The Lazarus Trick

[Zzyzx]

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The Lazarus Trick

It is no problem to perform the Lazarus trick. Hire an actor to sit in a closed tomb four days (with adequate food and water of course) wearing 'grave clothes' – and another actor to play the part of a 'sister'. Add a dead cat during the third night to provide aroma. Go in, mutter a few words and have the actor sit up and act shocked. Behold, he was raised from the dead.

Does this duplicate the Bible tale?

[marco]

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The Lazarus Trick

It is no problem to perform the Lazarus trick. Hire an actor to sit in a closed tomb four days (with adequate food and water of course) wearing 'grave clothes' – and another actor to play the part of a 'sister'. Add a dead cat during the third night to provide aroma. Go in, mutter a few words and have the actor sit up and act shocked. Behold, he was raised from the dead.

Does this duplicate the Bible tale?

It provides an earthly rather than a miraculous explanation, which is something. But I think we have a clue in how Jesus spoke: people are dead to his message and he wakes them up. In his parable the prodigal son was dead and is now alive. The bread he gives brings life. And so when Lazarus heard Jesus he was brought to life. Years later along comes someone like Matthew and he likes the idea Lazarus was "brought to life". Being Matthew he adds smell for effect, and makes the Lord weep for atmosphere. In the same way the same man, faced with Christ's crucifixion, has sundry corpses rise. If you can make one get up, you an make hundreds rise.

[marco]

No, because the story literally says he was raised from the dead.

And we are told that corpses pushed away soil and rose up. Literally! The author is being enthusiastic in his hymn about the crucified Christ. We can accept that Lazarus figuratively rose from the dead and acknowledge that the same enthusiastic writer would have him literally rise. People do exaggerate to impress. Or he may have thought that the story about Lazarus being dead and coming alive was literally true. He's a reporter, not a witness.

Somebody told the ladies the tomb was empty? Who was it? Don't know - let's say an angel. Today we have telephones; then they had miracles.

[Realworldjack]

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The Lazarus Trick

It is no problem to perform the Lazarus trick. Hire an actor to sit in a closed tomb four days (with adequate food and water of course) wearing 'grave clothes' – and another actor to play the part of a 'sister'. Add a dead cat during the third night to provide aroma. Go in, mutter a few words and have the actor sit up and act shocked. Behold, he was raised from the dead.

Does this duplicate the Bible tale?

The first thing I would like to point out is, one must believe there is some reason to believe this event must have occurred in some sort of way, in order to actually go to the effort of attempting to explain it away, otherwise one could simply claim we do not even have enough evidence to support the event, and that it would probably be some sort of concocted tale.

It is no problem to perform the Lazarus trick.

Oh really? If it is indeed no problem, then you should be able to pull it off yourself? If you were preform such an event, then it would demonstrate to us all, just how easy this would be? This sort of thing is the exact reason why I say, "there are those on both sides of the equation who are under the impression that it is all so simple".

It is a fact that there are magicians who pull off such illusions which appears to be with ease, but in reality this sort of thing takes a lot of thought, and a lot of practice to perfect. Next, the magician usually has the help of others who understand full well what the trick is, such as the way you are suggesting. We also have to consider the fact that the audience who watches these performances, are fully aware that what they are watching would be an illusion, and so the event is not performed in such a way as to convince the audience that the event, such as a girl being sawed in half really occurred.

So then, now let us compare? Exactly what would the cause of death be for Lazarus? This is an important question, because those close to him would have had to be convinced he would have actually been dead. It is said that Lazarus had been sick for some time, so either he had indeed been sick, or he would have been faking, which would mean that Lazarus would have had to be in on the trick.

But of course, we have to think of those close to Lazarus as well? Did they truly believe him to be sick? Or, would they have been in on the trick as well? At this point, we have to think about all the risk that would be involved here which Lazarus and Jesus would have no control over, and we do not even have time to work through them all. But the question here still remains, would those close to Lazarus somehow be convinced he would have been dead, even when he was not? Or, would they have to be in on the whole thing?

Let us also continue to keep in mind that this performance is not being performed in front of an audience who already knows the performance is an illusion, but rather this is a performance which is designed to deceive those who watch, and get them to actually believe a man has been raised from the dead, and as you have demonstrated yourself, this could not be done without numerous folks knowing it to be a trick.

We could continue on demonstrating all that would have to be involved in order for this to simply be a trick, but I think we have demonstrated that it would be far more of a "problem" than you would like to admit, and I highly doubt the most experienced magicians could pull such a feat off, without a whole lot of time, effort, practice, and help from a good number of people. Which again sort of demonstrates one who is under the false impression that it is all so simple. However, as we have just seen, it is not that simple in the least.

It seems then, your best option is to suggest that this would simply be a false report, that never happened, because the option you are suggesting is not working out so well for you.