[whoracle]

“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.”- John Dominic Crossan, emeritus professor of religious studies at DePaul University in Chicago
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"The remains were found accidentally in an ossuary with the crucified man’s name on it, “Yehohanan, the son of Hagakol.” The ossuary contained a heel with a nail driven through its side, indicating that the heels may have been driven through the sides of the tree (one on the left side, one on the right side, and not with both feet together in front). The nail had olive wood on it indicating that he was crucified on a cross made of olivewood or on an olive tree. Since olive trees are not very tall, this would suggest that victims were crucified at eye level. His legs were found broken." - Zias, Joseph. “The Crucified Man from Giv’at Ha-Mivtar: A Reappraisal.” Israel Exploration Journal 35(1), 1985: 22–27.

Nothing big...just pointing out that I've seen two versions of that lone crucifixion find.

Also, I came across something called the "Swoon Theory" some time ago. I find it interesting, and somewhat plausible. If Jesus was just a man trying to prove a godlike image, then it seems absolutely probable that he'd use the medical skills of Luke to aid him in this. See below:

The swoon hypothesis refers to a number of theories that aim to explain the resurrection of Jesus, proposing that Jesus didn't die on the cross, but merely fell unconscious ("swooned"), and was later revived in the tomb in the same mortal body. Although this hypothesis has not been widely held by scholars, it has had noteworthy advocates for hundreds of years.

18th and 19th centuries
Early proponents of this theory include German theologian Karl Friedrich Bahrdt, who suggested in around 1780 that Jesus deliberately feigned his death, using drugs provided by the physician Luke to appear as a spiritual messiah and get Israel to abandon the idea of a political messiah. In this interpretation of the events described in the Gospels, Jesus was resuscitated by Joseph of Arimathea, with whom he shared a connection through a secret order of the Essenes—a group that appear in many of the "swoon" theories.

Around 1800, Karl Venturini proposed that a group of supporters dressed in white — who were, with Jesus, members of a "secret society" — had not expected him to survive the crucifixion, but heard groaning from inside the tomb, where Jesus had regained consciousness in the cool, damp air. They then frightened away the guards and rescued him.

A third rationalist theologian, Heinrich Paulus, wrote in various works from 1802 onwards that he believed that Jesus had fallen into a temporary coma and somehow revived without help in the tomb. He was critical of the vision hypothesis, and argued that the disciples must have believed that God had resurrected Jesus. Friedrich Schleiermacher, father of modern theology endorsed a form of Paulus' theory in the early 1830s.

A number of theories that suggest Jesus travelled to India also entail his survival of the crucifixion. In particular, Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, the founder of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Movement, spelled out this theory in his 1899 book Jesus in India.

20th century
Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh and Henry Lincoln, in their 1982 book Holy Blood, Holy Grail, speculated that Pontius Pilate was bribed to allow Jesus to be taken down from the cross before he was dead. In 1992, Barbara Thiering explored the theory in depth in her book Jesus and the Riddle of the Dead Sea Scrolls and on her web site "The Pesher of Christ" in the reference section. Other 20th-century proponents of various "swoon theories" include:

Ernest Brougham Docker (1920, in If Jesus Did Not Die on the Cross)
Robert Graves & Joshua Podro (1957, in Jesus in Rome)
Hugh J. Schonfield (1965, in The Passover Plot)
Donovan Joyce (1972, in The Jesus Scroll)
J.D.M. Derrett (1982, in The Anastasis: The Resurrection of Jesus as an Historical Event)
Holger Kersten (1994, in Jesus lived in India)

Additionally, the Talmud Jmmanuel, discovered in 1963, is a purported ancient text that suggests that Jesus did not die on the cross. However, this text is widely considered a hoax.





Some very devout Catholics are voluntarily, non-lethally crucified for a limited time on Good Friday, to imitate the suffering of Jesus Christ. A notable example is the ceremonial re-enactment that has been performed yearly in the town of Iztapalapa, on the outskirts of Mexico City, since 1833. [3]

Devotional crucifixions are also common in the Philippines, even driving nails through the hands (e.g. a man vowed to do it 15 times after a difficult childbirth). In San Pedro Cutad, devotee Ruben Enaje has been crucified 18 times, as of 2004, during Passion Week celebrations.

Was it really always intended to be lethal? Or was the humiliation of being stripped naked with added pain of nails through your hands while you were held up on the post or cross by a platform at the feet enough for some?