

One gospel tells how the magi tipped Herod the Great about a new king (a mistake wise men would never have made) and how Herod forced Joseph and Mary to go into hiding in Egypt until the king died. After they fled, Herod had his soldiers kill every male infant in his territory, an event so heinous that the other gospel writers had to have known about it. But they don’t write about it.

The slaughter could hardly be forgiven. It would have started an armed revolt that would have seen Herod deposed. What, then, do we believe? Which stories are true?

I say it doesn’t matter. These are things I don’t care about. Besides, placing the birth in Bethlehem (it is unlikely that a census would have required anyone to travel) fulfills the desire to link Jesus with King David.

These things aren’t important to me. They have nothing to do with my belief that Jesus was divine. That he was real. And that he made a sacrifice so great, nobody can ever imagine what it felt like.

I’m not just talking about what most people call The Passion; it was a horror to be sure. But there was more, much more to it than that.

In his life, Jesus recruited his Apostles and spent a lot of time teaching and preparing them for what was yet to come. He taught by example as well, healing many sick people, saving the servant of a Roman centurion from death, raising a young child from death, and he even dared to touch lepers, who were then healed.

He dined with sinners whom others judged harshly. His message was that he came into the world not for those who were faithful, but for those who were not. He never turned away a sick or suffering person. Once, thinking that his message of forgiveness was too progressive, some men dragged an adulteress to him. Ashamed and humiliated, she probably didn’t even look up from the street she’d been cast down on. The men said, “According to the law, she is to be stoned to death.”

Of course that would have been illegal; under Roman law the occupied Jews were forbidden to carry out capital punishment. But Jesus knew they could be carried away. He also knew they were testing him. If he agreed with the law, his message was a lie. If he did not, he disrespected Jewish law and was a rogue. He sat and drew something in the sand and was quiet. Then he said “Yes, the law is clear. Let the man without sin step up and cast the first stone.”

The test was over. The men dispersed. Jesus said to the woman, “Where are the men who accused you?” She answered that there were none and he said, “Niether do I condemn you. Go, and sin no more.”

That short story is full of hope, and it shows that he lived by the words he spoke. He once said, “Come to me, all you who labor and are bearing heaviness, and I will give you rest, I can lighten your burden.” Wow.

But to tell you the truth, there is one relic that I believe is evidence of the life and death, and the resurrection of Jesus. It is called the Shroud of Turin and there is a matching hood to it as well. Both have the faint but once-highly visible image of the head of a man who had been badly beaten and bloodied. An eye was swollen and his beard matted. His hair was similarly matted by blood. Trickles of it flowed down his forehead.

The shroud bears the image of a nude male, front and back. The fabric is a herringbone weave common to the time and region of first century Judea.

Carbon dating and DNA tests reveal a medieval origin and handling by people as far away as the Indus. But a fire that scorched the fabric in the medieval period would have contaminated the C14 test results, and as a holy relic, many would have handled it. When it resurfaced, the image was still quite visible meaning some period kept away from air. Today, the image is fading.

It bears the image of the nude man, hands crossed and partly covering the groin. His legs, chest, back and shoulders bear bruising and distinct scars shaped like dumbells at the ends of lash marks. His side has been pierced with the stabbing wound consistent with a Roman javelin. There are wounds in his wrists consistent with nails and the same marks are in both feet.

While Prefectvs (prefect, not procurator) Pontius Pilate tried to keep Jesus from death, he had Jesus flogged. This was an excruciating punishment called a “half-death” because not everyone survived it and none were ever the same. The Jews had a similar punishment that was carried out with flexible wooden rods, but the Romans had no use for such things.

A Roman flogging was carried out by soldiers who were trained not to go too far; while they had no set number of lashes, they were forbidden to kill the prisoners they administered the flagellum to. It was a mean piece of craftsmanship perfected over time, intended to ensure no one who underwent the punishment would ever forget it. Posttraumatic stress was one result. If a prisoner was fortunate, they lived. Many left Roman territory forever. The unfortunate ones went insane. They were released to the mercies of the gods. But many died of sepsis from open wounds that became infected.

A flagellum was a wooden handle with strips of leather which ended in cast iron bits shaped like dumbells; these were tied to the ends of the strips. When it was swung, the leather thongs striped the body and the iron bits would maintain momentum, curling around legs or the body and digging in to create terrible bruising or swelling gashes and raised closed wounds. Jesus was given the lash and would certainly have been in shock; yet he willed himself to stand before Pilate one last time.

The courtyard crowd at the palace had grown and gotten close to a point when Pilate would be forced to use riot troops. He did not want Jesus dead, but he almost certainly hated the man. His argument with the temple priests was political, a display of his power in the face of their arrogant demands. And while Pilate and the high priest Caiaphas may have profited from their arrangements, the theory that they were friends is ridiculous. Pilate hated his post, hated the Jews and hated having to be in Jerusalem for the Passover because zealots always got riled up.

Pilate had twice instigated riots, and one of those times had soldiers out of uniform infiltrate the crowd with daggers, killing Jews. He was reprimanded by his superior, the Legate of Syria, who answered directly to Caesar. Tiberius was for whatever reason soft about Judea; he wanted peace. Unrest caused use of manpower, resources and casualties. He preferred pacification, allowing the Jews to worship as they pleased, disregarding the Roman gods. Rome generally was tolerant of occupied people’s religions, but to the Jews, any interference was intolerable.

Pilate was hardened and cruel, but it seems that he was shocked by the appearance of Jesus: bleeding from head to foot, bruised from abuse by the Romans and the temple guards, wearing a crown of thorns, a royal purple cloak draped over him. Barely able to stand. Shivering, trembling.

In a play to get the crowd’s sympathy he pointed to Jesus and cried, “Behold the man!”

But by then the crowd had been so agitated that they were even closer to chaos. They called for Jesus to be crucified and Pilate was likely sweating. It was getting dangerous and by now, he probably wanted to release Jesus just to spite them.

His last effort was to offer a choice. It was the pleasure of Caesar that a prisoner be pardoned at Passover. He suggested Barabbas, who was due for crucifixion that day, for the crime of murder. Surely, the crowd would choose Jesus over him.

This chess move ended in checkmate. He had lost. He ordered Jesus crucified. In a final show of hatred, he asked for a bowl of water, and dipped his hands in it, a Jewish custom. “I cleanse my own hands of his blood,” he said. It was a surrender and an insult in one act. He knew their customs and often used them against the people.

A small guard detail had accompanied Pilate to Jerusalem and this consisted of regular Roman troops called legionaries, with at least one centurion.

The troops garrisoned in Jerusalem were not legionaries but were made up of barbarians, called auxiliaries. Barbarians could not attain command rank so they were always led by a centurion. As barbarians, that is, soldiers from conquered territory, they were made up of various men including Syrians, who held a special disdain for Jews. They relished crucifixion detail and and had specialists who followed a strict process. It was a ritualistic set of steps to be followed exactingly. The condemned would be given a crossbeam to carry. The streets were too narrow for a whole cross to be carried or the crossbeam to be tied across the back. It wasn’t a great burden in itself. The crossbeam (patibulum in Latin) wasn’t heavy. But carrying it over one shoulder, knowing you were about to be nailed to it, the walk to the place of execution was no doubt done on wobbly legs.

It was never a part of execution by crucifixion for the condemned to be flogged first. That was a play by Pilate to release Jesus. Now, Jesus, awake for at least 24 hours, exhausted from his tormented prayer in the garden, his beatings and the flogging, had difficulty putting one foot in front of the other. The roughly cut wood was painful to his shoulder, torn open by the lashing. Dehydration was setting in if not a problem already, and he fought against shock; his mission wasn’t over. Worse would follow, and he had to feel everything that they did to him.

The Crucifixion

He fell on the stone pavement several times, getting abrasions on his knees, causing the centurion some concern. The path from the palace to the place of execution wasn’t very long. It wasn’t the path marked with the stations of the cross, because the procession went from the palace to the north gate where two roads met. Probably within those roads, near a quarry, the place of a skull sat, rocky and barren. Nobody knows how many upright beams stood there, but what’s certain is that they were short, about six feet tall. The patibulum would be fitted at the top. But somewhere on the way, Jesus fell and couldn’t get up. A man called Simon, from Cyrene, was forced to carry the cross the rest of the way. Jesus could barely walk. Just outside the gate, two other condemned men were already being nailed to their crosses. Jesus was prodded onward.

All three had signs carried by soldiers which listed their name and their crime. The purpose of crucifixion was a public display of what happened to people who defied Roman law. Every crucifixion had this sign of shame at the top of the cross, and generally it worked: if you do this, then you’ll get this.)

In three languages Pilate had ordered the sign for Jesus to read: “This is Jesus, King of the Jews” because Caiaphas had charged Jesus with making that claim, seditious under Roman law.

The upright beam was wide enough to provide stability without the need for scaffolding. Wood was scarce and usually imported from other provinces. The upright was reused and needed to be stout. The executioner saw to it that Jesus was laid across the crossbeam with his hands close enough that when he was raised, his arms would not be straight but in a hanging V shape. In agony, Jesus felt every hammer strike. The nails were driven between the bones of the wrists and hands, a place nobody could pull away from if trying to free themselves.

There was a small crowd clogging the streets. Some mocked Jesus as he was raised by four soldiers, two under each arm. A narrowed part of the upright allowed a small cut in the bottom of the crossbeam to fit over it. With that done, the executioner nailed the sign to it and secured the two parts of the cross. It was almost finished.

Although the nailing of the feet depended on the width of the upright beam, they were never nailed one foot over the other. In this case, a wider beam allowed both feet to be nailed from the front, side by side. This part was difficult; driving a nail while squating is hard, doing it while the upright may give a little was much worse. The legs had to be secured with knees bent. Once he was finished, the crowd grew and moved in. The laughter and mocking continued.

Hanging in such a fashion, most executed could last only a short time. At first, they could breathe with some difficulty, but as they weakened, they had to straighten their legs, pressure hard on the nailed feet, raise up, and breathe for as long as they could, then they would fall and be back in the V position and their weight hanging from their wrists. As time passed, breathing became more difficult. The constant raising up would exhaust the condemned. Eventually they just died of suffocation or their heart gave out. Sometimes extreme heat did the trick. But the show wasn’t meant to last very long; it was supposed to get attention, and when that attention was lost, keeping soldiers on station was senseless. They would use an iron rod and swing it hard across the shins, fracturing the tibea and fibula, making it impossible for the victim to raise back up to breathe. Death followed in minutes.

Caiaphas sent word to Pilate that the crucified men could not be left hanging at sunset, when the Sabbath began. Such a thing was unthinkable; the Jews would revolt if the site was ever again used. Pilate sent word to the centurion to break the legs of the men.

Before the messenger arrived, Jesus cried out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

He had told his Apostles many times that he had come into the world to take on the sins of God’s children. They had no idea what he meant; it made no sense to them. But as he cried out, every sinful deed, every evil thought ever made, in the past and the future, was literally thrust onto him. He saw and felt everything at once, a thing no mortal could take. As a man, he couldn’t bear it. As the Son of Man, he had to. This supernatural event was over quickly, but it killed him. He felt death approach and said, “It is finished. Abba, into your hands I commit my spirit.” He surrendered, his mission accomplished. In his short ministry he had said things that everyone should take to heart, believer or no, simple things to live by to make life better and to ensure his faithful need never suffer endless torment in hell.

Now it was over. The messenger arrived and when they had broken the legs of the other two men, saw that Jesus was dead already. Whether checking to make sure of it with a javelin was procedure is not known, but this was done, and accounts for the blood stain in the side of the image on the shroud. Some scholars believe that the blood and water that flowed from the puncture indicates congestive heart failure; this matches the theory that I’ve put forth above. That every sin ever committed, or yet to be, was seen in his mind and felt; overloading the heart which was already failing due to his exhaustion and difficulty breathing.

Jesus was resurrected. Could the shroud be proof of the supernatural event? That debate goes on, but one thing stands out: all of the wounds match those inflicted on Jesus; a crucified man was never flogged first, the figure is naked, and nobody in medieval times would ever produce any nude image of Jesus. Getting caught would mean certain death.

I belive that the shroud is genuine. But I don’t need it to believe in the divinity of Jesus of Nazareth. That comes from my heart. I’m no boy scout, that’s true. I’m a sinner. Thank God I don’t have to die one.