Jesus' crucifixion and a lunar eclipse?

BELATEDLY EASTER/GOOD FRIDAY-RELATED: Lunar eclipse over Jerusalem may mark date of Jesus's crucifixion, NASA reports. some believe that the new data from NASA, paired with Biblical text, could pinpoint the day Jesus was crucified (Jerusalem Post Staff).

This is an old idea. I commented on it in one of my earliest blog posts. I was going to ignore this one, but when I saw how dreadful this article is, I thought I'd better comment on it.

The suggestion, which has been around for a very long time, is that the reported period of afternoon "darkness over the whole land" (or "earth") on the day of the crucifixion of Jesus (Mark 15:33 par. Matthew 27:45 and Luke 23:44-45) was due to a lunar eclipse of the sun. The third-century church father Julius Africanus argued that the lunar celestial configuration at Passover made this impossible. Briefly, if the moon is full, the sun is shining full on it from the perspective of the earth, which means the moon is on the opposite side of the earth from the sun. It is not in a position to occlude the sun.

Be that as it may, the Jerusalem post article consists largely of misconceptions.

NASA scientists believe that a lunar eclipse occurred during the crucifixion of Jesus, based on data from its astronomical models.

An article from the space agency noted that the Christian Bible wrote that the moon turned to blood in the skies over Jerusalem after Jesus's crucifixion.

“From noon until three in the afternoon darkness came over all the land,” reads one iteration of Matthew 27:45.

The NASA article Eclipses: History does say that "Christian texts" (not "the Christian Bible") say that the moon turned to blood:

Eclipses also appear in religious texts. Christian texts mention that the Moon turned to blood after Jesus’s crucifixion – potentially referring to a lunar eclipse, during which the Moon takes on a reddish hue. Using this textual source, scholars narrowed down a possible date of crucifixion to Friday, April 3, 33 C.E. because a lunar eclipse occurred that day.

The passage in Matthew, quoted in the JP article, says nothing about the moon, only that there was darkness over the whole land.

Matthew's text is "one iteration" of the story, which also appears in Mark and Luke, as noted above. None of them mention the moon. The Gospel of John doesn't mention the darkness at all.

But there's more evidence, right? The JP continues:

Additionally, early Christian texts prophesied that on the day of Jesus's crucifixion, the sky would look eerie.

In a gathering 50 days before Jesus's death, the apostle Peter predicts in Acts 2:20: “The sun will be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the coming of the great and glorious day of the Lord.”

Peter's reported speech took place on Pentecost (Shavuot), 50 days after the crucifixion. He is speaking about the end times.

But there's still more:

Supposed eyewitness events of the situation also note that the skies looked strange after Jesus died on the cross.

“At his crucifixion the sun was darkened; the stars appeared and in all the world people lighted lamps from the sixth hour till evening; the moon appeared like blood,” notes Pontius Pilate's report of Jesus's crucifixion.

This is not exactly wrong, but it's reproachably misleading. This "supposed eyewitness" account is from the Anaphora Pilati, a late work from the Pilate apocrypha cycle. J. K. Elliot thinks it is an expansion of the Letter of Pilate to Claudius, which he dates to the end of the second century. You can read it here. This account is a "Christian text," but it has zero eyewitness (or even living memory) value.

I have no view on the proposed date of the crucifixion. Most specialists seem to think that it was in 30, not 33, but we just don't know.

Enough. I didn't mean to spend so much time on this.

The darkness in Matthew's Gospel is a miraculous event, like the "walking dead" episode and, probably, the earthquake, both in the same passage. John doesn't refer to it and none of the other Gospels mention the other two. No need to look for naturalistic explanations, although one is possible for the last one.

Jerusalem Post, what happened? There is potentially a story here, but the treatment in this article is just careless.

I want to blame it on AI generated content, but the article doesn't give any indication of that. If it was actually produced by "Jerusalem Post Staff," the JP, which is usually good at articles about archaeology and history, should stop using them for those purposes and stick to named authors who know what they are talking about.

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THE CRUCIFIED MAN is the subject of a Reuter's article:

Jewish remains give clues on crucifixion
Mon 5 April, 2004 02:30

By Megan Goldin

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - The graphic portrayal of the crucifixion of Jesus in Mel Gibson's film "The Passion of the Christ" has brought the ancient world's execution method of choice in all its horror to the big screen.

Jesus is the best known victim of crucifixion. But thousands of other Jews were put to death on the cross by the Romans, trying to quash Jewish rebellions in the Holy Land in the first century.

Yet strangely the remains of only one victim have ever been found. He was Yehohanan Ben Hagkol, a Jewish man whose heel bone, excavated by archaeologists near Jerusalem in 1968, still had a nail embedded in it.

"It is the only case ever found in the world where there is indisputable evidence of crucifixion," said Joe Zias, a physical anthropologist who examined the remains of Yehohanan Ben Hagkol.

"We've looked at thousands of skeletons in Jerusalem. Some were decapitated. Others were mutilated. But we've never found another one that was crucified."

[...]

UPDATE: Mark Goodacre has an interesting comment on the confident assertion (one that I've made myself) that the nails must have gone through the wrists rather than the palms:

I understand the anatomical point here, but if victims could be tied, might they not also have been nailed through the palms of the hands? Is the anatomical point the only one in favour of nailing through the wrists and if so, would not the possibility of victims being tied partly negate that? I wonder whether those filmic depictions of Jesus being nailed through the wrists (from The Day That Christ Died in 1980 onwards) are as much influenced by the Turin Shroud as by the anatomical evidence, not least given the fact that interest in the Shroud was intensifying in this period.

This is a good point. One minor argument against it would be the pain factor: getting a nail through the palm would be painful enough, but getting it through the wrist, where there is a major nerve, would be unbearably excruciating and would have produced more exemplary screams of agony for the locals to think about. The Romans seemed to have refined torture to an art and I doubt that they would have missed this point. Also, the struggles of a crucified person (Can we safely say "man?" Is there any evidence that women were ever crucified?) might tear the palms loose even if tied (which, of course, might have been regarded as adding to the spectacle), while the wrist would have stayed firmly anchored no matter what. Still, who knows?

The article raises another question in my mind. It mentions the truism that crucified bodies are hard to come by these days in part because the nails used to crucify someone were used as amulets. Can anyone tell me what the evidence for this is? I can't remember any references to crucifixion nails in the Greek Magical Papyri, although I may just have forgotten them. And I just checked the materias list in Morgan's translation of Sepher HaRazim and they are not listed. Where are there references to crucifixion nails as amulets?

UPDATE: Arne Halbakken e-mails:

Today you blogged, "Is there any evidence that women were ever crucified?"

I'm assuming you are thinking of literary evidence and not physical evidence.

Hengel's Crucifixion, p. 36, cites Eusebius 5. 1. 41, "...suspended on a stake, she was exposed as food to wild beasts. To look at her, as she hung cross-wise..." in reference to "...the slave girl Blandin during the persecution of Christians in Lyons."

I believe that there is another reference that Hengel made but I don't have time to look it up at the moment.


You also blogged, "It mentions the truism that crucified bodies are hard to come by these days in part because the nails used to crucify someone were used as amulets. Can anyone tell me what the evidence for this is?"

Hengel, p. 32, wrote, "Pliny the Elder, Historia Naturalis 28.36, and the witch in Lucan, De Bello Civili 6.543f. 547, know of of the magical use of nails and bonds employed at a crucifixion."

He also points me to Joe Zias's "Crucifixion in Antiquity" article, which has additional information from rabbinic texts on the crucifixion of women and the magical use of crucifixion nails.

Evidence for Matthew's earthquake? Big maybe.

BIBLE HISTORY DAILY: Is Jesus’ Crucifixion Reflected in Soil Deposition? A geological study may indicate Earthquake described by Matthew.

According to the Gospel of Matthew, an earthquake shook Jerusalem on the day of Jesus’ crucifixion. A study of cores of soil deposition and seismic activity near the Dead Sea in the Volume 54, Issue 10 of International Geology Review* may provide scientific data relating to the event described in Matthew 27.

[...]

The article presents evidence that there was a local earthquake within a few years of the crucifixion of Jesus. The Gospel of Matthew (27:51) says there was an earthquake at the time Jesus was crucified. Maybe there was. Perhaps more likely, the author of Matthew knew there was an earthquake around that time and added it to the story. Or the oral traditions about the crucifixion acquired the earthquake over time. Who knows? As stories are told, they tend to attract and include other signficant characters and events.

The Discovery News article mentioned in the next paragraph reportedly tried to work out the exact date of the crucifixion based on the new evidence about the earthquake. The lead author of the International Geology Review disavowed this claim. See the relevant note to this essay.

For other biblical earthquakes, see here.

The Synoptic Gospels (Mark 15:33 par.) report another upheaval of nature during the crucifixion; the three hours of darkness. For more on that, and a supposed solar eclipse around the same time, see here (scroll down).

For the walking dead episode in Matthew 27:52-53, which, as far I know, no one has tried to connect to some other historical event, see here.

I was about to press publish when I saw that this BHD essay is actually 12 years old. Never mind, I missed it the first time. The comments are still relevant.

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Crucifixion revisionism?

CRUCIFIXION REVISIONISM?

What do we really know about the crucifixion of Jesus?
June 14, 2010 (Physorg.com)

The many different accounts of the crucifixion of Jesus find little support in historical sources. The reason is that antique sources generally lack descriptions of crucifixions, says Gunnar Samuelsson, University of Gothenburg, Sweden, who recently finished his doctoral thesis on the topic.

For earlier PaleoJudaica discussions of the physiology of crucifixion, see this post and follow the surviving links. But Samuelsson seems to be taking a much more skeptical line about our whole understanding of crucifixion in antiquity.

UPDATE (22 June): The Gothenburg University website has more information on the thesis here.

Jesus' cross

EASTER STORIES HAVE STARTED AND THE MEDIA ARE ASKING: Was the cross of Jesus made of olive wood or pine?

One of the perplexing realities for archaeologists is a lack of residual wood from the massive record of Roman crucifixion. Despite the fact the Romans killed tens of thousands of people through crucifixion — and as many as 500 a day during the siege of Jerusalem from 66-70 CE — the only piece of evidence connected to this terrible punishment was discovered in 1968, when archaeologists found the heel bone of a crucified man with the nail still intact.

In the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, Israel Hershkovitz, who teaches anatomy and archaeology at Tel Aviv University, said that the heel bone of the crucified man was found in a Jewish burial tomb in a northern suburb of Jerusalem, near Golgotha — the hill where the Romans crucified people.

The man, whose ossuary, or burial box, identified him as Yehohanan, was in his mid 20s when he died on the cross. His good teeth and lack of heavy musculature meant that he most likely came from a wealthy family, for most crucifixion victims were far too humble to wind up in tombs –save for Jesus, who was put in one by the wealthy Joseph of Arimathea. Others buried in the same tomb as Yehohanan had connections to the Temple, so it’s possible that he was killed by the Romans for some political transgression.

Yehohanan was cut down from the cross with a 4.5-inch nail still in his right heel bone, and with part of a board still attached to the head of the nail. Hershkovitz believes that the relative shortness of the length of the nail reveals much about Roman crucifixion methods. “The nail was too short (to go through) two heel bones, so sure enough each foot was hammered separately to the cross.”

Hershkovitz is convinced that crosses were not made from olive trees because the people depended on the olive tree for food and wouldn’t be slashing them down to make crosses.

More importantly, for the purpose at hand, they wouldn’t be suitable because of the structure of the tree itself.

From the CNN wire (via Fox News) article "What’s ‘true’ about Jesus’ cross? Duke professor weighs in." The Duke professor is Mark Goodacre, who makes a brief appearance at the end with commentary on the "True Cross" phenomenon.

Regarding the quoted passage, it seems the ancient remains of two crucified men have been found in Jerusalem, not just one. See here and links for posts on both, as well as related matters regarding ancient crucifixion.

Another crucified skeleton?

OSTEOLOGY: How Jesus died: Extremely rare evidence of Roman crucifixion uncovered in Italy. Although attested to in scores of historical writings, this skeleton is only the second example providing tangible archaeological proof of the cruel method of capital punishment (Amanda Borschel-Dan, Times of Israel).

A lesion on the foot of a 2,000-year-old skeleton discovered in a Roman burial site in northern Italy appears to constitute rare tangible evidence of execution by crucifixion, according to an interdisciplinary team of Italian researchers.

Although broadly attested to in historical writings — including the New Testament — it is only the second known archaeological proof of the particularly cruel form of capital punishment practiced by the Romans against criminals, as well as revolutionaries such as Jesus.

[...]

The skeleton shows signs of violence that are consistent with crucifixion, but the evidence is apparently not conclusive. The other, certain, crucified skeleton mentioned in the headline above, is that of one Yehohanan ben Hagkol, on which more here and links.

Also, not mentioned in the article, it has been argued that another skeleton, apparently of one Mattathiah son of Judah, was also crucified. I noted that story several years ago here. I have heard nothing more about it since.

Other past posts on this horrific ancient method of execution are here and links and here.

Also worth mentioning is the recent discussion of the crucifixion gem, which gives one of the earliest artistic depictions of the crucifixion of Jesus.

UPDATE (2 June): It seems that third skeleton mentioned above was not crucified and is not of a man. Details here.

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Cook, Crucifixion in the Mediterranean World

BRYN MAYR CLASSICAL REVIEW:

John Granger Cook, Crucifixion in the Mediterranean World. Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament 327. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2015. Pp. xxiv, 522. ISBN 9783161537646. €69.00 (pb).

Reviewed by James H. Dee, Austin, TX (jhdee1243@gmail.com)

Table of Contents

[The reviewer apologizes for the lateness of this review.]

This massive study aims to fill a longstanding gap in an area where both Classics and New Testament Studies operate. Professor Cook was invited by the late Martin Hengel, author of a 1977 monograph on the subject, to revise it for him—but Cook soon concluded that he should write his own book, which far surpasses Hengel's 99-page work.

The seven-page Table of Contents gives ample evidence of the scope of the investigation: a 50-page Introduction on terminology; Chapter One has 100 pages on crucifixion in Latin texts, Chapter Two offers 50 more on the evidence for Roman practices; Chapter Three devotes another 100 pages to Greek texts; Chapter Four occupies nearly 50 on Hebrew and Aramaic texts; Chapter Five is a 40-page discussion on the legal aspect of crucifixion as punishment; finally, Chapter Six takes a mere 30 pages to deal with the most famous (and, for many, the most significant) of all crucifixions, that of Jesus of Nazareth—a brevity which seems almost anticlimactic, especially from an author whose training and career have been exclusively on the religious studies side of the field (Ph.D., Emory; faculty appointment at LaGrange University). That background might make classicists wary and raise concerns about what might be theologically-driven interpretations. If so, their concerns are unwarranted. The monograph finds its place in an esteemed New Testament Monograph Series. Acknowledgements indicate wide consultation with experts in the field, including Harvard’s Kathleen Coleman, who has herself promised a book on Roman public execution.1

[...]

The book, among other things, collects references to crucifixion in Latin, Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic texts. Gruesome.

More crucifixion nails?

COLD CASE REOPENED? Are These Nails From Jesus’ Crucifixion? New Evidence Emerges, but Experts Are Unconvinced. Study of two 2000-year-old nails found in Jerusalem revives claim linking them to the burial of Caiaphas, the Jewish high priest involved in Jesus’ crucifixion (Ariel David, Haaretz). I have been following this story for a while. Here's where it stands.

The researchers report that they has located two ancient nails that had been excavated and then thought lost. It turns out that the nails have fragments of bone and wood embedded in them. If this is correct, it is evidence that they were used to crucify someone.

The material in the nails also has many similarities to material found in ossuaries discovered in the "Caiaphas family tomb," which may (or may not) have included the remains of the High Priest Caiaphas. The researchers think the nails came from the cave. They make no further inferences.

Are the nails those used to crucify Jesus? You can't prove a negative. But the case for that idea rests on an abundance of imagination.

I have not blogged on this story before, because I have only just found (linked in the above article) the scholarly study underlying all the media reports:

Petrochemistry of Sediment and Organic Materials Sampled from Ossuaries and Two Nails from the Tomb of the Family of the High Priest Caiaphas, Jerusalem (Archaeological Discovery > Vol.8 No.3, July 2020)

Aryeh E. Shimron1, Yoetz Deutsch1, Werner H. Schoch2, Vitaly Gutkin3

Abstract
We have studied the petrochemistry of degraded bones and sediment from the interior of four ossuaries (burial boxes) discovered in what is (arguably) believed to be the 1st century CE family tomb of the high priest Caiaphas (herewith Cft) in Jerusalem. During the course of the 1990 excavation, among other artifacts (e.g., a coin found in a skull) two iron nails were discovered. One of the nails was inside an ossuary, the other on the floor of one of the nearby “kokhim” (burial niches) which contained Ossuaries 5 and 6. According to the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) everything in the burial cave can be accounted for today except the iron nails “which have been misplaced”, this without being properly recorded or photographed. Investigative journalist Simcha Jacobovici believes that he has located the nails in the artifacts collection of the Anthropology laboratory at Tel Aviv University. The IAA, however, has stated that the lost nails from the Cft have nothing to do with the nails found at the university and the latter nails must have a different provenance. Wherever lies the truth, the presence of two nails in the Cft is of profound interest because in the New Testament the high priest Caiaphas was responsible for passing Jesus to the Romans who then sent him to the cross. The possibility that the nails were used in a crucifixion on the one hand and can be connected to Caiaphas the high priest on the other is, to say the least, interesting and potentially monumental. Aware of the controversy but also of the importance of the two unprovenanced nails we have investigated the materials which have invaded the interiors of the Cft ossuaries and in a similar manner materials that have adhered to the two unprovenanced nails. Employing geochemical and petrochemical Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM-EDX), X-ray diffraction (XRD) and δ18O and δ13C isotope analyses we have found that the organic and inorganic materials flushed into the interior of the Cft but also those that have adhered to the two unprovenanced nails possess and display many identical, and what can also be termed unique chemical and physical characteristics. Based on the collective evidence we conclude, with considerable confidence, that the unprovenanced nails are the lost nails excavated from the Caiaphas family tomb in 1990 and furthermore that these nails were used in a crucifixion.

It looks as though the article is open access, so you can read it yourself. This research is outside my areas of expertise. I have no opinion on its claims. The Haaretz article gives some responses by experts in material culture.

As far as I know the only surviving skeleton from antiquity that was undisputably crucified is that of Yehohanan ben Hagkol. There is also another skeleton excavated in Italy that may have been crucified. Background here and links.

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Hurtado on the crucifixion gem

LARRY HURTADO: Gemstone Crucifixion Image: A Recent Study.

In a recent article, Roy Kotansky provides a fresh analysis of an ancient gemstone that that is regarded as giving one of the earliest visual depictions of the crucified Jesus: Roy Kotansky, “The Magic ‘Crucifixion Gem’ in the British Museum,” Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies 57.3 (2017): 631-59 (the article available here). (There is an online image of the gemstone in question here.)

[...]

(Note: the last link is not working, at least at the moment.) Professor Hurtado likes the article, but offers some corrections.

I have posted on the crucifixion gem here and (noting Dr. Kotansky's article) here.

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Blood moon tetrad, the Talmud, Passover, and Thallus

COSMIC SYNCHRONICITY WATCH: Watch the lunar eclipse ‘blood moon’ tonight, and witness the beginning of the end of the world (maybe) (Sebastian Anthony, Extreme Tech).

If you’re into skygazing, you really should stay up late tonight (April 14, April 15) and watch the first of a series of four “blood” moons — a sequence of lunar eclipses called a tetrad that will occur over the next two years, and which some religious types believe signifies the beginning of the apocalypse. Mars is also incredibly close to Earth at the moment, making it one of the brightest objects in the sky. This alignment between the Sun, Earth, Mars, and the Moon has only occurred a handful of times in the last two thousand years, each time coinciding with a “hugely significant” religious event. For non-religious types, though, it’s just a great opportunity to see an amazing astronomical event that probably won’t happen again in your lifetime.

[...]

And don't forget that Jupiter is very visible up there too, whatever that means. Besides this lunar and planetary alignment, a number of cosmic synchronicities suggest themselves. Various people (notably here) are pointing out that the Talmud (Sukkah 29a) says that a lunar eclipse is a bad omen for Israel and a blood moon is a sign of war. The relevant passage reads:

Our Rabbis taught, When the sun is in eclipse it is a bad omen for idolaters; when the moon is in eclipse, it is a bad omen for Israel,23 since Israel reckons by the moon25 and idolaters by the sun.26 If it27 is in eclipse in the east, it is a bad omen for those who dwell in the east; if in the west, it is a bad omen for those who dwell in the west; if in the midst of heaven it is bad omen for the whole world. If its face is red as blood, [it is a sign that] the sword is coming to the world; (Soncino Talmud)

Let's hope those omens don't work out this time.

Another synchronicity is the eclipse of the moon during Passover. Granted, the synchronicity is mostly in my own head, in that the connection made me think of the famous citation of an ancient historian called Thallus by the fourth-century writer Sextus Julius Africanus as quoted by the ninth-century chronographer George Syncellus. Syncellus quotes Africanus, with reference to the darkness over the land at the time of the crucifixion of Jesus as reported in the Gospels, as follows: "Thallus calls this darkness an eclipse of the Sun in the third book of his Histories." Africanus adds that he thinks this is wrong and explains that a solar eclipse is impossible during Passover because the moon is full and on the opposite side of the earth from the sun.

But, of course, eclipses of the moon are okay, and here we just had one last night to remind us of that!

Quite a bit has been made of this reference to Thallus as potentially being the earliest external reference to the crucifixion of Jesus and the attendant darkness, but the relevant work of Africanus is lost apart from quotations and the work of Thallus is also lost, again apart from quotations, so whatever Thallus said (which is not quoted verbatim) is nested in two levels of missing context. It is quite unclear whether he said anything about Jesus or the crucifixion in his comment about an eclipse. In addition, we don't even know exactly when he lived, and the argument that he is a Samaritan Thallus who lived a generation after Jesus and was mentioned by Josephus is dodgy. First, Thallus was not an uncommon name and, second, Josephus doesn't actually mention a Samaritan Thallus. This is a debatable modern emendation of Josephus' text. So, alas, the notion of Thallus as a non-Jewish historian writing in the 50s C.E. who mentions Jesus and his crucifixion pretty much evaporates when one looks closely at the evidence.

The crucified man

OSTEOLOGY: This One Bone Is The Only Skeletal Evidence For Crucifixion In The Ancient World (Kristina Killgrove, Forbes).

The bioarchaeology of crucifixion is therefore a bit of a conundrum: it makes sense that finding evidence may be difficult because of the ravages of time on bones and wooden crosses, but the sheer volume of people killed in this way over centuries should have given us more direct evidence of the practice.

A lot of rather random chance is involved in the creation of the archaeological record – from weather conditions to cultural customs to rodent activity. Even though there are problems involved in the preservation of evidence of crucifixion, the case of Yehohanan ben Hagkol shows that skeletal evidence might some day give us more information about the practice.

This article is about the well-known skeletal remains of one Yehohanan ben Hagkol. But I am surprised that it doesn't mention a second skeleton found in Jerusalem in 1970 which also may be the remains of a crucified person. It is possible that Dr. Killgrove does not accept that this body was crucified, but it would have been helpful for her to discuss it and explain why. You can read about that case here, and follow the links for more on the crucified body discussed in today's Forbes article. See also here. And for past posts on the gruesome physiology of crucifixion, see here, here, here, here, and here, and links.

More on the crucifixion gem

ICONOGRAPHY: The current issue of Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies (57.3, 2017) has an article by Roy D. Kotansky on the gemstone that bears what is reportedly the earliest image of Jesus' crucifixion (c. 200 CE).

The Magic ‘Crucifixion’ Gem in the British Museum

Abstract

The obverse, showing the earliest extant image of the Crucifixion, has an inscription suggesting a non-canonical source, while the reverse inscription reveals later reuse of the gem by a non-Christian.

I noted another article about the gem here. In that post I raised some queries about its provenance and authentication. Dr. Kotansky addresses these questions, citing my blog post. See especially p. 632 and n. 4 of his article.

Another interesting point about this object is that the the back side seems to have been inscribed (later?) by a different hand and a different engraver.

HT AJR.

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Easter articles (archaeology, crucifixion, etc.)

EASTER IS COMING, and the pre-Easter articles are coming in too.

First, Craig Evans gives a preview of his new book in his Huffington Post post: The Archaeological Evidence For Jesus (PHOTOS). As you might guess from the title, the post includes lots of nice photos.

The Jesus Discovery/Talpiot (Talpiyot) Tombs controversy also comes up.

Second, Matti Friedman has a piece in The Times of Israel on the crucified man (also mentioned by Evans): In a stone box, the only trace of crucifixion: An ossuary at the Israel Museum contains the sole physical evidence ever found for the Roman practice of execution on the cross. Excerpt:

After Yehohanan’s body was removed from the cross, it would have been laid out in a burial cave. After the flesh had decomposed a year or so later, leaving only the skeleton, his bones were gathered in a simple stone box, an ossuary, in keeping with the Jewish practice of that time. Today, the box is displayed in a gallery at the Israel Museum alongside other artifacts from the period of Roman rule in Judea.

His name is inscribed in simple letters on one side: Yehohanan, son of Hagakol. (Some scholars, interpreting the letters differently, believe the second name is Hezkil.)

Inside the box, archaeologists found a heel bone with an iron stake driven through it, indicating that the occupant of the ossuary had been nailed to a cross.

The position of the stake was evidence of a crucifixion technique that had not previously been known, according to museum curator David Mevorah. In the image of crucifixion made famous by Christian iconography, Jesus is pictured with both feet nailed to the front of the vertical beam of the cross. But this man’s feet had been affixed to the sides of the beam with nails hammered separately through each heel.

His hands showed no sign of wounds, indicating that they had been tied, rather than nailed, to the horizontal bar.

Professor Evans's book is Jesus and His World: The Archaeological Evidence (WJK, hot off the press).

Background on the crucified man and related matters is here.

As for the Talpiot Tombs, I haven't been paying too much attention, but here's an update from the indefatigable James McGrath from a couple of days ago: Talpiot Photos and a Video that may Change your Perspective. And add to it Antonio Lombatti, Observations on the “Jonah” Iconography on the Ossuary of Talpiot B Tomb (Bible and Interpretation). And earlier background is here.

NEW EVIDENCE ON THE DATE OF THE CRUCIFIXION?

"Star-gazers pinpoint the hour Jesus died" (Glasgow Herald)

DAVID MONTGOMERY

THEORIES on the exact date of Christ's death have been debated for centuries, but now two astronomers claim to have pinpointed it to the exact hour.

Liviu Mircea and Tiberiu Oproiu from the Astronomic Observatory Institute in Cluj, Romania, said yesterday that research carried out using a computer program checked against bible references showed that Christ died at 3pm on Friday, April 3, 33 AD, and rose again on Sunday, April 5 at 4am.

The starting point for the pair's calculations was the New Testament's noting that Jesus died on the day after the first night with a full moon following the vernal equinox.

Using data gathered on the stars between 26 and 35 AD they established that in those nine years, the first full moon after the vernal equinox was registered twice: Friday April 7, 30 AD and April 3, 33 AD.

The astronomers said they had been convinced that the date of the crucifixion had been 33 AD and not 30 AD, because records showed a solar eclipse, as depicted in the bible at the time of Jesus' crucifixion, occurred in Jerusalem in that year.

[...]

I'm not so sure that the gospels have in mind a naturalistic explanation for the darkness at the time of the crucifixion. Anyhow, it's stretching it to assume that a solar eclipse that happened in that year had anything to do with it. I have no idea how well based the other astronomical conclusions are. I blog, you decide.

REVIEW of Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ:

I finally saw the movie last night. Overall it was a good, gripping story, well acted, and with reasonably convincing sets, special effects (especially trauma-simulation), etc. Since, as usual, I seem to be among the last in the western hemisphere to see the film, I will try to concentrate on points I haven't seen made before.

Languages: I could follow 50-60% of the Aramaic and somewhat less of the Latin. The mistakes in both have been covered at length here, so I won't say more about them. There was a fair mixture of Hebrew in the Aramaic, which evidently was Fulco's way of simulating "street Aramaic." Well, his guess is as good as mine. The Aramaic of the Dead Sea Scrolls has some Hebrew mixed in, but not much. The Aramaic words and phrases transliterated into New Testament Greek may also have some Hebrew.

Speaking of Greek, it's strange that the sign on the cross only had the Latin inscription and one in Aramaic (the latter was definitely Aramaic, not Hebrew, and it said "King of the Jews, Jesus of Nazareth"). For all the claims of historical veracity, this was an obvious change from what the Gospels say (John 19:20). I can't help thinking there's some pre-Vatican II, pro-Latin Mass agenda here. (I'm pro-Latin too in general, but not at the expense of presenting the linguistic situation of the first century as it actually was.)

Violence: I think I was over-prepared for the violence. It was overdone, but not as much as I expected. A couple of weeks ago I saw the 1978 version of Dawn of the Dead and I thought that was more graphic and more disturbing, although the injuries were not as realistic.

I think the violence in The Passion was both exaggerated and sanitized. On the one hand, I don't believe that anyone could take that amount of flogging and then get up again and walk for any distance, let alone do so carrying a heavy cross. Jesus would have gone into shock during or just after the flogging and would not have been of much use after that. Given the level of sanitation, nutrition, and medical care at the time, he probably would have died from the flogging alone. (Any physicians out there want to comment here?) On the other, despite the realistic wounds, it was unrealistic that Jesus kept all his teeth through those beatings. I suspect this was because Caviezel would have looked less manly and noble with half his teeth knocked out. (Incidentally, overall I thought that people had too many teeth for the period. No toothpaste or dental floss back then.)

Nevertheless, the level of realism was far higher than usual for film media. Consider, for example, season 2 of 24, in which Jack Bauer undergoes implausibly mild torture by supposedly desperate men in a big hurry, he goes into cardiac arrest, yet he still manages to rise from the dead - without the help of a miracle! - and save the day. At least The Passion didn't involve that kind of cartoon violence. According to the Gospels, Jesus died on the cross in just a few hours, which does imply that the beatings must have been severe. Still, there were too many gratuitous additions to the violence, e.g., the beatings starting at the arrest, the tossing-over-the-bridge scene, the crow pecking out the eyes of the unrepentant thief).

The level of gore in The Passion is not my cup of tea, but it's Gibson's movie and his artistic statement, not mine. Although I said I was over-prepared for the violence, I should add that I had some pretty violent nightmares last night (including one in Dawn-of-the Dead zombie-land), so the movie clearly affected me more than I realized consciously.

The Crucifixion: Mark Goodacre has been arguing lately that we don't actually know whether the nails went through the wrists rather than the palms during crucifixion and that it's possible that, if the arms were tied firmly to the crossbeam, the nails could have gone through the palms. He may well be right on both counts. According to John 20:25-27 Jesus' hands were nailed rather than tied, but it's unclear whether it was through the palms or the wrists.

All that granted, the physiology of the crucifixion in this movie just does not work. Look closely at the ropes that tie Jesus' arms to the cross. They are tied fairly loosely, enough to immobilize the arms in order to get the nails in, but not enough to support his whole body. If he had been nailed through the palms, the nails would torn through the hand rapidly from the weight of his body. On top of that you have the stretching of his arms to the point, presumably, of dislocation during the nailing. The pull on the hands would have torn the nails out. Then too, there's the whole business of toppling the cross over to turn the bottoms of the nails down and then turning it back again, then dropping it into the hole.

The crucifixion scene in the movie is physically impossible.

Was the movie anti-Semitic? Overall, I would say no. Both Jews and Romans are generally presented as bloodthirsty and barbaric, but there are noble exceptions among both. That said, Gibson did pick up some pretty disturbing themes I wish he had left out. In particular, the extra violence of the arrest party, the visions of the Jewish children morphing into demons, and the demon baby were gratuitous and just sat the wrong way. Also, although I don't see an intention to be anti-Semitic, I do worry about how much it will confirm people who are already anti-Semitic in their views. But I'm not sure how much this is really Gibson's problem.

Historical issues: The movie has quite a few historical errors, most of which have been well covered elsewhere. I have to say I winced when I saw the quotation from Isaiah 53 being dated to 700 BC at the beginning. Nothing like putting in a mistake in the first few frames to set the tone. Also, there was confusion over hand-washing before meals, which was a ritual act, not a hygienic one, and which was followed by some Jews but evidently not Jesus and his followers (Mark 7:1-4). Mama Mary's making Jesus wash his hands before lunch and the disciples washing theirs before the Last Supper are anachronisms. They didn't know about germs back then. (As an aside, I did think that the people looked realistically unwashed.)

Despite all that, there was a real effort at least much of the time to get the historical background right. The contrast with other movies and television films is striking. British readers may have seen the final episode of the police drama Murder City on ITV last Thursday evening. It involved an ancient codex written in some pre-cuneiform(!) language that was given some Lovecraftian-sounding name. The codex contained the true primal religion that disproved all current religions and this religion was followed by a fanatical, murderous, underground cult with Protocols-of-Zion-level tendrils of power insinuated throughout the world. That's the sort of tripe film-media usually dish out when they try to do history (the movie Stigmata is another example) and Gibson does deserve some credit for rising well above that. Still, I wish he had worked with an advisory team of specialists, and I hope he does that if it's true that his next movie will be on the Maccabees.

Miscellaneous: Why does Satan look so much like the Grim Reaper in Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey?



In sum: Movies about ancient history are usually dreadfully poorly done. By that standard, Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ was pretty good.

UPDATE (25 April): Mark Goodacre comments here.

And more here.

The site of Jesus' crucifixion?

THE HOLY LAND PHOTOS BLOG: Site of Crucifixion of Jesus?

Probably the most sacred place in the whole of Christendom is the Church of the Holy Sepulcher (aka Church of the Resurrection) in the Old City of Jerusalem. Since the first half of the fourth century a church has encased both the places of crucifixion and burial of Jesus.

[...]

Since today is Good Friday. As generally with such things, this place enshrines a tradition about the site where Jesus was crucified. It's a comparatively old tradition, but one warranting some skepticism. Whether or not there was a genuine memory of the actual site of the event, inevitably someone would have come up with one.

For the question of the site of Jesus' burial, see here and links.

More on the Abba tomb skeleton (crucifixion)

OSTEOLOGIST JOE ZIAS e-mails the following:

Professor Pat Smith is correct, along with others, that there is no evidence for crucifixion in the Abba tomb, moreover we asked experts totally unaware of the controversy as to the sex of the skeleton with signs of trauma, all concurred that we are talking about an elderly female.

Following Dr. Haas tragic accident, the material in question was transferred to my lab in the Israel Antiquities Authority and I can state with a high level of confidence that no evidence whatsoever for crucifixion was present.

This in reference to my recent post on the new (apparently) crucified skeleton from Rome. I mentioned the Abba tomb skeleton as another one, possibly of Mattathiah son of Judah, which had been argued to have been crucified. I discussed that in more detail here. But from what Dr. Zias says above, the expert consensus is otherwise.

That leaves us with Yohanan's certainly crucified skeleton and the new one from Rome, which may also have been crucified.

I am grateful to Joe Lauer for putting out a call for clarification and to Joe Zias for contacting us with the updated information.

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Crucified man excavated in Cambridgeshire

OSTEOLOGY: Best physical evidence of Roman crucifixion found in Cambridgeshire Near 1,900-year-old skeleton discovered with nail through heel bone during excavation in Fenstanton (Jamie Grierson, The Guardian). HT Dr. Michael Lyons.

The skeleton of Yehohanan ben Hagko also had a crucifixion nail driven through the heel bone. Another skeleton excavated in Jerusalem in 1970 has been flagged as possibly crucified, but the most recent analysis I know of indicates not. Another apparently crucified skeleton was excavated in Italy. For more on all three, plus additional posts on crucifixion, see here and follow the links.

In addition, there are two ancient nails that may have been used in crucifixions.

UPDATE (10 December): More here.

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Vermes on crucifixion

GEZA VERMES: Was Crucifixion a Jewish Penalty? (Standpoint Magazine).

The doctoral dissertation by Gunnar Samuelsson discussed in the article is noted here and links.

Tangentially related (via crucifixion—'tis the season) from Bible History Daily: The Staurogram: The earliest images of Jesus on the cross. I noted a lecture by Larry Hurtado on the subject (as well as his book) in 2007, here.

Crucifixion gem

ETC BLOG: Depiction of Crucifixion (SBL Report) (Peter M. Head). The gem is of interest for its early (c. 200 CE) iconography of crucifixion and of the appearance of Jesus. That said, I would like more clarification about its provenance (it seems to have been "acquired" rather than excavated archaeologically) and how certain specialists are (and on what grounds) that it is genuine.