What Do You Think?

[Jojoking]

Is Crucifixion really that bad a death?
Are there worse?
I saw a show where it says it is a luxury compared to others.

[troach]

It sounds as though you might not be familiar with what crucifixion really is, so please allow me to give a bit of a general description.

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In general with standard crucifixion spikes/nails are placed between bones of the victim’s wrists and feet, holding the victim in place on the cross. Then the victim is then raised into the air.

When the legs are relaxed, the person's weight is supported on the bones of the wrist pulling down on spikes between the bones of the forearm. This causes extreme pain and difficulty breathing (air can be inhaled but it is very difficult to exhale). When the victim can no longer endure it, he can't help trying to stand up. This tears through the tissues of his feet. As he rises, the person’s lacerated back scrapes along the rough wood of the cross. Many if not most people scheduled for this type of execution received lashes to the back before being put on the cross, but even if the person did not receive the lashes the rough wood would be scraping and tearing the skin of the back each time person moved up or down to breath.

Hours of limitless pain, cycles of twisting, joint-rending cramps, intermittent partial asphyxiation, searing pain where tissue is torn from the victims lacerated back as they move up and down against the rough timber.

Then another agony begins, eventually the open wounds lead to dehydration and terrible thirst. The pleurum -- and possibly the lungs -- gradually fill with fluid, and eventually the heart is compressed.

As the victim weakens, his struggles lessen, and the accumulation of fluid accelerates until finally the heart cannot beat any longer or no longer has the strength to do so.

This could go on for a day or more, which is way sometimes the legs were broken to speed up death.

However . . .

Depending on how much extra pain the executioners wanted to cause the person being crucified (as if general certification wasn’t painful enough) they would place the nails in different positions. (As well as positioning the body different ways.)

If they just wanted to hold the person to the cross/backboard the spike/nail would be placed in the wrist. Between the bones of the wrist so that the person could not pull the nail though their wrist nor could it be ripped out (left, right, forwards or backwards) from the weight or struggling of the person.

But, if they wanted to add exponentially to the suffering they would tie the arms (with rope, or something similar) to the backboard to hold the person in place, then put the nail though the palm of hand. (This is likely what was done to Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.)

One of the nerves in the center of the palm of our hand if it is severed causes the entire arm to feel like it is literally on fire every time it is moved or anything touches it (I have been told there is a similar nerve in each foot). The really "cute part" with about doing this is that the person does not pass out (lose consciousness) from the pain caused by the severed nerve. Can you even begin to imagine being on that cross, and every time you move to breath every millimeter of your arms and legs literally feel like they have been set on fire (or that your arms and legs have been covered in red hot coals) in addition to all the other pain?

But regardless of the method of crucifixion used. Crucifixion was a horribly painful, agonizingly slow way to die.

For the amount of pain and the amount of time one has to endure it before death finally comes . . . with a lot of gruesome, nightmarish thought I can come up with a few ways that MIGHT be worse. But as for other methods that make crucifixion seem like a luxurious way to die by comparison . . . I cannot think of any.