Was crucifixion rare?

[Epictetus]

A new thesis casts doubt on Roman crucifixion.

The many different accounts of the crucifixion of Jesus find little support in historical sources. The reason is that antique sources generally lack descriptions of crucifixions, says Gunnar Samuelsson, University of Gothenburg, who recently finished his doctoral thesis on the topic…

'The problem is that descriptions of crucifixions are remarkably absent in the antique literature,' says Samuelsson. 'The sources where you would expect to find support for the established understanding of the event really don't say anything’…

The thesis clearly shows that although the studied texts are full of references to suspension of objects and the equipment used to this end, no reference is made to 'crosses' or 'crucifixion'. Samuelsson therefore concludes that the predominant account of the destiny of Jesus is not based on the antique texts, but rather on for example the tradition of the Christian church and artistic illustrations.

'Consequently, the contemporary understanding of crucifixion as a punishment is severely challenged. And what's even more challenging is that the same can be concluded about the accounts of the crucifixion of Jesus. The New Testament doesn't say as much as we'd like to believe', says Samuelsson.

Gothenburg University release
Abstract

Now that I think about this, I can’t recall of many instances of crucifixion inflicted as a punishment. Spartacus’ men, Jesus, that one ankle bone found in Israel(?)… and that’s about it. What other instances can you think of?

[MARCvSVIBIvSMAvRINvS]

This is total nonsense.

Crucifixion was not rare at all, it was one of the most common punishments for slaves, non-citizen criminals and enemy combattants when there was an uprising.

Josephus writes about thousands of people fleeing Jerusalem being crucified, and when the Roman soldiers got bored, they started to hang the victims in the most ridiculous poses, just for fun. The combattants of spartacus were crucified along the via appia. In Jerusalem a grave was found of a young man who was crucified. Numerous classical writers wrote about crucifixio as a punishment. Petronius writes about a slave who got crucified by his owner, a freedman.
Petrus, the apostle was crucified upside down............ et cetera et cetera et cetera.

M.VIB.M.

[Gaius Julius Caesar]

Yes it was very rare..only several thousands reffered to in those few accounts....(including the reference to the multiples ......) :roll:

[MARCvSVIBIvSMAvRINvS]

LOL

M.VIB.M.

[Epictetus]

I forgot Josephus. I think Seneca mentions it too, but I can't remember where and couldn't find it in a word search.

I also found this interview in the Telegraph:

He claims the Bible has been misinterpreted as there are no explicit references the use of nails or to crucifixion - only that Jesus bore a "staurus" towards Calvary which is not necessarily a cross but can also mean a "pole".

I thought that most "crucifixions" were on a pole, not a cross. :?: I guess there may be some definition issues in this thesis. I suppose that, strictly speaking, being nailed to a pole is not a crucifixion, as the Latin means the use of a cross. So perhaps, according to this fellow, the thousands of Spartacus' men were not crucified if they were nailed to poles. Correct? And taking this one step farther, perhaps he is suggesting Jesus was nailed (or tied?) to a pole, not a cross.

It's a bit difficult to guess his whole idea without reading the thesis.

[M. Demetrius]

I have read that Nero crucified a whole batch of folks and set them on fire to light a garden party, but that may be anti-Nero propaganda. But in any case, it was probably only done once. Once per customer, that is.

Jesus more probably carried the patibulum (crosspiece) and not the whole cross, as that writer suggests. It's not as easy as some would think to fasten the upright pole so it will stay vertical and not fall over with the weight and leverage of a human body. More likely, the upright was already there, dug into the ground, and the crosspiece fitted one way or another to it at the time the sentence was carried out.

While I'd have to check (and time doesn't permit at this moment) to confirm or deny the nail issue the writer in the Telegraph article brings up, the Gospels do mention that there were wounds in Jesus' wrists/hands and feet. Ropes don't immediately jump forward to the forefront as the culprits of those. And as mentioned below, there was a chunk of olive wood and foot bones fastened together by a Roman nail, found in a tomb. Again, I don't remember the exact specifics on that, as it was maybe ten years ago that I read that article.

Off to work with me now. :wink:

[MARCvSVIBIvSMAvRINvS]

Bones of a Crucified Man

Because most crucified people were crudely buried, or perhaps left for animals to devour, we don't have much archeological evidence of crucifixion in Judea, though nobody doubts that thousands of Jews were crucified by the Romans. In 1968, however, an ossuary (box filled with bones) was found in a cave at Giv'at ha-Mivtar in Jerusalem. This box contained the bones of a crucified man. The bones, with a nail still in place in the heels, have allowed scholars to learn more about the specific techniques of crucifixion employed by the Romans.

http://www.english.imjnet.org.il/htmls/ ... &bsp=13027

Jesus more probably carried the patibulum (crosspiece) and not the whole cross, as that writer suggests. It's not as easy as some would think to fasten the upright pole so it will stay vertical and not fall over with the weight and leverage of a human body. More likely, the upright was already there, dug into the ground, and the crosspiece fitted one way or another to it at the time the sentence was carried out.

which seems only correct considering the flagellatio he had to suffer. in my opinion the flagellatio portrayed in the passion, however much you might hate the film, is very, very accurate in all of its horror. Christ would not even have been physically up to the task of wearing the entire crux over that stretch...



Btw there still is debate on where Golgotha would have actually been....

M.VIB.M.

[Gaius Julius Caesar]

Perhaps that is his foot? Any dating on it?

[MARCvSVIBIvSMAvRINvS]

Click on the link !! LOL

Dating, first century, Herodian period.
what the link fails to mention are the wrist bones which had minute traces of iron in them and were damaged the way a nail would do. Also, the wood was olive, and the side planks were either cedar or some other wood i dont have the full excavation report at hand...

http://www.imj.org.il/imagine/item.asp?itemNum=191543

M.VIB.M.

[Gaius Julius Caesar]

Click on the link !! LOL

M.VIB.M.

Yes, that did help lol :oops:

[M. Demetrius]

The interesting things to me from that nail in the link (that's the one I mentioned earlier, but couldn't remember the source, BTW) is that it's a double-headed nail, intended to be more easily removed, but the tip evidently bent around a knot or something inside the upright, so I couldn't be pulled. The source I read way back when said that there was a chunk of wood still clinging to the nail.

Darned if I haven't encountered nails just that tough when deconstructing old stuff. They defy a claw hammer or nail puller. Grr. :?

[Sean Manning]

This is total nonsense.

Crucifixion was not rare at all, it was one of the most common punishments for slaves, non-citizen criminals and enemy combattants when there was an uprising.

According to a clearer summary I read, the author's argument is that there is lots of evidence of executing people by suspending them from different things, but very little of killing people by suspending them from a cross. We translate all these as "crucifixion" but I'd bet there are several Latin and Greek words for them. I'll have to read Summarson's paper, but it sounds interesting. One obvious question would be how the detail about the cross entered the story of Jesus' death.

[MARCvSVIBIvSMAvRINvS]

the basic flaw in his theory is that he thinks there have been many ways to suspend people as punishment, and then he does not even know why in Latin there is only one word for the punishment this Judaean rebel got, namely crucifixio, and not suspensatio or something like that...

He does not translate the arameic texts, nor the greek transcript, nor even ancient hebrew texts. He should read the Talmud, Mishnah and Tanach which mention also punishments by Roman if i remember correctly.

Why would Romans suspend someone from a standing pole, or even nail someone to the pole ? you cannot get the same physiscal strain on the body resulting in death, the arms need to be spread out, the body needs to hang crooked, and the nails are there not only to hold the body, but also to cause excruciating pain since they attack the nerve crossroads in the body.

The part in the new testament talks of wounds in the hands feet and side, the original arameic does not. The original text, as does the bible speaks of the breaking of the legs, a proven method to let death set in very very quickly because the ligament turning of shoulder bones due to the weight of the body falling down immediately causes dissipation of all air from the lungs, followed by the filling of them by body fluids.

I think his theory is massively flawed, and that is an understatement.

M.VIB.M.

[Sean Manning]

Why would Romans suspend someone from a standing pole, or even nail someone to the pole ? you cannot get the same physiscal strain on the body resulting in death, the arms need to be spread out, the body needs to hang crooked, and the nails are there not only to hold the body, but also to cause excruciating pain since they attack the nerve crossroads in the body.

Herodotus 9.120 "they nailed [Artayctes the Persian commander] to a plank of wood and suspended him from it, and then stoned his son to death before his eyes." I'd imagine that our knowledge of how suspension punishments kill people is theoretical.

Have you read this guy's whole thesis? I'll suspend judgement until I've at least read the first and last chapters.

[MARCvSVIBIvSMAvRINvS]

Herodotus 9.120 "they nailed [Artayctes the Persian commander] to a plank of wood and suspended him from it, and then stoned his son to death before his eyes."

Nowhere does it say Artayctes died. The thesis is about Roman cucifixion during Tiberius' reign, not about Greek or Persian punishments in the 5th century BC.

M.VIB.M.