Biblical Views: Images of Crucifixion: Fresh Evidence

028

The Easter season is a time of year when Christians reflect on the death, burial, resurrection and post-mortem appearances of Jesus. Good Friday, as it is called, focuses specifically on the death of Jesus, which in my view likely transpired during the Passover season in April 30 A.D. Much of how Christians view, and think about, the crucifixion of Jesus comes from the iconography and representation of the event in later Christian art, none of which dates to the first century of the Christian era.

There are, however, three known images of crucifixion roughly contemporary with when Jesus lived. The first two are in the form of graffiti: one ridicules the notion of a crucified god (and so provides an early critique of Christian belief); the other is a simple depiction of a flayed and crucified man. The third image is inscribed on a gem that may have been used for magic rites.

The most familiar image is called the Alexamenos graffito. It was found on a plaster wall near the Palatine Hill in Rome. The inscription either reads “Alexamenos worships god” or is an imperative, “Alexamenos—worship god!” The crucified figure has the head of a donkey, satirizing the worship of Alexamenos; the notion of a crucified god was seen as ridiculous. Of interest is the way the crucified figure is depicted: (1) on a T or tau-shaped cross, (2) with feet spread apart, not nailed together. There is no clear consensus of the date of this graffito, but it has been suggested by scholars that it comes from somewhere between the late first century and the mid-third century A.D.

The second image of crucifixion is far less well known, having been found fairly recently at a dig in Puteoli, Italy.

Once again the man is depicted with his head facing to one side, on a tau-shaped cross, with legs apparently nailed separately on either side of the upright portion of the cross. He has also been badly whipped or flayed. In both of these examples the man has been crucified in the nude, which may explain the choice of posterior rather than frontal images.

This second image was found in 1959 in a taberna (guest house) in Puteoli and probably dates to the second century A.D.¹ This graffito may reflect, as Professor Harley-McGowan of Melbourne University suggests, that the graffiti artist had actually witnessed a crucifixion at the famous arena in nearby Cumae. In that case, we have here a first-hand description of how the crucifixion of someone like Jesus appeared to a bystander.

Though it is likely from a slightly later period (perhaps the fourth century), a striking gemstone confirms what we have already noted: the feet are nailed separately; the image may be from the back side (possibly showing flaying); and, more clearly, the cross is the shape of a capital T, or tau.

In addition to the three depictions mentioned above, there is also the famous ossified foot with the nail through it found at Givat ha Mivtar, a neighborhood in northern Jerusalem, proving that crucifixion with nails was known in antiquity in Jerusalem.^a

066

How is all of this relevant to the crucifixion of the historical Jesus? First, crucifixion was a form not merely of execution but of public shaming. Such persons were often crucified in the nude. It can be debated whether this was the case with Jesus. The Romans might have avoided the practice, understanding that public nudity would offend Jewish sentiments, especially during the Passover season. On the other hand, there is nothing in the accounts of the New Testament to suggest that Jesus was wearing a loin cloth (or anything else) when he was on the cross. All we are told is that his clothes were the property of the soldiers.

Second, if Jesus was crucified in the same manner as we see in the above examples, then the image on the Shroud of Turin of a man crucified with one nail through both feet (positioned one on top of the other) may not reflect the first-century Roman practice.^b But nails likely were used in the case of Jesus. The point of using nails was to ensure that no one would come at night and take the executed man down from the cross. In fact, various persons in the early Christian era did survive crucifixion with just such help.²

Third, precisely because the point of such a bloody public execution was to humiliate the person in question and deter others from committing his crimes (crucifixion normally being the punishment only for treason or slave revolt³), crucifixion seems to have been regularly accompanied by flaying or flogging, presumably before the person was nailed to the cross. The Gospels suggest that Jesus 067 endured such a punishment, though they do not emphasize this aspect of his suffering, barely mentioning it in some cases. The earliest account (in Mark 15:15) mentions flogging in passing, as do Matthew 27:26 and John 19:1. Luke 23:22 speaks of flogging and then releasing Jesus, which suggests a light flogging (the flogging itself is not recorded).

Without question, crucifixion was horrific, but we don’t need the later gruesome depictions of Jesus’ death to deduce that fact. It is important for those who are interested in the historical event of the crucifixion to stick to the facts we have about the event itself—both as recorded in the Gospels and as found in the archaeological evidence, however slender.

The Easter season is a time of year when Christians reflect on the death, burial, resurrection and post-mortem appearances of Jesus. Good Friday, as it is called, focuses specifically on the death of Jesus, which in my view likely transpired during the Passover season in April 30 A.D. Much of how Christians view, and think about, the crucifixion of Jesus comes from the iconography and representation of the event in later Christian art, none of which dates to the first century of the Christian era. There are, however, three known images of crucifixion roughly contemporary with when Jesus lived. […]