NationStates Jolt Archive

Image of Jesus' crucifixion may be wrong, says study



PARIS (AFP) - The image of the crucifixion, one of the most powerful emblems of Christianity, may be quite erroneous, according to a study which says there is no evidence to prove Jesus was crucified in this manner.

Around the world, in churches, on the walls of Christian homes, on crucifixes worn as pendants, in innumerable books, paintings and movies, Jesus Christ is seen nailed to the cross by his hands and feet, with his head upwards and arms outstretched.

But a paper published by Britain's prestigious Royal Society of Medicine (RSM) says this image has never been substantiated in fact.

Christ could have been crucified in any one of many ways, all of which would have affected the causes of his death, it says.

"The evidence available demonstrates that people were crucified in different postures and affixed to crosses using a variety of means," said one of the authors, Piers Mitchell of Imperial College London.

"Victims were not necessarily positioned head up and nailed through the feet from front to back, as is the imagery in Christian churches."

The authors do not express any doubt on the act of Jesus' crucifixion itself.

But they note that the few eyewitness descriptions available today of crucifixions in the 1st century AD show the Romans had a broad and cruel imagination.

Their crucifixion methods probably evolved over time and depended on the social status of the victim and on the crime he allegedly committed, says the paper in April's issue of the RSM journal.

The cross could be erected "in any one of a range of orientations", with the victim sometimes head-up, sometimes head-down or in different postures.

Sometimes he was nailed to the cross by his genitals, sometimes the hands and feet were attached to the side of the cross and not the front, or affixed with cords rather than nails.

"If crucified head-up, the victim's weight may also have been supported on a small seat. This was believed to prolong the time it took a man to die," says the study, co-authored by Matthew Masien, also of Imperial College London's medicine faculty.

Crucifixion was widely practised by the Romans to punish criminals and rebels, but if the empire ever circulated instructions for the soldiers who carried out the gruesome task, none has survived today.

Nor is there any detailed account of the method of Jesus' crucifixion in the four Gospels of the Bible (Matthew, Mark, Luke and John) which are believed to be near contemporary accounts of the life of Christ.

And only one piece of archaeological evidence has ever been found about a crucifixion, mainly because crucified people were not formally buried but left on a rubbish dump to be eaten by wild dogs and hyenas, say Masien and Mitchell.

This case entails a young Jewish man, whose inscription on an ossuary, found near Giv'at ha-Mivtar in Israel, suggests his name was probably Yehonanan ben Hagkol.

The clue to his demise comes from an 11.5-centimetre (4.8-inch) iron nail that had been hammered through one of his heels, attaching it to the side of the cross. But there are no signs of any nail holes in the bones of the wrist or the forearm.

Over the past 150 years, there have been at least 10 books and studies to try to understand the physical causes of Jesus' death, and one US attempt, in 2005, even featured a "humane re-enactment" in which volunteers were attached to a cross in safe and temporary way, using gloves and belts.

These explorations have yielded a wide range of hypotheses, from heart failure and pulmonary embolism to asphyxia and shock induced by falling blood pressure.

Excruciating pain endured over the six hours between crucifixion and death, loss of blood, dehydration and the weight of the body on the lungs are cited as contributing factors.

But, the study says, these efforts have all been prejudiced by the automatic assumption, derived from religious images, that Jesus was crucified head-up.

Given the uncertainty as to exactly how he was crucified, the answer may only ever come if some new archaeological evidence or piece of writing emerges from the shadows of the past, it says.

http://cnn.netscape.cnn.com/news/story.jsp?idq=/ff/story/7000/20060330/0325000001.htm

Discuss?

Those Wacky Creative Romans. :)

I've heard something of this debate before; I think it was something about how the nails should be going through his wrists, instead of his palms.

To me, it kind of makes sense. Depictions of Jesus are pretty culture-specific; most Europeans depict him as having brown, wavy hair and blue eyes, Celts have depicted him with blond or red hair, and African Christians have depicted him as a black man. In reality, he would look like a Hebrew, since, well, he was one, and he was indistinguishable from the locals according to one passage. It's thought now that he would probably have brown eyes, curly hair (probably cut short), and olive skin; I even heard that they think he might have been slightly pudgy.

Given that, it's entirely possible that the average depiction of the crucifixion is inaccurate, since the only eyewitnesses we have don't describe the event very clearly. It might be worth it to keep an eye on this.

Actually, they didn't put the nails through his hands. Because there is no way the hands would have been able to support his weight without ripping apart.
That is what my church beleives. We believe he was nailed throught the wrists.
The Bible does not say in what position Jesus was crucified specifically but it does say that Peter was crucified in the opposite manner. So if Jesus was heads up then Peter was heads down. And Jesus was heads down then we know that Peter was heads up.
I believe the Bible gives us a clue when it mentions that Peter was crucified heads down.

Does this really matter?
I mean, how Jesus is worship doesn't matter as long as he is being worshiped. The crucifix is just an emblem of the faith, not a scientific recreation.

Faith... I love the way christians hide their ignorance behind the term The GIFT of faith.

Faith... I love the way christians hide their ignorance behind the term The GIFT of faith.
I love the way atheists hide their ignorance behind their supposed "enlightenment".

Faith... I love the way christians hide their ignorance behind the term The GIFT of faith.
I'm glad you love that, yup we're ignorant so is every other human being. You have to be exetremely ignorant to not know you're ignorant.

So billions on the powerful symbols of Christianity are wrong?

Maybe. Christians have been wrong about a lot of things for a long time. The ethnocentricity thing is bang on. But does it really matter?

I love the way atheists hide their ignorance behind their supposed "enlightenment".

Aaah. Because the world is flat, the sun orbits the earth, and evolution is not true.

My mistake, I'll get with the program.


(PS: The last pope decreed that evolution may be true, if he didn't outright say it was believable.)

Lets stop bickering about theism. I think that this is just funny. Exuse me, I need to go out and buy my christian friends and family a tree-cruxifix with seat. And an inverse cross for that special someone (I hate).

Aaah. Because the world is flat, the sun orbits the earth, and evolution is not true.

My mistake, I'll get with the program.


(PS: The last pope decreed that evolution may be true, if he didn't outright say it was believable.)
I'm just playing Devils Advocate, I'm not even religous. But I do get annoyed when athisists think they know everything.

Crucifixes are silly anyway. If Jesus comes back to save us all from our mortal sins etc., do you really think he's going to want to see his followers wearing a cross?

I love the way atheists hide their ignorance behind their supposed "enlightenment".
Interesting that you would assume anybody who criticizes Christianity must be an atheist. Perhaps you are unaware of the many religious individuals who take issue with Christianity?

Crucifixes are silly anyway. If Jesus comes back to save us all from our mortal sins etc., do you really think he's going to want to see his followers wearing a cross?
I am thinking seeing one of thoes would cause him to re-enact the happy gillmore chubs seeing gator head scene

I would not want to see a symbol of how I was killed last time

The Romans were pretty creative in way they did these things. It could be wrong, but then it doesn't mean Christ wasn't nailed up the way we think he was.

Interesting that you would assume anybody who criticizes Christianity must be an atheist. Perhaps you are unaware of the many religious individuals who take issue with Christianity?
Bottle, Bottle, Bottle--can't you see that if an argument doesn't fit into a cute little dichotomy, then it's not worth having?

I am thinking seeing one of thoes would cause him to re-enact the happy gillmore chubs seeing gator head scene

I would not want to see a symbol of how I was killed last time

Hehe, exactly.

Interesting that you would assume anybody who criticizes Christianity must be an atheist. Perhaps you are unaware of the many religious individuals who take issue with Christianity?
I'm pretty sure anyone criticizing faith isn't religious.

Crucifixes are silly anyway. If Jesus comes back to save us all from our mortal sins etc., do you really think he's going to want to see his followers wearing a cross?
Kinda like wearing a swastica in reverence for those killed at Auschwitz, really.

I'm pretty sure anyone criticizing faith isn't religious.
There's a hell of a difference between criticizing Christianity and crticizing faith.

I'm pretty sure anyone criticizing faith isn't religious.
Criticising what you believe isn't the same as criticising the act of believing, nor the same as denying any possible validity underlying the origins of said belief.

i suppose its interesting to study the different ways one could be crucified. *shudder*

i dont see that it could matter if a crucifix is inaccurate in its depiction of the actual way jesus was crucified. as pennterra pointed out, its not like the rest of it is particularily correct anyway. no one knows what jesus looked like.

the only way i can think that it matters religiously is that it makes stigmata a psychosomatic disease rather than the gift of the wounds of jesus.

There's a hell of a difference between criticizing Christianity and crticizing faith.
Criticising what you believe isn't the same as criticising the act of believing, nor the same as denying any possible validity underlying said belief.
I you accually read what was put down originally......
Faith... I love the way christians hide their ignorance behind the term The GIFT of faith.
That is criticising both christianity and faith!

I find it funny that so much time is devoted to figuring out the cause of death of a man who might never have existed in the first place.

I you accually read what was put down original......

That is criticising both christianity and faith!
No it's not. It's a criticism of the Christian tendency to use the term "Faith" in dangerous ways.

Kinda like wearing a swastica in reverence for those killed at Auschwitz, really.

I was going to make a similar comment, but I ruled it out as tasteless. :p

No it's not. It's a criticism of the Christian tendency to use the term "Faith" in dangerous ways.
You still haven't read it have you.

I you accually read what was put down originally......

That is criticising both christianity and faith!
If you actually read what you wrote (which was, by the way, what we were responding to)
I'm pretty sure anyone criticizing faith isn't religious.
You see that word "anyone?" That defines a whole range of people outside that single quote you claim to have been responding to. If you don't want people jumping on you for making stupid claims, then don't make the stupid claims to begin with.

Crucifixes are silly anyway. If Jesus comes back to save us all from our mortal sins etc., do you really think he's going to want to see his followers wearing a cross?

Would you want to be associated with a religion where the chief symbol was a man nailed to some wood? Especially if that man was you? :p

Crucifixes are silly anyway. If Jesus comes back to save us all from our mortal sins etc., do you really think he's going to want to see his followers wearing a cross?

yeah, it seems like a warning, "Don't try it again Jesus, remember what happened last time."

Would you want to be associated with a religion where the chief symbol was a man nailed to some wood? Especially if that man was you? :p

Well, now that you put it like that...I wouldn't really care what people used as my symbol, as long as i'm revered as some sort of divine being. :D

You see that word "anyone?" That defines a whole range of people outside that single quote you claim to have been responding to. If you don't want people jumping on you for making stupid claims, then don't make the stupid claims to begin with.
You would never see the Pope criticize the Dali Lama for being too religous, this is the same priciple. It would be hypocritical.

Crucifixes are silly anyway. If Jesus comes back to save us all from our mortal sins etc., do you really think he's going to want to see his followers wearing a cross?

*jumps up and down* I geddit, I geddit!

Kinda like walking up to Jackie O (if she was still alive) with a rifle pendant... just keeping the dream alive Jackie. :D

Well, now that you put it like that...I wouldn't really care what people used as my symbol, as long as i'm revered as some sort of divine being. :D

Shouldn't be any symbols to begin with. The second commandment tells of "no graven images". Having you kneel in front of a representation of Christ on the cross seems like a graven image to me.

Well, now that you put it like that...I wouldn't really care what people used as my symbol, as long as i'm revered as some sort of divine being. :D

Yes, but being fastened to lumber and left to die is not exactly the image I'd like to bestow in my followers. If I'm going o be worshipped, I want it to be at one of my best moments. Like in the middle of kicking Pat Robertson in the groin. Now THERE is a symbol! :D

Yes, but being fastened to lumber and left to die is not exactly the image I'd like to bestow in my followers. If I'm going o be worshipped, I want it to be at one of my best moments. Like in the middle of kicking Pat Robertson in the groin. Now THERE is a symbol! :D

Why can't it be Chuck Norris you're kicking in the groin? I'd find that quite amusing. :D

Why can't it be Chuck Norris you're kicking in the groin? I'd find that quite amusing. :D

Been there, done that. :p

Would you want to be associated with a religion where the chief symbol was a man nailed to some wood?
Maybe the Christians got it completely wrong and Jesus was nailed by a man with 'wood'

Since the Romans killed in so many different ways of crucifying a person, does this mean we're going to have Mel Gibson make endless 'Passion' movies, all detailing yet another brutal way Christ could have been killed?
Maybe we'll be lucky and they'll all just be alternate endings when the director's cut DVD comes out.

Maybe the Christians got it completely wrong and Jesus was nailed by a man with 'wood'

Now THAT is a symbol! :D

Now THAT is a symbol! :D

And opens up ENDLESS possibilities for fun and humorous debate, don't you think?

Maybe the Christians got it completely wrong and Jesus was nailed by a man with 'wood'
And they say homosexuality isn't biblically endorsed.

And they say homosexuality isn't biblically endorsed.
Well, He did hang round 13 guys and their club rule seemed to be 'No girls!'.
Ok, if you're 7 or 8. But 30 and still not letting girls join your club? Hmmm...

Well, He did hang round 13 guys and their club rule seemed to be 'No girls!'.
Ok, if you're 7 or 8. But 30 and still not letting girls join your club? Hmmm...
He let girls join his club. There was one girl charter member and several honorary members, including Lazarus's sisters, as I recall. Then as now, girls were less interested in joining little clubs than guys -- you know, they had kids to feed and laundry to do -- but that doesn't mean they were excluded. In fact, wasn't Jesus's failure to exclude women the issue in one of the early church's big arguments with itself?

And they say homosexuality isn't biblically endorsed.

that's why it isn't biblically endorsed.

The Romans were pretty creative in way they did these things. It could be wrong, but then it doesn't mean Christ wasn't nailed up the way we think he was.
The Romans took pride in their creativity when it came to killing people, but what difference does it make now how they crucified him? What are we going to debate about next -- the length of his beard? Was it just one of those little goatee things, or was it long enough to riffle in the wind as he breathed his last? The crucifix is a symbol, people. It doesn't have to be correct; it doesn't even have to be a realistic portrayal. It just has to symbolize something. :rolleyes:

I highly doubt any Christian will care about how authentic their crusifex looks like. It's the idea of the resurection that's important. Anyway does anyone else find it odd that we pray to a guy on execution device? Will future religions pray to an electric chair?

Well, He did hang round 13 guys and their club rule seemed to be 'No girls!'.
Ok, if you're 7 or 8. But 30 and still not letting girls join your club? Hmmm...
Mark 14:51,52--A young man, wearing nothing but a linen garment, was following Jesus. When they seized him, he fled naked, leaving his garment behind.