Yes, Jesus was Crucified with Nails

This article was first published at . After it was published, the author of the Christianity Today article, Daniel Sulliman, posted an ; but the scholar behind it, Jeffrey García, has not commented.

A recent article in Christianity Today titled has been raising some animated discussion on social media – not surprising, since the opening sentence is “The Bible doesn’t say Jesus was nailed to a cross.” The article, written by Daniel Sulliman, is based mainly on an interview of Jeffrey P. Arroyo García, a professor at Gordon College. García also wrote an article on this topic, “,” published in Biblical Archeology Review.

Here’s the thrust of García’s claims in the two articles. Early Roman accounts of crucifixions do not mention nails. The words related to crucifixion, in both Latin and Greek, do not necessarily imply nailing. The Latin verbs that are usually translated “nailed” in those accounts mean “attached,” and do not specify how the victims were attached. The earliest accounts to mention nailing during crucifixions, García says, are in Josephus. Josephus used the Greek verb προσηλόω (����Dz�ŧ����ō), “to nail,” in some of his descriptions of crucifixions. From this, García concludes that nailing during crucifixion was not likely widespread until the Jewish War (AD 66-70). Before then, victims were usually tied with ropes; they would still die from suffocation.

Now, García says he is not certain of this interpretation of history. But he says that if his view is correct, then the Gospel of John is probably not historically correct when it describes Thomas saying “unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger into the mark of the nails… I will not believe” (John 20:25, 27). Here is García’s explanation:

• John “was perhaps located in a region, such as Ephesus or elsewhere in Asia Minor, where nailing of the hands was well known.”

• “John might be creatively weaving together these elements” (from Luke 24:39).

• “this account may have come from a time after the revolt or somewhere in the Diaspora where nailing was more common, while John’s crucifixion story was adapted from his sources, likely the other Gospels.”

• “the point of the gospel passage, the Gordon professor points out, is that followers of the resurrected Christ shouldn’t actually need nail holes to affirm their faith.”

How does García deal with other New Testament passages about nailing during crucifixion? In Luke, Jesus tells his disciples to look at his hands and feet (Luke 24:39). García responds that this was to prove Jesus’ actual physical resurrection, not to show any wounds. Luke does not mention any nail holes.

Colossians 2:14 seems to describe nailing: God has canceled the “certificate of debt against us… having nailed it to the cross.” García responds (correctly, I think) that this passage uses the metaphor of a titulus, the criminal charges that are nailed to a cross (John 19:19-20), not a person who is nailed to a cross.

There are several problems with García’s claims. The most obvious is that the Bible indeed says that Jesus was crucified with nails. Thomas reasonably expected to see nail imprints on Jesus’ hands and feet, and Jesus showed them to Thomas: “look at my hands” (John 20:27). This scene is narrated in a gospel that claims to be based on an eyewitness account (John 19:35, 21:24). García’s suggestion that the point of the passage is that “followers of the resurrected Christ shouldn’t actually need nail holes to affirm their faith” misses the point. Thomas wanted to see the nail marks, and Jesus showed him the nail marks (John 20:25, 27). Jesus’ blessing on belief is for those who come later and therefore cannot see what Thomas could see (John 20:29). The blessing is predicated on the actual events of the account being true.

But there is no reason to question John’s account of the nails in Jesus’ crucifixion, since we have adequate evidence of nails being used during the time of Christ and even earlier. García acknowledges that Josephus’ use of προσηλόω (����Dz�ŧ����ō, “to nail,”) proves that nailing was used during the Jewish War in AD 66-70. But that term was also used in earlier descriptions of crucifixion. Philo, who lived at about the same time as Jesus (15 BC-AD 45), described crucifixion twice in metaphors: “like men crucified and nailed to trees” (ὕλαις προσήλωνται, Post. 62); “nailed like crucified men to a tree” (προσηλωμένος… τῷ ξύλῳ, Dreams 2.213; see also Prov. II.24). The fact that Philo used these in metaphors meant that nailing during crucifixion was well known to his audience; no one would use a metaphor that their audience is incapable of understanding. Philo was also familiar with actual crucifixions, as he described in his denunciation of Flaccus, the Roman governor of Egypt (Against Flaccus 72, 83, 84). If Flaccus used nails during crucifixions when he was governor (AD 33-38), then it is not surprising that Pilate used nails when he was governor of nearby Judea (AD 26-36).

Evidence of nailing can be found even earlier than the first century AD. In the previous century, the historian Diodorus Siculus said that the Roman general Manius Pomponius Matho “nailed Hannibal to the same cross” (εἰς τὸν αὐτὸν σταυρὸν... προσήλωσεν) that the Carthaginians had used to crucify a Roman commander (History 25.2). And the idea of nailing as part of executions was around even as far back as Herodotus (484-425 BC). He recounts that Xerxes “nailed Artayctes to boards and hanged him” (προσπασσαλεύσαντες ἀνεκρέμασαν, History 9.120).

How much does this matter? Clearly the nails are not central to our belief in the death and resurrection of Jesus. But the claim that nails were not commonly used in crucifixions before AD 66 can be decisively refuted, so it should not be used to question the historicity of John’s account. Thomas did indeed see nail imprints in the hands of the resurrected Jesus.