Roman Crucifixion and the Death of Jesus

By Woodrow Michael Kroll and Craig S. Keener

The Roman practice of crucifixion was so abhorrent that even the Romans didn't talk about it. Yet their government practiced crucifixion for centuries. What drew the crowds to the killing fields to watch people die such torturous deaths? What enabled those elite soldiers in the Roman killing squads to crucify their victims with the precision and skill of a hospital surgeon? These and many other questions are answered in this book.
Of the thousands of people who fell victim to "the most pitiable of deaths," one is much better known than all the others--Jesus of Nazareth. Most Christians know something of Jesus' crucifixion because of the Gospel narratives, but to enhance our appreciation of the Savior's death, we benefit by knowing more about Roman crucifixion. Roman Crucifixion and the Death of Jesus provides a deeper understanding of how, where, and why someone could be crucified and helps to inform us of Jesus' crucifixion. Armed with a better grasp of Roman crucifixion, we can more fully appreciate Jesus' pain, his purpose, and his prayers from Calvary's cross.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Resource Publications
• Release date: Jan 4, 2023
• ISBN: 9781666739213

Woodrow Michael Kroll

Woodrow Michael Kroll has been the chairman of the Department of Religion at a major university, a college president, and for twenty-three years the president and senior Bible teacher for the international radio program Back to the Bible, with a daily listening audience of ten million people. Kroll is a member of the Society of Biblical Literature, the Biblical Archaeology Society, and the Evangelical Theological Society, where he has been a presenter on crucifixion.

Book preview

Roman Crucifixion and the Death of Jesus

Crucifixion: A Multidisciplinary Investigation of the Death of Jesus of Nazareth

Woodrow Michael Kroll

Foreword by Craig S. Keener

Roman Crucifixion and the Death of Jesus

Crucifixion: A Multidisciplinary Investigation of the Death of Jesus of Nazareth

Copyright ©

2023

Woodrow Michael Kroll. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical publications or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Write: Permissions, Wipf and Stock Publishers,

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Resource Publications

An Imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers

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paperback isbn: 978-1-6667-3919-0

hardcover isbn: 978-1-6667-3920-6

ebook isbn: 978-1-6667-3921-3

08/29/22

Endnotes

Table of Contents

Title Page

Foreword

Preface

List of Abbreviations

Introduction

Acknowledgments

Chapter 1: The Origins and History of Crucifixion

Chapter 2: The Worst of All Deaths

Chapter 3: Crucifixion and the Romans

Chapter 4: Wood Stake or Roman Cross?

Chapter 5: The Components of a Roman Cross

Chapter 6: Types of Roman Crosses

Chapter 7: How Victims Were Fastened to a Cross

Chapter 8: Hands or Wrists?

Chapter 9: The Horror of Scourging

Chapter 10: Crucifixion and Archaeology: Proof from Epigraphic Evidence

Chapter 11: Crucifixion and Archaeology: Proof from Tombs and Ossuaries

Chapter 12: Crucifixion and Archaeology: Proof from Gems and Jewelry

Chapter 13: How Roman Crucifixion Informs Us of Jesus’ Death

Chapter 14: Jesus Has the Last Word

Epilogue

Appendix A: Chronology

Bibliography

This book is dedicated to the memory of those men and women of faith who walked before us into the fire, into the arena, and into the Roman killing fields, and to those Christians who face similar persecutions in today’s errant and remorseless world.

To bind a Roman citizen is a crime, to flog him is an abomination, to kill him is almost an act of murder; to crucify him is—What? There is no fitting word that can possibly describe so horrible a deed.

—Cicero

So they took Jesus, and he went out, bearing his own cross, to the place called The Place of a Skull, which in Aramaic is called Golgotha. There they crucified him.

—John 19:16–18

Foreword

Crucifixion. The very word is uninviting and unpleasant. It has always been so. From the first days of humanity, the strong have been killing the weak for motives the logic of which sometimes even evades the strong.

Crucifixion is particularly brutal and inhumane, death by slow torture. Cicero, the Roman statesman and philosopher, described crucifixion as the summum supplicium, the highest execution, or the most extreme penalty. This form of execution is so brutal, so horrible that we do not like to talk about it, and we probably wouldn’t talk about it if it had not been for one crucifixion in particular.

The history of crucifixion is long and bloody. And it is universal, practiced by the Egyptians, Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, Greeks, and others. But no one seems to have employed crucifixion with more precision and exactness than the Romans. They copied from those who employed this atrocious form of execution before them and made it their own, altering and adjusting the cross to fit their interests.

Was crucifixion real? Was it a daily feature of Roman life? Was it as bad as everyone thinks it was? The answer to all three questions is yes. It was real. It was a daily occurrence. And it may have been even worse than you thought.

In this book, you will encounter the history of this brutal form of execution. You will discover the multiple witnesses, both literary and archaeological, to the reality of crucifixion. You will struggle with the horror of pre-crucifixion scourging and how victims were cruelly affixed to their crosses. It will not be pleasant.

I said we likely would not even talk of crucifixion today—the polite Romans didn’t enjoy talking about it either—were it not for one specific crucifixion, the crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth.

While the church has immortalized the cross in liturgy and worship, and followers of Jesus have clung to the truth of his crucifixion (along with the resurrection) as the cornerstone of their faith, Jesus’ crucifixion was still a very painful, ghastly, torturous way to die. We can bow before the cross, wear a gold one on a chain around our neck, and enjoy works of art by the masters depicting the crucifixion, but for Jesus, it was still the agonizing sacrifice of his life for ours. This book is about crucifixion in general and the crucifixion of Jesus the Nazarene in particular.

To appreciate more fully what Jesus endured on the cross you must understand the past, the process, and the purpose of crucifixion. Only by focusing on these will you better appreciate the Gospel narratives of Jesus’ death. And only by focusing on these, as the old gospel song says, can you truly turn your eyes upon Jesus, and look full in his wonderful face.

You may not enjoy reading this book, but when you finish it, you’ll be glad you did. For you, it could help the things of earth grow strangely dim, in the light of his glory and grace.

Craig S. Keener

Asbury Theological Seminary

Preface

When someone says the word crucifixion, what comes to your mind? Sandy beaches, cool breezes, and palm trees; or blood, pain, suffering, and death. No question that this word, pregnant with meaning, is the embodiment of a cross, rivers of blood, and a person struggling to breathe during an excruciating death.

Perhaps also the picture of Jesus dying on the cross comes to mind. If so, the diagnosis is that you are normal. That’s what comes to the mind for almost 100 percent of people who hear that ugly word. But how much do we really know about this egregious practice? Where did it come from and when did it begin? And what makes Jesus’ crucifixion so special?

Perhaps the most meaningful questions of all are: What difference does the ancient practice of crucifixion mean to you? How does it impact your life in the twenty-first century?

You are about to embark on a journey to answer all those questions and more. In this book, we trace the practice of crucifixion from its origins through the most famous crucifixion of all, the crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth. If you are a student or a professor, you will be exposed to the latest scholarship related to this subject. If you are a pastor, professional, or homemaker, you will find this book both informative and entirely readable because most of the more detailed academic material is buried in footnotes. Read for your head, your heart, or both.

Since we possess most of the details about crucifixion from the narratives of Matthew, Mark Luke, and John, the death of Jesus will inevitably be called to testify throughout the book. Certainly, the most famous Roman crucifixion was that of the Nazarene, and that requires frequent reference to his crucifixion for information and understanding. It also requires a clearer focus on his death in the closing chapters.

As you read this book or any of my works, you will quickly notice that I appeal often to the four Gospels for accurate historical information. I believe these writings are the earliest, most accurate, and best documents we have to inform us of the life and times of Jesus of Nazareth. I accept the Bible at face value, and while I incorporate the valuable insights and research of other scholars into my own, I also come to common sense conclusions. As the final authority, my default position is to appeal to those men [who] spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit (2 Pet 1:21).

Some decades ago many scholars adopted the designations of B.C.E. and C.E. to indicate dates on the calendar. I completely understand why this change was made. The B.C.E. and C.E. designations are more inclusive because they do not specifically relate to Christianity. However, most of the western world is steeped in the use of BC and AD; even many highly influential scholars have chosen to continue using these designations.

Greek scholar Vincent Taylor noted:

We are bound to consider how we think of time, whether past events are only isolated points in a series, or whether God invades history with abiding consequences. This issue seriously engages the attention of theologians today. It is best considered by reflecting upon (

1

) events as points in the time-series; (

2

) events with permanent significance; and (

3

) events as divine invasions in time."¹

I do not believe the advent of God’s Son was a mere point-in-time series. I see the birth of the Messiah and Savior as an invasion of time by God himself. Thus, despite scholarly arguments that Christians should adopt the B.C.E./C.E. dating system,² I will use the designations BC and AD to reflect the incredible moment God changed the world forever by invading time, not simply indicating a timeshare for multiple religious communities. I write this book as a Christ-follower, a student of books and the Book, a person of facts, and a man of faith. I have walked hand-in-hand with Jesus of Nazareth for more than 70 years and have gotten to know him pretty well.

From beginning to end, the Holy Scriptures testify that the predicament of fallen humanity is so serious, so grave, so irremediable from within, that nothing short of divine intervention can rectify it. —Fleming Rutledge

Now, some technical information. The Scripture references in this book are from the English Standard Version (ESV) of the Bible unless otherwise noted. The ESV is based on the Greek text in the 2014 editions of the Greek New Testament (5th corrected edition), published by the United Bible Societies (UBS), and Novum Testamentum Graece (28th edition, 2012), edited by Nestle and Aland. The Hebrew words in the text are from the Masoretic text of the Hebrew Bible, as found in Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia (2nd edition,1983). Words in Greek are taken from the 1993 editions of the Greek New Testament (4th corrected edition) and Novum Testamentum Graece (27th ed).

To fully understand crucifixion as a form of execution in general, and Roman crucifixion in particular, in this book I will appeal to diverse evidentiary disciplines, such as historical, epigraphic, archaeological, biblical, grammatical, and more. Each discipline’s evidence will be given equal weight until we come to the crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth. Most of what we know about the Nazarene’s crucifixion we learn from the Gospel narratives and a few epistles, so the biblical evidence will be given precedence.

In the pages that follow we are interested in determining whether or not crucifixion was practiced in antiquity, where did it originate, and what forms did it take. We are also interested in determining as best we can how crucifixion evolved over the centuries and what archaeological proof have we for the cross itself, and how that proof relates to Calvary’s Cross and the crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth.

You don’t have to be a scholar or even a history buff to find this book intriguing. But if you cannot get enough history, you will benefit from Roman Crucifixion and the Death of Jesus. History tends to build toward a climax. The practice of crucifixion flourished over many centuries, building to a climax on a Friday afternoon at a place called Calvary.

As you read these chapters, allow the idea of a bloody death on a cross to build, so when you come to the ultimate crucifixion scene your mind will be ready for what you experience.

Woodrow Michael Kroll

Ashland, Nebraska

1 . Taylor, Cross.

2 . https://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/wp-content/uploads/why_

3530

.shtml

List of Abbreviations

Bible Translation Abbreviations

ASV American Standard Version

CEV Contemporary English Version

CSB Christian Standard Bible

ESV English Standard Version

GNT Good News Translation

HCSB Holman Christian Standard Bible

JBP J. B. Phillips

KJV King James Version

TLB The Living Bible

NAR New Bible translation for Native American readers 

NASB New American Standard Bible

NCB New Catholic Bible

NIV New International Version

NKJV New King James Version

NLT New Living Translation

NRSV New Revised Standard Version

RSV Revised Standard Version

Scholastic Abbreviations

AASOR Annual of American Schools of Oriental Research

AHJ American Heart Journal

AJA American Journal of Archaeology

Ant. Flavius Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews

BA Biblical Archaeologist

BAR Biblical Archaeology Review

BKBC The Bible Knowledge Background Commentary

BibSac Bibliotheca Sacra

BW Biblical World

CBQ Catholic Biblical Quarterly

CE Catholic Encyclopedia

CT Christianity Today

DSS The Dead Sea Scrolls

EBib Études Bibliques

EBL Encyclopedia of Biblical Literature

EQ Evangelical Quarterly

ExpTim Expository Times

NTA Hennecke and Schneemelcher, New Testament Apocrypha

HTR Harvard Theological Review

HUCA Hebrew Union College Annual

IEJ Israel Exploration Journal

ISBE International Standard Bible Encyclopedia

JBL Journal of Biblical Literature

JETS Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society

JMAA Journal of Medical Association of Alabama

JQR Jewish Quarterly Review

JTS Journal of Theological Studies

LXX The Septuagint

NBD New Bible Dictionary

NTS New Testament Studies

NTG Novum Testamentum Graece

OTP The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha

PEQ Palestine Exploration Quarterly

RevArch Revue Archéologique

RB Revue Biblique

RevQum Revue de Qumran

SBLSP Society of Biblical Literature Seminar Papers

SWJT Southwestern Journal of Theology

TDNT Theological Dictionary of the New Testament

VT Vetus Testamentum

War Flavius Josephus, Wars of the Jews

ZNW Zeitschrift für die Neutestamentliche Wissenschaft

Introduction

In antiquity, the historians who wrote of crucifixion number more than our fingers and toes. This bloody form of execution was practiced almost as early as the first records of humankind. While today crucifixion is despised and rejected by every civilized nation in the world, though still practiced in some uncivilized places, amazingly most people know precious little about it.

To fully understand crucifixion as a form of execution, we must appeal to diverse evidentiary sources, such as historical, epigraphic, archaeological, biblical, grammatical sources, and more. I will give equal weight to all evidence until we come to the crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth at the end of the book. Most of what we know about the Nazarene’s crucifixion we learn from the biblical text, so evidence from the Gospels will be given precedence there.

In the pages that follow we are interested in determining whether or not crucifixion was practiced in antiquity, and if it was, where did it originate, and what form did it take? We are also interested in determining, as best we can, how crucifixion evolved over the centuries and what archaeological proof exists to support our understanding of early forms of crucifixion. Finally, we must explore how that proof relates to Calvary’s Cross and the crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth.

Because I have included information and opinion from many diverse sources, ancient and modern, liberal and conservative, Evangelical and Catholic, living and dead, given your background and theological persuasion, you may encounter scholars with whom you are not familiar. I have been careful to allow each one to say exactly what he or she meant to say while being both honest and judicious in commenting on what they have written.

While crucifixion was a common practice among many cultures in antiquity, in this book we are especially interested in Roman crucifixion. Most of what we know of this painful death comes from the late Second Temple Period, specifically Roman times. Most of what we know from Roman times comes from the Gospel narratives of the crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth. Before we get to Jesus’ story, however, let’s learn all we can about the practice of crucifixion itself. We begin at the very beginning.

Acknowledgments

It is customary to acknowledge those whose contributions I consider invaluable to the creation and production of this book about Roman crucifixion and the death of Jesus of Nazareth.

First and certainly foremost, I acknowledge the living Christ, who willingly suffered and died on that Roman cross, or this book would have no purpose. More than that, I acknowledge that this Christ died for my sins, and by faith in him, I have been freed from the penalty of that sin. I have been a follower of Jesus Christ for most of my life. Certainly, the living Christ has impacted my life and my writing, not to mention my future.

Next, I wish to acknowledge my wife of nearly six decades. Linda loaned me to this project and to the hours I spent researching and writing, hours that she was without my company. For this I am grateful. Also, she checked the many biblical references in this work for accuracy, a laborious task in itself.

I must also express my appreciation for Tina Work, my supreme tech lady. She assisted me with technology issues in more ways than I can count. Without her help, this book would still be on my laptop wondering how to get out.

Thanks to Tiffany Percival’s keen eye for grammar and punctuation that provided editorial help. Thanks also to her two oldest sons— Ethan, who designed many of the graphics in the book, and Tate, who is responsible for some of the book’s drawings.

I must also acknowledge my friend, Jack Crans, who, over the last nine years, regularly called to encourage me when I got bogged down in historical, archaeological, or theological minutia. Thank you, Jack, for helping me keep the main thing the main thing.

And it goes without saying, this book would have no outlet to you had it not been for the good work of the Wipf and Stock Publishers staff. Special thanks to Matt Wimer, Caleb Shupe, and Savanah N. Landerholm, to name a few.

Finally, an author is not really an author without a reader. I acknowledge your contribution by reading what was in my head and placed on paper or delivered electronically. Now, you remove it from the paper, put it into your head, and the cycle will be complete. Thank you; thanks to you all.

Chapter 1

The Origins and History of Crucifixion

Visualize not only enduring the pain of your crucifixion, but the horror of watching your wife and son slaughtered before your eyes and then having your dead son tied up so his body would hang from your neck. The cruelty in antiquity was unimaginable.

Today crucifixion is largely associated with Jesus and Christianity, but as a method of execution, it enjoyed widespread popularity with tyrants and governments throughout the ancient world. It is generally considered one of the cruelest ways to kill someone.

When you want to punish someone with the penalty of death, our utmost concern in the twenty-first century is to be humane to the condemned, even if they were anything but humane to their victims.

Our society’s top priority is social justice, whereas very few in antiquity were interested in the same. So, when you wanted to punish someone in, say the fifth century BC or the first century AD, the humane treatment of the condemned was the farthest thing from your mind.

Without question, the least humane way in antiquity to punish a convicted person was by crucifixion. The blood, the brutality, the cynicism, the joy the crucifiers received by watching someone suffer and painfully die, were the crucifixion’s upsides for the ancients. In antiquity, they never considered the downsides. Indeed, for some, there were no downsides.

But for the person hanging on that cross, bleeding from the inflicted wounds of scourging, unable to brush away the flies on his face or shoo away the wild beasts nipping at his toes, there were no upsides.

The Origins of Crucifixion

What do we know of this torturous form of death? Where did it come from? What people first used it? Frankly, the origin of crucifixion is blanketed in mystery. Many scholars believe it has roots in ancient Assyria.¹ The Assyrians were known as exceptionally ruthless people.

Some argue that the earliest account of mass execution on a cross was Darius I’s crucifixion of 3,000 political enemies in Babylon in 519 BC.² Herodotus records, But when Darius made himself master of the Babylonians . . . Darius impaled about three thousand of the principal citizens (Herodotus, The Histories 3.159).

Crucifixion was a death worthy to have been invented by devils. —Charles Spurgeon

Others believe crucifixion originated with the Persians between 300 and 400 BC. The truth is, we do not know for sure, although the Persians look incredibly guilty (Thucydides 1, 110; Herodotus, Histories, 4:43.2.7; 6:30.1; 7:194.1; Julius Caesar, Bella Civilia 1.120).

Douglas Ezell comments, The first known practice of crucifixion was by the Persians. Alexander the Great and his generals introduced the practice to the Phoenicians, Egyptians, and Carthaginians.³ According to Josephus, the Jewish historian, Alexander executed two thousand Tyrian captives by crucifixion after the fall of that city. The Jews received this form of punishment from the Syrians and Romans (Ant. 12.5. 4; 20.6.2; War 1.4 6).

Persian

Sumerian

Babylonian

Crucifixion was known among the Germanic and Brittonic tribes, the Celts, the Greeks (after Alexander the Great), the Phoenicians, the Indians, the Scythians, the Macedonians, the Taurians, the Seleucids, the Numidians, the Assyrians, the Carthaginians, and a host of others. Ezell concludes, The Romans learned the practice from the Carthaginians and quickly became very efficient and skillful at it. Over time the Romans made several innovations and modifications in the method of crucifixion.⁴

However, crucifixion was a form of execution long before the Roman Period. Before it became common among the Persians, Assyrians, Carthaginians, and other ancient peoples, it may have been used in Egypt during the days of Jacob and his son Joseph. This can be assumed from the following biblical account.

People Who Were Hung Up in the Old Testament

The Hebrew word tâlâh is used to mean hang up on a tree or suspend from wood in that famous passage in Deuteronomy 21:22-23. And if a man has committed a crime punishable by death and he is put to death, and you hang him on a tree, his body shall not remain all night on the tree, but you shall bury him the same day, for a hanged man is cursed by God.

Galatians 3:13 states, Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, ‘Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree.’ The same Hebrew word for hang up is used to describe the following events, each of which likely refers to crucifixion:

•Joshua 8:29—The King of Ai hanged on a tree.

•Joshua 10:26—The five Amorite kings hanged on a tree.

•2 Samuel 4:12—Rechab and Baanah hanged beside Hebron’s pool for killing Ish-bosheth.

•2 Samuel 21:12—Saul and Jonathan’s bones were hung up postmortem in a Beth-shan street.

•Lamentations 5:12—Princes are ‘hung up’ by their hands; no respect shown to the elders after Jerusalem fell to the Babylonians.

The key to punishment by being hung up was not the implement that held the body but that the body was elevated. This was done so everyone who passed by could see the result of disobeying the reigning authority and be fearful of similar treatment if they too disobeyed.

When king Darius discovered a scroll in the archives of Media that King Cyrus had decreed the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem could be rebuilt with money from the royal treasury, Darius immediately ordered that decree be implemented.

Ezra 6:11 says, Also I make a decree that if anyone alters this edict, a beam shall be pulled out of his house, and he shall be impaled on it, and his house shall be made a dunghill. The variety of implements a person could be hung on was wide-ranging. Here are examples.

The Cupbearer and the Baker

Joseph, the son of the Hebrew patriarch Jacob, had been sold into slavery by his jealous brothers. Now Joseph had been brought down to Egypt, and Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh, the captain of the guard, an Egyptian, had bought him from the Ishmaelites who had brought him down there. The LORD was with Joseph, and he became a successful man, and he was in the house of his Egyptian master (Gen 39:1–3). Joseph was taken from his family, but he never left the tight grip of God’s hand.

Potiphar’s wife, however, was a problem. She lusted after Joseph, and when he would not give in to her advances and fled the house, the embittered women accused Joseph of attempting to rape her. Joseph was thrown into an Egyptian prison. Some time after this, the cupbearer of the king of Egypt and his baker committed an offense against their lord the king of Egypt. And Pharaoh was angry with his two officers, the chief cupbearer, and the chief baker, and he put them in custody in the house of the captain of the guard, in the prison where Joseph was confined (Gen 40:1–3).

One night each of them had a dream, and in the morning both the cupbearer and baker related the details of their dreams to Joseph. Joseph interpreted the meaning of their dreams. Good news for the butler/cupbearer. In three days, he would be released from prison and restored to the good graces of the Pharaoh as his cupbearer.

If I be found to have spoken falsehood let me be placed on the wood. —Dhutmose, twelfth century BC Egyptian scribe

The news for the baker was not so good. In three days Pharaoh will lift up your head—from you!—and hang you on a tree. And the birds will eat the flesh from you (Gen 40:19). Verse 22 says, He hanged the chief baker, as Joseph had interpreted to them.

The verb in verse 19 for hang (Hebrew: תָּלָה; English: tâlâh) means to hang up or suspend. The same word is used in verse 22, but the word for tree (Hebrew: עֵץ; English: ʻêts) means a tree or something made from wood, such as a plank, some gallows, a staff, or a stalk. It is entirely possible, likely even, that these verses describe a primitive form of crucifixion. If so, this event, about 1,535 BC, is the first recorded crucifixion in history.

Given the sequence of verbs used to describe the chief baker’s suspension, it appears he was beheaded before he was hung up. The text reveals, "In three days Pharaoh will lift up your head (Hebrew: נָשָׂא; English: nâsâʼ)—from you!—and hang you (Hebrew: תָּלָה ; English: tâlâh) on a tree. (Gen 40:19). Lift up your head is a pleasant way of saying separate your head from your body, and hang you is a way of describing bodily suspension. The term suspension, as opposed to crucifixion, is often used for earlier, primarily pre-Roman times, because the method of hanging up" was diverse and philologically non-specific.⁵

Haman’s Hanging in the Book of Esther

The book of Esther uses the verb tâlâh nine times and provides ample evidence of crucifixion during the Persian Period. First, Bigthan and Teresh, two of the king’s eunuchs, became angry with the king and plotted to kill him. Mordecai learned of the plot, reported it to Queen Esther, and she relayed the plot to King Ahasuerus (also known as King Xerxes). Esther 2:23 records, When the affair was investigated and found to be so, the men were both hanged on the gallows.

The other eight times tâlâh is used in Esther it is in the context of the evil Haman. Sickened and jealous over Mordecai, Haman could barely eat. Then his wife Zeresh and all his friends said to him, ‘Let a gallows fifty cubits high be made, and in the morning tell the king to have Mordecai hanged upon it. Then go joyfully with the king to the feast.’ This idea pleased Haman, and he had the gallows made (Esth 5:14). Curiously, Haman entered the outer court of the king’s palace to speak to the king about having Mordecai hanged on the gallows he had built just after the king learned that Mordecai had saved his life. (6:3, 6-11).

Ahasuerus, the king, decided to put Haman to death. Then Harbona, one of the eunuchs in attendance of the king, said, ‘Moreover, the gallows that Haman has prepared for Mordecai, whose word saved the king, is standing at Haman’s house, fifty cubits high.’ And the king said, ‘Hang him on that.’ So they hanged Haman on the gallows that he had prepared for Mordecai. Then the wrath of the king abated (7:9–10).

Then King Ahasuerus said to Queen Esther and to Mordecai the Jew, ‘Behold, I have given Esther the house of Haman, and they have hanged him on the gallows, because he intended to lay hands on the Jews’ (8:7).

And Esther said, ‘If it please the king . . . let the ten sons of Haman be hanged on the gallows.’ So the king commanded this to be done. A decree was issued in Susa, and the ten sons of Haman were hanged (9:13–14). For Haman the Agagite, the son of Hammedatha, the enemy of all the Jews, had plotted against the Jews to destroy them, and had cast Pur (that is, cast lots), to crush and to destroy them.

Nevertheless, when it came before the king, he gave orders in writing that his evil plan that he had devised against the Jews should return on his own head, and that he and his sons should be hanged on the gallows. Therefore they called these days Purim, after the term Pur (9:24–26). This was the beginning of the Jewish feast called Purim, which is more national than it is religious.

One more thing. The word (Hebrew: עֵץ; English: ʻêts) translated into English as gallows is the same word translated tree in Genesis 40:19 (see above). This is also the word for tree in Deuteronomy 21:22, which says, And if a man has committed a crime punishable by death and he is put to death, and you hang him on a tree. Since ʻêts can mean a tree, a plank, some gallows, and so many other wooden things, it is evident that when the word is not used in a specific context, such as Haman’s gallows, it can mean any of those things.

Darius the Great and Persian Crucifixion

Darius I, the fourth king of the Persian Achaemenid Empire, also known as Darius the Great, ruled the empire at its zenith. Under Darius, the kingdom included much of Western Asia, the Caucasus Mountains between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, parts of the Balkans, and most of the Black Sea coastal regions. It also included portions of the North Caucasus, Central Asia, as far as the Indus Valley, and parts of northern Africa, including Egypt, Libya, and coastal Sudan. Darius organized the empire by dividing it into provinces and placing satraps or governors to rule each province. He is mentioned in the biblical books of Haggai, Zechariah, Ezra, and Nehemiah.

The Greek historian Herodotus ascribes the first use of crucifixion to the Persians. Here are some of Herodotus’s examples of impalement or crucifixion.

Astyages, on learning the shameful flight and dispersion of his army, broke out into threats against Cyrus, saying, ‘Cyrus shall nevertheless have no reason to rejoice’; and directly he seized the Magian interpreters, who had persuaded him to allow Cyrus to escape, and impaled them (Herodotus, The Histories, 1.128.2).

Polycrates, on his arrival at Magnesia, perished miserably, in a way unworthy of his rank and of his lofty schemes. For, if we except the Syracusans, there has never been one of the Greek tyrants who was to be compared with Polycrates for magnificence. Orontes, however, slew him in a mode which is not fit to be described and then hung his dead body upon a cross (Herodotus, The Histories, 3.125.3).

By interceding for them with Darius, he saved the lives of the Egyptian physicians who had had the care of the king before he came, when they were about to be impaled because they had been surpassed by a Greek (Herodotus, The Histories, 3.132.2).

Herodotus tells us that King Darius, who did so much for the Persians by building roads, adopting Aramaic as the official language, and centralizing and unifying the government, apparently was not opposed to brutality in accomplishing his political ends (Herodotus, The Histories, 4:43.2.7; 6.30.1; 7.194.1).

This man [Sataspes] had used violence towards a maiden, the daughter of Zopyrus, son of Megabyzus, and King Xerxes was about to impale him for the offense, when his mother, who was a sister of Darius, begged him off, undertaking to punish his crime more heavily than the king himself had designed" (Herodotus, The Histories,

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). Now, had he [Histiaeus] been taken straightway before King Darius, I verily believe that he would have received no hurt, but the king would have freely forgiven him. Artaphernes, however, satrap of Sardis . . . put him to death as soon as he arrived at Sardis. His body they impaled at that place, while they embalmed his head and sent it up to Susa to the king (Herodotus, The Histories,

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The commander of this squadron was Sandoces, the son of Thamasius, governor of Cyme, in Aeolis. He was of the number of the royal judges, and had been crucified by Darius sometime before, on the charge of taking a bribe to determine a cause wrongly; but while he yet hung on the cross, Darius bethought him that the good deeds of Sandoces towards the king’s house were more numerous than his evil deeds; and so, confessing that he had acted with more haste than wisdom, he ordered him to be taken down and set at large (Herodotus, The Histories,

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In establishing his supremacy over the Babylonians, perhaps Darius’s most egregious act is recorded in Herodotus’s The Histories, 7:194.1. Darius having become master of the place, destroyed the wall, and tore down all the gates; for Cyrus had done neither the one nor the other when he took Babylon. He then chose out near three thousand of the leading citizens, and caused them to be crucified, while he allowed the remainder still to inhabit the city. This excessive brutality occurred in 519 BC.

Crucifixions Among Non-Romans

Other ancient sources, perhaps not as reliable as Herodotus, write about crucifixion occurring in the following regions of the ancient world:

•in India (Diodorus Siculus Bibliotheca Historica 2.18.1)

•in Assyria (Diodorus Siculus Bibliotheca Historica 2.1.10)

•in Scythia (Diodorus Siculus Bibliotheca Historica 2.44.2; Tertullian Adversus Marcion. 1.1.3)

•in Gaul (Diodorus Siculus, Bibliotheca Historica 5.32.6)

•in Numidia (Sallust, Bellum Iugurthinum 14.15; Caesar, Bellum Africum 66)

•among the Taurians (Euripides, Iphigenia in Tauris 1429–30)

•and the Thracians (Diodorus Siculus Bibliotheca Historica 33.15.1; 34/35.12.1)

Diodorus Siculus says that the Celts crucified criminals as a sacrifice to their gods (Bibliotheca Historica 4.19.4; 4.32.6).

According to Tacitus, the Germans and the Britons practiced execution by crucifixion as well. Tacitus (Annals 1.61.4; 4.72.3; Germania 12.1; Annals 14.33.2).

Sallust and Julius Caesar reported that the Numidians used this form of execution (The Jugurthine War 14.15; The Civil War 66).

It’s evident that crucifixion was a common practice in antiquity.

The Greeks and Crucifixion

From their interaction with the Persians, the Greeks adopted crucifixion as a military execution strategy. It was practiced principally by Alexander the Great in his wars against the Persians (336–323 BC). They could be seen hung fixed to stakes over a huge stretch of the shore⁶

After Alexander’s death, his successors continued to use Persian-style crucifixion against their enemies (Diodorus Siculus, Bibliotheca Historica 16.61.2). Still, the Greeks never fully integrated it into their legal system as a civil penalty.

On September 18, 480 BC, the remains of a small army of 300 Spartans and 6,700 allies lost the Battle of Thermopylae against the invading Persian army. The Persians, with 150,000 soldiers, were led by King Xerxes, son of Darius. King Leonidas I of Sparta was