Did they crucify Jesus naked?

[GEddie]

That’s what the original reconstruction (by anthropologist Nicu Haas) proposes: that one nail pierced through both ankles. Later reappraisal (by Joe Zias and Eliezer Sekeles) however found that there were flaws with the earlier study. For instance nail which was stuck at Yehohanan’s heelbone was wrongly measured (it was first reported to be around 17-18 centimeters when it was actually only around 11.5) and would have been too short to pierce both ankles. A new reconstruction was proposed as a result, wherein Yehohanan’s heels would have been nailed separately so that they straddled the vertical post. (Fun fact: the general public is more familiar with Haas’ initial proposal - wherein Yehohanan’s legs are joined together - but he actually later modified his idea: now Yehohanan’s legs are spread apart, albeit with the ankles still pierced with one nail.)

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More recent work on the heel-bone and nail by Israel Hershkovitz, however, using modern medical scanning equipment, indicates that the actual piecing together and gluing of the (originally shattered) heel-bone by Haas in 1968 may have been incorrect - if this is so, it might affect the way we reconstruct Yehohanan’s crucifixion. Further work on the bones, however, is now nigh impossible, since all the bones from the tomb (except for the heel-bone and nail, and some additional fragments) were given over to the Jewish religious authorities for reburial four weeks after the original anthropological work was done. This was really the reason why Haas could not study the remains adequately: local Jewish authorities were pestering him to hand the bones over as quickly as possible. (This is a very huge issue in archaeology in the Holy Land.) That, and the fact that his health was failing at the time.

I should note that the portrayal showing Jesus pierced with three nails (one foot over the other) is a medieval, Western invention. The earliest portrayals we have I posted earlier clearly show the feet as separate. Even today Eastern icons generally show the feet being separate (there are a few exceptions, but many of these are clearly influenced by Western portrayals).

I agree with you about HIS feet.

One source I have seen conjectures that the feet-crossed depiction was to “artistically balance” the body with the head bowed to the side; in all likelihood the head would have slumped forward along the body midline.

ICXC NIKA

 

[patrick457]

The other question, not raised here, is whether he was facing toward or away from the cross. In the earliest images cited above, it appears he is facing the cross. In some ankle bones found from a crucified body it appears THAT body was crucified facing the cross.

The sketch from Pozzuoli could be (and was) interpreted as showing the victim facing the cross. But then again, the exact gender of the figure is still up for debate: if it shows a crucified woman, the depiction - if it does show ‘her’ crucified facing the cross - might lend credence to records that women were crucified in such a manner. As for the Alexamenos graffito, the fact that you can see what looks like a representation of the buttocks led some to think that it shows us the crucified figure from behind: in other words, the crucified donkey-headed ‘God’ has his back turned and is craning his head sidewards.

Personally, I think that it may read too much into these graffiti. These are very crude (almost childish) drawings, not precise sketches from life. Besides, there are many ways to hang someone on a gibbet, so Yehohanan doesn’t really count as evidence.

 

[GEddie]

There was no upright on the cross. It is believed that the cross is more of a T, and that the upright was either a short stump where the cross-bar is inserted, or that it was a thinner pole where the sign was attached. Possibly both. Then those who created the images and iconography just drew a longer and longer bar as time went by.

Even if the cross was a T (quite likely) there would still have been some material to raise the sign above His head, which would have been in His face.

ICXC NIKA

 

[patrick457]

There was no upright on the cross. It is believed that the cross is more of a T, and that the upright was either a short stump where the cross-bar is inserted, or that it was a thinner pole where the sign was attached. Possibly both. Then those who created the images and iconography just drew a longer and longer bar as time went by.

A T-shaped gibbet is possible (and is also what I believe to have been the likely shape of the True Cross). But that doesn’t totally discount the traditional Latin cross. Heck, for all we know it could have even been an X or a tree with a patibulum in it.

For the record, St. Irenaeus once talked about how the cross had five extremities: “two in length, two in breadth, and one in the middle, on which [last] the person rests who is fixed by the nails.”

 

[patrick457]

I agree with you about HIS feet.

One source I have seen conjectures that the feet-crossed depiction was to “artistically balance” the body with the head bowed to the side; in all likelihood the head would have slumped forward along the body midline.

ICXC NIKA

That’s a reasonable interpretation. After all, the convention began to crop up as soon as Western artists started portraying a suffering/dead Jesus on the cross. It’s much more effective/dramatic to show the feet crossed if the head is bowed and the body is slumping than to show them side-by-side. (For the record, I’ll warrant that that pose is really hard to replicate in real life. ) Another idea points to the symbolism of the number three, which may have led to its popularity.

 

[patrick457]

“See to it yourselves …” (Pilate): did this mean that the Jewish leaders were free to command the Roman guards (because only Romans could crucify) or did it mean that the Temple Guards were so deputized so as to make it legal? In my mind the guards are Romans, but that could just be due to the many times I’ve seen the Crucifixion event portrayed.

Answering this first. I interpret Matthew’s “see to it yourselves” as meaning more like “you’re gonna be responsible for what I am about to do” rather than “You guys go out there and kill Him for me.” Not denying however that even in the old days, there was a trend to maximize Jewish guilt by intepreting these parts of the gospels as the Jews doing the deed: the apocryphal gospel of Peter for instance has Antipas sentence Jesus, not Pilate, and the people doing the mocking and the crucifying (!)

The thing is, normally the Roman prefect would leave daily duties to local officials. (Contrary to what movies would like you to believe, Roman presence was actually kept at a minimum. There weren’t soldiers everywhere bullying the locals.) In Jerusalem, the high priest, his advisory council, and other leading citizens are responsible for keeping public order and the collection of tribute. This is why Jesus is arrested by the high priest through the Temle guards: it was his job. Only the prefect, however, could legally sentence people to death (the right to hand out the death penalty wasn’t something that Rome easily passed to anyone, for very good reasons - and no, the stonings of the woman caught in adultery and Stephen are probably not official executions). And so Caiaphas recommends Jesus’ case to Pilate, who sentences Him to die by Roman crucifixion.

 

[CaptFun]

CaptFun responds in RED Thanks patrick!

Answering this first. I interpret Matthew’s “see to it yourselves” as meaning more like “you’re gonna be responsible for what I am about to do” rather than “You guys go out there and kill Him for me.” I agree. Whose soldiers were used still confuses me a bit. Roman soldiers probably for legal reasons but also because Jesus some Temple guards who were so impressed by Him that they did not arrest Jesus when the Temple leaders had told them to.*

Not denying however that even in the old days, there was a trend to maximize Jewish guilt by intepreting these parts of the gospels as the Jews doing the deed: the apocryphal gospel of Peter for instance has Antipas sentence Jesus, not Pilate, and the people doing the mocking and the crucifying (!) That “gospel” notwithstanding, Jesus told Pilate that others were more to blame (the Jewish leaders and people calling for his Crucifixion - who should have recognized their Messiah when he came)

The thing is, normally the Roman prefect would leave daily duties to local officials. (Contrary to what movies would like you to believe, Roman presence was actually kept at a minimum. There weren’t soldiers everywhere bullying the locals.) In Jerusalem, the high priest, his advisory council, and other leading citizens are responsible for keeping public order and the collection of tribute. This is why Jesus is arrested by the high priest through the Temle guards: it was his job. Only the prefect, however, could legally sentence people to death (the right to hand out the death penalty wasn’t something that Rome easily passed to anyone, for very good reasons - and no, the stonings of the woman caught in adultery and Stephen are probably not official executions). And so Caiaphas recommends Jesus’ case to Pilate, who sentences Him to die by Roman crucifixion. Good summary. Caiaphas was also tossing Pilate a political hot potato - made hotter by the near riot they organized to sway the judge.

There were unusual aspects of Jesus’ crucifixion as compared with the usual. HAD it been the Temple guards in control of things even in an advisory capacity, then the likelihood of Jesus being crucified naked goes down.

Likelihood doesn’t matter much … as He was or he wasn’t. Still - since the evangelists mention the crowning with thorns and His being “stripped” of His clothes - the absence of a detail like “naked” is curious - if it happened. If He was left a loincloth but stripped of just the clothes worth gambling over - not so curious.

• John 7:45 So the guards went to the chief priests and Pharisees, who asked them, “Why did you not bring him?” 46 The guards answered, "Never before has anyone spoken like this one."

47 So the Pharisees answered them, "Have you also been deceived?

48 Have any of the authorities or the Pharisees believed in him?

49 But this crowd, which does not know the law, is accursed."

50 Nicodemus, one of their members who had come to him earlier, said to them,

51 “Does our law condemn a person before it first hears him and finds out what he is doing?”

52 They answered and said to him, "You are not from Galilee also, are you? Look and see that no prophet arises from Galilee." < … not the last time that ***“Bible Scholars” *** … got it wrong about Jesus.

 

[Slaney]

Most likely not, as barbaric as crucifixion is, their twisted religion wouldn’t allow it, you can bludgeon a man to death, but not naked, God would be offended…

 

[GEddie]

Most likely not, as barbaric as crucifixion is, their twisted religion wouldn’t allow it, you can bludgeon a man to death, but not naked, God would be offended…

Depends whose god(s).

The Romans’ gods had no problem with people being naked; and it was their society that held sway in Israel at the time.

ICXC NIKA

 

[patrick457]

CaptFun responds in RED Thanks patrick!

You’re welcome.

That “gospel” notwithstanding, Jesus told Pilate that others were more to blame (the Jewish leaders and people calling for his Crucifixion - who should have recognized their Messiah when he came)

John’s Jesus specifically says “the one who handed me over to you” as the one who is guilty. It could be Caiaphas and his council, yes, but it could also be Judas (who did after all “hand over” - paradidōmi, the verb translated as “to betray” in his case - Jesus to the authorities), or perhaps even ultimately the devil, who was acting through all of the above people. After all, John explicitly writes of Satan entering Judas (13:2, 27) and the Johannine Jesus condemns “the Judaeans” He was speaking to as being sons of the devil (8:42-47).

Oh, and for anyone curious about what the gospel of Peter says, here it is, just for good measure.

…But of the Judaeans none washed the hands, neither Herod nor any one of his judges. And since they would not wash Pilate rose up, and then Herod the king orders that the Lord be taken away, speaking to them, “What I ordered you to do to Him, do.” Now there was standing there Joseph the friend of Pilate and the Lord, and, knowing they were about to crucify Him, came to Pilate and requested the body of the Lord for burial, and Pilate, sending to Herod, requested His body. And Herod said, “Brother Pilate, even if none had requested Him we would have buried Him, since also Sabbath is dawning. For it is written in the Law: ‘The sun must not set on him that has been murdered.’”

And he handed Him over to the people before the first day of the Unleavened Bread, their feast. Now having taken the Lord, running, they were pushing Him and saying, “Let us drag along the Son of God, having obtained authority over Him.” And they clothed Him with purple and set Him upon a chair of judgment, saying, “Judge rightly, King of Israel!” And one of them, having brought a thorny wreath-crown, set it upon the head of the Lord, and others, standing, were spitting in His eyes, and the rest struck His cheeks. Others were jabbing Him with a reed-staff, and some scourged Him, saying, “With such honor let us honor the son of God.”

And they brought two wrongdoers and crucified the Lord between them, but He was silent as having no pain. And they, when they set upright the cross, inscribed that ‘THIS IS THE KING OF ISRAEL.’ And having set His garments before Him, they divided them up and cast the lot upon them. Now a certain one of those wrongdoers reviled them, saying, “We have thus been made to suffer for the wrongs which we have done; but this one, having become Savior of men, what injustice has He done to you?” And they, having become angry at Him, commanded that there be no leg-breaking, that He might die tormented.

Now it was noontime, and darkness prevailed over all Judaea, and they were alarmed and anxious lest the sun had set, since He was still alive, [for] it is written for them: ‘the sun must not set on him that has been murdered.’ And a certain one of them said: “Give Him to drink gall with wine-vinegar.” And having mixed, they gave Him to drink: and they fulfilled all things and consummated their sins on their own head. Now many, having went about with lamps (assuming that it was night), fell down; and the Lord shouted, saying, “My Power, O Power, you have abandoned me!” And having said, He was taken up. And in that hour the veil of the sanctuary of Jerusalem was rent into two.

And then they removed the nails from the hands of the Lord and placed Him upon the earth; and the whole earth was shaken, and a great fear came about. Then the sun shone, and it was found to be the ninth hour. And the Judaeans rejoiced and gave His body to Joseph that he might bury it, since he had seen what good things He did. Now having taken the Lord, he washed and tied Him with a linen cloth and brought Him into his own sepulchre, called ‘Joseph’s Garden’.

The implication in this retelling is that the “they” whom Herod hands Jesus over to is “the people” (i.e. the Jewish crowd?), who then dispose of Him in what is essentially an officially-sanctioned lynching. By shifting the blame away from Romans (Pilate) and implicating the Jews (Antipas, the people) more, the story transmogrifies what was a controlled execution into an act of mob violence. The author even distances Jesus from the term Ioudaios (“Jew,” “Judaean”) by having the inscription on His cross read “the King of Israel.” Actual Roman soldiers would not even figure in the narrative until Pilate sends “the scribes and Pharisees and elders” his troops (headed by a centurion named Petronius) to keep watch over Jesus’ tomb.

 

[patrick457]

Good summary. Caiaphas was also tossing Pilate a political hot potato - made hotter by the near riot they organized to sway the judge.

Look at it this way. Passover was the season when people from all over the known world would flock into Jerusalem by the thousands. The last thing you would obviously want was someone inciting said crowds to provoke havoc. This is why the prefect (in this case, Pilate) would bother hauling himself out of the capital of Caesarea Maritima and go down to Jerusalem along with most of his armed troops, who are with him in Caesarea for most of the year.

From the authorities’ viewpoint, Jesus was causing a big ruckus.

And they brought the colt to Jesus and threw their cloaks on it, and he sat on it. And many spread their cloaks on the road, and others spread leafy branches that they had cut from the fields. And those who went before and those who followed were shouting, “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David! Hosanna in the highest!” …] And they came to Jerusalem. And he entered the temple and began to drive out those who sold and those who bought in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money-changers and the seats of those who sold pigeons. And he would not allow anyone to carry anything through the temple. And he was teaching them and saying to them, “Is it not written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations’? But you have made it a den of robbers.” And the chief priests and the scribes heard it and were seeking a way to destroy him, for they feared him, because all the crowd was astonished at his teaching.

As mentioned, the high priest was responsible to the prefect for the good order of Judaea Province in general and Jerusalem in particular. The high priest serves as the middle-man between the Roman prefect and the local populace: he must preserve order, which was often done by arresting and trying troublemakers, but at the same time, he must also stand up for the people and their views to the prefect. Caiaphas actually served longer than any other high priest, during the periods of direct Roman rule; this is a sign that he is a capable man politically. (Caiaphas was high priest for ten years, from AD 26 to AD 36. Annas/Ananus is the second-longest, holding the office from about around AD 6 to AD 15. Most other high priests in the period ruled only for a year or two before being replaced, which makes it no wonder that John (11:49, 51; 18:13) thought that the high priesthood was a yearly office.)

BTW, Josephus talks about this person named Jesus son of Ananias who came to public attention a few years before the destruction of Jerusalem. This Jesus kept going on and on about “A voice from the east, a voice from the west, a voice from the four winds, a voice against Jerusalem and the holy house, a voice against the bridegroom and the bride, a voice against all the people.” (cf. Jeremiah 7:34) His public predictions of doom and gloom (he was ranting at the Temple) led to him being interrogated and flogged, first by the Temple authorities, and then by the Romans. This Jesus answered the questions and the whips by simply reiterating his dirge over Jerusalem over and over again, which led to him being considered a harmless lunatic and released. The now-free Jesus simply went back to what he was doing before, saying nothing but woes against the city before the crowds, which he continued for seven years and five months until Jerusalem was indeed destroyed during the siege of AD 70. This Jesus was finally killed by a stone from a Roman catapult.

If we compare that Jesus to this Jesus, we could see why Jesus of Nazareth was executed rather than simply flogged. (Funny observation: in Luke 23:16 and 22, Pilate proposes to the people gathered that Jesus, whom he views as harmless, be simply chastised and released - something which was actually done in Jesus son of Ananias’ case!) Jesus of Nazareth had a following (maybe not that large, but a following nevertheless). He spoke of a ‘Kingdom’ of quite some time. He had taken physical action in the Temple. And He was not mad, which makes Him all the more dangerous. Pilate and Caiaphas apparently knew that He was not breeding a secret army and was planning to use force (otherwise, His followers would have also been rounded up), and that is not their cause to be concerned. Rather, they feared that Jesus could rouse the mob with what He has been doing for almost a week. That’s the reason why both Jesuses were arrested really: what made Jesus Christ’s ultimate fate different from Jesus son of Ananias is that the latter was of questionable sanity. (We could read the gospels as implying that Pilate was somewhat willing to let Jesus off by playing the same ‘He’s a harmless idiot’ card, but he is ultimately persuaded not to.)