For most medical
researchers, by far the most common cause postulated for the death of Jesus by crucifixion
is asphyxiation or suffocation. In fact, as remarked in the earlier treatment
in this study on Jesus’s death by crucifixion, it is likely that this option
garners more total adherents than all the other medical options combined.
The asphyxiation explanation
is often presented similarly. When an adult male is hung so that the weight of
the body pulls downward, the intercostal, pectoral, and deltoid muscles
surrounding the lungs tend to constrict them. When this occurs, the victim can
still inhale with difficulty, though it is increasingly difficult to exhale. Of
course, the inability to either inhale or exhale causes asphyxiation quite
quickly.
Unless the process is
halted, death will occur. Moreover, being nailed to a wooden cross, which is by
far the most common description in the ancient world, would cause far more
stress on the body.
On this explanation,
the centurion at the crucifixion site did not need a medical degree or modern
technologies such as those supplied by EKGs or EEGs to determine if the
offenders were dead. IF the victim had been hanging in the “low” position on
the cross for any significant amount of time, death would result, whether the
individual was in a coma, faking death, or just plain worn out. The position of
the person’s body would provide much of the necessary information, since
further up-and-down movements would obviously signal the more time was needed
before death would ensue.
Death could be
prolonged for perhaps even a considerable time if the victim could continually
push down on their severely injured feet, pull up with their like-wise brutally
wounded arms and wrists, and contort their pain-wracked bodies into new positions
to relieve the stress on their lungs in order to breathe. Even this drawn-out,
incredibly painful process, recurring repeatedly, probably only resulted in
just a few brief, halting and wheezing gasps before the person sank back down
again. This obviously would be an incredibly painful process, especially given
that nails were most often used. Further, such constant actions would quickly
tire out a victim. Not being bale to continue these movements meant certain
death in the low position, so there was a constant and repeated choice between
staying alive or giving up and dying.
But if the legs of
the crucified person were smashed or severed, as with an instrument like a
heavy mallet or an axe, the ability to push up to breathe certainly would be,
at the very least, severely restricted if not thereby made impossible. This would
be in addition to the effect of the blow itself on the substantially weakened
human body and perhaps the impending shock as well.
For many reasons,
then, asphyxiation has easily been the most popular choice among medical
researchers to explain the chief factor in what was probably a multifaceted cause
of Jesus’s death due to the process of crucifixion, perhaps even more than the other
medical options combined. OF course, as mentioned often in this study, the most
popular views are not always correct. But whatever combination of factors may
have been involved the actual, physical process of Jesus’s death by
crucifixion, several additional considerations indicate clearly that Jesus was
certainly dead when his body was placed in the tomb. This last fact is easily the
most crucial consideration here, as greed by the vast majority of critical
scholars such as those listed above. (Gary R. Habermas, On the Resurrection,
4 vols. [Brentwood, Tenn.: B&H Academic, 2024], 2:478-80)
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