HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

Jehohanan () was a Judean man sentenced to death by
crucifixion Crucifixion is a method of capital punishment in which the condemned is tied or nailed to a large wooden cross, beam or stake and left to hang until eventual death. It was used as a punishment by the Achaemenid Empire, Persians, Ancient Carthag ...
sometime in the 1st century CE. His
ossuary An ossuary is a chest, box, building, well, or site made to serve as the final resting place of human skeletal remains. They are frequently used where burial space is scarce. A body is first buried in a temporary grave, then after some years th ...
was found in 1968 when building contractors working in Giv'at ha-Mivtar accidentally uncovered a Jewish tomb. The stone ossuary had the
Hebrew Hebrew (; ''ʿÎbrit'') is a Northwest Semitic languages, Northwest Semitic language within the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family. A regional dialect of the Canaanite languages, it was natively spoken by the Israelites and ...
inscription of "Jehohanan the son of Hagkol" (; the meaning of ''hgqwl'' is uncertain,Fant, C. E., Reddish, M. G. (2008:320). ''Lost Treasures of the Bible: Understanding the Bible Through Archaeological Artifacts in World Museums''. United Kingdom:  Eerdmans Publishing Company. hence his name sometimes being given as Johanan ben Ha-galgula). In his initial anthropological observations in 1970 at the
Hebrew University of Jerusalem The Hebrew University of Jerusalem (HUJI; ) is an Israeli public university, public research university based in Jerusalem. Co-founded by Albert Einstein and Chaim Weizmann in July 1918, the public university officially opened on 1 April 1925. ...
, Nicu Haas concluded that Jehohanan was crucified with his arms stretched out and his forearms nailed, possibly on a two-beamed cross. However, a 1985 reappraisal by Joseph Zias and Eliezer Sekeles of the Hebrew University found multiple errors in these observations."Crucifixion – The Archaeological Evidence," ''Biblical Archaeology Review'', Vol. 11 (1985), pp. 44-53Fitzmyer, Yadin, "Epigraphy and Crucifixion," Israel Exploration Journal, Vol. 23(1973), pp. 494-498. Zias and Sekeles proposed that a horizontal beam was affixed to vertical stakes, with Jehohanan's arms tied and death occurring from
asphyxiation Asphyxia or asphyxiation is a condition of deficient supply of oxygen to the body which arises from abnormal breathing. Asphyxia causes generalized hypoxia, which affects all the tissues and organs, some more rapidly than others. There are ...
.


Anthropological observations


Initial observations, Haas, 1970

In his article "Anthropological Observations on the Skeletal Remains from Giv'at ha-Mivtar" published in the ''
Israel Exploration Journal The ''Israel Exploration Journal'' is a biannual academic journal which has been published by the Israel Exploration Society since 1950. It primarily covers research in archaeology, but also history and geography relating to Israel and the surrou ...
'' in 1970, Nicu Haas of the Department of Anatomy at
Hebrew University The Hebrew University of Jerusalem (HUJI; ) is an Israeli public research university based in Jerusalem. Co-founded by Albert Einstein and Chaim Weizmann in July 1918, the public university officially opened on 1 April 1925. It is the second-ol ...
, wrote of the remains of a man crucified: Haas was unable to examine the remains any further because of serious health problems, and while his conclusions became widely accepted by the general public, several errors in his observations were later identified by Joseph Zias and Dr. Eliezer Sekeles of the Hebrew University in their 1985 reappraisal.


Reappraisal, Zias & Sekeles, 1985

In 1985, Joe Zias, curator of the Israel Department of Antiquities and Museums, and Eliezer Sekeles, from the
Hadassah Medical Center Hadassah Medical Center () is an Israeli medical organization established in 1934 that operates two university hospitals in Jerusalem (one in Ein Karem and one in Mount Scopus) as well as schools of medicine, dentistry, nursing, and pharmacology ...
, re-examined the crucifixion remains. They alleged that Haas' analysis was fraught with errors: Zias and Sekeles also stated the presence of the scratch in one of the forearms "was not convincing" evidence of a nail wound: In conclusion, the findings of Zias and Sekeles do not indicate whether in this case a horizontal patibulum cross-beam was attached to the upright stake to which the victim's heel was nailed. The evidence was so ambiguous concerning the arms that Zias and Sekeles had to rely on the data provided by contemporary writings to support their reconstruction of the position of the arms as attached to a crossbar: Their reconstruction includes a crossbar which the condemned man could carry to the place of execution, and which could be used repeatedly for attachment to the upright stake permanently fixed in the ground:


References


Sources

* {{cite journal, last1=Zias, last2=Sekeles, title=The Crucified Man from Giv'at ha-Mitvar: A Reappraisal, journal=Israel Exploration Journal, volume=35, year=1985 1st-century deaths 1st-century people People executed by crucifixion Year of birth unknown 1968 archaeological discoveries 1968 in Israel People from Jerusalem Archaeological discoveries in Israel Archaeological discoveries in the West Bank category:1st-century artifacts 1st-century Jews