Science replays the crucifixion

The revised standard crucifixion
Like most archaeologists, Reed didn't try to use his experiment to "prove" the historical truth of the Gospels. Rather, Reed used the scriptural accounts as yet another resource for designing the experiment and solving the scientific puzzles.

"To try to begin to get the answers, you don't need to go to the library," he explained. "You need to go outdoors."

Reed and the "Quest for Truth" producers surveyed the Southern California countryside, looking for the trees that were most likely to be used for crosses. They settled upon a Jerusalem pine. Then, using ancient-style tools that a blacksmith created specially for the program, workers fashioned the pine into test crosses.

Working with the wood quickly confirmed the prevailing archaeological view that Jesus was crucified on a T-shaped cross rather than the now-conventional Latin cross — and that he carried only the horizontal beam, probably as a yoke with his hands tied to each end.

Why? It turns out that a full Latin cross would have weighed 380 pounds (173 kilograms), which the modern-day stand-in for Jesus found virtually impossible to lift, let alone carry. Even the horizontal beam was a trial, and the volunteer had to be relieved after walking only about a third of the course to his simulated Golgotha. In the Bible, a bystander named Simon of Cyrene was recruited to carry Jesus' cross.

Also, a Latin cross would have been excessively awkward to erect at the crucifixion site, requiring six strong men and a web of ropes. The Romans would have "come off looking less secure and less in charge," Reed said.

National Geographic Channel Workers created an array of woodworking tools similar to those thought to have been used in ancient times, as well as modern-day copies of the long nails employed in Roman crucifixions.

Using a T-cross, with a slot-and-tab arrangement at the top, would make it possible for just three men to raise a victim to execution.

"It not only matches the archaeological evidence, but it's just so easy," Reed said. Additional evidence comes from a 1st-century, anti-Christian graffito in Rome that shows a T-cross, and early Christian commentaries that criticize the Greek letter tau "because it reminds them of the crucifix," he said.

Although the case of Jehohanan showed that victims' feet were nailed, what about the hands? In the Gospel of John, the apostle Thomas refers to the nail holes in Jesus' hands. In the 1930s, experiments conducted with cadavers led researcher Pierre Barbet to conclude that nails driven through the palms of the hands could not have supported the weight of the arms and upper body —and that the nails were more likely driven through the wrists, which would have lent more support.

Crucifixologists also believed that the weight of the victim's body pulled down on the diaphragm, making it increasingly difficult for him to breathe and leading to death by asphyxiation.

A change of heart
More recently, however, researchers have come around to the view that the nailed feet provided enough support for the body, and that the hands could have been merely tied. "Quest for Truth" uses the Visible Human Project to show that putting nails through the palms would have resulted in maximum nerve damage and pain.

"The cruelty of the Romans would have led them to find the palms of the hands as the most painful part," Reed said. He suggested that the Romans also used wooden washers to make sure the hands and the feet couldn't be pulled away from the nails.

All that pain and exposure would have led to a condition called hypovolemic shock, based on tests that pathologist Frederick Zugibe conducted on student volunteers under closely monitored lab conditions. Blood pressure would drop, leading to irreversible organ damage, heart stoppage and death. Piercing Jesus' side would release the pooled blood and fluid, just as described in the Gospels.

The University of Texas' White said he considered the nailing of the feet to be the "crucial issue" for victims of the cross.

"That's the point of no return," he said. "It's not what kills him, but that's the death blow. ... Even assuming the person could have lived when you took him down from the cross, he never would have walked again."

Is this latest scenario for the crucifixion the scientific equivalent of the gospel truth? "At the present, I think we know what we can know," White said. But neither he nor Reed were willing to rule out the possibility that future finds might put a new perspective on the old texts.

"It's never finished," Reed said. "It's always open."

Onward to the Grail
For now, National Geographic's documentary team is moving on to other, less gruesome biblical themes — including the mystery at the heart of "The Da Vinci Code," the nature of the Holy Grail.

Reed was reluctant to tip his hand, but he said he already has an idea on how to approach the subject.

"Rather than looking to the myths that have grown up around the Holy Grail, I just look to archaeology, and what would have been the most common cup used by Jews in the 1st century," he said. "I think I'll just leave it at that."

An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated that Reed's experiment was conducted near Jerusalem.

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