1 © March 26, 2019, by Paul T. Fanning

1. Crucifixion

By: Paul T. Fanning, Tyler, Texas1

“We preach Christ, and Christ crucified – to the Jews a stumbling block,

and to the Gentiles foolishness.”

1 Corinthians 1:23.

While we are studying this topic,2 please ponder one question in the back of your mind: ‘Why did Jesus have to be crucified?’ After all, couldn’t the “plan” have provided for the Messiah pricking His finger with a pin and allowing just one drop of His sacred blood to fall to earth before He died peacefully in His sleep and then risen? After all, He is the Alpha and the Omega, the eternal God of the Universe, and infinitely both holy and good. Wouldn’t just the inconvenience of having to adopt human flesh and nature and spilling just one drop of His sacred blood have been sufficient to cleanse the whole planet of sin? Why did Jesus become a spectacle and give it all? We know He didn’t want to do it.3

1 Paul T. Fanning earned B.A. and J.D. degrees from The University Of Texas At Austin in 1968 and 1972, respectively. He was then encouraged by Dr. David O. Dykes, Pastor of Green Acres Baptist Church, Tyler, Texas, who convinced him that he actually could do “this.” Thereafter, he was privileged to study under two of the outstanding Bible scholars of our time, Thomas S. McCall, Th.D. (September 1, 1936 – ), and Mal Couch, Ph.D., Th.D., (July 12, 1938 – February 12, 2013) who participated in his ordination at Clifton Bible Church, Clifton, Texas, on March 8, 2011. 2 This is not intended to be a theological study. That’s good because I am merely a lay theologian. I understand and accept that Jesus needed to suffer and die in order to satisfy justice. It occurs to me that the punishment due man for sin is not crucifixion, but eternal damnation. It wasn’t that finite man gave offense that merits man’s eternal death, but that finite man elected to offend infinite and eternal God. Nevertheless, the “Average Joe” also is not a theologian and doesn’t care one wit for theology. What he cares about is knowing that God loves him, and loves him a lot; what he cares about is whether he can trust God to love him. That’s what this paper is all about. If you would like to know more about the theology behind Christ’s sacrifice, I refer you to Anselm, who wrote Why Did God Become Man?, which became the most influential treatise on the atonement in the Middle Ages, or the Summa Theologica of Thomas Aquinas. Rather, this article will focus on the origin, history, propagation, and methodology of crucifixion and how Jesus, in His human nature, was able to persist through it to His death, voluntarily for our sakes. These facts, plus the fact of His Resurrection three Hebrew days later, are precisely why man can trust God to love him. 3 Matthew 26:39: And going a little farther he fell on his face and prayed, saying, “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will.”

2 © March 26, 2019, by Paul T. Fanning

Why This Lesson? Sadly, most Christians in the 21st Century have become awfully complacent about what Jesus voluntarily did on the cross for our sakes. The process of crucifixion – the actual, detailed mechanics of it – lies at the very heart of the Gospel. If you don’t fully understand it, you don’t

fully appreciate the length, breadth and depth of the Love of Jesus, the Messiah, for you. Here lies the foundation of our weak trust – trust that must last our lifetimes. He could have stopped it – the agony, the pain, spiritual, physical, and emotional – by instantaneous will; but He persisted. He knew weak people like me needed Him to do it unto death. The Crucifixion of Jesus Christ is not only at the heart of His Gospel; but if you are a Christian, it is at the very heart of your life. It is by His death that it is even possible that a Christian can live. It is at the very core of everything you do and the bedrock of your every attitude. Resurrection was the easy part, and serves as glorious proof that He accomplished His mission of saving us. Crucifixion through death, without giving up even

for a nanosecond, was the hard part.

The Latin word “crux,” from which the word “crucifixion” is derived, was such a horrible word during the time of the Romans they wouldn’t even mention it out loud in polite conversation.4 Crucifixion is arguably the most hideous kind of execution ever invented within the depravity of the sinful mind of man. Yet, when Jesus returns to rule the Earth from the throne of David during His Millennial Kingdom,5 the work He accomplished on the cross will still be a primary aspect of His identity. He still bears the scars in His wrists, ankles, and side.6 It is because we are in Him and He is crucified that we are

4 Marcus Tullius Cicero, Verrem 2:5.165. 5 See Revelation, Chapter 20. 6 The Hebrew concept of anatomy included the wrist with the hand and the ankle with the foot.

Catholic Art: Jesus Is Scourged, Mocked, And Crowned With

Thorns

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acceptable to the Father, who is inimical to sin, which we are without Jesus crucified. Jesus will be King over all the world during the thousand years and beyond, but He will always be our Savior because of His spilt blood on the cross.

Background. When I was a boy, I often thought about the crucifixion of Jesus. I attended thirteen years of Roman Catholic schools, five of which I was studying for the priesthood. I took my religion very seriously. Over that time I spent many hours praying on my knees before Catholic crucifixes, some of which were quite bloody and grotesque. In all the movies (including the old black and white movies of the 1940’s and 1950’s that I watched with my grandma) they either never showed the Roman troopers really erecting a cross from scratch or they showed them pulling on various mechanisms that were simply too time-consuming and labor-intensive to be accurate.7

7 There was actually one Italian film that I know of which showed Jesus carrying only the crossbeam to Calvary, but it never became popular in the U.S. I have found American audiences quite resistant to two

First Roman Destruction of Jerusalem, 70 C.E.

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Historical Facts And Insights. Anthropologists estimate the Romans crucified approximately 30,000 Israelis before they crucified Jesus, and countless more afterwards, especially after the First Jewish–Roman War (66–73 CE), sometimes called The Great Revolt (Hebrew: המרד

:ha-Mered Ha-Gadol, Latin ,הגדולPrimum Iudæorum Romani Bellum.),8 and the Bar Chokhba Revolt (132–136 C.E.), approximately fifty years later.9 Furthermore, archeologists have recently discovered that early First Century Nazareth was also an army town that garrisoned the Northern Cohort of the 10th Legion Fretensis.10

facts: 1) Jesus only carried the crossbeam (patibulum) because the vertical beams (stirpes) were permanently installed in the ground; and 2) His feet were not crossed in front of Him. Four nails were used, not three. Furthermore, the feet were not nailed to the fronts of crosses. Rather, they were nailed, one on each side, to the sides of the vertical beams (“trees”). Americans are so conditioned by incorrect medieval artwork that they view these two facts as almost blasphemous. Medieval artwork was itself influenced by actions and/or records of the actions of the legions in Israel and Palestine, subsequent to the time of Christ. It was then, after the time of Christ, and only rarely, that victims’ feet were placed on the front of crosses. 8 Chronicled by Titus Flavius Josephus (37 – c. 100), also called Joseph ben Matityahu (Biblical Hebrew: יוסף בן מתתיהו, Yosef ben Matityahu), who wrote that at its fall in 70 C.E., Jerusalem was inhabited by more than one million souls. The end of this revolt is marked by the famous and heroic fall of Masada. However, very few were able to successfully flee to Masada. The survivors of the “First Jewish War” never made it that far and were crucified, put to the sword, sold into slavery, or banished to lands other than Israel. 9 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bar_Chokhba_revolt . May 31, 2012. After subduing the Bar Chokhba Revolt, the Romans attempted to blot out the name “Judea” from language and history. They renamed the province Palestina (after their word for the Philistines). This marks the beginning of the Diaspora. The Jews had no homeland again until 1948 C.E. Maps found at the backs of Bibles showing “Palestine” at the time of Christ or shortly after are simply inaccurate. This accounts for continued friction between Christians, who claim to know more about Scripture than the Jews, and the Jews themselves. This is plainly unnecessary and wrong. It was simply an incorrect convention (stemming from the British Empire’s modeling the Roman Empire) to refer to the Holy Land as “Palestine” when most of those Bibles were published by well-meaning, but “historically challenged,” Christians. 10 Walvoord, John F., Zuck, Roy, Dallas Theological Seminary, The Bible Knowledge Commentary, Matthew 2:19-23.

Romans And Their Slaves Manning A Siege Engine At Jerusalem (Catapulta)

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Jesus heard the soldiers talking and laughing, and He traveled to Jerusalem. All this leads to the inescapable conclusion that Jesus knew, while growing up from small boyhood, and well before His own condemnation, exactly what He was going to undergo. No wonder the night before, in the Garden of Gethsemane, His soul was “very sorrowful.”11 Furthermore, the Gospels themselves give very little detail about crucifixion because the four writers were addressing people who needed no details. Pretty much, they simply say he was crucified. The people at the time were immensely familiar with the details of crucifixion, and needed no detailed explanation about it. However, as we shall see, our understanding of it has been misled by medieval art work, crafted by artists who lived at least a thousand years after the fact.

The Destruction of Jerusalem in the year 70 C.E. was the decisive event of the First Jewish-Roman War. The Roman army, led by the future Emperor Titus, with Tiberius Julius Alexander as his second-in-command, besieged and conquered the city of Jerusalem, which had been occupied by its Jewish rebels in 66 C.E. after the Jews exterminated Rome’s 6th Legion Ferrata, garrisoned there since the first Roman conquest of the city.

Titus surrounded the city, with three legions (5th Legion Macedonica, 12th Legion Fulminata, 15th Legion Apollinaris) on the western side and a fourth (10th Legion Fretensis) on the Mount of Olives to the east.12 He put pressure on the food and water supplies of the inhabitants by even allowing pilgrims to enter the city to celebrate Passover, and then refusing to allow them back out.13 Josephus tells us that the Romans crucified

11 Mark 14:34: And he said to them, “My soul is very sorrowful, even to death. Remain here and watch.” It has been postulated that Jesus wasn’t afraid of the torture, crucifixion, and death that was imminent, but only of being separated from the Father. This is worth considering. 12 Levick, Barbara (1999). Vespasian. London: Routledge, pp. 116–119. 13 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Jerusalem_%2870%29 . April 21, 2014.

Titus

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thousands before the walls of Jerusalem during the siege of 70 C.E. Presumably the aim of this severity was to terrorize the population and force a surrender. The number of those crucified climbed to 500 a day at one point until there was no wood left in the area to use as crossbeams.14

Titus lives on in history primarily because he is credited with destroying the Second Temple as part of his conquest of Jerusalem in 70 C.E.; however, at the time he did not intend to destroy it. Instead, it was his intention to preserve the huge capital investment of the Roman Empire attributable to the massive expansions done by Herod the Great mere decades earlier. Moreover, for his own political purposes, Titus had wanted

to seize it and transform its magnificence into a temple dedicated to the Roman Emperor and the Roman pantheon. However, Jesus prophesied the Temple would be destroyed within the same generation;15 and during the siege a

Roman soldier accidentally dropped a torch on flammable materials on one of its walls and set it all afire. The fire spread quickly and soon grew out of control. Herod’s magnificent Temple was destroyed in the beginning of August, and the flames spread into the residential sections of the city on Tisha B'Av.16

The destruction of both the First and Second Temples is still mourned with a fast annually on the Jewish observance of Tisha B'Av.

14 The Jewish Wars 5: Chapter 6. 15 Matthew 24:2; Mark 13:2; and Luke 21:6. 16 See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Jerusalem_%2870%29 . April 21, 2014.

Portion of the Arch of Titus in Rome

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The Arch of Titus, celebrating the Roman sack of Jerusalem and the Second (Herod’s) Temple, still stands as a triumphal monument in Rome.17

The siege ended with the sacking of the city, the slaughter of approximately one million of its inhabitants (not counting women and children, as was the custom of the times) according to Josephus, and the accidental destruction of its famous Second Temple.

Crucifixions by the Romans in reprisal increased exponentially after each of these two rebellions – after lengthy sieges. The Romans promised

crucifixion for any male survivor. Therefore, the besieged Jews of Masada forged a plan to escape crucifixion and rob the Romans of some of the fruits of their imminent victory. The defenders – almost one thousand men, women and children – led by Eleazar ben Ya’ir, decided to burn the fortress and end their own lives, rather than be

taken alive. They chose ten men to slay all the others by cutting their jugulars. Then those ten drew lots. One killed the remaining nine before taking his own life in advance of the Romans’ breach of the Wall. All but three of the nearly one thousand defenders of Masada (Hebrew for “fortress”) surrendered to having his or her, or their child(ren)’s, jugulars cut by brothers rather than suffer a far more terrifying, painful, and protracted death by crucifixion or, in the case of women, rape and enslavement. There were two surviving women – hiding from the Jews and the Romans – whose histories serve as the basis of what Flavius Josephus wrote about the siege, plus one child. Every Jew of the time grew up with a keen knowledge of how ghastly and horrible a death by crucifixion was.

17 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Jerusalem_%2870%29 . May 31. 2012. Portion of the Arch of Titus pictured previously.

Masada

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Josephus wrote about Alexander Jannaeus, the Maccabean king (103-76 B.C.E.), who turned against the Pharisees and had hundreds of them crucified. 2. “Now as Alexander fled to the mountains, six thousand of the Jews came together [from Demetrius] to him out of pity at the change of his fortune; upon

which Demetrius was afraid, and retired out of the country; after which the Jews fought against Alexander, and being beaten, were slain in great numbers in the several battles which they had; and when he had shut up the most powerful of them in the city Bethome, he besieged them therein, and when he had taken the city, and gotten the men into his power, he brought them to Jerusalem, and did one of the most barbarous actions in the whole world to them; for as he was feasting with his concubines, in the sight of all the city, he ordered about eight hundred of them to be crucified; and while they were [yet] living, he ordered the throats of their children and wives to be cut before their eyes.”18

Impossible Portrayals. A practice so common could not possibly

be supported by a Roman garrison, even the size of a Legion, if it required manufactured, smooth, flat boards; the erection of braces; and the use of blocks and tackles, pulleys and ropes, for each condemned man. Physics and the laws of labor simply exclude the depictions I saw in artwork, with smooth, flat boards, perfectly squared horizontal beams (patibulum) fitted to a vertical beam (stirpes), and the vertical beam put “somehow” in the ground so firmly that it would hold a wriggling, writhing man for many hours, if not several days, without teetering over.

Since the Romans handed out crucifixion sentences like modern day police hand out parking citations, to go to such lengths for each of the thousands upon thousands of persons condemned to crucifixion in Israel alone would be prohibitively costly in time, labor, and materials. No matter how special we believe Him to be, nothing special was done to Jesus regarding His crucifixion. If the soldiers recognized Him as special

18 Flavius Josephus "Antiquities of the Jews" 13: Chapter 14

Flavius Josephus

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beforehand, or the Christ (assuming Romans even accepted the concept of “the Christ,” which they emphatically did not), He probably would not have been crucified in the first place. Jesus was simply the second guy reached by that particular crucifixion detail of the 6th Legion Ferrata (“Ironclad 6th”)

headquartered in Jerusalem on that frightening and awful day. At least until the end.19

Mistaken Impressions. So, I wondered, just how was Jesus crucified? I knew it couldn’t have been by the way the vast majority of people think of it, which was the way it is depicted in movies, television, and the many examples of medieval artwork from which we have received our mistaken impressions of this horrific form of capital punishment. There are very simple explanations for our misconceptions.

First of all, it was a capital offense to be a Christian throughout the Roman Empire for about 300 years after the death of Jesus. Therefore, one could not hang a cross on the wall of one’s home anywhere within the Roman Empire any more than one could do it today anywhere within Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen, or Iran. To do so would invite retaliation and a death sentence, possibly even crucifixion.

Secondly, the cross was a symbol of shame, degradation, terrible pain, and death. It was the most gruesome, painful, torturous, humiliating, ignominious, and degrading form of capital punishment the Romans could devise or learn from any of their conquered populations. It would be like hanging a picture in your home of an electric chair, a gallows, a guillotine, or a lethal injection gurney. It was not at all attractive.

Lastly, the cross was historically a pagan symbol, depicting the Babylonian god Tammuz as the second person of the Babylonian triad. It is

19 Mark 15:39: 39 And when the centurion, who stood facing him, saw that in this way he breathed his last, he said, “Truly this man was the Son of God!”

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represented in pagan religious art earlier than 2,000 B.C.E. Church “fathers” forbade its depiction in art until after the reign of the Roman emperor Constantine, who said he had seen a vision of a cross (ankh) and wanted his army to paint it on their shields just prior to the Battle of the Milvian Bridge. Constantine eventually banned crucifixion as a method of execution. Not until the 5th century C.E. did the cross itself start to become a symbol of faith; and it was not until the 13th Century that it was even permissible to portray a partially clothed body in any form of art. This was long, long after the conduct of the last official crucifixion in the Roman Empire. As C.S. Lewis puts it so succinctly, “Crucifixion did not become common in art until all who had seen a real one had died off.”

Thus, our impression of crucifixion is derived from inaccurate portrayals by artisans who, like ourselves, didn’t have a clue.

I read a book called The Day Christ Died, by Jim Bishop, as part of

a reading assignment in my second year at Quigley Preparatory Seminary in Chicago. That gave me some really valuable information which, along with other sources in both English and Latin, launched my education on the subject. Neither Mel Gibson in his movie, The Passion of the Christ, nor Bill O’Reilly in his book, Killing Jesus, got it right, but they did meet the expectations of their audiences, mistaken though they were. As bloody and awful as the depictions in the movie and book were, the reality of crucifixion is actually much worse.

As a method of execution, crucifixion enjoyed widespread popularity with tyrants and governments throughout the ancient world. It is generally considered the cruelest and most painful way to kill someone. Ancient historians like Herodotus record its presence in one form or another among the Assyrians, Phoenicians, Persians, and more.

Crucifixions Were Not Uniform, Even Within The Roman Empire. When crucified, a person could be tied, nailed, or even impaled on

Hathor, Egyptian Cow Goddess, Adorned With Crosses, 1600 B.C.E.

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a pole. The crux object might be what is now the familiar cross;20 a large T;21 an X or Y; or simply a single stake.22 Seneca23 wrote, “I see crosses there, not just of one kind but made in many different ways: some have their victims with head down to the ground; some impale their private parts (obscena); others stretch out their arms on the gibbet.”24 Joel B. Green, in The Cambridge Companion to Jesus, says the evidence of the manner of Jesus' death is far more ambiguous than is generally realized. Literary sensibilities in Roman antiquity did not promote graphic descriptions of the act of crucifixion, and even the Gospels report simply, "They crucified him," adding no further detail. According to Green, the Romans were slaves to no standard technique of crucifixion: "In describing the siege of Jerusalem by the Roman army, for example, Josephus reports that ‘the soldiers out of rage and hatred amused themselves by nailing their prisoners in different positions’ (Jewish Wars 5.449–51). Elsewhere we learn that victims of crucifixion might be fixed to a stake in order to die, or impaled after death as a public display. They might be fixed to the cross with nails or with ropes. That Jesus was nailed to the cross is intimated in several texts (John 20.25; Acts 2.23; Colossians 2.14; Gos. Pet. 6.21; Justin Dial. 97). Nor can we turn to archaeological evidence for assistance."25

20 Crux Immissa. 21 Crux Commissa. 22 Crux Simplex. 23 Seneca (Lucius Annaeus Seneca, the Younger, 4 BC - AD 65) was Rome's leading intellectual figure in the mid-first century AD) and most popular first century stoic philosopher, whose misogynistic encouragement I credit for my marriages. He wrote, “There is no man so utterly depraved that somewhere, somehow he cannot find a woman who will love him.” 24 (Dialogue 6:20.3). 25 Green, Joel B., The Cambridge Companion to Jesus, Cambridge University Press, 2001, pg. 90.

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Gospels Of Little Help. In attempting to learn just how Jesus was crucified, the Gospels are of little help. None of the four Gospels says precisely how Jesus was crucified. All they say is, “He was crucified.” Matthew 27:32; Mark 15:21; and Luke 23:26 all tell the story of Simon of Cyrene who was compelled to carry his “cross.” Here the Greek word translated into English as “cross” is "σταυρός", pronounced “stauros.” This is literally our only clue in the gospels from descriptions of the event itself. The most common meaning of stauros is “upright pile or stake.” It is highly unlikely that this is the correct translation in this context, as we shall see. It must be admitted, though, that this form of crucifixion was practiced at times by the Romans. However, pressing on, in order to find out how Jesus was crucified, we must comb the histories of

the Roman occupation of Jerusalem and the common practices of the 6th Legion Ferrata which was the occupying Roman force there.

Origin Of Crucifixion. Historians tell us that crucifixion originated in Babylon. After studying the Illuminati and Ba’al worship (the symbols of which are still very much with us in our churches, religious

ceremonies, and architecture to this very day – see Lesson 11), I am beginning to think that all evil on earth originates in Babylon. Babylon became Persia, which is modern day Iran. “The Prince of the King of Persia” is a biblical metaphor for Satan, or another very powerful demon, who was so strong that he

Crux Simplex

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managed to delay the angel Gabriel for three weeks. The Archangel Michael had to assist Gabriel in order

for Gabriel to complete his mission, and Gabriel is/was powerful. See Daniel 10:2-14.26

26 2 In those days I, Daniel, was mourning for three weeks. 3 I ate no delicacies, no meat or wine entered my mouth, nor did I anoint myself at all, for the full three weeks. 4 On the twenty-fourth day of the first month, as I was standing on the bank of the great river (that is, the Tigris) 5 I lifted up my eyes and looked, and behold, a man clothed in linen, with a belt of fine gold from Uphaz ([u-faz], a gold-bearing region, mentioned in Jeremiah 10:9; Daniel 10:5, otherwise unknown.) around his waist. 6 His body was like beryl (a diamond), his face like the appearance of lightning, his eyes like flaming torches, his arms and legs like the gleam of burnished bronze, and the sound of his words like the sound of a multitude. 7 And I, Daniel, alone saw the vision, for the men who were with me did not see the vision, but a great trembling fell upon them, and they fled to hide themselves. 8 So I was left alone and saw this great vision, and no strength was left in me. My radiant appearance was fearfully changed, and I retained no strength. 9 Then I heard the sound of his words, and as I heard the sound of his words, I fell on my face in deep sleep with my face to the ground. 10 And behold, a hand touched me and set me trembling on my hands and knees. 11 And he said to me, “O Daniel, man greatly loved, understand the words that I speak to you, and stand upright, for now I have been sent to you.” And when he had spoken this word to me, I stood up trembling. 12 Then he said to me, “Fear not, Daniel, for from the first day that you set your heart to understand and humbled yourself before your God, your words have been heard, and I have come because of your words. 13 The prince of the kingdom of Persia withstood me twenty-one days, but Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me, for I was left there with the kings of Persia, 14 and came to make you understand what is to happen to your people in the latter days. For the vision is for days yet to come.”

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How And When Crucifixion Came To The West. Alexander the Great27 seems to have been the one to bring the practice from the East to the West, applying it to murderers, robbers and rebels. Once knowledge of it arrived at the shore of the Mediterranean, the Phoenicians, who were a mighty seafaring people, taught it to their descendants, the Carthaginians. We can fairly well estimate the time to be

between 241 and 218 BC. The reason is simple: There is no mention of crucifixion during the First Punic28 War (264 to 241 B.C.E.), waged against Rome by the father of Hannibal, Hamilcar Barca; and during the Second Punic War (218-202 B.C.E.), Hannibal taught crucifixion to the Romans on a ghastly and horrific scale.

27 Alexander is referred to in Scripture at least twice. Daniel 2:32 refers to a future empire whose middle and thighs are of bronze. This is the Hellenistic Empire of Alexander. Zechariah 9:3 talks about how the Kingdom of Tyre is finally conquered by Alexander, and talks about it more than 200 years before it occurred. Tyre had what it considered an impregnable defense. It built its fortress on an island offshore. It withstood a five year siege by the Assyrians and a 13-year siege by the Babylonians. It took Alexander only between five and seven months, but he conquered Tyre the same way the Romans later conquered Masada, which was also thought to be impregnable. Alexander conquered Tyre by building a long ramp or causeway to move siege engines to the walls. After this, Alexander turned to Gaza and accepted its surrender without a fight. Then he turned to Jerusalem with a mind to destroy it. Two hundred years before he reached Jerusalem, Daniel and Zachariah prophesied about what would happen to Tyre. Before he left Macedonia, Alexander had a dream in which he saw a man, peculiarly clothed, carrying a standard, bearing the name of God, who would guarantee Alexander's triumph over the Persians. Alexander considered this dream prophetic and an omen. He used it as his final motivation to strike out Eastward in what turned out to be his conquest of the world. As he approached Jerusalem, the Jews sent out their High Priest, clothed peculiarly and carrying a standard with the symbol of God's name that was exactly what Alexander saw in his dream more than one year earlier. The High Priest wanted to show Alexander their 200+ year old prophecy about Alexander’s conquest of Tyre, and what would happen to his own empire (great horn broken off and in its place four prominent horns. Daniel 8:8.). (See Daniel 7:6; 8:3-8, 20-22; 11:3.) Furthermore, Zachariah contrasts the mighty conqueror Alexander on his great horse, with the King of Jerusalem, who approaches his city lowly and with salvation, riding on a donkey. When the High Priest approached, Alexander, prompted by his dream, fell prostrate before the High Priest, worshiped and sacrificed to God, and never set siege to Jerusalem. When Alexander was at the height of his power he suddenly died. When asked on his deathbed to whom he willed his empire, he responded, "To the strongest.” His empire was divided into four parts: Cassander took Macedonia; Lysimachus took Thrace and much of Asia Minor; Seleucus took Syria; and Ptolemy took Egypt. 28 The series of wars between Rome and Carthage were known to the Romans as the "Punic Wars" because of the Latin name for the Carthaginians: Punici, derived from Phoenici, referring to the Carthaginians' Phoenician ancestry.

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How And When The Romans Learned Of Crucifixion. During

the Second Punic War, all Roman prisoners of war captured by the Carthaginians were crucified and left on display for their remaining comrades and the civilian populations of Sicily, Spain, France, and Italy to observe. This hugely affected the morale of the common Roman soldier. At the mere mention of the name “Hannibal,” Roman children would cry and scurry for hiding. Mothers used his name to manipulate their children as a last resort. It was

by crucifixion, not by elephants,

that Hannibal terrorized more than two generations of Italians and sealed the fate of his own city, Carthage. So deter-mined at the time were the Romans that there not be a Third Punic War with Carthage,29 that Scipio Africanus, (the Roman general who finally conquered Carthage), not only annihilated or

enslaved its entire population (normal for that day) but literally dismantled its walls and systematically burned all of the sections of the city over a period of about 17 days.30

29 Nevertheless, there was a Third Punic War (149 B.C.E. to 146 B.C.E.), but it was on a scale far less grand than either the First or the Second. Rome declared war on Carthage in this third instance because the time for Carthage to pay ruinous reparations to Rome for the Second Punic War had run its course. Therefore, it was not in Rome’s interest to maintain Carthage as an independent, potentially dangerous city-state. 30 There is a story that Scipio Africanus, in addition to dismantling the walls and burning the city, also sowed salt over it to prevent future building there. This is in all probability a fiction concocted in the 19th century. The reason it is probably a fiction is precisely the same as the reason crucifixion was not an elaborate engineering affair. Furthermore, after the Third Punic War, Julius Caesar (July 12, 100 B.C.E. – March 15, 44 B.C.E.) eventually rebuilt Carthage as a Roman city; and it became the main city of Roman Africa, a primary source of grain for the Roman Empire for several centuries.

Romans Finally Defeat Hannibal At Zama, October 19, 202 B.C.E.

Hannibal

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After the Second Punic War, crucifixion became the ultimate form of capital punishment throughout the Roman Empire. The reason was because the Romans wanted to terrorize outlaws and rebels and manipulate whole populations the very same way Hannibal had previously terrorized and manipulated their own soldiers and population. The Romans were keenly and painfully aware of just how effective an instrument of population control the threat and spectacle of crucifixion could be.

How effective crucifixion was as a deterrent can be illustrated by the aftermath of the defeat of the army of Spartacus at Brundisium in 71 B.C.E. Spartacus led a spectacularly successful slave revolt throughout Southern Italy and, at the end, commanded an army of more than 70,000. This was a huge number considering it was all in southern Italy at the height of the Roman Empire. Of the 70,000, a mere 6,000 survived the final battle. This small number indicates the very great appreciation of all the slaves for the horrific consequences of survival, because all of the survivors were promised to be crucified. The vast majority preferred death in battle to capture and subsequent crucifixion. All 6,000 survivors were in fact crucified, along the Appian Way, from the south of Italy to the gates of Rome (approximately 120 miles).31

No Flat Boards; No Ropes Or Pulleys. Crucifixion under Roman law was not conducted the way it is depicted by medieval or modern art. No one was nailed to flat boards. The Romans did not have mass produced flat boards because there were no power band saws. Ropes and pulleys were not painstakingly erected and then pulled to move crosses up or down each time someone was executed. There was no scaffolding to laboriously erect and then take down. At the time of Christ there was no platform for the victim to

31 http://ancienthistory.about.com/od/romanroads/ss/011808AppianWay.htm . May 31, 2012.

6,000 Slaves Crucified Along The Appian Way After Defeat Of Spartacus At Brundisium, A Distance Of 120 Miles (200 Km.)

An Artist’s Concept.

An

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“stand” on.32 The victim’s person was just about 5 to 12 inches from the ground as he died, slowly and painfully, in exquisite and total agony, and while completely naked. It was not “1 Cross + 3 Nails = 4 Given,” as currently popular bumper stickers and tee-shirts say. At the time of Christ, four nails were used because a man has two wrists plus two ankles; and each ankle was nailed right through its outside bulge to opposite sides of what was essentially a tree trunk.

A tradition still

exists that portrays one foot crossed over the other on the front of a cross. This was an extremely infrequent practice that first began in Palestine; and Palestine did not exist until over one hundred ten years after the time of Christ.33 This feature was passed to us only by

means of incorrect medieval art. Consider the impracticality of such a notion. Consider how much greater in length the third nail (for the feet) would have had to have been in order to accommodate a block of olive or acacia wood, two ankles front to back, and still purchase so much of the wood of the stirpes that a person’s weight, while wriggling and writhing, could not draw it out. Consider how difficult and expensive the manufacture of such a nail would be. Consider the nuisance of simply keeping up with such a special and necessary nail. Consider the difficulty of the soldiers in

32 Only very rarely and later than the time of Christ (in fact, after the suppression of the Bar Chokhba's revolt of 132–135 C.E.) was a block (suppedaneum) employed by the Romans for transfixion of the feet on the front of a cross. 33 The word itself derives from "Plesheth," a name that appears frequently in the Bible and has come into English as "Philistine." In AD 135, after putting down the Bar Kochba revolt, the second major Jewish revolt against Rome, the Emperor Hadrian wanted to blot out the name of the Roman "Provincia Judaea" and so renamed it "Provincia Syria Palaestina", the Latin version of the Greek name and the first use of the name as an administrative unit. The name "Provincia Syria Palaestina" was later shortened to Palaestina, from which the modern, anglicized "Palestine" is derived. The British Empire used this word for the region, and this is how we came to have it in our vocabulary today. However, before all, it was Israel. Now it is again.

Greek word Stauros being used for Latin word Patibulum? Note misspelling of Stirpes and mistaken inclusion of Sedile if meant to portray crucifixion prior to 137 C.E.

Where did the perfectly flat boards supposedly come from?

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“capturing” the ankles of a screaming, writhing, kicking man and holding those ankles in such a precise position that they could pierce the long nail through each ankle joint, front to back, as the victim screamed and wriggled and kicked, and yet not penetrate and important artery or vein, thus defeating the purpose of a slow ordeal. Finally, consider that, with legs crossed over, the muscles in the victim’s legs would cramp much more quickly and thus bring death sooner. Death by crucifixion was designed and intended to be elongated and prolonged – not “sooner,” but “later.” Crossing a victim’s legs would be an act of mercy contrary to the entire purpose and effort of making the victim suffer as long as possible. It would also be more labor intensive, expensive, and risky.

During the Roman occupation of Israel, only Roman law administered by a Roman court could impose capital punishment, except in circumstances of war. Under Old Testament law, women were essentially the “personal property” of their husbands. They could be killed at the will and pleasure of their husbands, or the local rabbi, without legal consequence or retribution, for offenses that would be considered trifling in our day.34 A daughter was considered to be her father’s property until her marriage, after which she became the property of her husband. That is why Jesus said divorce was permitted by Moses, “because of the hardness of your hearts.” Matthew 19:8;

34 Elwell, W. A., & Beitzel, B. J. (1988). In Baker encyclopedia of the Bible. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, p. 550, et seq.

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Mark 10:5. However, divorce was never required. Divorce, which essentially sentenced a woman to prostitution, begging, or very menial labor in the event her family (if it was surviving) would not take her back in shame, was

arguably merciful, compared to killing her and vice versa. There are many stories about stoning a “woman who had committed adultery.” However, Leviticus 20:10 prescribes the same penalty for the man and for the woman: “If a man commits adultery with another man’s wife—with the wife of his neighbor—both the adulterer and the adulteress must be put to death.” This presented no legal problem for the Romans because a woman was not worthy of the protection of their law unless she was a Roman citizen, which was very rare for a Jewish woman. The reason there are no stories about stoning any of the men who were her customers is because: 1) a quick death for a prostitute insured her silence, so her best customers threw the first stones as a matter of self-protection; and 2) at the time of Christ, a formal death

sentence for a man would require permission of the Roman authorities. Romans would never grant permission to take a man’s life for merely engaging in sex, unless, of course, it was with a child (free, not slave, and then

Jews Stoning An Adulteress

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not of his own house35) or Caesar’s wife. Such a notion would be laughable to Romans.

Because of the location of the Roman court of southern Israel and its jurisdiction over that part of the country of the Jews, the usual practice was for crucifixion to take place at Golgotha (“The Place of the Skull”) just outside one of the gates in the walls of Jerusalem. It was and is called Golgotha because of a rather large pit there, on whose walls was, and still is, a rock formation that actually looks like the face of a skull. You can see it there today.

Capital Punishment Was The Norm. In Roman Law there was very little adjudicated punishment that was NOT capital. Roman law did not acknowledge the efficacy of, nor did it have the patience or desire to expend the resources for, “correction.” There were no prisons as we know them today. In the 1,000 year history of the Roman Empire prisons were actually what we today call “jails,” and were only for persons awaiting trial and for persons who had been tried and were awaiting execution in one form or another. Correct behavior was learned in the home and in school, if one were lucky enough to attend school. If it was not learned there, the penalty was death for all but the most trivial offenses. Simple as that. Ancient economics did not afford warehousing and providing supervision, food, and care for prisoners. Doing so was deemed neither efficient nor worthwhile. Further, to do so would not well serve the strong public policy of deterrence.

35 Roman law only rarely pierced the walls of a man’s home. The head of the house (pater familia) was its absolute ruler. With this exception, there was no distinction between men and women citizens. Women who were citizens enjoyed equal status with men in Roman culture and law, except within the home. Yet, as a matter of good politics, the Romans did not liberate women when they conquered a land that did not share their views of women. Nothing was done that did not serve commerce; and Rome did not impose its mores unnecessarily upon conquered people. Creating political problems for the sake of liberating women in Israel was considered a bad bargain. The American Empire has obviously not learned from the Romans and followed suit.

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Once tried, if found guilty, ultimately there was only one penalty. The single issue – if a specific method of death was not prescribed by the specific law violated – was “how” death would be administered. It was usually horrible because the Romans believed firmly in deterrence and they saw a direct connection between a painful and elongated public execution and deterrence.

In the 5th Century B.C.E., the Roman Law of the Twelve Tables codified the death penalty. Again, the death penalty was different for nobility, freemen, and slaves, and was the punishment for crimes such as the publication of libels and insulting songs, the cutting or grazing of crops planted by a farmer, the burning of a house or a stack of corn near a house, cheating a patron, perjury, making disturbances at night in the city, willful murder of a freeman or a parent, or theft by a slave. Death was the usual punishment and was almost always cruel. An example of a specific method of death prescribed by a specific law violated is patricide, i.e., murdering one’s father. If a young man was found guilty of patricide, the specific penalty prescribed by Roman law required that he be taken to a bridge over a river, tied up, placed in a large sack with a dog, a rooster, and a viper or an ape, and then, after a “suitable time,” hurled into the river where all drowned in the bag, screaming and biting, clawing, and scratching as they drowned.36

36 John Laurence, A History of Capital Punishment (N.Y.: The Citadel Press, 1960), 1-3.

Modern Day Golgotha

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Banishment was a form of capital punishment. The Roman formula (and the sentence verbally pronounced) for banishment of a Roman citizen was, “No food, no water, no fire, no shelter within 600 miles of the City of Rome.” No one could survive that. It was impermissible for the condemned to enjoy any of those things within the prescribed geographic radius on pain of death. A small detachment of soldiers was assigned to accompany the banished person to enforce the prohibition during his long, painful death and to report that death when it finally occurred.

Being sentenced to serve in the galleys also meant

death. No one ever returned from the galleys, and no one ever escaped from the galleys. Ben Hur was a nice book by General Lew Wallace and a great movie by MGM, but it was fiction. Consider the close proximity of the many oarsmen, who were chained to their benches, labored vigorously under the threat of the lash, and were not allowed to bathe regularly except as a convenience to their Roman masters who did not wish to suffer their stench. Consider what this environment meant to germ and virus populations. The galley oarsmen were beaten with whips leaving open wounds and never allowed time off, unless the ship was in port, in which case they were still required to remain aboard. The consequence of severe injury or illness from infection or otherwise was to be caste overboard. It was capital punishment, not mere slavery, and in fairly short order.

Roman Law Of The Twelve Tables (Tablets)

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There were many other kinds of Roman capital punishment. Among them were decapitation37 by short sword (gladius) or knife, being flayed or skinned alive, being cut into pieces, being shot with arrows or throwing spears (pila), having molten lead (or other metal) poured down one’s throat, being burned at a stake or cross, being boiled in hot water or in oil, being clubbed to death, being poisoned, being roasted on iron gratings, being sentenced to become a gladiator, being sentenced to hard labor in mines, being beaten with whips (flagella), drowning at sea, burial alive, impalement (often used by Nero), and being exposed to be mauled and then consumed by starved animals. These animals were either large cats, which were mercifully swift, or small foxes and fox-like creatures, which prolonged their victims’ torture by small bites and small bellies over a torturous time.

However, the most painful, pitiless and shamefully horrible of them all was crucifixion. It was so horrible a means of capital punishment that it and scourging were forbidden, by Roman law, from being imposed upon any Roman citizen, aristocrat or freeman.38 Marcus Tullius Cicero, one of Rome’s greatest orators and conservative Republican senators, wrote that crucifixion was so ghastly and horrible that it should not even be mentioned in polite society. Cicero called crucifixion “the most cruel and disgusting penalty”39 and “the most extreme penalty.”40 Flavius Josephus called it “the most wretched of deaths.”41

37 This meant cutting one’s head off with a sawing motion using a short sword, not chopping it off. Narratives of Christian writers in the 1960s concerning the Tribulation of rows upon rows of guillotines were the product of gross and erroneous speculation. Remember, Romans were very efficient and regarded the death penalty as normal, everyday life. 38 There was an exception: A Roman citizen could be scourged out of the legion for desertion. The prohibition of crucifixion for Roman citizens is the reason St. Paul was finally beheaded. He spent two years waiting for his citizenship papers to be retrieved to Rome from Jerusalem. The issue of his long imprisonment in Rome was not his guilt, but his manner of capital punishment for sedition. For most of the time he was granted house arrest. Acts 28:16: “And when we came into Rome, Paul was allowed to stay by himself, with the soldier who guarded him.” 39 Verrem 2:5.165. 40 Verrem 2:5.168. 41 The Jewish Wars 7, 23

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The Roman jurist Julius Paulus listed crucifixion in first place as the worst of all capital punishments, ahead of even death by burning, death by beheading, or death by wild beasts. Seneca provides one of the most unique descriptions of crucifixion in non-Biblical literature:

Can anyone be found who would prefer wasting away in pain, dying limb by limb, or letting out his life drop by drop, rather than expiring once for all? Can any man be found willing to be fastened to the accursed tree, long sickly, already deformed, swelling with ugly wounds on shoulders and chest, and drawing the breath of life amid long drawn-out agony? He would have many excuses for dying even before mounting the cross.42

The ancients considered death by crucifixion to be not just any

execution, but the most obscene, the most disgraceful, the most ignominious, the most horrific execution known to man.

Crucifixion was a favored method of capital punishment for non-citizen subjects and slaves of the Roman Empire because of its perceived deterrent effect,43 the simplicity of its labor and materials for the Roman legionnaires assigned the task, and the perceived benefits of its mental “training” (disciplina) for those very same soldiers. Although being assigned to crucifixion detail was generally the least desirable assignment for most legionnaires, inevitably a few of the exceptionally sadistic enjoyed it. Crucifixion was ghastly and persisted over a long time, so assignment to a four-man crucifixion detail was considered a truly unwanted chore for even the average, very tough, and very hardened Roman soldier.

42 Dialogue 3:2.2. 43 Once when he was appearing on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno, comedian Yakov Smirnoff (“America, what a wonderful country!”) was asked what his favorite thing was about the United States. After taking some time to think about it, he responded, “Warning shots.” When Jay Leno asked why in the world, of all the things he had to choose from, he picked warning shots, Smirnoff responded, “In Soviet Union we have warning shots, but they are warnings to others.”

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It took a lot of force and fear for a relatively small city on the Tiber River to establish and maintain control over the whole known world. That control was imposed and maintained through swift justice, enforced ruthlessly, and through enormous cruelty. Often the first thing a legion would do when coming to a new town in the Mediterranean would be to crucify the first five or so men they found and leave them hanging in the main

junction. It was thought this made the next several years of rule far easier. Crucifixion occurred at a popular place normally used for it. At the place of crucifixion, vertical poles (stirpes) with notches sawn at their tops were permanently erected or left growing. Inside each notch a shallow hole was drilled down their centers so the shaft of a sign (titulus) could be inserted to both hold the crossbeam (patibulum) in

place atop the vertical beam and to publish the identity and reason the condemned was executed. The vertical posts were just normal poles – round tree trunks – set approximately three (3) feet into the ground or attached by their roots and left permanently in place. There was a whole long line of them, approximately fifty (50), set in front of Golgotha at Jerusalem, for example.

To understand how Jesus was crucified one needs to understand not how the Romans crucified because there were so many different ways depending upon the time, the occasion, and the Legion; not even how the 6th Legion Ferrata crucified; but how the 6th Legion Ferrata crucified in Jerusalem at the time of Christ.

The condemned carried only the crossbeam (patibulum) to the place of crucifixion, not the whole cross. It was a necessary economy of labor to leave the vertical beams (stirpes) permanently attached to the ground, not to mention that the entire cross would be too heavy for a single man to carry or

Golgatha at the Time of Jesus of Nazareth. Note the Stirpes Permanently Affixed in the Ground, Notched At Their Tops,

Awaiting The Patibula Of Future Executions.

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drag. The weight of the entire cross was approximately 300 lbs. (136 kg.). The crossbeam (patibulum) was thick and heavy. By itself, it weighed 75 to 124 lbs. (34 to 57 kg.). It had to be thick enough to have a hole for the vertical beam in its approximate center and yet support the weight of a man without breaking, cracking or splitting. Once at the place of crucifixion at the foot of a vertical pole (stirpes), by law the condemned was given a bitter drink of wine and myrrh (gall), which served as a mild analgesic. The condemned was then thrown to the ground and each wrist joint44 was nailed to places toward opposite ends of the crossbeam (patibulum).45 The nails were 5 to 8 inch square-based spikes, driven through squares of olive or acacia wood (fasteners, used like washers), which would not split and would prevent the wrists from being pulled off over the heads of the nails. Then the soldiers, usually two at each end, would lift up (“lifted up”) the crossbeam (with the condemned screaming and wriggling in fresh, unbelievable pain) onto the notch of the stationary vertical pole (stirpes) where it was fastened in place by popping the vertical shaft of the sign (titulus) announcing the victim’s name and his crime through the hole in the patibulum into a hole drilled permanently down the center of the stirpes.

Pilate the Prophet? The titulus used in most cases wrote the criminal’s name and the crime for which he was being executed in Latin (because it was the language of the Roman Empire), Greek (because it was the international language of commerce thanks to Alexander), and the vernacular, which at that time in Jerusalem was Aramaic. In Jesus’ case, the titulus read “Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews.”46. However, had the Jews continued to speak Hebrew at the time, Hebrew would have been the vernacular. It would have read, right to left: HaYehudim v Melech HaNazarei Yeshua

44 If nailed through the hands, the weight of the condemned would cause the nails to tear through the hand’s flesh and come out between the fingers. 45 In Hebrew anatomy, the wrist was considered part of the hand. See Psalm 22:16. 46 In Latin, when used as the initial letter of a word, the letter “J” was usually written as “I.” That is why in Catholic art work the letters “INRI” usually appear over the head of the corpus in abbreviation of, “Iesus Nazerenus, Rex Iudaorum.”

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If we wrote that out in Hebrew, the first letter in each of those four words in the Phoenician alphabet we use spells “YHWH,” the ineffable name of the eternal Lord God. It does the same in Hebrew and perhaps explains why the Sanhedrin petitioned Pilate to change the writing on the titulus. He refused. John 19:21-22.47

Then, with the victim hanging only by his wrists, each ankle joint48 was snared probably with long rags (such as the victim’s clothing), pulled tight against the stirpes, and then held in place while another soldier nailed the ankle, right through the big bulb that swells when one gets a sprained ankle (again with an olive or acacia wood square fastener that acted like a washer). Each ankle was nailed in this fashion to opposite sides of the stirpes.49

The condemned was literally then standing on each nail through his

ankle joint, straddling the stirpes, rather than having his feet side-by-side in front, or one over the other in front. His feet would usually be between

47 “21 So the chief priests of the Jews said to Pilate, “Do not write, ‘The King of the Jews,’ but rather, ‘This man said, I am King of the Jews.’” 22 Pilate answered, “What I have written I have written.” 48 After the 1967 War, an ossuary (box for storing the bones of the dead) was discovered in Jerusalem that contained the heel of a man who had been crucified. This man’s heel had been pierced by an 8-inch, squared nail. The tip of the nail had been curled because it had struck something within the cross, such as the opposite nail, and consequently could not be removed. This discovery, in context of everything else we’ve learned, is instructive. The heel was probably pierced rather than the ankle as a result of the victim jerking at the last crucial moment. 49 In Hebrew anatomy, the ankle was considered part of the foot. See Psalm 22:16.

Closest Approximation We Have Of The Crucifixion Of Jesus Of Nazareth

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approximately 5 to 12 inches above the ground, depending on his height and the height of the stirpes he happened to draw.50 It was important that he was just barely above eye level. He could look the jeering spectators in the eyes. This was part of the torture – being so very close to deliverance and yet unable to achieve it, and also being available for additional humili-ation and further torture at the hands of one’s personal victims, or their relatives, with one’s private parts exposed and defenseless.

Insects and birds of prey would light upon or burrow into open wounds, eyes, ears, and noses of the dying and helpless victims.

In terms of labor, the four-man execution detail could accomplish crucifixion fairly easily and efficiently. The only part that was very time-consuming was waiting for the victim to die, horribly, and at points loudly, while being put at risk at the hands of the victim’s family and/or accomplices, or even the general population. There was nothing extrinsic to erect beforehand or tear down afterwards. By Roman law the victim’s family had a right to remove his body, but the vast majority did not. After death was ascertained, corpses were normally taken down from crosses and left at their feet to serve as further deterrence and in order to permit retrieval of the nails, crossbeams and titulae, all of which were reusable and would otherwise have to be re-manufactured, which made them valuable. Scavengers – birds, dogs, and insects – usually fed on the remains; and only scattered parts of bodies were finally left, strewn about as the predators left them.

The nails51 driven through the wrist and ankle joints caused massive tendon trauma and characteristic “curling” of the hands and feet. To get an idea of this, simply open a hand and pinch, as hard as you can, the wrist between a couple of fingers and the thumb of your other hand. You will notice how the open hand immediately goes limp and “curls.”

Women usually were not crucified. This is for a simple reason: Experience proved they died too quickly, too loudly, and in a fashion that embarrassed their executioners. Therefore, the practice of crucifying women

50 Evidence indicates the height of an average stirpes from bottom to top was 6 to 8 ft. (1.8 to 2.4 meters). 51 For reason or reasons for which there is no explanation, a nail taken from a crucified man was considered a good luck charm among Jews. Mind boggling.

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was discontinued by the Romans, with exceptions made for a few warrior women adjudged rebels.

During crucifixion, the delirious, panic-stricken dying man pushed himself up on his ankle joints to relieve the pain in his wrecked wrists and to exhale until he could no longer endure the pain on his ankle joints or had to inhale. Then he pulled himself up on his broken wrists to relieve the pain on his ankle joints until he could no longer endure the pain on his wrists. Then back to the wrecked ankles. Then back to the wrecked wrists. And so on and so on and so on ……... Back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, in a continuing dilemma of delirious pain and thirst, gasping for air, desperately trying to find a position that was minimally tolerable until at long last his legs simply cramped so badly that he could no longer push himself up to relieve, even if slightly, the excruciating pain in his wrists and enable himself to exhale.

Once this happened, after a while, hanging by his wrists, the intercostal muscles (muscles between the ribs responsible for respiration) cramped. Respiration then became increasingly painful and difficult. He could inhale, but he could not exhale. Actual death came in different forms, depending on each case. The two most probable causes of death were hypovolemic shock and exhaustion asphyxia (slowly drowning in one’s own bodily fluids). Other possible contributing factors include dehydration, stress-induced arrhythmias, and congestive heart failure with the rapid accumulation of pericardial and perhaps pleural effusions.52

As previously mentioned, the most trying aspect of crucifixion for the four-man military detail was waiting for the victim to die. They didn’t have radio, TV, cell phones or I-Pads. There was a lot of screaming and begging for mercy, both from the victims until their wind ran out and the crowds. The soldiers paid them no heed because their own lives depended upon the fact

52 "As the arms fatigue, great waves of cramps sweep over the muscles . . . With these cramps comes the inability to push himself upward. Hanging by his arms, the pectoral muscles are paralyzed . . . Air can be drawn into the lungs, but cannot be exhaled. Jesus fights to raise Himself in order to get even one short breath. Finally, carbon dioxide builds up in the lungs and in the blood stream and the cramps partially subside. Spasmodically He is able to push Himself upward to exhale and then bring in the life-giving oxygen." (The Crucifixion of Jesus: The Passion of Christ from a Medical Point of View, Arizona Medicine, vol. 22, no. 3 (March 1965), 183-187). This process would continue for hours until all strength in the legs is gone, and the condemned is no longer able to push up in order to breathe.

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they did not. They amused themselves as they could, all the while keeping watch for their own safety if they did not have an adequate accompanying guard detachment (and probably even if they did). Rarely, the soldiers were ordered to break the legs of the victims below the knees (crucifragium). This they usually accomplished by striking the person’s shins with boards, if any were available, or with the flats of their short swords (gladii). Crucifragium hastened death because the victim could no longer push himself up in order to exhale. This caused the intercostal muscles to cramp more rapidly and asphyxiation to occur sooner.

On that day the soldiers were ordered to break the legs of the condemned three to hasten their deaths before sundown and the beginning of Passover.53 After they did so to the first thief, it seemed to the soldiers that Jesus (the second man) was already dead and there was no point in breaking His legs. That is why the soldier pierced Jesus’ side with his pilum (throwing spear, the only kind Roman infantry carried). When the soldier observed water and blood gush out, indicating Jesus had already drowned in His own bodily fluids, the soldier reported the “man is already dead.” So his centurion reported to Pilate.54

The whole process of dying from crucifixion usually took between two (2) and three (3) days, although there is recorded evidence suggesting some lingered for as long as five (5) days.55 In Jesus’ case it took approximately six (6) to seven (7) hours. This was uncharacteristically rapid. There are a number of arguments for this: a) Jesus was without sleep and beaten the prior night; b) Jesus was scourged so severely on that morning that many a man would have died simply from that; c) Jesus was crowned with thorns

53 This was to comply with the (Jewish) Law. Deuteronomy 21:23 says a hanged man is cursed by God. His body shall not remain all night on the tree, but you shall bury him the same day, . . . Therefore, while crucifragium was rare throughout the Roman Empire in general, it was fairly common in Israel during sporadic intervals when the Roman authorities found it in their interest to appease the Jews. Therefore, when Jews were at least figuratively governing Jews, the condemned in Israel died with more merciful speed – within not more than eighteen (18) or so hours so as not to violate the “all” night proscription of Deuteronomy 21:23. 54 Mark 15:44-45: 44 Pilate was surprised to hear that he should have already died. And summoning the centurion, he asked him whether he was already dead. 45 And when he learned from the centurion that he was dead, he granted the corpse to Joseph.

55 See prior footnote respecting Deuteronomy 21:23.

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and further beaten by Roman soldiers that morning; and d) Jesus suffered so greatly carrying His cross that the soldiers were afraid He might die so they pressed Simon of Cyrene to carry the cross for Him. It is the author’s opinion that He died so quickly because He was carrying the weight of all the world’s sins – past, present, and future. He was the perfect Paschal Lamb. None of His bones were broken, in keeping with Mosaic Law.56

Once again, Roman Catholic tradition talks in terms of three (3) hours, from Noon to 3 PM; but the Gospels only say that darkness covered the earth during that time. They write that Pontius Pilate turned Jesus over to be crucified at 9 AM, the third hour. There would be some delay after the order was given, but only very slight because the crucifixion detail would have already been mustered for the two thieves and possibly Barabbas. There would have been additional time taken up by the soldiers calling the remaining soldiers of the 6th Legion Ferrata out in the praesidium to join in mocking Jesus as “King of the Jews,” to witness the crowning with thorns, and to witness the soldiers striking Him. There also would have been additional time for carrying the crosses from the praesidium to Golgatha, but not long because the distance was not long, about 600 to 650 meters (approximately 1/3 of a mile). The legionnaires always carried out orders as quickly as possible. The Gospels record that the order was given at approximately 9 AM (“the third hour”57) (see Mark 15:25) and that later the Jewish leaders wanted the bodies removed before the Sabbath/Passover commenced at sundown. Jesus is recorded by Mark to have still barely been alive at “the ninth hour,” or 3 PM. Mark 15:34. So a good approximation of

56 See Exodus 12:46b: “[Y]ou shall not break any of its bones.” For some other parallels to Passover, see Numbers 9:13a: “But if anyone … fails to keep the Passover, that person shall be cut off from his people … ; that man shall bear his sin.” Psalms 34: 10-20: “19Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the LORD delivers him out of them all. 20He keeps all his bones; not one of them is broken.” Jesus is the Perfect Passover Lamb; He is the “Lamb of God.” If we do not by faith paint His blood over our threshold, the same thing will happen to us as happened to a Jew who failed to do so on the first Passover and to the Egyptians. We will bear our own sin and be “cut off,” suffering both the first and the second deaths. Instead, those of us who have the faith of a mere mustard seed put our sins on the Lamb of God, Who takes away the sins of the world. Happy are we who are called to His supper. 57 The Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark and Luke) record time using the Jewish custom, which began at daybreak, usually 6:00 AM. That began the “first hour.” John’s gospel, however, records time using the Roman custom, which, like ours, began at midnight. So the third hour of Matthew, Mark and Luke is the same as the ninth hour in John.

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time for Jesus to have suffered on the cross would be 6 - 7 hours, in total, from 9 or 10 AM until 3 or 4 PM.

Jesus’ Response. How did our Lord respond to such incomprehensibly cruel and painful treatment? By this time, He had been beaten, whipped, spat on, crowned with thorns, mocked, and now, stripped naked. Jesus was nailed to a cross between two criminals; and what are the first recorded words of Jesus on the cross? "Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing."58 No one would make up a story that preposterous; it has to be true!

As C. H. Spurgeon has said, "neither the weakness of the past (beatings), nor the pain of the present (crucifixion), could prevent (Jesus) from continuing in prayer. The Lamb of God was silent to men, but He was not silent to God. Dumb as sheep before her shearers, He had not a word to say in His own defense to man; but He continues in His heart crying to His Father, and no pain and no weakness can silence His holy supplications. Beloved, what an example our Lord herein presents to us! Let us continue in prayer so long as our heart beats; let no excess of suffering drive us away from the throne of grace, but rather let it drive us closer to it."

Even more remarkable is the fact that our Lord's prayer to His Father from the cross was not for Himself, but for those who were responsible for His very present horrific pain. Probably the most eloquent commentary about the way Jesus responded to His torture is given in Mark 15:39: The centurion in charge of His crucifixion said, after He died, d“Truly this man was the Son9 of God!”

Aftermath. As previously stated, the soldiers retrieved the nails, titulus, patibula, and possibly the olive or acacia wood squares. Then the bodies of the dead were usually unclaimed and left on the scene at the foot of the stirpes to be recovered by their families or, far more likely, to be devoured by predatory, scavenging animals. Death was usually assured by a short, no doubt trained, thrust with a sword (gladius) or throwing spear (pilum) through the rib cage, through a lung, and then the heart. The crucified were

58 Luke 23:34. Now if you were just making up a fairy tale designed to fool people, would you have written that?! d Matthew 27:43 9 Or a son

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almost always the poor for reasons that are or should be familiar to even our modern courts. In addition, the rich could afford Roman citizenship, which exempted them from crucifixion altogether. Those rare poor whose bodies were claimed usually could not afford graves; and what was left of them customarily was burned in garbage fires.

There is only one example in history of a man receiving an imperial reprieve after the process of crucifixion had begun. This was by the Emperor Claudius. After the reprieved man was taken down, he was anxiously asked what his greatest torment was. His answer is recorded as being “thirst.” One of the last things Jesus is reported as having said is translated into Latin as “Sitio,” “I thirst.” John 19:28. Psalm 22:15a, written approximately one thousand years before the events to which Jesus made reference from the cross, reads, “My strength is dried up like a potsherd [dried cow pie], and my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth;…” Jesus no doubt wet His voice so He could he heard announcing Tetelestai!, “the debt is paid in full!” Jesus has paid it all; and for us to pretend we can add to it is blasphemy. We can stand before the Lord confident that He sees us as clean and pure and righteous, because Jesus is our righteousness. He has done it!

As previously stated, death by crucifixion normally lasted two to three days. Therefore, Pontius Pilate is recorded as being surprised that Jesus had expired so quickly. Mark 15:44a.59 Then again, before being crucified Jesus had been up all night and struck 39 times that morning with Roman flagella. Such a beating all by itself would have killed many men. Each Roman flagellum, or whip, had nine straps. Each strap was tipped with a metal or bone notch in order to cause the removal of flesh with each stroke. Thirty-nine lashes was actually 39 times nine, or 351 lashes, viewed in this sense. Thirty-nine of such lashes was more than enough to kill a normal man and would certainly disfigure any man horribly and permanently, just as is written of the Messiah in the Psalms and Isaiah.

52 13 Behold, bmy servant shall act wisely;2 he shall be high and lifted up,

59 “Pilate was surprised to hear that he should have already died.” b See ch. 42:1 2 Or shall prosper

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and shall be exalted. 14 As many were astonished at you—

chis appearance was so marred, beyond human semblance, and his form beyond that of the children of mankind—

15 so dshall he sprinkle3 many nations; ekings shall shut their mouths because of him;

ffor that which has not been told them they see, and that which they have not heard they understand.

53 1 Who has believed our message

and to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed? He grew up before him like a tender shoot,

and like a root out of dry ground. 2 He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him,

nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. 3 He was despised and rejected by men,

a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces60 he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

4 Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows,

yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted.

5 But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities;

the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed.

6 We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way;

and the LORD has laid on him

c [ch. 53:2, 3] d Leviticus 4:6, 17 3 Or startle e ch. 49:7, 23 f Cited Romans 15:21; [Romans 16:25] 60 This was obligatory when hearing the approach of a leper. It was only the rabbis that were required to look at them; all others hid their faces. See Numbers 5:2.

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the iniquity of us all. 7 He was oppressed and afflicted,

yet he did not open his mouth; he was led like a lamb to the slaughter,

and as a sheep before her shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth.

8 By oppressiond and judgment he was taken away. And who can speak of his descendants?

For he was cut off from the land of the living; for the transgression of my people he was stricken.e

9 He was assigned a grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death,

though he had done no violence, nor was any deceit in his mouth.

10 Yet it was the LORD’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer, and though the LORD makesf his life a guilt offering,

he will see his offspring and prolong his days, and the will of the LORD will prosper in his hand.

11 After the suffering of his soul, he will see the light of lifeg and be satisfiedh;

by his knowledgei my righteous servant will justify many,

and he will bear their iniquities. 12 Therefore I will give him a portion among the great,j

and he will divide the spoils with the strong,k because he poured out his life unto death, and was numbered with the transgressors.

For he bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.61 (Emphasis added.)

d Or From arrest e Or away. / Yet who of his generation considered / that he was cut off from the land of the living / for the transgression of my people, / to whom the blow was due? f Hebrew though you make g Dead Sea Scrolls (see also Septuagint); Masoretic Text does not have the light of life. h Or (with Masoretic Text) He will see the result of the suffering of his soul / and be satisfied i Or by knowledge of him j Or many k Or numerous 61 Isaiah 52:13 – 53:12.

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It should be noted that the beating with flagella did not stop at the pillar. It was customary to beat the condemned all the way from the place of judgment, in this case the praesidium, to the place of crucifixion.

There is only one record of a crucified man being buried in a rich man’s tomb. It is the story of Jesus. All that was necessary to remove the bodies from their crosses was for the crucifixion detail to pull out the nails fastening the ankles; then pull out the vertical post of the sign (titulus); then tip the patibulum off the notch at the top of the stirpes, allowing the body and patibulum to fall; and then remove the nails from the wrists. They would then return to the praesidium with the crossbeam (patibulum), the sign (titulus), the blocks of olive or acacia wood, and the nails. The stirpes was left in the ground for use with the next victim.

Accurate drawings depicting the crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth and the two thieves are found at pages 100-107 of Immanuel, God With Us by Robert Doares. To my admittedly limited knowledge, these sketches are the only accurate depictions in existence. THIS is what crucifixion looked like at Jerusalem at the time of Christ. I commend this book of drawings to you in the strongest possible way.62 I promise you will never look at the crucifixion of Jesus Christ the same way again. Best of all, it will provide you with a vivid mental picture that will never leave you. This is good if you want to never forget. For, after all, “we preach Christ, and Christ crucified – to the Jews a stumbling block, and to the Gentiles foolishness.” 1 Corinthians 1:23. Questions, Answers, and Discussion: 1. Who crucified Jesus? Was it the Jews? Was it the Romans?

It was neither the Jewish leaders nor the Romans who killed Jesus on a cross. Jesus said, “No one takes (my life) from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again.

62 I sent numerous – more than ten (10) – emails to the owners of the publishing rights seeking permission to publish two of the pictures from this book without a response. Eventually, after three (3) years, I published them without their response. All I could do is take pictures from the book with my inadequate camera. They are the last previous two you see here. Note the stirpes at Golgotha on the bottom of the picture and the notches at their tops. Note on the next picture the ankles on opposite sides of the stirpes with the nails pounded through the bulbous ankles.

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This command I received from my Father.” John 10:18. From these words we know that no one “took” His life. Rather, Jesus voluntarily laid it down of His own accord even though His was death by crucifixion.

Jesus identified Himself as the Good Shepherd and said He was laying down His life for His sheep.63 I am not one of the goats; I am one of His sheep.64 Therefore, the truth is that I am responsible for the crucifixion of Jesus, the Christ. Every person who is saved and bound for or already in Heaven crucified Jesus. He didn’t need to die for all those going to Hell, or for any of them. If you will, I am the person who crucified Christ. The reason Christ had to be crucified is because of me, and my own sinfulness, just as surely as if I had hammered the nails in all by myself. It’s true: I am the reason for the crucifixion of Jesus – because of the gravity and severity of my

63 John 10:11. “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.” 64 Matthew 25:31-46. 31 “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. 32 Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate people one from another 64 I sent numerous – more than ten (10) – emails to the owners of the publishing rights seeking permission to publish two of the pictures from this book without a response. Eventually, after three (3) years, I published them without their response. All I could do is take pictures from the book with my inadequate camera. They are the last previous two you see here. Note the stirpes at Golgotha on the bottom of the picture and the notches at their tops. Note on the next picture the ankles on opposite sides of the stirpes with the nails pounded through the bulbous ankles. 64 John 10:11. “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.” 64 Matthew 25:31-46. 31 “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. 32 Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate people one from as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. 33 And he will place the sheep on his right, but the goats on the left. 34 Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom PREPARED FOR YOU FROM THE FOUNDATION OF THE WORLD. 35 For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, 36 I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.’ 37 Then the righteous will answer him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? 38 And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? 39 And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?’ 40 And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.’ 41 “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you cursed, into the ETERNAL FIRE prepared for the devil and his angels. 42 For I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, 43 I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’ 44 Then they also will answer, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to you?’ 45 Then he will answer them, saying, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’ 46 And these will go away into ETERNAL PUNISHMENT, but the righteous into ETERNAL LIFE.” (Emphasis added.)

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sin and because of the weakness of my faith, because of His immeasurable love for just me, and because I am one of those the Father has “called out” from the world and given to Jesus.65

Before His crucifixion, Jesus Himself even said that I did it and I am responsible. In John 17:6-9, Jesus prayed to the Father in part: 6 d“I have manifested your name to the people ewhom you gave me out of the world. fYours they were, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. 7

Now they know that everything fthat you have given me is from you. 8 For I have given them gthe words that you gave me, and they have received them and have come to know in truth that hI came from you; and ithey have believed that you sent me. 9 I am praying for them. jI am not praying for the world but for those kwhom you have given me, for lthey are yours. (Emphasis added.) 2. Why did Jesus have to be crucified? The next question is Why? Why crucifixion? What was the purpose? The Hebrew Scriptures are replete with references to and authority for “blood atonement,” i.e., the principle that the blood of the righteous serves as atonement for the sins of other men. (This is not some new doctrine invented by Christians, but is as old as the

Torah – moreso in Judaism − than in any other ancient religion.) Now, after all, considering Who He is, the “plan” could have provided for the Messiah pricking His finger with a pin and allowing one drop of His sacred blood to fall to earth. He is the Alpha and the Omega, the eternal God of the Universe, the Creator, and infinitely both holy and good – truly and completely righteous, “infinitely righteous.” One drop of His blood would have been sufficient to cleanse the whole planet of sin forever. (And it was.) So why all the pain and suffering before the Resurrection?

65 John 17:16: “They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world.” d ver. 26; Psalms 22:22 e See ver. 2 f ver. 9 f [See ver. 6 above] g ver. 14; ch. 15:15; [ch. 8:26; 12:49] h ch. 8:42; 16:27 i ver. 21, 25; ch. 11:42; 16:30 j [ver. 20, 21] k See ver. 2 l ver. 6

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Jesus did not die for the whole world, although His sacrificial blood is sufficient to save every man, woman and child in it, and ever in it. He only died for His own sheep, the ones that the Father had ‘given Him before the foundation of the world,’ just like He said. I am one of these, so I am personally responsible for His terrible death by crucifixion.

Furthermore, in strictly human terms, if Jesus had not been crucified all the way to His death, I would not have gotten even a notion of how terrible my sin is or how much my God actually loves me. It was not the Romans or the Jewish leaders who crucified Jesus. For the most part they were in all likelihood going to Hell anyway. It was I. He died not only for me, but because of me.

Furthermore, this manner of death buttresses my own weak faith. In John 12:32 He said, “But when I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw all men to myself.” I am absolutely positive that if Jesus had taken the easy way out, I would not in my flesh have recognized Him as my God. However, because He did NOT take the easy way out, even though I am a doubting, suspicious and cynical person, I derive great comfort in recognizing Him as my Lord and Savior, upon Whom I may and do safely rely for all eternity. As one grows in faith, he or she increasingly understands the importance of “recognition.”

John 10:23-29: 23 [A]nd Jesus was walking in the temple, hin the colonnade of Solomon. 24 So the Jews gathered around him and said to him, “How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are ithe Christ, jtell us plainly.” 25 Jesus answered them, “I told you, and you do not believe. kThe works that I do lin my Father’s name bear witness about me, 26 but myou do not believe because you are not among my sheep. 27 nMy sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. 28 oI give them

h Acts 3:11; 5:12 i ch. 1:41 j Matthew 26:63; Luke 22:67 k ver. 38; See ch. 5:36 l See ch. 5:43 m [ch. 8:47] n ver. 14, 16 o [1 John 2:25; 5:11]

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eternal life, and pthey will never perish, and qno one will snatch them out of my hand. 29 My Father, rwho has given them to me,1 sis greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of tthe Father’s hand.66

As His sheep, we believe and follow Him because we “recognize” His voice. Others do not because they are not His sheep and do not “recognize” His voice. If they believe He existed at all, they view Him as just a nice guy or a great philosopher or prophet – none of which is even possible.

Jesus would have submitted Himself to crucifixion if I had been the only human on earth. He said He was the Good Shepherd. He said He would leave the 99 and go search for the one sheep of His who was lost. Matthew 18:12; Luke 15:4. That lost sheep was I. As He died, He said, “Tetelestai!” an accounting term in Greek (“It is Paid In Full.”).67 Jesus was referring to the penalty due for my sin.

The use by Jesus of this term, “Tetelestai!”, actually forms a basis of the Christian doctrine of salvation by grace through faith. If God says, “It is finished” or “It is paid in full,” what can man add to the accomplishment other than to believe it is true?

p ch. 17:12; 18:9 q ch. 6:37 r ch. 6:37; 17:2 1 Some manuscripts What my Father has given to me s [ch. 14:28] t [Deuteronomy 32:39; Isaiah 49:2; 51:16] 66 For another example, a Christian recognizes the first Passover as a precursor of the mechanism of his own salvation. “When I see the blood, I will pass over you.” Exodus 12:13b. The same thing happened that night to a Jew who did not paint the blood of the lamb on his door as happens to a person who goes to church every week but does not paint and rely upon Christ’s blood on his heart. Jesus Christ is the perfect Lamb of God. Only His blood will suffice. Furthermore, Exodus 12: 7 (“Then they are to take some of the blood and put it on the sides [painting up and down] and tops [painting across] of the doorframes of the houses where they eat the lambs.”), provides a picture of the cross, by which all men are saved, i.e., our sins are taken away by the blood of the Lamb of God. John 1:29. Note the change: In the Old Testament the blood sacrifice of lambs “covers” sins; whereas in the New Testament the blood sacrifice of the perfect Lamb of God “takes away” sins. 67 John 19:30: When He had received the drink, Jesus said, “It is finished.” With that, He bowed His head and gave up His spirit.

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By His suffering and death, He paid “in full” the penalty for my sin and all the sin, past, present and future, of every human being, past, present and future, just exactly as it is written in Isaiah 52 and 53. I get the benefit of His sacrifice by simply believing in Him. John 6:28-29: 28 Then they said to Him, “What must we do, to be doing pthe works of God?” 29 Jesus answered them, “This is the work of God, qthat you believe in Him whom rHe has sent.” Acts 10:43: 43 dTo Him eall the prophets bear witness that feveryone who believes in Him receives gforgiveness of sins hthrough His name.” (Peter speaking.) (Emphasis added.) This is why the work Jesus did on the cross is so important to me (and to you). Each person appropriates its benefit by the simple act of believing in Jesus and relying upon Him to have earned salvation for him.68 There is no other way man can be reconciled to God.69 There is nothing left for any of us to do. It is a brand New Covenant between God and man. Man does not go to Hell because he sins. Sin is inevitable for all men. Man goes to Hell because he rejects the free gift of his salvation purchased for him by the blood of Jesus on His cross. Romans 3:23-25a.70

p 1 Corinthians 15:58; Revelation 2:26 q 1 John 3:23 r See ch. 3:17 d ch. 26:22; Romans 3:21; [Jeremiah 31:34] e ch. 3:18, 24; Luke 24:27 f ch. 11:17; 13:38; 15:9; Romans 9:33; 10:11; Galatians 3:22 g ch. 5:31 h ch. 2:38; 4:12; John 20:31; 1 John 2:12 68 Jesus says, “Take up your cross and follow me”; but He does not say “Take up my cross and follow me.” We can’t. We are sinful. Only the perfect “Lamb of God” will suffice and has sufficed. And there is no other and no other way. 69 (1) Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6). (2) Jesus also claimed He was the door (John 10:9), insisting that “he who does not enter the sheepfold by the Door … the same is a thief and a robber” (v. 1). (3) The Apostle Peter added, “Nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12). (4) And Paul contended that “there is one God and one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus” (1 Timothy 2:5). 70 23 [F]or all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus; 25 whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation in His blood through faith. (Emphasis added.)

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I have committed every sin. Sin is not just something I do; sin is something I am. Christ’s crucifixion proves how much He loves me, as an individual, despite all my sinfulness, hypocrisy and betrayal of Him. You too. As an individual!

Christ’s crucifixion teaches me I can trust Him. Considering Who He had repeatedly proven Himself to be, He could have stopped in a nanosecond all His terrible agony by the simple exercise of His will, but instead He persisted all the way to His own death for my sake. He didn’t do it for Himself. He died the horrible death on the cross, which He could have stopped just by willing it to stop, for me. This is as if the richest man on earth gave up his wealth and condescended to live under the cover of a well-used outhouse for thirty-three years, just to be scourged and crucified at the end of it. If I can’t trust Jesus after that, then there is no trust in my life; and I am incapable of either trust or love. By His terrible crucifixion, He draws me to Himself just as He told Nicodemus He would. John 12:32.71 3. What did the birth and death of Jesus have in common? 1) His mom and angels were present at both. 2) His title of “King of the Jews” was important at both. Matthew 2:2 & John 19:19. 4. What color was the robe the soldiers dressed Jesus in when they mocked Him? Two gospels say purple; one says scarlet. Probably purple. (Mark 15:17; John 19:2)72 Why? Purple is the color of royalty. The soldiers were mocking Him as being what they considered a false king, a “not Caesar,” and a pathetically make-believe ruler over people they despised and who despised them in return. Red is the color of the Legions; and they probably would not want to be mocking themselves, although a discarded red robe would probably be more easily found by them than a discarded purple one since purple dye was very expensive then.

What color were the clothes the soldiers gambled for while waiting for Him to die? After mocking Him, the soldiers took off the robe they put on

71 “And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.” 72 Two of the gospel writers, Mark and John, say it was purple; Matthew says it was scarlet. See Matthew 27:28. I am aware of no explanation for this. No doubt for their demeaning purpose the soldiers grabbed one or more tattered rags that were destined for the garbage heap. It could have been faded or discolored over time, and not uniform in color. In other words, it could have been a single cloth of both colors or even two separate cloths piled on.

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Him – purple and/or scarlet – and dressed Him in His own clothes. Matthew 27:31; Mark 15:17. The clothes at the cross, then, were in all probability neither purple nor scarlet. The color of the garment for which the soldiers gambled is not mentioned in Scripture, but was most likely off-white or tan home spun cloth, as was the custom of the time for ordinary people. 5. How many legionnaires constituted a Roman crucifixion detail? Four. John 19:23a.73 In Jerusalem there would have been additional troopers serving as crowd control, but crucifixion itself was carried out by a four-soldier detail. For those of you who were in the service, how would you like to be sitting around the barracks getting ready for weekend liberty when an NCO comes up to you and says, “Hey, Fanning (your last name), you got crucifixion detail this weekend. You can forget liberty.” (!) In all likelihood you would have said precisely what I would have said when I was in the service, and which they no doubt said. Perhaps your anger and frustration would be taken out on the condemned. 6. Is crucifixion still practiced today? Yes. Where and by

whom? Asia, northeastern Africa, Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, and in remote parts of southwestern China (in other words, by Muslims), as well as in Central and South America by members of drug cartels. Despite the fact that Constantine the Great, the first supposedly Christian emperor, abolished crucifixion in the Roman Empire in 337 C.E., out of veneration for Jesus Christ or just good politics

(because so many of his constituents were Christians), Muhammad

73 When the soldiers had crucified Jesus, they took his garments and divided them into four parts, one part for each soldier; they also gambled for his tunic.

Christians Publicly Displayed And Hung From Crosses In Iran

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perpetuated the practice by declaring it a prescribed punishment in Islamic law.74 In 1919 Muslims in Armenia crucified sixteen (16) teenaged girls because they refused to give up their Christian faith and “embrace” Islam.75 In her memoir, Ravished Armenia, Aurora Mardiganian describes how in the city of Malatia, she saw sixteen (16) girls crucified, vultures eating their corpses: “Each girl had been nailed alive upon her cross, spikes through her feet and hands,” wrote the Armenian survivor. “Only their hair blown by the wind covered their bodies.”76 The multitude of atrocities committed against the Armenians by Muslims vastly exceeds the ability and scope of this Lesson. In that genocide committed by Muslims of the Ottoman Caliphate, over one million Armenians were starved to death and otherwise murdered in the so-called glorious name of Allah and the “religion of peace.” A secular movie on this subject is called The Promise.

74 Surat Al-Ma'idah [5:33] - The Noble Qur'an - القرآن الكريم quran.com/5/33. ‘Indeed, the penalty for those who wage war against Allah and His Messenger and strive upon earth [to cause] corruption is none but that they be killed or crucified or that their hands and feet be cut off from opposite sides or that they be exiled from the land. That is for them a disgrace in this world; and for them in the Hereafter is a great punishment,… ‘ 75 http://www.raymondibrahim.com/islam/christians-crucified-again-for-refusing-islam/. August 12, 2014. 76 http://www.raymondibrahim.com/islam/christians-crucified-again-for-refusing-islam/. August 12, 2014.

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In the summer of 2014, in just one Syrian village, the village of Al-Bab, near the border with Turkey, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the “jihadist Islamic State of Iraq and Levant [ISIL],” crucified nine (9) men in the town square by nailing their living bodies to crosses. One man was left hanging for eight (8) hours and then taken down for reasons not explained. The other eight (8) men were left hanging for three (3) days.77

Muslims in the United States are attempting to bring Sharia Law under an American Caliphate to our country. The government and news media completely ignore this topic. However, Christians had better pay attention. It is far from impossible that the Christians of the United States will soon be put to the very same choice to which those sixteen (16) Armenian girls were put.

There is the 2004 Sudan example of a Christian boy, Joseph. During his enslavement, he was often beaten, tortured and abused by his Arab master. African slaves, especially Christians, are viewed as lower than animals. Joseph was raised Christian. His desire to worship was mocked by his master, who told him every day for 10 years that he had no business worshipping since he was of no more value than a donkey. One Sunday morning, Joseph heard the hymn singing of a Christian service. He joined into the worship, remembering church services from when he was a young boy. While Joseph was at church, some of the camels he was in charge of

77http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/syria/10933851/Isis-crucifies-nine-people-in-Syrian-villages.html. August 13, 2014.

A Still Frame From The 1919 Documentary Film Auction of Souls, Which Portrayed Eye Witnessed Events From The Armenian Genocide

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escaped, and his master flew into a rage. “Ibrahim,” Phillips writes, "swore he would kill Joseph and do to him what had been done to Jesus ... he would crucify him." After brutally beating Joseph on the head and all over his body, his master laid him out on a wooden plank. He then nailed Joseph to the plank by driving nine-inch nails through his hands, knees and feet. He then poured acid on Joseph's legs to inflict even greater pain, and finally left him for dead.78

Crucifixion is a part of today’s criminal codes of Iraq, Iran, and the Sudan.79 It is a prescribed punishment in Qur'an 5:33 for those who cause “mischief,” “fight against Allah,” ”banditry,” or are “Christians and Christian converts.” Hamas, the Islamic governing body of Gaza, reinstated the penalty of crucifixion in 2008,80 and in May, 2009, and June, 2010, two convicted killers were beheaded in Saudi Arabia and their bodies were crucified for public display.81

In June 2011, two Christian brothers from the Ivory Coast were badly beaten, tortured, then nailed with steel spikes to cross-shaped planks by their hands and feet, on “the example of Christ” by forces loyal to Muslim President Alassane Ouattara. Raphael, the eldest brother, died from his injuries.82

Except when done by members of drug cartels, those crucified today are by Muslims and are almost exclusively Christian missionaries, nurses, converts, and slaves who are usually nailed to the studs of walls. In modern construction, studs are 16 inches apart. These Christians are crucified by

78 Michael Ireland, Sudanese Slave 'Crucified' By His Master Not Unusual In Central African Nation - ASSIST News, November 9, 2004. http://wikiislam.net/wiki/Crucifixion#cite_note-4 . May 31, 2012. 79 http://wikiislam.net/wiki/Crucifixion#cite_note-4 . May 31, 2012. 80 Nicole Jansezian, Hamas Reinstates Crucifixions of Christians, Newsmax, January 9, 2009. 81 Convicted killer beheaded, put on display in Saudi Arabia - CNN, May 30, 2009 " Saudi beheads and nails murderer's body to cross - NewsCore, June 22, 2010 82 Brothers crucified by Ouattara forces in Ivory Coast - Barnabas Aid, June 8, 2011.

African Slave Boy In “Modern” Sudan

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Muslims out of an appreciation for macabre irony and a penchant for Satanic cruelty to all things Christian. Those who are women are sometimes raped while being crucified. 7. Why is it important for a Christian to understand the mechanics of crucifixion? It is only by studying and appreciating this distasteful subject that a person can comprehend, while on this earth, the awesome magnitude of what Jesus did for each of us and how much He loves us, which is an essential element of the Gospel and our understanding of His matchless love for each of us. The pain and the willpower necessary for His dogged refusal to stop the process – which He surely could have done at any moment in a nanosecond – are both literally unimaginable. No one who has

been crucified would not have stopped the process if they had the power − only Jesus. He knew exactly what He was going to do beforehand and exactly what He was doing when He did it. He did it anyway. He did it for you. He did it for me. How? I think He literally flooded His mind with Scripture. This manifested itself, at least in part, at Matthew 27:46.. “And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, “Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?” that is to say, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” These are the prophetic words of Psalm 22, written approximately 950 years before the birth of Jesus, the first 18 verses of which read as follows:

1 My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

Why are you so far from saving me, so far from the words of my groaning?

2 O my God, I cry out by day, but you do not answer, by night, and am not silent.

3 Yet you are enthroned as the Holy One; you are the praise of Israel.a

4 In you our fathers put their trust; they trusted and you delivered them.

5 They cried to you and were saved; in you they trusted and were not disappointed.

6 But I am a worm and not a man, scorned by men and despised by the people.

7 All who see me mock me; they hurl insults, shaking their heads:

a Or Yet you are holy, / enthroned on the praises of Israel

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8 “He trusts in the LORD; let the LORD rescue him.

Let him deliver him, since he delights in him.”

9 Yet you brought me out of the womb; you made me trust in you

even at my mother’s breast. 10 From birth I was cast upon you;

from my mother’s womb you have been my God. 11 Do not be far from me,

for trouble is near and there is no one to help.

12 Many bulls surround me; strong bulls of Bashan encircle me.

13 Roaring lions tearing their prey open their mouths wide against me.

14 I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint.

My heart has turned to wax; it has melted away within me.

15 My strength is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth;

you lay meb in the dust of death. 16 Dogs have surrounded me;

a band of evil men has encircled me, they have piercedc my hands and my feet.83

17 I can count all my bones; people stare and gloat over me.

18 They divide my garments among them and cast lots for my clothing. (Emphasis added.)

From this it would appear that Jesus, while suffering on the cross and

contending with His own instinctive will and the temptation to stop the pain, overcame both by flooding His mind with Scripture and with love for His Father and for us, and actually taught those in attendance that this messianic

b Or / I am laid c Some Hebrew manuscripts, Septuagint and Syriac; most Hebrew manuscripts / like the lion. 83 In Hebrew, the wrist was considered part of the hand and the ankle was considered part of the foot.

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prophecy was literally being fulfilled in their presence. This prophecy was written by David at least 600 years before the Romans, Phoenicians, or Carthaginians even knew about crucifixion (and about 200 years before Romans even existed!). Thus, He was able to resist the temptation to quit, and managed to persist all the way through to His own death. Why? Just because He knew that I needed it. The cross inspires every Christian to the saving knowledge of the Christ. How much more can one love me than that?

Throughout His life, Jesus kept His Father at the forefront of His thoughts. His Father was His focus. Jesus commanded us at John 15:12 to love one another “as I have loved you.” How can we do that as the weak, sinful human beings that we are? We can’t. But we can do our best by using the same technique Jesus used, i.e., by keeping our focus on Jesus; and the way we do this is through the cross and flooding our minds with Scripture through the power of the Holy Spirit. 8. Where did crucifixion originate? Babylon. If you are ever asked the origin of anything that is truly evil and you don’t know the answer, Babylon is my best suggestion for an odds-on bet. 9. How did crucifixion as a means of capital punishment get from Babylon to the West? Alexander the Great applied it to murderers, robbers and rebels. Once knowledge of it arrived at the shore of the Mediterranean, the Phoenicians, who were a mighty seafaring people, taught it to their descendants, the Carthaginians. The Carthaginians, through their legendary leader Hannibal, taught it to the Romans with devastating effect during the Second Punic War (218-202 B.C.E.). During the Second Punic War, all Roman prisoners of war captured by the Carthaginians were crucified and left on display for their remaining comrades and the civilian populations of Sicily, Spain, France and Italy to observe. It may partly be because of his introduction of crucifixion to the Roman Empire that Hannibal remains a prominent name in history to this day. 10. At the time of Christ, how many nails were used for a typical crucifixion carried out by the Sixth Legion Ferrata stationed in Jerusalem? Four. One nail though each wrist and one nail through the bulb of each ankle.

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11. What is the irony in the fact that the Legion tasked with the crucifixion of Jesus Christ was the Sixth Ferrata? In the Hebrew Cabala the number 6 stands for “man.” 12. How long did it typically take for a person to die from being crucified? Usually two to three days. There is a record of one man lasting for five days before he died. 13. How and why was the crucified clothed during his torture? He was not. This was in order to add to his humiliation and shame, and to serve as a further element of torture and deterrent. 14. What role did animals play in the process of crucifixion? Birds of prey and insects frequently would attack the victim’s orifices and wounds, thus adding to his humiliation and torture – eyes, nose, mouth, and ears. Although Roman law provided that the victim’s family had the right to claim the body, in the vast number of cases, no one did so. Therefore, dogs and other scavengers typically consumed the remains of the crucified, which were left where they were scattered at the foot of the stirpes after the soldiers retrieved the nails, patibulum, and the titulus for re-use after they made sure the condemned was indeed dead. 15. Where and why were the nails driven? Through the victim’s wrist joints and ankle joints. In the Hebrew language and concept of physiology, the wrist is part of the hand and the ankle is part of the foot. If they were driven through what we consider the hands, it would do two things that were considered counter-productive: 1) It would cause the victim to die more quickly because of more rapid loss of blood; and 2) The victim’s body weight would cause the nails to tear through the flesh of his hands, and thus free his hands from the patibulum. Furthermore, joint pain is particularly painful to the human body, and placing the nails through these joints would maximize the pain suffered by the condemned while minimizing loss of blood to prolong the death process. 16. If The Eternal God Of The Universe Looked At You And Asked, “Why Should I Allow You Into My Kingdom?”, What Would Your Answer Be? Simple: “Because Your Son paid the full price of my admission.”

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17. John 3:14-15: “Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes in Him may have eternal life.” (Emphasis added.)84

“Oh happy day, when Jesus washed my sins away.”

The Gospel: 1) Christ died for me. 2) Christ was buried for me. 3) Christ rose from the dead for me. (Isaiah 52:13-53:12; Psalms 16:10; 1 Corinthians 3b-8). 4) Christ will come again for me. (Zechariah 12:10; Matthew 24:30-36; 40-41; John 14:1-3; Acts 1:9-11; 1 Corinthians 15:51-52; 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17; Philippians 3:20-21; Revelation 1:7).

Have Gospel Will Travel Paul T. Fanning Ordained Christian Minister Of The Gospel Of Jesus Christ 1405 Brandywine Drive Tyler, Texas 75703-5705 (903) 352-8000 ptf@hgwt.co (not .com) www.hgwt.co (not .com)

Your questions and comments are welcome. That’s what the email address and phone number are for.

84 Numbers 21:4–9 The Bronze Snake 4 They traveled from Mount Hor along the route to the Red Sea, to go around Edom. But the people grew impatient on the way; 5 they spoke against God and against Moses, and said, “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the desert? There is no bread! There is no water! And we detest this miserable food!” 6 Then the LORD sent venomous snakes among them; they bit the people and many Israelites died. 7 The people came to Moses and said, “We sinned when we spoke against the LORD and against you. Pray that the LORD will take the snakes away from us.” So Moses prayed for the people. 8 The LORD said to Moses, “Make a snake and put it up on a pole; anyone who is bitten can look at it and live.” 9 So Moses made a bronze snake and put it up on a pole. Then when anyone was bitten by a snake and looked at the bronze snake, he lived. Note: The LORD did not take the venomous snakes away. They continued being among the people and continued to bite them. But when anyone was bitten by a snake and looked at the bronze snake fashioned by Moses, he lived. Whenever anyone trusts Jesus as his Savior, he also lives, and lives forever.