Image of Jesus' crucifixion may be wrong, says study

[zynner]

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. ADVERTISEMENT 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://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20060330...n_060329234231

Hmm..."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."

Upsidedown with his ass facing forward would paint an interesting picture for Christmas Mass...

LOL

"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,"

Further evidence that the story of the burial, the stone, and later resurrection are made up fantasies.

~ zynner

[Technosoul]

That study is totally useless. What are people going to believe, a study or the Bible and what their churches have been telling them for ages. They will not believe the study. Only people who dislike religion will try to make a big deal out of it, which has been done before, and not a single Christian has changed their belief about how they image his death.

[Sgt. Rock]

Further evidence that the story of the burial, the stone, and later resurrection are made up fantasies.

~ zynner

I'm a Theology/Philosophy major and I can say for a fact that the traditional depictions of the crucifixion are probably wrong. The general method of crucifixion varied quite a bit. Some were nailed to posts, some to trees etc. Some were tied to a tree with rope and had their legs broken. From what I have read almost all were male and were crucified naked to add humiliation to the punishment. Because the exact method of crucifixion varied does not negate the fact that Christ was crucified. FYI you do not need to belive in the divinity of Christ to accept that he was crucified. There were and are a lot of Jews and muslims who hold this view.

[Chancellor]

Quote by: Technosoul That study is totally useless. What are people going to believe, a study or the Bible and what their churches have been telling them for ages. They will not believe the study. Only people who dislike religion will try to make a big deal out of it, which has been done before, and not a single Christian has changed their belief about how they image his death.

Just the fact that it came from France made it useless. I certainly don't agree that the crucifixion was what the medieval painters portrayed but the Frogs seem to be intentionally trying to discredit Christian faith and the character who posted his own idiotic remarks with the article is just as bad.

[Rave7pt0]

What difference does it make at all??

[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
-------------
"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?

[phoenix_fire]

That's like asking if lethal injection was always intended to be lethal. N'duh. These stories conveniently omit the fact that He had a spear shoved through His side. The Romans made sure these people were dead.

[whoracle]

But is that really a fact? Every one of your Christian depictions I've ever seen shows a gash on his side, not a hole as if he'd been gored...I guess that would be akin to why those same depictions cover his loin with a cloth....because we both know that didn't happen either.

[phoenix_fire]

Depictions are just art. You should never take them as 100% accurate. Many depictions of Jesus show Him as having blonde hair and blue eyes, but we know that's not true either. I'm sure the Muslims would have the same problem if they allowed depictions of Mohammed. The fact of the matter is that the accounts of the crucifixion and what we know from historical sources on crucifixion is that the soldiers made sure the people were dead. Sometimes that meant sticking a spear through the side. Sometimes that meant breaking the person's legs so that they would suffocate as they were no longer able to support their own weight. John says that blood and water actually came out of Christ's side when He was pierced with the spear, so it was hardly a scrape. Crucifixion was meant to be a slow, painful, and humiliating death, but Roman soldiers expedited it if they had to.

[Sgt. Rock]

Quote by: whoracle But is that really a fact? Every one of your Christian depictions I've ever seen shows a gash on his side, not a hole as if he'd been gored...I guess that would be akin to why those same depictions cover his loin with a cloth....because we both know that didn't happen either.

You are right about the loin cloth. The condemended were striped to add to the humiliation of being hung on a tree. For a Jew this type of death was the worst way to go. They believed that if someone died in this way they were cursed. This is in fact stated in the Torah. This is one of the major reasons the Jews of that time rejected Christ as Messiah. For them it was unthinkable for the Messiah to be hung on a tree and therefore cursed.

As far as the gash/hole in the ribs the scripture states that water and blood flowed from the wound. This can only happen if the pericardium is peirced. This is accurate because if someone is stabbed in the heart the pericardium would rupture first and the clear pericardial fluid would leak out first followed by blood from the heart itself. :)

[Allas]

Sometimes he was nailed to the cross by his genitals

Oh my fucking god...



Personally i think the topic is a little redundant, seeing as i dont even believe a historical jesus existed.

[Jack]

I remember George Carlin saying once that it was a good thing for christians that Jesus hadn't been sentenced to a modern death. If he had, they'd all be walking around with little electric chairs on a chain around their necks.

[phoenix_fire]

Eh. It might be good if that were true. People seem to forget that the cross was an instrument of torture, humiliation, and execution. The meaning is so quickly submerged. It detracts from comprehension of just how painful a sacrifice Christ made. If people realized the relevance, perhaps they would not be so flippant about their beliefs.

[whoracle]

and here i thought the cross was something with which to stabilize the body *during* the torture, humiliation and eventually death...

[phoenix_fire]

... :eek: :rolleyes: