Way to Calvary (detail)
Tintoretto
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An Agonizing Death
Development of the Passion Story
"Seventy 'sevens' [erroneously translated as 'weeks' in many bibles] are decreed for your people and for your holy city, to finish the transgression, to put an end of sin, to atone for wickedness, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up vision and prophecy, and to anoint the Most Holy."
- Daniel 9:24
This verse refers to the passage of time from the decree of Cyrus the Great, who freed the Jews from their Babylonian captivity in 539 B.C.E., to 167 B.C.E., following the desecration of the temple by the Syrian ruler, Antiochus Epiphanes. It was at this time that the faithful expected to the arrival of the "everlasting kingdom" promised in Daniel 7:14b, 18, 22, 27, 12:3. (The calculation for computing the number of years can be found at Bernard Muller's site "The Prophesies of Daniel".)
"And now I have learnt that for seventy weeks ye shall go astray, and profane the priesthood, and pollute the sacrifices. And ye shall make void the law, and set at nought the words of the prophets by evil perverseness. And ye shall persecute righteous men, and hate the godly; the words of the faithful shall ye abhour. [And a man who reneweth the law in the power of the Most High, ye shall call a deceiver; and at last ye shall rush (upon him) to slay him, not knowing his dignity, taking innocent blood through wickedness upon your heads.] And your holy places shall be laid waste even to the ground because of him. And ye shall have no place that is clean; but ye shall be among the Gentiles a curse and a dispersion until he shall again visit you, and in pity shall receive you [through faith and water]."
- Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs (ca. end of 2nd century B.C.E.)"Let us lie in wait for the righteous man,
because he is inconvenient to us and opposes our actions,
he reproaches us for our sins against the Law,
and accuses us of sins against our training.
He professes to have knowledge of God,
And call himself a child of the Lord...
Let us see if his words are true,
and let us test what will happen at the end of his life;
for if the righteous m an is God's son, he will help him,
and deliver him from the hand of his adversaries.
Let us test him with insult and torture,
that we may find out how gentile he is,
and make trial of his forbearance.
Let us condemn him to a shameful death,
for, according to what he says, he will be protected."
- Wisdom of Solomon 2:12-20 (ca. 50 C.E.)
"The passion is regarded as the work of scribes, who were probably not part of the original circle of illiterate peasant followers and believers. The passion was created by scripturally sophisticated apologists sitting at their writing desks creating a narrative largely out of the fact of Jesus' execution coupled with suggestion derived from prophetic texts and the Psalms and inspired by tales of the suffering righteous heroes of Israel."
- Robert W. Funk and The Jesus Seminar, The Acts of Jesus: The Search for the Authentic Deeds of Jesus (1998) p. 23
"...Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures."
- 1 Corinthians 15:3
The specific scriptures Paul was referring to were most likely Isaiah 53:3-6 about the Suffering Servant.
"Our Lord is...truly nailed [to a tree: not in the Greek text] in the flesh for our sakes under Pontius Pilate and Herod the Tetrarch."
- Ignatius of Antioch, To the Smyrnaeans 1:2
"In both cases Jesus died for us, but in the former according to the Scriptures, in the latter according to the decree of Pilate and Antipas."
"First, the historical passion, composed of minimal knowledge, was known only in general terms recorded by, say, Josephus or Tacitus. Next, the prophetic passion, composed of multiple and discrete biblical allusions and seen most clearly in a work like the Epistle of Barnabas, developed biblical applications over, under, around, and through that open framework. Finally, those multiple and discrete exercises were combined into the narrative passion as a single sequential story...The narrative passion is but a single stream of tradition flowing from the Cross Gospel, now embedded within the Gospel of Peter, into Mark, thence together into Matthew and Luke, and thence, all together, into John."
- John Dominic Crossan, The Historical Jesus, The Life of a Mediterranean Peasant (1991)
(1) The Twin Goats of Atonement
Atonement or Yom Kippur (normally between the second and third Sabbaths of Tishri) "was a day of penitence marked by the offering of the perfect animal sacrifice and the loading of the sins of the people onto the back of a scapegoat."
- John Shelby Spong, Liberating the Gospels, p. 65, 84
"Note what was commanded: 'Take two goats, goodly and alike, and offer them, and let the priest take the one as a burnt offering for sins.'
But what are they to do with the other? 'The other,' he says, 'is accursed.' Notice how the type of Jesus is manifested: 'And do ye all spit on it, and goad [pierce] it, and bind the scarlet wool about its head, and so let it be cast into the desert.' And when it is so done, he who takes the goat into the wilderness drives it forth, and takes away the wool, and puts it upon a shrub which is called Rachél, of which we are accustomed to eat the shoots when we find them on the country: thus of Rachél alone is the fruit sweet."
- Barnabas 7:6-8
Barnabas and separate gospel accounts allude to writings attributed to the Prophet Zechariah.
"...People spat their sins onto the scapegoat and...they used reeds to poke and hurry he poor animal toward its desert fate. Such spitting and poking or piercing were not, of course, just cruelty but a physical participation in the ritual itself."
- John Dominic Crossan, Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography (1994)
"And I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of compassion and supplication, so that, when they look on him whom they have pierced, they shall mourn for him, as one mourns for an only child, and weep bitterly over him, as one weeps over a first-born [son?]...The land shall mourn, each family [tribe] by itself....all the families [tribes] that are left, each by itself, and their wives by themselves."
- Zechariah 12:10-14"At that time the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky, and all the nations [tribes] of the earth will mourn."
- Matthew 24:30a"Look, he is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him, even those who pierced him; and all the peoples [tribes] of the earth will mourn because of him. So shall it be! Amen."
- Revelation 1:7
The Epistle of Barnabas continues:
"What does this mean? Listen: 'the first goat is for the altar, but the other is accursed,' and not that the one that is accursed is crowned because then, 'they will see him on that day' with the long scarlet robe 'down to the feet' on his body, and they will say, 'Is not this he whom we once crucified and rejected and pierced and spat upon? Of a truth it was he who then said that he was the Son of God.'"
- Barnabas 7:9
A second sublayer has been added, Zechariah 3:1-5, a text that originally applied to Joshua (Jesus!), the first high priest after the Babylonian Exile's conclusion in 538 B.C.E.
"Now Joshua was dressed in filthy clothes as he stood before the angel. The angel said to those who were standing before him, 'Take off his filthy clothes.' Then he said to Joshua, 'See, I have taken away your sin, and I will put rich garments on you.' Then I said, 'Put a clean turban on his head.' So they put a clean turban on his head and clothed him, while the angel of the LORD stood by."
- Zechariah 3:3-5"And among the lampstands was someone 'like a son of man,' [Daniel 7:13] dressed in a robe reaching down to his feet and with a golden sash around his chest."
- Revelation 1:13
"The twin states of Joshua/Jesus as first clothed in filthy garments and then regally robed and crowned were correlated with the twin goats from the Day of Atonement."
Barnabas' "verse-by-verse commentary, similar to the pesher-style of the Qumran Essenes [more properly the Yahad who did not necessarily live at Qumran], is not based on the very general ritual given in Leviticus 16, but on a much more specific one that we would almost suspect Barnabas had himself invented to suit his typology were it not known from several passing allusions in the Mishnah, the rabbinical Oral Torah codified at the end of the second century C.E. From these allusion we know that the two goats had to be alike and equal, that scarlet wool was placed on the scapegoat's head,that it was abused as it was hurried toward the desert, and that before it was killed there the scarlet wool was attached between a rock and its horns."
Combining this allusion with Zechariah "required some textual pyrotechnics and exegetical gymnastics from the robing and crowning of Joshua to the 'robing' and 'crowning' of the scapegoat. The 'red wool on its head' furnished...'a scarlet robe' from the 'red wool' and a 'crown' from 'on its head.' And the scapegoat has merged with Joshua and Joshua with Jesus in his parousia."
"...Historized narratives were created out of those prophetic complexes, stories so good that their prophetic origins were almost totally obliterated."
- John Dominic Crossan, The Historical Jesus, The Life of a Mediterranean Peasant (1991)
(2) Innocence Rescued
"So they took the Lord and pushed him in great haste and said, 'Let us hale the Son of God now that we have gotten power over him.'
And they put upon him a purple robe and set him on the judgment seat and said, 'Judge righteously, O King of Israel'
And one of them brought a crown of thorns and put it on the Lord's head.
And the others who stood by spat on his face, and others buffeted him on the cheeks, others nudged him with a reed, and some scourged him, saying, 'With such honor let us honor the Son of God'."
- Gospel of Peter 3:6-9
This treatment is not dissimilar to that given to "a certain lunatic Carabas" by an Alexandrian mob mocking the Jewish Agrippa I after he had been made king by Gaius Caligula in 38 C.E.
"The rioters drove the poor fellow into the gymnasium and set him up on high to be seen by all and put on his head a sheet of byblos spread out wide for a diadem, clothed the rest of his body with a rug or a royal robe, while someone who had noticed a piece of the native papyrus thrown away in the road gave it to him for his scepter. And when in some theatrical farce he had received the insignia of kingship and had been tricked out as a king, young men carrying rods on their shoulders as spearmen stood on either side of him in imitation of a body guard. Then others approached him, some pretending to salute him, others to sue for justice, others to consult him on state affairs. Then from the multitude standing round him there rang out a tremendous shout hailing him as Marin, which is said to be the name for 'lord' in Syria."
- "Philo of Alexandria, Flaccus 33-34, 36-38
In Jewish and early Christian tradition, "the theme and indeed genre of innocence rescued...has five standard motifs. There is a Situation wherein an innocent one, often at court, receives a false Accusation and thence an unjust Condemnation to death. Therefore the death sentence is actually or fully executed, there occurs a Deliverance, after which the innocent one gains a Restoration to former or even greater status while the unjust accusers are appropriately punished. That is the generic structure of the Joseph saga...of Tobit from Tobit 1:18-22, of Daniel himself in the lion's den...and of his three companions in the fiery furnace...of Esther...of Susanna, from the supplementary stories added to the Greek translation of Daniel, and of Egyptian Jewry from 3 Maccabees."
- John Dominic Crossan, The Historical Jesus, The Life of a Mediterranean Peasant (1991)
| Situation | presumably in materials lost prior to present fragmented opening - Gospel of Peter 1:1. |
| Accusation | also lost but residually indicated by 'King of Israel' and 'Son of God' titles - Gospel of Peter 3:6, 7b, 9 |
| Condemnation | abuse, crucifixion, guarded tomb - Gospel of Peter 1:1-2, 2:5b-6:22, 7:25; 8:28-9:3-4 |
| Deliverance | resurrection in presence of his enemies - Gospel of Peter 9:35-10:42 |
| Restoration | centurion and Pilate confess Jesus as Son of God - Gospel of Peter 11:45-49 |
(3) The Cross Gospel
Crossan deduces that an original passion narrative constructed from prophetic allusions underlies the Gospel of Peter which he calls the Cross Gospel. In it the Jewish authorities, not the Romans, carry out Jesus' crucifixion.
"The author(s) of the Cross Gospel wrote from a viewpoint strongly favorable to Roman political authority and strongly critical of Jewish religious authority, blaming it, in fact, for the Jewish people's ignorance of what had really happened. But they also presumed that Herod Antipas could be in charge of a crucifixion near Jerusalem and that people not soldiers could carry it out. I find both of those presuppositions highly unlikely, but they might well bespeak the outlook of a literate Galilean Christianity centered say, at Sepphoris [the Roman capital of Lower Galilee] in the middle of the first century C.E."
"A major alternative proposal is that a single Passion Source was used independently by Mark, John, and the Gospel of Peter."
- John Dominic Crossan, The Historical Jesus, The Life of a Mediterranean Peasant (1991)
Crossan reasons that there are no eye-witness accounts of the crucifixion and therefore the narrative is entirely fictitious. The disciples reportedly fled before the crucifixion.
The author(s) of John added historical details to the narrative to give a verisimilitude of truth, just as the authors of Luke and Matthew embroidered their versions of the nativity narrative. This argument may be countered to a certain extent by the historical accuracy of the testimony of the Beloved Disciple.
"Of all the biblical books, the fourth Gospel is the most explicit about an eyewitness's evidence at the Crucifixion..."
- Robin Lane Fox, The Unauthorized Version
"Instead, one of the soldiers pierced Jesus' side with a spear, bringing a sudden flow of blood and water. The man who saw it has given testimony, and his testimony is true. He knows that he tells the truth, and he testifies so that you also may believe."
- John 19:34-35
Blood and water are "the symbols of sacramental salvation. To John this was the fulfillment of Isaiah 53:5..."
- Otto Betz, "Jesus and the Temple Scroll" in Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls (James H. Charlesworth, Ed. - 1992), p. 91
"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."
- Isaiah 53:5
"Few scholars today regard the story of Jesus' mother and the beloved disciple at the foot of the cross to be of history."
- John Shelby Spong, Liberating the Gospels, p. 254
| 6th Watch |
The Sacrificial Lamb
(1) Deserted by the Disciples"He stirred up both many Jews and many of Greeks. And when Pilate condemned him to the cross, since he was accused by the first-rate men among us, those who had been living (him from) the first did not cease (to cause trouble)."
- Flavius Josephus, Jewish Antiquities, 18.63-64
Paralleling a passage from Zechariah, Jesus's disciples feared for their own safety and left the vicinity before the sentence of execution was carried out.
"'You will all fall away,' Jesus told them, 'for it is written: "I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered [Zechariah 13:7]'."
"Then everyone deserted him and fled."
- Mark 14:27, 14:50; (Matthew 26:56)
Galilee is some eighty to ninety miles to the north of Jerusalem. Just how far the disciples initially fled and how long a period of time before they departed for Galilee is a matter of conjecture.
"...In Luke's need to prepare his readers for the story of Pentecost in the Book of Acts...the disciples cannot be ordered, or even allowed, to leave Jerusalem for Galilee; they must remain for the all-important Pentecost experience."
- Randal Helms, Gospel Fictions (1988) p. 144
"Stay here in this city until you are armed with the power from above."
- Luke 24:49The risen Jesus "over a period of forty days...appeared to them and taught them about the kingdom of God. While he was in their company he told them not to leave Jerusalem."
- Acts 1:3-4
Luke, aware that the flight of the disciples would preclude them from being eyewitnesses to the crucifixion, retains Mark's statement that Jesus' acquaintances watched him on the cross from a distance. Again this passage echoes an earlier source.
"My loved ones and my friends stand aloof from my plague; and my kinsmen stand afar off."
- Psalms 38:11"And all his acquaintances and the women who accompanied him from Galilee, were standing at a distance, seeing these things."
- Luke 23:49 (Mark 15:40a)
"The only item in the Markan account of Jesus' death that has any claim to historical veracity is the presence of women followers at his execution. They are depicted as watching from a distance, which conforms to Roman practice: relatives and loved ones were not permitted to interfere with executions."
- Robert Funk (Editor), Jesus Seminar, The Acts of Jesus: The Search for the Authentic Deeds of Jesus, p. 158
(2) Barabbas
"Now it was the custom at the Feast to release a prisoner whom the people requested. A man called Barabbas was in prison with the insurrectionists who had committed murder in the uprising."
- Mark 15:6-7; (Matthew 27:15-16)
"The Gospels tell us that Pontius Pilate tried to save Jesus by exploiting a custom whereby a prisoner was released at the Passover. Instead, the crowd demanded that Barabbas be freed, a man described as a 'bandit' who had instigated rebellion and committed murder. The word translated 'bandit' is the one the Jewish historian Josephus uses for 'Zealot'."
- Great Events of Biblical Times
"They are peasant outlaws whom the lord and state regard as criminals, but who remain within peasant society, and are considered by their people as heroes, as champions, avengers, fighters for justice, perhaps even leaders of liberation, and in any case as men to be admired, helped, and supported....[Social Banditry] is found in one or other of its three main forms...the noble robber or Robin Hood, the primitive resistance fighter or guerrilla unit...and possibly the terror-bringing avenger."
- Eric J. Hobsbawn, Bandits
"In Greek the technical term for such a rebel bandit is LESTES [
lestai], and that is exactly what Barabbas is called . He was a bandit, a rebel, an insurgent, a freedom fighter - depending always, of course, on your point of view. But Mark was written soon after the terrible consummation of the First Roman-Jewish War in 70 C.E., when Jerusalem and its Temple were totally destroyed...The Zealots, a loose coalition of bandit groups and peasant rebels forced into Jerusalem by the tightening Roman encirclement, fought within the city for overall control of the rebellion in 68 C.E. There, says Mark, was Jerusalem's choice; it chose Barabbas over Jesus, an armed rebel over an unarmed savor. His narrative about Barabbas was, in other words, a symbolic dramatization of Jerusalem's fate, as he saw it."
- John Dominic Crossan, Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography (1994)
Despite Crossan's assertion that Mark was written after 70 C.E., the gospel was likely written years before the fall of Jerusalem (see Mark). There were Zealots in Jesus' time, of course, but their activities were sporadic and confined to the area of Galilee.
"'What shall I do, then, with the one you call the king of the Jews?' Pilate asked them.
'Crucify him!' they shouted.
'Why? What crime has he committed?' asked Pilate.
But they shouted all the louder, 'Crucify him!' Wanting to satisfy the crowd, Pilate released Barabbas to them. He had Jesus flogged, and handed him over to be crucified."
- Mark 15:12-15; (Matthew 27:22-26; Luke 23:19-25)
"Even more curious is the man's name. One of the texts seems originally to have read Jesus Bar-Abbas. Presumably the 'Jesus' was removed from the manuscript of Matthew because it was offensive to attribute such a sacred name to such a man. A further oddity is that Bar-Abbas means 'Son of the Father', precisely what Jesus claims to be in John's Gospel. It remains possible that the whole story developed out of a misunderstanding."
- Great Events of Biblical Times
"Codex Vaticanus [350 C.E.] implies the two names, and Origen knew of them in the third century."
- Alan Millard, Discoveries From the Time of Jesus
"Robert Eisler [The Messiah Jesus and John the Baptist] theorizes that Jesus bar Abbas, whose patronym identifies him as a son of the President of the Sanhedrin, was arrested for being at the site of Jesus' uprising at an inopportune moment. He may have been there by coincidence, or he may have been there to try to dissuade the rebels from their hopeless intent. When the mistake was attested by the leaders of the Sanhedrin, bar Abbas was released for the festival, that is, in time to celebrate Passover. Bar Abbas, real name Yeshu bar Gamaliel, became High Priest in 63 C.E."
- William Harwood, Mythologies Last Gods: Yahweh and Jesus
"The main difficulty about the story as it stands is that there is no evidence anywhere else of the custom of releasing a prisoner at feast time. If Barabbas had been condemned to death, only the Roman emperor could have released him, and it is unlikely that anything could have induced a responsible governor to release of notorious nationalist. It is entirely out of character with what is known of Pilate from Josephus."
- Great Events of Biblical Times
"...The Johannine chronology explains the Barabbas incident (Mark 15:6-14; John 18:39:40) much more easily than does the Synoptic chronology....The obvious premise of the Barabbas narrative - an amnesty or pardon granted to some Jewish prisoner at Passover - is that the amnesty or pardon was given precisely so that the Jew, upon release, could take part in the Passover meal."
- John P. Meier, A Marginal Jew - Rethinking the Historical Jesus, Vol. 1.
Consequently, Barabbas' release would have been Friday morning, the fourteenth of Nisan.
"Rulers who conduct their government as they should and do not pretend to honor but do really honor their benefactors make a practice of not punishing any condemned person until those notable celebrations in honor of the birthdays of the illustrious Augustan house are over...I have known cases when on the eve of a holiday of this kind, people who have been crucified have been taken down and their bodies delivered tot heir kinsfolk, because it was thought well to give them burial and allow them the ordinary rites. For it was meet that the dead also should have the advantage of some kind treatment upon the birthday of the emperor and also that the sanctity of the festival should be maintained. But Flaccus gave no order to take down those who had died on the cross. Instead he ordered the crucifixion of the living, to whom the season offered a short-lived though not permanent reprieve in order to postpone the punishment though not to remit it altogether."
- Philo, Flaccus 81-84,
"Speaking against the behavior of the Egyptian governor Flaccus in the anti-Jewish pogroms during Caius Caligula's birthday on August 31 of 38 C.E., Philo can reach, in contrast, only to postponement but not abrogation of sentence. There is no way, I believe, that Pilate, or any other Roman governor, could allow out of prison on a festival occasion anyone the crowd demanded. But the Passover amnesty is a magnificent solution, since, for Mark, it symbolically sums up the events of the preceding decades. The people were asked to choose between a bandit or Jesus. They chose the bandit. They chose the leadership of the violent revolutionary over the pacific Jesus, and thereby, for Mark, came the war of 66 C.E. against Rome. The Barabbas incident is true as process even if it never actually happened as event."
- John Dominic Crossan, The Historical Jesus, The Life of a Mediterranean Peasant (1991)
(3) Flogging and Scourging
"Jesus was beaten prior to His crucifixion, as was the common practice. He was tied to a post and beaten nearly to death using a short whip called a flagrum. The flagrum was made using leather thongs into which were woven sharp pieces of bone and lead. The pieces of bone and lead would cut into the back and shoulders of the prisoner with each stroke, eventually opening the back to expose the interior organs. The Jews were limited by their law to 40 lashes. The Romans, however, had no limits."
- "The Resurrection of Jesus-Fact or Fiction?"
Return to God Magazine (Vol. 1 No. 3, p. 22)
After Jesus had been flogged, the soldiers dressed Jesus in a purple robe and crown of thorns and continued to torment him.
"I gave my back to scourges, and my cheeks to blows [hrapismata]; and I turned not away my face from the shame of spitting [emptusmation]."
- Isaiah 50:6 LXX"Some began to spit [emptuien] on him, blindfolded him, and struck him [hrapismasin]."
- Mark 14:65"And others who stood by spat on his face, and others buffeted him on the cheeks, others nudged him with a reed, and some scourged him, saying, 'With such honor let us honor the Son of God'."
- Gospel of Peter 3:9"Again and again they struck him on the head with a staff and spit on him. Falling on their knees, they paid homage to him."
- Mark 15:19; (Matthew 27:30)"...And they struck him in the face.".
- John 19:3
Scourging was usually "accomplished by tying the victim's wrists to an iron ring set about knee level, so that he would be bent over; or, facing or backed to a column, the wrists would be tied overhead. There were probably two scourgers, standing on each side, each with whips five or six feet long ending in two leather thongs tipped with metal. As the scourging whips fell across the victim's back they would wrap around his body at times lacerating his body front and back, so that scourge marks soon covered all of his body except the head, feet, and forearms."
"It was uncommon for the Romans to both scourge and crucify a person. Why was it done to Jesus? It has been conjectured by some scholars that Pilae thought by excessive scourging and beating of Jesus the Jewish council would be satisfied. They weren't."
- Frank C. Tribbe, Portrait of Jesus? (1983)
"Jesus was prepared for sacrifice and beaten on the morning of Passover, just as a lamb to be sacrificed in the Temple was prepared on Passover morning.".
- "Unlocking Prophecy: Jesus Fulfills the Seven Feasts of Israel",
Return to God Magazine (Vol. 1 No. 1, p. 22 and Vol. 1 No. 2, p. 4)
(4) Taken Outside the Gate
"Then they took him out to crucify him. A man called Simon, from Cyrene, the father of Alexander and Rufus, was passing by on his way in from the country, and they pressed him into service to carry his cross (hina are ton stauron autou). They brought him to the place called Golgotha, which means 'Place of a Skull'."
- Mark 15:21-22 (Matthew 27:32-33 // Luke 23:26-27)
"The Fourth Gospel was written, in part, as an attack upon Gnostic Christianity, which held that the Son of God was not really crucified; some Gnostics in fact held that Simon of Cyrene not only carried the cross, but was himself killed upon it. John dealt with that argument simply by eliminating Simon altogether."
- Randal Helms, Gospel Fictions (1988) p. 122
"Jesus was now taken in charge and, carrying his own cross, went out to the Place of the Skull, as it is called (or, in the Jews' language, 'Golgotha')."
- John 19:17
"Moreover, John has an entirely different picture of Jesus' condition at the crucifixion. In the Synoptics, the implication is that Jesus is too weak, following his scourging and beating, to carry his own cross; but for John, Jesus is entirely triumphant throughout the passion."
- Randal Helms, Gospel Fictions (1988) p. 122
"So Jesus also suffered outside the gate in order to sanctify the people through his own blood."
- Hebrews 13:12
"Jesus was crucified around 30 C.E., just outside Jerusalem's walls....In the late sixties, Kenyon discovered proof that the wall now encompassing the traditional site for Calvary [the Church of the Holy Sepulcher] in places lies on a foundation that was constructed in or shortly after 41 C.E. by Herod Agrippa. Hence, in 30 C.E. the traditional site would have been outside the city."
"M. Broshi, in 1976, discovered remains of a Herodian wall in the northeast section of the church itself. Consequently, in 30 C.E., Golgotha was just outside the western wall. More important, it is now clear...that the rock of Calvary still rises approximately thirteen meters above bedrock. The exposed rock bears the marks of ancient quarrying: it is a rejected portion of an ancient pre-exilic Israelite white stone, malaki, quarry. By the first century B.C.E., this site had evolved from a seventh- or eighth-century rock quarry to a refuse dump, and finally to a burial site, since Jewish tombs predating 70 C.E. are visible. It is possible, as the Evangelist John reports, that the final evolutionary phase in the first century before 70 was a garden:"
- James H. Charlesworth, Jesus Within Judaism
"In the place where he was crucified there was a garden, and in the garden a new tomb, in which no one had been placed."
- John 19:41
"On this exposed rejected rock it is probable that Jesus had been crucified. It had been outside the walls and near a public road in 30 C.E. The site fits all the Jewish (see Leviticus 24:14) and Roman requirement of a spot for executions."
- James H. Charlesworth, Jesus Within Judaism
"Take the blasphemer outside the camp. All those who heard him are to lay their hands on his head, and the entire assembly is to stone him."
- Leviticus 24:14
Jesus placement on the cross between two "bandits" [ lestai] or rebels also is alluded to in the Old Testament. Speaking of the Suffering Servant:
"Therefore I will give him a portion among the great, [or many] and he will divide the spoils with the strong, [or numerous] 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."
- Isaiah 53:12"And they brought two malefactors and crucified the Lord in the midst between them."
- Gospel of Peter 4:1a
The Crucifixion
 Christ on the Cross (detail) Velazquez (1630's) |
A Shameful Death
"If you want to be crucified, just wait. The cross will come. If it seems reasonable to comply, and the circumstances are right, then it's to be carried through, and your integrity maintained."
- Epictetus, Discourses 2.2.20
"What we have in the crucifixion narrative is an inversion story. Jesus was being made special by hypothecating for him a death involving what would ordinarily be taken to constitute the worst imaginable shame, the servitus extremum summumque supplicium with genitalia on public display. It is precisely because that form of degrading punishment, crucifixion, was under usual circumstances taken to involve the worst imaginable shame, that it was the mode of death selected by the early narrators as appropriate for the person who is to receive their greatest imaginable praise."
- Austin Meredith (CrossTalk)
Crucifixion: "The act of nailing or binding a living victim or sometimes a dead person to a cross or stake (
stauros or
skolops) or a tree (
xylon)."
- The Anchor Bible Dictionary
"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; others stretch out their arms on the gibbet."
- Seneca (c. 4 B.C.E.-65 C.E). Dialogue 6 (De consolatione ad Marciam) 20,3
"Originally the gibbet was only an upright stake, but later a crossbeam was added to form a T-shape. At Golgotha permanent stakes were probably set up. The victims there, like Jesus, were forced to carry the crossbeam, which was lowered into a groove at the top of the stake."
- Reader's Digest ABC's of the Bible (1991), p. 261
"The Romans desired death to take days to occur, so that passers by would be frightened and therefore obey. Beaten nearly to death, their strength gone, victims slowly died from suffocation being too weak to push themselves up with their legs to breathe. "
- "The Resurrection of Jesus-Fact or Fiction?"
Return to God Magazine (Vol. 1 No. 3, p. 22)
Nails or Ropes?
"Roman crucifixion entailed nailing the wrists and feet of the victim to a cross. The victim's arms were stretched horizontally and each wrist was affixed to the cross with a nail. The victim's feet were transfixed with a single nail piercing through both feet. The cross was then raised so the victim was suspended vertically by the nails in his wrists and feet."
- "The Resurrection of Jesus-Fact or Fiction?"
Return to God Magazine (Vol. 1 No. 3, p. 22)
The use of nails in Roman crucifixions was widely attested in ancient source.
"The soldiers themselves through rage and bitterness, nailed up their victims in various attitudes as a grim joke, till owing to the vast numbers there was no room for the crosses, and no crosses for the bodies."
- Flavius Josephus, War of the Jews 5.11.1; #451G. A. (Williamson's translation)
"Philo, tells of nailing in De Posteritate Caini 17; #61; Plautus makes it clear that nails were used on both feet and arms in Mostellaria 2.1; #360. I believe there are further citings in Seneca and the Mishnah."
- Tom Simms (Crosstalk)
Dunn disagrees that using nails was a common practice.
"We know from Josephus that during the first century C.E. wood was so scarce around Jerusalem that the Romans were forced to travel ten miles outside the city to secure timber for their siege machinery (War 5.522-23). From this one account we can reasonably assume that the scarcity of wood may have affected the economics of crucifixion, so that the horizontal bar as well as the vertical beam may have been used repeatedly. Thus the lack of traumatic injury to the forearm and metacarpals of the hand [Jehohanan below] seems to suggest that the arms of the condemned were tied rather than nailed to the cross. There is ample literary and artistic evidence for the use of ropes rather than nails to secure the condemned to the cross.
"In Egypt, where according to one source crucifixion originated, the victim was not nailed but tied. The fact that crucifixion was a common form of capital punishment in the ancient world and that only one archaeological find provides evidence for it may further suggest that tying the victim to the cross was the preferred mode of crucifixion. If this supposition is correct, it becomes obvious why there is virtually no archaeological evidence of crucifixion; such an execution would leave no traumatic effect on the skeleton."
- James D. G. Dunn, "Jesus, Table-Fellowship, and Qumran" in Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls (James H. Charlesworth, Ed. - 1992), p. 283
Jehohanan - a Victim of Crucifixion
"In 1968...in the course of the Giv'at ha-Mivtar excavations, one of the ossuaries examined was found to contain an adult skeleton, the two heel bones of which were securely joined together by a nail nearly 17 cm long. The ossuary's inscription identified this individual as one 'Jehohanan', and it is evident from the skeletal remains that he was a gracefully built, cleft-palated male in his mid-twenties, who undoubtedly died of crucifixion...Dr. Nicu Haas of the Hebrew University's Hadassah Medical School...suggested two possible positions in which the man might have been crucified, one with the legs forced into an awkward side-saddle position [so commonly depicted by artists], the other with knees apart."
According to Dr. Yigael Yadin, the excavator of Massada, "although the ossuary's inscription is difficult to decipher, it may well read: 'Jehohanan...the one hanged with his knees apart'. Such a position certainly corresponds with the Pozzuoli graffito [near Naples] and the Pereire Collection gem [the only surviving contemporary representations of Roman crucifixion]. Another possible reconstruction has come from the Copenhagen Medical Museum specialist Dr. Moller Christensen. From traces of wood on both sides of Jehohanan's ankles, he has deduced that the feet have been forced into a crude wooden frame, and then locked in with a transverse nail."
"The gospels provide no information on Jesus' crucifixion attitude, and the concept that he was nailed to a cross is only to be gleaned by inference from John 20:25."
- Ian Wilson, Jesus, The Evidence
"So the other disciples told him [Thomas], 'We have seen the Lord!' But he said to them, 'Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe it.'"
- John 20:25
A reappraisal of the original archaeological findings was conducted in 1985, and a number of errors in Haas' findings was uncovered.
"The length of the nail was 11.5 cm and not 17-18 cm as described by Haas. This means that it would be anatomically impossible to secure both feet with a single nail..."
"Haas's assertion that a portion of the left heel bone (sustentaculum tali) adhered to the right heel bone was disproved by radiological examination. No portion of the left heel (calcaneum) was found in relation to the right."
"Our reappraisal showed no evidence of nails penetrating the wrist or forearm. The indentation that Haas interpreted as evidence of nailing was in our estimation nontraumatic in origin. The tiny mar in the wrist bone resulted from contact with other remains in the crowded ossuary. Similar indentations were found on other parts of the postcranial skeleton."
"Evidence among the skeletal remains indicating postmortem amputation of the feet as Haas asserted was not evident. Therefore, his belief that a final coup de grace was administered to the lower limb of the individual is, in our estimation, inconclusive. The numerous breaks in the lower limb were not related to the crucifixion process, but rather to the passage of time."
- James D. G. Dunn, "Jesus, Table-Fellowship, and Qumran" in Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls (James H. Charlesworth, Ed. - 1992), pp. 279, 280
Other errors include
The fragment from a plaque beneath the head of the nail was not from pistacia or acacia wood but from an olive tree.
There is no radiological evidence that the victim suffered from a palatal cleft.
There was not one but two other individuals interred in the ossuary, an adult male and a child three or four years old.
 |
"How were Jehohanan's lower limbs attached to the upright beam? The evidence suggests that the most logical reconstruction would have the condemned man straddling the upright with each foot nailed laterally to the cross. This open position presumably provides the reason why the executioners chose to place the nail in the largest bone of the foot, the calcaneum. The olive wood plaque, the remains of which were found beneath the nail head, may have been intended to prevent the condemned man from pulling his feet free from the nail by enlarging the diameter of the head of the nail."
- James D. G. Dunn, "Jesus, Table-Fellowship, and Qumran" in Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls (James H. Charlesworth, Ed. - 1992), p. 283
Jehohanan was a "man crucified in his thirties, in Jerusalem, and near the time of Jesus' own crucifixion."
"There is wide agreement today that death would have resulted from a slow, excruciating process of asphyxiation. In order to breathe, the victim would have to push up with the legs in order to free the lungs from the weight on the chest from the upper torso. Jehohanan's body on the cross was probably not upright; it had apparently been pushed up and twisted. If so, then the resulting muscle spasms would have caused unbearable pain..."
- James H. Charlesworth, Jesus Within Judaism
"Dr. Zugibe agreed that while death by asphyxiation is the probable cause of death when the victim is suspended by his hands, it is no longer tenable when the arms are positioned perpendicular to the torso. To test this hypothesis, Dr. Zugibe suspended student volunteers with special foot and hand supports from a conventional T-shaped cross and monitored their physiological response. According to Dr. Zugibe, the critical issue involved here is the angle of the victim's arms to the upright. If the arms were outstretched, there is no evidence whatsoever of breathing difficulty despite their suspension, which ranged from five to forty-five minutes. On the basis of these experiments, Dr. Zugibe concluded that hypovolemic shock, which is brought on by the traumatic shock of crucifixion, is the cause of death."
- James D. G. Dunn, "Jesus, Table-Fellowship, and Qumran" in Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls (James H. Charlesworth, Ed. - 1992), pp. 281-282
The Notice on the Cross
"The written notice of the charge against him read: THE KING OF THE JEWS [ ioudaiwn - IOUDAIOI]."
- Mark 15:26 (Matthew 27:37; Luke 23:38)
( ioudaiwn, usually translated as Jews is more correctly translated as Judeans.)
(2) A Lamb to the Slaughter
Jesus' Demeanor
"Because the Sovereign LORD helps me, I will not be disgraced. Therefore have I set my face like flint, and I know I will not be put to shame."
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."
- Isaiah 50:7, 53:7"But he held his peace, as if he felt no pain."
- Gospel of Peter 4:1b
The casting of lots
"They divide my garments [Diemerisanto ta himatia mou] among them [ebalon kleron] and cast lots for my clothing."
- Psalms 21 [22]:18 LXX"They divided [diamerzontai] his clothes [himatia] among them, casting lots [ballontes kleron] to decide what each should have."
- Mark 15:24; (Matthew 27:35; Luke 23:34)"And they laid down his garments before him and divided them among themselves and cast the lot upon them."
- Gospel of Peter 4:3"The soldiers, having crucified Jesus, took possession of his clothes [himatia], and divided them into four parts, one for each soldier, leaving out the tunic [chitona]. The tunic was seamless, woven in one piece throughout; so they said to one another, 'We must not tear this; let us toss for it' and then the text of Scripture came true: 'They shared my garments [himatia] among them, and cast lots for my clothing [himatismon]."
- John 19:24
"Only John among the four quotes LXX Ps. 21:18 in its entirety, reading the simple parallelism of the verse as two separate actions and introducing Jesus' tunic (chitona) into the episode; he does this in order to echo Leviticus 16:4, which declares that the high priest, when entering the Most Holy, shall 'put on the consecrated linen tunic [chitona] - LXX].' Moreover, Jewish practice called for this tunic to be seamless, as we know from Josephus' Antiquities and as John would have known: 'It cannot be torn' (Ex. 28:32)."
- Randal Helms, Gospel Fictions (1988) p. 125
Mocked on the Cross
"I also have become a reproach to them; when they see me, they wag their head."
- Psalms 109:25"All that go by the way [paraporeuomeno] have clapped their hands at thee, they have hissed and shaken their head."
- Lamentations 2:15 LXX"Those who passed by [paraporeuomeno] hurled insults at him, shaking their heads..."
- Mark 15:29a; (Matthew 27:39a)"All who see me mock me; they hurl insults, shaking their heads: 'He trusts in the LORD; let the LORD rescue him. Let him deliver him, since he delights in him.'"
- Psalms 22:7-8"The people stood watching, and the rulers even sneered at him. They said, 'He saved others; let him save himself if he is the Christ of God, the Chosen One.'"
- Luke 23:35"'So! You who are going to destroy the temple and build it in three days,come down from the cross and save yourself!'
In the same way the chief priests and the teachers of the law mocked him among themselves. 'He saved others,' they said, 'but he can't save himself! Let this Christ [Messiah] , this King of Israel, come down now from the cross, that we may see and believe.'
Those crucified with him also heaped insults on him."
- Mark 15:29b-32; (Matthew 27: 40-44)
| 7th Watch |
(2) Slain "Between the Evenings"
Darkness at Noon
"...On the sudden most wonderful disorders and alterations beyond belief arose in the air; for the face of the sun was darkened, and the day was turned into an unquiet and turbulent night, made up of thunderings and boisterous winds, raising tempests from all quarters, which scattered the rabble and made them fly..."
- Plutarch, Parallel Lives, written during the time of the Gospels
(On the death and resurrection of Romulus, founder of Rome)"'On that day, says the Lord God, 'I will make the sun go down at noon and darken the earth in broad daylight . . . . I will make it like the mourning for an only son, and the end of it like a bitter day.'"
- Amos 8:9-10"Now it was midday and a darkness covered all Judaea. And they became anxious and uneasy lest the sun had already set, since he was still alive. [For] it stands written for them: the sun should not set on one that has been put to death."
- Gospel of Peter 5:1"At the sixth hour darkness came over the whole land until the ninth hour."
- Mark 15:33; (Matthew 27:45; Luke 23:44.)
The Gospel of John does not mention "darkness at noon" (or the rending of the curtain in the Temple reported in the synoptic gospels).
Calling for Elijah
"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?"
- Psalms 22:1"About the ninth hour [3:00 PM] Jesus cried out in a loud voice, 'Eloi, Eloi, lama Sabachthani' [which means, 'My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?'"
- Mark 15:34; (Matthew 27:46)"And the Lord cried out, saying, 'My power, (my) power, you have abandoned me.' When he said this, he was taken up."
- Peter 5:5
"The Marcan version (15:34) of the cry of dereliction on the cross, 'My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?' (eloi, eloi, lema sabachthani), is certainly Aramaic. The question is whether it really goes back to the historical Jesus or - as I would maintain - reflects the early theological interpretation of Jesus' death as the death of the suffering just man of the Psalms."
- John P. Meier, A Marginal Jew - Rethinking the Historical Jesus, Vol. 1.
"In Mark 15:34-37 Jesus cries out 'My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?' The bystanders mistake Jesus' last words by taking 'My God' or 'Eloi' for 'Elijah' and derisively attempt to keep him alive for a few extra minutes to see if the prophet comes to his aid. The drink is their own mocking idea."
- John Dominic Crossan, Jesus at 2000 E-mail Debate on the Historical Jesus, Lent, 1996
"When some of those standing near heard this, they said, 'Listen, he's calling Elijah.'
One man ran, filled a sponge with wine vinegar, put it on a stick, and offered it to Jesus to drink. 'Now leave him alone. Let's see if Elijah comes to take him down,' he said."
- Mark 15:35-36; (Matthew 27:47-49; Luke 23:36-37)
(3) Drinking Wine Vinegar
A Narcotic Elixir?
"They gave me also gall [cholen] for my food, and made me drink vinegar [oxos]." - Psalm 69 [70]:21
"Then they offered him wine mixed with myrrh..."
- Mark 15:23a
"...Mark and Matthew employ the term
oxoV, which may mean 'vinegar,' but first of all means 'ordinary wine'; many translators render
oxoV by 'cheap wine.' In Greek the standard word for 'wine' was
oinoV, but this term was often understood as referring to quality wine."
- Jan Sammer (CrossTalk)
"It was fully in line with Jewish custom to offer a person sentenced to death wine spiced with myrrh or incense, to alleviate the pain by the slight narcotic effect."
- Holger Kersten & Elmar R. Gruber, The Jesus Conspiracy - The Turin Shroud & The Truth About the Resurrection (1992)
"The one departing to be put to death was given a piece of incense in a cup of wine, to help him fall asleep."
- Sanhedrin 43a
". Myrrh is a resin produced by a small, tough, scraggly tree [Arabian myrtle] which grows in semi-desert regions of North Africa and the Red Sea region. The word myrrh means 'bitter' in Arabic."
" Since ancient times, warm and rich myrrh has had the reputation has as a wound healer because of its strong antiseptic, antibacterial and anti-inflammatory properties. It is also antifungal and is useful against candida, thrush and other fungal conditions."
- "Essential Oils"
Myrrh is also a spasmodic and, most importantly , a tonic. Kersten and Gruber speculate that the vinegar wine may have actually have contained something more soporific and potent than myrrh.
"But there is no mention of a spiced wine. All the evangelists agree that it was a brew with a very bitter taste. In Latin vinegar is called acetum, from acidus, 'bitter'."
"Perhaps the drink was made of a bitter wine to which a measured portion of opium had been added. The exceptional anesthetic and narcotic effect of opium was well known to the Jews even in pre-Christian times. Opium is the milky juice of the scratched, unripe seed-head of a certain poppy plant (Papaver somniferum). This type of poppy was widespread in Palestine."
- Holger Kersten & Elmar R. Gruber, The Jesus Conspiracy - The Turin Shroud & The Truth About the Resurrection (1992)
"...But he would not take it [the drugged wine]."
- Mark 15:23b
This reflects Jesus words at Mark's account of the Last Supper:
"Never again shall I drink from the fruit of the vine until I drink it new in the kingdom of God."
- Mark 14:25
A Bitter Poison?
"They put gall in my food and gave me vinegar for my thirst."
- Psalm 69:21"And one of them said, 'Give him to drink gall with vinegar.' And they mixed it and gave him to drink."
- Gospel of Peter 5:3"They gave him wine mixed with gall [choles], but having tasted it he refused to drink."
- Matthew 27:34
"In the case of the first offering of wine to Jesus, both Mark and Matthew employ the term
oinoV but whereas Mark says that it was 'treated with myrrh,' Matthew specifies that it was 'mixed with gall (
xolh - 'chole').' The word
xolh means 'gall' but in Greek poetry it is often used in the sense of 'poison.'"
- Jan Sammer (CrossTalk)
"Matthew changes the Roman soldiers' act of mercy (drugged wine) to an act of cruel mockery (undrinkably bitter wine) by reading through Mark to a previously unrecognized 'prediction' in the Old Testament. Fascinatingly, Luke does the same thing, but on the basis of the other part of Ps. 69:21 LXX."
- Randal Helms, Gospel Fictions (1988) p. 123
"They... made me drink vinegar [oxos] for my thirst."
- Psalm 69:21 LXX"The soldiers joined in the mockery and came forward offering him their sour wine [oxos]."
- Luke 23:26
"'Knowing' on the basis of the Psalm, as did Matthew, that the offer of wine was mockery, Luke also drops Mark's statement that the soldiers' wine was drugged with myrrh."
- Randal Helms, Gospel Fictions (1988) p. 122
Paschal Symbolism?
Only the Gospel of John specifically states that something was added to the wine vinegar.
"My mouth is dried up like a potsherd and my tongue sticks to my jaws."
- Psalms 22:15"Sprinkle me with hyssop."
- Psalm 51:7"A man ran and soaked a sponge in sour wine and held it to his lips on the end of a cane."
- Mark 15:34-36"After that, Jesus, aware that all had now come to its appointed end, said in fulfillment of Scripture, 'I thirst.' A jar stood there full of sour wine [oxous]; so they soaked a sponge with the wine, fixed it on hyssop, and held it to his lips."
- John 19:28-29
"But why change 'sponge on the end of a cane [kalamo]' to a 'sponge on hyssop [hussopo]?' I would suggest that the madoram or hyssop comes not only from the Psalms but also is a way for John to introduce more Paschal symbolism into the crucifixion. Remember that the first phrase uttered about Jesus in the Fourth Gospel is the Baptist's 'Behold the lamb of God' (1:29), and that John presents Jesus dying even as the Passover lambs were being slaughtered in Jerusalem. According to Exodus, hyssop (madoram) was to be used for sprinkling the blood of the Paschal lamb on the door posts and lintels of Hebrew homes (12:21); thus, the touching of Jesus with hyssop becomes the symbolic reenactment of the Passover ritual upon his own person."
- Randal Helms, Gospel Fictions (1988) p. 124
"Jesus was slain at the same time the unblemished lamb was slain on Passover. According to God's instructions the Passover lamb had to be slain 'between the evenings'."
- "Unlocking Prophecy: Jesus Fulfills the Seven Feasts of Israel",
Return to God Magazine (Vol. 1 No. 1, p. 22 and Vol. 1 No. 2, p. 4)
"Take care of them until the fourteenth day of the month, when all the people of the community of Israel must slaughter them at twilight."
- Exodus 12:6
A Hastened Death?
Jesus' death was sudden.
"When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, he said, 'It is finished' and he bowed is head, and gave up the ghost."
- John 19:30"And Jesus cried out again with a loud voice, and yielded up His spirit."
- Mark 15:37; (Matthew 27:50)
As we have seen (above), the precursor to the story about the sour wine/vinegar can be found in Psalms, but a number of researchers believe the narrative was based on historical fact.
"The appearance of sudden death was enhanced by the fact that opium strongly lowers the heart rate, calms the breathing to an extraordinary degree, and makes the body completely limp."
"If Jesus was actually close to suffocation - which almost all the medical opinions assume was the cause of death - the loud cry before he 'died', which the three Synoptic evangelists expressly mention, would be quite impossible. A suffocating person could hardly manage a whisper." Jesus was able to speak and cry out "because he was not close to death but to a deep, induced state of rest."
- Holger Kersten & Elmar R. Gruber, The Jesus Conspiracy - The Turin Shroud & The Truth About the Resurrection (1992)
"But what made 'death' follow immediately? Gall, myrrh and wine would all act as stimulants, myrrh being bitter and aromatic."
"The Egyptian words for gall were two: aas or as, using a glyph for vomit or spit and one for wrapping a mummy both of which implys something both vile and deadly; and skhi, given as gall or gall of geese but spelled exactly as the verb skhi which means, climbing a wall..."
"Gall, so often associated with wormwood, was available from slaughters. Geese are specifically mentioned as a source by the Ancient Egyptians. It's vileness would rouse even the comatose."
- Tom Simms (CrossTalk)
Note that in both Mark and Matthew, the wine with the mixture (myrrh or gall) was initially refused. Neither gospel specifically states that a substance was present in the wine vinegar that was actually drunk by Jesus.
"In John 19:28-30, of course, there is no cry of desolation and no mockery, and the drink is Jesus' idea and brought at his command. For Mark, the passion of Jesus starts and ends in agony and desolation. For John, the passion of Jesus starts and ends in control and command. But I repeat, as gospel, both are equally but divergently true. Both speak, equally but divergently, to different times and places, situations and communities. Mark's Jesus speaks to a persecuted community and shows them how to die. John's Jesus speaks to a defeated community and shows them how to live."
- John Dominic Crossan, Jesus at 2000 E-mail Debate on the Historical Jesus, Lent, 1996
"And they fulfilled all things and completed the measure of their sins on their head."
- Gospel of Peter 5:17
(1 Thessolonians 2:15; Matthew 23:32-33, Epistle of Barnabas 5:11, 14:5
This is "interpreted as a deliberate poisoning of Jesus to hasten his death and enable a burial before sunset."
- John Dominic Crossan, The Historical Jesus, The Life of a Mediterranean Peasant (1991)
(4) Jesus' Demise
The Ninth Hour
"Jesus gave up His spirit at the exact time the lambs were to be killed - the ninth hour. 'Between the evenings' and 'the ninth hour' are based on the manner by which the Temple priests calculated time. Both refer to the same time -- three o'clock in the afternoon."
- "Unlocking Prophecy: Jesus Fulfills the Seven Feasts of Israel",
Return to God Magazine (Vol. 1 No. 1, p. 22 and Vol. 1 No. 2, p. 4)
"For Mark (and the other Synoptics after him), Jesus must suffer for six hours, from 9 A.M. (Mark 15:25) until 3 P.M. (Mark 15:33), so that on the seventh or sabbath hour he could complete his task, and rest, as did his Father after the six days of creation."
- Randal Helms, Gospel Fictions (1988) p. 126
"Luke alone makes Jesus say of his executioners, 'Father, forgive them, for they don't realize what they're doing' (Luke 23:34). [The passage is an interpolation in Luke, missing from ancient manuscripts.].....Eusebius [Ecclesiastical History 2:23:16] conceded that the line was actually spoken by Jesus' brother Jacob [James] on the occasion of his execution by High Priest Hanan in 62 C.E."
- William Harwood, Mythologies Last Gods: Yahweh and Jesus
"Into Your hands I commit my spirit."
- Psalms 31:5"And Jesus, crying out with a loud voice, said, 'Father, into Your hands I commit my spirit.'"
- Luke 23:46
In the Gospel of John, Jesus' dying words were a cry of triumph.
"It is accomplished!"
- John 19:30
The Torn Curtain
"The curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom."
- Mark 15:38 (Matthew 27:51; Luke 23:45)
"...The evangelist notes that at the moment Jesus dies the veil of the temple is torn in two, from top to bottom, thus symbolizing that access to God's presence is now open to non-Jews."
- Graham N. Stanton, The Gospels and Jesus, The Oxford Bible Series (1989), paperback, p. 55
"According to Exodus this curtain served as a 'clear separation for you between the Holy Place and the Holy of Holies' (26:33), a boundary marking off the holiest part of the temple, enterable only by the high priest. This notion was given special meaning by early Christians, for according to the Letter to the Hebrews."
- Randal Helms, Gospel Fictions (1988) p. 128
"The priests are always entering the first tent in the discharge of their duties; but the second is entered only once a year, and by the high priest alone, and even then he must take with him the blood which he offers on his own behalf and for the people's sins of ignorance.... All this is symbolic, pointing to the present time.... But now Christ has come, high priest of good things already in being... ; the blood of his sacrifice is his own blood... ; and thus he has entered the sanctuary once and for all and secured an eternal deliverance."
- Hebrews 9:6-12
"Jesus, by his death, entered the Holy of Holies (i.e., the presence of God) to present his blood for our redemption. The consequence for the Christian is that 'The blood of Jesus makes us free to enter boldly into the sanctuary by the new, living way which he has opened for us through the curtain of his flesh' (Heb. 10:1920). This notion became, in Mark's Gospel, historicized: if Jesus opened the way for us into the sanctuary 'through the curtain,' then the curtain must have been opened, 'torn in two from top to bottom.'"
- Randal Helms, Gospel Fictions (1988) p. 128
The Cry of the Centurion
"...Mark's emphasis on Jesus as Son of God reaches its climax with the cry of the Roman centurion at the moment Jesus dies:"
- Graham N. Stanton, The Gospels and Jesus, The Oxford Bible Series (1989), paperback, p. 249
"And when the centurion, who stood there in front of Jesus, heard his cry and [some manuscripts do not have heard his cry and] saw how he died, he said, 'Surely this man was the Son [or a son] of God!'"
- Mark 15:39 (Matthew 27:54)
This passage has often been interpreted reverentially as the centurion "seeing the light". In keeping with the consistent treatment of Jesus by the Romans throughout Mark's passion narrative, however, the centurion could simply be mocking Jesus one last time.
(5) No Bone Broken
"It [the Passover lamb] must be eaten inside one house; take none of the meat outside the house. Do not break any of the bones."
- Exodus 12:46; (Numbers 9:12; Psalms 34:20.)
"Though it was a common and merciful Roman practice to break the legs of the crucified to hasten their death and relieve their suffering, none of Jesus' bones were broken, just as the Passover lamb is to have no bone broken."
- "Unlocking Prophecy: Jesus Fulfills the Seven Feasts of Israel",
Return to God Magazine (Vol. 1 No. 1, p. 22 and Vol. 1 No. 2, p. 4)
The leg bones of Jehohanan, the crucified man excavated at Giv'at ha-Mivtar, had been broken.
"The right tibia and the left calf bones (tibia and fibula) were all broken in their last third at the same level, but in a different manner: the right tibia had brutally been fractured, by comminutions, into sharp slivers; the left tibia and fibula were broken by a simple, oblique, dentate-serrate line. Both types of fractures are characteristic in fresh bone. The fracture of the right tibial bone (the fibula being unavailable for sudy), was produced by a single, strong blow. This direct, deliberate blow may be attributed to the final 'coup de grace'."
- Dr. Nicu Haas, "Anthropological Observations on the Skeletal Remains from Giv'at ha-Mivtar" (Israel Exploration Journal 20, 1970)
"If Jehohanan's legs had been broken to prevent him from raising up to breathe, then death would have come swiftly to him and not after prolonged daily torture as was the case with Spartacus' followers and Josephus' friends."
- James H. Charlesworth, Jesus Within Judaism
"Now it was the day of Preparation, and the next day was to be a special Sabbath. Because the Jews did not want the bodies left on the crosses during the Sabbath, they asked Pilate to have the legs broken and the bodies taken down. The soldiers therefore came and broke the legs of the first man who had been crucified with Jesus, and then those of the other."
- John 19:30-32
"...The 'breaking of the legs' was a procedure carried out only on Jewish crucifixion victims. In other countries victims would be left on the cross during the night, and it might take up to three days for them to expire."
- Ian Wilson, Jesus, The Evidence
"He keeps all his bones, not one of them is broken."
- Psalms 34:20"But when they came to Jesus and found that he was already dead, they did not break his legs."
- John 19:33
"Because it was near sunset and the commencement of the Sabbath, those crucified would have had their legs broken to expedite death so their bodies could be taken down and buried before nightfall. Jewish law required that a hanged man's body should not remain overnight unburied, but should be interred the same day (Deuteronomy 21:22-23). On the eve of a Sabbath and festival this provision would especially have demanded respect, even by the Romans, since the instigators of the trial of Jesus had been the chief priests who would have insisted on it."
- Hugh J. Schonfield, After the Cross
(6) Confirmation of Death
"And I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit [or 'the Spirit '] of grace and supplication. They will look on [or to] me, the one they have pierced, and they will mourn for him as one mourns for an only child, and grieve bitterly for him as one grieves for a firstborn son."
- Zechariah 12:10"Instead [of breaking his legs], one of the soldiers pierced Jesus' side with a spear, bringing a sudden flow of blood and water."
- John 19:34
"A detailed analysis shows that the term used in the Greek original for the thrust of the soldier, nyssein, means a light scratch, puncture or stab to the skin, not a thrust with full force, let alone a deep penetration....The procedure served as a kind of 'official confirmation' of death: if the body did not show any reaction to a light stabbing, it could be assumed that the person was dead."
"The scientists of the East Midlands Forensic Laboratory consider it to be most unlikely that a stab at the site of the side would could have touched the heart. They see no life-threatening danger even if the point penetrated. The lance would only have pierced the pleura, causing 'blood and water' to flow out, a watery fluid which had collected between the lungs and the thorax during the violent treatment."
"Even Origen (185-254), who did actually believe Jesus was dead at the time when the blood and water came out from the wounds, pointed out that corpses do not bleed."
- Holger Kersten & Elmar R. Gruber, The Jesus Conspiracy - The Turin Shroud & The Truth About the Resurrection (1992)
"Pilate, astonished that he should have died so soon, summoned the centurion and enquired if he had been dead for some time."
- Mark 15:44
"He had been only about six hours on the cross, and was a young and presumably healthy man of thirty or nearby. An ordinary man of his age would live as many days on the cross as he lived hours; for, no vital organ being injured, the sufferer hung by the hands and feet, first in pain, and then in stupor, till he ultimately expired in syncope and exhaustion. A nail through each hand and a nail through each foot for six hours did not and could not kill Christ, or any other fairly strong man of thirty."
- W. S. Ross, "Did Jesus Christ Rise from the Dead?"
"...For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed."
- 1 Corinthians 5:7 (NIV)
Click here for a list of other figures in antiquity who reputedly died by crucifixion.