Image of Jesus' crucifixion 'may be wrong'
From: Agence France-Presse
By Richard Ingham in Paris
March 30, 2006
THE image of the crucifixion, one of the most powerful emblems of Christianity, may be quite erroneous, according to a British study which says there is no evidence to prove Jesus was crucified in this manner.
Around the world, in churches, on the walls of Christian homes, on crucifixion worn as pendants, in innumerable books, paintings and movies, Jesus Christ is seen nailed to the cross by his hands and feet, with his head upwards and arms outstretched.
But a paper published by Britain's prestigious Royal Society of Medicine (RSM) says this image has never been substantiated in fact.
Christ could have been crucified in any one of many ways, all of which would have affected the causes of his death, it says.
"The evidence available demonstrates that people were crucified in different postures and affixed to crosses using a variety of means," said one of the authors, Piers Mitchell of Imperial College London.
"Victims were not necessarily positioned head up and nailed through the feet from front to back, as is the imagery in Christian churches."
The authors do not express any doubt on the act of Jesus' crucifixion itself.
But they note that the few eyewitness descriptions available today of crucifixions in the 1st century AD show the Romans had a broad and cruel imagination.
Their crucifixion methods probably evolved over time and depended on the social status of the victim and on the crime he allegedly committed, says the paper in April's issue of the RSM journal.
The cross could be erected "in any one of a range of orientations", with the victim sometimes head-up, sometimes head-down or in different postures.
Sometimes he was nailed to the cross by his genitals, sometimes the hands and feet were attached to the side of the cross and not the front, or affixed with cords rather than nails.
"If crucified head-up, the victim's weight may also have been supported on a small seat. This was believed to prolong the time it took a man to die," says the study, co-authored by Matthew Masien, also of Imperial College London's medicine faculty.
Crucifixion was widely practised by the Romans to punish criminals and rebels, but if the empire ever circulated instructions for the soldiers who carried out the gruesome task, none has survived today.
Nor is there any detailed account of the method of Jesus' crucifixion in the four Gospels of the Bible (Matthew, Mark, Luke and John) which are believed to be near contemporary accounts of the life of Christ.
And only one piece of archaeological evidence has ever been found about a crucifixion, mainly because crucified people were not formally buried but left on a rubbish dump to be eaten by wild dogs and hyenas, Masien and Mitchell say.[/i]
Mythbusting the Messiah: Cruci-fiction and walking on ice?
Mythbusting the Messiah: Cruci-fiction and walking on ice?
Last edited by avidaloca on Wed Apr 05, 2006 11:01 am, edited 2 times in total.
Man who walked on ice
Study claims ice, not water, kept Jesus afloat
University professor attempts to explain miracles with science
Tuesday, April 4, 2006 Posted: 2254 GMT (0654 HKT)
MIAMI, Florida (Reuters) -- The New Testament says that Jesus walked on water, but a Florida university professor believes there could be a less miraculous explanation -- he walked on a floating piece of ice.
Professor Doron Nof also theorized in the early 1990s that Moses's parting of the Red Sea had solid science behind it.
Nof, a professor of oceanography at Florida State University, said on Tuesday that his study found an unusual combination of water and atmospheric conditions in what is now northern Israel could have led to ice formation on the Sea of Galilee.
Nof used records of the Mediterranean Sea's surface temperatures and statistical models to examine the dynamics of the Sea of Galilee, which Israelis know now as Lake Kinneret.
The study found that a period of cooler temperatures in the area between 1,500 and 2,600 years ago could have included the decades in which Jesus lived.
A drop in temperature below freezing could have caused ice -- thick enough to support a human -- to form on the surface of the freshwater lake near the western shore, Nof said. It might have been nearly impossible for distant observers to see a piece of floating ice surrounded by water.
Nof said he offered his study -- published in the April edition of the Journal of Paleolimnology -- as a "possible explanation" for Jesus' walk on water.
"If you ask me if I believe someone walked on water, no, I don't," Nof said. "Maybe somebody walked on the ice, I don't know. I believe that something natural was there that explains it."
"We leave to others the question of whether or not our research explains the biblical account."
When he offered his theory 14 years ago that wind and sea conditions could explain the parting of the Red Sea, Nof said he received some hate mail, even though he noted that the idea could support the biblical description of the event.
And as his theory of Jesus' walk on ice began to circulate, he had more hate mail in his e-mail inbox.
"They asked me if I'm going to try next to explain the resurrection," he said.
Copyright 2006 Reuters.
University professor attempts to explain miracles with science
Tuesday, April 4, 2006 Posted: 2254 GMT (0654 HKT)
MIAMI, Florida (Reuters) -- The New Testament says that Jesus walked on water, but a Florida university professor believes there could be a less miraculous explanation -- he walked on a floating piece of ice.
Professor Doron Nof also theorized in the early 1990s that Moses's parting of the Red Sea had solid science behind it.
Nof, a professor of oceanography at Florida State University, said on Tuesday that his study found an unusual combination of water and atmospheric conditions in what is now northern Israel could have led to ice formation on the Sea of Galilee.
Nof used records of the Mediterranean Sea's surface temperatures and statistical models to examine the dynamics of the Sea of Galilee, which Israelis know now as Lake Kinneret.
The study found that a period of cooler temperatures in the area between 1,500 and 2,600 years ago could have included the decades in which Jesus lived.
A drop in temperature below freezing could have caused ice -- thick enough to support a human -- to form on the surface of the freshwater lake near the western shore, Nof said. It might have been nearly impossible for distant observers to see a piece of floating ice surrounded by water.
Nof said he offered his study -- published in the April edition of the Journal of Paleolimnology -- as a "possible explanation" for Jesus' walk on water.
"If you ask me if I believe someone walked on water, no, I don't," Nof said. "Maybe somebody walked on the ice, I don't know. I believe that something natural was there that explains it."
"We leave to others the question of whether or not our research explains the biblical account."
When he offered his theory 14 years ago that wind and sea conditions could explain the parting of the Red Sea, Nof said he received some hate mail, even though he noted that the idea could support the biblical description of the event.
And as his theory of Jesus' walk on ice began to circulate, he had more hate mail in his e-mail inbox.
"They asked me if I'm going to try next to explain the resurrection," he said.
Copyright 2006 Reuters.
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MKFaizi
