01x14 - Crucifixion

[bunniefuu]

[music]

I'm going on an adventure.

There's only one way to figure it all out.

Unzip the archeology. Make it naked.

[music]

[SIMCHA] Here's a story.

One of the most famous ever told.

Here, , years ago in Jerusalem's old city streets,

Jesus carried his cross.

That executioner's tool, the cross,

became Christianity's most potent symbol.

But it wasn't just Jesus who met death this way.

The Romans ex*cuted tens of thousands on the cross.

Today, it's one of the world's most famous images.

But that image is unclear.

Here's the question:

How does someone die on the cross?

What physically happens?

How do nails in the hand lead to death on a cross?

We're about to travel the world, seeking answers.

[FEMALE VOICE] New York.

[MAN] For different peoples arm length,

we have different holes along the,

the cross so that each one would line up...

...because if you're nailing a person,

you're nailing their hand straight out.

[FEMALE VOICE] London.

Well, the nails, these are the actual nails...

...that went through my hand.

I'm not really interested in possessions.

You'll probably see I don't own very much.

But I've got a kind of magical attachment to these.

[FEMALE VOICE] And where no host has gone before.

[SIMCHA] But like most Biblical archaeology stories,

this one starts in-

[FEMALE VOICE] Jerusalem.

[SIMCHA] During the days of the first century,

Roman Emperors, Caligula Nero,

thousands of people would be crucified here...

...along busy highways like this one.

HA] The Romans crucified slaves, traitors, and rebels.

To make an example of them, deterrents,

in the place where the so-called crime took place.

Usually the crime was resistance to the Roman Empire.

[SIMCHA] Tens of thousands d*ed on the cross.

What most people don't know is this:

archaeologists have found nothing,

well, almost nothing...

...to prove that anyone was ever crucified.

How can this be?

Like all good stories, lets start with a twist.

A twisted nail.

This is the only physical evidence in the world...

...proving crucifixion happened.

What you see here is the heel bone.

The foot of this crucified man...

...with the iron nail going though it. Piercing it.

[SIMCHA] But this isn't real.

It was shown to me by Dudi Mevorah,

a curator at the Israel Museum.

when bones are found in excavations, in Israel,

after a short investigation, we re-bury them.

And the same is true for this bone...

...of the crucified man from Jerusalem.

So what I'm holding here...

...and what we're exhibiting at the museum is a copy.

A perfect copy of that.

This was found together with the whole skeleton.

The skeleton of Johanan...

...which was about to years of age.

We know his name?

We know his name, Johanan, a young man.

We don't know the crime for which he was crucified.

[SIMCHA] Why Johanan was crucified...

...is less interesting than what he was crucified on.

The wood of his cross had a knot.

As the nail passed through his heel and into the cross-

It hit a stronger part of the wood and got bent...

...preventing it to be pulled out.

So, , years ago, they nail a Jew to a cross in Jerusalem..

...because they choose one height...

...as opposed to another height.

It hits something stronger than a nail.

At that moment the nail bends...

...and starts a whole chain of events...

...that allow us to find the only crucified bone ever.

You know archaeology is all about tragedy and chance.

[FEMALE VOICE] Persians, Assyrians, Celts,

and Germans practiced crucifixion.

Many scholars say the Carthaginians...

...pounded the first nail.

The Romans didn't invent crucifixion.

They merely perfected it.

[SIMCHA] A twist of fate, a twisted nail.

It gives us the only physical evidence in the world...

...of a crucified man.

But tens of thousands d*ed on the cross.

Why is there no evidence?

Where are the other iron nails and splintered heels?

They used to crucify thousands of people along the roads here.

And if they crucified so many people,

how come there's no archaeological evidence?

How come there's no archaeological evidence...

...except one person?

I don't know how? You have to know how.

But why is there no evidence?

I don't know why. [laughs]

But does that mean it didn't happen?

Maybe it's happened.

So it doesn't mean just because they don't...

...have any archaeological evidence...

...doesn't mean anything.

I don't know. Everybody here is into archaeology.

[SIMCHA] Where is the evidence?

Well, we can't answer that...

...until we learn how crucifixion worked.

It turns out the best place in the world to get answers...

...is a small town in New York.

There, in a tidy family garage,

next to the lawn mower and sprinkler,

a father puts his son on the cross.

[SIMCHA] Dr. Frederick Zugibe is a New York pathologist.

A medical detective investigating causes of death.

His books include, Crucifixion of Jesus: a Forensic Inquiry.

Dr. Zugibe is trying to find out what happens...

...to a body on the cross.

From the lashing-

[FREDERICK] They called them scorpions.

And they would dig right into the flesh and rip.

[SIMCHA] -to the nails-

[FREDERICK] When the nail goes through that area,

it hits the median nerve as they explain.

It's one of the worst pains ever experienced by man.

[SIMCHA] -to the mechanics of hanging on a cross.

Then, what happens is the cramping in the legs.

Well, what they did was...

...they arched the body and that would extend the legs,

to remove some of the cramps.

[SIMCHA] Dr. Zugibe isn't studying alone.

Meet Dr. Zugibe's son. Tom.

For the past years I've been a local judge...

...and I have my own private practice of law.

[SIMCHA] He's been going up on the cross..

...for his father for years.

You must be the most crucified man.

I would think.

You are the most crucified man ever.

There's not much you could do to me, right?

That I haven't already been through.

He was the Executive Assistant District Attorney...

...for a number of years.

And when he left the office, they did a roast on him,

and I loaned them pictures of him up on the cross,

and I said this is what his father used to do...

...whenever he was bad to punish him.

He would crucify him.

[SIMCHA] Dr. Zugibe tests oxygen levels,

blood pressure, heart rate.

So, does anybody else do this anywhere in the world?

Are you the world's expert on crucifixion?

Pretty much.

Because nobody has done, people have just speculated.

There's even been a paper...

...in the Journal of the American Medical Association...

...from the Mayo Clinic.

Just speculation. No experimentation at all.

[SIMCHA] Fortunately, no one else in the world...

...conducts live crucifixion experiments.

Over the centuries,

artists occasionally nailed cadavers to crosses...

...to get the right pose.

Lately, Mel Gibson gave us some of the...

...most visceral images yet.

But Dr. Zugibe says the Road Warrior got it wrong.

Gibson exaggerated the lashing for entertainment value.

No one could have survived the lashing Gibson gave Jesus.

And then they scourged him...

...for about nine to ten minutes straight...

...with the big bruisers coming down on him...

...using a flagrum with sharp edged pieces.

Well, I think about five or six lashes like that..

..would have k*lled him.

From my experience as a forensic pathologist.

He never would have made it to the cross.

He would not have made it to the cross.

First of all, his breathing would have been terrible.

If you get punched in the chest, with one punch,

you have difficulty breathing.

To carry a -pound cross as he did in the movie,

it would have been almost impossible.

Now I have a case-

You've never seen anybody flayed,

so how do you know?

Well I had a case, just about a year and a half ago...

...of a young individual who was beaten...

...by the stepfather with a belt and lamp cord.

The individual d*ed. Both lungs were collapsed.

The inside of the chest wall was all hemorrhaged.

They tried resuscitating the individual after...

...but could not resuscitate the individual.

[SIMCHA] So this -year-old in good shape...

...didn't survive just a strap.

Just a b*ating with a belt and a lamp cord.

[SIMCHA] So Mel got it wrong.

No one could have survived Gibson's lashing...

...and then carried a cross.

But Christians do believe the real Jesus...

...made it to the cross.

That's the image most of us have.

But, it comes from art, not archaeology or science.

The common way that people perceive crucifixion...

...is the way the artistic descriptions are...

...of the crucifixion of Jesus.

With the feet one on top of the other,

with the nail driven through both of them...

...into the upright beam of the cross.

[SIMCHA] But there was a great variety.

Peter Richardson, professor of religious studies...

...at the University of Toronto.

Sometimes his feet are on the ledge,

sometimes he's nailed to the cross.

The nail seems to go through the palms,

sometimes through the wrist.

Was there one way, or variations?

No, there were all sorts of varieties of crucifixion.

Upside-down, with arms extended.

Even with the privates being nailed to the cross.

[sounds of disgust]

There were all sorts of variations.

X shaped crosses, tau shaped crosses...

...that's a T shaped cross.

[SIMCHA] No matter what type of cross was used,

most of us think of the nails when we think of crucifixion.

And we're about to meet someone...

...who can tell not the history, but the actual feeling.

[SIMCHA] Sebastian Horsely, London painter and writer.

The first Westerner to be crucified...

...in Filipino crucifixion rituals.

I first heard about the it in the Philippines...

...some years ago and I went over...

...to watch them crucify their own people.

Once I realize it was possible to be crucified...

...in the modern world,

I knew this was something that was my calling.

So, I went there and I offered to have myself crucified.

[SIMCHA] Every Easter a few villages in the Philippines...

...re-enact Jesus' Passion.

Some go so far as to drive nails through their hands.

They strapped me to the cross.

And I wanted to think of something specific ...

ke my girlfriend, when the nails went through the skin.

[FEMALE VOICE] Excruciating.

From the Latin, excruciates means "out of the cross."

And as the nails went through,

I started to black out and they started to raise the cross...

...and I was in and out of consciousness.

And my eyes filled up with water.

Well, the pain was much worse than I thought.

It was- how can I describe it?

It was just really severe...

...but also quite dull ache as it broke through the skin.

But I think one of the reason it was worse than I thought,

it was just the idea of what I was doing to myself

It's not really like anything in the modern world, is it?

You can't really prepare for something like that.

[SIMCHA] It's hard to understand...

...why today anyone would want to be crucified.

But why did the Romans choose crucifixion?

Hanging was easier.

Feeding to wild animals, more dramatic.

The sword was faster.

But the cross, the cross was special to the Romans.

Why did crucifixion satisfy Romans' needs...

...for nearly eight hundred years?

Part of the answer is the power of humiliation.

Humiliation, and shame.

It's a death in shame.

The Romans typically not only scourged the person...

...who's to be ex*cuted ahead of time,

but then often left the body on the cross...

...so that it would simply disintegrate on the cross.

There would be very little left.

Jackals would pick at it from the bottom,

and carrion birds from the top.

[SIMCHA] Humiliation with purpose.

Deterrence. Crucifixion was a public warning.

The Romans wanted everyone to see what happened...

...if you messed with them.

So we're back to our first question.

If so many thousands d*ed on the cross...

...and the whole point was that...

...as many people as possible witness the punishment,

why is there so little evidence of crucifixion?

It turns out that there's more evidence...

...than I first suspected.

If archaeology is all about tragedy and chance,

then chance was on my side.

I was in Tel Aviv interviewing Dr. Arensburg,

an expert in ancient forensics.

The interview wasn't even about crucifixion.

It was about leprosy.

And then, from a pile of boxes on the floor,

the good doctor pulled out a surprise.

Do you- -Oh yes.

-recognize this crucifixion?

Is this the original? This is the original.

Yes sir, this is the original.

I've seen the fake one at the Israel Museum.

Yeah. -That's it.

This is the original.

Oh, my goodness.

Yeah and you can-

This is the only example in the world...

...of a crucified-

And have been preserved till-

Now.

And this is a very important fact...

...that proved that crucification existed.

[laughs] you see?

It's incredible.

Yeah. This is fantastic and how they turned-

And look at these.

Well, that's why they probably couldn't get it out-

Yeah.

-until today, it hit something hard then- can I?

Yeah, but take care.

No, no, this is a truly important archaeological-

This is the only example of a crucified man.

And this is the original.

I've seen the plaster cast many times,

I didn't even know that the original existed somewhere.

But the professor has it right here in a box.

It's incredible.

This is really very-

This is history.

This is very important. [laughs]

I would say that that's amazing.

So we know that thousands of people were crucified...

...and yet there seems to be no archaeological evidence...

...except one

The first answer to that is this is what we found.

We don't know about the rest.

We know that there are many forms of crucifixion.

Both from literary sources...

...but also from what we were able to reconstruct...

...even from that one bone itself.

So if people, for instance, were crucified with ropes,

we won't find anything.

Because the ropes-

The ropes would decay with time...

...and we would have no evidence.

The wood would also decay with time.

[SIMCHA] When would an executioner...

...choose a rope instead of a nail?

It depended on economics of time.

Example: the Romans crucified , slaves...

...after the Spartacus Rebellion.

Probably using ropes.

Nailing would have just taken too much work.

The other factor is how long they wanted you to suffer.

If you're hung with ropes you can last for days.

Nails? Hours.

But still, how did a nail in the hand hurry death?

[SIMCHA] We know nails are painful.

But a nail in the hand doesn't k*ll.

For many years the leading theory of death on the cross...

...was asphyxiation.

Dr. Zugibe and Tom prove this theory is false.

Here's how it works.

In classic crucifixion, this is where the arms are.

In this position there's no problem breathing.

Breathing doesn't become tough...

...unless we raise the arms much higher.

Okay, put your arms straight out, it's easy to breathe.

Now raise your arms, it's tough to breathe, right?

You leave a person here the way we do our experiment,

for any length of time.

We had people that worked up to minutes...

...and that was the longest we had.

If you left them up there an hour...

...you know they would start going into shock.

[SIMCHA] And shock is central to our first question.

What causes death on the cross?

The cause of death in crucifixion...

...is hypovolemic shock and traumatic shock.

To a lay man, what happens...

...when someone goes into hypovolemic shock?

When a person has hypovolemic shock,

what literally happens is the heart fails as a pump,

because your volume is too low...

...to maintain a blood pressure.

[SIMCHA] Blood pressure drops from a loss of fluids.

Blood, sweat, the trauma of the lashing, nails, dehydration.

So you put these all together,

your blood pressure goes way, way down.

The heart is pumping again trying to maintain pressure.

Finally it fails.

So you end up with a traumatic shock...

...causing a cardiogenic shock, and death.

[SIMCHA] There are times in life when you realize,

for better or worse, you only get one sh*t at something.

This is one of those times.

I don't think a host,

you know, a television host,

they fly planes, they do all that,.

I don't think any host has ever gone up on the cross.

You know about Zugibe?

Yes. How long did he crucify you for?

I'm on camera, I'm taking full responsibility.

I went up there.

His son who's been training for years,

lasts for about minutes.

Because it's very interesting what happens.

You've done it?

-Oh yeah.

But who crucifies you?

No one.

It was just so I could get the feel of it.

I wanted to see what it was like.

We're crucifying a Jew.

Say that to the-

No, no. Behave Daddy.

You're just so shocked by how you feel.

Yeah.

Once your feet are taken off the ledge...

...you suddenly hang up there.

And your instinct is...

...you want to arch your way back up.

Uh-huh. Your muscle, 'cause the muscles.

Because your body starts going into shock...

...because it doesn't want to stay like that, hanging.

And what happened after seconds?

I just felt very uncomfortable.

I mean, in the sense that almost like,

I can't describe it.

It's very, very bad feeling. It was surprising.

I didn't expect to feel that bad that quickly.

I'm done.

[SIMCHA] And there's one more twist.

Another reason why we don't find more nails...

...stuck in bones.

Just think of your lucky rabbit's foot.

We know from several sources,

the nails were considered to be very important amulets.

And people might have retrieved those nails...

...for amulet purposes.

I find it very hard to believe that Jews would be...

...walking around with nails...

...that were used to crucify their family members...

...and say this is going to bring me good luck.

Actually, we know that from the Talmud.

So we know that both Jews and Gentiles...

...used that as amulets.

And so this would be a reason for us not finding them.

It would not explain why we don't find skeletons...

...with pierced heel bones.

You did find one.

Yeah, so you know it's always that in archaeology...

...that when we find one thing...

...we say why don't we find more.

The fact is that we found one...

...and the question is what do we do...

...with the information that we can retrieve...

...from that one find.

When we find more, we'll know more.

[SIMCHA] And that's the final twist.

We find almost no evidence of crucifixion today...

...because the nails were too valuable...

...as magic talismans to leave stuck in the dead.

People simply took them from the victim...

...after death for good luck.

Real symbols of death...