Well, my daughter's only 10, but yesterday she was raising a few issues with me over the crucifixion. Like, if Mary was a virgin, how could Jesus have older brothers and sisters? Hmm, good question! So, I explained to her how the whole crucifixion was a sham, how they would usually smash the victims kneecaps after a while, and they'd leave them up there for a long time, because it could take days to die.
So then she asks why they took him down from the cross after 2 hours, and I told her how the sponge must have had some seriously strong sedative in it, because Jesus was clearly alive when they took him down. They wouldn't have realised at the time, but when Longinus speared him in the side, it bled. That wouldn't have happened if he was dead already! But of course Longinus was only looking for a purely physical reaction which wasn't forthcoming. Yes, it was all very elaborate, but the Bible has been so heavily edited and censored that it's diffciult to get anywhere near the truth.
Clearly Jesus and his followers wanted to lead a revolt against the Roman, because that was what the Messiah was meant to do, and Jesus had been doing everything he could to fulfill the prophecies (which he was well aware of). So things went badly and he had to fake his own death and leave in a hurry. He left the revolt to his brother James the Just who was murdered by Paul, the man who started modern Christianity and totally twisted the events to suit a Roman agenda. My daughter totally understood all of that though, which is scary, probably because I explained it a bit better to her than I have here! She's a very bright cookie though!
