thanks. the book “A physician at Calvary” I read over 20 years ago and in my medical opinion is the definitive work and analysis on crucifixion. In my medical opinion what is overlooked and not talked about is the trauma done to the median nerve when the wrist is nailed and the autonomic neuropathic symptoms that ensue. The profuse sweating for example that is legendary in crucifixion is in my opinion from this. People crucified would end up looking like an asthmatic death as well as the process leads to ventilatory problems, metabolic acidosis and severe muscle cramping. In summary, it is not just people hanging on a cross but a severe type of torture that is very complicated and horrifying. It was eventually banned even by Roman standards. In my medical opinion Jesus died of pericardial tamponade, hemoperricardium, from the severe scouring at the pillar and chest trauma. Most people crucified would last for sometime days. Jesus lasted only 3 hours, to the amazement of Pilate. Water and blood came from his side, Holy Baptism and Holy Eucharist. Anybody interested in this should read “A surgeon at Calvary” and I have multiple copies of it in my library.
Fascinating and very helpful. Thank you.
Will look for that book.
I did a Bible Study, years ago, that painstakingly covered Jesus’ crucifixion .... the torture and trauma.
Not an easy study.
I’ve read the book as well and it is an incedible work of science as science should be.
Bttt.
5.56mm
You’re correct. The written and oral record of crucifixion shows that the vast majority, and in fact likely all other, crucifixion victims were not scourged before being crucified. Most victims were in generally good health at the time of their crucifixion and often died of exposure, or even dehydration. Scourging was a punishment all its own and persons who suffered scourging often did not survive the recovery process. The Hebrew limitation of 40 lashes (in practice they’d stop at a safe 39 lashes, in case someone lost count) was because experience had taught them that more than 40 was likely a death sentence, and scourging was a punishment reserved for infractions not quite worthy of death so they didn’t want to take a chance of making an error.
In the case of Jesus, the process became political and Pilate tried to appease the mob by a severe scourging, but afterwards, the Jewish leaders fearing a living, recovering Jesus with ardent followers, rallied a vociferous mob to cry loudly enough to persuade Pilate to agree to let the people choose between Jesus (Jeshua Bar Josef, called Son of God, King of the Jews) and Jeshua Bar-Abbas (an interesting name, the same first name as Jesus, and an appellation which translates as "son of his father" which as I understand it was a Hebrew slang term for bastard, but a name which in earlier years had been hurled at Jesus due to the suspect nature of His birth.). Thus Jesus’ crucifixion may be the only one which combined both forms of Roman punishment.
If not unique, such combined scourging/crucifixions are so rare, that the odds of all of the unique details attributed to this one particular execution being found on an inexplicable artifact such as the Shroud are so extremely high that it must either be the real cloth that covered Jesus’ body after the crucifixion or the creation of a multi-discipline genius with encyclopedic knowledge of 1st century Jewish burial practices, Roman crucifixion and scourging, 20th and 21st Century 3D terrain mapping in 2D, quasi-photographic techniques at least 500 years before the invention of Photography, medical knowledge including genotype blood typing and DNA, optical and electron microscopy, palynology, and the microscopic pollens needed to be found imbedded in the fibers of the cloth, and much more. . . All to make a hoax to fool medieval peasants with a work of artifice which with all of our technical marvels we have at hand today we cannot even begin to duplicate today!
It gets to the point of having to seriously consider whether it is more miraculous that the Shroud was left behind as a record of a known person who was already known for doing miracles who was miraculously resurrected from death by God, or some unknown, unsung, unreported genius, created the Shroud as a single, unequaled, unique masterpiece of art, using never seen before or after techniques based on the story of that resurrection event that can baffle the combined scientific expertise of seven centuries later as not only how, but even what it is, and then rested on the unsung laurels of that creation, satisfied with no acclimation for his creation, perfectly happy to hide it in a small town in rural France.