Stations of the Cross be conducted personally by the faithful, making their way from one station to another and saying the prayers, or by having an officiating celebrant move from cross to cross while the faithful make the responses. The stations themselves must consist of, at the very least, fourteen wooden crosses, pictures alone do not suffice, and they must be blessed by someone with the authority to erect stations. Pope John Paul II led an annual public prayer of the Stations of the Cross at the Roman Colosseum on Good Friday. Originally, the pope himself carried the cross from station to station, but
Historicity and origin of the resurrection of Jesus example, that Jesus did not die on the cross, that the empty tomb was the result of Jesus' body having been stolen, or, as was common with Roman crucifixions, that Jesus was never entombed. Post-Enlightenment historians work with methodological naturalism, and therefore reject miracles as objective historical facts. Of the three main Jewish sects of the 1st century AD, the Sadducees held that both soul and body perished at death, the Essenes that the soul was immortal but the flesh was not, and the Pharisees that the soul was immortal and that the body would be resurrected to house it.