Jinn

Paul, this makes perfect sense to me.

I've never believed in the Divinity of Jesus, but I do believe that he existed. There is a reasonably satisfactory ( for me ) historical evidence that a man named Jesus was born and worked, but they all fall short of divinity.

Considering the number of illusions that could be pulled against an uneducated and pre-medieval society, I have no doubt that such a trick could've occurred.

Personally I believe that the "spearing" of Jesus (as well as the number of guards around his tomb) were added to Biblical texts (or stories that lead to it) in order to make the "death" of Jesus move convincing. I'm believe that he was not fatally wounded, and that his "resurrection" was simply a recovery from non-lethal wounds.

I'm positive that a skilled illusionist/magician of today could create a convincing "death" and resurrection. Given their lack of knowledge and technology, it would be even easier to fool the unsuspecting crowd of Jesus' time.

It's further 'proven' in my mind by the number of "miracles" that Jesus performed, such as water into wine. A simple slight-of-hand or substitution illusion would cause this effect very well, and would only help to add Divinity in the minds of his supporters.

__________________
"I'm typing on a computer of science, which is being sent by science wires to a little science server where you can access it. I'm not typing on a computer of philosophy or religion or whatever other thing you think can be used to understand the universe because they're a poor substitute in the role of understanding the universe which exists independent from ourselves." - Willravel