THE FINAL INFERENCES IN OBJECTION #1

1a. Jesus could not have survived crucifixion by Roman soldiers.

THEREFORE:

B. Jesus did NOT survive crucifixion by Roman soldiers.

THEREFORE:

A. The Swoon Theory is false.

EVALUATION OF THE FINAL INFERENCES IN OBJECTION #1

The logic of the final inferences in the argument constituting Objection #1 (The Deadliness of Roman Crucifixion) is fine. So, the only question at issue is whether premise (1a) is true.

If Kreeft and Tacelli simply asserted or assumed that premise (1a) was true, then they would be guilty of the FALLACY OF BEGGING THE QUESTION because those who accept or defend the Swoon Theory believe that a person CAN survive crucifixion by Roman soldiers.

Furthermore, the claim made by premise (1a) is NOT obviously true. Therefore, Kreeft and Tacelli must provide a strong and compelling argument for premise (1a) in order for this objection to be successful. If they have provided a weak or defective argument in support of the key premise (1a), then Objection #1 FAILS, just like several of their other objections against the Swoon Theory have FAILED.

INITIAL EVALUATION OF THE KEY PREMISE (1a)

Here, again, is the key premise (1a):

1a. Jesus could not have survived crucifixion by Roman soldiers.

The key premise (1a) is DUBIOUS, at least on an initial examination.

First, crucifixion is not nearly as deadly as some other forms of execution. For example, contrast execution by beheading with execution by crucifixion. When you cut a person’s head off, that person will definitely and unquestionably be dead within seconds (or minutes at most). But people can be hung on crosses and stay alive on crosses for several days:

Often crucified people lingered for days…

“Crucifixion” by John R. Donahue, Eerdman’s Dictionary of the Bible, p.299

Among the torturous penalties noted in the literature of antiquity, crucifixion was particularly heinous. The act itself damaged no vital organs, nor did it result in excessive bleeding. Hence death came slowly, sometimes after several days…

“Death of Jesus” by Joel B. Green, Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels, p.147

Second, since people can live for three or four days while hanging from a cross, and since Jesus was hanging on his cross for only a matter of hours, the strong assumption needed here by Kreeft and Tacelli is very DUBIOUS:

Anyone who is crucified and hangs from a cross for at least two hours will necessarily die within a few hours later, even if they are removed from the cross after hanging on the cross for only two hours.

If this strong assumption is FALSE or DUBIOUS, then it seems that premise (1a) would also be FALSE or DUBIOUS. Given that people sometimes survived hanging from crosses for three or four days, this assumption appears to be FALSE, and it is certainly DUBIOUS.

Third, premise (1a) is an extremely strong historical claim because the scope of the claim includes tens of thousands of crucifixions conducted by Roman soldiers over a long period of about 850 years, from the start of the Roman Republic (in 509 BCE) to the outlawing of crucifixion in the Roman Empire (in 337 CE). (See the short addendum “HOW MANY CRUCIFIXIONS WERE PERFORMED BY ROMAN SOLDIERS DURING THE ROMAN REPUBLIC AND THE ROMAN EMPIRE?” at the end of this post.)

The claim that Jesus “could not have survived crucifixion” by Roman soldiers is presumably based not upon some particular weakness or frailty of Jesus, but upon the deadliness of “crucifixion by Roman soldiers.” The strong claim that Jesus “could not have survived” is presumably based on the assumption that NOBODY could have survived “crucifixion by Roman soldiers.” Such an assumption has implications about the tens of thousands of crucifixions performed by Roman soldiers for over eight centuries.

Although it would not be surprising if the Romans kept records of the crucifixions conducted by Roman soldiers, it is extremely DUBIOUS that records of all of the crucifixions conducted by Roman soldiers for a period of over eight centuries would still be in existence. There might be an existing document or two that lists all of the crucifixions conducted by Roman soldiers in a particular city for a span of a few years or even a decade, but the idea that we would currently have existing records of tens of thousands of crucifixions conducted by Roman soldiers for over 800 years is absurd! So, the sheer magnitude of the claim in premise (1a) casts significant doubt on it.

My initial evaluation of the key premise (1a) is that it is DUBIOUS. If Kreeft and Tacelli have provided a weak or defective argument in support of premise (1a), then we may reasonably conclude that premise (1a) is DUBIOUS, and that would be sufficient reason to reject their argument here against the Swoon Theory, and Objection #1 would FAIL.

INITIAL EVALUATION: THE KEY PREMISE (1a) IS FALSE

Here, again, is premise (1a):

1a. Jesus could not have survived crucifixion by Roman soldiers.

In addition to the above reasons for DOUBTING the key premise (1a), there is also significant evidence for the view that premise (1a) is FALSE. Specifically, we have evidence that someone other than Jesus was crucified by Roman soldiers, hung on a cross for a few hours, was removed from the cross, and yet survived:

Since death does not follow immediately on crucifixion, survival after a short period of crucifixion is possible, as in the case of those who choose each year as a devotional practice to be non-lethally crucified.

There is an ancient record of one person who survived a crucifixion that was intended to be lethal, but was interrupted. Josephus recounts:

I saw many captives crucified, and remembered three of them as my former acquaintances. I was very sorry at this in my mind, and went with tears in my eyes to Titus, and told him of them; so he immediately commanded them to be taken down, and to have the greatest care taken of them, in order to their recovery; yet two of them died under the physician’s hands, while the third recovered.

[Source of quote from Josephus: The Life of Flavius Josephus, 75.]

“Crucifixion” Wikipedia

If three people were crucified by Roman soldiers, hung on their crosses for a few hours, were removed from their crosses and one of the three survived, then that is a good reason to believe that Jesus could have been crucified, hung on the cross for a few hours, and yet survived his crucifixion.

Although there is good reason to believe that the key premise (1a) is FALSE, and thus there is good reason to reject Objection #1 against the Swoon Theory, we should not be confident in this conclusion until we have examined the argument that Kreeft and Tacelli have provided in support of (1a), so that is what I will do in the next post in this series.

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HOW MANY CRUCIFIXIONS WERE PERFORMED BY ROMAN SOLDIERS DURING THE ROMAN REPUBLIC AND THE ROMAN EMPIRE?

The First Servile War of 135–132 BC was a slave rebellion against the Roman Republic, which took place in Sicily. …

[…]

The revolt was finally snuffed out in its entirety [in 132 BCE]…by Publius Rupilius. He also laid siege to Tauromenium and captured it with relative ease thanks to the help of traitors from within the slave army defending the town. All the prisoners taken when the town fell were first tortured and then thrown from a cliff. Next he marched on Enna, which had become the center of the entire revolt, where one of the slave leaders, Cleon, had taken refuge. Cleon in turn died of wounds sustained during a desperate sally out of the gates to try to break the Roman siege lines. Enna fell not long after, again helped by traitors inside the walls. The remnants of the slave army on the rest of the island were quickly stamped out, with around 20,000 prisoners being crucified by Rupilius in retribution.

“First Servile War” Wikipedia

Notorious mass crucifixions followed the Third Servile War in 73–71 BCE (the slave rebellion led by Spartacus), and other Roman civil wars in the 2nd and 1st centuries BCE.  Crassus ordered the crucifixion of 6,000 of Spartacus’ followers who had been hunted down and captured after the slave defeat in battle.

“Crucifixion” Wikipedia

The rebels of the Third Servile War were annihilated by Crassus. … While most of the rebel slaves were killed on the battlefield, some 6,000 survivors were captured by the legions of Crassus. All 6,000 were crucified along the Appian Way from Rome to Capua.

“Third Servile War” Wikipedia

The siege of Jerusalem, the fortified capital city of the province, quickly turned into a stalemate. Unable to breach the city’s defenses, the Roman armies established a permanent camp just outside the city, digging a trench around the circumference of its walls and building a wall as high as the city walls themselves around Jerusalem. Anyone caught in the trench attempting to flee the city would be captured and crucified in lines on top of the dirt wall facing into Jerusalem, with as many as five hundred crucifixions occurring in a day.
[…]
In the summer of 70, following a seven-month siege, Titus eventually used the collapse of several of the city walls to breach Jerusalem, ransacking and burning nearly the entire city.

“First Jewish–Roman War” Wikipedia

The Siege of Jerusalem lasted for seven months, or about 210 days. On some of those days, as many as 500 people who attempted to escape from Jerusalem were crucified. Based on that fact, there might well have been an average of 50 to 100 people crucified each day. That means that over the course of the seven-month siege, there might well have been a total of 10,000 to 20,000 crucifixions carried out by Roman soldiers.

Thus, just between the First Servile War, the Third Servile War, and the First Jewish-Roman War, Roman soldiers carried out about 36,000 crucifixions. This does not include crucifixions that Roman soldiers performed outside of wars to punish criminals. This does not include any crucifixions performed by Roman soldiers between the beginning of the Roman Republic (509 BCE) and the start of the First Servile War (135 BCE). This does not include any crucifixions performed by Roman soldiers after the Siege of Jerusalem (70 CE) until the outlawing of crucifixion (337 CE).

• X crucifixions were performed by Roman soldiers from 509 BCE to 135 BCE (374 years).
• More than 36,000 crucifixions were performed by Roman Soldiers from 134 BCE to 70 CE (204 years).
• Y crucifixions were performed by Roman soldiers from 71 CE to 337 CE (266 years).

From the start of the Roman Republic (509 BCE) to the outlawing of the use of crucifixion in the Roman Empire (337 CE), there was a period of nearly 850 years in which Roman soldiers performed crucifixions.

Constantine the Great, the first Christian emperor, abolished crucifixion in the Roman Empire in 337…

“Crucifixion” Wikipedia

If Roman soldiers performed about as many crucifixions in the 374 years from the start of the Roman Republic to the start of the First Servile War as they did in the 204 years from the start of the First Servile War until after the Siege of Jerusalem, then Roman soldiers would have performed more than 70,000 crucifixions in the period from the start of the Roman Republic until after the Siege of Jerusalem.

If Roman soldiers also performed about as many crucifixions in the 266 years after the Siege of Jerusalem until crucifixion was outlawed in the Roman Empire as they did in the 204 years from the start of the First Servile War until after the Siege of Jerusalem, then they would have performed more than 36,000 crucifixions in that period, and Roman soldiers would have performed more than 100,000 crucifixions from the start of the Roman Republic until the outlawing of crucifixion in the Roman Empire.

If Roman soldiers performed only about half the number of crucifixions in the 374 years from the start of the Roman Republic to the start of the First Servile War as they did in the 204 years from the start of the First Servile War to after the Siege of Jerusalem, then Roman soldiers would have performed more than 50,000 crucifixions in the period from the start of the Roman Republic until after the Siege of Jerusalem.

If Roman soldiers also performed only about half the number of crucifixions in the 266 years from after the Siege of Jerusalem until crucifixion was outlawed in the Roman Empire, then they would have performed more than 18,000 crucifixions in that period, and Roman soldiers would have performed more than 65,000 crucifixions from the start of the Roman Republic until the outlawing of crucifixion in the Roman Empire.

Based on the above considerations, a conservative estimate of the number of crucifixions performed by Roman soldiers from the start of the Roman Republic until the outlawing of crucifixion in the Roman Empire would be between 65,0000 and 100,000 crucifixions.