What did Romans do with crucified bodies? : Part 2

Fifty miles from Jerusalem on the edge of the Judean desert lies the Dead Sea. It's where the famous Dead Sea Scrolls were found. Written around the time of Jesus, they have something to say about the burial of corpses. One of the Dead Sea Scrolls lists a Jewish law which stipulates that a corpse - even that of a executed criminal - cannot remain unburied overnight: it must be given a proper burial. This was a religious matter. The Jews believed corpses were impure but the land was sacred. An unburied corpse would pollute the land. For all their cruelty, Roman soldiers had no choice but to respect local customs. If they didn't, they had to answer to the Roman governor, Pontius Pilate.

When Jesus died, Pontius Pilate was put in a tricky position, because if he left the body to the scavenging animals, that would have been a violation of the law of Moses and it could have sparked a riot, which is which is hardly a good thing for a man like Pontius Pilate whose job was to maintain order. According to the law, bodies of crucified rebels should have been placed in tombs. But where was the archaeological evidence that this had been done? Where were the remains of the victims of crucifixion?

You might think they'd be easy to find. After all, the Romans crucified thousands of rebels. All archaeologists needed was some skeletons with crucifixion nails. But that gave them a problem. Because Romans crucified literally hundreds of rebels at a time they were normally tied to the crosses because it was cheaper and quicker. And even when they did use nails, sources from the time tell us that the nails were removed to be re-used on other victims. The only hope for the archaeologists was to find a nail that was overlooked and was taken to the tomb with its victim. But in Jerusalem this was like looking for a needle in a haystack.

By the late 1960's hundreds of skeletons had been found. Many had scratch marks: an indication that they have been nailed to a cross. But still, none had been found with the conclusive evidence of crucifixion. None that is until 1968 when a sensational discovery was made in the north of Jerusalem. At the time, this was undeveloped land, and just before the neighbourhood was built archaeologists moved in to see if there was anything they could recover, and they stumbled across an ancient tomb dating from the time of Jesus. And in the tomb they found a skeleton, and not just any ordinary skeleton, they found part of the ankle bone with a nail running right through it, and the archaeologists were amazed, because it showed they found the remains of a crucified man. The bent tip explained why this nail had made it into the tomb; as it was hammered, it hit a knot in the wood of the cross; no-one could remove it from the ankle.

The range of evidence was now compelling - the Jewish law regarding the burial of corpses, the practice of tying rebels to crosses, the routine removal of nails before corpses were buried and the chance discovery of a victim of crucifixion - convinced archaeologists that crucified bodies were given a proper burial. The traditional Bible records fitted the facts. In all likelihood, this is what became of the body of Jesus.

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Miracles of Jesus

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