Time Travel and Christ’s Crucifixion

Christ crucified, wood carving
by Manuel Alfonseca Santana

If time travel were possible, the greatest incentive for travelers would be to witness firsthand famous events of the past, such as the assassination of Julius Caesar and many others. The fact that we have no record of the presence of strangers in any of these cases is a significant argument against the feasibility of time travel.

There is no doubt that one of these events, perhaps the most famous of all, would be the Crucifixion of Christ. If time travel were possible, there should have been an avalanche of visitors from future times at Golgotha ​​to witness the most important event in the history of humankind.

In fact, this idea has been used in science fiction literature. In a novella titled There Will Be Time, Poul Anderson has his protagonist travel to Jerusalem on the day of the Crucifixion to witness Christ's death. Upon arriving, he discovers a large crowd, almost all of whom are time travelers.

This idea, however, contains a contradiction. If time travel were possible, the travelers wouldn't go to the moment of the Crucifixion, but rather to the Resurrection, which is far more significant. Confirming that Jesus died on the Cross isn't as important as confirming that he resurrected. We know that the Crucifixion was a public event. In contrast, the Resurrection was a private event, with no witnesses. Therefore, that's where the time travelers should have gone.

Poul Anderson

Why did Anderson make this mistake? Probably because he didn't believe that the Resurrection had taken place. Even so, he should have made his travelers confirm it. How could they do so? Nothing simpler: by establishing a vigil of time travelers overnight from Saturday to Sunday in Christ's tomb to see if Christ resurrected. However, he didn’t have this idea, or if he did, he didn’t dare to use it, and his novel suffers.

Anderson's novel isn't the only one revolving around this plot. J.J. Benítez's Caballo de Troya (Trojan Horse) explores this theme extensively. In this novel, which isn't set in the future but in the present, during the latter part of the 20th century, the possibility of time travel has supposedly been discovered by the United States military, who send the protagonist back to the time of Christ to investigate what happened. The traveler is equipped with intriguing but impossible technological advancements, such as a device that grants him X-ray vision like Superman's, so rather than science fiction, this novel could be classified in the superhero comics genre.

Benítez doesn't make the same mistake as Anderson, since his protagonist investigates Christ’s Resurrection and confirms that it did happen, but that it wasn't the work of God, but of extraterrestrials. Of course, the idea of ​​replacing God with highly advanced extraterrestrial civilizations is not new, as I pointed out in another post in this blog: The Lost Worlds of 2001.

A similar case is Michael Moorcock's novella Behold the Man, where a time traveler journeys to Palestine in the year 28 to meet Christ, but instead of finding him, he impersonates him and ends up crucified in his place. In this case, the ending of the novella denies the Resurrection.

Cover of Fantastic SciFi with a
Porges story (The Shadowsmith)

Finally, I will mention a science fiction short story written in 1962 by Arthur Porges, titled The Rescuer. This story is an excellent example of the predestination paradox I mentioned in a previous post titled Is Will Time Travel be possible? This is the plot: the inventors of a time machine discover that a man has entered the machine to travel to the past. To stop him, they destroy the machine with the man inside. When they are tried for murder and destruction of valuable property, they explain:

This man had taken with him a repeating rifle and five thousand rounds of ammunition. His intention was to arrive at Golgotha in time to rescue Jesus Christ from the Roman soldiers. In short, to prevent the crucifixion. And with a modern rifle, who can say he wouldn’t succeed? And then what?... What of the effect on the future, the entire stream of history, secular as well as religious?

Regardless of the varying degrees of success different authors have had in presenting these arguments, the fact that no one has ever traveled through time to witness significant historical events leads to the conclusion that time travel is and always will be impossible, not only now but also in the future. This is simply another way of formulating the version of the Fermi paradox that applies to time travel.

The same post in Spanish

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Manuel Alfonseca