Thank you all for your (name removed by moderator)ut. It has been very helpful. To answer a most pressing question, the reason why this was important is that the Dir of Faith Formation is teaching as “Biblical Truth” that Christ was crucified through His wrists and using some “research” to support her opinion that says a human hand pieced in the palm would cause the skin to rip off . . .
But as Br. JR so eloquently pointed out, the HOW is not nearly as important as the essential fact that Christ was crucified in a horrific way to atone for us. Love the St. Romauld quote to “Leave the worries and questions outside the door.” Sadly, Ed might be correct in guessing this as a case of someone from within the Church (in an authority/teaching position) attempting to discredit the Bible for her agenda of change and modernization. She started out by saying, “You all think Jesus was crucified through the palms of His hands, but you’re wrong. It was without a doubt through His wrists so all of the artwork and crucifixes are wrong. What else might we have misinterpreted and done incorrectly?” Statements like these always leave me wanting to know the official Church teaching so that I can do a better job of defending Mother Church after correcting my own ignorance.
So it’s not that it really matters – just that this person is teaching as “Truth” something which is not even known. This is the same person who told a group of about 60 people in Bible Study that Adam and Eve were not real and that “modern science” has “proven” that humans descended from at least 5 sets of original parents – a topic for a whole different thread.
Anyway, I thought I could look at Saints who have borne the pain of the stigmata or the Shroud of Turin. Even there, there seems to be differences. St. Francis’ wounds were on his wrists and the wounds on the feet were on the front part of the foot closest to the ankle. But Padre Pio’s wounds were in the center of his hands. Zdon says the Shroud suggests the nails passed thru the wrists. Yet Buffalo says “If the Shroud of Turin is rendered in 3d it shows through the hands.”
Angelic06 noted Dr. Pierre Barbet and his book Doctor at Calvary, and Patrick457 suggests the work of Dr. Frederick Zugibe’s The Crucifixion of Jesus: A Forensic Inquiry. I also found an article by Ronald L. Conte Jr. (
catholicplanet.com/MHT/wounds-Christ.htm). Conte speculates that Jesus was not crucified through either the palms of His hands nor the wrist, but rather thru the heal of the hand – the anatomical wrist (not the same location as where one might wear a wristwatch on the forearm). Conte argues this anatomical wrist is what is depicted in the Shroud. Then, he ends his article by stating, “We cannot be absolutely certain of the specific location of the nail marks in Christ’s hand, because infallible Sacred Scripture is not specific, other than to say that the nail marks were in His hands.”
I then read Zugibe’s EXPERIMENTAL STUDIES IN CRUCIFIXION (
e-forensicmedicine.net/Paris.htm) where he states the problems with Barbet’s work. Mainly, Barbet failed to follow the tenets of scientific method. Zugibe writes, “For his one experiment, Barbet drove a nail through the middle of the palm using only one freshly amputated arm and suspended an 88 pound weight from the elbow and found that it tore through after about ten minutes and a couple of shakes. He then concluded entirely from only one case and improper use of the tension formula, that the palms of the hand could not support the weight of a crucarius.” Zugibe calls Barbet’s Asphyxiation Hypothesis and the idea that the palms could not support the weight of the crucarius “untenable.” Zugibe notes that articles and tv documentaries “repeatedly proclaimed Barbet’s hypothesis as fact.” In Zugibe’s own experimentation, he concludes that “the palms will support body weights at least up to about 225 pounds.” But he goes on to caution that “anyone versed in ancient history would know that crucifixions were performed in many different ways.” He then quotes other scholars who concur that victims “were nailed by both hands and feet, with and without rope supports, through the wrists between the radius and ulna bones of the forearm, by ropes alone and in unintended regions of the hand if there is intensive struggling.”
So after that anatomical review, I too looked at Scriptural quotes.
Ex 12 46
Nm 9:12
Psalms 22:17-18
John 20: 20
John 20:25-27
Luke 24:39- 40
And I am left with the solid advice of Br. JR, otjm, patrick457 and Cable who all commented days ago that it is a matter of faith and not a question that can - or needs to be – answered. The only FACT I can find is that Jesus was indeed nailed to a cross for us. Have mercy on us, oh Lord!
God’s blessing on all of you!
