Quote Originally Posted by denuseri View Post
And just an FYI.....not all the crucified were killed in exactly the same manner. Ideally one suffocated after days of suffering. If they really were being viscous suffocation was prevented by different placement like being slanted back at a 45 degree angle. The legs being tucked up under with the heals pointing up was particularly painful and would cause lots of muscle cramping and squirming around apparently. Sometimes one died from exposure other times the Romans got bored and just speared them. Some had their legs broken to hasten the death (not out of mercy but because they wanted to make sure they were dead or would be after the guards had to be leaving the area).
All quite true, and gruesome. An item I saw on TV the other day talked about the only known relic of a crucifixion, the heel bone of a first century criminal (NOT Jesus) with a nail through the heel. It was placed in an area which missed all major blood vessels, but struck a major nerve cluster. Excruciatingly painful in and of itself, you also have to remember that the victim would have had his legs bent, as described above, forcing him to push up against that nail in order to lift himself and allow himself to breath. Usually, the only reason for spearing them was to make sure they were, indeed, dead, not to ease their suffering. And breaking the legs only insured that they could NOT push up any longer, and thus suffer slow, painful, terrifying suffocation. Try hanging from your arms, outstretched as in a crucifixion, to see how difficult it is to get a breath. And as the muscles in the diaphragm become over worked, each breath becomes painful as well. It was truly a horrific way to die, and designed to last for days. Yet Jesus supposedly died within short hours. Something doesn't scan there.

In some cases (especially in regions were the Romans were trying to placate or mollify wide scale rebellion) local cultural practices prevailed and the bodies were allowed to be removed after a time for burial. Though in the Biblical account one must remember there was an eclipse and an earthquake during the event and the Romans themselves were big on augury (they invented the word lol) and perhaps decided the wiser course was not to further anger the gods by leaving one of their favored hanging.
Yes, they may have allowed them to remove the body, after he was dead, but it's doubtful they would have done anything to hasten his death. And there is no archeological, historical or astronomical evidence for an eclipse or earthquake at that time. And if you try to claim "miracle" you would have to account for the fact that no other records of an earthquake have ever been found, and that a solar eclipse which was NOT predicted by the astronomers (who were very good at that by this time) would have achieved widespread notoriety, not only in Judea. Like so many other things in the Bible, these "auguries" seem to have been completely imaginary. Though the death of their leader might have caused the Apostles to feel as if their world had been rocked and that the light had gone out of their lives, it just never happened in reality.