Suffocation, loss of body fluids and multiple organ failure. It wasn't pleasant, but for those with a strong constitution take a deep breath and read on. "The weight of the body pulling down on the arms makes breathing extremely difficult," says Jeremy Ward, a physiologist at King's College London.
Death by crucifixion now begins. As Jesus slowly sags down with the weight of His body on the nails through His wrists, excruciating, fiery pain shoots along the most sensitive nerve endings in the body – called the median nerves – and travels along the fingers and up the arms to explode in the brain.
Crucifixion lasted from 6 hours to 4 days. It was preceded by a brutal scourging. A Roman soldier would strike the victim 39 times with a whip whose leather straps were laced with slivers of sharp bones and small metal balls that severely cut into the body, exposing bones and internal organs.
Crucifixion was invented by the Persians between 300-400 B.C. It is quite possibly the most painful death ever invented by humankind. The English language derives the word “excruciating” from crucifixion, acknowledging it as a form of slow, painful suffering.
The attending Roman guards could only leave the site after the victim had died, and were known to precipitate death by means of deliberate fracturing of the tibia and/or fibula, spear stab wounds into the heart, sharp blows to the front of the chest, or a smoking fire built at the foot of the cross to asphyxiate the ...
To speed death, executioners would often break the legs of their victims to give no chance of using their thigh muscles as support. It was probably unnecessary, as their strength would not have lasted more than a few minutes even if they were unharmed.
Christ descended into hell, experienced all its horrors. He tasted every dimension of its pain. And He did that on the cross.
According to pious legend, St. Bernard asked Jesus which was His greatest unrecorded suffering and the wound that inflicted the most pain on Him in Calvary and Jesus answered: "I had on My Shoulder, while I bore My Cross on the Way of Sorrows, a grievous Wound which was more painful than the others and which is not ...
Apparently there is only one extant account (in Josephus) of one person surviving crucifixion out of the hundreds reported in ancient literature. (And that case was only when excellent medical care was immediately provided by the Romans, and even so, only one out of three who were so rescued actually survived!)
Greco-Roman texts show that in certain cases the bodies of the crucified were left to decompose in place. In other cases, the crucified bodies were buried.
When nails were involved, they were long and square (about 15cm long and 1cm thick) and were driven into the victim's wrists or forearms to fix him to the crossbar. Once the crossbar was in place, the feet may be nailed to either side of the upright or crossed.
Crucifixion is not a quick method of execution; it is a slow and cruel death meant to give the victim time to reflect on their crimes. Although the wounds from being nailed to a cross are painful, they are not believed to have caused a quick death from blood loss.
“The nailing to the cross was not through the hands but between the two bones below the wrist so the wrist bones could bear the entire weight of the body on the cross,” Dery explains. “Having a nail driven through there would feel like lightning going through your middle and ring fingers.
Crucifixion may be defined as a method of execution by which a person is hanged, usually by their arms, from a cross or similar structure until dead.
In Catholic tradition, the Five Holy Wounds, also known as the Five Sacred Wounds or the Five Precious Wounds, are the five piercing wounds that Jesus Christ suffered during his crucifixion.
Bound to a tree, only one of them survived - Herbert James "Ringer" Edwards, who became the inspiration for the character Joe Harman in Nevil Shute's novel, A Town Like Alice. Today, a punishment referred to as "crucifixion" can still be imposed by courts in Saudi Arabia.
These witnesses to the resurrected Jesus include the Apostle Peter, James the brother of Jesus, and, most intriguingly, a group of more than 500 people at the same time. Many scholars believe that Paul here is quoting from a much earlier Christian creed, which perhaps originated only a few years after Jesus' death.
After 40 days, Jesus ascended into heaven.
It was one of the instruments of the Passion, employed by Jesus' captors both to cause him pain and to mock his claim of authority.
As a test of Abraham's faith, the Lord commanded him to offer up his son Isaac as a sacrifice. Isaac was the only son of Abraham and Sarah. The command to offer him as a sacrifice was extremely painful for Abraham.
During the Jesus's falling, his right arm remained entangled in the triangle of the cross and after a rebound of it the right arm was therefore raised over its limit. The relatively high mass of the cross therefore dragged the humerus forward and downward and produced the right shoulder dislocation.
Luke's gospel also records that Jesus wept as he entered Jerusalem before his trial and death, anticipating the destruction of the Temple.
Jesus also forgave people who didn't know they were doing something wrong. He asked Heavenly Father to forgive the men who crucified Him. They didn't know they were hurting the Son of God. Jesus forgives people because He loves them.
For many scholars, Revelation 1:14-15 offers a clue that Jesus's skin was a darker hue and that his hair was woolly in texture. The hairs of his head, it says, "were white as white wool, white as snow. His eyes were like a flame of fire, his feet were like burnished bronze, refined as in a furnace.”