That Christ would willingly accept this gruesome and painful death for our benefit is incredibly awe inspiring and humbling. As we commemorate his death this Good Friday, let us all strive to be worthy of His incredible sacrifice

The Passion of Christ as told by the Shroud of Turin

Good Friday marks the anniversary of the Passion of Christ. Forensic evidence from the Shroud of Turin; combined with an understanding of Roman history and the story of the Passion as told in the Bible, can give us a better understand just what Christ endured on our behalf. The story told by the Shroud is more gruesome than what we have traditionally heard.

The Garden of Gethsemane

Christ was aware of his pending torture and death by crucifixion. He knew what he was facing, and yet remained to endure it rather than flee. In the Garden of Gethsemane, Christ did pray to be spared the beating, pain and torture he knew was about to face. The stress and fear Christ felt as he faced a most gruesome death was so great that he sweat blood, a rare medical phenomenon known as hematohidrosis (Jerajani, 2009).

Fear triggers the amygdala, which is the brain’s fear center resulting in profuse sweating (diaphoresis), accelerated heart rate, vasoconstriction of blood vessels, increased blood pressure, diversion of blood from non-essential areas in order to increase blood perfusion to the brain and muscles of the arms and legs, skin pallor, and decreased function of the digestive system, which may result in vomiting and abdominal cramps. Christ would have been completely exhausted and dehydrated because of diaphoresis and vomiting (Catholic Insight)

Beating by Caiaphas’s Guards

After Christ was arrested in the garden, he was brought before Caiaphas, the Jewish High Priest. Caiaphas saw Christ as a threat to his wealth and power so he needed to find a way to remove that threat. Although Caiaphas could have ordered Christ stoned to death, he wanted Christ’s death to send a message to anyone who dared threaten his power; for that, Caiaphas wanted Christ crucified. But crucifixion could only be sentenced by the Roman Governor Pilate.

In order to convince Pilate to agree to a crucifixion, Caiaphas needed a confession from Christ. Caiaphas’s temple guards were ordered to beat it out of him. The Shroud of Turin indicates that it was a savage beating and most likely went on for several hours, probably lasting until Christ was knocked unconscious.

The man on the Shroud had been severely beaten about the face. His facial wounds include: swelling of both eyebrows, a torn right eyelid, a large swelling below his right eye, a swollen nose, a triangular-shaped wound on right cheek with its apex pointing to his nose, a swelling to his left cheek, and a swelling to the left side of his chin. His right eye is nearly swollen shut, and his nose is twisted (Jones, 2013a).

The first scourging

Near dawn, Caiaphas brought Christ before Pilate and pleaded his case to have Christ crucified. Pilate had no reason to Crucify Christ, and hoping to make the issue go away, sent Caiaphas and Christ to Herod, who was visiting Jerusalem for the Passover. While Caiaphas was with Herod, he had his guards assemble a group of his followers, merchants and lenders who depended on Caiaphas for their livelihood, a group who also saw Christ as a threat.

When Christ was returned to Pilate, the crowd called for Christ to be crucified. Pilate could still see no reason to crucify Christ, but in order to appease Caiaphas’s supporters, Pilate ordered Christ scourged. This scourging was not intended to cause death, but to bring the victim to a point close to death. The whip used for this scourging consisted either of several leather straps attached to a handle or a series of thin wooden birch rods (Faccini, 2008, Faccini and Fanti, 2010).

Two Roman soldiers carried out the sentence of scourging. Christ was chained to a post, or more likely two posts with his arms outstretched and stripped naked. The soldiers took positions behind Christ, one on each side, and administered a total of 40 strokes of the whip as was the Roman custom. Each blow would cause extreme burning pain as the leather straps or birch rods cut into the flesh. A total of 170 lashes from this scourging can be observed on the Shroud of Turin. Since not all scourge marks can be observed on the Shroud, the 170 lashes that are observed suggests that the whips used for this scourging consisted of five leather straps or birch rods (Faccini, 2008). The lash marks from this scourging almost completely cover the upper arms, the back, the buttocks and thighs and the chest.

The Crown of Thorns

Following the scourging, the Roman soldiers mocked Christ by placing a crown of thorns onto his head. The man on the Shroud has numerous puncture wounds around his scalp. The pattern of puncture wounds is consistent with a cap of thorns rather than a circlet crown (Jones 2013b). The crown of thorns was probably woven from a Christ’s Thorn Jujube plant (Zizyphus spina-christi). The thorns of this plant are approximately 2.5 cm (1 inch) long. There are more than thirty different wounds about the head of the man on the Shroud.

The crown of thorns would have caused a great deal more agony for Christ who had already been brutally beaten and savagely whipped. The soldiers filed past Jesus striking down on the crown with a reed. The blows from the reed on the cap of thorns would have pressed the thorns deep into Christ’s scalp causing severe pain; similar to a hot poker. The traumatic shock from scourging would have been enhanced by the paroxysmal pains across Jesus’ face (Jones, 2013b). The throbbing bolts of pain from the crown of thorns would have persisted till Christ’s death. Intense pain would have been triggered by walking and falling, from the shoves and blows by the soldiers, and by pressure of the thorns against the cross (Jones. 2013b).

The second scourging

Following the scourging, Pilate asked the assembled crowd if this were not enough punishment. The crowd continued to call for Christ’s crucifixion. Pilate could not afford to have the crowd riot, so he eventually relented to have Christ crucified, then washed his hands of the affair.

The first step in a Roman crucifixion is scourging. The normal instrument for this type of scourging is a flagrum. The flagrum was a short whip made of two or three leather thongs connected to a handle. The leather thongs were knotted with a number of small pieces of metal designed to rip the skin off of the victim. Since Christ had already been scourged once, the guards could not risk using the normal flagrum, as this would almost certainly kill Christ at the post. Evidence from the Shroud suggests that the flagrum used for this scourging consisted of three leather straps, each having three round lead or metal weights, similar to shotgun pellets woven into the end of the lash (Faccini, 2008, Faccini and Fanti, 2010).

Once again Christ was chained to the whipping posts and stripped naked as two Roman guards took position behind him. The guards administered a total of 40 strokes of the whip; each blow from this scourging not only caused extreme burning pain as the leather straps cut into the flesh but also caused deep bruising. Each blow must have felt like being shot by several bb guns. A total of 115 lashes from this scourging can be observed on the Shroud of Turin. The lash marks from this scourging cover the upper arms, the back, the buttocks and thighs. Very few of the scourge marks on the chest were from this scourging; suggesting that the guards avoided whipping the chest so as not to cause Christ to die at the pillar.

Crucifixion

Once the guards completed the scourging, the cross beam of the crucifix was laid across Christ’s shoulders. This was a rough hewn beam weighing close to 100 pounds. The shroud shows where Christ’s shoulders were scratched from the beam rubbing across his neck and shoulders (Catholic Insight, Jones, 2013c)).

As Christ was carrying the crossbeam to Calvary, he fell three times. The Shroud shows evidence of contusions on both knees from these falls as well as cuts on the left kneecap (Meacham, 1983, Jones 2013c). To ‘encourage’ Christ to get up after falling, the Roman guards whipped his lower legs (Faccini, 2008, Faccini and Fanti, 2010). After Christ fell for the third time, the crossbeam was removed and Simon of Cyrene was forced to carry it the rest of the way lest Christ die before reaching Mount Golgatha.

By the time He arrived at Mount Golgatha, Jesus was in exquisite pain, struggling to breathe and suffering from blood and fluid loss. One of the executioners threw Him to the ground and then made Him lie on His bruised and bloody back. One other executioner pressed down on His chest, another held Him down by His legs, while a third soldier stretched His arms one at a time across the crossbeam and drove spikes through Christ’s wrists. The pain from the spikes would have sent bolts of white hot pain shooting up Christ’s arms. As the spikes were driven through the wrist they would have injured or severed the median nerve, causing the thumbs to retract into the palm. Neither thumb is visible on the Shroud, their position in the palm presumably being retained by rigor mortis (Catholic Insight, Meacham, 1983, Zugibe, 1985)

Once nailed to the crossbeam two members of the execution squad backed Christ up to the upright and then two men lifted the crossbeam up and inserted it onto a mortice on the top of the upright. As they were positioning the crossbeam, all of Christ’s weight was suspended by only the two spikes. Not only would this have caused incredible pain, it caused Christ’s shoulder and elbow joints to dislocate (Medical Aspects of the Crucifixion of Jesus Christ). As Christ was hanging by just his wrists, he also would have been unable to exhale. In the two to three minutes it would have taken for the Roman guards to position Christ’s feet to the upright, Christ would have felt like his lungs were going to burst.

The guards now position Christ’s feet against the upright of the cross. His legs are bent and slightly rotated, the left foot placed over the right and a spike is driven through the feet into the upright. From this position, Christ can push himself up to breath. However, doing so would send waves of searing pain through him. If he does not push himself up though, he will be unable to breath.

After three hours of alternating between the feeling of suffocation and searing pain, Christ dies. After his family received permission to remove Christ from the cross, he was wrapped in a linen burial shroud, the Shroud of Turin, and laid to rest.

That Christ would willingly accept this gruesome and painful death for our benefit is incredibly awe inspiring and humbling. As we commemorate his death this Good Friday, let us all strive to be worthy of His incredible sacrifice.

References and Additional Reading

• Bible History, The Roman Scourge
• Catholic Insight
• Faccini, Barbara, 2008, Scourge bloodstains on the Turin Shroud: an evidence of different instruments used, 2008 Ohio Conference on the Turin Shroud
• Faccini, Barbara, and Giulio Fanti, 2010, New image processing of the Turin Shroud scourge marks, Proceedings of the International Workshop on the Scientific approach to the Acheiropoietos Images, ENEA Frascati, Italy, 4-6 May 2010
• Jerajani, H. R.,Bhagyashri Jaju,M. M. Phiske,andNitin Lade, 2009, Hematohidrosis—A Rare Clinical Phenomenon, Journal List Indian J Dermatol v.54(3); Jul-Sep 2009
• ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
• Jones, Stephen E, 2013a, The Shroud of Turin: 3. The Bible and the Shroud, 3.4 The Man on the Shroud and Jesus Were Beaten
• Jones, Stephen E, 2013b, The Shroud of Turin: 3. The Bible and the Shroud, 3.5 The Man on the Shroud and Jesus Were Crowned With Thorns
• Jones, Stephen E, 2013c, The Shroud of Turin: 3. The Bible and the Shroud, 3.6 The Man on the Shroud and Jesus Were Crucified
• Meacham, William, 1983, The Authentication of the Turin Shroud: An Issue in Archaeological Epistemology, Current Anthropology, Vol. 24, N 3, (June 1983), Published by the University of Chicago Press
• Medical Aspects of the Crucifixion of Jesus Christ
• Zugibe, Frederick T., Pierre Barbet Revisited, Reprinted fromSindon N. S., Quad. No. 8, December 1995