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Anyone ever notice that the crucified Jesus is shown in pictures as being both nailed and also tied to his cross? In the bible he is said to have "nail scarred hands" then apologists claim the actual nails were in the wrist because we all know nails in your hands will not hold you to a cross. My stepfather told me he stayed on the cross because he was supposed to stay there. Does anyone know just how the Romans crucified people? In the original texts the cross is called a torture stake. It appears to me that the ancient Catholics needed a symbol and a stake was not a good one. Dan Barker also agrees with me on the "torture stake" and he was Pentecostal. How would you wear a stake on a necklace as a symbol of anything? In modern times the necklace emblem could be an electric chair or an injection gurney.

DenoPenno 9 Oct 25
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26 comments

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5

live by the sword, die by the sword; live as a carpenter, die by nails & boards1

mzee Level 7 Oct 25, 2019
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Looking for consistency in faith narratives, that way madness lies...

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Woah, hold on there a minute. You mean to tell me the bible got something wrong?

Well this changes everything

1of5 Level 8 Oct 25, 2019
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Did you heard the one about Jesus going to the salon to have his nails done?

No, but I heard the one about a Jewish bloke, dressed in a blood stain robe walking into the Reception Desk of a Motel, putting 3 huge nails onto the desk and asking " Could you put me up for the night?" LOL.

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You have a picture of Jesus nailed and tied to the cross? Or have you seen drawings? (Sorry, had to!)

I could swear they did something on this years ago and found that nailing through the palms wouldn't support the weight of a human... You would have to nail through the wrists. Or through the palms and be tied.

This kind of smacks of wearing a belt and suspenders though... Not sure I could do that.

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I've read speculation that it may have been both because crucifixion is of course an extreme prejudice punishment so one of the executioners' goals would have been to make him live and suffer for as long a time as possible.

Since the whole thing is just a fiction anyway, they could say anything they wanted. Maybe he was nailed to the cross with unicorn horns. Lol.🤔

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This is just arguing over dogma. Hell, there really isn't any proof in the historical record he ever existed. I was curious about this way back and did some digging. I earned there is no mention of him by any of the historical chroniclers of his supposed time. Nothing. He only shows up in religious documents approximately 200 years after he was supposed to have died. When you do some digging into the history of the Bible and the accepted image of Jesus you learn some interesting things.

Nothing was official until over 300 years after he supposedly died. Believers keep thrusting "early church fathers" at us but those people came out of that era.

To put this in perspective for today I have to admit I can tell you very little about anyone from our 1700's even though I can read about them. Nobody alive today remembers them.

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...on the other hand, had the legend indicated that Jesus was stoned to death, those who genuflect would have to pummel themselves about the face and chest with closed fists.

~~ Disclaimer - can't take credit/fault for that one; not my original joke ~~

AND, IF this Jeebus were a boilermaker and not the step-son (???) of a Carpenter WOULD he have been 'welded up' to a couple of 'Old Boilers' ( Old Wizened Hags) instead? LOL.

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A stake is a phallic symbol. I think in light of Christian BS, a phallic symbol would be appropriate.

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One thing paintings and depictions of a crucifixion seem to always get wrong is that persons who were crucified were stripped completely naked... no loin cloths were used.

I think you have a point with the "torture stake". The cross was probably adapted from earlier religious symbols from other religions, such as the Egyptian Ankh.

As for beign both tied and nailed, I think that is probably accurate, as they probably tied the limbs to be held in place, so they could drive nails into them. Also, if it was just a stake, then tying the hands at the wrists (tightly) to the stake would mean you could drive a nail through the hands without the body weight causing the nail to tear through them. If the hands (above the head) and feet were bound tightly to the stake, and then nails were driven into the hands and feet to limit movement, that would be very tortuous. The binding would also keep a person from pulling the hands and/or feet over the nail heads. If it were just nails a person may escape if they had a high enough pain tolerance by workggn their hands and feet past the nail heads.

Man, I have way too much time on my hands to think this through this far.

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That is because actual scientific experiments (with cadavers) has established that nails alone would not support the body weight, they flesh would tear & cause the body to drop off. So they had to be through the wrists and/or ropes had to add support.

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Well, those details I'll leave for others, but what I find interesting is the story about how they took him down, wrapped him up and put him in a tomb. Yes, the Romans allowed the crucified to be taken down after death and given nice burials. Rubbish! As historian Bart Erhmann has written, the punishment of crucifixion involved having the bodies rot and disintegrate on the cross; it was a political punishment, designed to impose fear on locals. The rotting remains were then dragged into pits or dragged onto fires and burnt. So, if Jesus came back in a few days he either crawled out a pit of corpses like something in The Zombie Apocalypse or walked out of the fire like a Terminator robot. Don't tell Christians. Jesus was special, they say, and it was different for him, because the Romans knew he was son of God. What!? So, why the frig did they kill him? Hopeless cult followers.

“Greco-Roman texts show that in certain cases the bodies of the crucified were left to decompose in place. In other cases, the crucified bodies were buried.”

Cook, J.G. (2011). Crucifixion and Burial. New Testament Studied Vol 57 (2) pp.193-213. Cambridge University Press. DOI: [doi.org]

@Geoffrey51 I'm impressed by Erhmann's view that the tomb of Jesus story is a fanciful story concocted by 4th century Christians. He researched it thoroughly, he said. He believes there was a historical figure who was crucified, not son of God, but not the tomb story. I'm not a world famous christologist, like him, but it sounds fanciful to me.

@David1955 I agree. Erhmann, to my mind is a leading light in the field. It would be encouraging if more people would pay attention to his work on early C1st Levantine social culture, particularly to frame the Christ story.

I was just pointing out that there are alternative ways of disposing of a crucified body if you have the money!

@Geoffrey51 true, but i suspect, as does Erhmann, that anyone executed for sedition against Rome would have their remains treated as awfully as possible, not wrapped in cloth and put in a tomb.

@David1955 According to NT Pilate didn’t want him crucified anyway, so handing the corpse to a mad Pharisee and also a member of the Sanhedrin, for a few sheckles would have been a reasonable transaction.

@Geoffrey51 you actually believe the Pilate story, washing his hands...and all that!. Really?! Every secular historian I've read says this was Roman fake history, from the 4th century. They had to blame the Jews, right? I'm a mythicist on Jesus, but even historicists like Erhmann discount this Constantinian period yarn. Oh Pilate didn't want him dead, oh no, he was so concerned, and so was Mrs. Pilate. Yeah, right!

@David1955 Well, that was a bit of a tirade! I did say according to NT!

Anyway, I’ve now looked further into Papyrus 66 and the John verse, referred as John 19:38, which contains the Joseph of Aramathea/Pilate interaction is one of the parts not included and so open to fraudulent inclusion.

Thanks for making me dig deeper!

@Geoffrey51 it was meant as a bit of a joke. Sorry if it didn't come across.

@David1955 no probs!

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The symbolism of Protestant Christianity focuses on the cross whereas Catholic and Eastern Orthodox use the crucifix. Personally I don’t give any thought at all to any Christian symbolism, but the history of the use of crucifixion as a punishment by the Romans and others is quite a different matter, and would be an interesting subject to study.

@Fernapple Crucifixion was one of 3 methods used by the Romans to send a strong message. Don't mess with Rome. They were painful and the worst part was the bodies were destroyed so no one could go to an afterlife as bodies had to be intact for that around 75 ACE so many Jews were crucified that one could see crosses to the horizon. Bodies were left on the cross for raptors to pick at the bodies so the idea one person was let down sounds really fishy. Also, it has been shown by anatomists that the spikes were put into the wrist as the hands could not support the weight of a body. It has also been shown the person often suffocated when they passed out and the body fell forward which put too much pressures on the lungs.

When I visited Rome my class went through one catacomb and in this catacomb was the first symbol of a cross. It was dated around 3rd century ACE.

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Not too good on this subject but from around 40 CE Seneca the Younger gives this observation

"I see crosses there, not just of one kind but made in many different ways: some have their victims with head down to the ground; some impale their private parts; others stretch out their arms on the gibbet."

Seneca, Dialogue "To Marcia on Consolation", in Moral Essays, 6.20.3, trans. John W. Basore, The Loeb Classical Library (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1946) 2:69

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  1. Crucification was more a public last torture than execution itself.
  2. If you want to go to this kind of details of the narrative you need to look into the original text or someone that can explain the translation.
  3. The gospels were written a lot of time by compiling the histories that people told and probably not by the guys who saw it (but by the followers of those guys). So it is natural that even if the original story was consistent (not necessarily true), after some times of spoken tradition of isolated groups, some differences arrise.
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Howdy! I have done a bit of research on this and from what I found we simply do not know. We do know that it was a popular thing with the Romans. There was one foot found with a nail still in it otherwise it is all guess work.

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Yes there’s controversy about that. But as far as I’m concerned there was no Jesus so it’s a moot point.

1

The Romans used to use the beam which formed your front door. They ripped that out so the family of the condemned was left without a house. I do not think they actually used cross beams, but tied (to prevent struggle) and then nailed hands above the head and legs below.
But my roman history is rusty . . .that is what I recall.

1

They tied them ... Christianity change it to nails but only to make his punishment more severe ... they like a good story to convert the population ..

1

How the Romans generally crucified people has long been a subject of speculation for historians. The best consensus at this time, seems to be that. The victim was hung from the cross by ropes around the arms, which caused extreme pain and difficulty breathing after a short while. So that nails were placed in as well, which meant that the victim could try to ease the discomfort of hanging by the arms, by putting some weight on to the nails and trying to move, which was in turn very painful of course. This kept the victim constantly squirming for as long as their strength lasted, and was seen therefore as part of the punishment. In any case it would not have been possible, simply to rope the victim to the cross, because the arms would have shrunk and slipped out as the blood drained from them. Later, it is thought it was common to puncture the victims side below the ribs, with say a spear, to let out the fluid which formed in the chest cavity. Which stopped the fluid choking the victim and therefore prolonged the suffering.

Some people have made the point that it was perhaps a stake and not a cross which was used, one explanation for this however is that it was both. The stake being a fixture, and the cross/cross bar being the part carried by the victim. This makes since since the crowd would not want to watch while holes were dug and stakes planted, but watching the victim being lifted or hoisted into place may well have been part of the entertainment.

There is of couse no certainy that it was always carried out in exactly the same way.

1

The cross as a symbol was used long before Christianity and as the early christians used many pagan symbols, feast days etc it is quite possible that they changed the stake for the cross.
I believe that JW's use the stake instead of the cross.

1

This was very important when I was a Jehovah's Witness. I think stake is correct (Greek stauros, if memory serves well). If so, I guess one hand had to be placed behind the other and a nail put hammered through the two of them. This would put more strain on the nail (poor nail!) than one nail per hand on a cross. Maybe that's why the hands were tied to the stake with a rope as well.

That is a very good point that it was perhaps a stake and not a cross which was used, one common explanation for this however is that it was both. The stake being a fixture, and the cross/cross bar being the part carried by the victim. This makes since since the crowd would not want to watch while holes were dug and stakes planted, but watching the victim being lifted or hoisted into place may well have been part of the entertainment.

Very good points as it says "stake" in the Greek and death is actually caused by not being able to breath after a time.

0

FWIW -- Yeshua (Jesus) was crucified Friday PM around 2 PM. He was then taken down for the Sabbath (guess what -- that was only 4 hours later). Sabbath (Saturday), or every day, begins at sun down -- the day begins in darkness. When they went to put him back on the cross (Sunday) -- remember Sat evening around 6 PM? -- he was gone. Not 3 whole days -- barely 30 hours. The whole story is predicated on magic number 3...

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The word for hand in both Greek and Aramaic includes the wrist, but was translated simply as hand.
It was long since recognized that the hands were not capable of holding the weight of a body, so artist took to painting the wrists as ties and the hands pierced.
However in Latin the words are different and in the accounts of the followers of Spartacus and his followers it is clearly stated in the Roman history that they were nailed by the wrists and feet.
But of course in the minds of medieval theologians the Bible could not be "wrong" so hands it had to be.
Crucifixion was still being used as a method of execution as lates as the first world war and it was always wrists that were nailed.
Hence when the Shroud of Turin was faked during the renaissance the the image is shown as having been nailed through the wrists, because in the 15th and 16th century this was how people were still being crucified.

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