A few choice quotes:
Scourging was a long process of whipping, where the victim’s clothes were torn off (cloth was the most expensive possession in those times--equal to a car for us--showing an economic loss, too), then His hands were tied to a pike above His head (1 Peter 2:24). Most commentators insert that the Jews had a law prohibiting more than forty lashes. However, it was the Romans who inflicted the punishment and they had no regard for Jewish law; they did as they saw fit. Our Lord Jesus Christ, Savior of our souls, was brutally whipped with a flagellum, a “cattail” which was a short whip of several heavy tentacles where the ends were tied with small balls of lead, rocks or bone fragments. At first, the whipping action would pound the shoulders, back, and legs, as a butcher would tenderize a piece of meat. It produced deep, large, painful bruises, intense pain, and appreciable blood loss from another form of hematidrosis, and most probably would have left Jesus in a pre-shock state. As the whipping action continued, it would cut deeper into the subcutaneous tissues, thus producing a discharge of blood from the capillaries and veins of the skin and then causing stripe-like lacerations, finally spurting arterial bleeding from larger vessels in the underlying muscles. This action literally tears the flesh off His back, exposing the muscles, and maybe a rib or two. The flesh from the back would hang in long ribbons and would look like a mass of torn, bleeding muscle. The person(s) doing this torture was a trained centurion, and when the victim was near death, the beating would be stopped. They were also careful not to puncture a lung, as that would have killed the victim and ended the intended, prolonged agony
and
Jesus continued His 650 yard journey from the fortress Antonia to Golgotha, where the cross lay. He literally went to the cross by following the cross. He was still in a state of shock, bleeding, sweating, and experiencing chills from the trauma. He was then nailed onto the crossbeam, through His wrists, with large, heavy, square, wrought iron nails approximately five to seven inches (13 to 18 cm) long with a square shaft 3/8 inch (1 cm) across--the size of railroad spikes. These spikes are what were driven through the body and deep into the wood of the cross. Several soldiers, using large wooden forks, ladders, or ropes, lifted him up. The sensation and pain of these spikes being driven though would have been indescribable. The soldiers would have been careful not to pull the arms tightly, but allow them some movement. This would have caused even more trauma, while His shoulders were quickly thrown backward against the hard, wooden cross as He was being lifted. The crossbeam was placed in the notch, and tied. Then His left foot was pressed backward against a block (suppedaneum) used as a sadistic foot transfixion rest, a Roman improvement to prolong the crucifixion. Then, with feet on top of each another, His knees extended, and His toes facing down, they were nailed through the arches of His feet into the bottom block with one nail-spike. The knees were left bent so they could flex. Jesus was then offered gall, wine vinegar mixture with myrrh. This was an act of compassion by a soldier, as it offered a mild analgesic. Or, it could have been due to further sadistic prowess so as to increase the length of His stay on the cross. Jesus refused to drink it, not accepting any short cuts or yielding to their vicious intentions. Lastly, the mocking sign, "Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews," was nailed above His head on top of the stipes and the titulus of the cross. Jesus was now crucified!
As our Lord hung on the cross, He would have struggled to lift His body as it tore from the spikes driven in His wrists and feet. He would have had to do this for each breath, pulling Himself up and down. Without doing this, air could not get into the lungs nor could it be exhaled. This would have caused periosteal injury on the ligaments while placing pressure on the median nerves, causing extreme, searing, excruciating pain shooting along the fingers and up the arms to the brain and back. This was in addition to the deep, relentless, throbbing pain and agony of the nails, tearing through the nerves between the metatarsal bones of the feet and the between the radius and ulna and the carpals in the forearms and wrists. The death of crucifixion is not by the trauma or blood loss, it is by the suffocation due to the body, in shock, unable to move to prop itself up to breathe. Jesus would have been pushing Himself upward to avoid the pain and lowering Himself to take a breath.
Read the whole thing.
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