Right too little info.Here is thte theory,Mary (the virgin) was raped by a roman gaurd and she became pregnent when the jews wanted to stone her she managed to convice Joseph that it wasnt her fault and they concocted the story that God was Jesus' father and she wasnt raped (to save face) when Jesus grew up he went on to be a great politican inspirering people to belive in him but when Pilot orderd Jesus' execution he didnt realise that Jesus' father was a Roman.
Oh....your talking about a book.....Nope...never heard that....though if she was raped...It was custom that she would have to marry the guy, or maybe even be stoned........But that could of been a reason why Joseph sent her away while she was pregnant......I don't believe that though....
Though in Europe, the English solders did feel they had first dibs on another's wife before their new husband did...that's why some tried to keep their marriage a secret.....King Edwards time, I think.
Our most valuable source of information about crucifixions, of course, comes from the four Gospels. For there, in minute detail, we hear of the crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth, as is well known. But another valuable source of information about the practice of crucifixion is ancient Greek and Roman literature. Though the Greeks and Romans did not write about crucifixion frequently, they wrote about it often enough to supply important data about this method of execution.
The Romans did not invent crucifixion as a method of execution, though it seems that they perfected it. On the basis of the writings of the Greek author Herodotus, it seems that the Persians were the first to use crucifixion (Herodotus 1:128.2; 3:125.3; 3:132.2; 3:159.1). For example, Herodotus tells us that King Darius (mentioned in the Bible) had 3000 Babylonians crucified in about 519 B.C. (4:43.2,7; 6:30.1; 7:194.1). The sources reveal that, two centuries later, Alexander the Great also used crucifixion in his conquests. For example in his History of Alexander, Curtius Rufus tells us that Alexander had 2000 citizens of Tyre crucified after he had conquered that city (4:4.17). The Romans eventually conquered the Greeks (Carthaginians) and it was from them that the Romans probably learned crucifixion. However, as the Romans themselves were fond of noting, crucifixion was also used by many "barbarian" peoples, such as Indians, the Assyrians, the Scythians, and the Celts. It was also later used by the Germans and the Britains (For the exact sources, see Martin Hengel, Crucifixion, trans. John Bowden (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1977), 22-23).
We moderns still recoil with horror when we hear of Christ's crucifixion. But what did the ancients think of crucifixion? They considered it to be the most shameful, the most painful, and the most abhorrent of all executions. The Roman statesman Cicero called it "the most cruel and disgusting penalty" (Verrem 2:5.165) and "the most extreme penalty" (Verrem 2:5.168). The Jewish historian Josephus, who certainly witnessed enough crucifixions himself, called it "the most wretched of deaths." The Roman jurist Julius Paulus listed crucifixion in first place as the worst of all capital punishments, listing it ahead of death by burning, death by beheading, or death by the wild beasts. And from Seneca we have this quotation, which is one of the most unique descriptions of a crucifixion in non-Biblical literature:
Can anyone be found who would prefer wasting away in pain dying limb by limb, or letting out his life drop by drop, rather than expiring once for all? Can any man by found willing to be fastened to the accursed tree, long sickly, already deformed, swelling with ugly wounds on shoulders and chest, and drawing the breath of life amid long drawn-out agony? He would have many excuses for dying even before mounting the cross (Dialogue 3:2.2).
The ancients considered death by crucifixion to be not just any execution, but the most obscene, the most disgraceful, the most horrific execution known to man.
How common was crucifixion in the ancient world? Quite common, at least among the Romans. Though Roman law usually spared Roman citizens from being crucified, they used crucifixion especially against rebellious foreigners, military enemies, violent criminals, robbers, and slaves. In fact slaves were so routinely crucified that crucifixion become known as the "slaves' punishment" (servile supplicium; see Valerius Maximus 2:7.12). Appian tells us that when the slave rebellion of Spartacus was crushed, the Roman general Crassus had six thousand of the slave prisoners crucified along a stretch of the Appian Way, the main road leading into Rome (Bella Civilia 1:120). As an example of crucifying rebellious foreigners, Josephus tells us that when the Romans were besieging Jerusalem in 70 A.D. the Roman general Titus, at one point, crucified five hundred or more Jews a day. In fact, so many Jews were crucified outside of the walls that "there was not enough room for the crosses and not enough crosses for the bodies" (Wars of the Jews 5:11.1).
How was crucifixion actually carried out? The first thing we learn from the sources is that there was great variety in the way crucifixions were done. The main thing was to expose the victim to the utmost indignity. The Romans appear to have followed the same procedure in most cases, but even they departed from this at times. Seneca points to this reality when he writes in one place, "I see crosses there, not just of one kind but made in many different ways: some have their victims with head down to the ground; some impale their private parts; others stretch out their arms on the gibbet" (Dialogue 6:20.3).
So what form did a more normal crucifixion take? First came the flogging or scourging. The flogging usually was done by two soldiers using a short whip (flagrum, flagellum) that had several leather thongs of different lengths. Tied to these leather thongs were small iron balls or sharp pieces of sheep bones. The victim was stripped of his clothing and his hands were tied above him to a post. The back, legs and buttocks would then be flogged until the person collapsed. With the back and legs thus torn open there would be extensive blood loss. This blood loss from the flogging often determined how long it took the crucified person to die on the cross. The fact that Jesus was not able to carry his cross all the way, and the fact that he died in six hours, indicates that this flogging must have been especially severe. The ancient sources tell us that many some people died just from the flogging.
Hengel, Martin. Crucifixion: In the Ancient World and the Folly of the Message of the Cross. Translated by John Bowden. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1977.
Maier, Paul L. In the Fullness of Time: A Historian Looks at Christmas, Easter, and the Early Church. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1991.
Weber, Hans-Ruedi. The Cross: Tradition and Interpretation. Translated by Elke Jesset. Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1979.
Edwards, William D., Gabel, Wesley J., and Hosmer, Floyd E. "On the Physical Death of Jesus Christ." The Journal of the American Medical Association 256 (March 21, 1986). I'll go back and find the site....
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Jesus should not have been put on the cross as he was a Roman.
Jul 11th, 2005 10:13 AM
