Apr
20
4 Easter-Related Archaeological Finds
“Instead of fiction and fairy tales, archaeology indicates that the Bible preserves an accurate recounting of the history addressed in its pages.” — Titus Kennedy, writer, professor, and professional field archaeologist
I bought a new book — Unearthing the Bible, by Dr. Titus Kennedy — that I’ll be reading through soon-ish. I was flipping through it the other day and found several entries about archaeological discoveries connected to what the Bible records concerning the trial, death by crucifixion, burial, and resurrection of Jesus the Messiah. I have reproduced the text for four of them below….
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Crucifixion in Judea (Crucified Man Remains)
Date: 1st century AD
Discovered: Givat Ha Mivtar, Jerusalem
Period: Jesus and the Gospels
Keywords: crucifixion; Jehohanan; Jesus; Jerusalem
Bible Passages: Luke 24:36-40; John 19:15-42; 20:20-29
Various forms of crucifixion had been used as punishment by ancient cultures, but the Romans developed it into a science and an effective political tool. In the Empire, punishment by crucifixion was a public spectacle usually reserved for slaves, criminals of low standing, and rebels.
The Romans typically used a vertical pole with a beam across the top (patibulum), like a Latin T, or a vertical pole with an intersecting crossbeam, which according to early iconography and use of the titulus (sign with the name and title of the accused) placed above the head, was the type used for the crucifixion of Jesus.
The convicted would first undergo flogging with a flagellum or rods, sometimes placed in a furca (forklike yoke), or endure other forms of torture that severely weakened and could even kill them before they were placed on the cross. They then were bound to and forced to carry their crossbeam to the place of execution, if possible. After arriving, they would be nailed to the crossbeam and the stake. Nails, rather than ropes, were the standard means of attachment for crucifixion known from ancient records. These crucifixions were usually conducted outside of the sacred border of a city and along major roads so that all could see.
Skeletal remains of two individuals have been recovered that show conclusive signs of the use of nails in crucifixion during the 1st century AD in Judea, indicating the men had been attached to the cross by placing nails in the wrists and feet. An iron nail about 4.5 inches long (11.5 cm) with remnants of wood was still present in the heel bone of one victim, a man identified as “Jehohanan the son of Hagkol” by the Aramaic inscription on the ossuary that contained his remains. In a more recently discovered example, a nail was found lodged between the bones of the wrist in another crucifixion victim from Judea.
The severe trauma of preliminary beatings and nailing to the cross was extreme, and death was a result of hypovolemic shock (blood or fluid loss), heart failure, dehydration, asphyxiation, or stabbing by the soldiers. Survival was not an option for the crucified, but an excruciating and humiliating death that one hoped would be swift.
On Nisan 14 in AD 33, Jesus was sentenced to and endured death by crucifixion, experiencing the punishments, protocols, and sequences known from Roman sources and archaeology.
“‘See My hands and My feet, that it is I Myself; touch Me and see, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.’ And when He had said this, He showed them His hands and His feet (Luke 24:39-40).”

Jesus Artwork in Rome (The Alexamenos Graffito)
Date: AD 90-200
Discovered: Palatine Hill, Rome
Period: Jesus and the Gospels
Keywords: crucifixion; Jesus; cross; Christian; Rome
Bible Passages: 1 Corinthians 1:22-24; Galatians 5:11
In addition to the accurate and detailed portrayal of Roman crucifixion in the Gospel accounts, the crucifixion of Jesus is also briefly described by a few Roman period writers and depicted on a wall in Rome.
In the late 1st century AD, while writing as an official Roman historian, Josephus recorded that Pilate had condemned Jesus to be crucified. Lucian, a Roman living in the 2nd century AD who enjoyed mocking Christians, thought that it was humorous how Christians worshipped a man who had been crucified. Celsus, another 2nd-century AD Roman who criticized Christianity, affirmed that Jesus was nailed to a cross. Around the same time, Justin, a pagan turned Christian, wrote to Emperor Antoninus Pius in defense of Christianity, mentioning the crucifixion of Jesus and how the events in the Gospels can be confirmed by checking the Roman records such as the Acts of Pilate.
The earliest known pictorial representation of the crucifixion of Jesus comes from Rome, found scratched into the plaster of a wall of the Paedagogium on the Palatine Hill. Known as the Alexamenos Graffito, the drawing shows Jesus on the cross with the head of a donkey, while a man standing on the ground looks up to the crucifixion victim with a raised arm. Below, an accompanying Greek inscription reads, “Alexamenos worships (his) god.” The drawing and text exhibits through mockery how the Roman pagan mindset viewed the crucifixion of Jesus as foolishness, as that worldview could not imagine how a god could be subjected to a painful and dishonorable execution reserved for criminals who were not Roman citizens.
Because the building it was found in association with was originally constructed ca. AD 90, then modified and partly buried ca. AD 200, the drawing and inscription date to somewhere within this period, demonstrating knowledge of Christianity and the crucifixion of Jesus in Rome as early as the end of the 1st century AD.
Not only do the accounts of the crucifixion of Jesus in the Gospels match what is known about Roman period crucifixion from various ancient sources and archaeological discoveries, but the event of Jesus being crucified in Jerusalem is confirmed by multiple sources in the 1st and 2nd centuries AD.
“We preach Christ crucified, to Jews a stumbling block and to Gentiles foolishness (1 Corinthians 1:23).”

The Tomb of Jesus (Burial Bench in the Holy Sepulchre)
Date: 4th century AD
Discovered: Church of Holy Sepulchre, Jerusalem
Period: Jesus and the Gospels
Keywords: Jesus; tomb; burial; resurrection; church
Bible Passages: Matthew 27:27-28:7; Mark 15:42-16:8; Luke 23:50-24:12; John 19:38-20:7
Burial practices common in Judea during the Roman period involved preparing the corpse for burial by washing and anointing with oils, then wrapping it in a linen shroud before being placed in the tomb, as soon as possible after death.
Because easily cut limestone was available throughout the region, people utilized tombs carved into rocky hillsides or shafts into the ground, cut with chisels. Most of these tombs had an entryway that could be closed and opened by moving the rolling stone or blocking stone, a central chamber, and multiple extension chambers or burial benches. The tradition of ancestral tombs goes all the way back to early civilization and is embodied in the phrases “gathered to his people” and “gathered to his father.”
The tomb of Jesus, however, was a new tomb in which no one had been interred, and which no one used afterward. Recent restoration work to the edicule [i.e., chapel-like structure] surrounding the tomb of Jesus has confirmed that it was a single chamber tomb carved into a limestone hill during the 1st century. Further, a stone bench consistent with an arcosolium tomb from the Roman period was protected underneath the current structure, the tomb was originally sealed with a large circular stone, and the Romans had built a temple over the site prior to the building of the church.
This information accords with what was recorded in the Gospels and writings of the early church about the burial and the tomb of Jesus. Christians in Jerusalem then passed down a continuous memory of the location of the tomb from the time of the burial and resurrection in AD 33 until construction of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre was started in about AD 326.
According to the Gospels, the tomb of Jesus was a new tomb just outside the city walls, hewn out of rock, single chambered, having a bench on which to place the body, and sealed with a large stone. Due to the significance of the resurrection in Christianity, the tomb of Jesus has been remembered, revered, and preserved for almost 2,000 years.
“[Joseph of Arimathea] went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus. And he took it down and wrapped it in a linen cloth, and laid him in a tomb cut into the rock, where no one had ever lain (Luke 23:52-53).”

Rumors of the Resurrection (The Nazareth Inscription)
Date: AD 41-54
Discovered: Unknown, Judea or Galilee
Period: Jesus and the Gospels
Keywords: Jesus; resurrection; tomb; disciples; Claudius
Bible Passages: Matthew 28:11-15
In 1878, a stone slab with a 22-line Greek inscription that was an “Edict of Caesar” surfaced in Nazareth and was purchased by a French antiquities collector. Because the stone was acquired through the antiquities market, its exact place of discovery in unknown, but it has been affirmed as authentic and seems to have been issued in Judea Province or Galilee.
The language and the historical context of the beginning of the reign of Claudius indicates that the edict was made about AD 41 when Claudius became emperor of Rome. The text specifically prohibits the moving or stealing of bodies from stone-sealed tombs with “wicked intent,” compares it to an offence against the gods, and imposes an extreme new penalty of death for the crime. It states that if anyone has “extracted those who have been buried, or has moved with wicked intent those who have been buried to other places… or has moved sepulcher-sealing stones… You are absolutely not to allow anyone to move those who have been entombed…” Consequently, the edict describes the same type of tomb, a stone-carved tomb sealed with a large stone, which Jesus was buried in according to Judean custom, while Romans were typically cremated.
According to Matthew, the false story that the disciples stole the body of Jesus was spread by the religious leaders of Judaism via the Roman soldiers, and this rumor apparently reached the ears of the emperor. Therefore, the edict recorded on the Nazareth Inscription was probably a reaction to stories about the resurrection of Jesus Christ, and in particular the version that the Roman soldiers guarding the tomb were paid to say that the disciples of Jesus stole His body while they were asleep.
By the time of Claudius, knowledge of Christianity and the story of the resurrection of Jesus had spread throughout many areas of the Roman Empire, beginning to cause problems in the realms of religion, politics, and society, and Claudius seems to have attempted to prevent any future claims of the resurrection of the dead.
“‘You are to say, “His disciples came by night and stole Him away while we were asleep”‘… And they took the money and did as they had been instructed; and this story was widely spread among the Jews, and is to this day (Matthew 28:13-15).”
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I think a fair assessment of these and other such discoveries in the archaeological record do indeed strongly support the Bible’s historical reliability on various details, despite the sneers and smears of the skeptics.
