Crucifixion—The Archaeological Evidence - The BAS Library

Footnotes

1.

A spindle bottle resembles a cylinder that bulges at its midsection.

2.

A medical team from the Department of Anatomy at the Hebrew University Hadassah Medical School, headed by Dr. Nico Haas, made an intensive, if brief, study of the bones.

3.

Early Christian artists, although frequently representing events from the life of Jesus, refrained from drawing scenes of the crucifixion during the first 500 years of Christian history. The earliest Christian representation of the crucifixion dates to the late fifth or early sixth centuries A.D., i.e., about 200 years after crucifixion was legally abolished by the emperor Constantine the Great.

4.

In John 19:34, a lance is plunged into Jesus’ heart. This was not intended as the death blow but as a post mortem blow inflicted in order to testify to the victim’s death. Only after this testimonial was obtained was the body removed from the cross and handed over to the victim’s relatives for burial. The blow to the heart proved beyond doubt that the victim was indeed dead.

Endnotes

1.

Diodorus Siculus XIV:53.

2.

Josephus, Antiquities XIV:380–381.

3.

Appian, B. Civ. I, 120.