Roman means of execution.... Particularly crucifixion. You guys have not even scratched the surface on this and to be honest the details are not specific and way to gruesome for this forum. Part of the issue as some have pointed out, is that the Greek words for cross and crucifixion are not specific enough. And in the real, how crucifixions were carried out, varied. To say the least it was public, gruesome, agonizing, and humiliating.
For places that were set aside for crucifixions like Golgotha that was placed by a fiery trash pile in a valley called Gehenna. Were bodies of those executed were tossed. For these places, permanent scaffolding was sometimes erected and horizonal beams were used to fasten those to be executed. Hands tied or nailed to the beam and the tying or nailing of the feet could be to the scaffolding.
Do we know that this is what happened to Christ? No. People were tied or nailed in different positions, different ways, on different objects. (trees, doors, and walls) T shaped crosses, X shaped crosses or just a stake...pole. Torture and execution was only limited to Roman imagination. Does it matter? No, no matter what it was horrible.
The rest is a matter of rationalization and tradition. I reject anything about the T shaped cross, as in crucifixion, as having any meaning or connection to any Pagan belief. We are talking about Romans here and not only Romans crucified people. Crucifixion was a gruesome public display intended to induce terror.
The nail placement as a means of hanging a body, does not work out. It does not matter if it is through the hands or wrists. The physics of it does not workout. Hanging someone by nails on a pole would not work well but hanging someone with outstretched arms causes a lot more pressure on the wrists or hands. A good part of the time those on the cross were being tortured and their bodies were thrashing around. It does not work. Foot rests are mostly artistic imagination to explain why the body stayed on the cross. Crucifixion was agonizing...part of the issue was asphyxiation, particularly if the arms were outstretched which caused a lot more pressure. They would exhaust themselves trying to breath....try it!
Nails were used to add pain to the process and a sense of permanency and hopelessness, but also it hindered anyone's efforts to remove them from the cross. It is speculation because the Romans were not following documented procedures, and we do not have a blow by blow account of Christ's crucifixion, but odds are good, for Christ, like others that were nailed to crosses, their hands or wrists were both tied and nailed to the cross. The bodies could stay on the crosses for days.
As far as the position he was nailed to the cross, earliest tradition has Him crucified arms stretched out side by side. The early Christians that returned to Jerusalem to find the places and artifacts of Christ, were not looking for a beam. The oldest artwork found had Christ crucified on a cross.
The earliest crucifixion in an
illuminated manuscript, from the
Syriac Rabbula Gospels, 586 CE
Because the scene or image was so horrible early religious icons were just of the cross, not with Christ nailed to it. Later crucifixes became popular to add passion to the imagery. But no one...displayed a pole. No drawings or paintings of a pole in a church. A pole was never a Christian religious icon.
