Killing Jesus: A History

dies. They will drink their sour wine and even offer some to Jesus. If necessary, they will break his legs to hasten his demise. For death on the cross is a slow journey into suffocation. Each time a victim takes a breath he must fight his own body weight and push his torso upward using his legs, thus allowing his lungs to expand. In time, the victim, exhausted, can breathe neither in nor out.
    Three hours pass. The Passover celebration continues inside the Temple courts, and the sounds of singing and of trumpets resound across the city to the execution site. Indeed, Jesus can see the Temple Mount quite clearly from his place on the cross. He knows that many are still waiting for him. The news of his execution has not traveled far, much to the delight of Pilate and Caiaphas, who still fear the possibility of Jesus’s supporters starting a riot when they hear news of his murder.
    “I thirst,” Jesus finally says, giving in to the dehydration that has consumed him for more than twelve hours. His voice is not more than a whisper. A soldier soaks a sponge in sour wine and reaches up to place it to the Nazarene’s lips, knowing the liquid will sting.
    Jesus sucks in the tart fluid. Shortly afterward, he gazes on Jerusalem one last time before the inevitable happens.
    “It is finished,” he says.
    Jesus bows his head. The crown of thorns hangs rigidly. He lapses into unconsciousness. His neck relaxes. His entire body rolls forward, pulling his neck and shoulders away from the cross. Only the nails in his hands hold him in place.
    The man who once preached the Gospel so fearlessly, who walked far and wide to tell the world about a new faith, and whose message of love and hope reached thousands during his lifetime—and will one day reach billions more—stops breathing.
    Jesus of Nazareth is dead. He is thirty-six years old.

CHAPTER NINETEEN
    JERUSALEM’S UPPER CITY
APRIL 7, A.D. 30
3:00 P.M.–6:00 P.M.
    The race is on. The Roman death squad has had a hard day, but there is still more work to be done. It is their practice to leave a man on the cross for days after he dies, perhaps to allow his body to decompose or even be eaten by wild animals. But Jewish law dictates that a body cannot remain on a “tree” 1 during the Sabbath, which begins at sundown today and continues throughout Saturday. So the quaternio must take Jesus down off the cross and throw his body into the communal grave reserved for criminals.
    The exactor mortis now verifies Jesus’s death by thrusting a spear into his chest. The pleural and pericardial fluid that have built up around Jesus’s heart and lungs for hours now pours out, mixed with a torrent of blood. Extracting the spear tip, the captain of the guard 2 then orders his men to remove Jesus from the cross. It is a crucifixion in reverse, with the men using ladders and teamwork to bring Jesus and the crossbeam back to the ground. Once again, Jesus is laid flat. But now the death squad works hard to remove the nails—unbent. Iron is expensive, and spikes are reused as much as possible.
    Most who witnessed Jesus’s crucifixion from a distance have departed. Mary, his mother, and Mary Magdalene are among those who remain. But as the soldiers now go about the hard physical labor of un-crucifying a man, a Sadducee named Joseph of Arimathea steps forth. This wealthy member of the Sanhedrin and secret disciple of Jesus was one of the few dissenting voices during the illegal trial. Another of those voices was that of Nicodemus the Pharisee, who now stands atop Golgotha with Joseph. They have received permission from Pilate to take the body, as the governor wants to put this execution to rest as soon as possible.
    Somewhat shockingly, Joseph and Nicodemus are publicly declaring their allegiance to the teachings of Jesus. Joseph takes Jesus’s body to his own private family tomb, a brand-new man-made cave carved out of the soft Jerusalem rock on a nearby hillside. The Jews believe that a criminal’s presence in a tomb desecrates it. Even worse, for a member of the Sanhedrin to touch a dead body on Passover makes him unclean and disqualifies him from eating the Seder. By law, Joseph and Nicodemus will be declared impure and must undergo a seven-day cleansing ritual. 3
    No matter, these two bold members of the Sanhedrin demonstrate their role as followers of Jesus by carrying his limp corpse down off Golgotha and then to the nearby tomb. There is no time to perform the ritual washing and