Witness To Crucifixion

by Dr. Randall Price

Archaeology reveals that crucifixion probably began with the Phoenicians (around the tenth century B.C.), was adopted by the Assyrians as a form of torture known as impaling, but was most perfected by the Romans, who chose it as a method of execution for state criminals.  The 6,000 Spartans died by crucifixion; plus 800 Pharisees were put to death in Jerusalem by crucifixion.  Yet despite widespread references to its practice in ancient literature and the New Testament, no material evidence of a crucified victim had ever been found in Israel until the late 1960s. 

Crucified Man Discovered

In 1968 a team of archaeologists under V. Tzaferis discovered 4 cave-tombs at Giv'at ha-Mivtar, just north of Jerusalem. The date of the tombs, revealed by the pottery, ranged from the late second century B.C. until A.D. 70. These family tombs…hewn out of soft limestone, belong to the Jewish cemetery of Jesus' time...

Within the caves 15 limestone ossuaries contained the bones of 35 individuals. These skeletons reveal the turbulence and agony that confronted the Jews during the century in which Jesus lived. 9 of the 35 individuals had met violent death. …Finally, and most importantly, a man between 24 and 28 years of age was crucified.

The name of the crucified man was incised on his ossuary in letters 2 cm high: Jehohanan --Johanan the son of Ha-galgol. He was crucified probably between AD 7 and AD 66, the beginning of the war against Rome... According to Dr. N. Haas (Dept. of Anatomy, Hebrew Univ. Med. Sch.), Johanan experienced 3 traumatic episodes. [1] The cleft palate and asymmetries of his face likely resulted from the deterioration of his mother's diet during pregnancy. [2] The disproportion of his skull was caused by difficulties during birth. [3] All the marks of violence on the skeleton resulted directly or indirectly from crucifixion.

4.5-inch Crucifixion Nail

The significant evidence of crucifixion was an ankle bone still pierced with a 4.5-inch-long crucifixion nail, attached to a piece of wood from a cross.  When the man was crucified, the nail apparently hit a knot in the olive wood patibulum (the upright stake) and become so lodged that the victim could not be removed without retaining both the nail and a fragment of the cross. This rare find is one of the most important archaeological witnesses to Jesus' crucifixion as recorded in the Gospels.

Reveals Crucifixion’s Horrors  

First, it reveals afresh the horrors of the Roman punishment.  A study of the remains appears to indicate the position the body assumed on the cross.  According to proposed reconstructions, the legs were nailed on either side of the upright stake (the length of the nail--11.5 cm (4.53 inches)--suggests the heels were nailed to opposite sides of the vertical).  This method of execution forced the weight of the body to be placed on the nails, causing terribly painful muscle spasms and eventually death by the excruciating process of asphyxiation.  This particular position may have been used alone, or with the breaking of the legs to hasten death.  When Jesus and the two criminals were crucified it was on both the afternoon before the greatest festival in Judaism (Passover) and just prior to the Sabbath.  The Jewish rulers demanded a quick crucifixion so as to not desecrate the approaching holy day (John 19:31-32).  Such details of the horrors of crucifixion, as attested by archaeology, reveal that the Gospel writers really had been historical eyewitnesses of the crucifixion, just as they said (John 19:35). 

Refutes claims Nails never used  

Second, it was once claimed that the Gospel's description of the method of crucifixion was historically inaccurate.  Scholars once argued that nails could not have been used to fasten a crucified victim to a cross because nail-fastened hands and feet would not have been able to support their bodies.  The victims were rather bound by ropes.  Yet after the resurrection Jesus revealed His crucified body to His disciples and said, "See My hands and My feet" (Luke 24:39). The scars He revealed were not from rope burns but "nails."

Refutes Claims Crucified People never properly buried

In like manner, skeptical scholars contended that Jesus' body, as the bodies of most criminals and insurrectionists, would not have received a proper burial, but instead would have been dumped into a common grave set aside for the corpses of those defiled by crucifixion.  According to them, the narrative concerning Jesus' burial in the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea (Luke 23:51-56), from which He was resurrected, was a fictitious tale.

The discovery of the nail-pierced ankle bone refutes those who say nails could not have been used.  The most recent examination of Johanan's other bones by anthropological analysts has not revealed a nailing of the wrists.  This may have been because of Roman economy in crucifixion, in which both the horizontal and vertical parts of the cross were re-used.  Ancient sources reveal that wood was scarce in Jerusalem, for [the Jewish historian] Josephus (War5:522-23) notes that Roman soldiers were forced to travel ten miles outside of the city to find timber for their siege machinery [in the AD 70 destruction of Jerusalem].  The fact that Johanan's bones were found in secondary burial within a tomb also disproves the second scholarly hypothesis.  This crucified victim, like Jesus, had received a proper Jewish burial."

Ancient Pagan Graffiti mocks Crucifixion

An interesting testimony to the later veneration of Jesus as a crucified victim has come by way of a crude piece of graffiti found in 1856 in one of the guardrooms of the Palatine in Rome, the site of the imperial palace.  Drawn by a pagan mocking Christian worship, the graffiti dates to the first half of the third century A.D., and depicts a crucified figure with an ass's head and a kneeling worshiper beside.  The Latin inscription reads, "Alexamenos worshiping his god." To such a pagan, elevating a crucified felon to the place of divinity was absurd.  Yet, such faith makes no sense unless there is a historical reality behind it.  Some of this reality can be felt as we are able to literally touch, through archaeology, the places of the events associated with Christ's death, burial, and resurrection.

Edited from: The Stones Cry Out by Randall Price

Copyright © 1997 by World of the Bible Ministries, Inc.
Published by Harvest House Publishers, Eugene, Oregon 97402