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News | Missing the point of Christ crucified?

An academic has claimed that descriptions of crucifixion are largely absent from ancient writings. How can Christianity Explored leaders deal with questions on this topic?

"If you are looking for texts that depict the act of nailing persons to a cross you will not find any beside the gospels.”

So says Gunnar Samuelsson, a theologian from Gothenburg University in Sweden, according to an article in the Daily Telegraph.

How should we as Christians respond to such claims?

First, Samuelsson is not the first to raise these issues (see citations below) and he is apparently only trying to separate what the gospels say from much folklore that has come to fascinate and surround the suffering of Jesus. He is not saying that no crucifixions occurred in the ancient world, only that he cannot find explicitly defined evidence of them in 900 years' worth of ancient texts. However, Samuelsson is leaning much more heavily on extra-Biblical material than Christianity Explored would – to the point of letting it outweigh the Bible's consistent teaching.

It is easy to misread the significance and implications of Samuelsson's point. The precise method of Christ crucified receives much less detail in the New Testament than the meaning of Christ crucified. The prevalent view (for example, via Catholicism, The Passion of the Christ film and emotionalised preaching) that colours most people's thinking has tended to be more interested in the physical suffering of Jesus - which, to a degree, we can understand - rather than substitutionary suffering, which we can't grasp, except by saving faith.

In short, this focus on the physical is bound to lead to distortion and misses the point completely, as Rev Craig Dyer, Christianity Explored's Training Director, explains:

"I went to school with a Jehovah's Witness who kept telling me that Jesus died on a pole, not a cross. Now, I think he probably wanted to attack the actual phrase, 'The Cross of Christ', because we both knew that it meant more than just a means of execution. And this is where Samuelsson needs to be careful, since the whole Apostolic theology of the death of Christ is unavoidably centred on the cross.

"Nevertheless, the rescue that was effected for us at Calvary needed no more than the rejection, suffering and death in place of sinners, of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. So if we get to heaven and discover that crucifixion as recounted in the Bible was different from what we imagined (because we let our imaginations run off), it will be of no consequence."

References

Jesus did not die on cross, says scholar, 2010, retrieved 30 June 2010

Why the BBC thinks Christ did not die this way, 2008, retrieved 30 June 2010

'Was Jesus Crucified?' CNN article explained by Pastor Adam Barton, 2010, retrieved 2 July 2010.

Jesus Christ May Not Have Died on Cross, 2010, retrieved 2 July 2010

The cross is clearly key to Paul’s writings only a few decades after Jesus’ crucifixion. For example:
- 1 Corinthians 1:18 ('the message of the cross')
- 1 Corinthians 1:22-24 ('we preach Christ crucified')
- Galatians 6:14-15 ('May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ')
- Ephesians 2:16 ('reconcile both of them to God through the cross')
- Philippians 2:8 (‘he … became obedient to death - even death on a cross!’)
- Colossians 1:20 ('making peace through his blood, shed on the cross')
- Colossians 2:14 ('nailing it to the cross')

Other biblical texts apart from the gospels refer to the cross. These include:
- Psalm 22:16-18 prophesies the events surrounding Jesus’ death ('they have pierced my hands and my feet')
- Zechariah 12:10 is quoted in John 19:37 ('they will look on the one they have pierced')
- Hebrews 12:2 (‘who for the joy set before him endured the cross’)
- Revelation 11:8 (‘where also their Lord was crucified’)

Hengle, Martin (1977), Crucifixion in the Ancient World and the Folly of the Message of the Cross.
An in-depth theological investigation that reviews material on crucifixion from Barbarian, Greek, Jewish and Roman viewpoints. The title refers to Paul's letter to the church in Corinth: "For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God" (1 Corinthians 1:18).

Morris, Leon (1999), The Cross in the New Testament.
Explores the books of the New Testament, showing what each contributes to our understanding of the atonement.

Stott, John (1986), Cross of Christ - 20th Anniversary Edition.
In this magisterial and best-selling book, John Stott explains the significance of Christ's cross and answers the objections commonly brought against biblical teaching on the atonement. First, Dr Stott shows from the four gospels how Jesus himself understood the cross. Next, he argues that 'Christ in our place' is the heart of its meaning, followed by an explanation of what the cross achieved. Finally, he explores what it means to live under the cross (as opposed to analysing it from a distance): ". . . we can stand before it only with a bowed head and a broken spirit".

”The actual process of crucifying him [Jesus] is not, however, described by any of the four evangelists … If we had to rely exclusively on the Gospels, we would not have known what happened”

(p48)

“But the evangelists give no details of the crucifixion; they make no reference at all to hammer or nails or pain, or even blood … All we are told is that ‘they crucified him’”

(p49)

“If the Romans regarded execution with horror, so did the Jews, though for a different reason. They made no distinction between a ‘tree’ and a ‘cross’, and so between a hanging and a crucifixion. They therefore automatically applied to crucified criminals the terrible statement of the law that, ‘anyone who is hung on a tree is under God’s curse’ (Dt. 21:23)”

(p24)

Tice, Rico and Cooper, Barry (2002), Christianity Explored.
A clear, concise and compelling introduction to Jesus Christ. Chapter 4, 'Jesus - his death', looks at why the cross has become a universally recognised symbol of Christianity. This quote conveys how outrageously offensive the claim that the Son of God was crucified would have seemed at the time:

"The Roman orator Cicero described it like this: 'But the executioner, the veil that covers the condemned man's head, the cross of crucifixion, these are horrors which ought to be far removed not only from the person of a Roman citizen but even from his thoughts and his gaze and his hearing. It is utterly wrong that a Roman citizen, a free man, would ever be compelled to endure or tolerate such dreadful things.'"

(pp30-31)

Thanks to Jenny Cooke, Craig Dyer and Mark Meynell

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