Two Questions About Crucifixion
Does the victim die of asphyxiation? Would nails in the hand hold the weight of the body?
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Footnotes
This examination included: a 12-lead electrocardiogram, pulse rate, blood pressure, auscultatory examination, vital capacity and ear oximetry, arterial blood gases and venous blood chemistries.
Visual observations and Douglas bag studies measured the amount of air expired each minute and the relative oxygen content of the expired air. Both of these measurements determined that the oxygen increase occurred when hyperventilation began after four minutes of hanging, with abdominal breathing at a rate about four to five times normal.
Zias and Sekeles suggest that the blows may have been administered after death, which would, of course, make the crurifragium irrelevant to the victim’s breathing.
Since this article was written, the shroud has been shown to be a medieval forgery. The results of recent radiocarbon tests on small pieces of the shroud and comments about these tests by the author and other experts are reported in the sidebar to this article.
Using the formula—the pull on each hand is equal to twice the cosine of the angle that the arms make with the vertical.
Barbet located Destot’s Space directly under the hand wound on the shroud. This wound appears on the radial, or thumb, side of the wrist. In fact, Destot’s Space is on the ulnar, or small finger, side of the wrist—opposite to the location of the shroud’s hand wound. Barbet seems to have become confused about the shroud wound location; he demonstrated in several ways that Jesus was nailed through the small finger side of the wrist, all the while claiming that this location was that shown on the shroud.
Endnotes
A.A. LeBec, “A Physiological Study of the Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ,” The Catholic Medical Guardian [London] 3 (1925), p. 26; “Le Supplice de la Croix,” L’Evangile dans la Vie, April 1925.
R.W. Hynek, Science and the Holy Shroud (Chicago: Benedictine Press, 1936); The True Likeness (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1951).
Vassilios Tzaferis, “Crucifixion—The Archaeological Evidence,” BAR 11:01.
Nico Haas, “Anthropological Observations on the Skeletal Remains from Giv‘at ha-Mivtar,” Israel Exploration Journal (IEJ) 20 (1970), pp. 38–59.
Joseph Zias and Eliezer Sekeles, “The Crucified Man from Giv‘at ha-Mivtar,” IEJ 35 (1985), pp. 22–27; Hershel Shanks, “New Analysis of the Crucified Mail,” BAR 11:06.
W.B. Primrose, “A Surgeon Looks at the Crucifixion,” Hibbert Journal 47 (1949), pp. 382–388; S.M. Tenney, “On Death by Crucifixion,” American Heart Journal 68 (1964), pp. 286–287.
For an in-depth discussion of the mechanisms of shock invoked during crucifixion, from initiation to death, see my article “Death by Crucifixion” published in the Canadian Society of Forensic Sciences Journal (vol. 17 [1984], pp. 1–13). My research findings and conclusions were presented in a paper entitled “Death by Crucifixion” before the Forensic Pathology Section of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences (35th Annual Meeting, Cincinnati, Ohio, Feb. 19, 1983). Many pathologists indicated agreement with my conclusions, and not a single forensic pathologist challenged any of the findings or conclusions.
Justus Lipsius, “De Cruci Libri tres. as sacrum profanamque historiam utiles,” Opera Omnia, Book 3 (Antwerp, 1614).