Does it matter if Jesus was crucified with nails or ropes?
A recent Christianity Today article—and subsequent apology—reminded me of the forbidden questions of my evangelical upbringing.
In April, Daniel Silliman, a senior news editor at Christianity Today, wrote an article ( “Was Jesus Crucified With Nails?”) about an essay published in the Biblical Archaeology Review by New Testament scholar Jeffrey P. Arroyo García, who presents a well-researched case that nails might not have been used during Jesus’s crucifixion.
Here’s how Garcia summarizes his findings:
“...when ancient texts and archaeological evidence are examined together, it appears that nailing a victim to a cross may not have been as common as most people think. And it might have been introduced in Judea only after the time of Jesus.”
Compelling? Yes. Do I want to read more? Yes. Am I convinced? I don’t think so. But neither was Garcia—at least according to his interview with CT: “I don’t stand and say this, definitively, is how it happened. I basically find it interesting. It could be there were nails, or it could be that there weren’t nails.”
