Coffee n Jesus

The Walk Ministries presents-

Crucified Wrist or Hand?

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By Pastor Jeno Shaw

INTRODUCTION

There is a debate as to whether Jesus was crucified in the hand or the wrist. Most pictures depict Jesus with nails in his palms. But is this correct? What about the wrists?

Anatomy of a hand

We all know that the palm of the hand contains layers of strong tissue and tendons. The finger bones however connect one at a  time  into the wrist. Some believe that these tendons are strong enough to hold the body weight of someone on a cross.

The wrist has 8 small bones and then it has 2 long bones, the ulna and the radius that begin to make up the forearm.

Professional Torture

Another thing to note is that these Roman Soldiers have perfected the art of torture. They knew what they were doing when it came to punishment to the brink of death. And as well as punishment that leads to death.

• Whipping

During whipping or scourging, typically the victim was stripped naked. So all these pictures you see of Jesus with a loin cloth on, um no he was completely naked in front of everyone including strangers, disciples and even in front of his mom. Typically a person by Jewish law would be whipped 40 lashes but Roman law there were no limitations which meant Jesus probably underwent flogging by more than one Roman soldier because they would get tired and let another soldier take over while the first soldier got a chance to rest his shoulder.

• The Whip

The Whip itself would contain pieces of sharp bone, rock, glass fragments, and lead that was embedded in the whip that would dig into the flesh so deep and then get yanked out and therefore exposing flesh and innards of the body.

• The Cross

To make matters even worse afterwards you were expected to carry your own cross which is estimated to be around 165 pounds.

• Purpose

The purpose of explaining all of this is to capture the brutality of the moment. These Roman soldiers didn’t want their victim to die too soon nor did they want to do any extra work if the person fell and couldn’t get back up. These Roman soldiers wanted to drive their victims into a slow and painful death.

Back to the Cross

Besides the cross inducing suffocation, organ failure, loss of multiple fluids like sweat, blood and other stuff I won’t mention. 

But the weight of the body pulling down due to gravity and on the arms would make breathing very difficult.

Now if the nails were driven into the hands of the person. That would be a lot of weight on those nails with nothing to hold it into place.

You see the person on the cross would have to push down on their feet, which was nailed, and brought immense pain itself but it would allow for a quick breath of air before suffocating again. This process would repeat over and over. Depending on the person, and the type of cross the victim could die in 10 mins to several days.

To speed the process of death, sometimes the soldiers would break the legs of the victims so they could no longer push up in order to gain oxygen and this would kill the victim more rapidly.

The problem with having nails into the palm of the hand is that the weight of the body would force the nail to slip through the fingers.

Whereas just below the wrist between the ulna and the radius there is a small gap which would be perfect to hold a nail and the bones would be strong enough to support without breaking.

Talk about broken bones

It was imperative that Jesus had no broken bones. Why? Since the beginning God always required a perfect sacrifice with no blemish or broken bones. This would have disqualified Jesus if he had any broken bones.

In the Passover ordinances it was established that no bone must be broken in the lamb.

See how we come full circle here and no one at the time puts 2 and 2 together. It’s Passover, it’s time to sacrifice a lamb and at the same time this is going on, Jesus is being sacrificed!

Exodus 12:46

“In one house shall it be eaten; thou shalt not carry forth ought of the flesh abroad out of the house; neither shall ye break a bone thereof.”

So no broken bones that would disqualify the lamb.

So now the soldiers were tired and wanted to wrap this up as it was getting late for the sabbath day was approaching, so they started to break the legs of the people that were on the cross but..

John 19:33

“But when they came to Jesus, and saw that he was dead already, they brake not his legs:”

Medical students used a cadaver and put it on the cross with the nail in the palms and guess what? Under pressure the nails slipped through the hand because there’s nothing there to hold it. This further proves it was the wrist.

Wrist

When I say wrist I’m not talking about the 8 little bones in the wrist. For sure if a nail was put there it would break the bones but Im talking about the part of the wrist that meets the ulna and the radius. Furthermore did you know that in those days they considered the wrist to be part of the hand! 

Also the word hand is used in some languages even though they may be talking about their finger, wrist or even arm. 

Also worth to note after Jesus’ resurrection he sat and ate. While eating and passing food you would think his wrists would be exposed at some point but not while walking due to the length of the robe. Which would explain why they didn’t recognize him not while walking with him but while eating with him!

Luke 24:30-31

“And it came to pass, as he sat at meat with them, he took bread, and blessed it, and brake, and gave to them.”

31

And their eyes were opened, and they knew him; and he vanished out of their sight.

Glory to God!

While I believe Jesus was crucified and nailed in the wrists, we can’t let this be a sticking point or a stumbling block not to fellowship with one another, amen!

Some will believe it was the hands. Well we can still fellowship!

I truly love you all,

Pastor/Coach Jeno