Scholars: Crucifixion Portrayal Inaccurate

AP News ^ | Feb 19th,2004 | PETER ENAV

[missyme]

"Critics Never Stop"

JERUSALEM (AP) - The dearth of information about Jesus' crucifixion makes it impossible to describe the event in accurate detail, as Mel Gibson attempts to do in his new film, "The Passion of Christ," Bible scholars and anthropologists say.

The crucifixion is the centerpiece of the movie, set to open in U.S. theaters Feb. 25, Ash Wednesday on the Roman Catholic calendar.

People who have seen the movie say it adopts standard Christian imagery in excruciating detail: Jesus being pinioned to a Latin cross - a T-shaped device with a short upper extension - with one nail driven through both feet and one through each palm.

In a December e-mail sent to The Associated Press, Gibson said he did "an immense amount of reading" to supplement the Bible's relatively unadorned account of the crucifixion in the four Gospels.

"I consulted a huge number of theologians, scholars, priests, spiritual writers," Gibson wrote. "The film is faithful to the Gospels but I had to fill in a lot of details - like the way Jesus would have carried His cross, or whether the nails went through the palms of His hands or his wrists ... Since the experts canceled each other out, I was thrown back on my own resources to weigh the different arguments and decide for myself."

Some scholars say even the most widely recognized features of the crucifixion, such as the shape of the cross and the use of nails, are open to debate.

James F. Strange, professor of religious studies at the University of South Florida in Tampa, said 1st century historian Josephus provided only general information, probably because crucifixion was so common that details seemed superfluous.

Crucifixion was first used in the 5th century B.C., and was a widely used form of execution in Asia, Europe and Africa for the ensuing eight centuries, said Israeli anthropologist Joe Zias. Depending on technique, death could be swift or take days.

"If you suspended people by their hands and left their feet free you would kill them within an hour," Zias said. "If you suspended them in a way they couldn't exhale they'd be dead within minutes."

Zias said the question of whether Jesus was nailed to the cross or simply tied to it remains a mystery. "There is no evidence whatsoever he was nailed," he said. "The Gospels say he was crucified and leave it at that."

Zias criticized "The Passion of Christ" for accepting the standard version of three nails being used. He said experiments on cadavers carried out by the Catholic Church in the Middle Ages have shown that people hanging with nails through their hands will fall to the ground within a relatively short time, pulled by gravity.

The Gospels suggest it took Jesus three to six hours to die.

"All this is Crucifixion 101," Zias said. "People who study these things understand them. But Gibson ignored them in his film."

John Dominic Crossan, emeritus professor of religious studies at DePaul University in Chicago, agrees with Zias that little is known about Jesus' execution.

"Early Christians believed that Jesus was nailed to the cross," he said. "But there is absolutely no proof of this. The only skeleton of a crucified person ever recovered indicated that the two arms were tied to a crossbar, and two nails were used in either shinbone. There was no standard procedure in any of this. The only common feature in the different types of crucifixion is intense sadism."

The type of cross in Jesus' execution is also in question, Crossan said. First century Romans are known to have used both a T-shaped device, without an upper extension, and the Latin cross that is standard in Christian iconography.

Each of the four Gospels says an inscription mocking Jesus as the "king of the Jews" was affixed to the cross. Crossan said this would have made sense "because the whole point of crucifixion was to warn people through alluding to a specific crime."

Two of the Gospels say the inscription was mounted above Jesus. This presumably would strengthen the argument for a Latin cross, which would have provided space for writing about the condemned man's head.

However, the other two Gospels don't give a locator. "It (the written warning) could just as easily have hung around his neck," Crossan said.

Crossan is also uncertain whether the cross on which Jesus was crucified was carried to the execution grounds - either by Simon of Cyrene, as three of the Gospels report, or by Jesus himself, according to John's account.

It is possible that the vertical part of the cross was kept at Golgotha, the place of Jesus' death, and that the condemned person carried the crossbar, Crossan said.

"The point is we simply don't know," he said, "not in general cases and not in the case of Jesus either."

[wgeorge2001]

24 Now Thomas (called Didymus), one of the Twelve, was not with the disciples when Jesus came. 25 So the other disciples told him, "We have seen the Lord!"
But he said to them, "Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe it." John 20

This happened with in a few days of the Lord's crucifixion and resurrection, his hands had been pierced by nails and his side pierced by a roman spear.Today's "experts" are generally anti Christ liberals who, professing themselves to be wise, hate God, Christ and Christians, as well as atheist and agnostic conservatives and we are their greatest obstacle in the hostile takeover of our free republic form of government. We know who they are and we know that lying is of no consequence in their minds, these deluded people feel they are above the law and have progressed to pathological lying in their quest, they teach lies and revisionist history whenever and wherever they can in the public school systems, in the courts and in political gatherings, and now their lying has attacked the one true God and His Holy Child Jesus Christ.
These people have been destroying this country for 50 + years now and their recent attacks have increased in duration and savagery. Will the conservatives stand up and stop them or will they, as happened in the national socialist movement in Germany in the early 1930's, lie down and let them destroy our great American heritage and freedoms.

[wgeorge2001]

Didn't see your post before I did mine. Also, from Psalm 22 starting in verse 16:
"a band of evil men has encircled me, they have pierced my hands and my feet."

Absolutely. I have come to dispise the liberal left more as time goes on. They are blatant liars with a hostile agenda against God, family, and country.
We must confront them, we must stop them.

[PAR35]

Well the point is that he really did not die anyways,

Certainly not the historical Christian view.

From the Apostle's Creed:
"was crucified, died, and was buried"

And, from the 1600s, The Westminster Confession of Faith:
(Ch. VIII, Para IV)
"was crucified, and died, and was buried, and remained under the power of death, but saw no corruption. On the third day he arose from the dead..."

Denial of the death of Christ hits at the very foundation of Christianity.

[<1/1,000,000th%]

They should get some cheese with their whine.

[Martin Tell]

And the Romans did not take the bodies down after death. If a family member didn't remove the body, it simply hung on the cross, for vultures and other vermin to pick at.

There is an interesting contemporary Roman literary source for this. Petronius, the master of revels for Nero, wrote "The Satyricon," sometimes considered the first novel. Among other stories and incidents, Petronius describes a Roman soldier who was detailed to guard the corpse of a crucified criminal, to keep the family from taking the body and burying it. The widow of another dead man (the place of crucifixion is a cemetery) loudly mourns his death nearby until the soldier convinces her to live and seduces her. They enjoy each other's company until the family of the dead criminal notice the watch is loosely kept and steal his body away. The soldier is ready to kill himself since the penalty for shirking his duty is death. His new lover practically points out that her dead husband's body will do just as well. They mount it in his place and the neighbors wondered how a dead man managed to climb the cross.

The story is seen as an early slam at Christians. I think it is proof of how even by Nero's time, the facts of Jesus' crucifixion and resurrection were already well known at Rome. The story is also a good source of crucification information.

Gutenberg text of "The Satyricon" is at http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/gutbook/lookup?num=5611

[jonboy]

If any part of the Bible is invented throw the whole thing out. My Bible says that it came about by inspiration.

[waRNmother.armyboots]

Zias does not know what he is talking about. The Bible states that he had nail prints in his hands and feet which could be his wrists and ankles as they are part of the the hands and feet. The tests conducted with cadavers putting the nails through the wrists did hold up.

[waRNmother.armyboots]

Yes...He is not dead, but is risen and sits at the right hand of the Father!!!! Thank you. Also He "gave up" His spirit according to the Gospels. He did not die at the point in which he died because of the crucifixion. "He" gave His life up.

[luckystarmom]

And it is written in John when Thomas sees Jesus after the resurrection. He sees the wounds in his hand and in his side.

[luckystarmom]

Well, you are wrong. Read John 20.

[luckystarmom]

Thank you for posting scripture. These days when it is so easy to do a search on the Bible on the internet.

I searched for Thomas because I knew he is the one that wanted to see Jesus' wounds. It took me about a minute to find the correct scripture, and I'm just a lowly stay at home mom.

[luckystarmom]

I wasn't going to see the movie because I think it is going to be difficult to watch. However, my husband who is not a believer wants to see the movie. So, of course I'll go with him.

[exit82]

When Jesus physically died, the Romans were surprised because he died sooner then they expected. They did not take into account the torture He had endured the night before and the exhaustion caused by carrying the cross-that's why Simon the Cyrene was enlisted to help Jesus carry His cross when He no longer could.

So the guard ran his spear into Jesus' left side to determine if indeed Jesus was dead. What came out was blood mixed with water.

Medically, this mixture of the two fluids indicates that the heart has literally burst. There is a medical term for this, but it escapes me just now.

And so, we can say that Jesus, paying the penalty of a just God on the cross for guilty sinners,like me, died of a broken heart on our behalf.

Being innocent,being unjustly accused, being tortured, being beaten and forced to carry the instrument of His death, being nailed to a cross, being hoisted to shame in front of Jerusalem,being mocked while He was dying an excruciating painful death, having His own Father turn away from Him while the penalty for sin was being paid, and yet He says, "Father, forgive them for they know not what they do."

What else did Jesus have to do to prove His love for us?

[yarddog]

After reading your post that stirred my memory and that is in fact what the surgeon told us happened.

I specifically recall him saying Jesus had a broken heart literally.

[MaeWest]

From a very interesting website:

Closeup of the hands of the Shroud image. Note the bloodstains in the wrist area. Most art depicts the crucifixion with nails through the palms of the hands. However,the weight of a body cannot be supported by the structure of the hands. The nails must be driven through the wrist, between the radius and ulna, to support the weight of a body.

www.shroud.com

[Jorge]

Perhaps these so-called "scholars" should learn to read before they try to teach us about anything;

So the other disciples told him, "We have seen the Lord!" But he said to them, "Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe it." (Whole Chapter: John 20 In context: John 20:24-26)

Acts 2:23 This man was handed over to you by God's set purpose and foreknowledge; and you, with the help of wicked men,[ 2:23 Or of those not having the law (that is, Gentiles)] put him to death by nailing him to the cross. (Whole Chapter: Acts 2 In context: Acts 2:22-24)

Colossians 2:14 having canceled the written code, with its regulations, that was against us and that stood opposed to us; he took it away, nailing it to the cross. (Whole Chapter: Colossians 2 In context: Colossians 2:13-15)

[Triple Word Score]

Jesus Christ would have gone through all of that, every bit of it, for me and me alone--if I had been the ONLY sinner who needed it--even if He had not known that I would believe and accept the gift.

He would have suffered that *just for me*--and here I am, loved that much, though hardly anyone really knows me a millionth as well as He does.

I don't know how I lived through the bad times of life before I realized that someone loved me that much.

I hope someday you realize it, because life can be so empty without that. If you make the New York Times Bestseller list and people line up for your booksignings--and I hope you do!--it still doesn't come close to having Jesus die to give you a way out of paying for your own sins.

He would have done it just for you, too, if you were the only one who needed it...and you'd still be free to choose whether to take the gift or not.

[AdequateMan]

This would be valid except for the account of Simon needing to see the NAIL HOLES in Jesus' hands. Unless I am mistaken, it is difficult for rope to cause nailholes except in extreme circumstances.
Correct me if I am wrong.

[Poodlebrain]

The Romans also knew that breaking the legs of the person being crucified accelerated death since broken legs could not support any weight. It was common practice for Roman magistrates showing "mercy" to have the legs of those being crucified broken to minimize the suffering.

The Romans did not intend for Jesus to die quickly, or they would have broken his legs. Scourging was another common form of punishment used by the Romans. The pain inflicted by scourging, and its muscle destroying after effects, was their most severe punishment short of death, and infections often led to death. It is reasonable to conclude that the Romans wanted Jesus to suffer as much as possible.

[TaxRelief]

Has it not all been foretold? Our job is to spread the gospel to the 4 corners of the earth. Where in the bible does it say that we should fight evil?