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DaveBj
Guest
Yes, Johanan, don’t remember when his skeleton was found, but it’s been some years ago.
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patrick457
Guest
Actually, it was his heelbone.
Let’s review: in 1968, building contractors accidentally undug a tomb (dating from near the time of Jesus; it was in use from the 2nd century BC up until AD 70) at a suburb of Jerusalem known as Givat ha-Mivtar. (Givat ha-Mivtar is home to quite a number of tombs from the period; this is but one of them.) Archaeologists who were called to excavate the site found ossuaries - stone boxes where the bones of the dead are placed after the flesh had rotted away - containing the bones of various individuals. By itself, this is nothing extraordinary; ossuaries were after all a feature of some Jewish burials in those days.
What caught the eye of academics though was the bones of a man between twenty-four and twenty-eight years of age deposited in one of the ossuaries (along with the bones of two or three more people). This man’s left heel bone had a bent nail sticking out of it, with fragments of wood still sticking in the nail. This man was dubbed ‘Jehohanan’ (Yehohanan - the longer form of the name Yohanan ‘John’) after the name scratched in the box the man’s bones were found in.
http://cojs.org/cojswiki/images/thu...300px-Ossuary_of_Yehohanan_son_of_Hagakol.jpg
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-GmLnVwy_4IE/TkQq-BTvaTI/AAAAAAAAFAs/c53lddwKxDk/s1600/1.png
'Jehohanan’s heel bone at the time of discovery
Judging by the remains of wood between the head of the nail and the heel bone, it would seem that the nail was driven into Jehohanan’s heel on purpose: the nail was probably first driven through a sort of wooden plaque or washer before it was driven through Jehohanan’s heel. With this nail, Jehohanan’s heel was pinned onto something made out of olive wood; the nail was likely bent because it encountered a hard knot in the wood. It would seem that the washer was used to increase the head of the nail, making it difficult for Jehohanan to free his leg. The bent nail is only preserved because apparently, the people who buried Jehohanan could not take it off.
The fact that wood and nail was involved may point out to Jehohanan being executed in a form of punishment somewhat similar to that of Jesus - in other words, he was crucified.
Anthropologist Nicu Haas of the Department of Anatomy at Hebrew University recontructed and studied Jehohanan’s bones. He published his findings in 1970, where he concluded that Jehohanan was crucified, and that “[Jehohanan’s] feet were joined almost parallel, both transfixed by the same nail at the heels, with the legs adjacent; the knees were doubled, the right one overlapping the left; the trunk was contorted; the upper limbs were stretched out, each stabbed by a nail in the forearm.” Haas saw supposed evidence for the nails from abrasions in the arm bones; broken leg bones led him to think that Jehohanan’s legs were shattered.
http://www.biblearchaeology.org/image.axd?picture=2009%2F10%2FTwoProposals.jpg
Haas’ reconstruction
Haas was unable to examine the remains any further however, partly because of serious health problems on his part and partly because of the insistent demands of the Jewish religious community for reburial of the bones. (This is actually an issue whenever archaeologists dig up bones in the Holy Land: ultra-orthodox Jews view the excavation and the study of human remains as a violation of the deceased’s repose and often clamor for the bones’ reburial as soon as possible.) In the end, most of Jehohanan’s bones were reburied, except for the reconstructed heelbone.
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patrick457
Guest
(Continued)
In 1985, though, two experts called into question Dr. Haas’ original conclusions. Archaeologist Joseph ‘Joe’ Zias and Dr. Eliezer Sekeles, in their reappraisal of the bones, pointed out that the nail was too actually short for it to pierce both ankles, as in Haas’ reconstruction. In fact, what were previously thought to be fragments of two heel bones through which the nail passed were shown to be fragments of only one heel bone and a long bone. (In fact, it seems Haas actually misidentified some bones: they didn’t belong to Jehohanan at all but to the other individuals ‘buried’ in the same box.)
Moreover, while Haas claimed to have found evidence of injury to the forearms, Zias and Sekeles found no such evidence (the scratches in the wrist area were determined to be non-traumatic); so they say Jehohanan’s arms could have simply well been tied to the cross. They disputed that Jehohanan’s legs were broken on purpose as Haas claimed either; they said it was apparently based on “inconclusive evidence.” A right talus or ankle bone was found with a cut on it; Haas thought it was Jehohanan’s and that this was evidence that his legs were broken and cut off at some point. However, Zias and Sekeles argued that the talus was someone else’s: it belonged to a third individual buried in the same ossuary (up to that point, people thought that there were only the bones of two individuals.)
On the basis of their findings, Zias and Sekeles reconstructed Jehohanan’s crucifixion like this.
(Please Note: This uploaded content is no longer available.)
In 1985, though, two experts called into question Dr. Haas’ original conclusions. Archaeologist Joseph ‘Joe’ Zias and Dr. Eliezer Sekeles, in their reappraisal of the bones, pointed out that the nail was too actually short for it to pierce both ankles, as in Haas’ reconstruction. In fact, what were previously thought to be fragments of two heel bones through which the nail passed were shown to be fragments of only one heel bone and a long bone. (In fact, it seems Haas actually misidentified some bones: they didn’t belong to Jehohanan at all but to the other individuals ‘buried’ in the same box.)
Moreover, while Haas claimed to have found evidence of injury to the forearms, Zias and Sekeles found no such evidence (the scratches in the wrist area were determined to be non-traumatic); so they say Jehohanan’s arms could have simply well been tied to the cross. They disputed that Jehohanan’s legs were broken on purpose as Haas claimed either; they said it was apparently based on “inconclusive evidence.” A right talus or ankle bone was found with a cut on it; Haas thought it was Jehohanan’s and that this was evidence that his legs were broken and cut off at some point. However, Zias and Sekeles argued that the talus was someone else’s: it belonged to a third individual buried in the same ossuary (up to that point, people thought that there were only the bones of two individuals.)
On the basis of their findings, Zias and Sekeles reconstructed Jehohanan’s crucifixion like this.
(Please Note: This uploaded content is no longer available.)
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Faith1960
Guest
I know that was the heel bone, I saw something else that turned out to be, I think, just a post on Yahoo, which means nothing.
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TheHolyTrinity
Guest
This PDF goes into extreme detail on crucifixion in the era of Our Lord Jesus. Common practice at the time was wrists. Has lots of references that could be reviewed as well.
godandscience.org/apologetics/deathjesus.pdf"]On the Physical Death of Jesus Christ
godandscience.org/apologetics/deathjesus.pdf"]On the Physical Death of Jesus Christ
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patrick457
Guest
This is where I’ll give a word of advice. Medical descriptions of crucifixion are pretty common nowadays, but in reality, most of these are actually just 90-95% conjecture.
The two things to know about these descriptions are: first, these descriptions all rely more on the Shroud of Turin than actual ancient sources (which admittedly, don’t go into specific details about how crucifixions were precisely done). Now, like some Christians out there I believe the Shroud could be that of Jesus, but at the same time, I think we need to be honest: the issue is still open, and may not be resolved conclusively for a long time. So IMHO, over-reliance on a still-disputed artifact such as the Shroud is really unwise, if you’re doing serious historical work or something along those lines. In reality, these articles that claim to describe crucifixion medically are actually “A medical description of how the man in the Shroud of Turin could have died (assuming that it was Jesus and that He was crucified).”
And this is where we go into the second thing: there was likely no ‘standard’ way of performing crucifixion.
In fact, there was at least one recent scholar (Gunnar Samuelsson, if you care about the name) who recently argued that there really was no such thing as ‘crucifixion’ per se in the ancient world, but rather, different forms of ‘suspension/hanging punishments’ that, while sharing some common key terms (for example, crux or stauros), are really separate punishments on their own right. Samuelsson claims our modern idea of ‘crucifixion’ ultimately comes from the specific ‘hanging punishment’ that Jesus was subjected to. Now there was no set written-in-stone formula for suspension punishments, other than it involves, well, hanging the person in some way; there were a lot of variations, so technically, the type of suspension punishment Jesus experienced is really just something unique to and specific to that event. Samuelsson argued that so far, scholars have been reading the ancient sources wrong: up to now it was common to mishmash together various ancient descriptions of different hanging punishments and to understand them as different variations on a single, customary, set form of punishment. On the other hand, he prescribes that each texts which describe a form of hanging should be viewed on their own terms as specific and different forms of execution, not harmonize them together. So Jesus’ ‘crucifixion’ should not be conflated with the ‘crucifixion’ of Spartacus’ followers or the Jews in AD 70.
Now to be fair, others have criticized Samuelsson’s views as being too minimalistic and too focused only on literary descriptions, but I believe he’s right about at least one point: that there is no ‘standard’ way of doing crucifixion, no fixed guideline that the executioners should follow. Most everything was left to the whim of the ones who’ll do the hanging.
BTW, do you know the one, single thing we know for sure that was consistent across different ‘hanging executions’ (because it can be found across the different ancient sources)? The person to be crucified was whipped or beaten in some way first. That’s it. Aside from this one, single element, almost nothing else was likely the same across different executions. In some executions the victim could be made to carry his own gibbet or a part of it before being hung on it (as in Jesus’ case), but in other cases, the gibbet was already erected in advance. In some hangings the victim could be nailed through the hands (as in Jesus’ case) and/or the ankles (as in Jehohanan’s case) or in some other body part, but in others, the person could simply be tied with ropes. In some executions the victim could be denied proper burial, with the body either left hanging to rot on the cross or thrown to the dogs, but in others (as in both Jesus’ and Jehohanan’s cases - in fact, in the Holy Land in general) burial could be allowed.
That’s why I think it’s honestly difficult, if not impossible to write “a description of crucifixion,” because at the end, what you’re describing is not so much the practice of crucifixion in general but the specific execution of a single person, in this case Jesus.
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Faith1960
Guest
Do you doubt the Shroud is from Jesus?
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patrick457
Guest
In the old days in the Roman Rite, there was also the practice of lectio continua, the reading of most of the books of the Bible (divided into readings or lessons) during Matins. It begins with Genesis on Septuagesima in the pre-Lent period and then goes back and forth across the OT and the NT:
Septuagesima and Lent: Genesis and the other books of the Pentateuch
Passiontide (Holy Week): Jeremiah
Easter: Acts, Revelation, Epistles of James, Peter, John.
Time after Pentecost: Books of Kings (1-2 Samuel, 1-2 Kings)
Month of August: Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Wisdom, Sirach
September: Job, Tobit, Judith, Esther.
October: Maccabees.
November: Ezekiel, Daniel, twelve minor Prophets
Advent: Isaiah, Pauline epistles.
Christmas, Epiphany: Romans, Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, Thessalonians, Timothy, Titus, Philemon, Hebrews (in this order)
In reality, some books are skipped: aside from the gospels and the Psalms, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy (in reality, only most of Genesis and some of Exodus are read during Septuagesima and Lent), Joshua, Judges, Ruth, 1-2 Chronicles, Ezra-Nehemiah, Song of Songs, Baruch, are left out. Also, not all of the books are read, only parts of it. Plus, whenever there was a feast day you have to substitute the feast’s reading for the one assigned for the feria, or at least that was the case in the older breviaries.
Septuagesima and Lent: Genesis and the other books of the Pentateuch
Passiontide (Holy Week): Jeremiah
Easter: Acts, Revelation, Epistles of James, Peter, John.
Time after Pentecost: Books of Kings (1-2 Samuel, 1-2 Kings)
Month of August: Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Wisdom, Sirach
September: Job, Tobit, Judith, Esther.
October: Maccabees.
November: Ezekiel, Daniel, twelve minor Prophets
Advent: Isaiah, Pauline epistles.
Christmas, Epiphany: Romans, Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, Thessalonians, Timothy, Titus, Philemon, Hebrews (in this order)
In reality, some books are skipped: aside from the gospels and the Psalms, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy (in reality, only most of Genesis and some of Exodus are read during Septuagesima and Lent), Joshua, Judges, Ruth, 1-2 Chronicles, Ezra-Nehemiah, Song of Songs, Baruch, are left out. Also, not all of the books are read, only parts of it. Plus, whenever there was a feast day you have to substitute the feast’s reading for the one assigned for the feria, or at least that was the case in the older breviaries.
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patrick457
Guest
Well, what do you think?
I don’t see how me personally believing in the possible (emphasis on ‘possible’) authenticity of the Shroud would preclude me admitting that the issue is still not fully resolved (and likely will not be) and cautioning against undue over-reliance on it.
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Faith1960
Guest
Though we’ll never be certain, yeah, I think it’s likely Christ’s Shroud.Well, what do you think?
I don’t see how me personally believing in the possible (emphasis on ‘possible’) authenticity of the Shroud would preclude me admitting that the issue is still not fully resolved (and likely will not be) and cautioning against undue over-reliance on it.
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GEddie
Guest
If one wants to get anatomically picky, the eight bones of the human wrist are counted among the 27 hand bones.
So there is no error.
As to the Turin Shroud, as there is no paint on it and it holds human-body and pollen information not available in the 1300s, if it were a work of art, that would require more faith than it being true.
ICXC NIKA.
So there is no error.
As to the Turin Shroud, as there is no paint on it and it holds human-body and pollen information not available in the 1300s, if it were a work of art, that would require more faith than it being true.
ICXC NIKA.
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Contarini
Guest
Linguistically it could be either. So if people are trying to discredit the Shroud by bringing up the wrist thing, then I think that’s silly. If anything, this works for the authenticity of the Shroud, not because we know historically that it must have been wrists (we don’t) but because a medieval forgery would be likely to have the nails in the hands. Medieval art pretty uniformly (to my knowledge) shows the nails in the hands. But I don’t know a lot about the Shroud.
Perhaps I don’t take visions as seriously as many folks on this forum do, but it seems to me that they are highly unlikely to portray the events envisioned with historical accuracy. So between the Shroud and visions, even though I’m by no means entirely convinced of the Shroud’s authenticity, I’d take the Shroud.
Edwin
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