Crucifixion: The Exhumed Evidence

Israel My Glory ^ | February/March 1995 | Peter Colón

[Brian Griffin]

The Jewish historian Josephus, who lived in the first century AD and was an eyewitness to many gruesome crucifixions, characterized this form of execution as “the most wretched of deaths.”

.... with the suppression of the Spartacus revolt in 71 BC, Rome lined the famous Appian Road stretching from Capua to Rome with 6,000 crucified rebels. In AD 7, a minor revolt in Judea was brutally squelched, resulting in the crucifixion of 2,000 Jews in Jerusalem. During the siege of Jerusalem by Titus in AD 70, 500 Jews were crucified each day for several months.

Once the victim was condemned to be crucified, he was led from the Praetorium to an outside court where he was stripped, bound to a column, and savagely scourged with a flagellum, a short whip consisting of several single or braided leather thongs of varied lengths. The ends of these thongs contained sharp bits of sheep bone that tore into the flesh.

At the head of the procession a soldier carried a wooden sign called the titulus, which stated the offender’s name and offense.

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