Image Details

Boltin Picture Library

A defiant Jesus withstands the lashes of his adversaries despite broken nose, barbed crown and bloody wounds, in this oil painting entitled “Christ of the Flagellation” (1970), by the Mexican artist David Alfaro Siqueiros. Bound together, Jesus’ clasped hands are thrust to the foreground as he is flogged by Pilate (Matthew 27:26; Mark 15:15; John 19:1).

In recent years, Jesus has suffered a new bombardment—from scholars trying to reconstruct his actions and words. But author Luke Johnson charges that these scholars—suspicious of events recorded in the Gospels and devoted to chimerical reconstructions of Jesus’ life—are destroying our only genuine witness to early Christianity—the New Testament.