Good Article on Crucifixion

[Minimalist]

http://www.forbes.com/sites/kristinakill...ent-world/

This One Bone Is The Only Skeletal Evidence For Crucifixion In The Ancient World

[CapnAwesome]

I was always under the impression that most crucifixion victims were normally strapped up with wet straps that tightened as they dried, rather than nailed up. Maybe nails were too valuable to waste?

[Minimalist]

I never heard that about the straps in relation to crucifixion. 

Nails were not that uncommon.

http://slll.anu.edu.au/sites/slll.anu.ed...aper_1.pdf

This article inventories a literal shitload of nails found at one site in Scotland which was not occupied by the Romans for all that long.

[The Grand Nudger]

The straps business was, primarily, an apologetic attempt to reconcile the fact that the whole palm nailing business was nonsense.  There needed to be another way for the story to be true, in the minds of believers.  You'll find it plastered all over The Bible Is Really True Dat Cams.

[Minimalist]

The nails were not intended as a primary means of inducing death.  They were just a garnish on the proceedings.  Either method would work.  The article marvels over the fact that we have only one bone which shows evidence of crucifixion but the case in point was evidently a young jewish rebel from a family wealthy enough to afford to have a family tomb and (probably) bribe officials to recover the body.  Add in the fact that the tip of the nail bent so that it could not be removed and you get a pretty specific chance why this evidence has been preserved.  As noted the bodies of the crucified were normally left on the cross to rot as a warning to others which would put a serious hole in the jesus bullshit story so the whole bit about Joseph of Arimathea was invented.

Of course the Special Pleading Chorus can be expected to sing out  "but this was JAY-SUS" not some criminal as they normally do.

[CapnAwesome]

The straps business was, primarily, an apologetic attempt to reconcile the fact that the whole palm nailing business was nonsense.  There needed to be another way for the story to be true, in the minds of believers.  You'll find it plastered all over The Bible Is Really True Dat Cams.

You know, I've long heard that you'd have to be crucified through the wrists, that nails through the hands wouldn't support the weight, however I've become skeptical of that. I think most of the weight would probably be supported by the nails through the feet, and any nails through hands or wrists would just be to keep the person upright. I'm pretty sure you could crucify someone through the hands just fine.

[The Grand Nudger]

You're approaching the subject rationally, they were not - keep that in mind.  They were loaded with iconography of a jesus with his arms outspread, holes through his palms. There are -plenty- of ways to keep someone stuck up on a post without nails or straps, sure. As regards the nails through the feet....sure, that would keep the feet up there, and if the arms came loose you'd have an inverted flapper. All of this is assuming that the guy is sitting around like a ragdoll model, a'course...not what I'd be up to if I'd been crucified.

[vorlon13]

And the Catholics are positive Jesus was put up with 4 nails based on 4 areas of nail head stigmata on a saint.

Pretty damn compelling, no ?

[Minimalist]

The straps business was, primarily, an apologetic attempt to reconcile the fact that the whole palm nailing business was nonsense.  There needed to be another way for the story to be true, in the minds of believers.  You'll find it plastered all over The Bible Is Really True Dat Cams.

You know, I've long heard that you'd have to be crucified through the wrists, that nails through the hands wouldn't support the weight, however I've become skeptical of that. I think most of the weight would probably be supported by the nails through the feet, and any nails through hands or wrists would just be to keep the person upright. I'm pretty sure you could crucify someone through the hands just fine.

Even in the case of the single bone we have there is still evidence of a thin piece of wood being placed between the ankle and the nail so that the subject could not wiggle off the nail, sort of like a washer.  This procedure would have been even more useful on the hands.  There is also no reason to doubt that ropes could have been used to secure the arms to the crossbeam in addition to the nails.  By the time the Romans inherited the practice from Carthage it had been in use for centuries and the kinks must have been worked out.

[The Grand Nudger]

Judicious application of primitive washers ftw!  Washers wouldn't have helped though, /w the palms issue.  The issue is that you can either rip by force or tear by weight up between the bones of your fingers and get free - even if they put washers on. This is much more difficult, washers are much more effective...up on the wrists. The romans would have certainly known this, as they had some practice. The christian iconography never could have been accurate. No surprise to any of us, but it did mean that christians had to scramble for a new story..and while the story they settled upon is reasonable...we still only have that one ankle bone - not that we'd expect to find many leather scraps from crucifixions laying around, ofc.