The Anatomical And Physiological Details Of Death By Crucifixion:

[Ricky Spanish]

This has been doing the rounds again on fb:

"Below are facts on How Jesus Died For You.

I do not think that we really understand how much Jesus did for us. Please share this post to spread the Good News of Jesus."

Crucifixion was invented by the Persians in 300 BC, and perfected by the Romans in 100 BC.

1. It is the most painful death ever invented by man and is where we get our term "excruciating."

2. It was reserved primarily for the most vicious of male criminals.

(Jesus refused the anesthetic wine which was offered to Him by the Roman soldiers because of His promise in Matthew 26: 29, "But I say to you, I will not drink of this fruit of the vine from now on until that day when I drink it new with you in My Father's kingdom.")

3. Jesus was stripped naked and His clothing divided by the Roman guards. Psalm 22:18, "They divide My garments among them, and for My clothing they cast lots."

4. The Crucifixion of Jesus was a horrific, slow, painful death.

5. Jesus' knees were flexed at about 45 degrees, He was forced to bear His weight with the muscles of His thigh, you are not able to do this for more than a few minutes without cramping.

6. Jesus' weight was borne on His feet, with nails driven through them.

7. Within a few minutes of being placed on the Cross, Jesus' shoulders were dislocated. Minutes later Jesus' elbows and wrists became dislocated.

8. Jesus limbs were dislocated so that His arms were 9 inches longer than normal.

9. Prophecy was fulfilled in Psalm 22:14, "I am poured out like water, and all My bones are out of joint."

10. After Jesus' wrists, elbows, and shoulders were dislocated, the weight of His body on his upper limbs caused traction forces on the Major muscles of His chest wall.

 


11. These traction forces caused His rib cage to be pulled upwards and outwards. In order to exhale, Jesus was physiologically required to force His body.

12. In order to breathe out, Jesus had to push down on the nails in His feet to raise His body, and allow His rib cage to move downwards and inwards to expire air from His lungs.

13. His lungs were in a resting position of constant maximum inspiration.

14. The problem was that Jesus could not easily push down on the nails in His feet because the muscles of His legs, bent at 45 degrees, were extremely fatigued, in severe cramp, and in an anatomically compromised position.

15. Unlike all Hollywood movies about the Crucifixion, the victim was extremely active. The crucified victim was physiologically forced to move up and down the cross, a distance of about 12 inches in order to breathe.

16. The process of respiration caused excruciating pain.

17. As the six hours of the Crucifixion wore on, Jesus was less and less able to bear His weight on His legs, as His thigh and calf muscles became increasingly exhausted. Jesus had shortness of breath.

18. His movements up and down the Cross to breathe caused excruciating pain in His wrist, His feet, and His dislocated elbows and shoulders.

19. The movements became less frequent as Jesus became increasingly exhausted, but the terror of imminent death by asphyxiation forced Him to continue in His efforts to breathe.

20. Jesus' lower limb muscles developed excruciating cramp from the effort of pushing down on His legs, to raise His body, so that He could breathe out, in their anatomically compromised position.



21. Jesus had pain from every movement.

22. Jesus was covered in blood and sweat.

23. The blood was a result of the Scourging that nearly killed Him, and the sweat as a result of His violent involuntary attempts to effort to expire air from His lungs. Throughout all this He was completely naked, and the leaders of the Jews, the crowds, and the thieves on both sides of Him were jeering, swearing and laughing at Him. In addition, Jesus' own mother was watching.

24. Physiologically, Jesus' body was undergoing a series of catastrophic and terminal events.

25. Because Jesus could not maintain adequate ventilation of His lungs, He was now in a state of hypo-ventilation (inadequate ventilation).

26. His blood oxygen level began to fall, and He developed Hypoxia (low blood oxygen). In addition, because of His restricted respiratory movements, His blood carbon dioxide (CO2) level began to rise, a condition known as Hypercritical.

27. This rising CO2 level stimulated His heart to beat faster in order to increase the delivery of oxygen, and the removal of CO2.

28. The Respiratory Center in Jesus' brain sent urgent messages to his lungs to breathe faster, and Jesus began to pant.

29. Jesus' physiological reflexes demanded that He took deeper breaths, and He involuntarily moved up and down the Cross much faster, despite the excruciating pain. The agonizing movements spontaneously started several times a minute, to the delight of the crowd who jeered Him, the Roman soldiers, and the Sanhedrin.

30. However, due to the nailing of Jesus to the Cross and His increasing exhaustion, He was unable to provide more oxygen to His oxygen starved body.



31. The twin forces of too little oxygen and too much CO2 caused His heart to beat faster and faster.

32. His pulse rate was probably about 220 beats/ minute, the maximum normally sustainable.

33. Jesus had drunk nothing for 15 hours, since 6 pm the previous evening.

34. He was bleeding from all over His body following the Scourging, the crown of thorns, the nails in His wrists and feet, and the lacerations following His beatings and falls.

35. Jesus was already very dehydrated, and His blood pressure fell alarmingly.

36. His blood pressure was probably about 80/50.

37. He was in First Degree Shock.

38. By about noon Jesus' heart probably began to fail.

39. Jesus' lungs probably began to fill up with Pulmonary Oedema.

40. This only served to exacerbate His breathing.



41. Jesus was in Heart Failure and Respiratory Failure.

42. Jesus said, "I thirst" because His body was crying out for fluids.

43. Jesus was in desperate need of an intravenous infusion of blood and plasma to save His life.

44. Jesus could not breathe properly and was slowly suffocating to death.

45. At this stage Jesus probably developed a Haemopericardium.

46. Plasma and blood gathered in the space around His heart, called the Pericardium.

47. This fluid around His heart caused Cardiac Tamponade (fluid around His heart, which prevented Jesus' heart from beating properly).

48. Because of the increasing physiological demands on Jesus' heart, and the advanced state of Haemopericardium, Jesus probably eventually sustained Cardiac Rupture. His heart literally burst. This was probably the cause of His death.

49. To slow the process of death the soldiers put a small wooden seat on the Cross, which would allow Jesus the "privilege" of bearing His weight on his sacrum.

50. The effect of this was that it could take up to nine days to die on a Cross.



51. When the Romans wanted to expedite death they would simply break the legs of the victim, causing the victim to suffocate in a matter of minutes.

52. At three o'clock in the afternoon Jesus said, "Tetelastai," meaning, "It is finished." At that moment, He gave up His Spirit, and He died.

53. When the soldiers came to Jesus to break His legs, He was already dead. Not a bone of His body was broken, in fulfillment of prophecy.

54. Jesus died after six hours of the most excruciating and terrifying torture ever invented.

55. Jesus died so that ordinary people like you and me could go to Heaven.



The Anatomical And Physiological Details Of Death By Crucifixion:
By Dr. C. Truman Davis
A Physician Analyzes the Crucifixion.
From New Wine Magazine, April 1982.
Originally published in Arizona Medicine,
March 1965, Arizona Medical Association.

"Will You Be With Me In Heaven?

All Jesus Asks You is to Love Him, Your Lord, Your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind."


But can you spot the fact from the fiction?

[SweetPea]

...... and here is a video to go with your OP. I don't know if this is the same doctor mentioned in the linked article though, as his name is not mentioned in the text beneath the video.

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qC9krDwjfZE

[Owlswing]

All very well Thrud - but there is no evidence to suggest that Jesus did this, Jesus suffeerd that.

Why, because there is no evidence that any of this actually happened, theer is no evidence, verifiable evidence, that Jesus ever existed for the Romans to have done anything to him.

You can believe whatever you like, as far as I am concerned the entire list in your post, relative to Jesus, is total fiction, as in my opinion, in all probability, so is Jesus.

[BashfulAnthony]

Both Tacitus  -  a well-respected historian  -   and Josephus, attested to the reality of the Crucifixion.  There are other references.  Some people post in the most abject ignorance!

[Nearly Sane]

Both Tacitus  -  a well-respected historian  -   and Josephus, attested to the reality of the Crucifixion.  There are other references.  Some people post in the most abject ignorance!

Just to check what sense you are using 'attested' in. They cannot be hearing witness to it as they weren't born and it isn't clear in either passage that they have checked the statements beyond talking to Christians.

[BashfulAnthony]

Both Tacitus  -  a well-respected historian  -   and Josephus, attested to the reality of the Crucifixion.  There are other references.  Some people post in the most abject ignorance!

Just to check what sense you are using 'attested' in. They cannot be hearing witness to it as they weren't born and it isn't clear in either passage that they have checked the statements beyond talking to Christians.

That particular line can be taken with respect to a huge amount of ancient history, and indeed for a lot of modern history.  You have to, at some point, accept that what a historian says, if he is considered to be trustworthy, is accurate.   Most modern historians consider the Crucifixion to have been factual.  Most consider Tacitus, in particular, to be reliable.   

[Nearly Sane]

I have to accept that it appears to be what Tactus believed but it isn't clear that he verified it beyond talking to Christians, so I don't see you can use the word 'attested' in any sensible fashion.

[BashfulAnthony]

I have to accept that it appears to be what Tactus believed but it isn't clear that he verified it beyond talking to Christians, so I don't see you can use the word 'attested' in any sensible fashion.

We're talking semantics here.  I think that what Tacitus reported  -  to use a different word  -  is accepted as correct history.  I've not seen any credible argument otherwise, with the proviso that all history is open to debate of some kind.

[Nearly Sane]

Yes, we are talking semantics. I have never understood the attitude that doing so is not important. Happy with the word reported, it does not have the same meaning as attested.

[BashfulAnthony]

The details of Crucifixion are just so appalling.  The more I read of Roman history the more appalled I am by them  -  their pitiless cruelty makes them the Isis of their time.

[Nearly Sane]

In what sense were the Romans, the ISIS of their time? Surely you are marking them out then as being exceptionally cruel in comparison to every other culture at the time? In which case, you would struggle to make the case, I would suggest. The overall mores of the time were exceptionally cruel in our sense.

[Nearly Sane]

Thinking about it, I think BA's reaction is caused by  the combination of cruelty and administrative efficiency of the Roman empire. In some ways, I would suggest the better comparison is with Nazi Germany as epitomized by the Wannsee conference with its administrative planning of genocide.

[BashfulAnthony]

In what sense were the Romans, the ISIS of their time? Surely you are marking them out then as being exceptionally cruel in comparison to every other culture at the time? In which case, you would struggle to make the case, I would suggest. The overall mores of the time were exceptionally cruel in our sense.

The Romans used brute force and torture, unnessarily brutal treatment, to subjugate people, and horrific measures to maintain their hold.  The treatment here in these islands of the Iceni, after Boudicca's revolt, was a case in point.  They were the outstanding military power of their time, and no others were in a position to effectively challenge their supremacy and methods.  I don't, for one minute, suggest that they were the sole exponents of such brutality.  There were others before, and there have been plenty since;  but in their era to describe them as the Isis of their time is no more than the reality of it. 

[Nearly Sane]

ISIS are not the outstanding military force of our time so I don't see how that works as a comparison to ISIS, and I know of no military foe of the Romans who were any less cruel, at the time they were living in. I'm really not sure what point you are trying to make comparing them to ISIS.

Edited because of the rather odd autocorrect of lesscruel to pedicures!

[BashfulAnthony]

ISIS are not the outstanding military force of our time so I don't see how that works as a comparison to ISIS, and I know of no military foe of the Romans who were any pedicures, at the time they were living in. I'm really not sure what point you are trying to make comparing them to ISIS.

I'm not saying that Isis are an outstanding military force, I am simply saying that their excessive brutality, done for no gain, other than to terrify, is on a par as far as attitude and horrific practice is concerned, with the Roman attitude, as exemplified by crucifixion.

[floo]

I think Jesus was probably crucified for being a total pain in the backside where the religious mob of the day were concerned. The resurrection, if the guy was truly dead, is complete fantasy! No one comes back to life once they are dead.

[BashfulAnthony]

I think Jesus was probably crucified for being a total pain in the backside where the religious mob of the day were concerned. The resurrection, if the guy was truly dead, is complete fantasy! No one comes back to life once they are dead.

It is not the question as to why Jesus was crucified ("pain in the neck" or not, as you so crudely put it), but the brutality of the act of crucifixion.

[Owlswing]

I think Jesus was probably crucified for being a total pain in the backside where the religious mob of the day were concerned. The resurrection, if the guy was truly dead, is complete fantasy! No one comes back to life once they are dead.

It is not the question as to why Jesus was crucified ("pain in the neck" or not, as you so crudely put it), but the brutality of the act of crucifixion.

The brutality of the crucufixion had, to the Romans, an easily identifiable purpose - deterrence.

They were saying "if you break our laws this is what is going to happen to you" and, to a very large extent, the subjugated peoples were deterred from action likely to incur crucufixion.

This is fact - Jesus' crucufixion is not!

There is not, so far as can be ascertained, a single word about Jesus that was written at the time he was supposed to be doing the things attributed to him and the sooner Christians wake up to  that fact and accept that their religion is as much based on faith and not fact as any other religiuous belief the quicker they will stop being the arrogant "we are the only ones who are right and the rest of you are going to Hell" bunch that they are now.

[Hope]

All very well Thrud - but there is no evidence to suggest that Jesus did this, Jesus suffeerd that.

Why, because there is no evidence that any of this actually happened, theer is no evidence, verifiable evidence, that Jesus ever existed for the Romans to have done anything to him.

You can believe whatever you like, as far as I am concerned the entire list in your post, relative to Jesus, is total fiction, as in my opinion, in all probability, so is Jesus.

Sorry, Matt, but the view of the majority of scholars is that someone called Jesus existed and that he was involved in the kind of extensive teaching and preaching activity that the NT Jesus is reported to have been involved in.  Whether or not that particular Jesus was crucified continues to be open to debate, but there is contemporary and extra-Biblical evidence that someone known by the name 'Christ' was crucified by the Romans at the behest of the Jewish leadership sometime around 30AD.

"The vast majority of scholars who write on the subject accept that Jesus existed."  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_Jesus

The only 'important' issue that remains under serious scholarly debate is the resurrection.

[Hope]

Just to check what sense you are using 'attested' in. They cannot be hearing witness to it as they weren't born and it isn't clear in either passage that they have checked the statements beyond talking to Christians.

One can attest/hear witness to something without having been alive at the time, NS.  My father, born in 1922, suffered a hernia whilst working as a porter in the Radcliffe Infirmary in Oxford during the 2ndWW, something that my siblings and I used to (rather callously, looking back) get him to recount rather too often.  Apart from a picture of him in his uniform taken by a friend and a verbal record from the person who became my godfather when I was born, I doubt whether there is much other easily available evidence to this effect (though if I was to burrow through wartime records for the hospital, I'd probably find something).

As for whether or not thay had checked the statements beyond talking to Christians, there is no evidence in either passage that they spoke to any Christians.  In view of the attitude of society to Christians at the time (that they were of no consequence and potentially 'outlaws' - in the sense that they broke Imperial laws in  refusing to worship the Emperor), is it likely that Tacitus or Josephus [the latter a Jew] would have spoken to them

[Hope]

I think Jesus was probably crucified for being a total pain in the backside where the religious mob of the day were concerned.

I understand that the historical records back both this opinion and the fact that other Jewish rebels were executed for this reason.

The resurrection, if the guy was truly dead, is complete fantasy! No one comes back to life once they are dead.

This only applies if the person is human and only human.  Since science only deals in the physical, there is no way that it can prove (or disprove) the existence of any additional elements of reality.

[jeremyp]

Just to check what sense you are using 'attested' in. They cannot be hearing witness to it as they weren't born and it isn't clear in either passage that they have checked the statements beyond talking to Christians.

One can attest/hear witness to something without having been alive at the time, NS.  My father, born in 1922, suffered a hernia whilst working as a porter in the Radcliffe Infirmary in Oxford during the 2ndWW, something that my siblings and I used to (rather callously, looking back) get him to recount rather too often.  Apart from a picture of him in his uniform taken by a friend and a verbal record from the person who became my godfather when I was born, I doubt whether there is much other easily available evidence to this effect (though if I was to burrow through wartime records for the hospital, I'd probably find something).

Are you claiming that you witnessed your father suffering a hernia even though you weren't alive at the time? Or are you claiming that you witnessed him recounting the story at a later date? There's a difference.

As for whether or not thay had checked the statements beyond talking to Christians, there is no evidence in either passage that they spoke to any Christians.

There's no evidence in either passage that they spoke to anybody. In fact, you can make a case for the passages to have been interpolated by later Christians.

In view of the attitude of society to Christians at the time (that they were of no consequence and potentially 'outlaws' - in the sense that they broke Imperial laws in  refusing to worship the Emperor), is it likely that Tacitus or Josephus [the latter a Jew] would have spoken to them

I assume you have a "not" missing here. What other source would you claim for Tacitus and Josephus?

[jeremyp]

This only applies if the person is human and only human.  Since science only deals in the physical, there is no way that it can prove (or disprove) the existence of any additional elements of reality.

If you are going to claim a supernatural aspect to Jesus, please stop pretending to be using historical argument.

[Nearly Sane]

Just to check what sense you are using 'attested' in. They cannot be hearing witness to it as they weren't born and it isn't clear in either passage that they have checked the statements beyond talking to Christians.

One can attest/hear witness to something without having been alive at the time, NS.  My father, born in 1922, suffered a hernia whilst working as a porter in the Radcliffe Infirmary in Oxford during the 2ndWW, something that my siblings and I used to (rather callously, looking back) get him to recount rather too often.  Apart from a picture of him in his uniform taken by a friend and a verbal record from the person who became my godfather when I was born, I doubt whether there is much other easily available evidence to this effect (though if I was to burrow through wartime records for the hospital, I'd probably find something).

As for whether or not thay had checked the statements beyond talking to Christians, there is no evidence in either passage that they spoke to any Christians.  In view of the attitude of society to Christians at the time (that they were of no consequence and potentially 'outlaws' - in the sense that they broke Imperial laws in  refusing to worship the Emperor), is it likely that Tacitus or Josephus [the latter a Jew] would have spoken to them

Disagree on attest - you can report the story but you cannot really attest to the event. Attest has a specific meaning and wouldn't really be used of an historian. Note I don't think that calls into doubt Tacitus or has any promoting the idea of mythicism with which I have little truck.


Interesting point on Tacitus, in particular, I don't think it applies quite so much to Josephus because he was a Jew (I think that makes him more likely to have talked to Christians). Also in Josephus' case leaving aside any parts that may be a forgery is a more positive portrayal of Christians. The problem with Tacitus is I'm not sure the word messiah would make sense unless he had talked to Christians - it's not something that would make sense in teh Roman world. The only other question, I have about the accuracy, leaving aside the really abstruse stuff,   is the idea of there being multitudes of them in Rome at the time of Nero but that may in a sense not mean quite the same as we might think of it and has more of a meaning of a noticeable number rather than a huge number.

[Nearly Sane]

I think Jesus was probably crucified for being a total pain in the backside where the religious mob of the day were concerned.

I understand that the historical records back both this opinion and the fact that other Jewish rebels were executed for this reason.

The resurrection, if the guy was truly dead, is complete fantasy! No one comes back to life once they are dead.

This only applies if the person is human and only human.  Since science only deals in the physical, there is no way that it can prove (or disprove) the existence of any additional elements of reality.

Just to note that history as a study only deals in the material as well.