Wouldn't it be hard for Jesus to breathe if he was crucified on a stake?

If Jesus had been crucified on an upright pole, so that his arms would be directly above his head, then he would have asphixiated within six minutes!

A test was carried out on volunteers - medical students - who were hung by their wrists, arms directly above their heads. Their lung capacity dropped from 5.2 to 1.5 litres, blood pressure decreased and pulse rate increased. Inability to breathe would have occurred in about six minutes if they had not been allowed to stand and rest. Those experiments were conducted by F.T. Zugibe, Associate Professor of Pathology at Columbia University College of Physicians & Surgeons.

If Jesus had been hung that way, the downward pull of the weight of his body would also have made speech almost inaudible. Yet the Bible records Jesus making several audible statements; he prayed out aloud, he answered one of the thieves and he gave instructions to John regarding future care of his mother. And the Bible says he hung there for around six hours. But the way some people try to say he died would have meant death in little over six minutes! And all because they find the cross offensive! As the Bible said it would be to those who are not saved.

You need a cross. You can't crucify anyone on a stake,genius. You can impale people on a stake, or tie them up and burn them and do all sorts of nasty stuff, but to crucify a person you HAVE to have a cross, otherwise where do you nail the arms in the shape of a cross?

But yes, death by crucifiction is mostly caused by slow sofocation and dehydration. The weight of the body makes the lungs collapse and it becomes really hard to breathe. But the whole point of that particular form of execution was PRECISELY to make it slow and painful. An uprightpole with hands tied or nailed aboje vis head would have ended the torment pretty quickly and that was NOT the idea.

Jesus, however, had supposedly been lashed and bled and tortured pretty badly so even for crucifixion standards he died quickly, in about three hours he was gone. Crucifictions can take from 24 to 72 hours to kill the person.

The typical way people died while being crucified was via suffocation: the position of the body, and gravity, caused the lungs to strain since the chest cavity could not expand.

As for Jesus, he lived for 3 hours before a Roman soldier pierced his side. It must have been extremely painful and those hours must have felt like eternity, but it was not out of the realm of possibility back then. These ancient executions typically had a Roman soldier stationed with a long spear to speed up the process if it took too long.

Hi,

Crucifixion was the roman method of capital punishment. It was meant for criminals who committed the worst of crimes, which is why the death of Jesus was so shocking. He was crucified for treason, and was murdered next to 2 other criminals who had been sentence to death.

The point of crucifixion was to give a very painful death; the victim's hands were nailed to a cross, and the feet were tied together. It stretched the body, making it almost impossible to breath, and you could only breath slightly. The usual death time was about 3 days, because that is how long anyone can go without water, it was no different with Jesus. So actually, the amount I time he died in was about right.

Yes, people tend to suffocate when crucified but they could keep their bodies up for up to three days instinctively before exhaustion made them give in so Jesus actually died quite quickly. There was a ridge which feet were nailed to. Quite often if people were still alive after a couple of days the guards would break their legs so they would suffocate quickly as an act of mercy. Dark times.

Suffocation is indeed supposed to have been the usual cause of death from crucifixion but in fact Jesus seems to have died more quickly than average. It's slow suffocation rather than fast and some people survived for days. Jesus seems to have been physically weaker than most other people who were crucified.

Why are you calling a cross a "stake"? Crucifixion resulted in slow strangulation. Jesus would have survived longer than he did if he had not been stabbed as well. Had he survived until sundown, he would have had to have been taken down and set free. I'm not sure if that was because it was Passover or because it was the sabbath.

No actual its just the opposite. Ppl on crosses could survive so long theyd die of dehydration first. Literally days. The roman soldiers would have to come around and break their legs so they couldn't use them to push against the nails in their ankles to breathe. Jesus died very fast only 6 hours thank God it wasnt longer

What makes you think any of that even happened?

A book written hundreds of years AFTER it occur?

Anyhow, Having your arms suspended in the air is not going to make you die any quicker... but I imagine the nails piecing the bodies might cause infection and progressive bleeding making death a quicker possibility.

Just my 2 cents

all executions do not go as planned and some survive to a horrifying death beyond imagination.

Jesus was one of those and he had to be pierced by a spear to ensure his demise.