50 Fun Facts About The Crucifixion

Which Roman governor sentenced Jesus to be scourged and crucified?

A Roman historian independently records that Pilate ordered the execution, in a passage most scholars consider genuine.

What is the name of the place outside Jerusalem's walls where the gospels say Jesus was crucified?

The Latin form is Calvary; Christian tradition has called it a hill only since about the 6th century.

The name of the crucifixion site, in both its Aramaic and Latin forms, means what?

The Aramaic Golgolta and Latin calvaria both refer to a skull; the Fathers of the Church argued over why the site got the name.

Which man was compelled by the Roman soldiers to carry Jesus's cross?

Mark names his sons Alexander and Rufus, suggesting they were known to the gospel's first readers; the episode is the fifth Station of the Cross.

Cyrene, Simon's home city, was in which modern country?

Cyrenian Jews had their own synagogue in Jerusalem, and an ossuary inscribed 'Alexander son of Simon' has been found there.

According to the Gospel of Mark, at what time of day was Jesus crucified?

Mark is the only gospel to give the time; he died at about the ninth hour, around 3 p.m.

What was Jesus offered to drink before being crucified, according to the gospels?

The drink was probably posca, the sour wine of Roman soldiers; later he was offered vinegar on a sponge.

According to John's gospel, the soldiers cast lots for which item of Jesus's clothing?

They divided the rest of his garments among themselves and gambled for the robe rather than tear it.

The letters INRI on crucifixes abbreviate a Latin phrase meaning what?

John says Pilate's sign was written in Hebrew, Latin and Greek; the Greek version is abbreviated INBI.

Per John, how did Pilate reply when the chief priests objected to the sign on the cross?

They wanted it to say he had merely claimed the title; Pilate refused to change it.

In which gospel does one crucified thief rebuke the other and ask Jesus to remember him?

In two of the other gospels both thieves mock him.

What name did later Christian tradition give to the penitent thief crucified beside Jesus?

The name first appears in the apocryphal Gospel of Nicodemus and may come from a Greek word meaning 'dying'; the other thief is called Gestas.

How many sayings of Jesus from the cross are traditionally counted?

No single gospel contains them all, and the number seven has been read as the biblical number of perfection.

The cry 'My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?' quotes the opening of which Old Testament text?

The gospels record it in Aramaic, using the verb šbq, 'to forsake', which exists only in Aramaic and not in Hebrew.

Bystanders hearing Jesus cry 'Eli, Eli' thought he was calling on which prophet?

In Aramaic the prophet's name is Ēlīyā, close enough to the cry to cause the confusion.

For how long do the synoptic gospels say darkness covered the land during the crucifixion?

From the sixth to the ninth hour; it cannot have been a solar eclipse, since Passover falls at full moon and a total eclipse lasts under eight minutes.

Which gospel alone mentions an earthquake and the raising of saints at the moment of Jesus's death?

Matthew is also the only evangelist to say Roman soldiers were posted to guard the tomb.

Why did Roman soldiers break the legs of the two men crucified beside Jesus?

One gospel says they did not break Jesus's legs because he was already dead; instead a soldier pierced his side.

Extra-biblical tradition gives what name to the soldier who pierced Jesus's side with a spear?

The name probably comes from the Greek lónchē, 'spear', and first appears written beside the soldier in a Syriac gospel manuscript of 586.

Legend later claimed the spear-bearing soldier had what affliction, cured by the blood that touched him?

The eye-trouble detail appears only after the tenth century; his spear became the Holy Lance, or 'Spear of Destiny'.

Who asked Pilate for Jesus's body and buried it in a rock-cut tomb, according to all four gospels?

John adds that Nicodemus helped with the burial, bringing myrrh and aloes.

Most scholars date the crucifixion of Jesus to which two candidate years?

Rainer Riesner argues that 14 Nisan, 7 April AD 30, is 'far and away the most likely date'.

Which Roman historian, writing in the Annals around AD 116, recorded that Pilate executed Christ?

The passage on Nero's persecution of Christians is generally considered genuine and an independent Roman source.

By what Latin name is the disputed Josephus passage on Jesus's execution by Pilate known?

Most scholars think it has later Christian additions around an authentic core.

Which Quranic verse is cited by Muslims who hold that Jesus was not actually crucified?

It says 'they killed him not, nor crucified him, but so it was made to appear to them'; some Gnostics similarly claimed another man died in his place.

A 1968 Jerusalem discovery gave rare physical evidence of crucifixion: the remains of a man named what?

An 11.5 cm nail was still driven sideways through his heel bone; a similar nailed heel turned up in Cambridgeshire in 2017.

Which Roman emperor abolished crucifixion in the empire, in 337?

He did so out of veneration for its most famous victim; his mother is credited with finding the True Cross.

After defeating Spartacus in 71 BC, Crassus crucified how many captured rebels along the Appian Way?

Roman crucifixion was reserved mainly for slaves and rebels; Cicero called it 'a most cruel and disgusting punishment' unfit even to mention near a citizen.

Alexander is said to have crucified 2,000 survivors after besieging which Phoenician city in 332 BC?

He is also reputed to have crucified the doctor who failed to save his friend Hephaestion.

The word 'excruciating' literally derives from what?

The punishment was designed to be slow, humiliating and public, using whatever means were most expedient.

A T-shaped cross, with the crossbeam on top of the upright, is known in Latin as what?

The crux immissa, with the beam just below the top, is the shape familiar in Christian art; the oldest image of a Roman crucifixion shows a T.

What did a 2023 review conclude about asphyxiation as the main cause of death in crucifixion?

Heart failure, hypovolemic shock, acidosis, dehydration and pulmonary embolism are now considered likelier causes.

Which apostle is traditionally said to have been crucified upside down?

Andrew, by tradition, died on an X-shaped cross, the saltire that now marks Scotland's flag.

In 1597, 26 Christian martyrs were nailed to crosses in which Japanese city?

Japanese crucifixion, haritsuke, included a 'water crucifixion' at low tide; persecution of Christians lasted until 1871.

The Alexamenos graffito of about AD 200, mocking a Christian, shows a crucified figure with which animal's head?

Romans commonly believed Christians practised donkey-worship; the graffito was found on the Palatine Hill in 1857.

Around which year did the first Christian emperor order the Church of the Holy Sepulchre?

He replaced a temple to Jupiter or Venus; the church was destroyed by al-Hakim in 1009 and rebuilt by 1048.

Which mother of an emperor is credited with discovering the True Cross in Jerusalem around 326-328?

Legend says she found three crosses and identified the right one when it healed a dying woman; the nails went into her son's helmet and bridle.

How many Stations of the Cross were fixed by Pope Clement XII in 1731?

The order that held custody of the Holy Land from 1342 spread the devotion by building outdoor shrines across Europe.

Which religious order was granted the right in 1686 to erect Stations of the Cross inside its churches?

Their processional route in Jerusalem, the Via Dolorosa, runs from the Lions' Gate to Calvary.

In Old English the day of the crucifixion was named for the length of its services; what was it called?

The name referred to the lengthy fasting and services, and Scandinavian languages still use the equivalent; 'good' here means 'holy'.

Some countries, such as Germany, ban which activities on Good Friday in keeping with its solemnity?

Members of the Moravian Church mark the day by cleaning the gravestones in their cemeteries.

Grünewald's Isenheim Altarpiece Crucifixion was painted for a monastery hospital treating which disease?

The Antonine monks near Colmar cared for plague and skin-disease patients, and the tormented Christ may have been meant to console them.

Which Alsace city's Unterlinden Museum has housed the Isenheim Altarpiece since the 1800s?

The altarpiece has hung in the Unterlinden Museum in Alsace since the 19th century and is regarded as Grünewald's masterpiece.

Salvador Dalí's 1951 crucifixion painting, Christ of Saint John of the Cross, hangs in which city?

Kelvingrove bought it for £8,200 in 1952 amid protest; the copyright has since repaid the cost many times over.

What is unusual about the crucified Christ in Dalí's Christ of Saint John of the Cross?

Dalí said a dream convinced him such details would mar the image; the bay below is Portlligat, his home in Catalonia.

Mel Gibson's 2004 film The Passion of the Christ has dialogue entirely in which languages?

Gibson initially resisted subtitles; Jim Caviezel played Jesus and the film was mostly shot in Italy.

Anatomical arguments suggest the nails were driven where, rather than through the palms as in most art?

John 20:25 speaks of wounds 'in his hands', but a nail between the radius and ulna would bear weight without tearing free.

Besides the mocking crowd, which two crucifixion witnesses do the synoptic gospels mention?

The women watched from a distance, and two of them were present at the burial.

Which three women at the cross, named in Mark's gospel, are commonly known as 'the Three Marys'?

John's gospel instead names the mother of Jesus, Mary Magdalene and Mary of Clopas among the women present.

Which 2nd-century satirist mentioned Jesus' crucifixion in his letter The Passing of Peregrinus?

Because Lucian's grasp of Christian tradition was patchy, scholars think his account was not shaped by Christians and may be independent evidence.