Ship of Fools: Medical effects of being dead 4 days

Thread: Medical effects of being dead 4 days Board: Oblivion / Ship of Fools.

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Posted by NJA (# 13022) on :

I was reading John 11 about the raising of Lazarus, in v39 Martha says:
"Lord, by this time he stinketh: for he hath been dead four days".

Wouldn't being dead have starved the brain of oxygen? What does modern medical science predict the effects would be?

Posted by Eutychus (# 3081) on :

quote:
Originally posted by NJA:
I was reading John 11 about the raising of Lazarus, in v39 Martha says:
"Lord, by this time he stinketh: for he hath been dead four days".

Wouldn't being dead have starved the brain of oxygen? What does modern medical science predict the effects would be?

I've always looked at it this way: if you believe God raised Jesus from the dead, then no other miracle in the Bible is much of a conceptual problem.

Posted by NJA (# 13022) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
I've always looked at it this way: if you believe God raised Jesus from the dead, then no other miracle in the Bible is much of a conceptual problem.

I don't have conceptual problem, I just want medical details of what God did.

Posted by Firenze (# 619) on :

Seems to me that if you are going to go in for believing in this miracle business, you would be better going for = full reversal of all processes associated with mortality.

Otherwise you are going to have to think of Jesus going 'Come forth, Lazarus' and then thinking: Drat. Just invented zombies.

Posted by Doublethink (# 1984) on :

The medical explanation would be, he wasn't really dead - he was in a coma. In which case, revival after four days would have similar effects - probably - to a moderately severe head injury. Lowered IQ, mood instability and fatigue; with some degree of memory loss going back to prior a period prior to unconsciousness and some stroke like difficulties affecting language for example.

Folk brought back from death in today's world are a successfully revived because they have been very cold and therefore decomposition has not taken place.

If he stank because his leg had gangrene, but he had been kept ina very cold cave in winter - maybe. Otherwise, you'll just have to go for the traditional miraculous explanation.

Posted by churchgeek (# 5557) on :

I think NJA is looking for details of what a 4-day old dead body, especially one in 1st century Palestine with the embalming practices used at the time, would be. Because in raising Lazarus from the dead, God would've undone all those things too.

It certainly is different from the raising of someone who was only dead for a few moments, and also quite different from Jesus' Resurrection, which isn't a reversal of death but a New Thing Altogether.

I suspect that the question of the oxygen-starved brain has to do with modern instances where someone was dead for x number of minutes and then revived - at some point, if the brain's been starved of oxygen, there can be permanent brain damage, right?

Is that more or less what you're getting at, NJA?

Posted by NJA (# 13022) on :

quote:
Originally posted by churchgeek:
...
I suspect that the question of the oxygen-starved brain has to do with modern instances where someone was dead for x number of minutes and then revived - at some point, if the brain's been starved of oxygen, there can be permanent brain damage, right?

Is that more or less what you're getting at, NJA?

Yes, we see that the Jews believed in healing of limbs and organs that hadn't worked for years, but they had a disconnect when it came to death... "when you're dead, you're dead" type thought. I am told that decomposition of all the internal organs takes place very quickly. That's why first-responders, such as paramedics, know that unless they get to the scene of a person who has suffered cardiac arrest within 4 minutes maximum, or else have someone already on the scene giving that person cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) to keep blood and oxygen circulating before they arrive, the chances of survival are slim to nil.
In the case of Lazarus' being raised from the dead, not only did his brain need to be completely 'rebuilt', but also every other organ in his body (including his eyes and ears), his skeletal structure (because of the bone marrow), and all of the body's surface tissue and blood vessels.

Posted by Firenze (# 619) on :

I think this episode of CSI: Palestine would fit better in Purg.

Firenze
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