Wouldn’t the blood loss and shock alone be enough to kill a man? Add in the unbelievable pain inflicted and you must be a goner for sure. Didn’t Rabbi Akiva also die in this manner?
Yes, a human certainly could be scourged to death, but the people with the whips had a lot of practice and could judge how far to go on a typical man. Jesus would have been a young man and probably in good physical condition. I don’t remember if the Gospels say how much he was scourged, but up to the Civil War the US Army and Navy would scourge miscreants and expect them to return to duty.
I’m talking about the* degree* of scourging depicted in the Passion. I mean it went on and on i think for something like 10-12 minutes. Surely that’s enough torture to kill an average man.
The amount of blood on the ground did look excessive, but a man can live through quite abit. I doubt he would have survived, it is rather good that he got crucified, the amount of dirt and infection in those wounds would have killed him, probably in a manner just as slow and tortuous as the cruicifixion.
According to the Gospels, Jesus died surprisingly quickly (in just three hours).
Because sundown on a high holy day (and/or a Sabbath) was approaching, the Romans broke the legs of the two theives crucified alongside Jesus in order to kill them quickly. But they saw that Jesus was already dead, and, in order to make sure that he was dead, they poked his side with a spear.
It has been speculated that Jesus’ death came quickly precisely because he was scourged before crucifixion.
Peace.
I saw the film the day after it opened.
While there is a lot of blood to SEE, there is not a lethal blood loss depicted. There is that pool of blood after he’s taken away that Mary cleanses, but mostly it is smears and streaks.
He would not have died of exanguination from the scourging depicted. No spurting equals no severed arteries and so, slow slow bleeding. Some of the lighter cuts would clot- as noted, he was a young man in fine health.
I doubt highly that he would have died from anything, before infection set in. Then again, he was crucified and that alone is enough of a physical torture to have killed it’s victims.
By the end, his face and head were equally bloody but as is well known, even a small head wound bleeds outrageous amounts.
My WAG as a minimally trained medical type guy ( EMT ) is that he died of shock.
Cartooniverse
I kind of thought the amount of blood and wounds was inconsistent with the beating he got. I would have really thought with the torn flesh there would have been much more blood, possibly collapsed lung and definitely many broken ribs. Along with that you have a dislocated shoulder, large hand and foot wounds (no doubt some broken bones there as well.
Why would breaking legs cause people to die quickly? Unless the bones tore through major arteries, why wouldn’t the theives just be hanging up there, but now with added pain in their legs?
I have heard that breaking the legs caused you to suffocate as you could no longer support your weight, but no idea if it is true
Apparently it woould result in all of the weight being borne on the outstretched arms, making it very difficult to move the ribcage to breathe.
The breaking legs → suffocation theory is what I’ve always been told.
(I’ll admit that when I first saw those clubs, I was confused as to why there would be giant golf tees in first-century Judea 
)
Heh. You should tell that to Negro slaves in the antebellum south. They might have a different opinion.
Interestingly, I was recently reading an excerpt from a book called “The Fatal Shore” for class and at one one they talk about a man getting 150 lashes or so. It said that after 50 his back was a bleeding mess, so they did the next 50 on his Butt, until that was a bleeding mess, and the final 50 were on the legs.
Poor guy. Jesus got off easily in the lashes department in comparison, only getting 39(if I’m not mistaken).
Death in cruxifiction was by suffocation. Normally the feet were not nailed to the cross. there was a small pedestal where the condemned stood. When he tired his feet would slid from the pedestal and he would suffocate, because his diaphragm could not move his lungs normally. Feeling the suffocation he would try to stand again in the pedestal. That is what made the torture worst.
Since Jesus’s feet where nailed, he should last longer than the thieves. Perhaps the scourging he got speeded his death like moriah speculated.
I read that the only bones they have found of a crucified person still had the nail thru the ankle bones.
I thought they nailed the feet flat to the upright, and then the victim had to push down on the nail to relieve the pressure on the arms. Then the legs cramped up, gave out, and the victim slid down to be suspended by the wrists again.
Jesus did not last as long on the cross as most did. Pilate, when Joseph of Arimathea asked for the body, was surprised that Jesus was dead already.
Of course, He had been awake since Wednesday morning, had not eaten since Thursday night, been flogged (by Romans, so I don’t think the limit of 39 lashes mentioned by HPL would have been abided by), as well as beaten up by Pilate’s soldiers, Herod’s soldiers, and walked all over the city from Pilate to Herod and back again. No wonder He fell and was unable to carry the cross to Golgotha.
Usually the crucified lived for a day or two, until shock and exhaustion led to suffocation. They broke the legs of the two thieves to finish them off so they wouldn’t be up there over the Sabbath.
Regards,
Shodan
Don’t know, but Bishop Pike died on the rocks in the desert–hence the drink, Bishop Pike on the Rocks (Christian Brothers Brandy on Ice with a little dry vermouth).
Don’t conflate events from Gibson’s Passion with what the Gospels say. Jesus got a few blows from the Jewish leaders and Herod’s people, but was not beaten bloody by them as the movie depicts. The Gospels says he was flogged, not scourged within an inch of his life. The Gospels don’t mention Jesus falling on the way to Golgotha (or being constantly beaten by the soldiers or crowd along the way).
Peace.
Was that about Botany Bay, by any chance? I read in one of the Aubrey/Maturin books about their visit to that place, and poor Padeen had received 200 lashes, as had another fellow. Some even got sentenced to 300 to 500. I don’t know if they lived through it or not.
It was about the colonzation of Austraila, so more or less yes.