Jesus land sailing

 

Here at Capella’s Guide to Atheism we have our own theory about how Jesus got his cross to his execution, but let’s see what’s in the Bible:

 

The Gospel of Mark says:

(Mark 15:20-24 NRSV) …
Then they led him out to crucify him. They compelled a passer-by, who was coming in from the country, to carry his cross; it was Simon of Cyrene, the father of Alexander and Rufus. Then they brought Jesus to the place called Golgotha (which means the place of a skull). And they offered him wine mixed with myrrh; but he did not take it. And they crucified him…

 

The Gospel of John says:

(John 19:16-18 NRSV) Then he handed him over to them to be crucified. So they took Jesus; and carrying the cross by himself, he went out to what is called The Place of the Skull, which in Hebrew is called Golgotha. There they crucified him…

 

Hmmm…. One says that Simon of Cyrene carried it and the other one says that Jesus carried it by himself.

 

 

Side note: it appears that most apologetics attempt to explain away this contradiction by claiming that Jesus carried the cross part way and then Simon carried it the rest of the way.

In the gospel of John it seems to emphasize that Jesus was carrying the cross by himself as he went out to the Place of the Skull where they crucified him. No mention of Simon carrying the cross at all.

In Matthew and Luke they describe Simon as carrying the cross “as they went out” and “as they led him away” which implies that in those gospels Simon carried the cross from the beginning or at least almost from the beginning. All of the the three gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) that mention Simon carrying the cross have no mention of Jesus carrying the cross at all.

Is it possible that these three gospel authors all just forgot to mention anything about Jesus trying to carry his cross for a short distance after being beaten?

And in addition to these three omissions, is it also possible that the author of John after stating that Jesus carried his own cross, forgot to mention that as they were going out that Jesus couldn’t carry his cross after all and that Simon had to carry the cross for virtually the whole trip?

Yes, I’ll concede this as a remote possibility, however I think it’s very unlikely.

I think that the synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) for some reason wanted to have Simon carrying the cross (possibly to emphasize the result of the beating) and the gospel of John, written decades later, for some reason wanted to portray Jesus as carrying his own cross to the execution site.