Truth of the crucifixion?

by Letters Editor · February 17, 2011

From RG Pitchford, Middleburg

We are no sooner over the joyous celebrations of the birth of Christ than our minds turn to Lent and the crucifixion of our Lord Jesus Christ. The recorded accounts of the passion of Christ and the gospels and the 14th century painters onwards have always worried me. Since the gospels were written 50 years after the death of Christ there was no one alive who actually witnessed his crucifixion.

Death by crucifixion was the accepted form of execution while the Romans occupied Palestine, but to me the painters and the Church have tried to sanitise the crucifixion of Christ.

Let me state four myths of the crucifixion:

1. Christ never carried the cross, he only carried the cross beam made of a cruel branch of a tree tied behind his shoulders.

2. If he was nailed through the hands he would have fallen off the cross once it was elevated. He was in fact nailed through the wrists.

3. No one, including Christ in his humanity, could have survived more than half an hour with his arms outstretched, and already having suffered agony from the scourging at the pillar. He would have hyperventilated and died of asphyxia.

4. He may have hung on the cross for three hours, but I suggest that most of that time he was dead or comatose. We are never told how far Jesus carried his cross beam from the Praetorium to the top of Calvary. The centrepiece, a tree trunk to which criminals were tied to the crossbeam was already in place.

I have enjoyed the editor�s accounts of his pilgrimage to the Holy Land. Perhaps he could tell us how high the hill of Calvary was. I believe it overlooked the city of Jerusalem as a warning to other criminals. The crucifixion, though a momentous event to Christians was an everyday occurrence in the lives of residents of Jerusalem. In no way am I trying to diminish the passion and suffering of Christ.

I would appreciate constructive comments. Without his passion and suffering on the cross we would not have merited the fruits of Christ�s resurrection when he rose from the dead by the power of God in his divinity.

The Editor responds:

Briefly, crucifixion was a Roman form of deterrence, and Calvary, a stone quarry located just outside the city walls, must have been visible enough to be seen from Jerusalem. The height of the rock outcrop is impossible to determine accurately now, because it has been covered since the second century, successively by a Roman temple and then the churches of the Holy Sepulchre.

It is likely that Christ was forced to carry only the cross-beam; given Jerusalem�s shortage of wood that seems to have been normal. Of course, the significance of his final walk is not the weight of his physical burden, but the anguish and humiliation he was made to suffer.

Medieval artists obviously applied artistic licence to their interpretations of biblical events, but the insight that crucifixion by nailing through the palms was physiologically impossible is relatively modern.

There are many plausible theories about what would have caused death in those who were crucified, ranging from asphyxia to cardiac rupture to shock, or a combination of factors leading to cardiovascular collapse. In Jesus� day it was possible to �redeem� a crucified person by bribing Roman guards. This suggests that the period from crucifixion to death could last hours. In Jesus� case we have little to go on, but Mark�s gospel, the only one to provide a time for the crucifixion (�the third hour�, meaning 9am), suggests that death came quickly. He records that Pontius Pilate �was surprised to hear that he should have already died�. (15:44-45).