Price(s) Paid In Full . . . Good Friday: the day where Jesus, captured in the garden of Gethsemane and turned over to the Romans, faced brutilization leading to His death on the Cross. What I think is important for us to consider, as Christians and even non-Christians who may be reading, is that what Christ endured for us. It's much more than simply, “dying on the Cross.” To adequately capture a true picture of what Christ endured, I had to pull from two different medicinal sources to give detail on His suffering, which was captured and corroborated many times over, and the four gospels, which many forensic scientists, some even non-believers, will consider as fact. Fact, that He did suffer probably one of the most brutal forms of death. We, as Christians, believe He did this for us. For every person reading this, at least one of those are true. The following is 7 pages long on a Microsoft Word document prior to me putting it on Facebook, so please allow yourself some time to read:
Dr. C. Truman Davis, M.D., M.S.
Excerpts from the Arizona Medicine Vol. 22, no. 3.
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 anaesthetic 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. This was in fulfilment of Psalm 22:18, “They divide My garments among them, and for My clothing they cast lots.”
4. The Crucifixion of Jesus guaranteed a horrific, slow, painful death. Having been nailed to the Cross, Jesus now had an impossible anatomical position to maintain.
5. Jesus’ knees were flexed at about 45 degrees, and He was forced to bear His weight with the muscles of His thigh, which is not an anatomical position which is possible to maintain for more than a few minutes without severe cramp in the muscles of the thigh and calf.
6. Jesus’ weight was borne on His feet, with nails driven through them. As the strength of the muscles of Jesus’ lower limbs tired, the weight of His body had to be transferred to His wrists, His arms, and His shoulders.
7. Within a few minutes of being placed on the Cross, Jesus’ shoulders were dislocated. Minutes later Jesus’ elbows and wrists became dislocated.
8. The result of these upper limb dislocations is that His arms were 9 inches longer than normal, as clearly shown on the Shroud.
9. In addition 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 Pectoralis Major muscles of His chest wall.
11. These traction forces caused His rib cage to be pulled upwards and outwards, in a most unnatural state. His chest wall was permanently in a position of maximal respiratory inspiration. 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. Crucifixion is a medical catastrophe.
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 cramps, 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, mixed with the absolute terror of asphyxiation.
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. There was increasing dislocation of His wrists, elbows and shoulders, and further elevation of His chest wall, making His breathing more and more difficult. Within minutes of crucifixion Jesus became severely Dyspnoeic (short 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. The pain from His two shattered median nerves in His wrists exploded with 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. (A scourge is a whip or lash, especially a multi-thong type, used to inflict severe corporal punishment on the back.)
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 Hypoventilation (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 Hypercapnia.
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 Centre 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 agonising movements spontaneously started several times a minute, to the delight of the crowd who jeered Him, the Roman soldiers, and the Sanhedrin. (The Sanhedrin was the supreme council, or court, in ancient Israel. The Sanhedrin was comprised of 70 men, plus the high priest, who served as its president. The members came from the chief priests, scribes and elders.)
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 Hypoxia (too little oxygen) and Hypercapnia (too much CO2) caused His heart to beat faster and faster, and Jesus developed Tachycardia.
32. Jesus’ heart beat faster and faster, and 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. Jesus had endured a scourging which nearly killed Him.
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, with Hypovolaemia (low blood volume), Tachycardia (excessively fast Heart Rate), Tachypnoea (excessively fast Respiratory Rate), and Hyperhidrosis (excessive sweating).
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, which was already severely compromised.
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. (Haemopericardium refers to blood in the pericardial sac of the heart.)
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 would put a small wooden seat on the Cross, which would allow Jesus the “privilege” of bearing His weight on his sacrum. (In humans, the sacrum (plural: sacrums or sacra) is a large, triangular bone at the base of the spine and at the upper and back part of the pelvic cavity, where it is inserted like a wedge between the two hip bones.)
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. This was called Crucifragrum.
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 fulfilment of prophecy (above).
54. Jesus died after six hours of the most excruciating and terrifying torture ever invented.
55. As per the Holy books, Jesus died so that ordinary people could go to Heaven.
------------------------------------------------
What this publication doesn't go in depth with is the scourging, which I pulled from another medical journal and it reads as follows:
"Let's talk about the scourging. Scourging was such a horrible torture that Roman citizens were forbade to be scourged - only slaves and traders could be scourged. It was one of the worst punishments the Romans had to inflict on a human body. Typically, the victim was stripped completely naked and tied by his wrists to a post or wall with his back exposed. He was then whipped from the back of his arms, down his shoulders and back, across his bare buttocks, down the back of his legs and calves, all the way down to his heels by two Roman legionnaires, one on either side, alternating blows.
The historical accounts tell us that the traditional scourging consisted of thirty-nine lashes. If you can, imagine two large, strong, burly Roman legionnaires (someone that we would equate to say, a pro football player today) with a wooden handled whip about eighteen inches long that had nine leather thongs, something akin to what we would call a cat-o-nine tails. The n ine leather thongs were about six to seven feet long, and at the end of each thong was some lead shod, like a sinker you'd use to go fishing. Attached to the lead shod were pieces of sheep and cattle bone. The idea of those small pieces of bone was that, as the Roman legionnaire would beat his victim, snapping his wrist would cause the weight of the metal shod to dig into the back, while the sheep/cattle bone cut the skin.
As the sheep/cattle bone lacerated the skin and actually dug in under the surface of the skin, the skilled and trained legionnaire could whip his wrist and literally lift small shards of skeletal muscle out through the skin, leaving small ribbons of muscle, about two inches long, hanging through the skin."
"When I was working on this, I looked at in the cadaver lab and did some dissection, trying to figure out what one blow like this would mean to you and me. As best I could tell, and from some of the information I was able to gather from the Shroud of Turin exhibit, one lash with this whip - one thong - would make a cut about two inches long and about three quarters to an inch deep. To put that into medical terms, that's a cut that takes about twenty stitches to close. So with one lash, one swing of the whip, a total of nine lacerations could be inflicted on the victim, each laceration two inches long and three quarters to one inch deep.
With one blow, one Roman legionnaire could inflict enough wounds to take one hundred eighty stitches to close. If you multiply that times thirty-nine, those two Roman legionnaires inflicted enough lacerations to take about 2,000 stitches to close. I've seen people who've gone through the windshield of a car or wrecked a motorcycle into a barbed wire fence, and I've still never seen anyone that tattered up in any of my medical experience. This gives you an idea of the amount of the physical trauma that was inflicted upon Jesus just from the scourging.
Again you'd ask why Jesus didn't bleed to death. And again, you have to remember that this was done in the cold night air, the very thing that caused his blood vessels and capillaries to constrict and actually cause the blood loss from this beating to be minimal."
Dr. C. Truman Davis, M.D., M.S.
Excerpts from the Arizona Medicine Vol. 22, no. 3.
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 anaesthetic 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. This was in fulfilment of Psalm 22:18, “They divide My garments among them, and for My clothing they cast lots.”
4. The Crucifixion of Jesus guaranteed a horrific, slow, painful death. Having been nailed to the Cross, Jesus now had an impossible anatomical position to maintain.
5. Jesus’ knees were flexed at about 45 degrees, and He was forced to bear His weight with the muscles of His thigh, which is not an anatomical position which is possible to maintain for more than a few minutes without severe cramp in the muscles of the thigh and calf.
6. Jesus’ weight was borne on His feet, with nails driven through them. As the strength of the muscles of Jesus’ lower limbs tired, the weight of His body had to be transferred to His wrists, His arms, and His shoulders.
7. Within a few minutes of being placed on the Cross, Jesus’ shoulders were dislocated. Minutes later Jesus’ elbows and wrists became dislocated.
8. The result of these upper limb dislocations is that His arms were 9 inches longer than normal, as clearly shown on the Shroud.
9. In addition 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 Pectoralis Major muscles of His chest wall.
11. These traction forces caused His rib cage to be pulled upwards and outwards, in a most unnatural state. His chest wall was permanently in a position of maximal respiratory inspiration. 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. Crucifixion is a medical catastrophe.
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 cramps, 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, mixed with the absolute terror of asphyxiation.
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. There was increasing dislocation of His wrists, elbows and shoulders, and further elevation of His chest wall, making His breathing more and more difficult. Within minutes of crucifixion Jesus became severely Dyspnoeic (short 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. The pain from His two shattered median nerves in His wrists exploded with 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. (A scourge is a whip or lash, especially a multi-thong type, used to inflict severe corporal punishment on the back.)
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 Hypoventilation (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 Hypercapnia.
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 Centre 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 agonising movements spontaneously started several times a minute, to the delight of the crowd who jeered Him, the Roman soldiers, and the Sanhedrin. (The Sanhedrin was the supreme council, or court, in ancient Israel. The Sanhedrin was comprised of 70 men, plus the high priest, who served as its president. The members came from the chief priests, scribes and elders.)
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 Hypoxia (too little oxygen) and Hypercapnia (too much CO2) caused His heart to beat faster and faster, and Jesus developed Tachycardia.
32. Jesus’ heart beat faster and faster, and 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. Jesus had endured a scourging which nearly killed Him.
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, with Hypovolaemia (low blood volume), Tachycardia (excessively fast Heart Rate), Tachypnoea (excessively fast Respiratory Rate), and Hyperhidrosis (excessive sweating).
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, which was already severely compromised.
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. (Haemopericardium refers to blood in the pericardial sac of the heart.)
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 would put a small wooden seat on the Cross, which would allow Jesus the “privilege” of bearing His weight on his sacrum. (In humans, the sacrum (plural: sacrums or sacra) is a large, triangular bone at the base of the spine and at the upper and back part of the pelvic cavity, where it is inserted like a wedge between the two hip bones.)
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. This was called Crucifragrum.
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 fulfilment of prophecy (above).
54. Jesus died after six hours of the most excruciating and terrifying torture ever invented.
55. As per the Holy books, Jesus died so that ordinary people could go to Heaven.
------------------------------------------------
What this publication doesn't go in depth with is the scourging, which I pulled from another medical journal and it reads as follows:
"Let's talk about the scourging. Scourging was such a horrible torture that Roman citizens were forbade to be scourged - only slaves and traders could be scourged. It was one of the worst punishments the Romans had to inflict on a human body. Typically, the victim was stripped completely naked and tied by his wrists to a post or wall with his back exposed. He was then whipped from the back of his arms, down his shoulders and back, across his bare buttocks, down the back of his legs and calves, all the way down to his heels by two Roman legionnaires, one on either side, alternating blows.
The historical accounts tell us that the traditional scourging consisted of thirty-nine lashes. If you can, imagine two large, strong, burly Roman legionnaires (someone that we would equate to say, a pro football player today) with a wooden handled whip about eighteen inches long that had nine leather thongs, something akin to what we would call a cat-o-nine tails. The n ine leather thongs were about six to seven feet long, and at the end of each thong was some lead shod, like a sinker you'd use to go fishing. Attached to the lead shod were pieces of sheep and cattle bone. The idea of those small pieces of bone was that, as the Roman legionnaire would beat his victim, snapping his wrist would cause the weight of the metal shod to dig into the back, while the sheep/cattle bone cut the skin.
As the sheep/cattle bone lacerated the skin and actually dug in under the surface of the skin, the skilled and trained legionnaire could whip his wrist and literally lift small shards of skeletal muscle out through the skin, leaving small ribbons of muscle, about two inches long, hanging through the skin."
"When I was working on this, I looked at in the cadaver lab and did some dissection, trying to figure out what one blow like this would mean to you and me. As best I could tell, and from some of the information I was able to gather from the Shroud of Turin exhibit, one lash with this whip - one thong - would make a cut about two inches long and about three quarters to an inch deep. To put that into medical terms, that's a cut that takes about twenty stitches to close. So with one lash, one swing of the whip, a total of nine lacerations could be inflicted on the victim, each laceration two inches long and three quarters to one inch deep.
With one blow, one Roman legionnaire could inflict enough wounds to take one hundred eighty stitches to close. If you multiply that times thirty-nine, those two Roman legionnaires inflicted enough lacerations to take about 2,000 stitches to close. I've seen people who've gone through the windshield of a car or wrecked a motorcycle into a barbed wire fence, and I've still never seen anyone that tattered up in any of my medical experience. This gives you an idea of the amount of the physical trauma that was inflicted upon Jesus just from the scourging.
Again you'd ask why Jesus didn't bleed to death. And again, you have to remember that this was done in the cold night air, the very thing that caused his blood vessels and capillaries to constrict and actually cause the blood loss from this beating to be minimal."
