Paul, I’m a detail man, so of course I think the details matter. But more importantly, I want to be a truth man.

So I think we should be careful to quote accurately and to represent research accurately.

Sometimes we have to summarise. But we should be very wary about passing on the sort of ‘research results’ we hear from others without checking the source.

And if someone corrects us, then it’s important to take it on board.

I once used the illustration from Kim Hawtrey’s Pocket Guide to Christianity tract about how going to church doesn’t make you a Christian, but that believing always implies belonging in the Bible. As he said, “A ‘Christian’ without a church is like a bee without a hive: unthinkable.” So I expanded that the hive does not make the bee a bee, but that a bee can’t stay very healthy if it gets disconnected from its hive.

Immediately a bloke came up after and told me that some species of bees (including some Aussie native bees) are solitary, which sort of took the wind out of my sails.

I’m sure most of the others got exactly what I was talking about, but ever since, I’ve specified common honey bees when using that illustration!

Accuracy or precision often only costs me an extra word or two.

I’m sorry I can’t find the original article, but a few weeks ago I read in the Herald that it is not true that Arthur Stace was illiterate and taught himself to write after his conversion, because his application to join the army, written in his youth, has been discovered.

I saw a picture of this myself. His writing was not quite as beautiful as the stylised Eternity we all know and love, but it was his own hand-written application, the article said.

Thanks, Paul - I’m trying not to remember whether I’ve used the asphyxiation one recently.

I learned early on to be careful about recording and checking my sources, after a very embarrassing moment at the first houseparty I ever spoke on, where my ignorance was well and truly exposed. Since then, I’ve always tried to check things, so I can at least be up front about how reliable the information seems to be, and I footnote my sermons with sources - both for my benefit, and so I have it there if someone asks or challenges me.

And getting back to the asphyxiation thing:

Why do we pass on the information about Jesus being asphyxiated?

I think a valid reason to want to give this kind of detail is in order to communicate something of the horrific agony and cruelty of crucifixion. If Martin Hengel is right, the Gospel writers didn’t have to get across the horror, because crucifixion was so common and widespread in the ancient world that the emotional associations of agony and humiliation were deeply entrenched in people’s minds. Given that we have never seen a crucified slave at the side of the road, I think it’s appropriate to fill in factual details to try to generate some of the emotional impact ... as long as those details are factual, of course!

(Did you like the subtle reference to my source?)

Hi Matt,

Thanks for the link. However, I don’t think the paper says what you want it to say. If you look at what the Mayo clinic MDs wrote about asphyxiation, you’ll find that the source he quotes is actually the original 1953 paper by Barbet. They didn’t do any original research, they just quoted what Barbet originally said. But that doesn’t mean the jury is still out.

The point of Zugibe’s research is that once you actually put someone on a cross, you find that it doesn’t affect their breathing at all.

What the link shows is an interesting phenomenon that occurs in our ‘scientific’ world. Many scientists (just like the rest of us) don’t check their sources. Particularly if they say what we want them to say.

Grimmo.

Thanks for the article Grimmo.  Like many others, I have at least held the view of Jesus’ asphyxiation, although I’m not sure whether I’ve preached it or not. 

Quick question on the suffocating though - I’m not sure I get the step from Jesus dying on a ‘normal-shaped’ cross to his hands not being able too be below his head when he we upright on the cross.  Doesn’t this assume that his arms were fully out-stretched on the cross as he was nailed to it?  Is that a valid assumption to make?

Am I missing something?

@Dan,

Hi Dan, sorry that I haven’t explained it clearly. Basically if you were crucified on a pole with your hands directly over your head, apparently that can lead to asphyxiation but when with your hands and arms are out at right angles (as it would be on a normal cross) people have no problems breathing.

Grimmo

It is very curious that the biblical writers say nothing about the physical pain of crucifixion but there is little doubt that the public perception of crucifixion in the first century was of profound agony. Seneca is a good witness writing at the time of Paul: “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 be found willing to be fastened to the accursed tree, long sickly, already deformed, swelling with ugly weals 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.” Epistles 101.14. Then there is the evidence that executioners frequently crucified victims in unusual positions in order to heighten the spectacle; even nailing men through the genitals.

OK, Paul, you’ve got me thinking on the “agony in the biblical presentation of the cross” question. My initial reaction was to say: “No, it’s not front centre, but it was part of the package in the 1st century concept of crucifixion, so it’s appropriate to present it as such.”

But on reflection, I think I want to push you harder. I’d argue (until you convince me otherwise) that the physical agony of the cross is part of the biblical presentation, if you look at the idea of suffering in connection with the death of Jesus. It would take a much more thorough investigation than I’m going to do right now, but even glancing through references to “suffering” in 1 Peter, it strikes me how often he refers to the sufferings of the Christ (e.g. 1:11; 4:13; 5:1). The references in chs. 2 and 3 particularly strike me:

(1) In 2:18-25, as he deals with the issue of the believer who suffers unjustly, he focuses for several verses on the way in which Christ suffered (and did so “for us”). This has to refer most of all, if not exclusively, to his experience leading up to and including the cross (especially given the Isaiah 53 allusions). Surely he’s referring at least to the physical agony of Jesus’ manner of death (even if there’s more to it)?

And so when, in v.24, he talks about how Christ “bore our sins in his body on the tree”, it seems to me that the physical agony he endured was PART OF his “bearing our sins in his body”. If that’s the case, the agony of crucifixion is absolutely front centre.

(2) The references to Christ’s suffering in 3:18 and 4:1 are in the context of the same theme (the believer’s suffering). The phrases Peter uses are very interesting: “Christ also suffered for sins once for all” (rather than simply “died for sins”), and “Christ suffered in the flesh” (thus putting an end to sin).

Peter’s language pushed me back to Jesus’ predictions of his impending suffering and death in the Synoptic Gospels. Is it significant that Jesus mentions his suffering separately to his subsequent death (e.g. Luke 9:22)? And surely the agony of crucifixion itself was the climax of the “many things” he suffered?

I think all this pushes me to say that the physical agony of crucifixion is sometimes pretty close to front centre in the biblical presentation, and that the physical pain was part of the way in which Jesus bore the punishment for our sins.

Or is that going too far?

@Mark,

Thanks for your comments, the journal article you cite was very helpful. I think I’m still strongly inclined to say that asphyxiation is extremely doubtful, but your point is well made.

On the hoodwinked question, I wasn’t trying to say that anyone has been malicious. And I perfectly understand that preachers don’t get to check everything they read in books. That’s also why I included the first example where lots of secular people have missed the point of the original study. I think it’s part of being human.

So I wasn’t trying to have too strong a go at anyone (I am guilty too)! But I do want to point again to my reflections. I think it is an encouragement to keep working away at the text and be making sure that as preachers, the text is front and centre.

Thanks so much for taking the time to interact, it’s been really helpful for me.

In Christ,
Paul G.

Concerning dodgy illustrations, I was once in a church where the speaker announced that next week he was going to tell us the amazing story of how scientists found Joshua’s long day.

This is a hoary myth that has been debunked conclusively, but a favourite for some, because it proves that the Bible is true.

I provided him with the information that it is completely untrue, but he went ahead with it, presumably because it seems to be such a great story.

Dodgy illustrations. Don’t get me started. What about that string of dubious stories in Chap 3 (‘Stranger than Fiction’) of that 1996 Matthias Media book, A Hell of a Life ....