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Each year, Cahleen Shrier, associate professor in the Department of Biology and Chemistry at Azusa Pacific University, presents a special lecture on the science of Jesus' crucifixion detailing the physiological processes a typical crucified victim underwent based on historical documentation of crucifixion procedures used during that time period. According to Dr. Chuck Dietzen, the Romans favored it over hanging because it was a slow death taking as long as two days making it quite effective for quelling dissent. "It is important to understand from the beginning that Jesus would have been in excellent physical condition," says Shrier. "As a carpenter by trade, He participated in physical labor. In addition, He spent much of His ministry traveling on foot across the countryside."
Evidence suggests that Jesus dreaded his fate. The New Testament tells of how he sweated blood the night before in the garden of Gethsemane. A rare medical condition known as hematohidrosis may explain this phenomenon, Dietzen says. In this condition, extreme stress causes the blood vessels around the sweat gland to rupture into the sweat ducts. While few of these cases exist in the medical literature, many of those that do involve people facing execution.
Crucifixion was invented by the Persians in 300-400 BC. It was developed, during Roman times, into a punishment for the most serious of criminals and is quite possibly the most painful death ever invented by humankind. The Romans would tie or nail the accused to the cross being sure to avoid the blood vessels. While many people envision the nail going into a person's palm, it was placed closer to the wrist. The feet were nailed to the upright part of the crucifix, so that the knees were bent at around 45 degrees. "Once the legs gave out, the weight would be transferred to the arms, gradually dragging the shoulders from their sockets. The elbows and wrists would follow a few minutes later; by now, the arms would be six or seven inches longer," says Alok Jha. "The victim would have no choice but to bear his weight on his chest. He would immediately have trouble breathing as the weight caused the rib cage to lift up and force him into an almost perpetual state of inhalation." Suffocation would usually follow, but the relief of death could also arrive in other ways. "The resultant lack of oxygen in the blood would cause damage to tissues and blood vessels, allowing fluid to diffuse out of the blood into tissues, including the lungs and the sac around the heart," says Jeremy Ward.
Eventually the person being crucified would go into shock and die after organs failed. Medical science can also explain why blood and water spurted out of Jesus's body when a Roman stabbed him with a spear. That was likely a pleural effusion, in which clear lung fluid came out of his body as well as blood. Shrier says Jesus' stamina and strength were, most likely, very well developed so if the torture of the crucifixion could break a man in such good shape, it must have been a horrific experience. "I am struck every time with the stunning realization that as a flesh and blood human, Jesus felt every ounce of this execution," concludes Shrier. "What greater love than this can a man have for his friends?"
(Score: 2) by moondrake on Saturday April 19 2014, @10:51PM
I had not planned on commenting as this discussion as things like this usually end in a yes-no game. Whether the evidence is positive or negative, it is always discredited by others (unsurprisingly with things 2000 years old). Moreover, contrary to a silly comment somewhere above, not a single official Roman administrative document survives from Jerusalem in that time, making it rather hard to say anything about specific (and maybe not all that famous) people.
But you seem to claim to have read about things, and I very much like your suggestion to read the original sources. I do want to point out that the idea that the Josephus text is a 100% forgery is a minority view [1]. It is with such things very hard to know how much of the text was embellished by later writers, but analysis of the text at least suggest that he did refer to a historical Jesus. The evidence is still tainted obviously. I guess Tacitus is more clean as one of the closest external sources, but that again, the text does not tell us much either.
Instead of the Gospels, I would start with Paul's letters. He is responsible for a lot of somewhat perhaps unauthentic ideas in Christianity, but he definitely existed, and wrote one of the earliest accounts.
By the way, deriding 2000 old literature for being somewhat esoteric compared to today's standards is a bit silly...
[1] Most sources are paywalled or not available digitally. This site is perhaps not fully neutral, but it does give a list of sources and quotes of most of the relevant literature: http://www.bede.org.uk/Josephus.htm [bede.org.uk]
(Score: 2) by TrumpetPower! on Sunday April 20 2014, @12:08AM
Even were I to grant the authenticity of the entire Testamonium -- something that seems absurd given the complaints before Eusebius of Josephus's silence on the subject and the novelty of Eusebius's description of it, but never mind -- he would still be irrelevant. Josephus, again, wasn't even born until years after the latest possible date for the Crucifixion, and he was an old man when he wrote his histories -- and we have contemporary sources that should have mentioned Jesus but didn't. (Not the equally-mythical Roman Daily Prefect Briefings, but the ones I already mentioned upthread: the Scrolls, Josephus, Pliny the Elder, the Satirists, etc.) And Josephus also credulously reported on other fantastic figures such as the Jewish Rip van Winkle from the first century BCE, Honi the Circle Drawer. It'd be like citing somebody near retirement at World Net Daily to establish the historicity of Flash Gordon and his efforts to defeat the Kaiser in the Great World War.
And of course it's a minority position. The majority position is that Jesus really was born of a virgin, really did walk on water, really did resurrect himself as a zombie, and really is sitting on his throne in Heaven just itching to judge the quick and the dead -- and said majority publicly and repeatedly reaffirms as much in weekly loyalty oaths. What makes you think that a majority composed of such deluded fools is going to conclude anything contrary to the dictates of their fantasy? Especially when doing so would mean jeopardizing their salaries at institutions devoted to cranking out yet more Christian propaganda!?
Cheers,
b&
All but God can prove this sentence true.
(Score: 2) by moondrake on Sunday April 20 2014, @12:39PM
I was talking about the opinion among historians (including non-Christians), but never mind... In any case, there is nothing so unusual about a person preaching in 1st century Jerusalem. There were many (in fact, so many that I do not believe that people like Pliny would worry about it too much at the time. It was only after the belief attracted a significant number of followers that it was worthwhile to talk about). To be honest, I do not see a reason to get worked up about whether or not this particular person existed (although again, given the few sources that we have, it is plausible that he did indeed exist).
Whether this person performed miracles, is a completely different question, and you would be well justified in questioning that.
(Score: 2) by TrumpetPower! on Sunday April 20 2014, @01:49PM
The overwhelming majority of historians who study early Christianity are Christian and employed by seminaries or other Christian institutions.
Of course not. But Jesus is not and never has been merely a person preaching in first century Jerusalem. Even the earliest author we have, Paul, described him as an eternal divine force from another age who was the ultimate source of love and humanity's only hope for salvation after death. And that same Paul deliberately introduced the Mithraic Eucharist into Christianity; that's not the sort of thing done for some dumb schmuck shouting on a street corner, but it's exactly how syncretic paganism has always worked: you invent a new god, and steal bits and pieces from the other gods representative of the attributes you want in yours.
And your evidence supporting this radical and novel theory of theogenesis? Oh...that's right: as nonexistent and / or fabricated as the evidence that Jesus liked getting his intestines fondled through a gaping chest wound.
If you were instead insisting that Hercules, Perseus, Mithra, Mercury, Bellerophon, and all the rest really did exist and really were real people but they were all just dumb schmucks around whom fantastic legends accrued, would you be surprised when people challenged you on such nonsense?
That, and it's taken right out of the Christian apologetic playbook, whether you're using it in that way or have simply been taken in by it. Various theologians have known for a long time that Jesus is clearly no more real than Paul Bunyan, but if word of that got out they'd not only be out of a job but facing angry hordes upset at the way they've been duped. So, they erect layers of misdirection, and the "Jesus was a dumb schmuck" is one of the most effective. If you can convince people that even non-believers accept that Jesus was real, it's nothing from that point to, as you're trying to do, move the argument to the nature of the miracles he performed -- and, at that point, the theologians have already convinced you of their Big Lie and won the game.
Fuck that noise. The question isn't whether Santa brings better presents to rich kids because they're more likely to have been good little boys and girls. The question is why anybody old enough to need to remove a shoe to count her age still buys into that nonsense, except perhaps as an indulgent fantasy game.
I've provided copious amounts of evidence to support the entirely mundane claim that Jesus was no more real than any other Pagan demigod. All you've offered is implausible assertions that an absurd position -- that this one god out of all the thousands of the history of humanity really was real -- isn't so tough to swallow.
If you'd like me to take you seriously, I'd urge you to offer up at least some bit of positive evidence to support your claim. Otherwise, all you've got is a fantastic conspiracy theory that some literal nobody whom nobody would even have thought to have mentioned managed to convince the world that he was the Alpha and the Omega, the Word who Spoke the world into existence, the ultimate judge of all humanity...and who, oh-by-the way as an encore, also manage to found and personally serve as the cornerstone of the religion that supplanted the Olympians. That's not just rags-to-riches; that's as fantastic a journey as YHWH spitting on some dirt, fashioning it into a pair of golems, and the pair becoming the ancestors of us all.
Cheers,
b&
All but God can prove this sentence true.
(Score: 2) by moondrake on Tuesday April 22 2014, @09:01AM
And see what happened. It turned out to be a pointless discussion...
>I've provided copious amounts of evidence to support the entirely mundane claim that Jesus was no more real than any other Pagan demigod.
No you did not. You merely asserted that the earliest mentions of Jesus were myths, fantasies or fabrications. You cannot prove this.
>All you've offered is implausible assertions that an absurd position -- that this one god out of all the thousands of the history of humanity really was real -- isn't so tough to swallow.
I have never said that the god was real (and, as an aside, I find it actually a good starting hypothesis to believe some mythical person are real. I do think it is plausible that both Buddha and Mohamed walked this world. What would be the point of going to look for evidence if you do not believe it a priori? We are lucky Schliemann believed (part) of Homer, or we would never have seen Troy.). In fact, I pointed out that was a different question.
I have posted a link were you find a list of papers on the subject, several of the most interesting publications are actually from Jewish scholars. But I also admit that, although I have no idea if the majority is Christian, it is likely.
But you do not need the link. I can see you have read enough to form an opinion. You will not convinced by their arguments as there simply is no, and _there cannot be a_ 100% proof. History is not an experimental science. If we would follow your rules, you can throw out more than 90% of your history book, because many things (i.e. everything that was written down) in there could have been fabricated or be just stories (and the more far back you go, the more zombies and magic is written between lines with possible facts). Luckily, we do not disbelieve everything that is written and instead form a picture of the past based on interpretation and opinion. And yes, some things might be wrong.
But I find it absurd you disbelieve the existence of a person merely because your dislike for (the) religion. Why is it easier to believe that NOBODY was at the core of the story compared to that a nobody was at the core of the story? The second hypothesis is far more simple in my opinion.
(Score: 2) by TrumpetPower! on Tuesday April 22 2014, @01:49PM
I'm astonished you even think this might be questionable enough to need proof.
The Christians have been quite helpful in compiling the best evidence for Jesus into a single volume. Any Christian would be delighted to give you a copy of the book, and you can find one for the taking in many hotel rooms -- or, of course in the library.
Turn to the section towards the back labeled, "New Testament." And in it you'll read a story of a man born of a virgin, who did incredible magic tricks like turning water into wine and walking on water and making zombies, who turned himself into a zombie and -- just to prove it all -- had somebody fondle his intestines through a gaping chest wound.
If you do not accept that those stories are fantastic, I again urge you to read Justin Martyr's First Apology. In it you will see him repeatedly and emphatically equate Jesus's story with the stories of the pagan demigods whom he and virtually everybody else in the modern world would agree are fantastic fabrications. I would also take this opportunity to deliver to you the sad news that Santa Claus is just your parents, and no amount of clapping will bring Tinkerbell back to life because she's just an imaginary character in a make-believe book; sorry to be the bearer of bad news.
So you think there was a real Harry Potter, Luke Skywalker, Paul Bunyan, or Tatiana at the core of their stories? How about Hercules, Mercury, Perseus, Mithra, and Jupiter, all characters whom Martyr accused the Pagans of stealing from the Christians? Maybe you think there's a real Xenu at the heart of Scientology, that the Angel Moroni was some hobo who met Joe Smith behind the woodshed, that Orpheus was a drunken vagabond who couldn't carry a tune to save his life?
Credibly explain to me how you think it's "far more simple" that the Olympians really were really real, only somehow exaggerated, and I might stop laughing at your naivete.
Cheers,
b&
All but God can prove this sentence true.